The Adventures of Miniator -- Chapter 6 Meeting Of Minds

The Adventures Of Miniator
chapter 6 Meeting Of Minds

By Jupiter!' said Swing Blood. He was about to draw his knife, when the woman's voice, seeming to come from everywhere said, 'Please, don't be afraid, he will not hurt you... make yourself comfortable.'

Swing stood for a moment trying to think... his brain racing through possibilities... was this some kind of exotic Oriental pet... like a guard-dog for the woman and children? Was it a dwarf in costume? Well, the dragon didn't seem aggressive, although it had very nasty looking teeth... So, Swing sat again on the chair. Then the creature moved to the far end of the room, and to Swing's amazement, also sat at on a chair.

Swing was looking around the room trying to avoid the face of the little dragon, when a beautiful lady suddenly appeared in a window! He could see her head and shoulders, and she said, 'Hello!'

Swing got to his feet and bowed, and said, 'Hello Ma'am, my name is Mr. Blood, and I have, until today, assumed I was the only soul on this island.'

'Are you a seaman, Sir?' asked the lady.

'Yes, have been, Ma'am, have been... Though for the last two years I've have been marooned without hope... I was left for dead, by a rare lot of plotting rogues. But, please Ma'am, would it not be more fitting for you to enter, so we could speak... it seems inappropriate for me to speak to you thus!'

'I'm sorry, Sir, I hope you will forgive me... but believe me I have good reason, and I'm unable to stand before you. I hope you will endure the ungenial situation for a little longer. But I would like to introduce you to Miniator, whom you have until now only seen...' The lady in the window looked towards the dragon. Swing acknowledged the creature with a nod, in the way to accommodate the lady. But to Swing's utter shock the creature got to his feet and spoke. Saying, in a perfect English, but a with strange unreal voice, 'I'm glad to make your acquaintance, Mr Blood, and I'm at your service, I would be pleased to assist you in your endeavour to leave this island and return to a more suitable locality.'

'What the devil are you? Am I a victim of some monstrous plot, or nightmare? Are you real?'

The lady said, 'He is indeed real, Mr Blood, and though his appearance might not accord to any of your previous experiences, he is a fine cultured, intelligent ambassador, and diplomat from another world, who comes in friendship and peace to your world. And he offers you assistance in your plight.'

'And you, lady, who are you?'

'I, Sir, am here to affiliate the ambassador in his fact finding mission.'

'Mr Blood, Sir,' said Miniator, 'I admit that we have deceived you, some what, but it was only on account of knowing the extent my... uncommon appearance would have upon you... that you would be shocked and aghast... and I'm sure you would not have been disposed to make my acquaintance. I seek nothing of you, and mean you no harm, and do not hold you here against your will... but repeat my offer of assistance to you.'

Swing was speechless! Should he simply get up and leave...? Go back to his cave, and that life... of hopelessness? Or should he take a chance with this creator, who in fact has not offered him any violence, nor resistance...?

'And you say you can take me from this island, do you have a ship, or was what I saw on the other side of the island an illusion?'

' Yes, it was something of an illusion... and yes I do have a ship, and I can take you anywhere you want to go.'

Swing thought for a while then said,'Then I accept your kind offer, for my desire to leave this island has also been something of a delusion until now.'

'So' Mr Blood, said Miniator, 'let us retire to the kitchen, and eat, as I'm sure you are hungry!'

Over the meal of roast beef, Miniator, tried to explain to Swing the outline of his history, and his mission on Earth, and how he came here... most of which, Swing found incomprehensible and baffling, and could only think of the spaceship as something between magic and Alchemy, and expected to wake from this strange dream.

'And you say the lady is a machine?'

'Yes', said Miniator, but a very clever machine.'

'And this roast beef, was grown and never was an animal?'

'Yes, grown in the same way cows grow from a calf. But much quicker and without becoming an animal.'

'But it tastes just the same!'

'Yes, it took many years to perfect.'

Swing shook his head again, as he had been doing during Miniator's whole telling of his story.

After the meal, they returned to the communication room, and Miniator, showed Swing how the lady in the window could change identity: a lady, a man, to Miniator, and even, to Swing's amazement, to his own image with his own sounding voice, but in the end back to Professor Zok.

He showed him films of Toolia and its giant people, its wonders of technology. Of which its flying machines, and ships fascinated Swing the most.

'Now', said Miniator, 'I would like to hear your story!' While Miniator had been telling his tale and showing his films, Swing had been trying to rearrange all this new information into some kind of understanding, it was like trying to put strange new pieces into an old puzzle, and at times he was still under the impression it really was some kind of dream, from which he would awake from, only to find he was back in his cave. He had also realized that he had warmed to this absurd looking creature... there was something about him that made Swing feel relaxed, something in the little fellow that put him at a novel ease, that he hadn't felt since he had been a child in the presence of his mother... nor with old Captain Bird, who had been like a father to him. Swing felt he could tell his tale to Miniator, in a way he had never told it before, and so he began: