We waited until that night to tell anyone, so Beanpole and Fritz could be the first to know.

Beanpole just blinked in shock, then laughed in delight. He grasped my hand and shook it, and gave Eloise a hug. Fritz wasn't surprised at all; he just smiled and congratulated us. Then we told the rest of Crew 3, then Helga, Juanita, Julius, Andre, and several others. Marie wept with joy.

It was really kind of exhausting.

So, for us, it was a happy evening. It would have been less so if we'd known of the tragedy currently happening inside the city, but no one discovered that until morning.

The grim news spread quickly about an hour after breakfast. Crew 3 heard it as we reached the upper level to begin the day's work.

The Place of Happy Release had claimed one more life.

The former slave Eloise had told me about, the one who had badly injured himself trying to rip his cap off, had been released from the hospital late yesterday afternoon. He could have gone into town to find something useful to do, or returned to his home, or found someone to talk to or to be friends with, or even just tried to find a hobby or any kind of joy in life at all. Instead, he had gone to the Place of Happy Release and pushed the button. He had fallen sideways off the dais, so the conveyer belt had not taken him away. Andre discovered him when he arrived with a demolition team to carry out Julius's orders.

We absorbed this sad news, then got on with our day.

Later, we heard that Andre destroyed the Place of Happy Release with a rage terrible to behold.

 

At lunch, even worse news hit us.

The resistance had sent two teams to investigate the reports of active Tripods in the south of France. The Paris cell sent one. The other was a small cell near the Mediterranean, recruited a year ago by traveling resistance members; Julius asked them to look into the matter since they were nearby.

Both teams had disappeared without trace.

 

Was all this bad news a distraction which caused Tripod 4 to fall that same day, or would that have happened anyway? No one will ever know.

It was early afternoon. Tripod 1, captained by Fritz, was standing just inside the gate. Crew 3 were in our Tripod, docked, and Tripod 4 walked past us on its way to the gate. It was walking a little faster than normal. Then we heard what sounded like a stutter-step as its legs faltered.

Next thing we knew, Tripod 4 tilted to the right, stutter-stepped once more, then fell. Its dome hit the outer wall.

It paused there, about halfway to the floor, its left leg stepping madly on air. The curvature of its dome slowly rolled along the wall just for a moment. Then it slid down the wall the rest of the way, its dome trailing sparks, its feet making the most horrendous noise as they slid along the floor. The boom as the dome hit the floor echoed around the Hall.

We were nearest. Jan immediately ordered us to undock and use our tentacles to lift Tripod 4. We had taken a step in that direction when Fritz's voice came from Tripod 1's speakers. "Leave it alone! If anyone's alive in there, lifting it might injure them further. Crew 4, what's your status?"

We redocked. Tripod 4 was ominously silent and still.

Jan activated the microphone and spoke into it. His voice filled the Hall. "Their dome is buckled at the hatch. It might not open. We'll need the cutters."

"They can still get out through the human room," Heloise said.

"They'd have to climb to it, because they landed face down," Miguel said. "And there's nothing to climb on except each other."

"They might not have power," Johann said.

They might be dead, we all thought, but no one wanted to say it. The fact that they had hit the wall and paused halfway down meant there was a chance.

We desperately watched Tripod 4, filled with dread, looking for any sign of life.

The cutting team was stationed near the controls which operated the docking bays, in anticipation of this very development. In less than a minute, they exited the lift and ran toward the downed Tripod, lugging their equipment.

Before they could get there, Tripod 4's legs moved. Someone inside was trying to find a way to get the legs into a position to right themselves.

Fritz's voice came again. "Crew 4, report your status!"

Tripod 4 was still again, then its left foot tapped the floor twice, very deliberately.

"Crew 4, if your speakers are not functioning, do that again," Fritz said.

Two more taps from the left leg.

"Understood. We are cutting you out."

But Crew 4 was not beaten. All three of their tentacles deployed and flopped onto the floor.

And Tripod 4 started to rise.

"Cutting team, stand clear!" Fritz said.

