The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai by Earl Mac Rauch

flowing off me freely. For several moments Buckaroo’s entire being had centered on the hieroglyphics of Big Norse’s formulae and figures, and he had now pronounced them accurate.
    “It’s coming closer?” he asked, estimating from her figures.
    “Yes, although it seemed to appear out of nowhere yesterday morning,” Big Norse replied.
    “Over Texas.”
    “That’s right.”
    I still had not recovered the power of respiration as Buckaroo put on her headset and listened to the noises. There were apparently twin rays of a singular mind, reaching Earth at two points, (viz.) our bus, and the Institute. The Institute had begun to experience a similar disruptive phenomenon with its worldwide communications even before we did; and by comparing their data with our own, Big Norse had by triangulation located the source of the signal and succeeded further in plotting its course and speed. It was a sizeable achievement, and I used the opportunity to tell her so.
    “Thank you,” she said, rather complacently. “Anyone could have done it.” I couldn’t have done it, but my want of breath prevented me from contradicting her. “Mathematics comes easy for me,” she continued. “I wish it were the same with music.”
    She had been a girl of whom much was expected. By the time she reached twelve in Denmark, she had entered the university, and as a result, grew further estranged each year from the general populace. Her sole concern became the symbols of abstract mathematics, and although an arresting girl to this observer’s eye, she had always felt vexed with boys and even unwell in their company. I daresay she had never even been kissed before accepting a fellowship to the Banzai Institute to study experimental physics.
    Her musicianship was the only constituent of her repertoire of talents needing improvement in order for her to “make” residency and join our lively group, and it seemed to her paradoxical that musical composition, so neat on the page and so mathematical in form, should so seek to involve the emotions in its performance. Her problem, I suspected, was not a poor ear, or a lack of facility with her hands, but an overabundance of earnestness.
    “How are your piano lessons with Rawhide coming?” I asked.
    “Not as well as I would like,” she said earnestly. “We don’t seem to accomplish as much as we should.”
    I felt for the first time in several minutes the urge to smile but did not, the increasing severity of B. Banzai’s facial expression overshadowing our idle intercourse, as he perseveringly dotted the reverse of her page of calculations with strange formations of figures.
    “It increases and diminishes almost at regular intervals,” he said to Big Norse. “Have you managed to find a pattern?”
    “You mean a code?” I queried.
    “Exactly.”
    She shook her head. “It rather seemed like a greeting to me when I first isolated the major features,” she said. “I overlaid it with several code wheels, but none of them applied. Any suggestions?”
    He held up his hand for quiet, listening. “There’s something about it that I perceive to be familiar—why? It booms and then lapses into silence.”
    Buckaroo then lapsed back into silence himself, anxiously scribbling with pad and pencil; and for the historical record, if nothing else, I inquired of Big Norse her thoughts at this moment.
    Her words were well-chosen. “It means there is intelligent life in the universe other than ourselves,” she said.
    “And they’re headed this-a-way.”
    “They’re a long way off. They may even be lost, or friendly. There’s nothing to be gained by worrying about it until we’re sure.”
    I then posed the question I had resisted asking precisely because it so clearly marked the place to which we had come, but now this waggery of fate demanded it. It was perhaps the commonest line of science fiction. “If they continue at present speed and course, when would they reach Earth?” I