Kansas, She Says, Is the Name of the Star

Cowardly Lion

Dawn found Amy sitting in a cold wheatfield, miserable and alone, with the silent robot at her side. Tall fluffy clouds dotted the bright 3V sky. Pickup, whatever that meant, had not happened. Instead she had lost Dorothy, the best friend she ever had. Practically her only friend. Sure Dorothy was weird, but no weirder than tutoring her seventh-grade step-mom, or having Dot call her “Aunti Em.” Given her family, anyone Amy got to know was sure to be strange.

Despite Dorothy’s genetic deformity, the Munchkin was the bravest, smartest person Amy had ever known. The only one to say, “Look girl, this is totally nuts. We’re getting you out of here.” Now she was going nowhere. Whoever was coming for Dorothy, did not come for her—leaving Amy with no notion what to do next. Her big, shining, tin-plated robot was strong, fast, tireless, and obedient, but unable to offer suggestions. Worming advice out of the metal man got answers like:

Or maybe:

And repeatedly:

If he only had a brain. Taking a drink from her waterbag, Amy noted it would need to be filled. Not so easy this far from the Solomon, where creeks were few and dry.

Deciding to pee, she got up and walked around behind the metal man, going a good ways into the wheat. Sure, he was just a machine that saw and talked, but it made her feel better. Pulling down her scarecrow pants, she squatted in the wheat, wondering what to do next.

Nothing came to mind. As Amy finished, and pulled up her pants, she was blindsided by a tawny blur that shot out of the wheat stalks, knocking her off her feet.

Clawed hands seized her, one covering her mouth, the other pressing her into the wheat. Something heavy and hairy had landed on top of her, holding her down and hissing in her ear, “Stop thrashing and squealing. You’re going to give us away.”

Us? What did this beast mean? Though it had hands and fingers, the thing holding her most resembled a man-sized panther, with tan fur and a slight lisp. He whispered, “Promise not to scream, and I will take my hand away.”

She nodded vigorously, and his hand relaxed. Amy breathed out, then turned to look at her attacker. Seeing a tawny, yellow-eyed cat face, with white saber-like canines inches from her throat, Amy shrieked.

His hand cut off her cry. “You promised,” he hissed. “Screaming will just bring Bushwhackers.” Neither of them wanted that. Amy nodded again, and he relaxed his grip. She asked, “Who are you?”

“Call me Leo,” the big cat suggested, “a lot of humans do.”

“What are you?”

“Never seen a SuperCat?” Leo sounded sorry for her. “We’re a genetic improvement on humanity, faster, stronger, smarter, and fiercer, created centuries back from human and big cat DNA, to tackle superhuman tasks.”

So far, all Leo had tackled was her, but he was rigged for trouble, wearing battle-armor, and a string of gas grenades that dug into Amy’s side. She was also getting her first close-up look at the butt of a military-style stinger, tucked into the SuperCat’s furry armpit. Leo’s sly saber-toothed smile widened.

“My current task is simple. Have you seen a small dark-haired female in a blue dress? I fear she is in distress.”

“Maybe.” Leo was no Bushwhacker. Or Wheeler. This heavily armed, gene-spliced catman fairly screamed “off-world.” Animals in Cloud County usually knew their place. Only parrots talked, and even the worst chicken-thief coyotes stole about unarmed.

“My orders are to rescue her,” Leo explained. “She is Peace Corps, assigned to this world.” Peace Corps. Another word adults only whispered. Besides runaway girls, Bushwhackers were on the lookout for Peace Corps spies, who were the worst sort of Jayhawkers, fiends that came in the night to steal naughty girls like Amy. What they did with them, heaven only knew. Dorothy hardly fit the image. Smiling slyly, the SuperCat cocked an eye at her. “Tell me you never heard of the Peace Corps?”

“I have heard of them.” She just did not know who they were.

“Good.” Leo got up, setting Amy back on her feet. “’Cause they are the only folks within a billion light-years who give a hoot about your naked-monkey ass. So you need to help me.” Amy finished pulling up her pants, telling her attacker, “You didn’t have to jump me while I was peeing.” Leo laughed, standing up on his hind legs. “Second best time to hit an awake human. I didn’t want to tackle your robot too. That was the only time you parted from him.”

“Right.” Good thing she had already peed. It was nice to know that he feared the robot, which was programmed to defend humans from animal attack.

Her captor patted chaff off her pants, asking, “So have you seen Dorothy?”

“Wheelers took her.” Amy pointed back toward the yellow brick road. “Heading west.”

