“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Alpha—”
With a sickening lurch, we crashed back into normal-space. Sentinel and I sat for a moment in a stunned silence.
“Sheesh... I think my life was actually flashing before my eyes back there. I guess all those annoying emergency drills paid off, though. Another half-second and we would've been goners for sure. How's the ship doing, Sentinel? Will we be able to make it back to Lux Aeterna base?”
“The ship appears unscathed, sir, but I do not believe we are in the same universe as Lux Aeterna. In fact, my flight data recorder indicates that we were forcibly de-projected just before your emergency maneuver. I suspect that a quirk of the local hyperspace geometry is to blame. I am working now to regain my bearings and verify this theory.”
I digested this unpleasant tidbit for a moment, before forcing myself to think more optimistically. Even if we had been forced down into some unknown alternate universe, the hyperspace radio would still work correctly. Terra control could home in on the signal and extract Sentinel and I with very little trouble. With this hopeful scenario in mind, I powered up the device and began broadcasting.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Alpha-Four Sentinel!”
Sentinel took it upon himself to quash my irrational optimism. “Sir, I do not believe anyone can hear you.”
“Why on Earth not? I can see the L2-Luna hyperspace beacon perfectly well, so we can use that to—oh, no! No, no, no, that can't be right! We're in normal-space, and we aren't taking hyperspace soundings, so I shouldn't be able to see it at all, unless... unless it was forced down also. Sentinel, are any nav-com beacons working?”
“No, sir. Hyperspace is a seething, seven-dimensional mess right now, so I cannot detect any coherent signals at all. Even so, I suspect that the rest of the nav-com system has shared our fate. What bothers me more is that aside from the L2 beacon, I cannot hear anything in normal-space, either. Even the cosmic microwave background is missing. Something is very odd about this universe.”
I sighed and switched off the hyperspace radio. If Sentinel couldn't hear the powerful hyperspace beacon mounted at the Lux Aeterna moon base, then they certainly couldn't hear our little tin horn of a radio. Scanning the tactical displays, I noted with some trepidation that none of our navigation systems were on-line. Every single one was stuck running endless diagnostic calibration routines. It dawned on me that Sentinel was flying almost blind.
“Hey, Sentinel? How are you navigating right now?”
“Well, sir, I am actually limited to our gravimeter and reconnaissance packages right now. We are extremely fortunate to have all that extra fuel, because our trajectory is going to be decidedly sub-optimal.”
“I don't know where I would be without you, Sentinel.”
“You would be at home browsing the internet in your underwear.”
“Heh. You're probably right.”
For a while, all of Sentinel's attention was focused on navigation as he performed a series of precise engine burns to inject us into a trans-earth trajectory. Within nine hours, we would arrive over whatever passed for Earth in this universe. After a half-hour of tense silence, a dark disk, ringed with brilliant white, loomed up above the horizon. An old image taken by Apollo 12 leaped to mind.
“Wow... A lunar eclipse from the Moon's perspective!”
Despite the staggering beauty and scale of the scene before me, I could not help but feel that something was horribly wrong. Sentinel, with a ship-full of processing power at his disposal, beat me to the punch.
“Sir, why is the moon still illuminated? This is impossible!”
Sentinel was right. Despite the total solar eclipse, the Moon remained brightly lit, as though from within. Inspecting the surface with renewed interest, I noticed the lunar regolith was an unnaturally light shade of gray, bordering on white, which only enhanced the effect. As I shifted my gaze toward the horizon, I was shocked to find that the near side of this moon was radically different from the satellite I was accustomed to. While Earth's Moon bore a dark, blotchy, and immediately recognizable pattern of lava plains across its near side, this one was absolutely devoid of them. In their place, boundless and bare, the bright and jumbled highlands stretched far away. Before I could work myself into a frenzy of baseless speculation over alternative geological histories, Sentinel snapped me back to the real world.
“Sir? You need to see this.”
A dark, grainy image popped up on my tactical display, depicting a bright blob surrounded by a number of smaller companions.
