Tripods 02 - The City of Gold and Lead

by John Christopher

  One of our instructors said, "Behold. These are the dwellings of the Masters."

  His voice, though muffled, was reverential. (Beneath the pouches with the sponges were small metal devices. These, I found, carried sounds through the mask. The sounds were distorted, but to this, as to other things, one grew accustomed in time.) He raised a pointing hand in the direction of one of the nearer pyramids.

  "And there is the Choosing Place. Let us go down."

  We made our slow and staggering way down a spiral ramp, whose steepness threw an extra aching strain on the muscles of our legs, causing falls now and then. (The boy who had fainted up on the ledge had revived and was with us, He was the one who had beaten Beanpole in the long jump, the gingery freckle-faced lad who had managed to put that extra effort into his final jump. He would not jump far here.) The heat, too, continued to drain our strength away, and the sweat, running down, formed an unpleasant puddle at the base of the mask. I wanted desperately to wipe it away, but, of course, that was impossible. To do so I would have had to take the mask off and, as I had been warned, this meant death in the air that the Masters breathed.

  I still had not seen one of the Masters close enough for them to be anything but a blur. But, at least, one problem was solved. The Tripods were not the Masters, as some had thought, but merely cunningly devised machines that carried them through the world outside. I did not see how this would help Julius and the others much, but it was information. Presumably I would learn more, a lot more. After that, all Fritz and I needed to discover was a way of making our escape. All! I could have laughed at the thought, but lacked the energy. And I had to remember of course, my role, as one of the Capped, a chosen but willing slave.

  The ramp led into one of the squat pyramids, about halfway up from the base. Inside there was light from dozens of green globes that hung at varying heights from the ceiling. If anything, the light was brighter than the dusk outside. We were taken along a curving corridor to a long room with a pointed ceiling. Along one side was a row of open-fronted cubicles, their sides made of the hard glass-like substance. Each of us, we were told, was to go into one of these. After that we were to wait. The Masters would come in due course.

  We waited a long time. For the others, I imagine, it was easier. Being filled with the desire to serve the Masters, above all things, would give them patience. Fritz and I had no such comfort. He was in a cubicle some ten away from mine, and I could not see him. I could see those on either side of me and, dimly, the two or three after that. I was filled increasingly with tension and apprehension, but knew I must not show it. There was discomfort also. Most of us were sitting or lying on the floor to help relieve the drag on our limbs. Lying was best, except for the sweat that had pooled inside the mask and, uncomfortable anyway, was intolerable if head and shoulders were not upright. By now, also, I was dreadfully thirsty, but there was nothing to drink and no means of drinking, in any case. I wondered if they could have forgotten us -- if we were to be left here until we died of thirst and exhaustion. Presumably we were of some value to them, but it would not be much. We could be replaced very easily.

  I sensed rather than heard it at first, but it grew into a ripple of sound, spreading along the cubicles to my right -- a sound of awe and wonder, maybe of worship. I knew then that the moment had come, and craned my neck to see. They had entered the room from the far end, and were approaching the cubicles. The Masters.

  For all the discomfort and fatigue, and my fears as to what might happen, my first impulse was to laugh. They were so grotesque! They stood much taller than a man, nearly twice as tall, and were thick in proportion. Their bodies were wider at the bottom than the top, four or five feet around I thought, but tapered upward to something like a foot in circumference at the head...if it was the head, for there was no break in the continuity, no sign of a neck. The next thing I noticed was that their bodies were supported not on two legs but three, these being thick but short. Matching them were three arms, or rather tentacles, issuing from a point about halfway up their bodies. And their eyes -- I saw that there were three of those, too, set in a flattened triangle, one above and between the other two, a foot or so below the crown. The creatures were green, though I saw that the shades differed, some being dark, the green tinged with brown, and others quite pallid. That, and the fact that their heights varied to some extent appeared to be the only means of telling one from another: I felt it was a poor one.

  Later I was to discover that, as one grew accustomed to them, identification was easier than I had expected. The orifices, which were their mouths, noses, and ears, varied too, in size, in shape a little, and in their relationship to each other. They were connected by a pattern of wrinkles and creases that one learned to know and recognize. At first impact, though, they were faceless, almost completely uniform. It sent a shiver of quite a different fear down my spine when one of them, stopping before me, spoke.

  "Boy," he said, "stand up."

  I thought the words issued from the mouth -- which I judged the lower of the two central orifices to be -- until I saw that it was the upper one that was quivering and open while the other remained closed and still. With the Masters, I was to discover, the organs of breathing and eating were not connected, as men's are: they spoke as well as breathed through one, and ate and drank through only the lower, larger opening.

  I stood up, as I was bid. A tentacle came toward me, touched me lightly, and then more firmly on the arm. It ran along my flesh, like a snake, with the dry smooth texture of a snake, and I repressed a shudder.

  "Move about," he said. The voice was cold, flat, not loud but penetrating. "Walk boy."

