"What was done to them?"
"They were left in the cages for a year. If they were not repossessed by then, they were executed. It'd be cruel to free them. They'd just die of hunger."
"Since this can happen to hawks," Hank said, "it must also happen now and then to other animals. And, I assume, to humans. Isn't that right?"
The mechanic crossed himself and said, "I have heard that it does. However, except for some stories which I do not believe because Little Mother says they're not true, the only ones who've ever been possessed are idiots."
Those who belonged to the main church made the sign of the cross and invoked Marzha, Hailag Aithii of Kristuz-Thun (Mary, Holy Mother of Christ-Thor). Sometimes she was called other names, though Nantho was the favorite. Nantho, if Hank remembered correctly, was the name of an ancient Gothic goddess. There was also confusion about Christ, because sometimes he was called Thun and sometimes Ogiiz. Hank did not know the origin of the latter name.
They had a form of the Mass, called the Kollekta in some regions and the Bread-breaking in others. It was conducted in a barbarous Latin, the translation of which had been lost.
The Goths must have entered this world with all or part of copies of the New Testament translated into Gothic. But the text had become corrupted and expanded since then, and the religion had also been changed and accreted. The Terrestrial and Orthodox churches would regard this branch of the church as heretical. But then the Amariikians would consider those two to be in grave error.
At noon, Hank was summoned to the conference room. Glinda, the two kings, and the human and animal counsellors were there.
"How soon can you leave?" the queen said.
"In half an hour. The spare wheels are ready, but if the battery goes dead, I'm out of luck."
"So be it. You should be able to get to the third refueling station before nightfall. You'll go to Oz first. After you drop Niklaz off, return to the Oz capital and help out the troops for five days. Do—what do you call it?—strafing. Anything you can do with your airplane. Then, regardless of the situation there, come back here. The next message from your people will be coming through shortly after your return."
"If I return," Hank said. "You surely realize, Glinda, that I might be attacked by Erakna's birds again. Or I could have an accident. Or..."
"Yes, I know," Glinda said. "There's also another danger. I've just learned that Erakna has stolen the Golden Cap of the Winged Monkeys. Do you know what that means?" Hank nodded.
The West Witch had had the Cap when Dorothy had been a prisoner in the Witch's castle. After Dorothy had thrown water on the Witch and the Witch had become, as it were, puddled, Dorothy had taken the Cap. After Dorothy had used the three wishes—"wishes"?—which the Cap's owner could use to control the Winged Monkeys, Glinda had given the Cap to the Monkeys' king. From then on, it was assumed, the Monkeys would be free. They would not be snatched away from whatever they were doing and be forced to do whatever a non-Monkey Cap owner wished, things which were often inconvenient and sometimes extremely dangerous for the Monkeys. Now they were in servitude again.
Hank thought, How does the Cap work? How could it make slaves out of the Monkeys? Why just three wishes?
"I don't know if the Uneatable would use them against you as yet," Glinda said. "However, I'm sure that she considers you a major threat to her. Otherwise, she'd not have sent those hawks after you. She might send the Monkeys to kill you and destroy the plane. Or she might just use the hawks again. Now that you have those machine guns, do you think you'd have a good chance to defend yourself against those flying simians?"
Hank shrugged, and he said, "It depends upon the situation. Jenny isn't a fast and highly maneuverable military plane. I really can't say." He paused.
"Maybe I should ask her. After all, she's in just as much danger. She might not want to volunteer for hazardous duty." Glinda smiled, and he knew that she knew. "Chenny isn't a free-will agent yet. She'll depend upon you. In fact, she's your subject and you're her king. For a while, anyway. She's like a baby duck; she attached herself to the first living thing she saw when she, ah, came out of wherever she'd been before."
"In that case," Hank said, "why didn't the Scarecrow attach itself to the farmer who made it? The farmer would've been the first living being it saw."
"You're a thinker," Glinda said, smiling. "Ask the Scarecrow."
Hank looked at the thing.
