"You're Chrysalis's daughter," Mark pointed out. "Looking for a promotion when-"
"NO!!" Dragonfly jumped away from the worktable where she'd been sitting. "Being the queen is hard work! Dangerous work! And not one bit of fun! You'd have to be crazy to want to be queen!"
"Bing-bong," Spitfire sang quietly.
"But all this ballots and office-holders and stuff?" Dragonfly said, waving a perforated hoof dismissively. "That's just wasted time and effort. Why would people go to all that trouble for a thankless job any idiot could do?"
Mark opened his mouth, closed it, and muttered, "Maybe it's just a human thing."
"Earth needs more princesses," Starlight Glimmer said.
"For the eighty-seventh time," Mark sighed, "it does not."
Author's Notes:
Got to bed at 1 AM last night, up again at 6, drive to Houston, work, load friend's van, finish unloading friend's van into house at 10:30 PM.
This is what I have time or energy for, but it's not quite pointless filler. I threw this in as a marker for time passing on Earth. And why not a mention of the election (although with zero details to speak of)?
Jump to top
Sol 350
View Online
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 355
ARES III SOL 350
"I only wish it were that easy."
The last page of Guards! Guards! had been read, with two dragons soaring out of the Discworld and out into deep space.
"I mean, all we need is a magic library full of the most powerful spells known to pony," Starlight Glimmer groused. "Then we could just drop Fireball into it, tie a rope to his tail, tie the other end to the ship, and fly wherever we wanted."
"I think love had some to do with it, too," Cherry Berry said.
Fireball snorted, as eloquently as only a dragon can. Foolish pony notions deserved more snort than a mere pony snout could provide. And poor, deprived Mark, with that tiny nose of his— if he snorted you'd never hear it.
Unfortunately you couldn't say the same thing about his wisecracks. "It speaks," Mark said in response to the snort. "Come on, Fireball. I've been waiting the whole book for this. What did you think about the dragons in this book?"
"Yeah," Dragonfly chipped in. "I thought you'd be all like Starlight, `it doesn't work like that!' and stuff."
"I'm not Starlight," Fireball said. "This magic, in the books, not our magic. These dragons not our dragons. No big deal." He tapped the reading computer. "Swamp dragons, kind of sad. But big dragon? Almost like us. Almost like me."
"How's that?" Mark asked.
Fireball didn't exactly know how to say it, even in Equestrian. "Need to think," he muttered, and he went silent for half a minute while he did just that. "First is magic," he said, once he had a clear idea. "Not the summon thing. That stupid— no, wait, not stupid, that's wrong word. Summon thing is... interesting. Idea that, if you magic up a dragon, what you get reflects who you are? I like the idea. But it not fit me and mine.
"But rest of it? Our dragon lord's father is big as mountain. Flies just fine. I have little wings. I fly just fine, not as fast as many, but good enough. Dragon in book hovers, floats like cloud, flies just like me. Thinks some like me, too. I know lots of dragons just as bad as this one, except not so quick to kill."
Yeah, he'd thought that line would make the silence even deeper. But there were more thoughts to come. Thinking was like a pony train; get started, and it took a lot to stop it again.
"Harry Potter books, dragons just monsters. Not even real animals. All mean, violent, stupid. Ring books, only Smaug. He gloats like Boss Hogg. Not quite a person. Too... too... flat. But better than Potter dragons.
"But swamp dragons feel like real animals. Some angry, some old, some playful. And Errol really smart. I like Errol. And big dragon feel almost like people." Again he tapped the computer. "Spitfire was right. This book is home. I want to read more."
"Eh, I don't know," Starlight said. "I thought it was okay, I guess, but I thought Lord of the Rings had deeper themes. Though the Patrician's talk about the necessity of evil... well, it was completely wrong, but it makes you wonder about the kind of mind that could really believe all that."
"I do know," Spitfire said. "And this good book. Guard... Vimes and them... like if griffons have a guard. Felt right. Felt like writer knew."
"It did feel like being around Ponyville ponies," Cherry said. "If half of them were violent crazies. I liked Potter better. There if someone died, it was a big deal. Discworld..."
