“I won’t go!” Blogo said, and he burst into tears.
“Sure you will,” Sharts said gently.
He picked up Blogo as if he were a child and carried him to the entrance. Setting Blogo down on his feet, he shoved him through. Very curious, Hank followed them into a large chamber dimly lit by sunshafts coming through cracks far above. Rotting meat on gnawed and splintered bones and fragments of fish were the source of the sickening stench. They went past these into a leaning-walled hallway. This, too, was illuminated as if dusk had just come.
Sharts manhandled Blogo into the first entrance on the right. Blogo began whimpering then, but Sharts said, “Now, now, be a man.”
The two disappeared around the corner. Hank heard Blogo scream despairingly again, but this time it was cut off. There was a silence. Hank went around the corner and stopped. Though some light leaked through openings high up, this room was somewhat darker than the others. It was not so dim, however, that he could not see that Blogo and Sharts were standing in front of a huge mirror.
“I found it in another room,” Sharts said softly. “I cleaned it off and set it here so it would be the first thing you’d see when you came into here. Actually, you didn’t see it at all. What you saw was your own reflection.”
Blogo sobbed, and he said, “It looked just like the Very Rare Beast to me.”
“And so it was. You. Need I say anything more?”
There was a long silence. Then Blogo took Sharts’s hand and kissed it again and again. Sobbing, he said, “I owe it all to you, boss. You’ve cured me!”
Hank was disgusted. The Rare Beast should have kicked Sharts in the crotch.
After leaving the two off at a guerrilla base on the Winkie-Gillikin border, Hank flew on to Suthwarzha. They had taken off from the plateau and landed twice, scaring off the locals and stealing their alcohol, before Jenny reached a fuel station. Now Hank, on this August 2, Earth time, was finishing his report in Glinda’s castle.
“It sounds as if you had fun,” Glinda said, smiling. “I wish you hadn’t dropped the Golden Cap in a river. But, after all, you had given your word.”
“It was both interesting and educational. There were times when it was downright exciting. I wouldn’t want to set it up as a charter tour, though. And I didn’t care for the company I had to keep.”
“You often have to put up with your partners in business, war, and marriage. I am very pleased with the mission even if you did not kill Erakna. According to my spies, you really shook her up, and the news of what you did to her has caused many desertions from her army. The people know now that she is not as invulnerable as they had thought.”
“There’s something I don’t understand. I thought all red witches feared water. My mother said, and Baum reported her correctly, that the West Witch was so dry that she had no blood. And she carried an umbrella to keep rain, any water, away. I’ll have to admit I found that hard to believe. At least, I did until I found out about the firefoxes. Then I supposed that, somehow the red witches used a firefox to keep their bodies and minds alive even though they should have been as dead as mummies.”
“You’re mixed up. Erakna is a young witch and bleeds even as you and I. You saw her bleed. The old, very old, red witches do start drying up when they pass on. That ‘pass on’ isn’t entirely a euphemism, because, when they are close to dying of old age, they do use a firefox to keep them animated. Its energy is also used as food for the witch. They don’t eat after they’ve started to dry up, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Hank said. “What about the kitchen my mother had to work in when she was the West Witch’s prisoner? And the food she stole from the cupboard to feed the Cowardly Lion?”
“They were for the West Witch’s servants and soldiers, of course.”
“O.K. But why would the West Witch dissolve into a puddle when my mother threw water on her?”
“I suppose that the water broke the electrical bonds holding her atoms together. I wouldn’t have any explanation if you hadn’t told me about atomic theory. My scientists, by the way, are grateful for your information.”
“Which is pretty elementary,” Hank said. “Anyway, I’m glad that you weren’t too disappointed in what I did.”
“I can give you a medal,” she said, smiling. “I’ll have one made up especially for you and the occasion.”
Hank blushed, and he said, “Your thanks will be enough reward.”
“Now, I’ll give you something that came through the green cloud while you were gone.”
She picked up a large white envelope with no writing on it and handed it to him.
He looked at it and said, “You didn’t open it.”
“Don’t be stupid. I can’t read English. As yet.”
“You fluster me.”
She smiled but did not reply:
He slit the envelope with a steel opener. It held two sheets on which were handwriting. He recognized the beautiful Spencerian letters, and he verified it by looking at the name on the second sheet.
“How can this be? How is old Stinky Wright involved in this? How...?”
“We’ll find out when you read it. First, though, tell me about this Stinkii Rait.”
“We grew up together. His parents’ house was near mine. We went to school together; we were best friends. And we were in the same squadron in France. The last time I heard from him, he was a cadet at West Point. That’s the American military college. The best. But... O.K. I’ll read it.”
Dear Hank the Rank:
I’ll bet you never dreamed, even with your fertile imagination, that I’d be here and you’d be there and I’d be writing this to you. I’m writing this secretly, no one around, and I’m putting my ass on the line to do it. But friendship, true friendship, triumphs over everything. Besides I don’t like at all what they’re doing or what’s happened. Maybe I’m a traitor for saying that, but I don’t think so. I’m not your typical West Point wind-up toy soldier.
