The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (21 page)

E
vents were moving faster now, as Pinky Carruthers could attest at the main gate. Within a span of ten minutes, Professor Hikita rode up on the borrowed motorcycle and announced he was going straightaway to his laboratory and was not to be disturbed, and John Parker, the Adder, arrived on a bicycle.

Although Pinky Carruthers could see him only as a human, John Parker was nonetheless incomprehensible to him, both in language and appearance. Still in his Nova Police silver suit, John Parker got off the bike and sidled up to the gate, proceeding to offer Pinky a package resembling a hat box.

“Buckaroo Banzai,” was the only intelligible word he said at first, and then he pointed to a Buckaroo Banzai comic book which he also carried and which he later told me he had used to inquire directions of people he met along the way. That he arrived at all must be considered something of a miracle: one solitary being of his race, alone on a strange planet, having to hitchhike, and then to ride a bicycle the last twenty miles to see us. I have, in my private moments, wondered whether I could have done the same, had the tables been turned. It is a hypothetical question, but it serves to remind me of his stalwart spirit and unshakable resolve which must never be forgotten.

Upon listening to the strange visitor for a few moments, Pinky Carruthers was able to make out a few more of his words—for it was English John Parker was speaking, only a heavily accented version of it which required patience of the listener. “Need see . . . Buckaroo Banzai . . . message from John Emdall, Planet 10,” was the essence of what he said as Pinky took the package over the top of the gate and said:

“Sorry, pal. Everybody need see Buckaroo Banzai.”

And that was the end of it, or could easily have been the end of it, if Pinky Carruthers had not in hindsight sensed something extraordinary about the visitor, the more he thought on it, and returned to the gate to look for him. Alas, he was gone! Or so it appeared. But there was still the package the fellow had brought, and without opening it (according to security procedures, all incoming packages to the Institute must be X-rayed) Pinky resolved to follow up on the matter himself.

At full gallop, he carried the package to our security section himself, and after it had been put through tests, opened it. Inside he found the well-known Planet 10 hologram disc now on display at the Smithsonian, although at the time he had not a hint of its importance or even its function. It resembled somewhat a long-playing phonograph record but was thicker and slightly oblong. Growing more excited, Pinky wrapped the object up immediately and delivered it to us.

Amid our examinations of the strange object, Buckaroo Banzai arrived. Following his introductions of Casper and Scooter Lindley and after answering a barrage of our anxious questions wanting to know the details of his adventure, his attention turned to the hologram disc.

“Have you played it?” he wanted to know.

“No, it just got here a few minutes ago,” Rawhide said. “A black guy brought it to Pinky at the gate.”

Buckaroo’s eyes grew wide as he turned to Pinky. “A black guy? Wearing a silver suit?” Pinky nodded. “Where is he?” Buckaroo demanded.

Poor Pinky was downcast. “I let him get away,” he bemoaned. “I had trouble understanding him. When I realized it might be important and went back to look for him, he was gone. I have a couple of the boys out looking for him.”

“Good,” said Buckaroo, indicating the irregular disc he was holding. “No, matter—this was why he came. Put it on.

He handed it to Big Norse, and she laid it carefully on the turntable. We were standing in his study, and I can recall our exact positions relative to one another as she let the phonograph needle down gently. “Anything from Pecos and Seminole?” Buckaroo quickly asked.

“Nothing,” I said, doing my best to put the subject out of my mind. “Not a peep. Big Norse says that strange signal from space is coming closer to Earth, resulting in worldwide communications difficulties, so that’s probably the problem. Apparently it’s some kind of enormous energy field.”

“That’s where the little ship carrying our black friends must have come from,” surmised Buckaroo. “From the mother ship.”

A discharge of sparks from the needle striking the grooves of the revolving disc interrupted him, and a gasp escaped our lips as there suddenly flickered from the spinning “record” the life-sized three-dimensional image of a black woman in a gleaming dress made of the same silver material worn by John Parker and the other Adders. Feature by feature, she may well have been the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. At least at that overpowering moment, I could think of none other justified to hold a light before her loveliness.

