“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?”
“Oh, yes,” she suddenly remembered. “You know that girl that came on the bus with the guys—?”
“Penny?” said Perfect Tommy.
I at once looked at Buckaroo, on whose countenance the name so happily registered. “Where is she?” he asked.
“Well, that’s what I wanted to say,” said Mrs. Johnson. “I can’t find her. I guess I was a little hard on her. She must have run away.”
Buckaroo looked as if he had
been stricken dead but said nothing of what was in his heart. “Never mind. We have more important work,” he said and headed for the door.
“What about me, Buckaroo?” Tommy said, in that peculiar gloomy fashion of his when he feels left out. “What do you want me to do?”
“Check with Sam in the garage,” Buckaroo answered. “Tell him to get the Jet Car ready. I’m taking it out.”
“Right,” Tommy nodded. “Where’re you goin’?”
Buckaroo kept walking. “To get my guns,” he replied.
Tommy and I looked at one another, as though the idea of Buckaroo getting his revolvers somehow made official the dire portent of the moment. In a kind of awed whisper, Tommy said, “Getting his guns? Holy cow.”
They were the Navy Colts he used only when going in search of Hanoi Xan, massive heavy pistols which had belonged to his father. The sun was down; for some reason I had the image of many sheeted dead, an entire generation or so, something more horrible than anything that had gone before.
Secretly I trembled.
23
The more years I traverse in this life, the more I am struck by the force of its beauty and fascinated by the terror of its end. Like tiny flickering flames in a mammoth cavern of darkness, we hew out lives for ourselves, experience sensations and emotions recalling countless other lives and souls who have gone before us. Gradually, we realize that life amounts to little more than sights and sounds, pain and pleasure, a few steps forward, and then . . . the cumulative effect of all our words and actions ultimately leaving as much of an imprint on the world as stockinged feet on a rocky floor. And in the end, while most of us are still wrestling with this bewildering gift of life, trying to decide what to do with it, the flame burns out. And the smoke remaining? What is that? Do we remain, but in darkness?
I am reminded of the dance of the corpse which La Negrette, the beautiful zombie, was given to performing. It had all the appearance of liveliness, but no amount of movement or pretending could hide the tortured look in her upturned eyes, the ghastly coldness of the whole spectacle.
That was how I felt as I assembled the interns hurriedly before the great hearth in the living room of the Banzai Institute common house—full of despairing energy, sufficiently sensible to realize that some of them would die in such a situation as we found ourselves.
I briefed them on our mission and had to say little for them to reflect upon its consequences, should we fail. All rational men and women, highly intelligent, with scientific backgrounds, they required no elaboration from me on the patent meaning of a global nuclear exchange. All the human progress of two thousand years would, in a blinding flash, be the remote past; and indeed whether the human species could even survive in any kind of reduced circumstances was arguable. The point was not to let it happen.
As I spoke to them, entirely detached from my words—indeed I was out of myself—my thoughts turned to Pecos, those glorious eyes, her crack-brained technological schemes and inventions. How she loved a mystery! Would I see her again? That was the question now, as suddenly I felt like a green and tender youth. I had once given her a bezel ring; I wondered if she was wearing it. I longed to feel her freshness upon my face and for an instant felt I did. Blindfolded, I could have sworn she was with me.
But those were only my feelings, preparatory to our embarkation into the great unknown. Everyone in the room had his or her own melancholy thoughts, and outside the room new events were rushing toward us, thick and heavy.
Casper and Scooter Lindley had reached Yoyodyne and succeeded in taking a series of aerial photographs of its environs despite drawing some scattered fire. They had meanwhile been notified by radio to rendezvous with our bus location a half hour distant.
Billy and his computer helpers had managed to ascertain through Yoyodyne financial records those construction companies in the Grover’s Mills area which had done work over the years at Yoyodyne and which might be expected to have blueprints of its buildings. A number of Blue Blazes in and around Grover’s Mills were contacted and sent to the various companies to ask for the blueprints, stressing that Yoyodyne officials were under no circumstances to be notified of the unusual request. Where there was hesitation or resistance on the part of any of the companies to comply, a personal phone call from Buckaroo Banzai to the company’s chief executives had its intended effect. Within half an hour, all blueprints of Yoyodyne had been collected and were on their way to the rendezvous site I have alluded to above.