I’m a shavetail in the Signal Corps, I got an engineer’s degree even if I was at the bottom of the class. Why they assigned a dummy like me to this project, I don’t know. No explanation comes to me except that that’s the Army for you. Why did I go to West Point when I’d had all that experience with the military mind? I’ll tell you why. Because the pater wanted me to and I didn’t have guts enough to tell him that I didn’t care if I was the eldest son and the eldest son always went to West Point. I couldn’t tell the old so-and-so that I loathed Army life and break his heart. But I may resign soon anyway.
I’m in this project but I wouldn’t know what was really going on if I hadn’t gotten into the secret files. I may be stupid but I do have guts. Or is that just another sign of imbecility?
I’m mad as hell, Old Rank, but I can’t go around shooting my mouth off to the newspapers or anybody else for that matter. I’d disappear, end up in Army prison, probably in solitary. Maybe I’d even get shot. It’d be an “accident,” but it could happen, believe me, Hank, old buddy.
I wish there was some safe way, any way, that you could answer this. There isn’t. As it is I don’t know if you’ll get this. But I’m taking the chance you will. What I’m going to do tomorrow is take a private plane I’ve rented and drop this letter through that green cloud called the Sampson phenomenon. After Mark Sampson, the brilliant young guy who made the machine that made the green cloud that opened the way to Oz, though it was an accident. Oz! I can’t believe it!
Anyway, I’ll be up there when the green cloud appears if it appears. It doesn’t always and even then they can’t be sure how big it’ll be and how long it’ll last.
Anyway they’re trying some kind of experiment with it, but they won’t be trying to fly anybody through. So I should have the sky to myself. I’ll zoom up there and strike like old Balloon-Buster Frank Luke himself, drop this through the cloud in a box with a Very flare attached, and run like I saw Richthofen coming after me. I rented the plane under a fake name, paid cash, and I’ll be wearing
a fake beard and civilian clothes and using a German accent.
If they find out who I am, I’ll take off for Brazil. I always did prefer dark-eyed beauties, remember?
When they heard about what happened to their invasion force, they just about crapped in their whipcords. And they sent off a cipher message to Washington. Whoever’s handling this deal there sent a cipher message to the President. He was in Alaska on a tour. The message rocked him, he got sick and had to go to bed. He’s in San Francisco now, but he’s said to be still sick. He hasn’t been much help to the people here. They’ve been told to make the decision about what to do, but you can bet that if it’s wrong they’ll be blamed. That’s the Army way, God bless it!
The reason I know all this is that I’ve been sworn to secrecy and though they don’t tell me much I overhear more than I should. I make it a point to do it. And as I said I got into the secret files and learned what the hell was really going on.
From what I can gather the big boys are seriously contemplating another invasion. But they’re going to have to cover up the deaths of the soldiers and the loss of those aircraft, and they don’t want to have to do that all over again. Too many people asking questions.
Sampson, he’s not a bad guy at all, is all for telling the public the truth, but they won’t stand for that. They’re afraid of the public uproar, and the bigshot politicians in this are afraid of the political repercussions. As it is, I’ve been hearing rumors that some of the members of Harding’s cabinet have been caught with their hand in the public till and there’s going to be a hell of a scandal and maybe jail sentences.
Hank stopped reading and said, “My father wrote me that he’d heard that the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, and the Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, leased some navy oil reserves to Edward Doheny of Pan American Petroleum and to Harry Sinclair of Mammoth Oil. He said he’d heard that that big crook Doheny had bribed them to give him the deal and ‘Clear Sin’ Sinclair had taken Fall into some of his financial dealings.
“Dad says that Harding is personally honest though not very bright. Some of the people he gave high positions in the government because he owed them for political support have betrayed him. And the people of the United States.”
“Most people are corrupt in one form or another,” Glinda said, “and they don’t even know it. Get back to the letter.”
“O.K.”
Well, Hank, my roommate is about due to return so I’ll have to finish this quick. I’m so het up that I’ve even considered telegramming or phoning the President. He’s at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco right now, but he’s sick in bed and couldn’t handle it even if I could tell him I’d like to blow this sky high. I couldn’t get through to him anyway. So I’ll just have to keep mum for now. I don’t want any “accidents” happening to me. I hope you can understand my position.
I wish you the best of luck, however. Jesus! Oz? Would anybody believe me if I told them about this? I’d probably end up in an insane asylum, that’d be worse than getting shot. So I hope you understand.
Good luck, ave atque vale, vaya con Dios, Un homme averti en vaut deux, and all that. Is Glinda as beautiful as Baum said? If she is give her a big smackeroo for me but watch the hands, Hank the Rank.
Your pal,
William Wordsworth “Stinky” Wright
“Afe atkeifale, faya kon Diioz, and the rest?” Glinda said. “What do they mean?”
“Hail and farewell, go with God, a man warned is equal to two unwarned men.”
“You must miss him.”
“Yes. I miss my parents, too.”
