A Barnstormer in Oz

by Philip José Farmer

  "Yes, but she was an eight-year-old kid. Besides, the science using it has progressed considerably since 1890. So I'll give you more details and bring you up to date."

  When she heard Hank out, she said, "And these Signal Corps people were, you believe, doing what?"

  "I think that they were trying to transmit electrical power without wires. Via the atmosphere, perhaps. A famous scientist, Nikola Tesla, has long been interested in trying to do that. Maybe he's the head of the project. I don't know.

  "Anyway, I think that the Corps was conducting such an experiment just as I was flying near Fort Leavenworth. And there was a totally unexpected by-product of the experiment. A weak place in the walls between these two universes or a natural channel for going up or down the slope between the two worlds... well, this weak spot was opened by the power. Just long enough for me to fly through.

  "The Signal Corps people saw me go into the haze and not come out. So they duplicated the experiment, and the haze was made again. I don't know what fantastic speculations they made about this. Whatever they were, they wouldn't match the reality. But they did decide to send an Army plane through. Just how they planned to get it back through to Earth, I don't know either. Probably, they made plans to open the gate again at a specified time. But..."

  He shrugged, and he said, "Evidently, they don't have control over the dimensions or duration of the opening. And they have no idea what this world is."

  He burst out laughing, then said, "If someone told them that this was the Land of Oz, he'd be considered crazy! They'd lock him up! And if, when, I tell them the truth, they'll think I'm out of my head!"

  Should he tell them that his mother was the Dorothy of Baum's books? No. Whether or not they believed him, they'd harass her with long interrogations. They'd make her life miserable, give her no rest or privacy. And if by some chance the secret of this project came out, and if he did convince them that he was indeed in Oz, she'd be subjected to worldwide publicity.

  Glinda said, "You have the means to convince them."

  She pointed at the boxes stacked in a corner.

  "They still won't believe me."

  "That's not important. Continue."

  "Well, after impressing upon me that I must tell no unauthorized person about this—who in hell could I tell, that side of the universe?—they demand that I cooperate to the fullest extent. Obey every order. Do my utmost to get information about this world to them."

  "With the films?"

  "With those and maps and data about the population, if any... They don't even know if this world—they call it the Fourth Dimension—has sentient beings or life of any kind except for me... If there are sentients, then they want to know all about them. Particularly, their... your... military potential. Also, diseases, the natural resources, by which they mean fertile land, bodies of water, wood, iron, copper, bauxite, oil, gold, silver, and so on. I'm supposed to make motion and still pictures of everything significant, record data about this and that, give them as complete a picture as possible."

  He looked up from the letter.

  "They aren't even sure I'm alive or, if I am, that I'll be around in this area to get the message. They admit they're taking a chance."

  "When will they open the way again?"

  "It'll be opened briefly seven days from now. At ten in the morning their time. They don't know of course, whether the time here corresponds to theirs. I'm supposed to go by the time on the watch they sent. But they're taking a chance. It's all highly chancy."

  "The way will be open briefly?"

  "So that I can acknowledge receipt of this. After that, thirty days before I am to pass through the films and data."

  Hank interpreted, the message word by word, interrupting himself or being interrupted by the witch to clarify various references. When he was finished, Glinda said, "I wonder what would happen if you failed to send your reply seven days from now? Would your people then just give up?"

  "Not at all. They'd try to send through another pilot as soon as they could get the needed control over the gateway."

  "Maybe they won't be able to do that."

  "That's possible. But I doubt they'll give up. Their curiosity will be too great. They'll believe that this world might be as big a danger to theirs as you think theirs is to yours. They can't stop trying. If things from my world can come here, then things from yours can go there. They'll be thinking of the novel by Mr. H. G. Wells. That was about an invasion from Mars..."

  He outlined briefly the plot of the book. Then he said, "They'll think the worst. They can't afford to take a chance that there might not be any danger to them here. You can understand that, can't you, Your Witchness?"