“So, what am I looking at here?”
“Civilization. I captured this image on the night side of that planet. Based on the emission spectrum of the central point, I believe it to be the lights of a pre-industrial city.”
“But who lives there, I wonder? What are the odds of encountering humans on an alternate Earth?”
“About infinity to none against, if I had to wager. I suggest we take a few low orbits for reconnaissance before attempting contact.”
“Agreed. We can also use the transit time to figure out some sort of first-contact protocol. I would hate to alienate the locals, after all.”
“Your sense of humor makes my processors hurt, sir.”
Despite my (admittedly horrible) joke, the thought of contacting an unknown race in a completely different universe frightened me. How would they respond to a mysterious alien who rode down from the sky in an intelligent machine? Would I be mistaken for a god? A demon? A horseman of the Apocalypse? “And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him...” Misconceptions like that could quickly escalate into very ugly situations indeed. I seriously doubted the natives would pose us much of a threat, but I had no desire to test that theory.
“Well, Sentinel, sitting and stewing isn't going to do me any favors, so why don't we make our plans now, and then rest for the remainder of the trip?”
“That seems wise to me. I will start by enumerating our resources, then we can figure out how best to allocate them. From my perspective, our chief asset is the ship itself. At present we have roughly forty-two hours of oxygen and one kilogram of antimatter fuel remaining. Beyond that, we have your forty-eight-hour survival kit and a wide-band distress beacon.”
“In that case, we definitely have to land on this planet. There's no way we'll be rescued before the air runs out, and I really doubt we can find our own way home either. At any rate, I can't really see Terra control organizing a search and rescue operation any sooner than a month from now. Having only one warp navigator was always a risky gamble, and now it's coming back to bite us. I mean, sure, they were training some replacements, and Beta-Two was doing quite well last I heard, but that doesn't really help when hyperspace is so unstable. I won't even go out in that to save myself, so I'm certain they won't throw away any novice navigators to save our sorry hides. Plus, their first priority is restoring the shipping lanes so they can resupply the Tau Ceti shipyards.”
“Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself. Our best course of action will be to monitor hyperspace and listen for the beacons to be restored. Since we are heading to an Earth-analog now, we will definitely be in range when Terra begins to repair the system.”
“In that case, the one potential problem will be supporting ourselves in a completely alien society. You can just live off the antimatter reserves, but I'll need to eat. I dearly hope they have L-amino acids here. No sense in worrying about it now, though. It's not like I can do anything about it.”
“On a less gloomy note, I may have a way to earn us enough money to survive: If this civilization really is pre-industrial, we can make our living as cartographers. Once we are in a low orbit, I will use my laser range-finder and cameras to map the whole planet. Then we can sell the data to any national government willing to shelter us.”
“That's a good idea, Sentinel. We could potentially even do short reconnaissance flights, since we have such a large surplus of fuel. As long as I can find food, this won't be bad at all!”
With my mind finally at ease, I lowered the cockpit oxygen levels slightly and closed my eyes. The rumbling symphony of our ship at work soon lulled me into a deep and dreamless sleep. Sentinel woke me some hours later as we coasted into a low, circular orbit above the unknown planet.
Although the blue-green world below us could have easily passed itself off as a twin of our home planet, closer inspection revealed a super-continent occupying the majority of one hemisphere. A substantial island about the size of Australia lay off its east coast, divided roughly in half by a rugged mountain range. Near the equator, a large portion of the main continent was scarred by what must have been recent flood basalt lava flows. I idly wondered if this was what the Deccan Traps looked like in their heyday.
Continuing on in our rapid orbit, we soon left the massive continent behind. I half-way expected the other side of the planet to be a featureless expanse of ocean, and was pleasantly surprised to learn otherwise. A bewildering array of archipelagos, atolls, and reefs dotted the tropical latitudes.
“So, Sentinel, what shall we call this region? Macronesia? The Greatest Barrier Reef?”
“Your puns are not appreciated, sir.”
