A Barnstormer in Oz

Hank said, "But what about the wild animals?"

"They eat each other," she said, shuddering.

Hank dropped behind to look at some tobacco on a stand. But he forgot about that because of the entrancing swing of Lamblo's hips. Holy smoke! Now there was something that was the same on both worlds. And it had been so long, far too long...

Lamblo turned when she became aware he was no longer with her. She must have read his expression. She smiled knowingly, and she walked back to him.

"Well, Handsome Giant?"

He cleared his throat.

"Well, ah, I was just thinking. Why haven't I been given this sterilizing drink?"

"Because you've been a prisoner until today. However, the queen has ordered me to put in a supply for you and to make sure that you drink it daily."

"Yes?" he said, studying her.

"You'll get it as soon as you return to your rooms."

"Why would I need it?" he said. He waved a hand to indicate the tiny people around them. "I'm so big. It seems impossible."

She burst out laughing.

"Just how much experience have you had with women?"

His face warmed.

"Plenty."

"I don't really doubt that, magla. But they must all have been giantesses. I assure you that little women have no trouble with big men."

How would you know? He did not voice the thought; it would have been indiscreet.

She touched the back of his hand with a finger, an exquisite finger, a child's. The contact made tiny lightning balls roll over him and through him. "Come," she said in a suddenly husky voice.

She turned and walked to the chariot. He followed her and got into the vehicle. After making sure that he was holding the front rail, she told the two moose to return to the castle as quickly as possible. They started trotting, but one of them turned his head and said, "You promised we could have the rest of the day off."

Lamblo laughed and said, "Very well. But you talk too much."

Hank raised his eyebrows. Had she pla

He scarcely noticed anything during the trip back. When they were in his apartment, Lamblo at once went to a table on which was a bottle of red-purple fluid, the spermatocide. She opened it, saying, "The other bottles will be in the chest of drawers by your bed."

She poured out about six ounces into a stone cup carved into a gargoyle face. Hank took it by the big flaring ears and gulped the stuff down. It tasted like a mixture of walnuts and cranberry juice, and something unidentifiable, sharp yet pleasant.

"It'll take full effect in fifteen minutes," Lamblo said.

He belched but did not excuse himself. Quadling custom did not require that. Neither did flatulence unless it occurred in the presence of the queen.

Lamblo sat down in the chair used by the instructors. She started to take off a calf-length boot. "I'll take a bath."

"Must you?"

She removed the other boot and then her socks.

"Himin! (Heavens!) My feet are so dirty!"

"It's good clean dirt," he said thickly.

She rose and unbuttoned her jacket. "Very well."

"It's been so long that it won't take long," he said. "The first time."

She smiled. "Your conference with Little Mother isn't until after breakfast."

Hank hated himself at that moment, though not overly much. He wished that it was Glinda, not Lamblo, standing before him.

That's not fair to her, he thought. But when had anybody anywhere ever been fair in this situation?

Lamblo's eyes widened.

"You are indeed a giant, magla."

Hank had always had to have several cups of coffee before breakfast. It was the only way to start the day. He was out of luck here. He could not, however, be grumpy with Lamblo. After their long night, he'd have been a real heel to treat her churlishly. So he forced himself to smile and to chat away lightly, though he seldom spoke a word until coffee had humanized him.

He drank the apple juice instead of the warm milk—he couldn't down that so early—and he ate his egg omelette mixed with walnuts, his delicious brown bread and butter and jam, and slices of a melon. The latter must be indigenous; it tasted different from any he'd ever had.

Oh, God, for coffee and orange juice and bacon in the morning! And for roast beef and ham and chicken and turkey and mashed potatoes, and tomatoes in his salad, and bananas and peanut butter! At least, he had apples. The ancient Goths had been introduced to the apple tree by the Romans, and seedlings had been brought into this world by the ancestors of the Amariikians. They had also brought in lettuce. Which meant that the ancestors were probably Ostrogoths, East European or maybe even Asia Minor tribes. Lettuce had not been grown in Western Europe until the Middle Ages.

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.