"I was very much attached to the farmer," it said. "I longed to get down off the pole and go with him. But he deserted me, and for a long time I had only crows for company. Then your mother came along and got me free, and I, uh, transferred, you might say, my dependence and my great affection to her. Still, I write—dictate, rather—a letter to the farmer once a year. And I take a great interest in his happiness."
"That's enough of questions," Glinda said. "Leave now."
"Pardon me," Hank said. "This concerns the trip. Will a hawk guide me? As you know, Ot is... out of it."
"You shouldn't need a guide," the queen said. "You've been over the route. But, yes, I've arranged for three hawks to go with you. One will stay with you as your guide."
Hank thanked her, bowed, and went to his suite to pack. Lamblo entered just as he had finished. She wrapped his waist with her arms and pressed one side of her face against his stomach.
"Oh, Hank, I have a terrible feeling about this trip. A premonition of death. I won't ever see you again!"
Tears wet his shirt. He lifted her up and kissed her.
"Don't worry. Premonitions mean nothing. I'll be fine."
He sat down on the bed and put her on his lap.
"I'll be gone about nine or ten days. You'll just have to control your randiness until I get back."
"It's not that!" she cried. "You know it's not! I love you, Hank!"
He planted a smacker on top of her blonde hair. He smelled fresh air and a very faint odor of violets. She was beautiful and lots of fun and a great bed partner and exuded outgoingness and courage. He was very fond of her, but he did not love her. Still, in a sense, he did love her. And so he was not wholly lying when he said, "I love you, too."
She got off his lap and turned to look up at him. Those blue eyes were so full of love and trust that he felt guilty.
"Enough to marry me?" she said.
Now was no time to hesitate.
"Sure," he said.
Why not? He would never have Glinda, and he was not certain that, if he did, he would like it. On the other hand—life was so otherhanded and underhanded, too—was he a coward? Afraid to hurt her by saying that he did not love her? When she would be hurt much more later on if things soured between them or he regretted having this impulse?
"Sure," he said again, smiling. He had thought of a good reason to delay any wedding.
"Sure. I'd marry you. But, Lamblo, what if I'm faced with having to choose between the Quadlings and my own people? I mean... I don't know what's going to happen. For all I know, there may be war, my country might invade this world. Just to keep your people from invading, I'm sure."
But he was not so sure.
"Your world is an unknown quantity. The Army officials will be afraid that Amariiki might be a danger to the United States. To our whole world."
Lamblo had backed away from him. She said, "But your people will find out that we're no threat to them at all. We're not, you know, and you'll tell them that."
"They might not believe me. Anyway, they won't quit trying to get here. They know this world is here, and just because it is, and because they've never been here, they'll come. They have to. It's true that, as of now, no other government knows about this world. But some other nation might find how to open the way. If this happens, then the government of that country will try to get here. My government knows this. They'll want to be the first here."
"And you'll help them do it?"
"Well, I really don't know. It's my patriotic duty. Still..."
"Glinda has told the counsellors what might happen if
more Earthpeople come here. It would be terrible! Ghastly! Surely, Hank, you have a higher duty! A duty to humanity! You're not some tribal savage who thinks only of his little group and everybody else can go jump off the edge of the world!"
Hank sighed, and he stood up.
"I'm late now. I have to go now. We'll talk about this when I come back."
A minute later, he was on his way to the hangar. He felt unhappy. He knew that, when he got back, he'd be confronted with the same situation. What would he do then?
He had no idea. However, he could think a lot about it while he was gone. If he had any time to do so.
When he got to the hangar, he found his passengers and Glinda there. He was irked. Glinda had come down to see the two rulers off but had not bothered when he had left for the first trip. After all, wasn't he the ambassador from Earth to Oz? He did not apologize for being late. He put his carpetbag in the storage compartment, and he said, "All's ready. Let's go—"
While Glinda embraced the kings, he went to the front of the plane and spoke in a low voice into Jenny's left ear.