  I began to walk round the narrow confines of the cubicle. I thought of a horse sale I had seen once at Winchester -- men feeling the muscles of the beasts, watching them parade around the ring. We did not need to be paraded; we could parade ourselves. The Master stood in front of me critically while I made several circuits of the cell. Then, with no other word or comment, he moved on. I stopped walking, and let myself slump back into a sitting position.

  They traveled fast on those stumpy legs, bouncing off the ground with an up-and-down rhythmic motion. They were clearly vastly stronger than we were to make so light of this leaden City. They could also, when they really wanted to get somewhere fast, spin along like tops, the three legs whirling them round and round and at the same time forward, with yards between each foot touching the ground. I suppose it was their version of running.

  The Choosing went on. Another Master came to inspect me, and another. The boy in the next stall was taken; a Master ordered him to follow and he obeyed. They disappeared in the throng. Some Masters examined me more closely than others, but all moved on. I wondered if they were suspicious -- if something in my behavior were not quite right. I also wondered what would happen if I were not chosen at all. It was known that no one returned from the City. In that case...

  This particular worry was unnecessary. Those who were not chosen as personal servants went into a general pool, I discovered. But I did not know that at the time, and was aware of the stalls emptying around me. I saw Fritz go past, following a Master. We looked at each other, but gave no sign. A Master came up to my cubicle, stared at me for a moment, and went on, without speaking.

  Their numbers had thinned, as well as ours. I sat on the floor miserably. I was tired and thirsty, my legs were aching, and the skin of my chest and shoulders was beginning to sting from the salt of my sweat. I leaned my back against the transparent wall, and closed my eyes. So I did not see the new Master who came, only heard his voice, commanding me.

  "Get up, boy."

  I thought it was a pleasanter voice than the others had been, with an undertone in it that might almost be warmth. I struggled to my feet, and looked at him curiously.

  Physically, he seemed to be shorter than average, and he was also darker in color. The tinge of brown in the dark green was quite marked. He stared down at me, the skin wrinkling between his eyes, and o
rdered me to show my paces. I summoned my strength and moved as briskly as I could; perhaps I had been too lethargic for the others.

  I was told to stop, and did so. The Master said, "Come nearer."

  As I moved toward him a tentacle snaked out and wrapped round my left arm. I gritted my teeth. A second tentacle stroked appraisingly along my body, assessing my legs, reaching up to wind more closely round my chest in a grip that forced breath from my lungs, then withdrawing. The voice said, "You are a strange one, boy."

  The words, summing up my chief fears, petrified me. I stared ahead at the featureless column of the monster. There was almost certainly something I should be doing, showing. Excitement? Happiness at the prospect of being allowed to serve one of these absurd and disgusting creatures? I tried to act out that mood. But the Master was speaking again.

  "How did you become a champion at the Games -- in which of your human sports?"

  "Boxing..." I hesitated. "Master."

  "You are small," he said. "But strong, I think, for your size. Which part of the land do you come from?"

  "From the south, Master. Tirol."

  "A mountain land. They are hardy ones, who come from the high parts."

  He fell silent then. The tentacle that still held my left arm released it and dropped back. The three eyes stared at me. Then the voice said, "Follow me, boy."

  I had found my Master.

  7 -- My Master's Cat

  I was fortunate in my Master.

  He led me to his carriage, which was in a line of others outside the building, showed me into it, and drove us away. The driving would be one of my duties, he explained. (It was not difficult. It was moved by an invisible power that came from below the ground. There was little to do in the way of steering, and collisions were impossible.) I saw that some of the Masters with newly acquired slaves were already forcing them to learn this skill, but mine did not because he saw that I was tired and distressed. The carriage ran on very many small wheels, set beneath one face of a pyramid, and the driver had a seat in the pointed front part for controlling it. My Master drove it to the place where he lived, in toward the center of the City.

  On the way I examined my surroundings. It was hard to make sense of the place; buildings and streets and ramps were at the same time very much like each other and confusingly different, their construction either unplanned or following a plan I could not begin to understand. Here and there I saw small areas that I supposed were meant for gardens. They were mostly triangular in shape, and filled with water, out of which grew strange plants of various colors. I saw red, brown, green, blue -- but all somber. They all had the same general shape, too: a squatness at the base that tapered with height. Many of the garden pools had mists rising from them, and in some I saw Masters moving slowly about or standing, like trees themselves, rooted in the water.

  My own Master lived in a tall pyramid overlooking a large garden pool. It was five-sided but looked more like one of the triangles of which the Masters seemed to be so fond, since three of the sides were shorter than the others and formed almost a straight line. We left the carriage outside the door -- I looked back and saw the ground open under it and take it in -- and went into the building. At the center we entered a moving room, like the one that had taken us from the Hall of the Tripods. My stomach lurched as it whirred, but this time I understood what was happening -- that the room was moving upward and we with it. We came out in a corridor and I trudged along in the Master's wake to the door that was the entrance to his home.

