The Pool of Fire (The Tripods)

by John Christopher

  As I reached the airlock, I heard Ulf bellowing something in the distance. I went through, into the cell, and put the tray down. I left it there, and went back to see what the yelling was about. Ulf was standing unsteadily on his feet. He said, “Belay that order. Make another supper up for the lizard.”

  I said, “I’ve taken the tray in, sir. As instructed.”

  “Then bring it out again! Wait. I’m coming with you.”

  I was annoyed that my scheme had misfired. Ruki would eat the substitute meal, and so there would be nothing that I would be obliged to report. Reporting Ulf simply for being drunk on duty was not a thought that appealed to me even in my present state of resentment. I went with him in silence, bitterly conscious of the fact that he was going to get away with it, after all.

  There was barely room for two in the airlock. We were forced to jostle against each other, putting on the face masks which we must wear inside the cell. Ulf opened the inner door, and stepped through first. I heard him give a grunt of surprise and dismay. He went forward quickly, and I could see what he had seen.

  The bowl was empty. And Ruki was stretched out, full length and motionless.

  • • •

  Julius came back to the castle for the conference. He seemed to be limping worse than ever, but was no less cheerful and confident. He sat at the center of the long table, with the scientists, including Beanpole, clustered around him. Fritz and I sat inconspicuously at the end. André, the Commander of the castle, addressed the meeting first. He said, “Our best plan always was to attack the Cities from within. The question was: how? We can get a certain number inside, but nowhere near enough to fight the Masters, on their own ground especially. We could wreck some of their machines, perhaps, but that would not amount to destroying the City as such. They could almost certainly repair them, and we would be worse off than before—because now they would be warned, and ready for any second attack we tried to launch. The same applies to any attempt to damage the Wall. Even if we were able to cut through, which is doubtful, we could not do it on a large enough scale—either from outside or within—to prevent the Masters making good the damage, and hitting back.

  “What has been needed was a way of striking at the Masters themselves, all of them and at the same time. One suggestion was to poison their air. It might be possible, but I don’t see a chance of our developing anything in the time available. Water offered a better opportunity. They use water a lot, for drinking as well as bathing. After allowing for the fact that they are twice the height and four times the weight, they have a fluid intake four to six times that of the average man. If we could get something into their water supplies, it might do the trick.

  “Unfortunately, as we have established with the prisoner, they are sensitive to adulterants. This one simply refused anything which might harm him. Until, by a lucky chance, some schnapps was poured into his food. He consumed the food without hesitation, and was paralyzed in less than a minute.”

  Julius asked, “How long did it take him to recover from the paralysis?”

  “He began to show signs of consciousness after about six hours. He was fully conscious after twelve, but still lacking in coordination and fairly obviously confused. Within twenty-four hours, recovery was complete.”

  “And since then?”

  “Apparently normal,” André said. “Mark you, he’s still worried, and alarmed, by what happened. Not quite so confident as he was about the hopelessness of our efforts, I think.”

  Julius asked, “How do you account for it? The paralysis?”

  André shrugged. “We know that with men alcohol interferes with that part of the mind that controls the working of the body. A drunken man cannot walk straight or use his hands properly. He may even fall over. If he has taken enough, then he becomes paralyzed, as Ruki did. It seems that, in this respect, they are more sensitive and more vulnerable than we are. Equally important, the discrimination against harmful substances doesn’t work in this case. The amount of alcohol apparently can be quite small. There were only the dregs of a glass in this case. It gives us a chance, I think.”

  “Alcohol in their drinking water,” Julius said. “Not from outside, presumably. We know that they have a purifying and treatment machine inside the Wall. From inside, then. If we can get a team in. But how about the alcohol? Even though the amount needed is small per individual, it amounts to a very large quantity altogether. You could not get that inside.”

  “Our men could produce it there,” André said. “There are sugars in the City: they use them in making both their own foods and the food of the slaves. All that is needed is to set up distillation equipment. Then, when there is enough, introduce it to the drinking water.”

  André’s eyes were on Julius. He said, “It would have to be done in all three Cities simultaneously. They know that they have some opposition—our destroying the Tripod and making off with one of their number will have told them that. But the latest reports tell us they are still taking human slaves into the City, which means they still trust those they have Capped. Once they find we can pose as Capped, things will be very different.”

  Julius nodded slowly. “We must strike while they are unsuspecting,” he said. “It is a good plan. Go ahead with preparations.”

  • • •

  I was called later to see Julius. He was writing in a book, but looked up as I entered the room.

  “Ah, Will,” he said. “Come and sit down. You know Ulf has gone?”

  “I saw him leave this morning, sir.”