The cutting team didn't need telling. The moment they saw the Tripod rising, they scurried back to the lift.

The rest of us stared in wonder. Crew 4 was actually using the combined strength of their tentacles to push themselves upright.

It was obvious that the higher they got, the harder it was to maintain. The tentacles were grouped so closely that they were really just one stanchion, and it gets harder to balance on one narrow thing the taller it gets.

Whoever was operating the left tentacle did something spectacular. They actually pulled it up slightly and moved it further to the side, lightning fast, and slammed it into the floor again. This stabilized the Tripod as its weight was now supported from two directions, but that also made it harder to push directly upward.

But they had pushed it up enough. The front leg carefully lifted and bent, its knee moving toward the dome. It planted the bottom of its foot on the floor and pushed the Tripod up the rest of the way. The other legs quickly found a footing.

Tripod 4 was upright again.

But its control room hatch was indeed buckled, and the human room hatch wasn't designed to dock. Crew 4 had to walk their Tripod, very carefully, to the scaffold outside the gate, then exit through the human room.

 

The only reason Crew 4 were alive was because they had paused at the wall halfway down, then slid down the wall the rest of the way, with their Tripod's feet providing some traction and resistance as they pushed along the floor. Luckily, no one else had been with them.

They were terribly beaten up. Three had broken limbs. Two had concussions; one of those was their captain, and he was in deeply critical condition. The rest of the crew had righted the Tripod even with their injuries.

Julius and Andre used this as a teaching moment to reiterate to the remaining crews how vital it was never to lose concentration while driving a Tripod. As if any of us would ever forget seeing Crew 4 battered and broken.

That evening, Freetown was glum and a little tense. Three terrible things in one day will do that to a community. The remaining crews were stinging from Andre's fierce tirade about the need to be careful. We all felt we had just been lectured for something which wasn't our fault! I knew Andre was deeply frustrated over the fall, and over the other horrible events, but did he have to take it out on us like that?

Somehow, it didn't feel like I had gotten engaged just 24 hours earlier.

Dusk was falling as Eloise and I left the mess tent, and at least the sunset was beautiful. Gold melted into red across the horizon, throwing long, pink shadows across the undersides of clouds.

From off to the side, Julius's voice softly called, "Mademoiselle de Ricordeau?"

We turned to find him approaching. He was alone.

"Please, you may just call me Eloise," she said with a smile.

Julius gave a sad smile in return. "Eloise...I have spent some time today thinking about the young man who took his life last night." His voice was quiet, and he suddenly seemed so weary. "Far more time than I could afford, or perhaps was warranted."

"Yes," she said. "I was sad when I heard."

"I..." He looked lost for a moment. "I wonder that I was too slow to destroy that infernal place."

"You are not to blame," Eloise said, firmly but kindly. "If you had destroyed it one day earlier, he would have thrown himself off the ledge."

"Yes...I suppose that's very likely." He thought a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. "Eloise, I will adopt your idea, as soon as possible. Will you please write that extra page for the pamphlet? For us?"

Eloise was overcome with emotion. "Yes. Absolutely!"

"It will have to fit on one page, of course," Julius said. "Say, 450-word limit, or thereabouts."

She nodded emphatically. "Yes! Yes, of course!"

"Thank you, Eloise," Julius said. "We are blessed by your presence here."

Eloise blushed. "Oh...you are very kind to say so."

"No kindness required, just simple truth," he said. "But now if you'll excuse me, I have much to do before I retire."

"Of course, sir!" she said. "Thank you so much!"

"Thank you, sir," I said. "Good night."

He took his leave, and Eloise rushed off to find pen and paper. She got ten feet, then stopped and turned back, apparently remembering something.

"Did you ever write a letter to your family?" she asked.

"I did. And I have every hope it reaches them before we run out of tomorrows."

She ran back, kissed me, looked at me fondly, then rushed off to write.

 

Thanks to Crew 4's mishap, we once again had a disabled Tripod standing near the gate, in everyone's way. We could maneuver around it, but it was a nuisance. The next day, a team cut through the airlock from the human room to re-enter the control room, and Crew 1 moved Tripod 4 out of the way. They parked it beside the first disabled Tripod, which meant we now officially had a Tripod graveyard. I found that surreal.