  "Oh, yes. So... this is not a problem which can be ignored. I will allow you to send your first message, but I want you to read it to me. And don't lie. I will know if you are."

  Hank felt his skin warming. "I wouldn't think of it!"

  "Yes, you would. You're thinking of it now. Not that that means that you would lie. Now, just how do you intend to get the message through the opening?"

  He told her that he would fly above the green cloud and drop the message through.

  Glinda smiled and said, "What if the cloud is large enough to admit your airplane? Will you desert us then?"

  Hank bit his lip.

  "I'll be honest. I don't know. I doubt that the cloud will be large enough. Apparently, it takes a lot of power to generate it, and it probably won't be very large. It also won't last long. I'll have to act fast and be accurate on the first passover. Otherwise, I won't make it. Also... well... I don't think the Army bigshots would like me to return. Not just now, anyway. They need someone here who can, uh, feed them information. Or be their ambassador, you might say."

  Glinda laughed and said, "Perhaps act as their agent for whatever plans they have or will have. I'll trust you not to leave us. I can't do otherwise. If you find that you can't resist the temptation, you'll go. And that's that."

  "I do get a little homesick now and then," he said. "But I'm also very curious about this world. Besides, as I said, it's my patriotic duty to stay here."

  "Very well. It's only by thinking of the here and now that one can survive three centuries. Though it's always necessary to keep in mind the near future if you don't want to die. Sometimes... Never mind. Get your flying machine ready, and make your first report. Be sure that that is brief. And do not put in either report how old I am, nor even suggest that others have lived as long or longer."

  Hank started to ask why he shouldn't, but he said, "Telling them that would ensure that they would try to get here. They would want your secret of longevity. That, more than gold and jewels and more territory and the marvels of another universe, would bring them here. Everybody wants to live forever."

  "Yes, that would be the irresistible lure. However, not everybody wants to live that long. And few will ever have the means to do so. I could allow you to explain that, but they would not believe you."

  The morning of the seventh day after the message from Pershing, Hank was summoned to Glinda's apartment. She told him to sit down.

  "You do that so often I'm beginning to feel like a dog," he said.

  "Toto," she said, and she laughed. "Yes, I can remember that curious creature. Well, a dog, I assume, does not resent being ordered to sit down. Not if it loves its mistress. Here, Hank. Hold this in your hand."

  A little man with a long gray beard extended a round whitish-gray object the size of a large plum.

  "The Black Pearl of Truth," Glinda said as Hank took it. "It's not a genuine pearl; it just looks and feels like one."

  There were no oceans or oysters known to this land, but apparently, there were river mussels which had pearls.

  "My mother told Mr. Baum about this. She said that you had shown it to her. Baum used it in his second book. But he assumed that you wore it next to your body. I suppose that he was wrong."

  "Right. Wrong," Glinda said. "You, the one being tested, must hold
it or wear it next to your skin."

  He thought that it probably detected the shifting electric potential of the holder's skin. It would turn from gray to black if the holder lied. But what if the wearer believed that he was telling the truth, though he was not?

  As if she'd read his mind, Glinda said, "It couldn't be depended upon if you were insane. But you're sane, at least, I judge you to be so. Relatively speaking, that is. No one is completely sane. A person that is would go crazy."

  Hank held the "pearl" up between his thumb and forefinger.

  "This also represents a danger to my world. If these could be manufactured and put in every court of justice, in every home, society would crumble."

  "I know that," she said. "That's why you won't mention it. As yet, anyway. However, it is unique. It can't be duplicated. No one knows how to make another like it. It's something the Long-Gones left behind them. It was found seven hundred years ago and has been owned by the Quadling witches ever since."

  At her command, he interpreted the message he had written the night before. The Pearl did not change color.

  "Good. What I expected," Glinda said.