“If you gain something you lose something and vice versa. Hank, I have to take care of the Earth situation as soon as possible and that means tonight. Erakna will be attacking me here. I know that, and she knows that I know that. I need every bit of energy that I can summon for the attack, but I’ll have to expend much before I can get prepared for Erakna. I’ll have some time; I know when she’ll come.”
Glinda paused.
Hank said, “Yes?”
“I’ll give some details later. First, do you have a picture, a photograph, of President Harding?”
Hank thought that there might be one in the copies of the Current Opinion periodicals he had brought with him. Glinda sent a servant to get them from Hank’s apartment after he had printed the title of the magazines on a piece of paper. When the servant returned with them. Hank leafed through the pages for the photograph. Glinda busied herself with paperwork while he did so.
His eye caught and stored various advertisements, titles of articles, and parts of text. They were like little hooks dragging him back to Earth or like tappings on tiny bells which reverberated through his mind and caused it to salivate images and emotions.
VOL. LXVIII
APRIL, 1920
No. 4
IS THE WORLD ON THE WAY TO BANKRUPTCY?
Inflation as a Means of ‘ Destroying Capitalism.
PARTY POLITICS AND PROHIBITION
THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT BEGINS TO INTRUDE
Prosperous Days in Peoria and St. Louis.
A SPECIAL investigation has been conducted “with severe neutrality,” by the N. Y. Tribune, into the effects of prohibition in other lines. It has developed, so it says, in New York City, “enough arguments in favor of prohibition to wreck the white paper market were they printed in detail and with all their far-reaching ramifications.”
IS JAPAN CONCEALING A
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AT HOME?
I AM one who thinks that the theories of seapower advanced by Admiral Mahan may be greatly modified, if not completely shattered, by the sinister triumphs of the submarine and the torpedo.
EXPLAINING THE ALLEGED
BREAKDOWN OF LIBERALISM
IN AMERICA
● * /V S a body of political and inter-XA. national doctrine, liberalism has practically collapsed.” So Harold Stearns, formerly associate Editor of the Dial (in its brief ultra-liberal period) declares in a new book, “Liberalism in America” (Boni and Liveright), which is being widely discussed.
“It stands,” Lord Morley says, “for pursuit of social good against class interest or dynastic interest. It stands for the subjection to human judgments of all claims of external authority.” Militarism is named by Lord Morley in this connection as “the point-blank opposite of liberalism.”
Mr. Stearns refers to the triumph of prohibition as an evidence that anti-liberal forces are dominating the scene in America today.
PHILADELPHIA CRITICIZES NEW YORK
NEW YORK SCOLDED FOR ITS
MORAL AND OTHER
SHORTCOMINGS
NEEDED—A BUDGET SYSTEM TO
SAVE TAXPAYERS $2,000,000,000
A YEAR
A BUDGET system in regulating the expenditures of the United States government would save the people $2,000,000,000 this year, according to Roger W. Babson, the expert financial statistician.
Come/8 are sold everywhere in scientifically nettled packages of 20 cigarettes for 20 cents; or ten packages (200 cigarettes) in a glassine-paper-covered-carton. We strongly recommend this carton for the home or office supply or when you travel.
R J REYNOLDS
TOBACCO CO Wmilon-Salem N C
The Einstein Theory of Relativity, by Prof. H. A. Lorentz, of the University of Leyden (Brentano’s), is a useful little book of 64 pages, intended for the layman and written in simple language. It makes accessible to English readers an article that appeared originally in the Nleuwe Rotterdamtche Courant.
THE COMING SCIENCE
Compared with other branches of scientific investigation it might almost be said that Psychical Research in the past four decades has made far more progress than any other branch of learning in a similar period of time.
A FEW OF MANY TOPICS TREATED IN THIS FASCINATING WORK
What Happens at Death. Projection of the Astral Body. The Sexes Hereafter. The Subconscious Mind. Self and Soul Culture, The Three Laws of Succes
s. True Ghost Stories, The Human Aura. Automatic Writing. Haunted Houses. Psychology of Dreams. Messages from the Beyond. Psychic Healing. Hypnotism and Mesmerism. Crystal Gazing. Materializations. Spirit and Thought Photography. How to Develop Your Psychic Powers etc.
He had gone through one Current Opinion without finding the photograph. He glanced at Glinda. She was still working with her documents and messages and did not seem disturbed that he had taken so much time with the periodical. He picked up the April 1921 issue.
NERVE EXHAUSTION
How We Become Shell-Shocked In Everyday Life
Must We Fight Japan? by Walter B. Pitkin (Century), is hailed in the New York Times as the most deeply searching and widely ranging study of the Japanese question in its relation to America that has yet been made. Mr.’Pitkin is an associate professor in the Pulitzer School of Journalism, Columbia University. He spent several months of 1920 in California. He holds that there is a Japanese “menace,” and he finds a strong similarity between the temper of present-day Japan and that of pre-war Germany.
A BARNSTORMER IN OZ by Philip José Farmer Page 29