And what of the activities of the other side? While John Whorfin exhorted his followers to work faster on the giant Panther ship, he fretted and fumed over the unexplained disappearance of his top three subordinates. They had not radioed their whereabouts in more than two hours, ever since they had located the Adder thermopod. What could have gone wrong? he wondered. Perhaps they had taken a wrong turn and become lost, but that could not explain why they had not radioed. Perhaps their radio was affected by the strong energy field of the Adder fleet now approaching Earth, but that only made it all the more imperative that they hurry back to base. Damn it, he needed that little Jap, Hikita! Where in hell were John Bigbooté, John O’Connor, and John Gomez? Time was running out! What was the point of completing the Panther ship without the OVERTHRUSTER? They would be shot out of the sky like a lumbering goose. Where were those imbeciles?
He could not know, nor could we, that following the debacle of letting both B. Banzai and Professor Hikita get away, no one of the three shamefaced Lectroids was of any mind to inform John Whorfin of what had happened. Rather, in one last-gasp effort to cover themselves in glory, they headed for the Banzai Institute, where their arrival coincided with sundown and, unfortunately for us, our necessarily hasty arrangements to undertake our mission to Yoyodyne. As a result of this unhappy coincidence and our own state of momentary distractedness, the Lectroids found it simple enough to gain entry to our compound in scaling first the main wall and then an electrical fence, which in their case only whetted their appetites and had reasonably the same effect as a chocolate moat might have on ants: it delayed them, but slightly. Between the time when they entered our compound and the first sounding of the alarm by Sam in the garage, a period of roughly twenty minutes elapsed. We know this because of John Parker.
Again, I must regress to bring the reader up to date.
Following his delivery of what I will continue to refer to as the hologram, John Parker had found himself at a loss to know what to do next. His assignment had been completed to the best of his ability, and in fact there was nothing else for him to do and nowhere else for him to go. On an alien planet and lacking a way to go home, the mysterious creature simply searched out a restful spot and waited—for what, even he did not know; but with the onset of sundown, his entire cutaneous “early warning” system (I lack a more graceful way of putting it) became agitated in the extreme, and he realized that Lectroids were near. Stepping out of his hiding place (although he was not hiding), he observed Bigbooté, O’Connor, and Gomez as creeping shadows near the main wall and resolved to follow them, fully aware of their evil tendencies. He, too, climbed the wall (although “jumped” is a more accurate description), and was equally unimpeded by the electrical fence. He later told us that he was prepared at all costs to stop them from succeeding in their plot (which he was able to divine as he got closer to them, the Adder’s sensitive cutaneous system functioning as a telepathic as well as his main sentient organ), and was on the point of alerting us to the Lectroids’ presence when he himself was detained by mounted security. Not given a chance to explain coherently what he was trying to warn us about, he was taken into custody while the Lectroids, unseen by the intern guard, continued on their merry way.
My first notice of any of this came when the door of the common house living room sprang open as I was briefing the interns, and the escorted John Parker appeared as a silver giant before my eyes. Six-feet-ten, his long black hair woven into dreadlocks, his dark eyes smoldering, he was easily the most imposing sig
ht I had seen since John Emdall and I connected him to the hologram immediately.
“My name is John Parker!” he shouted slowly, the words perhaps taking him ten seconds to say. “Here . . . Lectroids! Here!”
Buckaroo Banzai had used the term Lectroid as had John Emdall, and I was suddenly very ready to listen to what this “man” John Parker had to say. Before he could go further, however, alarms began to rattle everywhere and a second intern on security duty burst into the room, clamoring, “Intruders! In the garage!”
Naturally the same thought crossed all minds: in the midst of the world coming to an end, as if we didn’t have enough to occupy us, someone was also trying to steal the Jet Car. The fact that John Parker had just mentioned Lectroids only served to heighten the drama as I ran past him on my way out the door and tapped him to follow. “Come on,” I said. “This way!”
As we raced toward the garage, John Parker easily outdistancing me with his long loping stride, I directed the interns to fan out and used my Go-Phone to spread the word. I remembered that Tommy had just been directed by Buckaroo to tell Sam to prep the Jet Car and wondered if he had seen anything suspicious.
“I just came from there!” Tommy said over the Go-Phone.
“Did you see anything?” I asked.
“No.”
“Where are you now?”
“In the bunkhouse, packing my gear.”
“Well, you’d better tell Buckaroo there’s trouble,” I said. “And tell him I’m with the guy from Planet 10 who brought the hologram.”
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Page 16