  “With some satisfaction, I gather?” I did not answer. “He is a very sick man, and I have sent him south to the sun. He will serve us there, as he has done all his life, for the short time that remains to him. He is also a very unhappy man. Even though things turned out well, he sees only failure: his failure to conquer an old weakness. Do not despise him, Will.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You have your own weaknesses. They are not his, but they lead you into folly. As they did this time. Ulf’s folly lay in getting drunk, yours in putting pride before sense. Shall I tell you something? I brought Ulf and you together again partly because I thought it would do you good—teach you to accept discipline and so to think more carefully before you acted. It does not seem to have had the result that I hoped for.”

  I said, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Well, that’s something. So is Ulf. He told me something, before he left. He blamed himself for you and Beanpole going astray at your first encounter. He knew he ought not to have stayed in the town, and thus given you the excuse to go ashore looking for him. If I had known this, I would not have let him come here. Some people are oil and water. It seems that you and he were.”

  He was silent for a moment or two, but I felt more uncomfortable than ever under the scrutiny of his deep-set blue eyes. He said, “This expedition that is being planned. Do you wish to take part in it?”

  I said, quickly and with conviction, “Yes, sir!”

  “My rational impulse is to refuse your request. You have done well, but you have not learned to master your rashness. I am not sure that you ever will.”

  “Things have turned out well, sir. As you said.”

  “Yes, because you have been lucky. So I am going to be irrational, and send you. And it is also true that you know the City, and will be valuable for that reason. But I think, to be honest, it is your luck that makes the biggest impression on me. You are a kind of mascot to us, Will.”

  Fervently, I said, “I will do my best, sir.”

  “Yes, I know. You can go now.”

  I had reached the door when he called me back.

  “One thing, Will.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Spare a thought now and then for those who do not have luck on their side. For Ulf, in particular.”

  Five

  Six Against the City

  It was in spring, not of the next year but the year after, that the expedition was launched.

  In bet
ween there had been so many things to do and to prepare, plans to be made, equipment to be fashioned, actions to be rehearsed again and again. Contacts had to be made, also, with those who had gone out to form centers of resistance in the region of the other two Cities. Things would have been easier if we had been able to use the means of sending messages through the air on invisible rays, which our forefathers had used and which the Masters used themselves. Our scientists could have built machines for this, but the decision went against it. The Masters must be kept in their state of false security. If we used the thing called radio, they would detect it, and whether or not they tracked down our transmitters, they would know that a large-scale rebellion was afoot.

  So we were forced to rely on the primitive means we had. We spread a network of carrier pigeons, and for the rest relied on fast horses and hard riding, using both riders and horses in relays as much as possible. Plans were coordinated far in advance, and men from the distant centers returned for briefings on them.

  One of those who returned was Henry. I did not recognize him easily; he had grown, and thinned, and was bronzed with long exposure to the hot sun of the tropics. He was very confident, and pleased with the way things had gone. They had found a resistance movement rather like our own, to the north of the isthmus on which the second City of the Masters stood, and had joined forces with them. The interchange of information had been useful, and he had brought one of the leaders back with him. He was a tall, lank, sunburnt man called Walt, who spoke little and in an odd twangy voice when he did so.

  We talked through an afternoon—Henry and I and Beanpole—of times past and times to come. In between talking, we watched a demonstration arranged by the scientists. This was late summer, and we looked from the castle wall across a sea calm and blue, barely wrinkled out to the far horizon. It was all very peaceful, a world in which one could imagine there were no such things as Tripods or Masters. (The Tripods never did come near this isolated stretch of coast, in fact. That was one of the reasons the castle had been chosen.) Directly beneath us, a small group clustered around two figures dressed in shorts, such as I had worn as a slave in the City. The resemblance did not end there, because they also wore, over head and shoulders, a mask similar to the one that had protected me against the poisonous air of the Masters. With one difference: where the pouch with the filter had been there was a tube, and the tube ran to a boxlike thing strapped to the back.

  A signal was given. The two figures moved across the rocks and waded into the water. It rose to cover their knees, their thighs, their chests. Then, together, they plunged forward and disappeared below the surface. For a second or two one could see them dimly, shadowy figures striking out, away from the castle. After that, they were lost, and we watched and waited for them to reappear.

  It was a long wait. Seconds became minutes. Although I had been told what to expect, I became apprehensive. They had been swimming against the tide, which was coming in from the ocean. There were strange undercurrents in these parts, and submerged reefs. It would be very easy to drown.

  The object of all this was to help us get into the Cities. We could not use the method we had previously used of being picked at the Games; something direct and certain had to be found. The obvious solution was to reverse the process by which Fritz and I had escaped, and get in from the river, through the discharge vents. The difficulty was that even going with the current the swim had taxed physical resources to their limit; in my case, beyond. Battling against it seemed impossible.

  I burst out at last, “It hasn’t worked! They can’t be still alive down there.”

  Beanpole said, “Wait.”

  “It must have been over ten minutes . . .”

  “Nearer fifteen.”

  Henry said suddenly, “Over there. Look!”