“Probably taking her back to Wheeler,” Leo decided.

“What will happen to her?” By now she was horribly worried for Dorothy. Wheeler sounded worse than the Concordia Academy for Reluctant Virgins.

Furry shoulders shrugged. “Do I look like a Wheeler?”

Not a lot. “So what will you do?”

“Report that she did not make pickup.”

Leo was beginning to sound like the robot. Amy scooped up her hat, saying, “I’m going to find her.”

“In Wheeler?” Leo laughed aloud.

Wherever. Two days away from home, with nothing but her scarecrow clothes, and a next to useless robot, Amy knew what to do. Dorothy needed to be saved. Her whole life turned on that wish-upon-a-star. Going back now would be as good as suicide.

“This is nonsense,” Leo declared, as she stalked over to the tin man, telling him to pick her up. The robot hoisted her onto its shoulder.

“What will you do for me?” Amy asked. “If I give up on Dorothy, what do I get?” Leo shrugged again. “Nothing.”

Exactly. Leo meant to abandon her, as soon as she ceased to be useful. Dorothy deserved better than that. Amy told the robot to take her to the yellow brick road, and head west. Rolling his eyes, Leo trotted after her, saying, “You’re going the wrong way.” Amy shot back. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Leo assured her. “But I cannot allow you to get caught. You know too much.” Of course. So long as it was just Dorothy, he didn’t care. But she had seen Leo, and the SuperCat could not afford to let Bushwhackers beat the truth out of her—then come looking for him. Hardly caring about humans, Leo was very careful with his own furry skin.

Leo told her, “Wheelers have to use the yellow brick road, going west to Wheeler. That’s the long way around the torus. We can go the short way, through the Kickapoos to Cheyenne country, getting to Wheeler before they arrive.”

Head the wrong way and get there first. Why was she the only one who thought that sounded wrong?

“And you’re coming with me?”

“Reluctantly,” Leo admitted. He could not coerce her so long as she sat atop her tin-plated protector. So they turned about, heading for Kickapoo Country, bypassing Jewel City, Kackley, Norway, and Agenda. When the yellow brick road ended, Leo led her through the badlands in broad daylight, without so much as seeing a Kickapoo. Leo was not lying about his SuperCat abilities. Only the tireless tin man let Amy keep up.

In a few hours they had come back around, and were in Cheyenne County, crossing the south fork of the Republican, which should have been miles behind them. On the far bank, Amy saw the yellow brick road rising out of the stream. She had found the west end of the road by heading east, making her world very much smaller than she ever imagined.

Leo led her past Wheeler, to a lonely stretch of the yellow brick road west of Bird City, so close Amy glimpsed the half-mile tall aviary tower. She would have liked to get a closer look, but feared being spotted by Birdmen, who were little better than flying Bushwhackers. By now she was a posted runaway bride, with a generous reward for her capture, payable in Concordia. At a shady spot out of sight of the tower, she and Leo settled down to watch the road. Curious about the wider universe, Amy asked the SuperCat, “Where do you come from?”

“From a world far, far away,” Leo replied airily.

“Why?”

“Excellent question, especially when I am about to take on a pack of Wheelers, aided by a scarecrow in drag.” Leo clearly did not like their chances, and resented her putting him here. “This is what I do. Every so often, the Peace Corps must be backed by the sure and precise use of force. Something humans are pretty horrible at.”

Hard to argue there. All the force in Cloud County, from Bushwhackers to just plain folks, were aimed at making her life hell—for no good reason that Amy could see.

This deep in Cheyenne County, there was scant traffic on the yellow brick road, so when a dust cloud appeared, Amy knew it would be Wheelers. Leo looked intently down the road, finally saying, “She’s with them.”

“How can you tell?” All Amy could see was dots beneath the dust cloud. Leo tapped the corner of his eye. “2000x1 night lenses. I can see her yellow bows.” No wonder Dorothy could find her way in the dark. Amy held her breath, watching the dust cloud get bigger. Looking away for a moment, she saw that Leo had vanished, along with the robot. Just like the cowardly lion to leave her all alone.

By now the Wheelers were near enough for her to see Dorothy, strapped in a side-car. As the Wheelers drew abreast of her, gas grenades went off along the yellow brick road. Sleep gas billowed up on both sides of the Wheelers, who lost control, skidding and crashing into one another. Dorothy’s side-car kept her motorcycle stable, and it came roaring out of the white gas cloud, with Dorothy asleep, and the tin man at the controls.

