The City of Gold and Lead (The Tripods) (14 page)

But apart from these, and other similar duties, there was another function which I found myself fulfilling: that of companionship. Except for the occasions on which they joined together to watch the Sphere Chase, or other forms of entertainment, the Masters led strangely solitary lives. They visited one another, but not often, and spent a good deal of their time in their homes alone. (Even in the garden pools, I noticed, they did not talk to each other much.) To some, though, this isolation came less easily than to others—to my own
Master I suspected it did. A human slave to him was not merely someone to do various menial chores around the home, not merely a sign that he was of the rank that qualified him to own such a one, but someone who could listen to him talk. In my village at home, old Mrs. Ash had six cats and spent most of her day talking to one or the other of them. I was my Master’s cat.

With the advantage, of course, of being a cat who could talk back. He not only spoke to me of the things that happened to him (I could rarely make any sense out of them, and I never began to understand what work he did), but asked questions as well. He was curious about me, and about my life before winning at the Games and coming to the City. At first I was suspicious of his interest, but I quickly realized that it was innocent. So I told him all about the way I had lived as the son of a small dairy farmer in the Tirol—how I had driven the cows up to pasture in the high meadows at the beginning of the day and stayed with them until it was time to bring them back for milking in the evening. I invented brothers and sisters, cousins and uncles and aunts, a whole pattern of life which he accepted and seemed to take an interest in. When I was off-duty, I used to lie on my bed in my refuge and think of more lies to tell him: it was a way of passing the time.

Or had been until I realized how little I had been doing compared with Fritz. But when I said something about it to Fritz the following day when we met again in the communal place of my pyramid, he took a different view. He said, “You have been very lucky with that one. I had no idea any of the Masters spoke to us slaves,
except to give orders. Mine does not, certainly. He beat me again this morning, but he did it in silence: I was the one who made a noise. Perhaps you can learn more from this than from exploring the City.”

“If I asked questions, he would certainly be suspicious. The Capped do not pry into the wonders of the Masters.”

“Not questions, as such. But perhaps you can lead him on. You say he talks about his own life, as well as asking you about life outside?”

“Sometimes. But it makes no sense. He has to use their words when he talks about his work because there are no human words for the things he is telling me about. A few days ago he was saying that he was feeling unhappy because during the zootleboot a tsutsutsu went into spiwis, and therefore it was not possible to izdool the shuchutu. At least, it sounded something like that. I saw no point in even trying to understand what it meant.”

“If you keep on listening, it may make sense in time.”

“I don’t see how it can.”

“It may, though. You must persevere, Will. Encourage him to talk. Does he use the gas bubbles?”

These were small rubbery spheres which could be stuck to the Master’s skin, below the nose opening. When they were pressed by one of the Master’s tentacles, a reddish-brown mist came out and rose slowly upward, encircling the Master’s head.

I said, “He has one a day, sometimes two, when he is in the pool in the window-room.”

“I think it does to them what strong drink does to men. Mine beats me harder after he has sniffed a gas bubble. Maybe yours will talk more. Take him another while he is in the pool.”

I said doubtfully, “I doubt if it will work.”

“Try, anyway.”

He looked ill and exhausted. The welts on his back were bleeding slightly.

I said, “I’ll try tomorrow.”

And I did, but the Master waved me away. He asked me how many calves cows bore, and then mentioned that the pooshlu had stroolglooped. I did not seem to be getting very far.

When I had just about
abandoned hope of getting any useful information out of the Master, he solved the problem for me himself. His work, whatever it was, took place in a squat pyramid about half a mile from the one in which he lived. I had to drive him there in the carriage, and stay in the communal place with the other slaves until he was ready to return. This would be after two periods (just over five human hours), and I used the time, as the other slaves did, to rest, and if possible sleep. One learned early in one’s life in the City the overwhelming importance of conserving energy to the maximum degree possible. There were couches provided in this communal place. They were hard, and there were not enough to go around, but it was a luxury which was far from being universal, and I was grateful for it.

On this occasion I had been lucky enough to get a couch, and was lying on it drifting into sleep, when my arm was shaken. I asked hazily what was the matter, and was told that my number was flashing on the call-box, indicating that I was wanted. My first thought was that it was a trick to get me off the couch, which the other slave probably wanted for himself, and I said as much. But he insisted that it was true, and at last I roused myself to look, and saw that it was.

As I got my mask and prepared to put it on, I said, “I don’t see how the Master can want me. It’s only been three ninths. There must be a mistake.”

The other had taken my place on the couch and was lying there prone. He said, “It may be the Sickness.”

“What sickness?”

“It is something that happens with the Masters from time to time. They stay at home for two or three days, or even longer. It is more common with those like your Master who have brown in their skins.”

