Counting Noses Part 3

Let's just jump in...

There have always been stories, since time immemorial, of rulers who disguised themselves as commoners so they could see and hear what their subjects were thinking. Most of them, Chrysalis knew, were claptrap, but for a changeling ruler it was dirt easy- so long as none of your subjects looked directly at you, that is. 

Transforming into a stalagmite in one particularly popular cavern of the hive was simplicity itself. She placed herself near the wall. but not right up against it, and watched and listened with growing fury as the first group of changeling warriors, presented with the census forms and a box of newfangled "ball-point" pens ("No Clipboard Should Be Without One!"), proceeded to take a simple straightforward, common sense list of questions and screw up each and every one of them.

"Hey, what should I put down for Question One?"

"Your name." 

"Yeah, but which one? I have seven or eight."

"I dunno. Put them all down, maybe? Now shut up, I'm trying to figure out the answer for number four."

"Um, 'employment'? Yeah, that's a toughie. Hey, Fossicle, what does 'employment' mean?"

"It means job. What do you work at?"

"Work? Are you kidding? I'm a changeling warrior! I'm too busy to work!"

"What are you putting down for education?"

"I dunno. We got taught a lot of stuff in the larva school. I don't think I can make it all fit in that little bitty blank."

"I'm done!"

"You're done? Let us see! Let us see!"

"No way, you just want to copy my answer- HEY!"

"I got it. Question one: 'Name - yes.' Question two: 'Address - no.' Question three: 'Age - maybe.' Question four: 'Employment - sometimes.' Question five: 'Education - false.' Question six: 'Gender - true.'"

"Yeah, I don't wanna copy your answers anymore."

Chrysalis sighed. Her subjects were thinking exactly what they were thinking the last time she had done this. They weren't thinking. As a certain pudgy white unicorn might say, quelle surprise. 

Still, she'd anticipated a lot of this sort of thing happening, which is why she'd had fifty thousand copies of the form printed. Still, obviously census workers needed to do more than just give the subject the form and a pen. They'd have to instruct the subjects on how to fill the form out and then correct any mistakes like, "Gender: true."

Time to go summon Elytron and Pharynx for follow-up instructions, as soon as no one would notice a stalagmite heading for the door. Not that she needed to hide from her own subjects, but she didn't want them examining every stone or cave-salamander the next time she did this...

This time, when they came in, Elytron and Pharynx didn't kneel or bow their heads- bad sign number one. Both were carrying papers which didn't look like census forms- bad sign number two. Chrysalis was already preparing herself for bad news when bad sign number three- Pharynx speaking without waiting for permission- gave it to her.

"My queen, we have a spy somewhere in the hive."

Of course, nothing could have prepared her for that. "Explain," Chrysalis said, letting all thoughts of proper protocol drop. 

Pharynx held forward the papers he had tucked in his right fetlock. "In order to ensure no duplicate forms, Elytron and I went through the rolls of our standing warrior forces to make a checklist. Rather than separate it by service and squadron, as we had done, we decided to make a single list in alphabetical order."

"It took us hours," Elytron muttered resentfully. Obviously it hadn't been his idea.

"In the process we discovered a repeated name," Pharynx said, waving the papers a little harder. "One name which appears in the roster of every single unit. Attack squadron. Hive garrison. Scout patrol. Combat engineers. Military intelligence. Internal security. All of them, my queen. And somehow neither of us noticed." Now Pharynx did indeed bow his head, prostrating himself before her. "Do with me as you will, my queen. I have failed the hive."

Chrysalis snorted. "Oh, get up," she said. "And put your paranoia aside for once. How, exactly, would a non-changeling even manage to infiltrate the hive unnoticed? Let alone get into even one military position, never mind all of them?"

Pharynx, as ordered, had stood up again, and he looked right in her eyes as he answered, "It is most likely a spy from a rival hive, my queen."

That made Chrysalis snort again. Other hives existed, true enough, but Chrysalis's hive was the only one that had come out into the open. The others kept to themselves, and so far as Chrysalis had ever seen evidence, none of them were operating within even the most expansive definition of the borders of Equestria. While one of them sending a spy wasn't absolutely impossible, a much more likely explanation lay close to hoof.

"It is most likely," she said aloud, "a clerical error of some sort. Or possibly some harebrained scheme for gain, collecting a dozen rations instead of one or something of the sort." After all, none of the hive workers got any salary; instead Chrysalis gave out the occasional stipend to favored subjects or those with legitimate (or more normally illegitimate) business among the ponies. "In any case, I shall investigate it myself, since it slipped through your holes. Tell me, what is the name of this criminal mastermind and international super-spy?"

Pharynx looked at the paperwork again. "Paussus, ma'am. I vaguely remember seeing a drone by that name once, but I can't recall when or where."

"Nor I, my queen," Elytron put in. "Normally I put that down to good behavior. When a drone calls itself to my attention, it means they've screwed up or slacked off."

In Chrysalis's opinion Elytron was an expert in both categories, but she let it pass without comment. "Paussus. I don't recognize the name either, but I shall see to it that inquiries are made." With a twitch of the hoof she waved the matter aside. "Now for the reason I summoned you two..."

The Friendship Express pulled in to the station at Appleoosa with a loud whistle and a gush of steam. The conductor descended from the first passenger car to assist those passengers getting off, while a pair of porters from the station rushed to offload luggage and to swap out the incoming mail bag for the outgoing mail bag.

Seven passengers in total disembarked, the last of whom, a small teal earth pony, staggered onto the platform with a face looking closer to chartreuse. "Oh, dear," she said in a thick lower-class Manehattan accent, "I think I spent too long on the rails. I feel just terrible." She wobbled over to the ticket counter, where an elderly bewhiskered pony looked indifferently over his glasses at her. "'Scuse me, friend," she said, "you mind telling me where the town doctor is? 'Cause I can't see this place having more than one."

Good upbringing won out inside the ticket pony, but only after an obvious and prolonged struggle. "You'll be wantin' ol' Sawbones McColt," he said. "His place is two blocks west of the clock tower. Got a big pill bottle for a sign. Can't miss it."

"Thanks, pal, you're a- oh dear." With a hiccup and a brief bulging of the cheeks the Manehattan mare staggered away, moving unsteadily but remarkably fast towards the clock tower and then the two-story house with the pill bottle sign hanging next to the front door. 

"Doctor?" she called out as she entered the door. "Hello, doctor?"

"Just a minute!" a cheerful voice called out from a back room. "I was just about to step out to lunch!" An old sky-blue earth pony with an impressive set of side whiskers stepped into the reception area. "Is this an emergency?"

"Well, I'd rather not talk about it out in the open. I mean, any pony could just walk in here." An evil little smirk appeared on the formerly demure teal mare's face. "Isn't that right, Keratin?"

The impressive whiskers only amplified an even more impressive frown. "Come on back," he muttered, all cheer evaporated. 

The instant the office door closed behind the two of them, Dr. McColt barked, "What do you want, Chrysalis? It can't be anything good if you're not doing it in the open."

"No 'Your Majesty'?" Chrysalis asked, staying in her pony disguise except for eyes switched from golden to viper-green. "No 'my queen'? Not even a simple 'ma'am' for your rightful ruler?"

"I've got a swat on the fanny for the misbehaving little grub I had to dose with cough syrup," Dr. McColt, aka the changeling Keratin, replied. "My queen was your mother. You're just someone who can give me trouble if I don't do as you ask."

"Believe me, Keratin," Chrysalis said quietly, "I am just as happy to see as little of you as possible, as you are of me. But you may actually end up thanking me for this." She pulled out half a dozen copies of the census form. "Celestia wants all changelings to have some kind of identification. Toward that end I'm having a census made of the hive. So, on the off chance something happens and the people of this bucolic, blinkered burg in the boondocks find out who's really been stuffing pills into them, you may actually want the protection of the hive."

McColt sighed. "I'm getting old," he said. "One of these days I'll be too old to care about your threats."

"Not this time, old timer," Chrysalis smirked. "Even with half my hive exposed to these wretched ponies, you're still more useful to me disguised than revealed. And be reasonable- would I really throw away an asset as valuable as yourself just because you wouldn't put some marks on a piece of paper?" She dropped the census forms on the desk.

McColt sighed. "Fine," he muttered. "One piece of paper." He gestured to the stack. "What are all the rest for?" 

Chrysalis's smirk vanished. "I know you know where some runaways are hiding," she said. "I already know where two of them are, or at any rate were as of a year ago last summer. But why would I chase a runaway just to exile them? My time is too important to waste."

"Which is why you're jawing to me about this now," McColt said pointedly.

"Because you get to be the one to offer them the amnesty," Chrysalis said. "If they want the hive's protection again, they can have it just like you will have it." She tapped the stack with a teal hoof. "But the offer stands for a limited time. When I come to you a second time, it will be to collect the forms. After that they will have to come direct to the hive. When I come to you the third time to bring the identification, it will be too late even for that. Communicate this to them, would you?"

McColt opened a drawer and slid the stack into it, shutting it firmly afterwards. "I've admitted nothing to you," he said. 

"I didn't ask you to," Chrysalis said. "Right now I don't care about them. I just want this whole census and identification thing done so I can get back to important things. Things like... Paussus." She looked directly at the disguised old changeling and said, "What do you know about him? Or her?"

McColt tapped his chin, setting his side-whiskers rustling. "If he had hatched before I left the hive, I'd know," he said. "So he was after my time... and yet..." He turned to one wall, where a row of file cabinets rather nicer-looking than the ones in the hive's records department sat in a state of mild disarray. He closed a couple drawers, opened another in between them, and ran a hoof along the folder tabs. "Paussus... Paussus... yes, here it is." He slid a very thin folder out and flipped it open. "He worked at the rocket factory for a while. Miss Berry thought he was down and might be sick, so he brought him to me to look him over. I couldn't find anything wrong with him." Another flip shut it. "Never saw him again."

Chrysalis frowned. On the one hoof, Paussus did actually exist. On the other, the fact that he actually exist actually made Pharynx's paranoid theories plausible. And, although she'd look through the factory records to verify it, she already knew what she'd find: a drone vanished without anyone even noticing.

"Doctor," she said quietly, "it appears I need your services after all. What do you have for nausea and a headache?"

"Nausea and a headache?" The doctor's face, which had been carefully chosen to be at home to warm friendly smiles, chose to put on a cruel and unpleasant smile instead. "I have a pill for that, yes. A nice, BIG pill." With a little extra glare he added, "For the even bigger pill still standing in my office."

"Yes, doctor," Chrysalis sighed, "I got the point the first time."