When the Tripods Came Page 5

  Andy looked at me. “What if it were Ilse?”

  I thought about it and was aware of different feelings which I couldn’t sort out. I could imagine how Pa would feel, though.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  Andy said, “I don’t know, either. I just wish I could work out what it’s supposed to be for. We know now that it’s definitely linked with the Tripods, and that the people who thought up the TV show were among the first Trippies. Whatever sent the Tripods obviously monitored our television, worked out which was the most effective production center, and somehow beamed hypnotic directives into it. But what’s their motivation?”

  “One theory is that they come from a swamp planet,” I said, “because the only sensible reason for Tripods would be to cross marshland.”

  “So what sort of creature are they—intelligent giant frogs, or newts? Pigs, maybe; the pig’s a swamp animal. No one knows. Maybe no one ever will. And no one has the faintest idea how their minds work. We saw what the first Tripod did to the farmhouse. This second lot seem to be doing nothing except hypnotizing people into liking them. Could that be it? They just want to be liked?”

  “They’re not winning as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, Pa’s right. Hypnosis doesn’t last. They’ll start drifting back soon.”

  I punched my pillow and settled down. Andy was silent, and I wondered if he was still brooding about Miranda. I started thinking about Ilse and his question about how I’d feel if it had been her. But I didn’t like the thoughts that came into my head, so I shut them out.

  • • •

  Next day was Saturday. Pa was off selling another house. People had to live somewhere, he said, Tripods or no Tripods. Martha had driven in to the shop and taken Angela. And Andy had cycled home to pick up clothes he’d forgotten the previous day.

  I wandered down the garden, which had fruit trees at the bottom. Most of the apples had been picked, but there was one old tree which still had a few. Sitting on a branch and eating an apple, I thought about Ilse again. Pa had been on the telephone to her before breakfast, urging her to come back. Afterwards he said the Swiss couldn’t believe what was happening in the rest of the world. Apparently there were no Tripods in their country, and almost no Tripping.

  He and Andy got into an argument about national characteristics. It wasn’t the sort of thing that interested me, and I didn’t pay too much attention. What I did notice was the way Pa talked to him—naturally, not going into silences and then talking too fast to make up for it. I’d left them talking. I wondered how it was he seemed able to talk easily to everyone but me.

  As I tossed the apple core away, I heard a car draw up outside the house. My first thought was Pa, but the engine note was too deep for the Renault. Not Martha’s Jaguar, either. I dropped out of the tree and headed back. Uncle Ian’s Rolls was in the drive, and he and Nathanael beside it. Uncle Ian was wearing casual-expensive gear, blue slacks and silk roll-neck shirt, soft Gucci shoes, and a big hat. I didn’t think they went with the black executive briefcase he was carrying. Nathanael had a hat, too, a woolly thing. Uncle Ian waved at me, smiling.

  “I was beginning to think everyone was out.”

  I led the way in, explaining about the others. Surreptitiously I glanced at Nathanael. He seemed all right. Knowing Uncle Ian, he would have called someone in from Harley Street to dehypnotize him. But how had he got him back? Probably by hiring a bunch of heavies. Martha said he mixed with some funny people.

  What was more puzzling was their being here, a hundred miles south of Ardaker Manor. I would have expected them to go home first. I took them into the sitting room and told Uncle Ian to pour himself a drink, as Pa would have done, and asked politely what had brought them.

  He was still smiling. “There was someone I had to see, in Taunton. It’s not much of a detour, so I thought I’d drop in on you.”

  “What about Aunt Caroline?”

  He looked surprised. “What about her?”

  “She was—well, worried.” I glanced at my cousin, who was smiling, too—unusual for him. And neither had taken his hat off. “About Nathanael.”

  “Oh, that. I rang her. She knows everything’s all right.”

  I was still puzzled. Although the whiskey decanter was staring him in the face, he hadn’t even looked at it. He was a pretty heavy drinker and I would have expected him to pour himself a big one, after a long drive. He walked over and put a hand on my arm.