“Salutations, great Buckaroo Banzai,” she said with the same accent as John Parker’s, speaking extraordinarily slowly in order to be understood. “I am John Emdall from Planet 10 of the Alpha Centauri A system. I appear before you to warn that a common grave danger confronts both our worlds.”

I remember glancing over at Perfect Tommy in the midst of this incredible sight and observing him with his mouth open. He had been right, as it turned out, about Planet 10 not necessarily being of our system, and perhaps he was correct also about their mode of travel. Had the space voyagers entered a rotating black hole and emerged in the future?

“After a bloody reign of terror on our planet, the hated leader of our military caste, the self-proclaimed ‘Lord’ Whorfin, a bloodthirsty butcher as evil as your Hitler, was overthrown by freedom-loving forces,* *
(The Lectroids were bred by the Adder majority expressly for fighting wars of planetary defense, but in time the Lectroids grew ambitious and seized power for themselves, overthrowing civilian rule.)
tried and condemned, along with several hundred of his followers, to spend eternity in the desolation of the Eighth Dimension. Death was deemed too good for their ilk,” John Emdall said and went on at some length to describe how Whorfin had escaped his place of confinement by taking possession of Doctor Lizardo’s body when the latter had so unfortuitously become lodged in the wall, half in and half out of the Eighth Dimension, during the abortive Princeton experiment. Somehow the doctor was now two places at once—in this dimension as a possessed old man and in the Eighth Dimension as his youthful and vibrant former self (so that in this respect, at least, Whorfin had not been lying when he told that part of Lizardo still in this dimension that his younger self waited in the other). How John Emdall even knew what had happened during the Princeton experiment as well as all these subsequent years, I have no idea. And John Parker claimed not to know her method, although he was probably not at liberty to tell even if he had known. At all events, this “woman,” this creature John Emdall, had a disquieting way of knowing everything.

“Were it not for the experiments of your father and Professor Hikita and the real Dr. Lizardo, then John Whorfin would still be locked safely away on another plane of existence,” John Emdall said, all at once amazing us by pointing her finger right at our chief. “And now you, Buckaroo Banzai, have unintentionally helped John Whorfin’s purposes with your Oscillation Overthruster! With it he plans to make good his escape from Earth
back
through the Eighth Dimension . . . and on to Planet 10 with his fighters! I warn you, if he should attempt this, and he will, we will have no choice but to fire a particle beam weapon from our airspace at a city in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, vaporizing it instantly. I need not tell you what this means.”

“Nuclear war,” said Tommy, his jaw going slack.

“Exactly, Perfect Tommy,” said John Emdall, making us suddenly aware, if we had not been already, that we were watching no mere hologram but a live communication. “The Soviets will retaliate, your President will launch a massive counter-strike, and within twenty minutes the danger to us will be removed.”

“Like a tumor,” said B. Banzai.

“Quite,” she said.

“Only you kill the patient,” B. Banzai rightly pointed out.

“You have my general regret for the trouble this will cause the human race,” she said, “but one cannot deal decorously with Lectroids. They are detestable, really; we should never have bred them.”

“If your mind is made up,” said Buckaroo, “why bother to inform us if there is no alternative?”

“Because there is an alternative,” she replied. “Only one. You must stop John Whorfin and destroy the ship he is having built at Yoyodyne—before midnight. If you fail, then my course is clear.”

“Even if I destroy the Overthruster?” Buckaroo asked.

“I cannot take the chance,” she said. “You and I both know that scientific progress cannot be reversed, not long kept secret. Once the genie has escaped, it is too late to cork the bottle. Good luck, Buckaroo Banzai.”

“Wait a minute—” Buckaroo said, but she had already descended back into the grooves of the disc. But now, already the sun was setting, and one did not have to be very imaginative to appreciate the gentle irony. The room filled with men and women who were truly frightened, the red glow of the sunset, perhaps our planet’s last, shining from the walls—it was a scene I hope the likes of which I never witness again.

“Maybe she was just trying to scare us,” Casper Lindley said, obviously trying to perk us up, even though he had the same vacant stare in his eyes as the rest of us.

“Well, she succeeded,” I said.

“Is it just my imagination, or is this room getting hot?” asked Rawhide.

“It’s just the sun,” someone said. “It’s a pleasant warmth.”

