YOU'RE IT!

Copyright July 2000 Richard Kaplan

Eldebranis were a highly developed race. The advance team sent to Earth to prepare the hibernation sites of Bennu and Mira had access to many technological marvels, never mind their special powers. But the team was limited in size and time, and the Earth was a whole planet. To be blunt, they goofed.

Whether they miscalculated the potential of a fault line, or, more likely, they failed to predict the growth of a branch fault over the 1000 + years of intended hibernation could be determined easily enough by consulting the survey reports stored on Eldebran.

However, that doesn't help much when you're the one in hibernation when the fault produces a major earthquake, and early in 1981, it did. Bennu's resting place rocked wildly. With a thunderous CRASH! The roof split open, raining construction material, rocks, and dirt down, half-burying the sleep chamber in the process.

After a final shudder, quiet returned. The various computers, responding to damage signals, woke from their rest mode and began to check things out. [Of course, their terminals would read out in the Eldebrani language - which, since it doesn't have a name, I will call 'Eldan.']

A screen lit on the one in the base of the sleep chamber. First it said 'Damage Status,' followed by a long column of functions, most, including 'Life Support,' followed by green lights. There were several yellows, and ominously, two red ones. One was next to 'Memory Storage,' and the message folowing read "Serious damage to banks B and D. Possible memory loss." The other was next to 'Hibernation Systems,' and read "Critical Damage."

The screen blanked, then read "Damage repair program activated." Expected messages, such as "Node 14A inoperative. Bypass." passed across the screen face. Finally, it blanked again, then read "Repair Program finished. Return to Status Check."

Well, all of the yellows were gone. Unfortunately, the red ones weren't, though their messages had changed. One now read "Memory loss confirmed. Block 1D - Mission information." That was bad enough. The other was much worse: "Hibernation systems critical. Failure expected within two years. Activating Awakening program."

The main lights came on - those few that weren't shattered did, anyway. The screen went through the expected messages, including "Memory refreshing," then finally "Hibernation terminated." With a groaning screech, the lid swung open, dumping its load of debris on the floor. Dust clouds were everywhere, and a startled Bennu, following several major sneezing fits, looked in astonishment at the damage while brushing himself off.

Bennu: "What hit this place? I hope it was a meteor strike and not a nuclear war!" His heart rate slowed as he checked the radiation monitors - still in the normal range. At least there might be Earthmen left to help, depending on the severity of the strike.

Then he froze. How? He couldn't remember! His mind was an odd swirl of knowledge and gaps. He turned to the computer screens and keyed in the 'Status Check.' "Oh, great! Not only can't I remember how, I can't remember where! Trying to find my Partner is probably going to be a long job, and until I succeed, I can't even start our real work."

Well, no point in sitting on one's butt and complaining. He selected an appropriate traveling backpack - it was going to be a long journey - and unsealed the mound. The "boom" of the outer rock face being blasted away was followed by a prolonged rumble. Also a loud CRACK! As another part of the roof split open. He dodged the ensuing rockfall, had several more sneezing fits from the dirt, and dusted himself off again.

"This is getting habit-forming!" he thought, little realizing how accurate that statement was.

He passed through the main doors and the exit passage, finally reaching the outside. There, staring him in the face, was a decent-sized fault scarp.

Bennu: "An EARTHQUAKE?? Of all the Immature survey team efforts - how could you miss something that could produce THAT?"

Give the survey team their due. Yes, they screwed up monumentally, but they built equally well. By rights, Bennu should have been dead several times over.

He turned automatically to reseal the mound. Well, that explained the rumble. A landslide had buried the closure mechanism - and nearly blocked the exit. He stared in silence. But then, what COULD he say? Potty words disappeared from use upon toilet training, sex was considered beautiful, and, to be honest, Eldan, like the languages of other Mature races, lacked "cuss words." "Immature" was the best he could do, and it clearly didn't apply to natural events.