  “What you have to realize, Laurie, is that everything really is all right, in the biggest possible way. I’m glad we found you on your own. It makes explanations easier.”

  Alarm bells started to go off when he touched me. In the past I wasn’t sure he’d even noticed I was there. His manner, I realized, was altogether too affable, almost ingratiating. Nothing like the way the Ardakers normally treated their poor relations.

  I said, “Probably better to wait till Pa gets back. You can explain it to him, too.”

  He paid no attention. “A new world is dawning, you know. A world of peace and happiness.”

  It was all wrong. The only kind of peace and happiness he’d ever been interested in was the peace and happiness of making another fortune. I had a quick look in the direction of the door and saw, with a sinking feeling, that Nathanael was standing between it and me.

  Uncle Ian went on, “It’s something you have to experience to understand, but once you have, everything else is like a bad dream. For thousands of years men have fought one another, killing and torturing and enslaving. That’s all gone. The Tripods are bringing peace and freedom.”

  “Hail the Tripod,” Nathanael said.

  I said, “That’s very interesting.”

  I was wondering where the real threat lay. It was clear that far from Nathanael having been dehypnotized, his father had Tripped, too. But if all that meant was a lecture on the goodness of the Tripods, I could put up with it. I had a feeling, though, that something more serious was in view: They were looking for converts. The question was how they proposed to go about the converting. I doubted if it would just be talk. By sitting me down in front of a TV screen and forcing me to watch a Trippy Show? But I’d watched it before and hadn’t Tripped. Or by hypnotizing me some other way? Dr. Monmouth had said no one could be hypnotized against their will. If I was determined to resist, I could. Couldn’t I?

  “It’s easy to enter the way of peace,” Uncle Ian said.

  His briefcase was on the carpet beside him. He clicked it open, and produced something: a floppy helmetlike thing, black, but threaded with silver.

  “The lucky ones,” Uncle Ian said, “are those who opened their hearts voluntarily to the Tripods’ message. But the Tripods want everyone to know the joy of belonging to the new brotherhood of man. So they’ve given us these Caps, which will banish all doubts and uncertainties.”

  He held it out to me, and with his other hand pulled off his hat. He was wearing a helmet underneath.

  He said earnestly, “Put it on, Laurie. Then you will know the secret of happiness, as we do.”

  I looked from one to the other. Neither showed hostility. Nathanael’s thin features had lost their familiar sneering look and radiated goodwill. It was a chilling sight. The helmet looked harmless, just a piece of rubber with metal threads. But I felt my heart pounding.

  “Sounds great,” I said. “Only—can it wait a couple of minutes? I lit the gas to make coffee just before you arrived. I’d better switch off before it sets fire to the kitchen.”

  For a moment no one spoke. I started to walk towards the door, as naturally as I could.

  In a calm voice, Uncle Ian said, “The human mind is full of trickery and deceit, until it has been brought into the harmony of the Tripods. Hold him, Nathanael.”

  I tried to push past, and, when he grabbed at me, reversed and pulled back. I ran instead for the window, which was partly open. As I did I heard a car, and saw the Jaguar stopping. I tried to clamber out, but Nathanael had my leg. I kicked and
yelled for help at the same time.

  My kick dislodged Nathanael and overturned the sofa. It was a barrier between them and me, but a poor and temporary one. I heard Martha outside shouting to Angela as Uncle Ian, dangling the helmet from his hand, joined Nathanael. Going for the window meant turning my back on them. I didn’t know what to do and, out of panic, did nothing.

  Uncle Ian said quietly, “This is silly, Laurie. No one’s going to hurt you. We have something to give, and when you have it, too, you’ll know it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. All you have to do is relax and accept.”

  I said, stalling for time, “Tell me more about it—about the Tripods.”

  He shook his head. “Trickery and deceit again. But it will soon be ended.”