“Yes, it is. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Did we all look different? Older? It seemed so to me, as Buckaroo sat down dreamily behind his desk stacked high with mathematical papers and scientific treatises. “All my life I have only been certain of one thing,” he said with a sigh. “Nothing endures but the world and human nature.” He paused, selecting his words carefully. “If I am wrong in this, everything else is meaningless. There is no such thing as magic, but there is such a thing as understanding and applying what abilities we have to a task, to the extent of our abilities and our understanding. Now is no time for grief or wringing our hands.”

“What about getting on our knees?” asked Rawhide.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Buckaroo said, “as long as we don’t remain in that posture. We have work to do.”

Within five minutes. Billy had summoned every available assistant and had gone to work on a computer-simulated attack on Yoyodyne, searching out every scrap of information he could find on the aerospace firm. Casper and Scooter Lindley were dispatched to gather aerial photographs of the Yoyodyne facilities, and the rest of us gathered in the small anteroom off the study. Buckaroo had already drawn up a checklist of things to be done.

“Where’s Professor Hikita?” he wanted to know.

“He said he was going straight to his lab,” Pinky Carruthers said. “He had ink on his forehead, so maybe he was going to wash it off.”

“I hope not,” said Buckaroo. “Rawhide, go check on him. See how he’s doing synthesizing that formula I gave him and if he needs anything. Explain to him it’s even more urgent than I thought.”

“Right, but you know the professor,” Rawhide said. “How he can be when he’s working.”

“If he buffets you with his troubles or hurls statistics at you, tell him the bus leaves in an hour for Yoyodyne, and I need that drug ready. Period.”

Rawhide nodded and departed on his unenviable mission. The professor could behave like an outraged god when disturbed in his laboratory.

“Big Norse,” Buckaroo said, announcing her marching orders as well. “Go on to the bus and try to establish communications with the Planet 10 father ship.”

“You mean that signal source that’s been monitoring us?” she said. “I’ve tried, but—”

“I don’t want to hear that word,” Buckaroo said sharply. “In fact, I don’t want to hear any of these words—‘try’ or ‘wish’ or ‘desire’—from any of you. We’re up against aliens with superior strength and overwhelming numbers and a thousand years or so average combat experience.* *
(How Buckaroo Banzai knew this or various other details about the Lectroids of which the reader will become aware, I am at a loss to say. One can only assume the “phone call” from the father ship somehow imparted this information.)
If we begin making alibis, which are but a subtle form of selfishness, we have no chance against them. I do not care to discuss why something is not possible. There is no room for the intellect now. We are in mortal combat. You are all superbly trained. Forget the seriousness of the situation and forget everything you know. Be like the wooden horse of P’ang the Lay Disciple: Be of no mind and unmoved. Simply act.”

Big Norse’s lip was quivering. “Gee, I only meant—”

“I know,” said Buckaroo, looking into her blue Scandinavian orbs. “You meant you will be surprised if you succeed. Do not be surprised at success or failure. Do not even consider them.” Then, with a touch of sternness, he added: “We must communicate with the father ship, because I’m certain that’s where John Emdall is. If we can establish a two-way dialogue, perhaps her cold power of judgment will not remain so cold.”

Big Norse started to say something like “I’ll do my best” but caught herself, straightened herself, and a quick change passed over her. “I’ll use a mixture of languages to rouse their curiosity, perhaps even sing a song,” she said.

“Good. Go,” said Buckaroo. “The rest of us must be as tigers to lap blood.”

“We’re ready, Buckaroo,” I declared. “How many Blue Blazes should I mobilize?”

“No more than a dozen,” he said. “Pick them carefully. With the interns that should be sufficient.”

There was suddenly a familiar voice over my shoulder. “What about the interns?” Mrs. Johnson said, having just come in and knowing nothing of John Emdall’s revelation.

“Get your gear together,” I told her. “We’re going on a mission.”

She let out a cry of delight. “Something beastly, I hope!” she exclaimed.

“Beastly enough,” I said. “You’d better alert the other interns.”

She had already turned to leave when Buckaroo, in his psychic way, called after her: “Did you want something, Mrs. Johnson?”