A Barnstormer in Oz

by Philip José Farmer

  After eating, they shared a pipe, and then she said that she had to report for duty.

  She indicated the bottle of afseth. "Don't forget to take it. You should get in the habit of drinking it as soon as you get out of bed. If you should forget it, the previous dosage will keep you sterile for from three to four days. But you shouldn't take a chance."

  "Yes, dear."

  She laughed and kissed him warmly for a long time.

  "Will I see you soon?" he said after she had pushed herself away.

  "Tonight. I'll be here—unless the queen has something for me to do. She might. There's the Gillikin crisis, and..."

  "Crisis?"

  "The queen will tell you all about it. So long, lover."

  She was delightful. Fun. Passionate. He was very fond of her, but he was not in love with her. From her attitude, he judged that he was not supposed to be. She was on a sexual lark, and she was not thinking about marrying him. Or, if she was, she was wise enough not to mention it.

  The use of the afseth drink had had an effect on mores similar to the introduction of the automobile and the cheap condom in the United States. Actually, its effect had been much greater because it had been a part of this society for a thousand years. It had freed men and women in many respects, though Hank wasn't sure that he approved of some of these. The young adults were expected to have as many sexual partners as they wanted. But, once they were married, they were to be faithful to their spouses. Whether the expectations were more lived up to here than on Earth, Hank didn't know.

  These people, though pygmies, were not the simplified childlike characters of Baum's Oz book. That was essentially a moral fable cast in a fairy land. His Dorothy had been looking for a way to get home, his Cowardly Lion had wanted courage, his Tin Woodman had desired a heart, his Scarecrow had wished for brains. They had gone through many adventures to get to the man who was supposed to be able to give them what they wished for. But the Wizard of Oz, though a humbug, had seen that three of them already had what they sought. Unable to convince them of that, he gave the Lion a drink which he said was liquid courage, gave the Tin Woodman a velvet heart stuffed with sawdust, and gave the Scarecrow brains of bran mixed with pins. These material tokens were not magical, but they gave the three the assurance that they had what they thought they had lacked. The Wizard's magic was based on psychology only, but the shrewd old circus showman knew what he was doing.

  Dorothy had been wearing something which could have gotten her home shortly after she had arrived in Munchkinland. This was the pair of silver shoes she had taken from the dead and dried-away Witch of the East. The Wizard had not known that. It was Glinda who, at the end of Dorothy's odyssey, had told her that.

  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a children's classic. And it could also delight and inform adults whose imagination had not been slain by the dragons of maturity.

  Dorothy had outlined her story to Baum. It had been simple and swift enough then, but Baum had reduced and speeded it up even more. He was a story-teller artist who left out what he did not think suitable for a young child's tale, and he had added touches here and there that were not in Dorothy's narrative. He was not reporting or writing history even if he did later adopt the title of "Royal Historian of Oz" while writing the series.

  Nevertheless, there were things in it which children would skate over while reading the fascinating adventures. There was death in Oz, though there were no gory details, and Baum was right in being sparing of them. The Tin Woodman chopped off the head of a wildcat chasing the Queen of the Mice. Two bear-bodied, tiger-headed Kalidahs were smashed to death when they fell off a log bridge chopped off by the Tin Woodman. The Woodman also killed forty wolves with an axe. The Cowardly Lion sneaked off at night to get something to eat, and Dorothy did not ask him what his food had been. She did tremble for the deer.

  Dorothy saw a tiny baby, which meant that there was birth and, therefore, copulation and conception. And all that these implied.

  There was, even in Baum's Oz, hate and lust for power and hunger and terror and oppression and birth and death.

  Baum had intended to write no more of Oz than the first book. His great ambition was to be the creator of the truly American fairy tale. His fairies and brownies and sentient animals would be indigenous, owing little to the European.