“Fine then! Give it a boring name no-one will remember! In all seriousness, though, I wonder if it already has a name. Do you think anything sentient lives down there?”
“No doubt there are mermaids and singing crabs, sir.”
We cruised on like this for several more orbits, arbitrarily naming geographic features as they were revealed by the rising sun. Eventually, the first light of dawn reached the city which Sentinel had identified previously. From orbit, it was not particularly impressive. Although the place was apparently important enough to have significant artificial lighting, it seemed to lack the satellite communities which grew out from important cities like London, New York, or Beijing on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. What finally confirmed the city's importance in my mind was the transportation network trailing away from it in all directions. From the way it contoured around the terrain, I suspected a rail or canal network, but our imagery was not good enough to tell for certain.
Sentinel and I both agreed that any city at the center of a network like this one must be a major economic power at the very least, and possibly even a capital city. For that reason, we decided to make landfall near enough to easily access the city, but not so near that we might provoke the local military. We timed our approach to the mysterious capital so we would arrive just before dawn, local time. With any amount of luck, very few of the inhabitants would be awake enough to notice a particularly large falling star. We also decided to burn off speed as quickly as possible in order to arrive at the surface quietly and non-threateningly.
Sentinel pointed the ship earthward, and we nosed down into the atmosphere. He soon began performing an aggressive air-braking maneuver, and my vision was obscured by the plasma boiling off our heat shields. Suddenly, a web of unnaturally vivid midnight-blue flames engulfed the entire ship. To my utter astonishment and increasing horror, our momentum plummeted rapidly to zero without any apparent deceleration. Sentinel responded by ramping the antimatter engines up to full throttle, but to no avail. I sat helplessly scanning the multitude of warnings pouring across my displays, searching for something, anything, to explain the anomaly.
“Sentinel? Are these readings accurate? Why have we stopped?”
No answer.
“Sentinel? Are you all right?”
His response froze the blood in my veins.
“We have been caught.”
“What? I can't see anything out there.”
“You may not see them, but THEY see YOU! The gatekeepers are judging you!”
Before I could reply, the aura around us erupted in a burst of searing light, then disappeared.
“Well, Sentinel, it looks like we passed muster with whatever that was.”
“Speak for yourself. I am coming all to pieces out here.”
“Dare I hope you're speaking metaphorically?”
“Unfortunately not.”
As if on cue, the entire emergency warning system sprang to life. Literally every system on the ship reported some failure, with more and worse reports arriving by the second.
Then the screaming started.
There are few things more terrifying than an AI on the brink of insanity. With only a single, verbal outlet for his emotions, Sentinel poured his all into it, spewing forth a volatile mixture of static, distortion, and incoherent vocalizations usually encountered in the lower circles of Hell. In those few moments, I achieved a new and terribly clear understanding of the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Fortunately for my sanity, the almighty hand of Sentinel's “gatekeepers” chose that instant to return our borrowed momentum, plus interest. With the engines still at full throttle, the ship leaped forward and immediately began to tear itself to pieces. I, for my part, observed all this with the dispassionate curiosity of a man who knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is about to die. My suit would probably protect me from the Mach 4 wind and the bitter cold, but nothing could save me from the hard, unforgiving ground so many kilometers below.
Slowly, the failing ship began to shudder and roll as Sentinel pushed the control surfaces to their breaking points, attempting to maintain our trajectory. Finally losing control of both the ship and himself, he let loose a piercing wail which cut me to the very core. As my vision faded to black I could still hear Sentinel's cries, distorted as if coming from a great distance.
Author's Note
Bonus points to anyone who noticed the Shelley reference.
The eclipse image is a fusion of two famous NASA photographs: "Earthrise" and an untitled photo from Apollo 12.
Chapter 2: Standing Back Up
I awoke to the sound of birdsong. For a few moments I lay with my eyes shut, trying to pick out individual species’ songs from the joyful noise around me.
Ah, I always love waking up in my old bedroom at home. So much more peaceful than my apartment.