  The report was placed inside a very thick insulated envelope, and that was placed inside a disc-shaped receptacle. This had a framework of spring steel and a triple-fold covering of tough leather. An accidentally drowned cow had provided the leather. The interior of the case and the insulation of broken walnut shells would hold the report and some photographs Hank had taken with the small camera, and some Quadling artifacts, including a tiny solid-gold statuette of Glinda. She looked at these before permitting them to be put into the case.

  "Too bad you don't have film that shows color," she said. "They won't be able to see the auburn of my hair."

  Hank grinned.

  "If Your Witchness would cut off a lock for export?"

  "Don't be a smart aleck."

  What would the Army brass and President Harding make of these pictures? One of the castle from the ground, an aerial view of it and the town, himself standing among a crowd of pygmies, Glinda on her throne, Glinda in a moose-drawn chariot, Glinda by him in front of the Jenny, the open pages of a book, the castle guard on review, a raccoon writing on a pad of paper, a cat reading a newspaper, two views of the cemetery, and many other photographs.

  Hank had captioned each. Surely, the mention of Glinda and Quadlingland would cause an uproar. Also, unbelief.

  He took off in the Jenny in a cloudless sky at 10:15 A.M., Central standard daylight saving time. The hawk, Ot, rode with him, her talons digging into the right shoulder of his heavy leather jacket. Though Hank knew the approximate area where the cloud had appeared, Ot claimed that she could pinpoint it. She gave him instructions, and he circled the place where the green haze was supposed to show. Eleven o'clock came. The air remained empty. Fifteen minutes passed. Something had gone wrong. The gate-opening equipment had broken down or was malfunctioning. Or there was not, for some reason, enough power available. Or the opener-generator had blown up. Or the brass had decided to call off the operation because of bad weather.

  A half hour went by. He observed four of the giant balls rolling far out in the desert. When he had the opportunity, he would photograph some of them.

  After a while, Hank was both bored and anxious. He was also tired of circling counterclockwise, so he straightened out and turned and went on the clockwise path. And then, just as he had noted that it was 11:46:12, Ot startled him by screaming in his ear. He looked up from the watch to his left. About forty feet below a green cloud was beginning to form.

  He banked even steeper and nosed down. With his left hand, he picked up the disc by its edge and held it edgewise out into the airstream. By the time he was above the haze, it had expanded into a diamond-shaped area the widest part of which could easily enfold the Jenny.

  His heart beat like the pick of a miner who had just seen the start of a gold vein.

  If he dived suddenly and steeply, he could zip through the cloud and be back on Earth.

  But he did not, and he was glad that he had not. The green began to shrink rapidly. When he flipped the disc in it, the haze was the size of a large desk, and for a second, he thought that it would miss the target. If he had tried to escape, his plane, and, possibly, himself, would have been sliced.

  "They didn't give you much time," Ot yelled in her Victrola-like voice.

  "They would have if they could have!" Hank yelled back.

  Evidently, they were having trouble with the machine.

  Glinda would be somewhat comforted when he reported that.

  When he came to her counselling-room, she did not ask him, as he had expected, if he had been tempted to pass through. She told him to do what he could towards his report but not to let that interfere with the pick-up flight.

  "Do you still think that you can return in six days?"

  "Give or take a few," he said. "I may be grounded by bad weather or engine trouble. I would like permission to have more time so that I could see my mother's house in Munchkinland."

  "I can understand your sentiment," she said. "But you'll have to do that some other time. I have reports that Erakna's armies on the Winkie and Oz borders have been considerably increased. Is it possible for you to leave sooner than planned?"

  Hank thought for a minute, and then said, "I could go tomorrow if I forget about mounting the machine-guns on the Jenny."

  Glinda smiled. "At dawn then."

  "If the weather's good."

  "Don't worry. It will be."

  He did not believe, as her subjects did, that she could control the weather. But she might have meteorological data brought to her by her bird agents. And, after three hundred years, she must be able to "predict" weather as well as or better than the best weather-forecasters of Earth. Not that that meant much.