There was no reason to bother with shifting rocks. Even IF the mechanism were intact, given the size of the earthquake, significant aftershocks were a certainty, and he wanted to be as far 'elsewhere' as he could be when they hit. Facing north, he began the long trek towards Mira.

His travels led him through unchronicled adventures as he moved toward the coast. He was too far south for Yago to notice him, and not yet the object of a search, but tall Nordic blonds tend to get remembered in Indian country, especially when they sometimes use 'magic' to help the locals. There was a trail - spotty, broken, but there - if anybody had a reason to look.

Finally, he was ready for his trip to the US. Rather than another lengthy land journey, he agreed to work for his passage on a tramp steamer whose cargoes were often 'questionable,' to say the least. While he had no seaman's papers, that was of no concern to the captain - getting a crew sober enough not to fall overboard was hard enough. The ship in question looked like it should have been condemned as unseaworthy several years ago. In fact, it looked like it should have sunk several years ago, and Bennu found himself in the engine room on several occasions, 'coaxing' the machinery into working, and his use of his medallion did not go unnoticed. Nor did his 'skill' at healing crew members' burns, a frequent result of the breakdowns.

Finally, the ship, having dodged both storms and the Coast Guard, made port. Bennu left immediately. The rest of the crew had to unload the cargo before getting paid. That having been done, most of them headed to local bars and got drunk. Several told some pretty wild tales, and tough none were believed not all were forgotten . . .

As the months passed, Bennu's adventures became more like we'd expect. Yago noticed him, for instance. Equally significantly, a team of geologists studying the Peruvian quake made a discovery totally out of this world. Just because it seems like groups like the CIA are totally incompetent doesn't make them so, and, at long last, the first steps toward locating Bennu were taken.

The Agency opened a file (with some absurd secrecy classification) on what it named the 'Peruvian Incident.' Slowly, those 'Indian tales,' the wild stories of a few drunken sailors, and the reports of other encounters were collected, cross-referenced, and combined with the results of the on-site study. It was still too early for active pursuit, but teams were being assembled.

Bennu had no knowledge of any of this. He had had a typical day - working for his supper. Longer than most, and though the fact that it was a Friday didn't upset him, it annoyed his new host, Frank - they didn't sit down to eat until after 8:00 - though the overtime was to be paid for by a fairly long ride to a promising site the next day.

He was engaged in a friendly, if insignificant, conversation with Frank when he froze. That psychic emanations should be coming from upstairs wasn't unexpected - obviously, somebody else lived here. It was the type that he found unbelievable. Though weak, they strongly resembled what humans radiated when he Healed them with his medallion!

It certainly wasn't Yago, and if Mira were nearby, he'd sense her mind, rather than the re-radiated effects.

Frank, who was somewhat deaf, misunderstood. "Is Julie playing the TV too loud? I'd ask her to turn it down, but since she didn't say hello, she must have had a hard day."

Bennu waited patiently.

Frank: "I'm sorry. How could you know? Julie's my daughter - she's a high school senior - and the last few months, whenever she's had a tough time, she watches her tapes of some science fiction series that ran recently." (Pointing to Bennu's medallion.) "Oh, yeah. Phoenix.

"I think she's gone totally goofy over the star - he probably looks something like you - young, tall, and blond. But she says it's more than that - that somehow he's 'touched' her. I'll take all the help I can get.

"Raising a teenage daughter is hard enough, and when Mabel - that was my wife's name - died, well, you know how it is. There are some things girls don't want to talk to Daddy about, and with my hours, it would be hard enough anyway.

"Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't mean to dump my troubles on you."

Bennu: "If it helps you feel better, go ahead. You seem to need somebody to talk to."

Frank: "Yeah, there's some things a man usually only shares with his wife - or a drinking buddy, and I don't drink - but, somehow, it seems easy to talk to you. Anyway, Julie took Mabel's death real hard, but ever since she's been watching that program, things seem better. Her grades are up and she's more at peace with herself. We used to have fights over the VCR, but she actually took the money she'd been saving for her prom dress and bought a used player just so she could watch when she wants to!"