  But his readers, the American children, wanted more of Oz. And, since the demand was high and he needed the money, he wrote a sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz. This was almost entirely fictional, though he did use some names and persons Dorothy had mentioned. And he created those wonderful characters, Jack Pumpkinhead. the Gump, the Wooden Sawhorse, the Wogglebug, and Ozma, the long hidden and true queen of Oz.

  His readers were delighted and asked for more.

  Though Baum tried to ignore them, he could not. Like A. Conan Doyle, he found that what he regarded as hackwork was really the jewel in the crown—as far as his readers were concerned. Doyle made his fortune and his reputation from Sherlock Holmes, though he tried, unsuccessfully, to kill him off so he could get back to his beloved historical novels. Baum worked at the genuine American fairy tale as long as he could, but then he did what he must. He ended up writing fourteen in the series.

  During the course of this, he decided to make Oz as Utopian as possible. Thus, in his later books, no one could die in Oz nor would anyone grow old. Babies would remain babies forever; people who were old when the great fairy queen Lurline cast her spell on Oz would grow no older.

  Even if a person were cut into little pieces, the pieces would still live.

  Baum forgot about this from time to time, and his later Oz books contained passing references indicating that there was a possibility of death in that land.

  Hank had not noticed the many discrepancies in the series when he was very young. He had liked the idea that no one could die, but, when he got older, he saw that this took much of the tension from the adventures. And, when he became a young man, he realized that a world in which babies remained babies and there was no death, and, by implication, no birth either, was a horrible world.

  Still, he could turn off his critical faculties and enjoy the books as he had when a child. Become, during the reading, a child again.

  Here, though, he was in the nonfictional world. He could not close a page when he was tired of reading it and walk off. Reality was a novel that kept batting its pages hard against you. You had to read on and on until you died. Even sleep was no refuge; your mind presented other books, even more plotless and footnoted and nonsensical and filled with misprints and dropped sentences than what you read while awake.

  Hank put on his barnstormer outfit and then studied the sheet of paper on which he had printed the twenty-eight letters of the Quadling alphabet and the symbols he'd made up to indicate their pronunciation.

  He spent an hour reading a child's primer. Then he went to the bathroom, coming out just as a servant came for him. He was led this time into a large room near the throne room. Glinda, clad in a pure white robe but uncrowned, sat in a chair before an oak table. The table legs were carved like sphinx-faces.

  There was a long line before her, petitioners of various sorts, he supposed. But he did not have to wait. The servant conducted him by the people and animals. If they resented his being passed by them, they did not show it. They stared at him openly, as the natives did everywhere. But many smiled, and some even said, "Goth morn!"

  They were noisy, too, not silent in the queen's presence as he had expected. Sometimes, a short phrase or a complete sentence sounded as if it was English. Double-talk English.

  Glinda smiled at him, said something to the captain by her side, and waited while the soldier announced that the audiences were over for a while. The petitioners could wait in the hall.

  A folding chair was brought in built for him, and Hank was told to sit down across the table. He waved away the glass goblet of fruit juice offered him.

  Glinda leaned back in the high-backed, ornately carved oaken cha
ir. "Have you anything to ask me? Is there anything I can do for you?"

  Hank was sure that he was not here just so she could find out if his needs were being taken care of. He said, "No complaints. As for asking, well, I have a hundred questions."

  "Some of which we may have time for," she said. "You're here primarily so that I can acquaint you with certain situations. And I have a request to make of you."

  "I'm all yours, Little Mother."

  He thought, I sure would like to be. "The man who was killed yesterday in the flying machine will be buried this afternoon," she said. "I don't know what religion he was, but if you care to say prayers over him, you may do so during the ceremony."

  "My father's an Anglican; my mother, a Methodist. I'm a hardshelled agnostic." Glinda looked puzzled.

  "It doesn't matter," he said. "I'll say a prayer for him. It couldn't hurt."

  "No. But he may be only the first. Others will follow him, I'm sure. What you must know is that we won't tolerate any more. One of you is enough. We can handle one—especially since he is Dorothy's son. One is even welcome. But no more than one. We will not be invaded!"

