The White Mountains (The Tripods) (17 page)

“As I thought,” Beanpole said, “it is on the surface only. Observe.”

I got rid of the gag, and looked at what he was
holding in his hand. It was silvery gray, about half an inch in diameter, thicker in the center and tapering toward the edge. It was solid, but gave the impression of hundreds of tiny wires just below the surface. Attached to it were the bloody scraps of my flesh, which Beanpole had cut away.

Beanpole poked the button with his finger.

“It is curious,” he said. “I would like to study this. It is a pity we must leave it.”

His gaze was one of dispassionate interest. Henry, who was also looking, had a greenish tinge to his face. Staring at the gobbets of flesh adhering, nausea rose in me again, and this time I had to turn away to be sick. When I recovered, Beanpole was still staring at the button.

Gasping, I said, “Throw it away, and let’s get going. The farther we are from here, the better.”

He nodded reluctantly, and dropped it in the grass. He said to me, “Your arm—does it hurt much?”

“I wouldn’t care to bowl fast for the next hour or two.”

“Bowl fast?”

“In cricket. It’s a game we play in our country. Oh, never mind. Let’s get a move on. It will take my mind off it.”

“There is a herb which heals wounds. I will look for it on the way.”

A good deal of blood had flowed and was still flowing down my side. I had been mopping it up with my shirt, and I now rolled the shirt up into a ball, wadded it under my arm, and walked with it in that position. My
hopeful suggestion that traveling would take my mind off the pain did not work out very well. It went on hurting just as much, if not more. But I was rid of the Tripod’s button, and each jolting step left it farther behind.

We were continuing to climb over rough, but mostly open country. The sun was setting on our right; on the other side our long shadows were almost abreast of us. We were not talking, in my case because I was too occupied with gritting my teeth. It was, if one were in the mood for appreciating it, a lovely and peaceful evening. Calm and still. No sound, except …

We stopped, and listened. My heart seemed to contract, and for a moment the pain was blotted out by the greater power of fear. It came from behind, faint but seeming to grow louder every instant: the hideous warbling ululation which we had heard in the cabin of the
Orion
—the hunting call of the Tripods.

Seconds later it was in sight, coming around the base of the hill and, unmistakably, climbing toward us. It was some miles away, but coming on fast—much faster, I thought, than its usual rate of progress.

Henry said, “The bushes …”

He did not need to say any more; we were all three running. What he had indicated offered one of the few bits of cover on the hillside, the only one within reasonable reach. It was a small thicket of bushes, growing to about shoulder height. We flung ourselves in among them, burrowed into the center, and crouched down there.

I said, “It can’t still be after me. Can it?”

“The button,” Beanpole said. “It must be that cutting it out gave an alarm. So it has come after you, and this time hunting.”

“Did it see us, do you think?” Henry asked.

“I do not know. It was far away, and the light is poor.”

In fact, the sun had gone down; the sky above our hiding place was drained of gold, a darker blue. But still terrifyingly clear—much lighter than it had been the morning I had left the castle. I tried to console myself with the thought that I had been much nearer to it, also. The howling was louder and closer. It must have reached and passed the place where Beanpole had operated on me. Which meant …

I felt the ground shiver, and again and again with still greater force. Then one of the Tripod’s legs plunged across the blue, and I saw the hemisphere, black against the arc of sky, and tried to dig myself down into the earth. At that moment the howling stopped. In the silence I heard a different whistling sound of something whipping terribly fast through the air and, glancing fearfully, saw two or three bushes uprooted and tossed away.

Beside me, Beanpole said, “It has us. It knows we are here. It can pull the bushes out till we are plainly seen.”

“Or kill us, pulling them out,” Henry said. “If that thing hits you …”

I said, “If I showed myself …”

“No use. It knows there are three.”

“We could run different ways,” Henry said. “One of us might get clear.”

I saw more bushes sail through the air, like confetti. You do not get used to fear, I thought; it grips you as firmly every time. Beanpole said, “We can fight it.”

He said it with a lunatic calm, which made me want to groan. Henry said, “What with? Our fists?”

“The metal eggs.” He had his pack open already, and was rummaging in it. The Tripod’s tentacle whistled down again. It was ripping the bushes up systematically. A few more passes—half a dozen at most—would bring it to us. “Perhaps these were what our ancestors used, to fight the Tripods. Perhaps that is why they were in the underground Shmand-Fair—they went out from there to fight them.”

I said, “And they lost! How do you think … ?”

He had got the eggs out. “What else is there?”

Henry said, “I threw mine away. They were too much trouble to carry.”

The tentacle sliced into the bushes, and this time we were spattered with earth as it pulled them up. Beanpole said: “There are four.”

He handed one each to Henry and me. “I will take the others. If we pull out the rings, count five, then stand up and throw. At the leg that is nearest. The hemisphere is too high.”

This time I saw the tentacle
through
the bushes as it scooped up more. Beanpole said, “Now!”

He pulled the rings from his eggs, and Henry did the same. I had taken mine in my left hand, and I needed to transfer it to the right. As I did so, pain ripped my
armpit again, and I dropped it. I was fumbling on the ground to pick it up when Beanpole said, “Now!” again. They scrambled to their feet, and I grabbed the last egg, ignoring the pain of the moment, and got up with them. I ripped out the ring just as they threw.

The nearest foot of the Tripod was planted on the slope, thirty yards or so above us. Beanpole’s first throw was wild—he did not get within ten yards of his target. But his second throw, and Henry’s, were close to the mark. One of them hit metal, with a clang that we could hear. Almost at once they exploded. There were three nearly simultaneous bangs, and fountains of earth and dust spouted into the air.