Very neatly done. Leo rose out of the long grass, never having gotten near the wrecked Wheelers. The robot brought the cycle to a stop in front of Amy, with Dorothy still slumped in the side-car. Leo sauntered over and administered an antidote.

Dorothy’s eyes flipped open, and the girl in blue gingham stared up at the 3V sky, asking, “Where am I?” Amy knelt down to take her hand. “Just west of Bird City, on the way to Wheeler.” That shocked Dorothy. “What the hell am I doing here?”

“It will take too long to tell,” Leo objected. “We’ve missed pickup, and must make for Mount Sunflower.”

Dorothy grimmaced. “That bad?”

“Worse,” the SuperCat assured her, helping Dorothy mount the robot. Amy climbed up onto the other shoulder, and they headed for Mount Sunflower, leaving unconscious Wheelers littering the yellow brick road.

South of Wheeler, rolling plains rose toward mile-high Mount Sunflower. They crossed the Little Beaver and the North Fork of the Smoky Hill, seeing nothing but Cheyenne lodges and clumps of buffalo. Ominous lightning strikes to the north were followed by distant rolling thunder, on an otherwise sunny day. Clearly tornado weather.

Beyond the North Smoky, Dorothy spotted something behind them. “UFO to the north.” Leo glumly agreed, but it was twenty minutes before Amy made out a blue-white spark near the northern horizon, backed by tall spiked clouds and a darkening sky. Feeling the breeze stirring, and pressure dropping, Amy warned, “There’s a tornado coming.”

“Do tell?” Leo had come to the same conclusion.

Amy asked Dorothy, “What happens when we get to Mount Sunflower?” Her Munchkin friend smiled, saying, “The summit has an emergency exit to the habitat—where no one would likely stumble on it.” Despite all Amy had seen, it was amazing to think that her world was so tiny that it had hidden exits into the real cosmos.

As the land rose toward Mount Sunflower, rain fell, just a sprinkling at first, followed by hail—stinging pea-sized balls of ice—that grew to frosty marbles, battering at Amy’s scarecrow hat. Wind kicked up, whipping the ice about, and Amy could see the clouds over Mount Sunflower circling in a familiar pattern. Holding hard to her hat, she fought the mounting suction. Hail turned to horizontal rain, lashing at their faces, then suddenly ceasing as they entered the eye of the cyclone. Amy clung to the robot’s shoulder, while Dorothy ordered the tin-plated man to run faster. Looking straight up, Amy could see a funnel cloud forming directly overhead, a great gray whirlpool, spinning faster and rising higher.

At the summit of Mount Sunflower, debris rained down, twigs, branches, clods of mud, roof nails and barn shingles. Howling winds tore at Amy’s hold on the robot. Her straw hat flew off. A few more seconds, and the swirling funnel of grit and pebbles would pull her fingers free, and whirl her away as well. Amy’s whole world had turned on her—Wheelers, UFOs, Birdmen, Bushwhackers, and now a twister.

Leo knelt and grabbed a patch of ground, yanking it up, revealing a pressure lock. As he did, the tornado touched down, pulling Leo off his feet, lifting the ground up with him. Holding grimly to the latch, Leo bellowed for help, telling the robot, “Take us down, damn you.” Only the robot had the weight to resist the twister. Diving into the hole, with Amy and Dorothy clinging to his back, the tin man grabbed Leo as he fell past, hauling the SuperCat in with them. “Close the lock,” roared Leo, clawing at the lock ladder as tornado winds tried to suck them back out. “Shut it, now!” Fighting tremendous suction, the lock mechanism struggled to obey. Then the robot threw his full weight on the hatch, dragging it closed. Howling ceased, and the wind stopped. Silence filled the small metal airlock. Amy saw they were all there, looking wet and bedraggled—Dorothy, Leo, and the tin man, covered with dirt and twigs, but safe for the moment. Her scarecrow clothes were totally soaked.

Pressure suits hung from the lock walls, and there was another hatch in the chamber floor. Dorothy showed her how to choose the right-sized suit, and how to seal it tight. Leo had more trouble suiting up than she did.

Then Amy hugged the tin man, saying good-bye to the robot, who responded with a pleasant:

“I’ll remember you too,” Amy promised the metal man. Dorothy retrieved her bug, then Leo emptied the lock and threw back the bottom hatch.

Amy stared down the incredibly deep shaft beneath, startled to see stars at the far end. Literally the end of the world. Cool air from the suit recycler chilled the nape of her neck. She asked Dorothy over the suit comlink, “How do we get down?”