"I never thought I'd read a book where anyone meets the Pale Horse face to face," Dragonfly said. "But I like Death. If it really worked like that... it wouldn't be so bad." The changeling's face, which still looked a little drawn despite months of feeding up, lacked its usual grin. "I don't suppose Death ever gets his own book?"
"Several," Mark replied. "I'll have to check and see which ones NASA sent. They held back on Pyramids and Small Gods, and those two are among the best in the series."
"Don't care about Death," Spitfire said. "I want more Guard. Unless there's an army story."
"Have to get through a couple more Guard stories before the two Discworld books about war," Mark said.
"Okay. Then let's do the next Guard book!" Dragonfly said.
"More murder?" Cherry Berry asked, sensing herself about to become a minority of one.
"Even better. The next book focuses on the Assassins' Guild," Mark said. "Assassins are people who are specially trained to kill other people— one on one, not in an army or anything like that."
"Awww."
"Sounds good," Fireball said.
"Eh, all right," Starlight said. "I've been reading more of those books by Rex Stout. I like them better than Agatha Christie's books, except maybe Orient Express. But more Discworld sounds good."
"All right," Mark said. "We'll begin that tomorrow. Let's go back to the Hab and get lunch."
Author's Notes:
Saturday night, thanks to the van thing, I got slightly less than five hours sleep, followed up by driving, customers, packing, and more driving from 7 AM until 10:30 PM. After I signed off last night, I was hoping to sleep myself out.
So, naturally, at 8:01 AM, the dealership called and woke me up to tell me the tow truck was coming to get the van and take it to their body shop.
The tow truck finally arrived at quarter after 4 PM.
I got some other things done, including the really time-critical post-con stuff, but I've spent most of the day in a mental fog. This ought to have been twice as long as it is, but it was a struggle to focus on ANYTHING, never mind coherent dialog.
Having re-read Guards! Guards!, I have to admit that it's much lighter on themes than either the Potter books or Lord of the Rings. It's an early Pratchett work, and in all honesty the next book the ponies will tackle, Men at Arms, is closer to the point where Pratchett really began hitting his stride with social satire. As a consequence, the only thing the castaways would really have to react to, in the whole of Guards!, is dragons.
Time, of course, is passing, but I'm going to skip some more sols since I have this coming weekend off the circuit (conveniently, since there's no way my van would be fixed in three days).
And one more thing: I know I opened the door by having a chapter about election day and government structures, which is why I didn't delete any political comments to that chapter. But could they stop now, please?
Jump to top
Sol 354
View Online
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 360
ARES III SOL 354
"Oh, yes, these books are home."
Spitfire's smile grew and grew as Starlight Glimmer's turn at reading Men at Arms got to the part where Sam Vimes, commoner bordering on commonest, was forced to attend a party of the city's wealthy aristocracy as part of the build-up to his marriage into their ranks.
Cherry Berry, on the other hoof, found herself squirming on her haunches.
She'd spent years in close proximity to a queen who, on her good days, showed brief and fleeting glimpses of something that might, in a good light, resemble a decent pony, but who on her bad days was only restrained from being worse than Tirek by her own paranoia. She was on greeting terms with three princesses and a reasonably close acquaintance (and sometime rival) of a fourth, and knew all their major foibles and failings. But despite it all, Cherry Berry had always had the faith of most ponies that Celestia and her ministers and nobles were wise and benevolent ponies who always sought the best for all Equestria.
So several pages of nobles being ignoble shook one of her fundamental views of the world to the core, even if they were fictional, even if they were on a world that rode on a turtle instead of her own. "Spitfire, I just can't see it," she said.
"You never went to Celestia's ball before Twilight and friends did, no?"
"Excuse me," Starlight muttered, "might I continue, please?"
"No, I didn't," Cherry Berry said. "I only went once, after the moon landing."
"I saw before Twilight broke the ball," Spitfire said. "Shake hooves with Prince Blueblood, pretend not see where he looks. Shake hooves with dukes and counts and rich ponies and don't see them turn up noses at working ponies. All so rich. All so... so good parents, good blood. And only a couple not greedy, petty dummies."
"I don't see it that way. The capital ponies I meet are just ponies, rich or not."
"There reason why changelings fly all joy-ride flights."
"Excuse me!" Starlight Glimmer said. "Do you want to end Story Time early today? No? Then stop interrupting! We can discuss this all at the end like we usually do!"
