Chapter Four
"Don't Touch Him!"
After they were done eating, the General leaned back in his seat. "I'm going to have a chat with my friends, boys, make sure I'm not disturbed."
Yes, sir!" both officers snapped.
They backed off as the General appeared to go to sleep. Donald turned to his companion. "How do you know all that stuff?" he asked. "About him, I mean?"
"We've got a file," the Lieutenant answered, "about THIS thick." He indicated about a foot's distance with his hands. "When they made me part of the suppression unit, as we call ourselves, I read it. A lot of it's theory, experts in the field giving their opinions. But I think it's pretty accurate. His powers are weaker during the day, stronger at night, or under cloud cover. The sunlight effects them somehow. He gets his power from love. He can't hurt anyone unless they're evil. It's a safety. Some people are damned glad he has it"
Donald laughed. "Give me a break!" he said. "A man can kill because he's empowered with love. I've heard he can be really nasty." The Lieutenant sat up and looked at him with total sincerity. "I'll give you one warning," he replied, "and you'd better listen. Take that man seriously. When he tells you to do something, do it. Don't ever doubt his capabilities. He'll tell you he has no compassion or pity for evil. But don't believe it. He often destroys to keep people from hurting themselves any more than they already have, sometimes killing them saves them.
My grandmother was into this stuff. Maybe that's why I understand it so well.
There's things in the universe far beyond our understanding. We think we're pretty bright, that we've got a lot of power. We don't understand what power is- HE does. I think the suppression unit is foolish. We should be helping him, not hindering him, but our damned politicians are stupid. They're afraid of losing power, so they're trying to delay the inevitable."
"Would you mind telling me," Donald asked, "what the suppression unit is?"
"A joint task force of the bureau and the agency. Our job is to keep any mention of him out of the media, to cover up his activities, and to keep his organization from beginning as long as possible."
"If he's so powerful," Donald asked, "why does he let you get away with it?"
"I'm not sure," the Lieutenant answered, "at present he may even find it helpful, but I think the main reason is he considers us a joke. Our petty efforts AMUSE him, and our frustration, even more so. How can you fight an immortal? Even if you lock him up somewhere he can leave his body and go to and fro at will. The same thing if you drug him. Threaten him, and he only gets mad. And God help the country if we ever make him mad!
Kill him, and he just switches bodies and you'd never know who he was, or, what he was doing. The safest damned thing is to just leave him be, and keep the situation under control as best as possible."
"Why isn't he someone more important?" Donald asked.
"He's what he WANTS to be," the Lieutenant told him. "When the time is right he'll take more important positions. Right now obscurity suits him."
Donald looked back to the sleeping man with a small bit of awe. "What IS he, exactly?" he asked.
"An alien Soul," the Lieutenant told him. "His people fought a great war and nearly annihilated each other. The last survivors made colonies here on Earth. But they couldn't keep the peace and wiped each other out.
Now their Souls are trapped on a world where they don't belong, and seriously interfering with the stability of the native race. If they're unable to undo what they've done the chances of the human race surviving aren't much."
Donald knew the Lieutenant was sincere, but he found all this very hard to believe. He looked up to see the Sergeant coming down the aisle. He reached out for the General and the Lieutenant suddenly screamed.
"Don't touch him!" The Sergeant snapped back.
"Sorry, sir!" he said, "I just wanted to inform the General we'd found the hunting party. They're evacuating them now."
"I'll tell him when he wakes," the Lieutenant answered.
The Sergeant returned to the front of the plane. The Lieutenant returned to his seat and let out a deep sigh. "What was THAT all about?" Donald asked.
"Don't ever touch him when he's sleeping, when he might be traveling. His wife can get away with it. She's protected. But if you broke the cycle and suddenly drew him back into his body he'd suck the life energy out of you like a sponge sucks up water. I'm not joking. It can kill you."
"I believe you!" Donald told him. "I believe you!"
A few minutes later the General stirred, grabbed some paper, and began making some sketches. The Lieutenant came down and leaned over towards him. "We've found the hunting party, sir. Evacuation proceeding."
"Good work!" the General acknowledged. "How long before we land, Lieutenant?"
The Sergeant stuck his head in the door. "Twenty five minutes, sir! Your helicopter will be ready when we land. It's a little under an hour to the site."
"Thank you, Sergeant. My compliments to the pilot! We've made good time."
The General returned to his sketches. "Did you get that information from your friends, sir?" the Lieutenant asked.
The General only nodded. Donald took the seat behind the General and began to examine the sketches over his shoulder. "Pretty straight forward layout, isn't it?" he asked.
"Small compact ship," the General told him. "Propulsion units run along the bottom. The main part of the ship is the cargo bay., entered from this big hatch in the rear and this small one in the back of the crew quarters.
The control room is just ahead of the crew quarters. Everything's connected by this corridor that runs up the side. What we'll be after is the main computer....here, on the front wall of the crew quarters, behind the control room. If that's still functional it can tell us what's wrong with the ship, help us make repairs, and get out. That's going to be the tricky part......getting out. It all depends if the sterilization units in the hatchway are still working. If they're not, well, we won't think about that until the time comes."
The General began to pack up his notes. "Sir," Donald asked. "Why won't the aliens....why won't your friends help us?"
"Well, for the first reason," the General told him, "their law won't permit it. No contact whatever with primitive races until they have developed space travel and solved their own internal problems. Some of them would literally die before breaking that law.
Secondly, they can't do much more than I'm doing this far into the situation. It's too dangerous to try to pick up the ship with tractor beams, or something like that."
"But they helped during the war...." the Lieutenant put in.
"Only because some of their own people were interfering," the General answered him. "And they only did enough to neutralize that interference, no more. They returned things to the status quo. If they could've gotten the ship before anyone had found it they'd have certainly made a pickup, even risking their own lives to get it out of here. But now our government's involved they can't do anything except through me. I'm not a government. I already know of their existence, therefore they're willing to lend me technical assistance, but very little beyond that."
"I think I see," Donald acknowledged. "It must be an awful thing, sir, to know all this stuff and not be able to tell anybody; and, if you did, not have anybody believe you."
"It DOES make things kind of lonely sometimes," the General answered. "It's a little like your job, Donald, going under cover....making friends with people, even getting to like them, then, in the end, having to arrest them. EVERY job has its disadvantages. For EVERYTHING there's a price. I don't think I could DO your job. But praise The Lords there's men like you with the strength to do the unpleasant but the necessary."
"I think I've just been paid a compliment, sir," Donald replied, "that I'll rather cherish, and I think you've helped me deal with a part of my life that's been kind of a burden. Thank you, sir! Thank you very much!"
"You're quite welcome, Donald," the General responded. "You're quite welcome, indeed!"