"I changed my mind about you doing the piloting. I mean, I'll let you do it under certain circumstances. Just now, as a test, I want you to turn on the motor, taxi out, and take off. When we land at the first station, I'll teach you some simple signals for use while we're in the air. Later, we should be able to work out a more complicated system."
"May I ask why you changed your mind?" the airplane said.
"Sure. I was letting my pride override my sense of reality."
"What does that mean?"
"I'll explain some other time. Glinda is fidgeting. We'd better take off before the Queen of Hearts has my head chopped off."
"What?"
"Never mind."
The royal band was blaring nearby. Hank could barely hear himself now. He gestured at the two rulers, and they left Glinda and hurried towards him, one of them too stiff in his movements and the other too flexible. Hank helped them get into the rear cockpit. He had transferred the joystick to the front cockpit because he could only operate the machine guns from that position. Two of the hawks got in with Their Majesties, and the other, Listiig, flew to the front seat. Hank got in, waited until the mechanic had put ether in the carburetor, and then yelled, "Contact!"
Despite the band's noise, Jenny heard him. While Hank restrained the impulse to turn on the ignition and to keep his hands and feet off the controls, the propeller began turning slowly. The engine whined, then roared. Hank looked at Glinda and smiled. The wind from the propeller was unravelling her auburn hair and blowing her skirt up to her crotch. She was not trying to keep the skirt down; three centuries had made her indifferent to any code of modesty except her own.
After warmup, Hank checked the water temperature, oil pressure, and tach rate. Then Hank gave the signal for the mechanics to pull the chocks from the wheels. The plane began moving, left the hangar, and headed toward the northwest corner. Apparently, Jenny knew the direction of the wind by looking at the windsocket or she could detect it by her sensory system.
Hank felt uneasy, but he clamped down on his strong desire to take over the controls. Jenny taxied perfectly, did as well as he could, turned, faced into the wind, then began moving forward. Hank, fascinated, watched the stick and pedals move. Were they doing this because Jenny moved them, as he would have done, or did she move the rudder and ailerons first and the cockpit controls followed? He would have to ask her.
The takeoff was fine. When the altimeter registered a thousand feet, he knocked hard twice on the instrument panel. Jenny dipped the left wing in acknowledgment.
Hank had ordered Jenny to level off at three thousand feet altitude. She did so, and he wondered how she knew when she was at that point. Did she have some means of reading the altimeter?
He kept his eye on the indicator instruments and the landmarks for a while, then talked with his hawk-navigator. Hank had memorized the landmarks the first time around, but he asked Listiig about them. It would give the hawk a sense of importance or at least of usefulness.
After a while, Hank said, "There is much I don't understand about this world, of course. I was wondering, for instance, why Ot became dispossessed?"
Listiig, standing on his left shoulder, her talons digging into the leather jacket, the wind ruffling her feathers, screamed in his ear. "I heard about the mind-spirits attacking the flying machine! It's obvious what happened! One of them tried to take Ot over! It ousted the one that possessed her but failed to get into her!"
Hank grimaced with disgust. This was no explanation.
"No, I mean, just what is a mind-spirit or firefox?"
"Why, it's a spirit of the dead that has been cleansed of its sins and is sent out to live again in a body! Or it's an evil spirit that escaped from the Faroff Land and tries to take over a body!"
"Sure," Hank said. Apparently, all he was going to get was a religious explanation. Which was none at all. "Do you belong to a church?" he said.
"Of course! Doesn't everybody?"
Now and then, Hank saw large bodies of armed marching men followed by baggage trains. These were going north to help the Ozland troops. There were also cavalrymen riding on deer and moose. Chariots were used only for the castle guards and for ceremonial parades. Once, a long time ago, they had been ridden in battles that took place on large unforested plains, of which there were few now and even fewer then. They were drawn by bovines or cervines that had been bred for many generations for pulling power or speed.