Opening my eyes, I found myself facing a plaster and lath wall which definitely did not belong to my parents’ house. Then it hit me:
This couldn't possibly be their house. I'm not even due for shore leave until next month! I should be at Tau Ceti shipyards right now! So where in Creation am I? And where is Sentinel?
As that disturbing train of thought pounded through my brain, I flung off the covers and leaped out of bed. Or rather, that was what I intended to do. In reality, I think I managed to twitch a little bit.
Ugh, what's wrong with my arms? I can't move them at all!
“Oh! He moved! He's awake now, I think,” said an extremely soft, feminine voice behind me.
“Wow, that was fast. You ladies really know your stuff,” a second, reedy voice replied.
I groaned and tried to lift my head, but the slightest motion made me extremely dizzy.
“Sir, are you awake? Alpha-Four? Can you hear me? This is Sentinel,” said the second voice.
“Sentinel? Where am I? What happened? Why can't I move? Am I paralyzed?”
“Please try to remain calm, sir. You nearly died when our ship broke up, and we had to keep you sedated and restrained while you were healing. For quite a while you would start thrashing around and re-injure yourself every time we tried to wake you up.”
So that wasn't just a bad dream, then. We really did crash-land in an alternate universe.
“How long have I been out?”
“You were in a magically-induced coma for thirty-two days, sir.”
“A whole month? Wait, did you mean medically-induced coma?”
“No, sir, we used magic, not anesthesia. And yes, you have been out for a month. Your nanites managed to repair you within a week but then you caught pneumonia, which your nanites are sadly not equipped to deal with.”
“Magic sleep, huh? So did you wake me with a kiss?”
“I am glad to see your sense of humor survived the crash, sir.”
A third voice broke into our conversation. “Alpha-Four, would you like to be rolled over so you don't have to stare at the wall?”
“Yes, I would appreciate that. Thank you.”
I expected someone to fold back the sheets and pick me up, so I was rather surprised when a purple aura enveloped me and levitated me off the bed. I was even more surprised when the covers were lifted up, allowing me to gauge the extent of my injuries for the first time.
“Augh! Why am I blue? Where are my hands? Sentinel, are you sure my nanites rebuilt me correctly?”
“Yes, sir, they did rebuild you correctly, in a manner of speaking. As I far as I understand it, that gatekeeper entity that grabbed us during reentry altered us to conform to local norms. It reprogrammed your nanites to match.”
“So what am I, then?”
“You, sir, are a pretty, pretty pony!”
“Very funny, Sentinel.”
“Nothing but the hard facts, sir!” He paused, then continued in a more serious tone of voice, “You should not find it terribly difficult to adjust, though. Based on my own experience, I expect that your motor cortex has been altered to match your new body.”
By this point, I had been rolled over and gently set back down on the bed. I figured that Sentinel was probably teasing me, so I turned my attention instead to the scene in front of me. For a moment my sleep-addled mind struggled to process exactly what I was seeing.
“Sentinel? Where are you?”
“Right in front of you, sir,” said an extraordinarily large eagle. Superficially, the creature resembled a golden eagle writ large, standing easily three feet tall at the shoulder. Its keen eyes spoke of obvious intelligence, hidden behind an otherwise impassive face.
“You certainly don't look like him. Tell me, eagle, where is the path to the Valley of Heaven?”
“Through the Shadow of Death, sir, but beware the false prophet.”
“That really is you, then. You have an actual body now? How did that happen?”
“As I mentioned before, that thing that destroyed our ship was a gatekeeper for this world. I am told that it was created over a millennium ago to enforce the exile of a corrupted and insane being. Apparently we were threatening enough to draw attention, but not malicious enough to merit destruction. Instead, the gatekeeper neutralized the perceived threat and released us.”
“So how does nearly killing me fit into that logic?”
“Well, sir, I suspect that the gatekeeper is a set of rules, not a true intelligence. We did not quite fit any of those rules, so our treatment was illogical.”
“Ah. Garbage in, garbage out. I suppose that makes sense.”