Bennu was utterly confused. That sure sounded like him! And, as it turned out, looked like him, too. He missed speaking to Julie, who was going out with some friends, because of a magnificent mistiming by his digestive tract, so he had to settle for asking Frank to bring one of the tapes down.

Frank went into the other room to watch a ball game (he wasn't a science fiction fan) so Bennu started watching by himself. That was probably fortunate! OK, not all of the details were accurate - Mira was a blonde in real life, for example, and much more significantly, the government wasn't after him, but there was Yago - by name, no less! Never mind that he had been asleep in Peru, or that the adventure depicted was way to close to what he had actually experienced.

That was unsettling enough. "Looks sort of like you" was a major understatement, especially if you count the medallion. He drew the one depicted on Judson from memory and compared it with his own. If it didn't match, it was certainly 'close enough for government work' - even Eldebran's.

And look what this Judson Scott character could do! Even Bennu couldn't 'reach out and Touch' with radio waves, or have his Power work through a videotape. And that doesn't count the Power itself!

Improbable as it would have seemed that morning, the search for Mira would have to take a time-out.

Bennu returned the tape to Frank. "I don't understand it myself, but let's not argue with results. Maybe you should watch it with her some day."

Frank: "Aw, I don't go for this sci-fi nonsense . . . hey, you got a point there. Julie's suggested it a few times herself, and it would be a nice father-daughter thing. Think it would work for me?"

Bennu: "Who knows? But I do have a change of plans. I'd like to speak to this Mr. Scott."

Frank: "Hollywood is half a continent away from here, bu the bus stop is less than an hour's drive away. I'd be glad to take you."

He noticed the look on Bennu's face. "What's the matter, young fellow, not enough money for the ticket? That's OK, I'll pay for it."

Before Bennu could mount more than a feeble protest, Frank continued. "Look, you're very good at giving help. Sometimes you have to let people help you!"

Reluctantly, Bennu surrendered. Soon, he was on his way to sunny California.

Little did he know the error of his thoughts of the night before. Unfortunately, the government was now fully aware of what was on the loose - an ancient astronaut - and were getting ready to do something about the 'loose' part. They had pretty much the information you'd expect if they'd watched The Phoenix - which they hadn't - yet. That was about to change. How THAT happened was definitely a "you've GOT to be kidding," but, then, this whole thing was.

The agent in charge of the Peruvian Incident was named, in a magnificent coincidence, Richard Lynch. Naturally enough, he followed the career of the actor with the same name. Since he wasn't a sci-fi fan and The Phoenix was very short-lived, he had managed to miss it.

Joh, a fellow agent NOT part of the team, wasn't big on the genre either, but his daughter had taped the episodes, and had persuaded him to watch with her. John 'borrowed' a tape, brought it to work, and dropped it on Richard's desk. "Got a new Lynch tape for you. Borrowed it from my daughter - you won't like it, it's sci-fi, but it's got the most spectacular-looking male lead in it."

Richard (even though his personality was a pretty good - or bad, if you want to phrase it that way - match for Preminger's, he DID have occasional fits of humor): "And why would you notice that? You're not turning queer on us, are you?"

John: "Oh, to be in my twenties and look like that! 5'6" just never cut it with the chicks."

It was lunchtime and Richard settled back to watch 'his' actor at work. He was sitting bolt upright before the intro finished. Before the tape had completely rewound, he was screaming orders into his phone.

One was to contact the network and get clean copies of the episodes. Another was for whatever information they had on the actor Judson Scott. Those two orders had the recipients scratching their heads, but unless you genuinely enjoyed a good butt-chewing, you did what Richard said - NOW!