Hank had wondered why the animals, who were citizens, had allowed themselves to be bred for certain qualities. What if a stag, for instance, had desired a mate that the human breeders did not want impregnated?
Animals, though sentient, were more driven by their instincts than humans. A stag might be fonder of a female than he was of others or a female might like a stag more than she did other males. They were, however, subject to rutting seasons, and when these came their sexual drives overcame their personal relationships.
The humans had solved this problem. They fed the animals they did not want to breed one of two mixtures of plants. The males got one which made them sterile, though it did not cut down on their virility. The females got one which effected a pseudo-pregnancy.
There had been and still were animals who had objected to this. But they had a choice of staying with the humans and abiding by the law or going into the woods and taking their chances there.
This was one of the situations where an animal was a second-class citizen. But it had been established through treaty with the animals' ancestors, and most seemed to accept it ungrudgingly.
The breeding agreement, along with some others, was the only means for animals and humans to live together with both parties profiting. Sheep, goats, cattle, and deer provided wool, hair, milk, and labor. They were not killed for meat, and they could not be worked to death or neglected or be ill-treated. When they died, they were buried side by side with the humans and mourned by the humans and animals who had cared for or loved them. Even if the Amariikian church had conformed in everything else to the Terrestrial Catholic religion, this belief that animals had souls would have made this world's church heretical.
Cats were a special case here—as on Earth. They were pets, some of them, anyway, but they were useful as home guards and as rodent-killers. Though most wild creatures stayed away from the areas marked off for humans, many mice and rats took their chances. They invaded houses and barns and were thus considered as outlaws. A human could not trap, poison, or shoot them unless he got permission from the courts because of special circumstances. Cats were given a license to kill rodents, which they would have taken anyway. But they were not allowed to kill any birds except outlaws.
There were other beasts among the marchers northward. Hank saw some mammoths and mastodons. Though midgets, they were huge compared to the other creatures.
The pachyderms were used to pull great wagons but would become warriors when at the front. Th
ere were also humpless camels which carried packs now but would usually fight unmounted and were led by their own camel officers. Sometimes, they carried archers into battle.
When Hank landed at the capital, he found the scene had changed. Now there was a host of tents outside the glittering walls, and men were drilling in the meadows. The riverfront was jammed with boats and great piles of boxes being unloaded. The Emerald City was getting ready for a long siege.
Hank only stayed down long enough to discharge the Scarecrow, refuel, inspect Jenny's wires, fittings, and fabric, and feed himself and the hawks. One of them, Wiin, would get a report on the latest news before taking off for Glinda's capital. A half hour after landing, Hank was lifting off. He had three and a half hours of daylight, plenty of time to get to Niklaz's castle. The sky was clear except for some cirrocumulus clouds, and the headwind was an estimated four to six miles per hour. He would stay overnight with the Winkie king and start at dawn for the return trip to the Emerald City.
Jenny was at two thousand feet altitude and twenty miles west of the Oz capital when a multitude of dots sprang into being ahead. And behind and on both sides of him.
Listiig screamed, "The Winged Monkeys! Holy Marzha, Mother of God! Erakna is out to get our tail!"
Hank's skin chilled. It was not just the danger that caused this. The presence of "magic," the teleporting of these creatures in great numbers from afar to his immediate vicinity, made him shiver. He should be used to such phenomena by now, but he probably never would be.
By now the dots had become silhouettes of winged creatures, a horde distinguishable even at this distance as nonavians. He estimated that there were two hundred straight ahead, and he did not know how many behind him and on each side. All were a thousand feet higher than he and diving to gain speed.
The JN-4H could climb at a rate of twelve hundred feet per minute, three times that of the JN-4D. But the Monkeys were above him, and they would be on him before he could get above them. If he dived, they would dive.
Perhaps his only advantage was speed. He did not think that the simians could go ninety miles an hour on level flight, Jenny's maximum velocity at this altitude with this load. They were probably too big and heavy for that. But he did not know for sure.
A Barnstormer in Oz Page 14
