The City of Gold and Lead (The Tripods) (18 page)

I pricked my ears up. Was it possible that the Masters really were divided among themselves, for all that they professed not to understand man’s divisions? Was there a possibility of disunity, and could we exploit it? But he went on, “Those of us who feel like this believe that places should be made where some of the creatures could go on living. The Cities, for instance. Things could be arranged so that some men and animals and plants were able to shelter in them. And the Masters could visit them, masked or in sealed carriages, and see these creatures—not dead as they are in the
Pyramid of Beauty, but alive. Would this not be a good thing, boy?”

I thought how much I loathed him, loathed all of them, but smiled, and said, “Yes, Master.”

“There are some who say this is unnecessary, a waste of resources, but I think they are wrong. After all, we appreciate beauty, we Masters. We preserve the best of the worlds we colonize.”

Places where a handful of men and animals could live, under glass, to satisfy the curiosity and vanity of the Masters . . . “We appreciate beauty . . .” There was a silence, in which we thought our different thoughts about what he had just told me. It continued, and the need to know the answer to the one vital question pressed in on me. I had to take the risk of asking him. I said, “When, Master?”

A tentacle moved, in a gesture of interrogation.

“When . . . ?” he repeated.

“When will the Plan start, Master?”

He did not reply for a moment, and I thought he might be surprised by my query—suspicious, even. I could read some of his more obvious reactions by this time, but there was a great deal hidden. However, he said, “The great ship is well advanced on its journey back to us, with the things that are needed. In four years, it will be here.”

Four short years before the engines began to belch out poison. Julius, I knew, had been assuming that we had time enough—that the next generation, or the one after that, might carry the campaign we had started to a final success. Suddenly time was an enemy, as
implacable as the Masters themselves. If we failed and an attempt had to be made next year, we should have lost a quarter of the cruelly short interval in which it was possible to act.

The Master said, “It is a splendid sight when the great ship glides through the night like a shooting star. I hope you will see it, boy.”

He meant that he hoped I would live that long: four years represented a very good span for the life of a slave in the City. I said fervently, “I hope so, Master. It will be a glorious and happy moment.”

“Yes, boy.”

“Can I bring you another gas bubble, Master?”

“No, boy. I think I will eat. You may prepare my table.”

• • •

Fritz said, “Then one of us must get away.”

I nodded. We were in the communal place at Fritz’s pyramid. There were half a dozen other slaves present, two of them playing a game of cards, the remainder lying flat and not even talking. It would be the beginning of autumn in the world outside; the air this morning would have a nip in it, perhaps, after an early night frost. In the City the sweltering heat did not change. We sat apart, and talked in low voices.

I said, “You haven’t found anything, I suppose?”

“Only that the Hall of the Tripods is impossible. The slaves who work in the Entering Place have nothing to do with those inside the City. They are ones who were not chosen by Masters, and they envy those whom they
pass through into the City. They would not let anyone through in the opposite direction.”

“If we could trick our way in—attack them . . .”

“There are too many of them, I think. And there is another thing.”

“What?”

“Your Master told you about the Tripod being destroyed. They know there is some danger, but they think it is only from un-Capped boys. If they find out we have managed to get into the City, wearing false Caps . . . they ought not to have that warning.”

“But if one of us escapes,” I argued, “—won’t that be enough to warn them, anyway? None of the truly Capped would want to leave the City.”

“Except through the Place of Happy Release. There are no checks on who goes there. It must seem as though that is what has happened, and therefore the escape must be secret.”

“Any kind of escape is better than none. We have to get this news to Julius and the rest.”

Fritz nodded, and I was conscious again of his thinness, his head, although gaunt, large against the frail stalk of his neck. It must be he who escaped, if only one could do so. With a Master kind by their standards, I could hold out for a year or more. He had said he hoped I would see the great ship returning in its glory. But Fritz would not live through this winter unless he got away: that was certain.

Fritz said, “I have thought of one thing.”

“What is it?”

He hesitated, and said, “Yes, it is better that you should know, even if it is only an idea. The river.”

“The river?”

“It comes into the City, and is purified and made right for the Masters. But it flows out, also. Do you remember that we saw, from the Tripods, the outflow beyond the walls? If we could find the place inside the City . . . there might be a possibility.”

“Of course.” I thought about it. “It will probably be on the opposite side of the City from where the river flows in.”

“Probably, though it need not be. But that is the part where the Masters who do not have slaves live. One cannot search there as easily, for fear of drawing attention to oneself.”

“It is worth trying.” A number flashed on the wall, and a slave roused himself wearily. “Anything is worth trying.”

Fritz said, “As soon as we find a way out, one of us must go.”

