The White Mountains (The Tripods) (9 page)

Henry said, “It can’t be. There’s nowhere to harness the horse. Unless the shafts rusted away.”

“No,” Beanpole said. “They are all the same. Look.”

I said, “Perhaps they were huts, for people to rest in when they were tired of walking.”

“With wheels?” Beanpole asked. “No. They were carriages without horses. I am sure.”

“Pushed by one of your big kettles, maybe!” Henry said.

Beanpole stared at it. He said, quite seriously, “Perhaps you are right.”

Some of the buildings had fallen down, from age and weathering, and in places many—whole rows sometimes—had been flattened, crushed, it seemed, by a hammer from the sky. But a great number were more or less intact, and eventually we ventured inside one. It had been a shop, plainly, but of enormous size. There were tins everywhere, some still piled on shelves, but most of them scattered on the floor. I picked one up. It had paper around it, with a faded picture of plums. Other tins had pictures, too—fruit, vegetables, bowls of soup. They had held food. It was reasonable enough: with so many people living together, and no land to till, food would have had to be brought to them in containers, just as my mother bottled things in summer for winter use. The tins had rusted, in some places right through, showing a dried-up indistinguishable mess inside.

There were thousands of shops, and we looked in many of them. Their contents amazed us. Great bolts of mildewed cloth, still showing weird colors and patterns; row on row of crumbling cardboard boxes, full of rotting leather shoes; musical instruments, a few familiar but most incredibly weird; figures of women, made from a strange hard substance, clothed in the tattered remnants of dresses. And a place full of bottles, which Beanpole told us was wine. He broke the top off one, and we tasted it but pulled faces at the sourness: it had gone bad long ago. We picked up some things and took them with us: a knife, a small axe with an edge that was rusted but could be sharpened, a kind of flask made of translucent blue material, very light in weight, which would carry water better than the flasks Henry and I had got from Captain Curtis, candles … things like that.

But the shop that filled me with awe was quite small. It was tucked away between two much bigger ones, and as well as the usual broken glass it had a barrier of warped and rusted metal in front of it. When I looked in, it was like Aladdin’s cave. There were gold rings, set with diamonds and other stones, brooches, necklaces, bangles. And perhaps a score of Watches!

I picked one out. It was gold, too, and had a heavy gold bracelet, which expanded when I put my fingers inside and stretched them; so that it would be made large enough to go over your hand and would then lie snug on your wrist. Or on a thicker wrist than mine. It was loose when I put it on, so I pushed it higher up my arm. It would not go, of course, but it was a Watch. The
other two were exploring on the other side of the street. I thought of calling them, and then decided against it.

It was not just that I did not want them to have a Watch like mine, though that was part of it. There was also the memory of my struggle with Henry over my father’s Watch, when Jack had helped me to get it off him. And this, I think, was sparked by something less definite, a feeling of discontent. My dislike for Henry had been thrust into the background by the difficulties and dangers which we encountered together and shared. When Beanpole joined us, I had talked to him more, and he had responded: Henry, to some extent, had been left out of things. I had realized this and, I am afraid, been complacent about it.

Today, though, particularly since we had come into the great-city, I had become aware of a change. It was nothing clearcut; just that Henry talked more to Beanpole, that Beanpole directed more of his own remarks to Henry—that there had been a shift, in fact, from it being a matter of Beanpole and myself, with Henry a little bit out of things, to a situation in which I was, to some extent, the excluded one. So it had happened that I had found this shop, with the jewels and the Watches, having left them discussing a strange machine they had found which had four rows of small white buttons with letters on, in front. I looked at the Watch again. No, I was not going to call them.

Eventually, we more or less gave up looking in the shops. In part, this was because our curiosity was sated, but more because we had been several hours in the city. with no sign of approaching the other side. The reverse,
in fact. At one point, where devastation had left a great mound of rubble, we climbed up through the bushes and grass that covered it and found ourselves looking down on the waving green and crumbling stone. It stretched about us, seemingly endless, like a sea ribbed with reefs of rock. But for the compass we would have been lost, for the day had clouded and there was no sun to give us direction. As it was, we knew we were still heading south, and the day was less than half-run, but we felt the need to push on faster than we had been doing so far.

