The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Read online

  Perfect Tommy, perhaps our greatest fighter, had fought his greatest battle, killing a score of our enemy. I joked to him that these Lectroids were hardly as swift as the Junglemasters he kept in his room as ‘pets’ and on whom he practiced his reaction time.*

  *(A cat’s paw striking is quicker than sight, and yet I have seen Perfect Tommy step barefoot on the head of a poised Jungle-master. Read more of his quick reactions in the chapter “Perfect Tommy and the Argentine Miss” in the adventure Bastardy Proved A Spur.)

  As for Penny Priddy, she had been found by Mrs. Johnson and taken to Buckaroo’s cubicle on the bus, where Mrs. Johnson refused to leave her side even when New Jersey came into the room to treat her wounds . . . the same New Jersey who had once flinched from surgery now naked and grimy from the waist up, eyes red, carrying the marks of numerous wounds and the gratitude and respect of his comrades. He said to me in passing, “You know, Reno, I have saved a person or two on the operating table, but it does not compare to risking my life to save a life. The two feelings are not even comparable. Today, out in the field, I learned the meaning of something Buckaroo once said to me and which at the time did not register: ‘Every year we pass the anniversary of our death.’ Now I know what he meant but can’t explain it to anyone.”

  “It’s best to say nothing,” I replied. “We all know.”

  Big Norse interrupted us, calling down from World Watch One. “Reno, it’s Pecos!”

  As I raced upstairs to grab the call, I thought about what New Jersey had said and thought about our dead comrades and resolved to live a better and fuller life in whatever time was left to me. After Pecos had told me breathlessly about escaping Xan’s death dwarves at sea with the assistance of a school of porpoises, and asked what had we been up to, I replied, “Nothing much. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” she said. “Are you going on the polar mapping expedition?”

  “I don’t know. I may take it easy for a while,” I replied.

  “You always were a lazy bones,” she said. “We’ll talk about it when I get back to the Institute.”

  “We’ll talk about everything,” I said, smiling at Big Norse who I could observe spying shamelessly on me from out of the corner of her eye. “Have a safe flight.”

  The admonition made me smile. The world was definitely back to normal, or was it? Buckaroo quickly brushed past me on his way in to see Penny, Mrs. Johnson later telling me that the two of them had kissed and Penny would be convalescing at the Institute for some time, as a series of tests would be needed.

  “Tests?” I said. “What kind?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know, but when I put her to bed, I found tiny scars behind her ears.”

  “Scars?” I said. “Surgical scars?”

  She nodded. “The most skilled I’ve ever seen,” she said.

  “Well, she was burned in that fire when she was little,” I said. “She’s been through quite a lot. Let’s not leap to conclusions.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “She’s starting to grow on me, but you never know. How about some Karakoumiss?”*

  *(The fermented mare’s milk I have mentioned.)

  I shrugged and joined the others to partake of the foul liquid symbolizing that in life we must take the bitter with the sweet. It had been a long day . . . I thought of Rawhide and his words “but not so long as one I’ve known” . . . and it was true. All things were relative. We had saved the world, but had also saved that spawn of hell Hanoi Xan, from whom much more would undoubtedly be heard.

  Shapiro Lichtman

  Artist’s Manager

  Beverly Hills, CA

  Mr. Reno of Memphis

  Banzai Institute

  Dear Reno:

  Please be informed that our client Orson Welles denies catagorically any connection with the outer space creatures mentioned in your book. At no time was he contacted by said aliens, although he does not deny the possibility that he was hypnotized and made to do things he was not aware of. Also, Orson would very much like to see any proof that you may have to the contrary.

  Warmest,

  Shapiro Lichtman

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Introduction

  Banzai Institute June 1981

  Editor’s Note

  To the Reader

  THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI

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