“Easy,” Leo declared, giving her a shove. “Relax and try not to struggle.” Toppling into the shaft, Amy fell right out of the 1-g field, into a slowly accelerating descent. For the first time in her life, she felt the real tug of the cosmos, as smooth shaft walls slid by, gaining speed, going faster and faster.

Then the walls vanished, and she went flying out into the starry void, a tiny self-contained satellite in her vacuum suit. Glancing back, she saw the huge outer hull of the habitat, a gray, faceless wall, slowly receding from her. Dorothy and Leo appeared, two figures in silver suits, shooting out of the gray wall. Dorothy’s suit began to broadcast:

MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY…

Why May Day? It was August. Maybe dates were different in space. Leo’s voice cut in. “Saucer port opening.”

Amy saw a bright slot appear in the huge gray wall. Three flat disks emerged from the slot.

“Saucers coming out,” Leo announced. “Three of them!” MAYDAY, MAYDAY…

Amy watched the disks grow larger, heading right for them. Close up, they did look like pairs of saucers, one piled upside down atop the other.

Behind her, Dorothy called out, “Here comes the Jackdaw.” Silently, a spark separated from the stars, moving closer, and growing in size, becoming a mini-starship, a nuclear-armed Navy corvette.

Glancing back at the saucers, Amy saw that gaping ports had opened on the saucer bottoms. All set to scoop them up.

“Hellhounds loosed!” Leo shouted, as three smaller sparks separated from the Jackdaw. The effect on the saucers was miraculous. Instantly they closed their ports and sped away, firing off smaller decoys to confuse the missiles.

Not at all fooled, the Hellhounds streaked by, going straight after the fleeing saucers. Which left the three of them floating alone in space.

Amy watched the Jackdaw expand into a long cylindrical ramscoop, with an arsenal of smart-nukes, and minimal crew quarters. Operating on gravity drive, the Jackdaw swept them up into the ramscoop, where automated grapples reeled them in.

Crew members helped Amy out of her suit and gave her ship’s coveralls to replace her sodden scarecrow clothes. Dorothy helped her change into the strange, smooth, zip-sealing fabric. Now nothing of her world remained. Viewscreens showed the world she had left behind, looking like a great gray donut, hanging amid incredibly distant stars. Hard to believe that everything she knew was wrapped up inside. She asked Dorothy, “What will happen to me?”

“Hard to say.” Dorothy sympathized with her dilemma. “But you can stay with me until you make up your mind.”

“With you?” That sounded wonderful.

“I have a place in Kansas system,” Dorothy explained. “Which is where we’re headed. Eventually.” Right now they were headed nowhere. Jackdaw was in close orbit around the habitat, keeping watch on her world. Amy shook her head, admitting, “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Few folks do,” Dorothy agreed. “Your world is a stolen habitat stashed in a dead system. Navy intelligence thinks it’s a nest of slavers, and that’s why Jackdaw keeps watch on the system. But they had no proof, so they asked for a Peace Corps investigation.”

“That’s you?” Apparently peace and war went hand-in-hand.

“Exactly. I was supposed to take a closer look, and try to get evidence. DNA samples, that sort of thing.”

“Like when I spit in that tube?”

Dorothy nodded. “You are related to five known slavers, either killed or DNA-identified—men who raided and kidnapped for profit.” And who dealt in gene-altered oddities like Dorothy. “Two cousins, a paternal uncle, and both your grandfathers.”

Father always said that before he “bought the farm” he had lived off-world; now she knew what he had been doing. And why family arguments never fazed him, so long as they were not settled with a blaster. Dorothy took her hand, a strangely parental gesture from someone a head shorter, saying, “You are living proof that this is a slaver haven, where retired slavers go to raise sons for ship’s crews, and girls to pass around and enjoy.”

It was fairly horrific to hear your world reduced to those terms, but this all started with her running away.

“What will happen now?”

“Maybe nothing. In Kansas system there are folks who say that what happens out here is not our business.” Dorothy did not think that way, having been saved from a slaver creche herself. “These are mostly retired slavers, absolutely bent on avoiding the law. Why not let them live out their golden years in peace? Civilized worlds only act when our own interests are at stake—that’s what separates us from the barbarians.”

Dorothy sounded sarcastic. Amy just stared at her world, orbiting through the void, all turned in on itself. Mom and Dad, Tuck and Nathan, Lilith, Delilah and Dot, all lived in there, along with everyone that Amy had ever known, everything she had ever seen before she turned thirteen. Hard to believe it. All Amy knew for sure was that one day she was coming back for Dot.