We came to wider streets, flanked by bigger buildings, that ran broad and straight for immense distances. We stopped to eat where several of these met; there was a place where the trees had not found a purchase, and we sat chewing our meat and the hard biscuits Captain Curtis had given us—our bread was all gone—on a mossy stone. Afterward, we rested, but Beanpole got up after a while and wandered off. Henry followed him. I lay flat, looking up at the gray sky, and did not answer at first when they called me. But Beanpole called again, and sounded excited. They seemed to have found something interesting.

It was a large hole, surrounded on three sides by rusted rails with steps leading down into the darkness. At the top, opposite the entrance, there was a metal plate which said
METRO
.

Beanpole said, “The steps—they are so wide that ten people can go side by side. Where do they lead?”

I said, “Does it matter? If we aren’t resting, we’d better be getting on.”

“If I could see …” Beanpole said. “Why was such a thing built, so great a tunnel?”

“Who cares?” I shrugged. “You wouldn’t see anything down there.”

“We’ve got candles,” Henry said.

I said angrily, “We haven’t got time. We don’t want to have to spend a night here.”

They ignored me. Henry said to Beanpole, “We could go a bit of the way down, and see what there is.” Beanpole nodded.

I said, “It’s stupid!”

Henry said, “You don’t need to come, if you don’t want to. You can stay here and rest.”

He said it indifferently, already rummaging in his pack for the candles. They would have to be lit, and I was the only one with a tinderbox. But they were determined, I realized, and I might as well give in with as good a grace as I could manage. I said:

“I’ll come with you. I still think it’s pointless, though.”

The stairs descended first into a cavern, which we explored as well as the meager light of the candles permitted. Being less subject to the elements, things had deteriorated less here than in the world above. There were queer machines, showing patches of rust but otherwise undamaged, and a kind of hut with glass in the windows, intact.

And there were tunnels leading off the cavern; some, like the one by which we had entered, with stairs going up, others leading still farther down. Beanpole
was all for exploring one of these, and got his way for want of opposition. The steps went a very long way, and at the bottom there was another small tunnel going to the right. Whatever slight interest I had had was gone by now—all I wanted was to get back up into the daylight. But I was not going to suggest this. I had an idea, from the increasing lack of enthusiasm in his replies to Beanpole’s comments, that Henry was no more keen than I was on going farther—perhaps less. I reckoned I could leave it to him to call a halt before Beanpole went too far.

Beanpole led the way along the small tunnel, which twisted and ended in a gate of heavy iron bars. It creaked as he pushed it open. We followed him through, and stared at what we could now see.

It was yet another tunnel, but far bigger than the others. We stood on level stone and the tunnel curved up over our heads and went on, beyond the limits of our light. What amazed us, though, was the thing that stood there. I thought at first it was a house, a long low narrow house of glass and metal, and wondered who would have chosen to live here, deep in the earth. Then I saw that it stood in a wide ditch running alongside our level, that there were wheels under it, and that the wheels rested on long metal bars. It was a kind of Shmand-Fair.

But to travel where? Could this tunnel run for a hundred miles, as the track of the Shmand-Fair had done—but underground? To a buried city, perhaps, whose wonders were even greater than those of the city above us? And how? We walked along, and found that
carriage was joined to long carriage: four, five, six, we counted, and a little way past the last carriage was the mouth of a smaller tunnel, and the empty lines ran into it and were lost.

The last carriage ended with windows looking ahead. Inside, there was a seat, levers, instruments. I said, “No place to attach the horses. And who would have horses pulling underground?”

Henry said, “They must have used your steam-kettle.”

Beanpole was staring greedily at the strange instruments.

“Or a thing more wonderful,” he said.

