The Troupe also had wind generators—but sometimes the wind simply didn’t blow. The Troupe was starving for energy, thirsty for it, and watchful of it. They were burdened by their arsenal of batteries. Cars. Trucks. Buses. Ornithopters. Computers. Radios. Instrumentation. Everything guzzling energy with the implacable greed of machines. The Troupe was always running in the red on energy. They were always creeping humbly back to civilization to recharge a truckload of their batteries off some municipal grid.