  Before sunrise, he was flight-checking the Jenny and making sure that all his supplies had been loaded. Glinda, in thick white woolen clothes and boots, was there to see him off and give him some last-minute instructions. Lamblo, also dressed against the early-morning cold, stood to one side, trying not to look sad. She had wanted to go with him, but, even if the queen had allowed her to, she could not. There was no room for her.

  Two hawks, Shii and Windwaldriiz, were in the front cockpit. Ot was with Hank so she could navigate for him; Windwaldriiz would leave them when they got to the Emerald City to carry the news to Glinda; Shii, when they got to the Winkie ruler's castle.

  The gray light brightened, and the sun rose swiftly from the horizon. Hank said a see-you-later to the queen. Lamblo came up to him and said, "Kiss me, Hank."

  He hesitated. She said, "Don't be bashful. Everybody knows about us."

  "I'll bet," he said. "Even the Gillikins."

  He bent down and lifted her up to the level of his face and gave her a long kiss. When he set her down, he looked at Glinda. She was smiling. He would have felt better if she had looked just a little bit jealous.

  He climbed into the cockpit. The motor had been warmed up, so it started quickly and smoothly when a Quadling spun the propeller after Hank yelled, "Contact!" He used the English word, which he had taught the two men assigned to him as mechanics.

  The wheel blocks were pulled aside, and he eased in the throttle. The Jenny started moving forward. He taxied to the east end of the meadow, turned around to face the dawn-gentle western wind, then gave Jenny the gas. As his wheels lifted, he waved at the group in front of the hangar.

  His course lay northwest by north. He had had to adjust the compass since there seemed to be ten degrees difference in true north here and on Earth. In any event, he did not need the instrument. Ot would notify him at once if he deviated from the flight path. She was standing by his left hip now, jammed into the space between him and the cockpit fuselage wall. Better she was there, even if it crowded them, than on his shoulder. Birds, unlike the animals, could not control their evacuations. Hank had had to clean off his jacket after their last flight. Ot was on a th
ick cloth now, and, if it was dirtied, it would be thrown away when they landed.

  The weather was as pleasant as Glinda had said it would be. At three thousand feet altitude, the Jenny bore through the sky with very little air disturbance. Farms, interspersed by wide areas of woods, dirt roads, small lakes, and a river reeled by below him. At noon, he landed near a small village and refueled. He had plenty of alcohol in the tank, but he liked to have a good reserve. Besides, he needed to relieve himself and to eat lunch. The locals came out in a body to gawk at him, a few daring to speak to him.

  Twenty minutes later, he took off again. An hour before dusk, he touched down at a larger village near a small river.

  His quarters were ready, a room in the house of the Kaizar, the elected leader, the equivalent of a mayor. Hank would rather have slept in a barn and have the people kept away from him. He was far from being antisocial, but he needed time for some hard exercise and eight hours' sleep. The locals were hot to ply him with questions, food, and liquor, give a big party for him, and keep him up as late as possible with their merry-making.

  Also, he might as well sleep in a barn since there were no beds big enough for him. When he was in his host's house, he had to stoop to get through the doorway and hunch over to keep from bumping his head against the ceiling. He supposed he'd have to sleep on a pile of blankets.

  The questions shoved at him were about equally divided among queries about Earth, the witch-queen, whom few of them had seen, and the rumors of the threatening invasion by the Gillikins. Hank sighed with weariness when he thought that he'd have to put up with these at every stop. But he did his best to be genial and reply as best he could. After all, he was sort of an ambassador to Oz, and he was Glinda's representative.

  Also, he liked these tiny people even if the piping voices of a mob pressing on him did get on his nerves. They were, in many respects, alien, but on the whole they seemed friendly and hospitable. The young unmarried women did their best, some openly, others subtly, to get him to sleep with them. He rejected them reluctantly and gently. Though tempted, he told himself that Lamblo was, in a way, his fiancee. She had not asked him to marry her and might never do so. But the attitudes and circuitous comments of the castle people made him think that they were, in effect, engaged.