But they did not obscure one plain fact: the eggs had done no damage to the Tripod. It stood as firmly as before, and the tentacle was swishing down, this time directly toward us. We started to run, or rather, in my case, prepared to. Because before I could move, it had me around the waist.

I plucked at it with my left hand, but it was like trying to bend a rock. It held me with amazing precision, tight but not crushing, and lifted me as I might lift a mouse. Except that a mouse could bite, and I could do nothing against the hard gleaming surface that held me. I was lifted up, up. The ground shrank below me, and with it the figures of Beanpole and Henry. I saw them darting away like ants. I was steeplehigh, higher. I looked up, and saw the hole in the side of the hemisphere. And remembered the iron egg still clutched in my right hand.

How long was it since I had pulled the ring out? I
had forgotten to count in my fear and confusion. Several seconds—it could not be long before it exploded. The tentacle was swinging me inwards now. The hole was forty feet away, thirty-five, thirty. I braced myself back, straining against the encircling band. Pain leapt in my arm again, but I ignored it. I hurled the egg with all my strength, and what accuracy I could muster. I thought at first that I had missed, but the egg hit the edge of the opening and ricocheted inside. The tentacle continued to carry me forward. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten …

Although I was nearer, the explosion was not as loud as the others had been, probably because it took place inside the hemisphere. There was just a dull, rather hollow bang. Despair came back: that was my last chance gone. But at that instant I felt the tentacle holding me relax and fall away.

I was three times the height of a tall pine; my bones would shatter when I hit the ground. I clutched desperately at the thing against which, a few seconds earlier, I had been struggling. My hands gripped the metal, but I was falling, falling. I looked down, and closed my eyes as the earth rushed up to meet me. And then there was a jerk which almost tore me from my hold, and the falling stopped. My feet shivered, only a few inches above the ground. All I had to do was let go, and step down.

The others came to me. We stared up, in awe, at the Tripod. It stood there, tilted slightly but upright. From where we stood it showed no sign of damage. But its tentacle drooped like a dead snake. Our tormentor would not torment us again.

Beanpole said, “I do not know
if it could tell others before it died, but I think we had better not stay here.”

Henry and I quickly agreed. For my part, even though I knew it was dead, I still, irrationally, feared it. I had a vision of it toppling, crushing us beneath its stupendous weight. I wanted desperately to get away from this place.

“If others come,” Beanpole said, “they will search the surrounding part. The more distant we are before that happens, the better for us.”

We set off up the hill, running. We ran until we were straining for breath, hearts pounding deliriously, leg muscles tortured with fatigue, and still staggered on. My arm was hurting a lot, but after a time I felt it less
than I felt the other aches and pains. Once I fell, and it was an exquisite pleasure just to lie there, panting but not moving, my face pressed against grass and powdery earth. The others helped me up, and I was partly angry as well as grateful.

It took us about half an hour to get to the top. Beanpole stopped then, and we stopped with him—I do not think I could have gone more than a few more yards, anyway, before falling again. And this time no help would have got me to my feet. I gulped in breath, which hurt me but which I had to have. Gradually the tightness in my chest eased, and I could breathe without pain.

I looked down the long slope up which we had come. Darkness was falling, but I could still see the Tripod there. Was it really possible that I had killed it? I could begin to appreciate the enormity of what I had done, not so much with pride as with wonder. The unchallenged, impregnable masters of the earth—and my right hand had smashed one to death. I thought I knew how David had felt, when he saw Goliath topple in the dust of the valley of Elah.

Beanpole said, “Look.”

His voice did not generally tell one much, but there was alarm in it. I said, “Where?”

“To the west.”

He pointed. In the far distance, something moved. A familiar hateful shape heaved itself over the skyline, followed by a second, and a third. They were a long way off yet, but the Tripods were coming.

• • •

We ran again, down the other side of the ridge. We lost sight of them at once, but that was small consolation, knowing they were in the next valley, and realizing the feebleness of the best speed we could manage in comparison with theirs. I hoped they would stay with the dead Tripod for some time, but doubted if they would. Seeking revenge for its destruction was more likely to be their immediate concern. I put my foot on uneven ground, stumbled, and came near falling. At least, it was dark and getting darker. Unless they had cat’s eyes, it made our chances just a little better.

And we needed all the help we could get. There appeared to be no more cover in this valley than the last—less, because I could not see a single bush, let alone a clump of them. It was all rough grass, with outcroppings of stone. We rested against one of these when exhaustion finally halted us. Stars were out, but there was no moon: it would not rise for some hours. I was very glad of that.

No moon, but, above the ridge, a light in the sky, a light that moved, changing shape. A number of lights? I drew Beanpole’s attention to it. He said,

“Yes. I have seen that.”

“The Tripods?”

“What else?”

The light became beams, thrusting forward across the sky like arms. They shortened, and one of them swung in a stabbing arc across the sky, so that it pointed down instead of up. I could not see what lay behind the
beam, but it was easy enough to imagine. The Tripod had come over the crest. The beams of light came from the hemispheres, and enabled them to see their way.

They were spaced out, a hundred yards or so apart, and the beams of light swept the ground before and between them. They were traveling more slowly than I had seen a Tripod travel, but even so they were going faster than we could run. And were, as far as we knew, tireless. They made no sound, save for the dull thumping of their feet, and somehow this was more frightening than the howling of the other Tripod had been.

We ran, and rested, and ran again. Rather than endure the extra effort of scaling the far side, we followed the valley to the west. In the darkness we stumbled and fell over the uneven ground, bruising ourselves. Behind us, the light followed, relentlessly weaving to and fro. In one pause, we saw that the Tripods had split up, one going up the other side of the valley and another marching to the east. But the third was coming our way, and gaining on us.