When the Tripods Came (5 page)

I overheard Martha telling Pa one night they ought to do something about it.

Pa said, “Kids have these crazes.”

“But not behaving the way she does when one tries to curb her. I’m not sure she doesn’t need treatment.”

“I thought you despised psychiatry?”

“I think Geoffrey should see her, at least.”

Geoffrey Monmouth was our doctor. He and Pa played golf together.

“I don’t see the need.”

His voice was resentful, perhaps because he didn’t like the idea of admitting there could be anything wrong with his Angel, especially to someone in the golf club.

“You haven’t seen her in a mood.”

Pa didn’t answer.

“There are other things to be concerned about,
you know, apart from when Ilse might be coming back.”

I’d been listening from the hall. I turned away and went up to my room.

• • •

A couple of days later, the
Daily Mail
came out against Trippies. We didn’t have that paper at home but it was being passed around in the playground when I got to school. There was a banner headline:

TRIPPY BRAINWASH?

Underneath they asked, I
S
T
HIS
S
HOW A
M
ENACE TO
O
UR
Y
OUNG
? They went on to quote from a couple of psychologists, saying the Trippy cult could be dangerous because it was developing a fanatical following which showed signs of getting out of hand. They gave examples of children behaving in ways which made Angela’s craziness seem dead normal. One boy had tried to burn the house down when his Trippy tapes were taken from him; and a girl of thirteen had almost killed her father with a kitchen knife. They claimed things were even worse in other countries: in the United States and Germany, kids were leaving home in droves to live together in Trippy communes. As fast as they were brought back, they took off again.

One of the Trippy fans at school produced a lighter, and set fire to the newspaper in the playground. The rest watched it flare up; their faces were
like some I saw in a movie about people burning witches.

They were still muttering at the beginning of first class, which happened to be physics. The noise didn’t stop when Wild Bill came in, and I expected him to erupt. He was tight on classroom discipline. Instead he looked at the Trippy fans in a funny way, fondly almost.

He said, “I saw you burn that evil newspaper. They had one in the common room, and I burned it, too.”

The Trippy fans were still cheering him when the school secretary, Mr. Denlum, knocked and entered. He was a little man and timid, especially where Wild Bill was concerned. He went close and whispered something. Wild Bill smiled contemptuously.

“If the headmaster wishes to see me, I am of course at his disposal.”

He told us to get on with our work and went out, with Denlum creeping after him. At the door he stopped and turned round, still smiling. He cried out, shouted almost, “Hail the Tripod!”

• • •

Trippies were the lead in the television news that evening. They showed a mob of them rioting outside the
Daily Mail
offices, and scuffles when police tried to disperse them. There were Trippies being dragged into police vans, a policeman with blood running down his face. The announcer said that another mob had assembled outside the editor’s home.
Windows had been smashed and Tripod figures daubed on the walls.

“In the House of Commons this afternoon,” he went on, “the prime minister said that the situation is being closely watched. There is particular concern that the practice of Trippy cultists banding together to live communally has now spread to this country. It is reported that there are several groups in London, squatting in empty flats and offices, and that similar communes have been set up in a number of provincial cities, including Birmingham and Exeter.”

Martha said, “I can’t think why they’ve let things get this far. It needs tackling with a firm hand.”

“Easier said than done,” Pa said.

“That’s the whole trouble. Too much saying, too little doing.”

The news reader started talking about stocks and shares and a financial panic, and Angela, who had been sitting staring at the screen, got up and left the room. Martha and Pa went on talking about the rioting. She was getting angrier, and he was agreeing; he never liked being on the wrong side of her for long. He was saying yes, the Trippy Show should be banned, when I heard the front door open and close.

I said, “That was Angela.”

Pa turned to me. “What?”

“Just then. Going out.”

He asked Martha, “Did she say anything to you?”

“No. I suppose she could have gone to Emma’s.”

Emma was a friend of hers in the village.

