THE BIG BANG

copyright July 2000 Richard Kaplan

Premminger had gotten a real hot tip on Bennu's probably destination - Redman's Flat - and was driving along a remarkably bumpy road towards it when he ran into, of all things, a road block. It was manned by heavily armed fellow Federal agents, no less!

He smiled. Why, with all of this extra manpower, it should be easy to make the capture. He stopped, stepped out of his car, and displayed his badge. "OK, men, I'm sure you're on an important mission of your own, but this is a matter of national security, so if you'll follow me, I'm sure we can capture Bennu in short order."

Agent 1: "Whoa, there, just who the Hell do you think you are, giving orders to us? We're members of the BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms], and you're way out of your jurisdiction!"

Premminger: "You don't understand, I've got to get to Redman's Flat - "

Agent 2 (interrupting): "Well, la-de-dah, join the party, that's where we're heading. If you keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way, when we finish our work, maybe we'll help you. What's this Bennu look like?"

Premminger: "He should be easy to spot. How many Nordic blonds can there be around here?"

The two agents shook their heads in disbelief. "You'd be surprised. We're raiding the weapons depot of a white supremacist group, and that's ALL there are up there. Got a better description?"

Premminger: "He's 6'3" and wears a big medallion. (Pause) Oh, yeah, he's got long hair. That should help!"

Agent 1: "Long hair, huh. Ok, we'll try not to shoot any long-haired blonds. - as long as he doesn't point a gun at us."

Premminger: "He doesn't have a gun."

Agent 1: "That's different. Everybody else up there will. OK, hop in."

Premminger's tip was accurate. Bennu was just approaching the first of several mounds at the Flat when he became aware of two male human minds nearby. Their thoughts seemed to be quite odd - and about him! - so he concentrated a bit. That they were admiring his body was no longer the least bit surprising. But the interest seemed to be purely nonsexual, and that was different.

"Karl, will you look at that! I heard that the Leader had recruited somebody special, and that is special!"

"Yeah, Fritz. Pure Aryan blood all the way. Looks like we've got our new poster boy. But what's he doing messing around up here? You know our orders - radio it in. We'll know if he belongs up here soon enough."

The two of them seemed to be waiting for Bennu to do - or not do - something. There's no such thing as a paranoid Healer, but nor is there a rash Adult. He scanned the entrance carefully. Sure enough, he detected a wire at ankle-height. It was connected to a suspicious-looking oval object - clearly, a booby-trap. He studied it briefly, then used a bit of Sunpower to cut the wire.

Then he began his exploration. The crates stacked up in the mound were of no interest to him - anything to small for Mira (or, for that matter, Yago's body) to fit into was no direct concern of his. However, as he continued to read the two nearby minds, he decided to speed up his searching. Most of the mounds were both booby-trapped and contained crates, and they were filled with various implements and agents of destruction. He wanted to finish up and get OUT of there.

Normally, Bennu didn't interfere in the locals' affairs unless he couldn't help it, but leaving such lethal equipment in the hands of one of an Immature society's less pleasant manifestations - a violent hat group based on outward appearance - wasn't something he was about to do. He was pretty sure they would like him even less than the differently-pigmented if they knew he wasn't even from this planet! No, when he had finished up and left the area, he was definitely planning on placing a call to the local law authorities -

Too late! A noisy gunbattle broke out nearby as the reinforcements Fritz had radioed for encountered BATF agents attempting to surround Redman's Flat. Most of the group members were killed or captured, but some fled. Some of those entered the Flat from one end just as the group of agents containing Premminger entered from the other. Bennu was caught in the middle. He flattened himself out and tried his best to be inconspicuous.

Bennu wasn't sure how good the "good guys" were, but he was quite positive about the "bad" part of the other side. When one of them seemed to be taking aim at somebody, Bennu fired a Sunbolt, and the weapon flew out of his hand. By chance, it found the entrance of a mound and, still smoking, smacked into the end of a wooden crate. It was followed immediately by a number of bullets, which shattered the crate and drive it into the contents - foil-wrapped blocks of something. That something promptly caught fire.

The bullets, as one might expect, had come from an agent. He had seen somebody take aim at Premminger and yelled "Drop!" as he fired.

Agent 2: "Got him! I thought you said Bennu didn't have a gun."

Premminger (paling): "You shot Bennu?"

Agent 2: "No, the person trying to shoot you. Bennu probably saved your life - he shot the gun out of his hand before he could shoot. I think my fire would have been too late to save you."

Speaking of fire, the one in the mound was getting violent. Military explosives are carefully designed to be insensitive to shock, but they do catch fire easily, and once burning, do so intensely. Any large pile is bound to detonate sooner or later as it heats up. A large plume of smoke was billowing out of the entrance, and a jet of nearly white-hot flame was now visible.

Premminger had seen C-4 fires in Vietnam. His color turned nearly as white as the flames. "That's burning plastique. It'll blow any minute - lets get OUT of here!"

Off the three of them went, bumping their way down the road at a speed normally highly unsafe. Everybody else was doing their best to flee, too. Bennu, for example, had put his body in overdrive - the mental equivalent of taking stimulants - and had gotten far enough away that when the Big Bang happened, he was only thrown several feet and not struck by more than a few pieces of stray debris.

He landed hard but not seriously damaged and switched his body back to normal. While the enforced rest period after overdrive use passed, he lay face up (the better to watch out for more debris from ensuing explosions), and even got in a Suncharge, though from a most unusual position.

When things seemed to have finally quieted down, he stood up, dusted himself off (naturally!), healed a few nicks, and began walking rapidly away from the former site of Redman's Flat.

Meanwhile, the vehicle carrying Premminger hit a bump. Then the blast wave from the explosion hit it, and it sailed several feet through the air, also landing hard but not seriously damaged.

Premminger: "Whew, that was close! OK, it's blown up. Let's turn around and chase Bennu."

Agent 1: "What, are you crazy or something? I wouldn't go near that place for several hours. I'll tell you what, though. We'll drop you off at your car and you can risk your life up at the Flat. Just don't radio us for rescue - if you survive the next explosion."

Premminger really was getting obsessed about Bennu. He actually seriously considered doing just that - until the next violent BOOM! Persuaded him that mabye the BATF agents were right, after all. He took out his list of local Indian sites and drew several lines through "Redman's Flat." And, in a moment of perfect coincidence, both he and Bennu simultaneously thought: "People with explosives sure can make my job dangerous!"