  Hank was startled. The last sentence had been uttered so strongly and with such a hard face and eyes. Glinda meant what she said.

  "My anger is not for you," she said, smiling. "But you're intelligent. You must have known from your strict quarantine that we are very disturbed at the prospect of disease from Earth. We had those here once, and they must have killed many. Then the plagues died out. Why, I don't know. Perhaps that was because of something the Long-Gone Ones left here. Some sort of anti-disease protection which fills... radiates? ...over this land."

  "The Long-Gone Ones?"

  "The ancient aborigines. The nonhumans who originated on this planet. Or, at least, they did as far as we know. They must have died out or been exterminated or left this world before the first humans came through the openings. We do not know, but the stories that have come down to us, in distorted form, I'm sure, from our ancestors... these say that there were no indigenes then. But there are the half-buried ruins of a city of the Long-Gone Ones in the far northwest comer of the land. We don't know much about it since it's in Natawey territory. I have been there, but I wasn't able to make much from what I saw during my brief stay. I had other things to occupy my interest then."

  She paused, looking as if she were contemplating the past. Then she said, "It was very fortunate that neither you nor your mother were carrying any diseases when you came here.

  But I know that these foulnesses sicken and kill many of you. And if these are brought in, well..."

  She grimaced as if she were seeing visions of hell.

  "My people would be defenseless. They would be swept away by the thousands, perhaps all or almost all would die. Be honest, wouldn't that happen?"

  Hank thought of the American Indians who had died from the diseases contracted from the whites. He thought of the Polynesians who had been struck down by tuberculosis, smallpox, scarlet fever, and syphilis when the whites came.

  "I don't think they'd be wiped out, Your Witchness," he said. "But the results might be horrible. Devastating. However... you said that there was something here which now keeps diseases away. Why wouldn't that apply to new diseases? Why would your people be infected? Wouldn't they be unaffected?"

  "I told you that the ancients suffered from these. It was only after a hundred or so years, if the chronology is right, that the plagues disappeared. There seems to be a certain time required for whatever the agent is that fights disease to assert itself. By the time that it did its work, the diseases would kill us by the hundreds of thousands.

  "In any event, I would not want even one to die from these things you Earthpeople carry around as nonchalantly as you do your handkerchiefs."

  "Pardon me, The Highest, but that's an exaggeration. We're not indifferent..."

  "No?"

  "Anyway, what can I do about an, uh, invasion?"

  "You're the only one who can interpret for us. We may need you as a go-between. I intend to have some of my people learn English, and I wish to do so, too. Just now, we have more to deal with than Earthpeople."

  She frowned and bit her lip.

  Hank waited.

  "First, though, the Earth problem. There is more than disease to it. Even if there were none, you people would destroy our society. You'd bring in your religions, your customs, your institutions. You'd change us for the worse.

  "And we have so much gold and silver, so many precious stones. Your greed would ravish the land. But, in order to make your piracy lawful, to make the robbery accord with your images of yourself as honest and lawful and Godfearing, you'd find a pretext for declaring war on us. You'd send in your armies and conquer us. Then you'd start the rape."

  Hank, his face red, cried, "That's not so, Glinda! It wouldn't be that way! You make us sound like savages, but—"

  "Yes? Be honest. Isn't that the way your people have always been? By that, I don't mean just your nation. Hank. I mean all the nations. Haven't they always done just such things if they happened to be powerful enough to do it? And haven't those that weren't powerful enough wished that they could?"

  "You seem to know much about Earth!" Hank said. "Very strange for someone who hasn't been there!"

  "I didn't say I hadn't," Glinda said.

  "When? Where?"

  "I'll tell you at another time. Perhaps. Now, Hank, the other crisis. There hasn't been a war here for thirty years. It seems that one is unavoidable now, though. Your mother undoubtedly told you that she was visited by the Witch of the North, Helwedo, shortly after she came here."