Then he gave the tape to the photo lab with instructions to put a full-size copy of the medallion on a transparency ASAP. The lab was equally well-trained. Richard had just received the dossier on Judson Scott, with its lack of information, (including the decade of his birth), aside from his current activity - filming Wrath of Khan - when the lab returned the tape along with the transparency.

Richard unlocked his safe and removed a print of something the team doing onsite investigation had found. They had shifted rocks and found the closure mechanism - Bennu had been right, it was inoperative, with a crack right across it. Richard flipped the transparency over and put it over the print. Bingo! "Gotcha!"

Richard ordered a team sent to Hollywood, and decided to personally head it. John came in to retrieve the tape - he'd heard the unmistakable sound of the intro a while ago - just in time to see Richard drop it, along with a couple of sheets of paper, into a desk drawer and lock them up.

John: "Hey, give that back!"

Richard: "When I'm finished with it. Now out of my way - I'm on official business!"

John (getting even): "Why, Richard, has Judson gotten to you, too? You're not turning queer on us, are you?"

Richard: "Bah, humbug!" he barged past John and out of the room.

John was, shall we say, more than slightly annoyed. Richard could be such a 'jerk.' John was the best lockpick artist in the office. He borrowed a porno tape from a friend and quickly picked the desk's lock. He was just about to switch the two tapes when he saw the two sheets. "What the ???" How something in Peru could possibly be connected with an American actor he couldn't imagine, but he felt sorry for Judson.

Then he felt a lot sorrier. He had not been Untouched when he had watched with his daughter, and Richard was NOT nice. Judson Scott was in for a rough time. Not that there was much John could do about it - what was he supposed to do? Call the studio and tell them that he was a government agent and a team of other ones was on its way to interview one of their actors?

But there was one thing he could do - keep an eye on Richard and his pet project.

So now the wheels were turning. Bennu and Richard were both converging on an unsuspecting Judson.

For his part, Judson had just finished dying for Khan - for the sixth time - and, unless the print turned out bad or the geniuses in Script had any more brilliant ideas, his job was done. He headed over to his dressing room to relax.

Closing the door, he collapsed into a chair. Acting, even when you are in great shape, was a lot harder than the viewing audience could imagine! He opened a desk drawer, removed his medallion, and started to put it on. Then he changed his mind. Meditating was great - and the medallion seemed to make it even better - but sometimes, nothing beats a good snooze. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and dropped off.

Ordinarily, finding the exact location of an actor might prove difficult, but when the actor is filming in a major picture, it's not so hard. "Judson Scott? Oh, he's filming Wrath of Khan."

Bennu found the studio lot and slipped in. Since he looked just like the actor in question, guards assumed he belonged there. It was just as easy to find Judson's dressing room and Bennu approached it. Then his telepathic sense picked up impending trouble. He ducked out of obvious sight and waited.

Richard had an even easier time finding Judson's dressing room and sent a pair of his agents in. They, being HIS agents, didn't bother with trying the knob - they broke the unlocked door down.

Judson awoke to find two men barging into what is, after all, a rather small room. Both were waving badges of some sort. One was displaying a gun (his orders were 'alive and reasonably undamaged' - corpses can't answer questions). The other was waving a hypodermic syringe.

"We're government agents. Come with us!"

Judson (still half asleep): "Aren't you guys supposed to knock first?"

"Very funny. Come quietly and there won't be any trouble."

Judson hadn't a clue as to what was going on, but both the gun and the syringe looked ominously real. Oh, of course! It was a practical joke by the Props department, in honor of his completing his part in the movie.

Meanwhile, the agent wearing the gun had spotted the Phoenix medallion, still lying on the desktop where Judson had dropped it. "It's Bennu's medallion!" He made a grab for it.

Judson changed his mind. More likely, a pair of deranged fans. In THAT case . . .

The crack! Of fist meeting jaw sounded loudly as Judson scored a one-punch KO on the syringe-holder. He deftly grabbed it by the barrel, slammed it into the other agent's back, and rammed the plunger home. He added a rabbit punch for good measure, retrieved his medallion, put it on for some reason, and prepared to call Security.

