BUNZO FAREWELL
By CHARLES V. DE VET
"Have you ever seen a dead mahute, or even one
that was ill? Or anything that looks like a
graveyard?" Tang and Lutscher knew not the
answer ... but maybe Bunzo, the clober, knew.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories September 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sometime during the one hundred and seventh day out of Gascol 11 the hourly signal of the tracer beam changed from a tired burp to a sharp ping. Sammy Tang knew then that Lutscher had landed and that the long chase was nearing its end. Over three years on the trail of the system's most wanted criminal, and now they would meet for the first time.
Tang had dogged his quarry's flight from the first moment his ship's beam had picked up its trace. During refueling stops on a dozen worlds he had sometimes been weeks behind, sometimes only hours, but there had been never a glimpse of Lutscher or his ship.
The chase had led, first, across, and then down the long arm of the spiral nebula known as the Milky Way, through the portion occupied by ever expanding humanity, and beyond.
Lutscher made his final stop for fuel on Gascol 11, the last occupied world at the tip of the arm. When Tang reached there Lutscher had gone—out into the blackness of deep space.
That way, Tang knew, led to suicide, for in that direction lay nothing until the next galaxy, M. 31, and Lutscher had neither the fuel nor the years of life to reach there. Tang followed. In the beginning he had expected that Lutscher's flight would turn out to be only an elusive tactic, and that he would attempt to double back in a dodging curve.