  I looked where he was pointing. Far out on the glassy blue, a dot had appeared, followed by another. Two heads. Henry said, “It worked, but I don’t understand how.”

  Beanpole did his best to explain. It was something to do with the air, which I had always thought of as a sort of invisible nothing, being made up of two different nothings, two gases, and the smaller part being the part we needed to keep alive. The scientists had learned how to separate the two, and keep the useful part in those containers on the swimmers backs. Things called valves regulated a supply of it to the masks the men wore. One could stay submerged for a long time. Paddles attached to the feet would enable one to swim against a tide. We had found our means of entering the Cities.

  The next morning, Henry left. He took the lean, taciturn stranger with him. He also took a supply of the masks, and the tubes and boxes that went with them.

  • • •

  From a dugout by the river bank, I looked at the City of Gold and Lead again, and could not repress the tremor that ran through my body. The ramparts of gold, topped with the emerald bubble of its protective dome, stretched across the river and the land on either side, immense and massive and seemingly impregnable. It was ludicrous to imagine that it could be overthrown by the half dozen of us who had collected here.

  None of the Capped would venture close to the City, having such awe of it, so we were safe from any interference by them. We saw Tripods in plenty, of course, giant-striding across the sky on journeys to or from the City, but we were not near any of the routes they used. We had been here three days, and this was the last. As daylight faded from a blustery gray sky, it took with it the last few hours before the moment of decision.

  It had not been easy to synchronize the attacks on the three Cities. The actual entries had to be made at different times, since the necessary cover of darkness varied throughout the world. The one in which Henry was concerned would follow six hours after ours. That in the east was taking place just about now, in the middle of their night. That particular City, we knew, represented the riskiest part of the enterprise. Our base out there was the smallest and weakest of the three, set up in a land where the Capped were entirely alien and spoke an incomprehensible language. Our recruits had been few. Those who were to make the attack had come to the castle the previous autumn; they were slim, yellow-skinned boys who spoke little and smiled less. They had learned a bit of German, and Fritz and I had briefed them on what they would find inside the City (we presumed that all three Cities would be much the same), and they had listened and nodded, but we had not been sure how much they understood.

  At any rate, there was nothing we could do about that now. We had to concentrate on our job here. Darkness gathered, over the City, the river, the surrounding plain, and the distant mound that was the ruin of a great-city of old. We had our last meal of ordinary human food in the open air. After this, it would be a matter of relying on what we could find in the City—eating the slaves’ tasteless food in the protection of one of the refuge rooms.

  I looked at my companions in the last light. They were dressed as the slaves were, and had the masks ready to put on, and their skins, like my own, had been rendered pale by a winter spent completely under cover from the sun. We wore the false-Caps closely fitted to our skulls, our hair growing through them. But to me they did not really look like the slaves I had met in the City, and I wondered how the deception could succeed. Surely the first Master who saw one of us would realize the truth and raise the alarm?

  But the time had passed for doubts and brooding. A star gleamed in the sky, not far above the western horizon. Fritz, the leader of our troop, looked at the watch which he alone carried and which he must keep hidden in the belt of his shorts. It kept perfect time and would work even under water, and had been made not by our own scientists but by the great craftsmen who lived before the time of the Masters. It reminded me of the one I had found in the ruins of the first great-city, and lost when boating on the river with Eloise, at the Château de la Tour Rouge—how far away all that seemed!

  “It is time,” Fritz said. “In we go.”

  • • •

  Scouts before us had traced the underwater configuration of
the vents through which we had to swim. They were large, fortunately, and there were four of them, each presumably leading back to a pool like the one into which we had plunged. They came out twenty feet below the surface of the water. One by one, we dived and forced our way against the current, guided by small lights fixed on bands around our foreheads: another wonder recreated by Beanpole and his colleagues. Beanpole had had to stay back at headquarters, despite pleas to come with us. The weakness of his eyes without spectacles would have hampered him, and in any case he was too valuable to be spared.

  The lights moved in front of me, and I saw one wink out. The vent must be there. I swam further down and saw a curved edge of metal, and the shadowy outline of a tunnel wall. I kicked my flippered legs and went forward.

  The tunnel seemed interminable. There was the flicker of light ahead of me, and the dim swath of my own lamp, and always the pressure of water against which I must force my way. There was a time when I wondered if we were doing no more than holding our own, and would stay suspended until tiredness overcame us and we were pushed back to the river.

  The water seemed to have got a little warmer, but that could be an illusion. At that moment, though, the light in front disappeared, and I drove my weary limbs to greater effort. From time to time, I had touched the roof of the tunnel with my outstretched hand. I tried again, and found nothing solid. And above, far above, there was a glimmer of green.

  I swam up, and at last my head broke water. By pre-arrangement, we made for the side, where we would be hidden by the wall around the pool. The one who had been in front of me was there, too, treading water: we nodded in silence. Other heads bobbed up, one by one, and with immense relief I saw Fritz.