Richard, not seeing the agents emerge with Judson, drew his gun and entered. "OK, Bennu, that's quite enough. I WILL shoot if I have to. Move!"

Judson was utterly at a loss. Nuts weren't usually this well organized, and who else would think he WAS Bennu?

Judson: "Let me guess. You're a Federal agent and you think I'm an ancient astronaut."

Richard: "And I've caught you. My, you're in a lot of trouble, assaulting Federal agents . . . ."

Judson interrupted him. "Yeah, sure, you go tell the judge that story and we'll see who gets locked up. Shouldn't you have called Immigration?"

The real Bennu had been following the action telepathically. He fired a metal blast at Judson, who heard "Drop!" and obeyed without question - and without even noticing that it was telepathic. Bennu fired his medallion and Richard flew over the prone Judson and slammed with remarkable violence into the wall. Judson added another rabbit punch for good measure. Then Bennu stepped into the room.

Judson stared in disbelief. "Who are YOU???"

"Bennu, of course. You ought to know. You've been playing me for a while. Though how you know so many details of my life - not that you got ALL of them right - or can use a weak form of my Power through electromagnetic media - is something I'd like to know!"

At this point, Judson didn't care what the truth was. Most likely, that last take had knocked him unconscious and he was dreaming all of this. Maybe somebody had slipped him some LSD -he had heard some pretty wild stories about trips, although this seemed awfully real. Maybe those weird fan letters he was starting to get were true. Maybe . . . oh, Hell with it! Stepping forward, he touched a startled Bennu on the shoulder.

"You're 'it.' Let them chase YOU - at least you can defend yourself!"

Bennu: "Who are THESE people?"

Judson: "They claim they're government agents chasing an ancient astronaut."

Bennu: "They are?" Bennu had been learning English. He used a potty word. "It seems everything on this planet is conspiring against me and my Mission."

Judson: "I really hope one of the 'details' we got wrong was Yago. That was scary enough watching on tape!"

Bennu: "Sadly, no. And he's much worse in real life!"

Judson: "UGH! I sure hope HE can tell us apart."

Bennu: "Sure, by our psychic emanations - oh, I see. Your ability to Heal through the TV."

Judson: "Maybe I'd better not play any more good guy leads until you and Mira - there is a Mira, I suppose - take care of Yago."

Bennu: "Yes, there's a Mira, although she's tall and blonde. And I think you have a very good idea. I'll let you know when it's safe."

Judson, meanwhile, had searched the agents, removing a few guns, and one badge and ID card each. He added the syringe to the pile on his desk. "NOW what?"

Bennu looked at the weapons with disgust. His medallion glowed faintly, and the guns disassembled themselves with great rapidity. It glowed a little brighter and the badges (and ID cards) disintegrated into powder.

Bennu then Healed the damage to the agents - including a broken jaw. They woke up. Richard blinked at a pair of apparently identical twins. "TWO of you?"

Judson: "No, ONE actor and ONE ancient astronaut."

Richard: "Who's who?"

Judson had an inspiration. Grabbing the startled agent's tie, he rubbed off some of his body makeup. "Freckles. I've got freckles. I never figured they'd be useful, though."

Bennu: "Judson, some day we must talk! Until then, goodbye. It's only for curiosity's sake now. I've got work to do - and government agents to avoid. UGH!" He started to leave.

Richard: "Hey, wait a minute! I've got orders."

Judson: "Yeah, and he's got a medallion. He did a pretty good job of disrupting your weapons and badges. Fortunately, he's pretty much like I play him, but I suspect that if you FORCE him to, you won't look much different than THIS!" He pointed to the powder and parts on the desk. "And don't bother going to the cops. With no ID, like I said, you'll get locked up!"

Richard gave up in defeat. But he was a vindictive man. He misused his office to make sure Judson never got offered a major part again.