I nodded. There was no doubt of that, nor of whom the one should be. I thought of the loneliness of staying behind, with no friend in this hideous place, no one to talk to. Except, of course, my Master. That only added a further horror to the prospect. I thought of the autumn world outside, the early snows already falling and lying on the White Mountains, covering the entrance to the Tunnel for another half year. I looked at the clock on the wall, marked in periods and ninths—Masters’ time. In a few minutes I would have to put on my mask, and return to take my Master home from his work.

• • •

It happened four days later.

I had been sent on an errand by the Master. One of their habits was to rub various oils and ointments into their bodies, and he told me to go to a certain place and get a particular oil. It was something like a shop, with a narrowing spiral ramp in the center and items laid out at different heights. I say a shop, though no one was in charge, as far as I could see, and it seemed that no money was paid. This pyramid to which I was sent was much farther away than the ones I customarily went to. I presumed the oil he wanted—he gave me an empty container to identify it—was not available nearer at hand. I slogged my way across the City, taking well over an hour to get there and back, and returned exhausted and soaked with sweat. I wanted desperately to go to my refuge—to take off the mask and wash and rub myself—but it was unthinkable that a slave should do that without first reporting to his Master. So I went the other way, to the window-room, expecting to find him in the pool. He was not, but in a far corner of the room. I went to him. and made the bow of reverence.

I said, “Do you wish the oil now, Master, or shall I put it with the others?”

He did not answer. I waited a moment or two, and prepared to go away. It might be one of his times of being withdrawn and uncommunicative. Having done my duty, I could put the oil in the cupboard, and go to my refuge until he called me. But as I turned, one of his tentacles snaked out, caught and lifted me. More
fondling, I thought, but it was not that. The tentacle held me up, the unwinking eyes surveyed me.

“I knew you were a strange one,” said the Master. “But I did not know how strange.”

I made no reply. I was uncomfortable but, having grown used to the license he granted me and, to some extent, to the strangeness of his moods, not apprehensive.

He went on, “I wished to help you, boy, because you are my friend. I thought it might be possible to make more comfort for you in your refuge. In one of the storybooks of your people, it tells of a man making for a friend what is called a surprise. This I wished to do. So I sent you away, and put on a mask and went into the refuge. I discovered a curious thing.”

It had been held behind him by another tentacle and he produced it and showed it to me: the book in which I had written the notes of what I had learned. I was anxious now, all right. Desperately I racked my mind to think of something to say, some explanation, but nothing came.

“A strange one,” he repeated. “One who listens, and writes down in a book. For what purpose? The human who wears a Cap knows that the things concerning the Masters are wonders and mysteries, which it is not good for men to learn. I have talked of them, and you have listened. You were my friend, were you not? Though even so it was odd that you showed little fear of being told that which was forbidden. A strange one, as I said. But to record afterward, in secret, in your refuge . . . The Cap should forbid that absolutely. Let us examine your Cap, boy.”

Now he did what I had feared might happen on the day he beat me, when later he called me back and told me I was to be his friend. While a tentacle held me in mid-air, a second one moved to the lower part of the mask, where the material was soft, and its hard tip probed upwards. I wondered if it would break through the material, so that I choked in the poisonous air, but it did not. I felt the tip, narrowing to needle point but hard and precise, run over the edge of the false Cap I was wearing, probe and pluck.

“Strange, indeed,” said the Master. “The Cap is not married to the flesh. Something is wrong here, very wrong. It will be necessary to investigate. You must be examined, boy, by the . . .”

The word he said meant nothing: I suppose he was talking about a special group of Masters who had to do with the Cappings. What was clear was that my situation was desperate. I did not know whether they could read my mind under examination or not, but at least they would know of the existence of the false Caps, and be alerted against our enterprise. They would obviously check all other slaves in the City. In which case, Fritz, too, was lost.

It would be useless to fight against him. Even fully fit, at normal weight, a man was no match for the strength of the Masters. The tentacle had me round the waist, so that my arms were free. But what was the good of that? Unless . . . The central eye, above the creature’s nose and mouth, stared at me. He knew something was wrong, but he still did not think of me as a danger. He did not remember what he had told me
once, when I was rubbing him and my arm slipped.

I said, “Master, I can show you. Bring me closer.”

The tentacle moved me in toward him. I was no more than two feet away. I canted my head to the right, as though to show something concerned with the Cap. The movement hid the start of my next one, until it was too late for him to parry or push me away. Bunching my muscles, I put every ounce of strength I possessed into an upward swinging right hook. It caught him where the implement had brushed him, between nose and mouth, but this time with the full force of my body behind it.

He gave a single howl, which broke off in mid-cry, and at the same time the tentacle holding me hurled me away from him. I hit the floor hard, some yards away, and slid to the very edge of the garden pool. I was barely conscious as I staggered to my feet, and almost fell into the steaming waters.

But the Master had keeled over as he threw me. He lay there, prone and silent.