Abner wanted to know how a Tripod could still have power after sustaining major damage, so he and Silas spent a day investigating the Tripods in the graveyard. (This meant moving the scaffold, which everyone grumbled about.) They reported something remarkable: apparently, a Tripod could take a vicious beating, far worse than anything we had done to them so far, without losing power to its systems. Abner used the phrase triple-redundancy, although I wasn't clear on what that meant. He also said all the critical wiring was inside a special type of sheath which bent and conformed around any damage without breaking, itself.

 

Over the next few days, the relationships among the members of Crew 4 became deeply acrimonious, as several of them bitterly blamed each other for the fall. They essentially split into two factions with completely contradictory claims of how it happened, and each group included at least one walker. The factions quickly grew to hate each other.

Julius eventually dismissed all of them. They were an example not just of a training failure, but of a teamwork failure. It was sad to watch, and sobering.

For me, it was even more uncomfortable to see someone lose their temper without thinking, because I saw myself in their actions, and I felt the shame of awareness. Several people over the years had spoken to me of my rashness and my inability to control my temper, but I never truly understood until I saw members of Crew 4 scream at each other. I saw so clearly that it's unpleasant on every level, and the person is absolutely not making the strong impression they think they are.

I wondered if that was how I looked when I engaged in that behavior. Deep down, I knew it was.

 

A new development happened which surprised me, although it shouldn't have: a few people moved into the city.

No slave quarters had ever been mistaken for luxury, but compared to a coarse blanket on the grass with no privacy, that comparison started to be made. With normal gravity and temperature, there was no longer any discomfort inside the city, and several people, mostly former slaves, saw no reason to choose the ground over a mattress.

The scientists weren't happy about it because disease was always a risk, but they really didn't have the authority, means, or time to stop them. All we could do was hope none of them were stupid enough to live in slave quarters which had a corpse elsewhere in the apartment. One would think that would be obvious, but, as Beanpole said, stupidity was the one thing it was impossible to overestimate.

Eloise and I agreed that we actually liked sleeping in the open rather than in a city steeped in so much misery and bad memories. Also, neither of us wanted to go against the scientists' wishes.

Besides, if she and I ever needed a few moments of privacy, we knew places we could wander off to for a while.

 

The next few days had one bright aspect: we began to get really good at using tentacles.

We became adept at grabbing things. The easiest way for an operator to do it – really, the only way – was to use an object as a placeholder to wrap the sleeve tip around, the way Beanpole used my finger to wrap the tentacle around the crate's slat. We called whatever we used to do this the guide.

Most people used their own arm or finger as the guide. A few people at first tried to use other things, such as sticks or utensils, but almost everyone found it was much easier just to use their own arm or finger. Keeping the tentacle's grip firm sometimes meant tightening the sleeve's hold to a point at which it became uncomfortable, or even slightly painful, but no one complained.

After a few days, I developed my own style. My preferred method was to use my left arm for large objects and my left index finger for small objects. I had pretty good hand-eye coordination, so it was easy for me to get the tentacle to the object I wanted to pick up. I hovered the tentacle's tip above and beyond that object, then wrapped the sleeve tip over and under my guide. By the fourth day, I found that I could wrap the tentacle around small objects by using my right middle finger as a guide, basically flicking the tip around my finger one-handed in a single fluid motion. I was less accurate with this method, but faster.

One thing which astonished me, but was really helpful, is that the sleeve gave the tentacle operator a sensation of resistance against whatever we were lifting or grabbing, so we could actually feel it. Beanpole had not experienced this on that first day because the crate he had lifted was too light, but we definitely felt it with heavier or more hard-to-move objects.

We found other ways to use tentacles. Crew 2, in particular, was very deft, quickly learning not only how to pick something up, but how to throw it with remarkable accuracy!

