I had to rest, just for a few minutes. Adrenaline can only take a person so far.

I'd just run an errand for Andre. On the way, I'd run into a group of freed slaves and sent them to the camp, but I couldn't go with them because I had other things to do. Now, finding myself alone for a moment, I sat on the side of a pool. Thankfully, no Masters were floating in it. I closed my eyes and breathed carefully, taking it easy on my broken rib.

About fifteen minutes was all I got, but I was grateful for that much. It was a luxury.

I heard one of the carriages approaching and looked up. It was Beanpole, driving by himself. It was no surprise he had figured out how to operate the carriages so quickly.

He stopped as close to me as the ramp would allow and climbed out, and almost fell. He was gangly at the best of times, and hadn't quite got used to the stronger gravity. But, stepping off the ramp, he managed to drop the remaining five feet to the ground reasonably well.

I stood. I grit my teeth so I wouldn't wince, even though I knew Fritz had already told Beanpole about my injury.

"Do you want to read a rough draft of the pamphlet?" Beanpole asked.

"I'd rather bury Mario and Carlos," I said.

Beanpole nodded. "We can do that."

He awkwardly climbed back onto the ramp, then helped me up. The pain in my chest was excruciating as he pulled me up.

As we settled into the carriage, a freed slave approached. He had the baffled look we'd come to know so well in the last 24 hours.

"Excuse me," he said nervously, in German. "Can you tell me-"

"You want to know what's going on, and what you should do now," Beanpole said. "We understand. Do you remember how to get to the front of the city, and the enormous gate by which you entered?"

"Yes, but-"

"Go there, and leave the city," Beanpole said. "There is a camp just outside. They will answer all your questions and help you."

"But-"

"We're on a mission, and we don't have time," Beanpole said kindly. "Please, just go to the camp outside the city. You will find all your answers there."

Beanpole drove us to the city's control center. The Masters' bodies from inside had been dragged out and piled to one side. They stank.

We entered to find Gregory and half a dozen scientists already swarming over the controls, trying to figure them out.

Gregory wasn't a scientist, but he was the next best thing: a superb linguist. He had an innate ability to learn languages astonishingly fast. He had been crucial to our communications with the Asian resistance group, and he had been studying Ruki alongside the scientists since the day we captured him. Here in the control center, he was as invaluable as any scientist, and would be working closely with them. As Beanpole had told me months ago, figuring out what a button did by pressing it blindly was a terrible idea; it was far better to know what the button said.

Their top priority was to locate the machine which sent invisible rays to the caps, and to destroy it completely.

Fritz and Jan were cleaning the floor with buckets of water and rags. At first, I was puzzled as to why they would bother, then I realized what they were cleaning up.

"The Masters decomposed really fast," I said.

Beanpole shrugged. "Higher water content than humans, plus high heat and humidity."

Mario lay near one wall, his body laid straight and respectfully. I was selfishly glad someone else had gone into the central pyramid to get him. Without asking, I knew it had been Fritz.

"Where's Julius?" I asked, looking around.

"At the camp," Beanpole said. "With his frail body and limp, he could not handle the gravity."

I glanced again at the scientists. They were young and fit. We had a few elderly scientists, but they probably couldn't handle the gravity, either.

Beanpole paused to chat with a few of the scientists while I helped Fritz and Jan clean the last of the mess.

Jan carried Mario to one of the carriages (Beanpole called them cars, which was a funny word until you got used to it). Fritz drove that car, with Jan beside him. Beanpole drove the other with me. We headed for the entrance.

I was grateful again for the chance to rest, even for a moment. I gazed at the city, full of memories and feelings. I had been a slave here, and a spy, then a liberator. To see it now was surreal.

The sky was gray and threatening rain. There was no longer a dome to keep out the weather. Most of the dome had collapsed, leaving a jagged circle of green crystal jutting out of the wall. The machine which made the Masters' green air still churned it out; it wafted lazily into the sky.

"Beanpole," I said. "When we turned the power back on, why didn't the Capped go back to being slaves?"

"I don't know, Will. My best theory at this point is that the transmitter simply did not reactivate, for reasons we don't yet know. All we know is that signals to the Capped have stopped, at least for the moment. This is true for both the European and Asian cities, so if it's nothing more than a fortunate malfunction, it happened twice, which I find very interesting. Many of our resistance cells have checked in, and as far as we can tell, mind control has been lifted from everyone on this side of the globe, despite the fact that both cities still run." He actually smiled a little. "I look forward to solving this mystery, along with so many others."

We were able to drive up the ramp to the ledge leading to the entrance, for which I was grateful, because it was a steep climb. Beyond this point, we had to walk. Fritz insisted on carrying Mario, and I wondered if Fritz, as mission commander, felt responsible for Mario and Carlos's deaths. Even though I knew Fritz as well as I knew anyone, I didn't know how I could ever ask him that.

We hiked through the slave-choosing area, the airlock (there was no poisonous air to remove, but the machinery would not allow both doors to be open simultaneously), the slave-receiving area, the lift, and the Hall of Tripods.

