A Barnstormer in Oz

by Philip José Farmer

  Hank did not know how Sharts had earned his sobriquet. He wore a bronze-colored velvet shirt which must have cost him, or the man he robbed it from, much money.

  Weird-looking as the giant was, he was like a candle beside a searchlight compared to Blogo. Hank knew at once that this creature's ancestors had not originated on Earth.

  Blogo's head was apish but bore on its top a tall fleshy-red rooster's comb. His nose was long and cylindrical and had a big knob at the end. His long rusty hair swirled in the back to make an opening for the third eye there. The eyes in front were small and light blue and looked guileless. His arms, though human enough, were covered with more rusty-red hair and reached to his knees. The torso was also human, though very hairy, and few men were as broad or as thickly boned. The legs were ostrich-like, very skinny, completely hairless and as pale as the belly of a fish. The feet were those of a five-toed bird.

  Blogo's chest was cavernous, but his voice was high-pitched and squeaky. It needed lubrication and apparently got it quite often. He carried on a shoulder strap a large stone flask which contained a mixture of water and grain alcohol, easy on the water.

  Sharts the Shirtless's voice was like the bass from an organ, deep, honey-flowing, and almost emitting sparks of charisma.

  Unreasonably, Hank became jealous. How would Glinda react if she ever met this fellow? And he was glad that saluting, not handshaking, was the custom here. This man could have pulped his hand and probably would have been pleased to do so.

  "Even in our mountain fastness we've heard of you," Sharts said. "The fabled Earthman. Tall as our ancestors were supposed to be. Neither of us, however, are as near to the sky as Thago the Ungracious, Erakna's bodyguard and lover. He boasts that he is the biggest and strongest man in the whole land. I hope to get near enough to him some day to test him."

  "I'd like to see that fight," Hank said. "I wouldn't want to tackle you."

  Sharts looked pleased, though he did not smile. He never smiled.

  "This," he said, gesturing at Blogo, "is my second-in-command and my bosom buddy."

  "At your service, friend of Glinda the Good," Blogo said. "I might add that, excluding Sharts for certain and Thago for perhaps, I am the second strongest man in the whole land. I am also the most courageous."

  "Yes, he's afraid of nobody or no thing," Sharts said. "Isn't that right, Blogo?"

  Blogo swelled out his chest, and his cock's comb expanded and became a deeper red. "Right."

  "Unafraid of anybody or anything," Sharts said. He paused, then said, "Except for the Very Rare Beast. Right, Blogo?"

  Hank could almost see the air spurting out of Blogo. The comb shrank, and it may have been his imagination, but Hank thought that the knobbed nose became slightly deflated.

  "Well, yes."

  "Who's the Very Rare Beast?" Hank said.

  "I don't even want to talk about him," Blogo said, and he strode off on his birdlike legs.

  Hank, watching him, said, "Are there any more like him?"

  "In spirit or in form?" Sharts said.

  "I mean... of his kind?"

  "A few," Sharts said sadly. "There are about twenty still living. His species is near extinction."

  "He doesn't look natural," Hank said. "I mean, he doesn't look like a product of nature, one of God's own creations."

  "He's not. His ancestors were, I believe, and I've done a deep study of his origins, made by the Long-Gones."

  Hank told him what had to be done. Sharts said that he would see to it that all that was required would be done and very swiftly.

  "When I say, ‘Go!', the whole universe beats it."

  Hank grinned but said nothing. When Sharts had left, Ot said, "You must restrain your quick temper around these people. They don't like badmouthing. They just might run you through with a knife, even though they do have a high respect for Glinda. Also, don't argue with Sharts. He thinks he knows everything, and he gets nasty if anybody contradicts him. Sharts's nastiness is ten times more nasty than anybody else's."

  "What was he outlawed for?" Hank said.