I said, “There was that bit on the news, about a Trippy commune in Exeter.”

“She couldn’t—” Martha began. Pa went for the front door, and I followed him. Emma’s house was a couple of hundred yards to the left. Angela was heading right, in the direction of the bus station.

• • •

Pa needed my help in bringing her back; she fought for some time before suddenly going slack on us. He carried her to her room, and Martha and I watched her. She lay staring at the ceiling. When Pa came back she didn’t answer his questions, didn’t look at him or even move. Dr. Monmouth turned up a few minutes later. He lived close by.

He was a small man, shorter than Pa, with a pink and white baby face and wispy hair. He spoke fast, stammering a bit. Pa explained what had happened.

When he’d examined Angela and shone a light in her eyes, he said to Pa, “As you know, I use hypnosis sometimes. As we both know, it’s not a line you care for. If you like, I’ll sedate her and refer her to a p-pediatrician. But I would like to try hypnosis. It might just give us an idea what’s troubling her. M-may I?”

Pa said reluctantly, “I don’t suppose it can do any harm.”

“I’m sure it can’t.”

Dr. Monmouth got her to sit up, handling her gently but firmly. From his bag he produced a steel ball on a chain and began to swing it in front of her.
I’d seen something similar on a show, but it was interesting to watch, and listen to his voice, gentle and monotonous: “You are feeling sleepy . . . sleepy . . . sleepy. . . . Your eyelids are getting heavy. . . . Your eyes are closing . . . closing. . . . You are asleep. . . .”

I was getting drowsy myself.

Dr. Monmouth slipped the ball in his pocket. He said, “Angela. Can you hear me?”

In a thick voice she said, “Yes.”

“Is there anything you have to do—you
m-must
do?”

No reply.

He said, “Tell me. What is it you have to do?”

She said slowly, “Obey the Tripod.”

“What does that m-mean, Angela?”

“The Tripod is good. The Tripod knows best.”

“Best about what?”

“About everything.”

“So what do you do?”

“I do what the Tripod tells me.”

“And who told you this?”

“The Tripod.”

“Did the T-Tripod tell you to run away from home and join the Trippies?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Monmouth held her wrists in his hands. “Listen, Angela. Listen carefully. There is no Tripod. You have never watched the T-Trippy Show. There is no T-Trippy Show. You don’t like watching television.
You are your own person, and no one, nothing, can rule your mind. Now, I am going to count to five, and on the count of five you will wake up, not r-remembering the words I’ve said, but r-remembering what I’ve told you. One, two, three . . .”

Her eyes opened on five. She said, “What is it?” She looked at us standing round the bed. “I’ve not been ill or anything?”

He smiled reassuringly. “Just a turn. You’re all right now. Fit for anything. Want to watch t-television?”

“No.” She shook her head violently. “No, I don’t.”

• • •

Angela stayed in her room, rearranging her dolls. She had more than a dozen, and I realized it was weeks since she’d played with them. I went down with the others, and Pa poured them drinks.

“I’m still not sure I know what that was about.” He handed a glass to Dr. Monmouth. “She’d been previously hypnotized by someone else? But who?”

“You heard her: the Tripod.”

Martha said, “That’s ridiculous. The Tripods were destroyed. By the television show, do you mean? Is that possible?”

Dr. Monmouth took his drink. “Hypnosis is a state of artificially induced sleep or trance, in which the subject is susceptible to suggestion. There are various m-methods of inducing it. I’ve never known of it being done through television, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility.”

“But the actual suggestion,” Pa said, “how would that work?”

“It could be subliminal: a message flashed onscreen for a microsecond. Reinforced by the spoken message, ‘Hail the T-Tripod.’ It’s interesting that it affects some people and not others. But so do other things, of course. Strobe lighting doesn’t bother m-most people, but induces epilepsy in a m-minority. It could be the result of a minor cortical irregularity. A difference in alpha rhythm, perhaps, which makes them susceptible.”

