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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. There 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 Je
Je
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, Je
He struck the instrument panel three times. Je
He pushed forward on the stick, sending the plane into a rather flat dive. He would pick up some speed. Maybe enough to get him through and past those ahead. He should also leave behind those aft and to both sides of him.
He was glad that Erakna's powers were not able to pinpoint the exact area at which the Monkeys would arrive. At least, he assumed that she had lacked those powers. Otherwise, she would have placed the creatures much closer to him and so not given him any time to react adequately.
The oncoming attackers swelled swiftly, too swiftly. Now he could see the batlike structure of the wings projecting from the monstrously large hump of back muscles. He could see the short and bird-thin legs. The whiteness of teeth, long and sharp. The reddish hair. The long outstretched arms. The hands clenching knives, short swords, and short spears.
Unlike the illustrations of them by Denslow, they wore no clothes. But the head of one was circled by a silvery crown. The king.
Hank kicked right rudder to put him into an intersecting path with the king.
He calculated that they would meet in about forty seconds.
That would be fatal for both of them, fatal for Je
Hank looked behind him. The monarch was standing up now, his ax ready. The hawk with him was fastened to the edge of the front windshield, interfering with Hank's vision. He screamed at her to get back down, but the whistling wind carried his words backward.
He shouted at Listiig. "Get off! Get off!"
The hawk hesitated, then rose and was snatched away.
Hank pulled back on the stick, lifting Je
The Monkey-King and others near him flattened their dive.
"Are they nuts?" Hank cried. "Trying to commit suicide?"
It would not be easy to shoot a small target like the Monkey-King even if the machine guns had been on the fuselage, just in front of him. But they were mounted on the upper wing. When he fired, he would be depending upon guess to hit his target more than anything else.
His eyes went up, then down. He pulled the cable which actuated the machine guns, and they chattered.
Dark blurs flashed by.
There was a thump, and Je
A Monkey had struck the top of the right upper wing—thank God, it had not smashed into the wing closer to the fuselage or hit the strut wires and parted them—and carried off some fabric and shattered the wooden end. But the damage would not interfere with the flight. Unless more fabric, lifted by the wind now filling that plane, was torn off.
He looked back. The hawks were diving for the shelter of the forest. Some Monkeys were following them, but their chase was hopeless.