  "You might not believe it to look at him now," the hawk said. "But at one time he was the greatest scholar and doctor of medicine in Quadlingland. Except for Glinda, of course. One day, a subordinate had an attack of irrationality or pride or indiscretion. Or all three. I don't know just what Sharts and his assistant were arguing about. I've heard that it concerned whether or not the soul was a physical entity and, if so, where it was located in the body. Sharts claimed that it must be in the brain and it could be located and operated on so that its tendency towards evil could be removed. The assistant said that that was nonsense. Sharts lost his temper and broke the assistant's neck. Then he fled from justice and took refuge in the woods."

  "I'll try to control my temper," Hank said.

  "Good idea. Even the Cowardly Lion is afraid of him."

  "Why was the Rare Beast outlawed?"

  "Oh, him! Hah, hah! Ugly and outre as he is, he thinks he's the world's greatest lover. Maybe he is. Anyway, one of his many women claimed that she was pregnant by him. That's impossible, of course. No human woman could conceive by a Beast. But she pressed her suit in court, and the legally literal-minded judge of the remote rural area where they lived decided that Blogo had to marry her. That so enraged him that he killed the judge and three character witnesses with his bare hands, wrecked the courtroom, and fled through a window.

  "When Glinda heard about it, she cancelled the judge's decision, but he's still wanted for murder."

  "A nice pair," Hank said.

  "If you don't cross them, you'll find them very likeable," Ot said. "If you can stand Sharts's whistling and Blogo's bragging."

  Sharts might be arrogantly proud of his knowledge, but he certainly had a very keen mind for mechanics. He asked so many questions about the airplane that Hank became annoyed. He was discreet enough to conceal his irritation, however. And, once Sharts had had the principles of aeronautics and internal combustion motors explained, he was a great help to Hank. He assisted Hank in the inspection and repairs. He also rustled up fabric and glue to repair the wing torn by the enemy hawk. And he had Hank explain the operation of the .45 revolver.

  "We'd all have weapons like that," he said, "if it weren't for the witches and wizards."

  Hank said, "What do you mean?"

  "The explosives you call gunpowder were invented four hundred years ago. Maybe earlier. But the rulers made its manufacture and use illegal. Anybody caught with it was hanged. The witches and wizards did not want everybody who'd like to kill them to be able to do so from a half-mile away. Any competent magician can prevent any lay person from killing him within a quarter-mile range by arrows. So... no powder and no guns."

  "But my mother's farmhouse fell on the Munchkin witch and killed her."

  "It was a force of nature, a tornado coming seemingly from nowhere that did it," Sharts said. "The witch was caught off guard. And then there's always the possibility that Glinda had her hand in that."

  Hank raised his eyebrows. "That thought has occurred to me, too. Anyway, you're an outlaw. What's to keep you from making powder and guns?"

  "The witches don't bother me as long as I don't bother them. But if I did have guns, both the good and the bad witches would be on me like bluejays on a cat. Like coyotes on a dying bull."

  "I would think that a man with your great knowledge and mind would have become a wizard," Hank said.

  "I'm too well known, too easily identified. I'd have to find a mistress or master, a teacher, and the moment I applied to one of the big ones, I'd be marked, even if I could find one who'd take me as an apprentice. I wouldn't last long. I could find a minor wizard or witch, but they couldn't teach me what I'd want to know. The small ones are practicing illegally and will be hanged if caught. But the big witches tend to ignore the lesser ones since they're no danger to them."

  "What about Erakna? How'd she escape the notice of Glinda and the old North Witch?"

  "
She didn't. She was Helwedo's apprentice for a while, studying to be a white witch. Then she said that she'd had a change of mind, and she didn't want to be a witch anymore. She resigned and joined a nunnery in the far north. But she had become a red witch; that happens sometimes, you know, a good witch goes wrong. She managed to keep it secret, bided her time, and, when Helwedo died, she struck. She surprised Glinda. Believe me, that takes some doing.

  "Why has Glinda allowed you to keep your firearms?"

  "I don't know," Hank said. "I wondered about that, but I thought it better not to ask."

  "She's probably making an exception because she plans to use you. You'll be more useful because you have this flying machine and your exploding weapons."

  "I wouldn't be surprised," Hank said. He asked Sharts about the rolling lightning balls, the sentiency of animals, and the animation of the Scarecrow.