“But done by whom,” Martha demanded, “the Russians?”

“I suppose that’s possible. But the show originated in the United States.”

“Why would the Americans want to do such a thing? It makes no sense.”

“There have been experiments in the past with subliminal suggestion in advertising. M-maybe somebody’s preparing the launch of a T-Tripod toy, and the p-project got out of hand. Or maybe it’s like the mass hysteria you get with pop stars—hysteria and hypnosis both involve surrender of the will—and by some freak it’s got tied in with this particular show.”

Pa asked, “Which do you think?”

“I don’t know. There’s a third possibility.”

“What?”

“Television signals aren’t stopped by the ionosphere. The show originates in America, but the suggestions could be superimposed from somewhere else.” He paused. “F-from space.”

Martha shook her head. “Now that really is ridiculous.”

Pa said, “From whatever was behind the Tripods, you mean? It’s a bit unlikely, isn’t it? The Tripods were a joke.”

“Scientific knowledge doesn’t have to follow the pattern we’re familiar with. The Incas had a superb road system, but didn’t m-manage to invent the wheel. The fact of using something as clumsy as a T-Tripod doesn’t mean they might not be a long way ahead of us in studies of the m-mind, and mental processes.”

Pa shook his head. “An advertising gimmick getting out of hand sounds more likely.”

• • •

The television news was full of Trippies, demonstrating and chanting about the Tripod and clashing with the police. And not just in England; there were similar scenes from America and Canada, Australia and Europe. There were rumors it was happening behind the Iron Curtain, too, but we weren’t shown any of that.

The media had invented the name Trippy, and they called the demonstrations Tripping. The Trippies took it up themselves, and started singing a new song to one of the minor tunes on the Trippy Show.

“Trip, trip, trip with the Tripod . . .”

Then suddenly the Trippies were on the move. It began in London. We watched the report on early evening television, and it was like a mass migration.
They had managed to pick up cars and vans from all over the city and were moving out into the country. Others waited by the roadside. The weather was terrible, with rain slashing out of a black sky and a near-gale blowing. They stood patiently in the rain, wet, bedraggled, uncomplaining. Many of them carried hand-lettered signs and banners: H
AIL THE
T
RIPOD
! T
HE
T
RIPOD
L
IVES
! or just a drawing of a Tripod. Cars and vans driven by other Trippies stopped to pick them up, and crawled on, overloaded. The police watched but didn’t try to do anything.

I thought about it when I went to bed. I didn’t know whether or not to feel sorry for them. It had looked a miserable scene, but they hadn’t seemed miserable. I wondered what it was about. Could Dr. Monmouth be right about hypnosis through signals from space? But what
for?
Why a mass exodus like that? I remembered that lemmings went in for mass migrations. They wound up in the sea.

Presumably Angela could have been among them if Dr. Monmouth hadn’t broken the spell. Some of the Trippies had looked no older than she was. The thought was chilling.

In the morning I woke early. I switched on breakfast television and stared at the screen in disbelief. A Tripod stood center screen, with sodden, gray-green fields behind it. Small dots swarmed like bees about the gigantic feet.

The newscaster was talking in a breathless, unsteady voice.

“The second Tripod invasion is amazing enough in itself—and there are landings reported in Germany and the States—but this—how would you describe it?—parade of welcome? This really is incredible. . . .”

The camera zoomed into close-up. The swarm of dots turned into people. Hundreds . . . thousands of them, waving and cheering and brandishing Trippy signs.

For a time there was a stalemate. The Tripods didn’t move and no one moved against them. There was no way of attacking them without killing the Trippies clustered round. The nearest Tripod to us was north of Exeter, and there were three others in England, one in Scotland between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and one in Ireland, south of Dublin. It was the same throughout the industrialized world. Someone worked out there was a Tripod for about every ten million people, mostly planted close to major centers of population.