Spitfire took her usual short turn, and then Cherry Berry read the section about Vimes and Carrot in a murdered dwarf's workshop.
About midway through, Dragonfly spoke up. "You know, I kind of understand that. It always feels weird using a tool that belongs to somebody else."
"Oh really?" Mark asked. "Was that why you were so eager to mess with my tools the first couple hundred sols?"
"That's different!" Dragonfly protested. "I thought they might be all neato keen alien tools, with mysterious alien properties and functions." She snorted and added, "And all I got was your electric screwdriver and the sample probe. We have power drills back home."
"Well, forgive my species for not having improved on the hammer!" Mark said. "And I'm sorry that hydrospanners were too much trouble for NASA to ship up here! Speaking of, where's my half-inch ratchet wrench?"
"I told you," Dragonfly said, "it's in the tool box in Rover 2, because the only things that take your half-inch sockets are on the rover."
"I looked there."
"Excuse me," Cherry Berry protested. "Maybe you two could do this not during Story Time?"
"Sorry."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thank you. Continuing-"
"But it's just as weird having someone else using your tools as it is to use someone else's tools."
"Even weirder. It's like your hoof is on some other bug's leg, and you want to-"
"I said later!"
Silence, in stereo.
"Continuing. Rubbing his head with one hand..."
It was Mark's turn again when the book got to the visit of Detritus the troll and Cuddy the dwarf to the Alchemist's Guild, complete with exploding billiard balls.
"Now this," Fireball said with feeling, "feels like home. Feels like the job."
"I can't count the times I've walked into Twilight Sparkle's lab and had to duck the instant I opened the door," Starlight Glimmer said.
"It's like they took the changelings who work in vehicle assembly," Cherry Berry said, "and gave them chemistry sets and a budget."
"Except without the old griffon to keep them in line," Dragonfly said. "Do you think he's enjoying his retirement?"
"With as much as we paid him, he ought to be," Cherry Berry replied.
"Come to think of it," Starlight added, "these people remind me a bit of Sunburst, too. And Minuette, come to think of it. And, well, every experimental potion brewer I ever met."
"Leonard of Quirm," Spitfire struggled to pronounce the name. "Think he minotaur?"
"The way they talk about him, sounds like he'd fit in with our bulls," Cherry Berry agreed.
The conversation paused for a moment, and Dragonfly took the opportunity to ask Mark, "Aren't you going to ask us to shut up, too?"
"Why?" Mark asked. "For me this is much more interesting. For one thing, if your space programs are run like the Ankh-Morpork Alchemists' Guild, it would explain so much about how you got here."
"Hey, that's a bit mean," Dragonfly said. "Accurate, but mean."
"It not just space program," Fireball said. "All pony science and magic like that."
"All of it?" Mark looked at his visitors. "How do you still have a planet?"
"Immortal princesses," Starlight Glimmer said. "It really works, I'm telling you."
MISSION LOG — SOL 354
Finished the second bracket for supporting the rover saddlebags. We need eight in total for the load we're going to put in them. The jumbo batteries will ride in loops outside the brackets, so most of their weight will be borne by the brackets. The cold-resistant food and other stuff will ride in pouches between the brackets and the rover body. Based on our best estimates, the roof will bear about a ton of weight, or about double its rating on Earth. In Mars gravity, it's less of an issue, so long as we don't slam down off a cliff or something.
It's good to be working with my hands. Dragonfly and Fireball are assisting me on this, and I think they're glad of the work, too. Working with the plants ceased to be interesting for anyone except Cherry ages ago, and we've cut back D&D sessions to once per week to keep us from getting tired of it too quickly. The Whinnybago is almost done except for testing, which we can't do until we're done with the cave farm. We're almost out of the solvents and reagents for the chem lab, so geology science experiments are pretty much over. Boredom is beginning to be a serious problem, so any busy-work seems like a treat now.
Take Starlight Glimmer. She's waiting until Sol 360 to do the repulsor enchantment, because she wants to use the batteries she's reserved for making more batteries to do that job. We won't be able to take many more batteries with us than we already have due to weight and space issues, so using them to make the things that will throw the MAV hard enough for us to meet Hermes makes sense. But in the meantime she's got down time, so she's thrown herself into the Save the Cave project.