The tip of each tentacle was very sharp, so Eloise got the idea to use it as a stabbing weapon. She found some metal spikes, each about a foot long. By holding the last eight inches of a sleeve stretched along a spike with both hands, she could shape the final ten feet of the tentacle into a vicious spear.

The other crews, not wanting to be left behind, practiced throwing and stabbing. We weren't competitive, just genuinely glad to help each other get better at using tentacles. When it came to throwing, Crew 6 had horrible aim, and no amount of practice seemed to help.

The scientists tried to rein us in from learning the more extravagant things, and urged us to practice the fundamentals more, such as forming a quick hook.

 

We did our best to put that terrible day of suicide, lost scout teams, and a fallen Tripod behind us. Becoming adept at using tentacles helped us to do that, but witnessing the ugly breakup of Crew 4 made it difficult.

Three days after that brutal day, just when we felt we were finally heading for better times, we received more alarming news.

At midmorning, our Tripod was docked with our crew aboard, along with Silas and Abner. A young man appeared at the hatch, breathing hard as if he had just sprinted.

"Will Parker and Eloise de Ricordeau?" he asked frantically.

"That's us," Eloise said, stepping forward. I joined her.

"Julius orders you both to see him right away. In the command center."

"You mean the city's control center?" I asked.

"No," the man replied. "That tent on the far side of town, the one that's always guarded."

I looked at Jan, who nodded grimly. We all knew any such order could not be good.

Eloise and I rushed back to Freetown. The young man did not return with us, as he had further errands to run.

"Eloise and Will, here to see Julius," I told the sentry.

He waved us inside, where we found Julius, Andre, Beanpole, and Fritz sitting around the large table. They didn't just look grim, they looked frustrated.

"Have a seat," Julius wearily said, so we sat, looking at everyone apprehensively.

"Eloise, we received news from our cell in Paris," Julius said. "Your father's political power has grown dramatically since the day everyone was freed from the caps. This is partly because of action he promises to take against all remaining active Tripods on behalf of the king and of the people, and partly because he is the king's cousin-in-law and has his favor.

"News of Tripod activity in the south of France persists, but also continues to be vague. As best as we can tell, these Tripods kill anyone they see, probably to prevent them reporting their existence.

"Your father has used reports of these active Tripods as a means to gain power. Not that that's a bad thing in itself; I don't judge it. But he promises to lead a vast army to destroy these last few Tripods. The king has granted him special dispensation to do this, and most of France will send men to his aid."

Eloise's face went deathly white.

I was incredulous. "An army...armed with swords and crossbows and lances?!"

Julius nodded.

"How vast is vast?" I asked.

Andre spoke up. "Everyone fully expects 10,000 men to answer his call, minimum. It could be as many as 15,000."

"Then 15,000 men will march to their deaths!" Eloise exclaimed.

"Everyone is enraged at the Tripods," Julius said. "They're beside themselves with the need for revenge. They've been used and violated; they feel that striking a blow against the invaders will take their power back. It's an understandable reaction."

"But they won't even scratch the Tripods!" Eloise said. "Surely they know this?"

"Archers could fire ropes over a Tripod, and teams of horses could pull it down, if they were fast enough," Fritz said, as if he was discussing the weather. "Using that tactic, 15,000 men might win against a handful of Tripods."

"Might!" Eloise said. "Almost certainly won't! And even if they do, hardly anyone would survive. Is that sacrifice worth it?"

"It might be," Julius said. "We don't know what these Tripods are up to. If all they're doing is lying low and surviving, that's nothing we need to worry about until later. Hopefully, we could even just wait for them to run out of air. But if they're doing something clever to reverse the current situation, or to counterattack, that's a different matter entirely. Fifteen thousand deaths to save the rest of humanity would be tragic, but might also be necessary."

Eloise looked at him, aghast. Everyone could see she wanted to argue that point, but could not, because Julius was perfectly correct.

"However," Julius said, placating her, "we do think this attack is both unnecessary and futile. We need brains to defeat the Tripods, not brawn. We need to fight smarter, not harder. If these Tripods pose a threat, all of us here are certain we can deal with them much more effectively than blindly throwing 15,000 men into their graves."