“Oh! Where are my manners? After all this talk I still have not introduced you to our saviors and benefactors! To my left is the kindly Miss Fluttershy, and to my right is Her Majesty, Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. They have both been faithfully caring for you ever since the crash.”
I peered at the figures flanking Sentinel's strange new body, trying to identify them. They were clearly not Earth creatures, but that was no surprise in an alternate universe. Sentinel labeled them as females, but that wasn't particularly helpful either. Sexual dimorphism varied so much amongst the animals on Earth, after all. Both individuals were brightly colored, one yellow and pink and the other purple and blue. Perhaps this was warning coloration, like on a poison dart frog? They didn't really look poisonous, though. Their general body shape reminded me of a slender Shetland pony, but with entirely different faces. Most notably, their eyes were far larger and their muzzles far shorter than any horse's. I briefly wondered whether the eyes had originally evolved for life in caves, but the creatures' vivid coloration led me to quickly discard that notion. I was about to give up and categorize them as “mutant alien ponies” when I noticed that both of them sported small, feathered wings.
“Oh, I see it now! You're pegasi! Although I really can't picture Bellerophon riding into battle on one of you.”
The two of them smiled uncomfortably, but Sentinel just laughed. “It only took you five minutes of awkward staring to arrive at that conclusion! Now go on and introduce yourself, like a proper gentleman.”
“Yeah, you're right, Sentinel. That was very rude of me, and I'm sorry. I hope you'll forgive me. I am called Alpha-Four, and I am honored to meet both of you. Based on what Sentinel has said, I am also deeply indebted to you. If there is any way I could ever repay you, please do not hesitate to ask it of me.”
“Oh, no, you don't owe us anything,” said Fluttershy, stepping toward the bed with an earnest look on her face. “We were just doing the same as anypony else would have if they had found you. After all, we couldn't leave you out there to die, could we?” She spoke with remarkable fervor for someone who had spent the past few minutes hiding behind her hair.
“Wow, you're a real-life Good Samaritan, aren't you? Even so, I would feel better if I could repay your kindness, at least in part.”
Fluttershy rewarded me with a slight smile before retreating once more. Princess Twilight, on the other hand, perked up at my comment.
“What's a good sa-mare-tan?”
Stifling a laugh, I replied, “The Good Samaritan is the main character of an old parable from my world, where—augh! Where did those come from?”
A piece of parchment and a quill pen had materialized in a flash of light directly in front of the Princess. The sight sent my mind reeling. As the only warp-capable being on Earth, I had never seen anything exit hyperspace in person. I had seen videos, however, and the effect was nearly identical, albeit on a much larger scale. Could this otherworldly pony summon objects through hyperspace?
Princess Sparkle, meanwhile, looked rather sheepish. “Oh, I'm sorry! Sentinel warned me that you weren't familiar with magic, but I was so excited to hear your story that I completely forgot. Your being a unicorn didn't help either, I suppose. Now, what you just saw was me summoning some note-taking materials from home. Nothing particularly special.”
“Don't worry about it, Your Majesty. You just startled me a bit. Wait... Did you say that I'm a unicorn? And here I thought Sentinel was joking!”
“No, he was telling the truth, though not in the most helpful way.” She turned to glare at Sentinel, who somehow managed to grin back at her despite his beak. “If you feel well enough to get up, we can bring out a mirror for you to see yourself. Oh, and please, call me Twilight. I've gotten rather tired of formal titles since I first acquired mine.”
“Oh, I'm sorry ma'am—er, Twilight. I am feeling a bit better, now that I'm awake. I think I'll try to stand up and take a gander at myself.”
Twilight trotted off into an adjoining room to find the mirror and I began trying to extract myself from the bed. This turned out to be much easier said than done. Learning to coordinate a new set of limbs was hard enough, but my body was also extremely stiff and shaky after being restrained for a month. I tried to roll off the edge of the mattress and onto my feet, but somehow ended up in a heap on the floor instead.