  Sharts's internal struggle was visible. He hated to say that he did not know the answers to Hank's questions. It galled and roiled him so much that he even forgot his obnoxious whistling. Finally, after many grimaces and grinding of teeth and twitching of nose and ears and fisting and unfisting, he acknowledged the truth.

  Hank kept his face blank. He did not want to look sympathetic or astonished. Sharts might resent either expression.

  "I do have several theories," the giant said, breathing heavily. "But they are such that I can't test them out in a laboratory. The witches and wizards claim that they don't know, but I think they're lying. They know, but they don't want the people to know."

  Using the undamaged propeller blade as a model, Sharts carved out of an indigenous wood as light as balsa two blades for the Jenny. Three days after the landing, the plane was ready to go. By then, the sky had cleared up. However, the weather-scout hawks reported that a heavy storm front was moving in from the west. Hank should be able to get to all of his refueling stations before it struck. He might even be able to reach Glinda's capital.

  He said thanks and goodbye to the outlaws. He waved to them from the cockpit as the Jenny climbed from the meadow. He had a hunch that he would see them again.

  When he landed at the last refueling stop, he got the latest news from a hawk sent by Glinda. Erakna had launched a full-scale invasion. Her armies had overrun the Winkies on the borders and were pushing through the forest between Gillikinland and Ozland.

  "What do we do now?" the Tin Woodman said. "We should be home directing our troops. Our people's morale will be low without us to lead them."

  "Glinda didn't tell me what to do if such an event happened," Hank said. "But she would have thought about its possibility. Obviously, she wants a conference with you whatever should happen."

  A weather scout flew in. The storm front was still one hundred miles away.

  The local conditions were strange. There was not a wisp of wind. The air was as heavy as the belly of a hog that had fallen into a corncrib. It was also very dry, as dry as the Prohibitionists had hoped that America would be after the Volstead Act. When Hank rubbed his hand across the patch on the wing, sparks cracked.

  The two rulers were uneasy. If they could have rolled their eyes, they would have done so.

  "We think that it'll be best for us to stay in camp until the storm is over," the Woodman said to Hank.

  "Why? That might mean a delay of several days. A week, maybe. Every second counts now."

  "When the air's so dry and there's so much electricity in the air, strange things sometimes happen," the Scarecrow said.

  "Like what?"

  "The little mind-spirits, the firefoxes, roam freely then. The witches can keep out the big ones, usually, but they can't control the little ones unless they're close to them."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sometimes, the little ones dispossess animals and birds and those who were bom in, uh, objects.

  "You don't have to worry about that. Few humans ever get dispossessed, though it does, rarely, happen. It's said that, when a good witch becomes a bad one, she's been taken over by an evil mind-spirit. I reserve conclusion on that statement. There's not enough information to decide what is the truth and what isn't."

  "They're right," Ot said. "We should wait until the storm's over."

  "We can get home before it comes."

  "You don't understand!" the Tin Woodman said. "It's here! Now! The first wave, anyway. Things'll get worse soon."

  "Oh, you're talking about the static electricity," Hank said.

  "Yes, of course!"

  "He's an ignorant Earthman," the Scarecrow said. "You can't expect him to understand."

  "His world must be a good one," the Woodman said, "if they don't have to worry there about mind-spirits."

  Hank was exasperated.

  "I don't think you know any more about these things than I do!"

  "We don't know much about them. But we have experienced them," the Scarecrow said gently and a trifle superiorly.

  "Well, what do you want to do?" Hank said. "Stay here or fly on? If you stay, you're going to be late for the conference. Worse, you'll be late getting back home. By the time you do, you might find that the Gillikins have occupied your capitals. Or the war's over, and you're no longer crowned heads. Just royal bums!"

  "That wouldn't be a bad life," the Woodman said. "To tell the truth, I'm not as happy as I should be. Being a king is hard work and tedious. I was happier when I was just a woodchopper. There wasn't any glory to it, but I didn't have all those responsibilities, either."