I remembered that I had thought, that morning, that his skin was darker than usual. When I went to him in the outer room and made the customary deep bow of respect, I noticed that it was very much darker, the brown more pronounced and that his tentacles, even though at rest, were quivering slightly. He told me to drive him home, and I obeyed.

I thought, remembering human sickness, that he might want to go to bed, and realized that I had not yet changed his moss. He did not do that, though, but instead went into the pool in the window-room and squatted there, motionless and silent. I asked him if
there was anything he needed, and he did not answer. So I went to the bedroom and got on with my work. I had just finished, and was putting the old moss into the cupboard in which it could be destroyed, when the bell rang for me.

He was still in the pool. He said, “Boy, bring me a gas bubble.”

I did as I was told, and watched him place it between mouth and nose and press on it with a tentacle. The reddish-brown mist oozed out, like a liquid almost, and rose up. The Master breathed in deeply. This went on, with him taking breaths of it at intervals, until the bubble was empty. He tossed it away, for me to pick up, and called for another. This was unusual. He used it, and had me bring him a third. He started talking not long afterward.

It did not make much sense at first. I gathered he was talking about the Sickness. He spoke of the Curse of the Skloodzi, which seemed to be the name of his family or his race, or perhaps it was the name the Masters gave themselves. There was a lot about wickedness—I was not sure whether he meant his own or that of the Masters in general—but although he bemoaned it, I could not help feeling that he did so with a certain amount of satisfaction. The Sickness was a punishment for wickedness, and therefore had to be endured with stoicism. He flicked away the third empty gas bubble with his central tentacle, and told me to get a fourth, and to move faster this time.

The gas bubbles were in the room where the food was kept. I went to bring one, but when I returned to
the window-room he was out of the pool. He said, his voice more distorted than usual, “I ordered you to move faster, boy.”

Two of the tentacles gripped me, and held me in mid-air as easily as I might have held a kitten. He had not touched me since that first meeting in the Choosing Place, and I was more shocked than anything else. But shock was rapidly replaced by pain. The third tentacle whipped through the air and lashed my back. It was like being hit by a heavy length of rope. I jerked against the tentacles that held me, but it did no good. The lash came down again, and again. Now it felt more like a sapling than a rope that was striking me. I thought it would break my ribs, even perhaps my spine. Fritz had said that he cried out because he realized his Master wanted him to cry out. I supposed I ought to do the same, but I would not. I gritted my teeth, crushing a fold of skin between them and sending hot salty blood flowing inside my mouth. The beating went on. I had given up counting the blows; there were too many of them. And then there was a roaring in my ears, and oblivion.

• • •

I recovered to find myself lying on the floor. I moved slightly, and there was pain again: my body seemed to be one long bruise. I forced myself to get up. As far as I could tell, no bones were broken. I looked for the Master, and saw him squatting, silent and motionless, in the pool.

I was humiliated and angry, and aching all over. I limped from the room and took the passage round to my refuge. Once inside, I stripped off my mask, dried
the sweat from my neck and shoulders, and hauled myself up the ladder to my bed. I realized as I did so that I had omitted the customary bow of reverence to the Master when I left the window-room. I had certainly not felt reverential toward him, but that was not the point. The essential thing was in every way to imitate the behavior of the truly Capped. It had been a slip, and could be a dangerous one. As I was thinking of this, the ringing of the bell hammered my nerve endings. My Master wanted me again.

Wearily I descended, put on my mask, and left the refuge. My mind was confused, and I did not know what to expect. The thought of another beating was uppermost, and I did not know how I was to endure it: it hurt even to walk. I was entirely unprepared for what did happen when I returned to the window-room. The Master was no longer in the pool but standing near the entrance. A tentacle seized me and lifted me. But instead of the lash for which I was vainly trying to prepare myself, there came, from the second tentacle, a gentle stroking gesture, a snake’s soft writhing along my battered ribs. I was a kitten being cuddled now, after it had been chastised.

The Master said, “You are a strange one, boy.”

I said nothing. I was being held awkwardly, with my head slightly lower than my body. The Master went on, “You did not make loud noises as the others have done. There is a difference in you. I saw it that first day in the Choosing Room.”

What he said petrified me. I had not realized, though I suppose I should have done, that the natural
reaction of the Capped to being beaten would be to howl like children. Fritz had sensed this and behaved accordingly, but I had stupidly resisted through pride. And then had failed to make the bow of reverence afterward. I was terrified that the Master’s next move would be to probe the Cap with the tip of his tentacle through the softer part of the mask. If he did, he would soon realize the difference between mine and the true Caps, which knit in with the living flesh. And then . . .