Caught

I finally made it to the end of this chain of studded ringlets. Where the next Eight bridge should be, is capped with a simple Eight-One. From out here, I can see that there are a number of One-Eight-One triples that are doing their normal semi-agitated dance. Peering past that, however, I sense that there is something bigger.

I had the count of 787 ringlets, which is slightly more than nine doublings with eight more. As far as Protons go, it's well over Sixteen Doublings. Yes, this is very large and very long, and It's time to double check my work. Counting backward worked fairly well, until I realized that something was amiss. Eights, Sixes, and Sevens were nearby in very high concentrations.

Each ringlet I traversed brought me closer to the anomaly. I didn't care which way I went around the ring, and frankly, I got a good view from the Eight in the ring. Climbing up the displaced Six and hanging out on the upstairs Eight-One pair gave an even better view. I was absolutely sure that I had scanned this monster before, and now I was going to get up close, since it had the chain of ringlets trapped in its grasp.