Story: The Ninja of Health, XXVI

( Part XXV , XXVII )

At the bottom of the crater, the two companions inspected the floor. All around them was the angular version of their own meditation pattern from the floor of their chapel back in the afflicted town of Toddlingham. It was eerily familiar. Above them, the heads of the people at the parapet seemed like small lollipops on truncated sticks in the distance, and everything became eerily familiar. It was like the blanket rewoven by their friend the unconscious Oracle.

"The only thing missing is the rocket/lighthouse." Mused the Man.

"And the giant swirly things in the sky." Replied his female companion, half-rhetoically.

"Look down at your feet. There they are, milady!"

"Yes. Blast. You love getting there before me, don't you?"

"It happens so rarely."

The Woman frowned. "Here we are, but what does it mean?" She narrowed her eyes, and began to think analytically. "This is a version of our Pattern, but we haven't been here before. The Patterns are unique, but this is all angular....

"Before you go all crazy, this may not have been generated the way ours is. They may have just made it from an image."

The brain wheels stopped turning for a moment. "An image... Yes, it could be, but then how did they get the image? Is this from a new source, or did that thing make it after visiting us? Why would it do that?"

"Why would we be standing here, talking like this?"

"It helps us think?"

"Well, yes, or it could be to pad out an hour while we wonder what on Earth is going on." The Man abated his flippancy and looked around. "What does this mean? I think it can mean one of three things. Bear with me, while I pretend to be insightful."

"Okay. I'll try to look rapt." She pursed her lips, and looked regally adoring.

"Oh, cut it out!" He scowled. "Look, either the similarity to our own signature is a coincidence, a signal, or it is bait."

The last implication fell from his lips leadenly.

"That would mean that is a trap." The Woman concluded calmly for him.

"Yes."

"Which would also mean we were worth trapping."

"Yes."

They were worth trapping. It was food for thought.

To be continued, but not very many more times...