On the way back, we looked inside the carriages; parts of their sides were open, so that one could step into them. There were seats, but a clutter of other things, as well, including heaps of tins of food, such as we had found in the shops, but unrusted—the air down here was cool and dry, as it must be all the time. Other things we could not understand—a rack full of wooden things ending in iron cylinders, for instance. They had small half-hoops of iron on one side with a little iron finger inside. The finger moved when you pressed it; but nothing happened.

“So they carried goods,” Beanpole said. “And people, since there are seats.”

Henry said, “What are these?”

It was a wooden box, full of what looked like large metal eggs—as big as goose eggs. He picked one out, and showed it to Beanpole. It was made of iron, its surface grooved into squares, and there was a ring at one end. Henry pulled it, and it came away.

Beanpole said, “Can I look?”

Henry handed the egg to him, but clumsily. It fell before Beanpole could grasp it, dropped to the floor, and rolled. It went over the edge of the floor and dropped into the ditch beneath. Henry was going after it, but Beanpole caught his arm.

“Leave it. There are others.”

He was bending down toward the box when it happened. There was a tremendous bang under our feet, and the great steel carriage shuddered with the violence of it. I had to clutch an upright pillar to prevent myself being thrown to the ground. Echoes of the bang reverberated along the tunnel, like diminishing hammer blows. Henry said shakily, “What was that?”

But he did not really need telling. Beanpole had dropped his candle, and it had gone out. He put it to Henry’s, to relight it. I said:

“If it had not rolled down below the carriage …”

There was no need to fill in details. Beanpole said,

“Like fireworks, but more powerful. What would the ancients use such things for?”

He picked up another egg. Henry said,

“I shouldn’t mess about with them.”

I agreed, though I said nothing. Beanpole handed Henry his candle, so that he could look at the egg more carefully.

Henry said, “If it goes off …”

“They did not go off before,” Beanpole said. “They were brought here. I do not think touching will do anything. The ring …” He put his finger into it. “You pulled it out, and it fell, and then, a little later …”

Before I properly understood what he was doing, he wrenched the ring from the egg. We both cried out, but he ignored us, walked to the opening, and threw the egg under the carriage.

This time, together with the explosion, there was a shattering of glass, and a gust of air blew out my candle. I said angrily, “That was a stupid thing to do!”

“The floor protects us,” Beanpole said. “It is not much risk, I think.”

“We could have been cut by flying glass.”

“I do not think so.”

The point was, as I ought to have realized earlier, Beanpole was only sensible as long as his curiosity was not deeply aroused; when something interested him, he had no thought for hazards. Henry said, “I wouldn’t do it again, all the same.”

He obviously shared my feelings about the experiment. Beanpole said, “It is not necessary. We know how it works. I counted seven after the ring came out.”

It was nice to feel I was part of the majority again, even though the other part was Henry. I said, “All right—so you know how it works. What good does that do?”

Beanpole did not reply. He had found himself a pack in one of the shops—the leather was green and moldy but cleaned up fairly well—and he was now taking eggs from the box and putting them inside. I said:

“You’re not taking those with you, are you?”

He nodded. “They will be useful, perhaps.”

“For what?”

“I do not know. But something.”

I said flatly, “You can’t. It’s not safe for us, either.”

“There is no danger unless the ring is pulled.”

He had put four in his pack. I looked toward Henry, to back me up. But he said, “I suppose they might come in handy.” He picked one up, and hefted it in his hand. “They’re heavy. I think I’ll take a couple, though.”

I did not know whether he was saying this because he really meant it, or to spite me. It did not make much difference, I thought bitterly. I was back in the minority.

We made our way up through the tunnels, and I was very glad to see the sky, even though it was a still darker gray, with clouds lower and more menacing. Not long afterward, our way was barred by a river, running clear and swift between high banks. There had been many great bridges spanning it, but those we could see had been partly or altogether destroyed; the one directly before us was marked only by half a dozen piles of rubble with the water boiling around them. With nothing to choose between the alternatives, we followed the river to the east.