Eloise nodded and regained her composure. "What do you plan to do?"

"Well, first, we need to convince your father to call off his attack," Julius said. "And I'm absolutely certain there's only one person in the world who can persuade him to do this."

Eloise let slip an ironic smile and shook her head slightly. "If you think I have the power to order my father to do anything, you are very mistaken."

"Not power, but sway," Julius said. "Not only are you his daughter, you are now a member of the resistance, the only organization which has so far defeated the Masters. This gives you some prestige, and an authority to speak on the subject. Your own fiance is a hero of the resistance, and to a man like your father, a military hero earns a tremendous amount of respect. From what I understand, your father was fond of Will when he met him five years ago. Due to his heroic deeds, your father will love him like a son now that you're engaged. The two of you are known to him, loved by him, and will be greatly respected by him on this subject. No one else in the world is in the same position you are. Therefore, there's no one else in the world he would listen to more."

Eloise thought about this. While she did, I asked, "So what will we do about the remaining Tripods, if they're up to something?"

Julius sighed. "We still have a few tricks up our sleeve. The problem is, I'm saving those tricks for the third city, which has priority, so I don't want to reveal those tricks unless I have to."

"The Comte will need more than that," I said. "I understand him well enough to know that he needs action. Even if we determine the Tripods are doing nothing and will die soon on their own, that won't be good enough for him; his need to strike them with his own hand will be too great. No matter how much he respects me or Eloise, he won't change his mind unless we give him a solid alternative. A vague promise of tricks we won't reveal yet won't be good enough."

"It will have to be," Beanpole said.

"He would also be going back on his word to attack the enemy, and therefore look like a coward," I continued. "He would rather die than tell 15,000 men to go home because he's changed his mind."

"I admit that we may very well have to give him something substantive to dissuade him," Julius said. "But that third city dominates all our decisions, and he must understand that. He must. Which is why Jean-Paul will go with you. Jean-Paul knows the secrets I'm not willing to make public yet, and the Comte may also remember him from five years ago. Jean-Paul will have the authority to speak on our behalf, and to make any offer he feels necessary to placate the Comte."

"So we're leaving Freetown," I said, doing my best to quell my disappointment. Eloise and I had become attached to Crew 3. And – might as well admit it – there's a great sense of power and freedom that comes from driving a 4,000-ton vehicle across the landscape.

"To be fair, I was about to send you away, anyway," Julius said. "I had already intended to send you, Fritz, and Jean-Paul back to the castle within the week, leaving Eloise the option of staying or going with you. But now we need all four of you to take a detour on the way to the castle, to visit the Comte."

To Fritz, he said, "Fritz, even though I could still send you straight to the castle because you've never met the Comte, you might as well take this detour with them. Your expertise, insight, and prestige as a hero might be useful in averting a tragedy."

Fritz nodded. I couldn't help but admire him again, because if there was anyone on the planet who would use his hero status solely as a tool to get a job done, without actually giving one toss about that status itself, it was Fritz.

To all of us, Julius said, "I know you've become attached to driving Tripods, because they give us the illusion that we now possess great power. But defending Freetown is actually all they're good for. They don't do the slightest thing to help us attack a target across the ocean.

"Eloise, you can stay with your family as long as you like, especially if it takes extra time to dissuade your father from attacking Tripods. Or you can proceed to our castle; I leave that to you. But Will, Fritz, and Jean-Paul, I absolutely need you back at our castle within a fortnight of arriving at the chateau, whether you change the Comte's mind or not. I will not tell you why just yet, but you must be there. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," we all said.

"Good," Julius said. "You'll leave on the Erlkonig as soon as possible. We expect her tomorrow."

"Sir," I said. "We need to get to the chateau as quickly as possible, but it's at least two week's travel. Also, if we could somehow make a smashing and powerful impression on our arrival, it would greatly increase our chances of getting the Comte to listen to us." I looked around the table, and I couldn't stop the grin from forcing its way onto my face. "And I know just how we can do both of those things."