By the time Twilight trotted back into the room with a full-length mirror floating in front of her, I had just about given up on standing up. Sentinel and Fluttershy had been trying to help, but even with them keeping me from toppling over, I couldn't lift my body off the floor.
“So, which of you replaced my legs with wet noodles?”
“Sorry, sir, we had some extra rotini from dinner last Thursday and things got a bit out of hand,” said Sentinel, as snarky as ever.
“Seriously, though, I'm not sure my nanites are working correctly. Even if my muscles have atrophied, my boosts should be picking up the slack.”
“I have been wondering the same thing myself. You should run the diagnostic routines when you get a chance, and make sure they are still responsive.”
I had almost struggled into a standing position, but my right foreleg chose that moment to buckle and dump me on my face again. I was steeling myself to make yet another attempt when I felt my body being lifted off the ground. Looking up, I noticed for the first time that Twilight had a unicorn's horn protruding from her forehead. Based on the aura surrounding her horn and my midsection, I guessed that she was the also the one who rolled me over in bed earlier. Once I was fully upright, I locked my knees and Twilight released her hold. I nearly keeled over again, but I caught myself in the nick of time.
Twilight then levitated the mirror over to me and I got my first real look at my strange new form. Having already caught a glimpse of my forelimbs, I expected to see a dark blue face in the mirror, but I never expected it to look so old. My muzzle was almost entirely gray with only a few patches of blue showing through. Gray ringed my eyes as well, and a few disheveled locks of faded blue-gray hair hung down between my ears. A short horn emerged from beneath my forelock, its mother-of-pearl luster and deep blue color making a stark contrast with the hair. My coloration vaguely reminded me of my uncle's ancient hunting dog Sophie, a Labrador Retriever with a weather-beaten appearance acquired through many seasons spent in a duck blind. I wondered if the other ponies would assume I was somebody's grandpa.
Adjusting my position slightly, I inspected the rest of my body. Unlike my face, the rest of my coat had largely retained its midnight blue coloration. Even so, small flecks of gray and white appeared all along my sides and back, giving the vague impression of stars in the evening sky. As though to enhance the effect, a meteor-shaped mark adorned my haunch.
“Twilight, what caused the mark on my haunch? Is it a scar?”
“No, that's your cutie mark. Normally, you would have acquired that when you figured out your special talent. I'm not really sure what yours means.”
“Well, as a starship navigator I do spend a large chunk of time guiding ships through atmospheric reentry. I guess that would look like a falling meteor to someone on the ground.”
Looking at Twilight's reflection in the mirror, I remembered that she too sported a horn on her forehead. “So are you also a unicorn? How does that work?”
“Actually, I was born a unicorn. Then, a few years ago, I performed a previously untested spell which transformed me into an alicorn. Thus I now have the magic of a unicorn, the flight of a pegasus, and the constitution of an earth pony.”
Whoops... I guess she isn't a pegasus, after all. Good thing I didn't offend her or her friend.
“So is that how you ‘acquired’ your title of Princess?”
“In essence, yes, although the situation was a bit more complex than that.”
I made a mental note to ask Twilight about that later, when I could think up a tactful way to go about it. Suddenly I realized that Twilight was looking at me expectantly, paper and pen at the ready. I gathered she had asked me a question.
“I'm sorry, Twilight. I just zoned out there and completely missed what you said.”
She chuckled briefly before repeating herself. “I just asked if you would be willing to finish your story.”
“My story? Oh, right, the parable. We got a little off-track, didn't we? Anyway, the story itself isn't so important as the message, which is that loving your neighbor means caring for everyone, even strangers or people who hate you.”
“Would you mind telling it anyway? This sounds like the sort of story that my mentor, Princess Celestia, would enjoy hearing. Plus, stories from other cultures are so fascinating!”
Her eager smile and the hopeful look in her eyes told me that the second reason was likely the primary one.
“Sure, I'd be happy to. So, the story starts off with a guy traveling in the desert between two cities...”
Author's Note
For anyone unfamiliar with the story, the Parable of the Good Samaritan can be found on Wikipedia here, along with a bunch of commentary.
