[1] The White Mountains - 2090 AD 
 Competitors are chosen to attend the Games in
 Germany.  It is hoped that successful athletes will
 be able to infiltrate the Tripod City of Gold.
 Will and Beanpole are chosen, along with
 runner Fritz Eger.  Henry is considered too
 valuable a strategic asset and must remain
 with the Freemen.

 [2] no title or dateline 
 The competitors set out, but Beanpole's party is
 attacked by Tripods and he must join with
 Will and Fritz.  Henry helps guide them to
 their destination, a slow barge that will
 take them to the Games.  Will and Beanpole's 
 attempts to help the ill wife of their 
 captain Ulf lead to Will's arrest and 
 overnight detention.

 [3] no title or dateline 
 Beanpole rescues Will, but the barge and Fritz
 have departed without them for the sake of the
 mission.  After a short delay the boys resume
 their journey with the help of two German girls.

 [4] no title or dateline 
 At the Games, Beanpole is injured and loses
 his event.  Will and Fritz, however, succeed.
 Beanpole promises to wait outside the City
 until winter in the hope of news or the
 boys' return.

 [5] no title or dateline 
 Once in the City, Will finds it hard to
 behave as if he were Capped and it attracts
 opprobrium from other slaves as well as the
 strange alien Masters.  Luckily the eccentric
 Master 468 finds his strangeness interesting.
 Fritz meanwhile is forced to work as a
 quarry slave.

 [6] no title or dateline 
 Will uses his time and his Master's indulgence
 to learn more about the City and to try and find
 Eloise.  Meanwhile Fritz plans to escape the
 slave pits and join the Power Elite, a group
 of privileged slaves intimately involved in
 the technological heart of the City.  Pierre,
 a member of the Elite, is sympathetic to his
 interest, but Fritz is violently punished for
 daring to question his place.

 [7] no title or dateline 
 Will and Fritz compare notes.  Will's
 behaviour is attracting attention, notably from
 his roommate the exemplary slave Boll.
 However his Master suspects nothing, and Will
 learns the aliens have a physical weakness.
 He also finds Eloise, in suspended animation
 in the Hall of Beauty, destined to be
 revived in the far future on the Masters'
 home planet. Meanwhile Pierre reveals he 
 is a Freeman plant, and helps Fritz join 
 the Power Elite.  However he dies before being 
 able to pass on everything he has learnt.

 [8] no title or dateline 
 Will earns the anger of his Master when
 one of the City's intelligences, the Cognosc,
 summons them both but wishes to see Will
 alone.  It becomes clear that the Cognosc
 knows absolutely everything about the boys' 
 mission, but is choosing to keep it to 
 himself for his own reasons. Fritz finds 
 life in the Elite difficult and narrowly 
 escapes discovery.

 [9] no title or dateline 
 The Cognosc, curiously sympathetic to Will's
 aims,  reveals the Masters' plans to
 colonise Earth.  After causing a power crisis
 in the City, he escapes into space.
 Will's Master, furious at the affront
 he has received, blames Will, and after
 consulting Boll, tries to examine his Cap.
 There is a scuffle and Will accidentally
 kills him.

 [10] no title or dateline 
 Will panics and enlists Fritz's help; the
 boys make it appear that Master 468's death
 is suicide, and that Will has killed himself
 in remorse like a good slave would.  Fritz
 helps Will escape from the City, but chooses
 to stay as there is more of value he can learn.

 [11] no title or dateline 
 Beanpole, waiting outside the City, drags
 Will's body from the river and revives him.
 Will is traumatised at being back in the
 outside world, but the two set out to return
 to the Freemen.  Attracting the attention of
 the Black Guards, the two take refuge in the
 circus run by the untrustworthy Ali Pasha.

 [12] no title or dateline 
 Disguised as circus performers, the boys travel
 back towards the White Mountains.  Rightly
 suspicious of Ali Pasha, they doublecross
 him and escape with his crew of unCapped
 youths, only to find that the Freemen's
 camp lies in smoking ruins.
     

— arjuna 2003