  There was much that I understood only later, of course. The pyramid was divided into homes for the Masters. Inside was a smaller pyramid, completely enclosed by the outer one, which was used for store rooms, the place where the carriages were kept, the communal place for slaves, and so on. The homes were in the outer section, and one could tell a Master's importance in the City from the position of his home. Most important was the one right at the top -- the pyramid on top of the pyramid. Next came the two triangular homes immediately below, and after that the homes at the corners of the pyramid, in descending order. My Master was only moderately important. His home was on a corner, but nearer the base than the apex.

  At first sight of the City, with all its towering peaks, I had thought the number of Masters must be fantastically great. At closer quarters I realized that the impression had been to some extent misleading. Everything was on a far bigger scale than the human one to which I was accustomed. The homes, in particular, were spacious, the rooms being large and very high, twenty feet or more.

  From the corridor one came into a passage with several doors. (The doors were circular, and worked on the same principle as the one in the Tripod: a section swung inward and upward when a thing like a button was touched. There were no locks or bolts.) In one direction, the passage turned through a right angle at the end, and eventually issued into the most important part of the home: the triangular room that looked out from the building. Here the Master ate and relaxed. In the center of the floor was a small, circular garden pool, its surface steaming from extra heat provided beneath it. It was his favorite spot.

  But I was not shown this right away. The Master took me along the passage in the opposite direction. It ended in a blank wall, but there was a door on the right a little before that. The Master said, "This is your refuge, boy. There is an airlock inside -- that is a place where air is changed -- and beyond that you can breathe without the mask. You will sleep and eat there, and you may stay there or in the communal place at times when I do not require your service. You may rest for a while now. In due course, a bell will ring. Then you must fix your mask on again, go back through the airlock, and come to me. You will find me in the window room, which is at the end of the passage."

  He turned and glided away, light on his stumpy feet, along the broad high passage. I understood that I had been dismissed, and pressed the button on the door in front of me. It opened and I stepped through, and automatically the door closed behind me. There was a hissing, and I felt the pull of the air current on my ankles as the Masters air was drawn out and replaced by human air. It did not take long, but it seemed an age before the door on the opposite side opened and I could step through. My fingers were tearing at the fastener of the belt that secured the mask as I did so.

  I did not think that I could have supported the stifling confinement, with my own sweat pooling on my chest, for much longer, but later I found that I had been lucky. Fritz had been kept for several hours, being instructed in his duties, before he was allowed to find relief. My Master's consideration was apparent in other ways. The room set aside for the servant was small in floor area, but had the same towering height as the rest of the home. In this case the Master had had an intermediate floor constructed, with a ladder leading up to it. My bedroom was up there, whereas in other cases the bed had to be fitted into the limited living space.

  Other than that there was a chair, a table (both of the simplest kind), a chest with two drawers, a cupboard for storing food, and a small toilet section. It was bare, and ugly. There was none of the extra heat, which the Masters rooms had, but no way of cooling, either, or of freshening. One sweltered, the only alleviation being in the toilet section, where there was a device for spraying water on one's body. The water was lukewarm, both for that and for drinking, but cooler at least than the surrounding air. I let it play over me for a long time, and washed and changed my clothes. The air made the clean ones damp before I had put them on. No clothes were ever dry inside the City.

  In the cupboard I found food, in packets. It was of two kinds: a sort of biscuit to be eaten dry and some crumbling stuff to be mixed with the warm water from the tap. Neither had much taste, and they never varied. They were made by machines somewhere in the City. I tried a little of the biscuit, but I found I was not hungry enough yet to eat it. Instead I hauled myself wearily up the ladder, a straining effort in this City of Lead, and dropped onto the bare, hard bed that awaited me. There were no windows, of course, to my quarter
s, but a globe of green light in each, turned on and off by a button. I pressed the button, fell into darkness and oblivion, and dreamed I was back in the White Mountains, telling Julius that the Tripods were made of paper, not metal, and that one could chop their legs off with an ax. But, in the middle of telling him, there was a savage clangor in my ears. I awoke with a start, and realized where I was, and that I was being summoned.

  Knowing nothing of conditions in the City, Fritz and I had not been able to make any specific plans for finding each other, though naturally we were anxious to do so as soon as possible. When I contemplated the size and complexity of the place, despondency overcame me; I did not see how we could ever hope to make contact. There were, plainly, thousands of Masters in the City, even allowing for the amount of space each took up. If every one of these had a servant...

  In one way it was less difficult than I had thought; in others, more. To start with, each Master did not have a servant. It was a privilege reserved for those of a certain rank, probably less than a thousand in all, and not all availed themselves of the right. There was a movement in opposition to the presence of humans in the City. It was based on a fear, not that the slaves might revolt, because no one doubted their docility, but that the Masters, in accepting the personal service of other creatures, were somehow weakened and degraded. The total number of humans, drawn from the Games and from other selection procedures in other places, was probably no more than five or six hundred.