  I’d left it too late for the window. They’d have the helmet on my head while I was struggling through. On the window ledge was a bronze statuette of a Roman god, one of Martha’s antiques. I grabbed it and held it like a club.

  Uncle Ian said, “Nathanael . . .”

  Nathanael leapt faster than I would have thought possible, his hand grabbing for my wrist. The speed of it and the shock made me let go of the bronze, and his hand had my wrist in a bone-twisting grip. His father was coming up behind. Looking between them I saw the door opening, and Martha.

  She said, “Ian! I don’t know what this is about, but let him go. At once.”

  He looked at her mildly. “We will bring you peace, too, Martha. After Laurie.”

  My grandmother was a tough old lady, but no possible match for them. She was carrying her big red crocodile handbag, the one in which she kept her stock money. I wondered if she was thinking of hitting Uncle Ian over the head with it.

  I called urgently, “Get away! Get help!”

  She dropped the bag with a clatter. She was holding something: black, flat-sided—a small pistol. She said, “I told you: let go of him.”

  Uncle Ian’s voice was untroubled. “Don’t be silly, Martha. We come in peace and bringing peace. No one is going to get hurt.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” She spoke in her best bossy voice. “Unless you leave him, and get out, someone is. Badly hurt, killed perhaps.”

  Uncle Ian stared at her. Tripping, as we’d found with Angela, made people almost indifferent to pain and danger. Would he call her bluff?

  He shook his head slowly. “You’re making such a mistake, Martha. If you’d only let me—”

  He broke off as the gun exploded, shatteringly loud.

  He sighed, and shrugged, and headed for the door, Nathanael following. Martha and I stood looking at each other, till we heard the Rolls start. She put out a hand, feeling for the nearest armchair, and dropped into it heavily.

  “Pour me a brandy, Laurie,” she said. “A stiff one.”

  • • •

  Angela had been hiding in the shrubbery. She was more interested than frightened and wanted to see the gun, but Martha dropped it back in her bag.

  I said, “I didn’t know you had one.”

  “I got it last year, after a dealer got robbed on his way back from an antiques fair. The silly thing is, I never got round to practicing with it.” She took the glass and gulped down brandy. “I was terrified of hitting something.”

  By “something” she meant one of her bits of china; her gaze ranged round the room for reassurance. The only sign of damage was a neat hole in the plaster of the wall. But she saw the bronze on the floor, and got up to examine it. The briefcase was still on the carpet where Uncle Ian had left it. I looked inside and saw more helmets.

  “I wonder why he left this,” I said.

  Martha ran her fingers over the statuette, and said absently, “No idea.”

  “Except maybe he thought if he left them we’d try the helmets on, and . . . bingo!”

  She shivered with repulsion. “As if we would!”

  “Who can tell how a Trippy’s mind works? He really thinks these things are passports to paradise, so he might think we’d be tempted. He did take the one he was trying to make me wear. Where were they heading, do you suppose? Home?”

  She slammed the statuette down.

  “Caroline . . .”

  “What?”

  She went to the telephone and dialed the number. I heard her telling Aunt Caroline what had happened. Then she said, “Caroline, listen—you must listen. . . . Leave the house before they get back. Come here. They aren’t the same people, I tell you, they’re dangerous. . . .”

  She took the telephone from her ear and looked at it for a moment before putting it back on its rest.

  I asked, “What did she say?”

  I’d never seen her look helpless before.

  She said, “She won’t believe me. All she was concerned about was that they were alive and well. She hung up on me.”

  FIVE

  More went missing from school. You couldn’t be sure if they were Tripping or just staying away because things were in a mess. Very little work got done, anyway.

  In assembly the Head Man gave us a warning about people who might try to Cap us. It seemed Uncle Ian wasn’t the only one around carrying rubber helmets. We were to report anyone acting suspiciously.

  I was standing next to Hilda Goossens, who sniffed and said, “Silly old twit!”

  “Why?”

