A Barnstormer in Oz

Respectfully and sincerely, Henry Lincoln Stover

While the ink dried, Hank paced back and forth. Were his efforts to be wasted?

He sent a hawk with a message to Glinda. A few minutes later, the hawk returned and said that Glinda could see him at once. When he got to the conference chamber, he told her he had written a letter, and he translated it aloud for her.

She said, "I hope that it will convince your leader to change his mind. I doubt it, though."

"I suppose you're right," he said. "I wish it could be delivered now before they try something else."

Glinda smiled and said, "I'll deliver it. Tonight."

Hank was startled. "But...?"

"Oh, it'll cost me, but I know that Erakna is in no position, at this moment, anyway, to attack me while I'm weakened. Besides, it'll be easier and so cost less to me to go through the opening your people made. The more the passageway is used, the less energy needed to go through it."

Hank thought that he need not have been so surprised. She must have a barrel of tricks up that sleeve.

"Do you know exactly where to place the message?" he said.

"I have the letters and other items they sent you. These will enable me to track back to the senders."

"How...?" Hank said. He stopped because her smile made it evident that she would not answer him. It seemed to him, however, that the letters and the items must leave some sort of vibrational spoor behind them during their passage in space. Psychic tracks?

He sighed. He would probably never know unless he became a wizard.

To do that, he would have to stay here and to become a citizen. Abandon his American citizenship and apply for naturalization papers to Oz.

In that moment, he knew that that was what he intended. What his unconscious had intended for some time. That is, he had wished to be a citizen. He was not sure that he cared to be a wizard.

The next day, Hank Stover was eager to ask Glinda if she had delivered his letter. He was told, however, that she had left word that she was not to be disturbed until three o'clock that afternoon.

"The queen is sleeping," the messenger said.

One hour after the sun had reached its zenith, the green haze appeared. The aircraft that shot from it was a D.H.4B, probably one that had been used to bring in supplies or a soldier. This time it carried a pilot and a photographer. It circled low over the meadow for two minutes, then it circled the castle.

Hank half-expected that a message for him would be dropped from it, but he was disappointed. The plane flew back across the desert and into the haze, which had reappeared two minutes before the craft reached it.

If the big brass thought that he was lying, they would have to believe otherwise when they saw the photographs. They would show some graves filled in, others half-dug, and burned bodies stretched out waiting for burial.

What did the lack of a message mean? That they had not yet written a reply or that they were pla

He spent an hour in the room where birds and humans brought verbal reports for Glinda. These were taken down by the scribes, and the pages piled in a basket on her desk to be taken to her suite. Nobody objected to his listening in. He did not think that that was an oversight. Glinda, who never missed a thing, must have given orders that he would not be denied admittance.

The Emerald City was under siege, but, so far, the Gillikins had not tried to storm it. The Scarecrow, however, had had a narrow escape. Eagles bearing burning torches had tried to drop them on it when it was inspecting the guards on top of the walls. One had landed only a few inches from it and frightened it. Of the few things it feared, fire was the greatest.

Most of Ozland was occupied by now, and the survivors of the defending army had fled into Quadlingland.

Erakna was in Munchkinland but pla

The chief of the Pekotasha nation had agreed to furnish an army for Erakna. It was not as large as Erakna had asked for because Wasokat was forced to keep a large standing army on his borders if the Shanahooka nation should attack him.

The Tin Woodman and his guerrillas had retreated even deeper into the Winkie hills. A Gillikin army was making an all-out effort to track him down. But they were suffering heavy casualties because the Winkie wild animals were actively allied with the Woodman.

There was much disaffection and resentment among the Gillikins. They were unhappy about being ruled by a red witch, and they saw no reason for the war. Erakna had issued orders for savage reprisals against all suspected of anything but absolute loyalty.

A tornado in northwest Gillikinland had wiped out a battalion of soldiers, and the Gillikins were asking each other, secretly, of course, if the tornado had been generated and directed by Glinda.

The news was, like news everywhere in both worlds, both good and bad.

At 4:15, Hank was summoned to the conference room. He found a Glinda who was pale and a little blue and puffy under the eyes but energetic.

"Your letter was placed on a desk in the Signal Corps headquarters," she said. "It should have caused consternation, panic, and doubt. Not because of its contents but because they will know that I can penetrate their guard. They will wonder how I was able to do that. For all they will know, I could transport not only myself but an army into the strongest fortress."

"Could you?" Hank said.

"No. You know I can't. But there is one who can place an army within a castle, though she could not do it in your world. That is the red witch, Erakna the Uneatable. No, I'll modify that. She could place the Winged Monkeys in the area of my castle. She can't pinpoint their place of arrival, but, if she were lucky, she might get some within the castle near my suite. The others would be scattered within a quartermile area.

"Whoever controls the Golden Cap controls the Monkeys. You'd like to have that control, so you'd like to get hold of the Cap. But Erakna knows that, and she will have taken measures to prevent anyone getting her hands on it."

Glinda sat back and smiled. She looked so beautiful that a tiny lightning bolt pang shot through his chest.

"You are indeed your mother's son!"

"I take that as a high compliment. You wouldn't be bringing this up unless you had an idea for getting the Golden Cap. And you wouldn't waste your time telling me about it unless I figured in your plan."

"Very good. You figure prominently. In fact, you are the axle man, the one who holds the wheels and without whom the wheels could not turn."

"My people would say that I'm the big wheel."

She gestured impatiently. "Almost all of the arrangements have been made. One thing is lacking. Will you volunteer? I ca

Hank thought that she had done a pretty good job of ordering before now, but he did not say so.

"I'll have to know what kind of hot water I'll be in before I can answer that. However... you wouldn't have gone to whatever lengths you have gone to if you were not certain that I would volunteer. I'm not so sure that I like being so predictable."

"No one is one hundred percent predictable. If you should refuse me, I can replace you. To a certain extent, that is. I will still need you to transport the man I'd substitute for you."

Hank sighed.

"You're appealing to my pride. No, call it vanity. You're saying that no one else can fit into my boots." "Not to my satisfaction."

Hank looked around the room. He, Glinda, and Balthii, a goshawk, were the only ones present. Not even a mouse could have hidden there, and if it could, it would have been smelled out by Balthii. No spy would report on this meeting. He was silent while Glinda outlined her plan, then described it in detail. When she was finished, he said. "Why did you choose me? You need someone who's relatively inconspicuous, someone who can pass for a Gillikin. The same objection to me goes for Sharts the Shirtless, too. He's as tall as, I am. And how many Rare Beasts are there?"