The Hall of Tripods was a vast space immediately inside the city entrance. In it, Tripods could dock at docking bays, like horses in a stable. But this stable stretched as far as I could see in both directions, disappearing around the city's curve. Considering how many Tripods the Masters seemed to have, I wouldn't have been surprised if the Hall stretched completely around the city, even over the river entrance and exit, forming the entire outermost perimeter.

Most of the docking stations I could see were empty, but a few had Tripods docked at them, waiting for Masters who would never again set foot in them.

We reached the gate. Upon stepping out of the city, we experienced the blessed relief of lightness.

We immediately had to wash our hands. The city was full of decaying corpses, and the scientists said that disease is actually carried by things called germs which are – as unbelievable as it sounds – tiny animals too small to see. I couldn't comprehend such a thing, but Beanpole assured me it was true. Basins of water, along with little bits of lye soap on a small blanket, sat just outside the gate. People were constantly hauling more water from the river – which was almost half a kilometer away – to refill the basins, because we had to pour the water over our hands rather than just stick our hands in the basins. And we didn't have a big supply of soap, so we had to be frugal with it, while simultaneously making sure we cleaned our hands thoroughly.

After washing, we headed for the camp, doing our best to ignore the two inert Tripods nearby. They had been entering or leaving when we destroyed the city, and they seemed just as dead, though we didn't know why.

The resistance had set up camp about a hundred meters outside the gate. We reached it to find that someone had posted "Camp Freedom" on a crude wooden sign, in several languages. The camp consisted of maybe half a dozen tents of all sizes. In the center was a huge pavilion; it covered some tables and chairs, and served as a central meeting place and mess tent.

Camp Freedom was healthily populated. The resistance had been extremely scattered and decentralized for several years, but now we could congregate again. Not since that day in the caves when Julius had instructed everyone to go their separate ways had I seen so many of us in one place. We had a couple dozen horses, as well.

Julius had taken a risk posting so many people near the city, but he had wanted to pounce the moment it fell. If the infiltration team had been discovered, it would not only have meant our deaths, but the deaths of all those waiting nearby, for the knowledge of their existence would have been dragged from our minds against our will. But with the Masters' ship just eighteen months away, Julius had explained that only huge gambles would save us now. He was probably right.

At the moment, Camp Freedom was organized chaos. Our more elderly scientists were categorizing objects, making detailed notes, and jabbering excitedly. Cooks were preparing the evening meal. Some resistance members were explaining to the freed slaves what had happened. And, off to one side, the saddest sight: the new vagrants.

Some of the slaves' minds had broken when we turned off the power. The resistance had assembled these wretches near the edge of camp, where they sat stupefied, babbling, crying, wailing, walking in circles, or – in a few rare cases – belligerent and violent. I didn't bother asking what we could do for them. I already knew.

It suddenly occurred to me that across half the globe, some percentage of the entire population must also have instantly gone insane. And some smaller percentage of those people must have hurt themselves or others, perhaps badly. I closed my eyes for a moment, overwhelmed with the enormity of the tragedy.

Someone – I never learned exactly who – had already retrieved Carlos. I wasn't surprised, for Julius had sent teams to make a circuit of the outside of the city immediately, to make sure there were no unpleasant surprises. Naturally, they had brought Carlos back.

The four of us who remained from the infiltration team – Fritz, Nicolas, Jan, and myself – along with Beanpole, grabbed shovels and took our fallen comrades away. We didn't want the river disturbing their graves during a flood, so we chose a high point on the opposite side of the camp from the river, about 400 meters from camp.

I tried to dig, but my rib protested immediately. I couldn't hide it, and I certainly couldn't force that shovel into the earth.

"Sit, Will," Fritz said.

"I don't want to sit while the rest of you do all the work," I said dourly.

"You can help fill the graves," he said. "That will be much easier."

I looked at him for a moment, then said, "Fritz, if I've never told you how much I admire you and your intelligence, allow me to do so now."

Fritz actually smiled at that, and I think he even blushed. That was a first.

I found a rock next to a tree which wasn't too uncomfortable and sat. The sky began to clear. I watched the others dig for a few minutes, then woke when Beanpole touched my arm. The sun was about an hour from setting and the graves were dug.

I groggily stood and helped lower Mario and Carlos into the graves. I grabbed a shovel and helped to cover them while Nicolas went to get Julius, because we knew he would want to be here. Fritz rolled two large stones into place to mark our friends' final resting place.

Julius and Nicolas returned as we finished, and I noticed Julius limped more than usual. Like me, he was in agony and trying to hide it.

We stood in a semicircle around the foot of the graves and bowed our heads in silence. Then Julius spoke a few kind, admiring words, and said a prayer.

As the others gathered the shovels, I slowly turned in a full circle, looking at everything. We had chosen a high point with a good view. The lowering sun began to chase the clouds away, painting the landscape with the first tinges of red and gold, and sparkling along the river. The trees were newly minted green. The spring breeze was fresh and cool, with its eternal promise of renewal.

"What are you doing, Will?" Beanpole asked.

"Remembering. I'm memorizing where these graves are as best I can."

"Someday, we will create a monument here," Julius said. "We will honor our fallen heroes."

I offered Julius my arm, which he gratefully accepted. I was too tired to hide the agony from my rib any more. We all walked back to Camp Freedom. At the rear of the group, Julius and I hobbled along.