"Farmer,.Phillip.Jose.-.A.Barnstormer.In.Oz" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

and this planet shared the same extra-atmospheric space but yet were walled off from each other. Or they were two different floors in the same planetary building, as it were. When he had gone through the green haze, he had ascended from the first floor,,Earth, to the second floor, Ertha.

Ertha. That that was so similar to the English word was no coincidence. Not when the language used lamb for lamb, fotuz for foot, manna for man, kald for cold, arm for arm, and herto for heart. The people of this desert-surrounded land, called Amariiki, "Spirit-Kingdom," spoke a tongue descended from some Germanic language. He suspected that it was Gothic, but he did not know enough to be sure.

There was also a nation to the north which was called Oz. This was not a word which these people had brought in from Earth.

Hank Stover had had many questions, still did, but he could not ask them until he learned his captors' speech. Since they started his language lessons an hour after he was in his luxurious cell, they were eager to communicate. Most of his daylight hours were spent bent over by the window in the door. His instructors, all wearing gauze masks for the first two weeks, stood on the other side. Hank learned much, but he got a hell of a backache and, sometimes, a headache.

"What am I?" he yelled now and then. "A skunk? A pariah? Something unspeakably filthy and degraded? A leper? A Socialist?"

Four men, four women, and a child taught him, each for about an hour and fifteen minutes. One was the blonde pipperoo, Captain Lamblo, "Little Lamb." Like the others, she had no surname but had a nickname or cognomen. Hers was "The Swift."

They started out by pointing to and naming parts of their bodies. He repeated their words until his pronunciation was perfect or, at this stage, acceptable. If he could have seen their lips, he would have learned faster.

They brought in objects and named these. After five days, he was taught simple sentences.

"Sa-her'z ain sko." "This is a shoe."

"Sa-thar'z ain hilm." "That's a helmet."

"// sai thuk." "I see you."

"Sai thu mik?" "See you me?"

A BARNSTORMER IN OZ

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"Ain, twai, thriiz..." "One, two, three..."

He was able to relate many words to three branches of the Teutonic language. His Swedish governess had taught him some of her language, and he had learned German in prep school, during the Occupation, and at Yale. This enabled him to relate some of the words to English.

But how had the Teutonics gotten into this world? And why had they become pygmies?

In the meantime, he had managed to get a building erected around the Jenny to protect her from the weather and wind. He could not see the plane because his windows, the augdor, literally, eye-doors, faced the south. He had also gotten his captors to deliver his luggage, which was kept in the recess under the rear turtle deck. This had been brought to him wrapped in sheets and carried by men with gloves. The sheets were removed, and the cases were pushed through the door at the ends of long sticks. He supposed that the sheets and gloves would be burned later.

He was happy about this. He had had to wash his underwear, shirt, and socks in cold water and with the strong soap. Then he had had to go without them until they had dried. Now he had a change. He also had a carton of Camel cigarettes and a quart of bootleg booze, Glenfiddich scotch, smuggled in from Canada. He'd had to smoke the local tobacco, a strong burley, in a pipe. He did not like to smoke a pipe. They'd given him beer, which was tastier than any he'd ever had, but he preferred hard liquor. The stuff they'd given him was grain alcohol mixed with water and the juice of berries.

Also in the luggage was a Colt .45 New Service revolver and two boxes of ammunition. These people had no idea what they were, but he did not intend to use them.

There were also copies of a farmer's almanac, Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, Civilization In the United States, edited by Harold Stearns, and two Current Opinion magazines. The latter had been taken from a Kansas City boardinghouse, and, though they were the April, 1920 and April, 1921 issues, Hank had started reading them. They had many interesting articles. Besides, he would read anything, even the labels on a can of Campbell's soup, if he had nothing else.

He also exercised vigorously for an hour, and he spent some time observing the celestial phenomena and the hun-

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Philip Jos6 Farmer

A BARNSTORMER IN OZ