  "I would abdicate in a moment," the Scarecrow said, "if my conscience did not force me to stay on the throne. The people need someone with brains to guide them. Though, sometimes, I think that they'd do just as well without me. The system is set up so that..."

  "This is no time for soul-searching," Hank said. "Or maybe it is. Look. You two are putting your safety ahead of your concern for your people. Royal cowards! Do you think that Glinda even considered the possibility that you might delay the trip because you're scared? She would've gotten a report on what the weather conditions are here. But did she send a message that you should wait until the danger, if there is any, is over? No, she didn't."

  "You just don't understand," the Scarecrow said. "You wouldn't go up if there was a thunderstorm. Why should we go on when we'll have to face the equivalent of a thunderstorm, no, something much more perilous than that?"

  Hank became even angrier.

  "I'm taking off in a few minutes from now! If you decide to stay here, too bad! I'll just have to explain to Glinda what happened!"

  The Scarecrow, the Woodman, and the hawk groaned.

  Reluctantly, the three got into the cockpits. For once, Ot did not chatter incessantly or, indeed, at all. She was very subdued. Hank would have liked this if he had not started feeling guilty. Perhaps they did have some very good reasons for not going up. If anything they expected did happen, then he would be responsible.

  On the other hand, they should leave at once no matter what perils awaited them. He began wishing that a thunderstorm had sealed them in. Then everybody would have had an excuse for not flying. If every if was a drop of water, everybody would have been drowned long ago.

  About ten miles from the stop, as they were flying at five thousand feet altitude between two mountains, a form of St. Elmo's fire sheathed the craft. Spires of static electricity rose from every point. When he took his hand from the joystick, flame leaped between its end and his glove. Gouts of fire streamed up from the tops of the heads of the two in the front cockpit. Around the propeller was a flaming circle, a St. Catherine's wheel. Flame ran up and down the wires between the wings. Ot cowered down by Hank and moaned, then stuck her head under a wing.

  "It can't hurt us!" Hank shouted. No one besides himself could hear him, but he needed assurance, even if only from himself.

  He jumped as the fire on the right wing flowed towards its tip, and then collected into a ball about a foot in diameter. It began rolling back and forth along the right upper wing. Then it shot from the ti
p onto the left upper wing, drawing the fire there into it.

  Hank dipped the left wing in the forlorn hope that the ball would roll off. It did not, of course.

  The Scarecrow and the Woodman had disappeared. They must be bending over as far as they could go to escape observation. As if the ball could see them!

  Now the sphere rolled inwards along the upper wing. It stopped for a moment at the inner edge of the wing above the front cockpit. Hank watched it while he cursed himself for having insisted on the flight. He was scared. Part of his fear derived from his helplessness and not knowing the nature of this thing.

  Suddenly, the sphere leaped out, a fiery missile shot by an invisible cannon. It arced over the front cockpit and landed on the edge of Hank's windshield.

  He stared into the bright blaze and could see through it the trailing edges of the upper wing and the clear sky beyond.

  A vision of it landing on his head, enveloping it, and then exploding was so strong that he almost believed mat it had happened.

  He yelled with terror, and Ot, startled, jerked her head from her wing. She screamed, and she leaped upwards, her wings unfolding. She was abandoning ship.

  The sphere shot out at an angle past Hank. He twisted his head to see it, but it was gone by then. Where? Ot was dwindling, a dark shape below him. She was, however, no longer flying. Her wings were extended for gliding.

  He felt relieved until he realized that he had lost his guide.

  There was more to worry about than finding his way back. Again, the plane was wrapped in the eerie electric flames. A glowing sphere formed, but this time on the tip of the left upper wing. It rolled along the plane, sucking up the static, until it had traversed the entire length. Then it rolled back and poised, as had the previous one, above the front cockpit.

  Hank pulled the .45 revolver out of the holster and shot it.

  He did not think that the bullet would do any good. In the first place, the bullet was lead, not iron. In the second place, even if it had been iron, it was not grounded. Just as he had expected, the sphere was undisturbed.