  “As if we need to be told.”

  “Someone said they saw Wild Bill hanging about school this morning. If he spots you, he might decide to Cap his pet genius.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “My uncle nearly managed it, with me.”

  She just looked at me pityingly. I wondered what it must be like to be Hilda Goossens and so sure of yourself about everything. The Head Man droned on. He was thin and anxious, white-faced and white-haired (what there was of it), due for retirement at the end of the school year. I wondered about being like him, too—just about able to cope under normal conditions, without things like Tripping to contend with.

  What I was suddenly aware of was the importance of their being whatever each of them was—cocky and contemptuous, or bothered and beaten—as long as it was something they’d come to in their own way: the importance of being human, in fact. The peace and harmony Uncle Ian and the others claimed to be handing out in fact was death, because without being yourself, an individual, you weren’t really alive.

  The first class was meant to be chemistry, but there was no sign of the chemistry teacher. Hilda Goossens and a couple of others got on with their assignments. The rest of us talked. We stopped when the door flew open. It wasn’t Mrs. Green, though, but a hairy little Welshman called Wyllie, who taught physical exercise.

  He shouted, “Right! School dismissed. Everybody out.”

  Andy asked, “Why?”

  He said importantly, “Police warning. The Exeter Tripod’s on the move. The path they’ve plotted takes it a couple of miles north, but they want everyone out of the area as a precaution. Get cracking.”

  A boy called Marriott said, “I live in Todpole.”

  Todpole was six miles north of the school. Wyllie said, “Well, you can’t go there. They’re evacuating along the route. It will probably be OK in an hour or two, but check with the police.”

  In the bike shed I waited while Andy fiddled about. The shed was empty before he straightened up. I said, “Come on—we’re last.”

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  I said impatiently, “You can bike and think at the same time, can’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a look at it.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the Tripod.

  “There’ll be a roadblock.”

  “We can get round it.”

  Can, not could. And we, which meant there was no way of backing out without looking chicken.

  I said, “I don’t suppose it’s any different from the one we saw.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it is.” He wheeled his bike out of the shed. “I’d still like to take a look.”
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  • • •

  It was a bright day but the wind, blowing a swirl of leaves from the side of the road, had a wintry edge. There weren’t many people about, and they were all going the opposite way.

  We found the roadblock half a mile out of town. A patrol car was slewed across the road with a policeman standing beside it smoking a cigarette, and another at the wheel. It was fairly obvious which way we’d need to go to get past it. To the left the ground fell away in open fields, but the higher ground on the right was wooded.

  I said, “What about the bikes?”

  “No sweat. Stick them in the ditch.”

  Mine was new from my birthday a month earlier, a racer I’d been wanting a long time. I laid it down carefully by the roadside. We got through a gap in the hedge and made for the trees. Once under cover we stayed close to the edge of the wood. We passed within a hundred yards of the patrol car. The policeman who was smoking glanced our way but gave no sign of seeing us.

  If we were invisible to him, the same would presumably apply to the Tripod, which made me feel better. I even began to feel lighthearted. There were bird sounds—a blackbird, the rowdy clatter of a pheasant. Normal country stuff. This was probably a wild goose chase, anyway—a wild Tripod chase. Even if it had moved it might stop again, as the one on the moor had, or change course. The trees ended, and we ducked under a fence into a field where Friesian cows were grazing. Here high ground on our left gradually fell away, giving a view across open country. You could see for miles—fields, copses, farmhouses. In the distance, sunlight dazzled from a river.

  But there was something else in the distance, too, catching the sun with a colder gleam. And moving our way; I heard the thump of its passage above the noises of birds and cows.

  Andy said, “The hedge.” We ran thirty meters across open meadow, and dived under. I wondered if it had seen us; it was still far off, but we didn’t know its range of vision. I hoped we were hidden now. Andy squirmed forward to a position where he could look out, and after a moment’s hesitation I wriggled after him, scratching my wrist on a bramble.