  "That was in Baum's Wizard, too," Hank said. "But he didn't mention her name. My mother didn't tell him that."

  "Helwedo was then near a thousand years old."

  Hank rolled his eyes. He wanted to ask her how some people could live so long, but this was not the time. When would it be? Events were racing like Barney Oldfield. Like Alice and the Red Queen.

  "Helwedo heard about Dorothy's arrival from one of her hawk spies, and she came immediately to see your mother."

  The Witch was indeed a witch. She had appeared before Dorothy with a bang of suddenly displaced air, a phenomenon which Dorothy had forgotten to tell Baum. Helwedo had some means of transportation unknown on Earth, unless the witches of old there had had some such power. He did not believe that they did. Maybe "magic" was possible here. Not there.

  "Helwedo encouraged Dorothy to wear the dead Witch of the East's silver shoes."

  Glinda paused, then said, "At least, they looked as if they were of silver. Real silver would never have stood up under all the walking and running your mother did in them."

  I'll bet, Hank thought, that Helwedo told you about Dorothy. Or perhaps one of your bird spies did. I'd mortgage my ass to Rockefeller to get enough to place a bet on that.

  It was then that he began to suspect that Glinda may have been subtly guiding Dorothy all through her quests. But he did not have time to dwell on that subject. He had to concentrate on Glinda's words.

  "Ten years ago, Helwedo, the Witch of the North, the queen of the Gillikins, died suddenly. I did my best, but I could not prevent a young witch named Erakna from seizing power. Erakna the Uneatable. She is so clever that she even hid from me that she was a red witch until it was too late.

  "I felt sorry for the Gillikins. They were as oppressed as the Munchkins had been under the East Witch and the Winkies under the West Witch. But I bid my time, and Erakna made no moves against me. In fact, she sent word that she had no ambitions beyond the borders of her nation. She would be content to stay there and rule. I did not believe her. No red witch can be believed."

  Can the white witches? Hank thought.

  "However, she had her troubles. Revolts, increasing raids by the Natawey from the mountains, a struggle with another red witch. But she seems to have put down all opposition now, and the ambition she's kept like a hungry wolf in a cage has slipped out now. />
  "For the past year we've had some border incidents with the Gillikins. Erakna says that the troublemakers are outlaws, but I know that the incidents were instigated by her. Also, she has taxed her subjects heavily to build up a big standing army, and they're holding maneuvers now on the borders of Winkieland and Ozland. It's evident that she's ready to invade."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "But...?"

  "What does that have to do with you? You'll find out. I want to confer with the Scarecrow and the Woodman. Very soon. I could send messages by hawk, but I prefer to see them personally. Andaugi bi andaugi. Face to face."

  "You want me to fly up there and get them?"

  Glinda smiled. "Very good. Lamblo's lover is not only a handsome giant, he is intelligent."

  Hank blushed.

  Glinda laughed again and said, "How long will it be before you can leave in your flying machine?"

  Hank told her what had to be done. The engine of the Jenny had to be altered slightly to burn ethyl alcohol. He had to ensure that there were supplies of fuel along the route on places flat and long enough for a plane to land. He needed maps, too. Those he'd seen were not good enough.

  "A hawk who knows the way will ride with you," she said.

  "Is there likely to be trouble on the way?"

  "There is. Erakna, I'm sure, knows about you. That you're working for me is enough excuse for her to attack you. However, she may not have an opportunity."

  Glinda sent for a female hawk named Ot, a purple-and-bronze feathered bird he had seen before. Hank made sure that they understood exactly what he required. They discussed the distances between the supply depots, the purity of the grain alcohol, and many other requirements.

  Lunch time came. Food and drink were brought in. Ot only fed once a day, and she passed up lunch. Hank asked her what she ate. In that weird gramophone-like voice, she said, "When I'm among the tame ones, nuts and insects. These are prepared for me in a meatlike consistency. But when I'm in the wilds, I eat mice, rats, rabbits, and anything not too big to fight back."