Tesla's Signal (14 page)

But one day she failed to show up.

He started working on a panel, but found himself listening for her footsteps and looking out the window again and again. Where was she?
I guess she's had enough,
Niko thought.
I was right the first time. This old dust-trap is no place for a lady.  
 

Sighing, he made himself get back to work. It was awfully quiet in here without Clara Eps to ask pointed questions, make sarcastic comments and bring him food in her lunch pail. Now all he heard was the scurrying of rats, and the flutter of pigeons in and out of the rafters on the roof. He didn't want to admit to himself how accustomed he had grown to her company...how lonely life would be without her.

At about twelve noon he heard the sound of a motorcar outside. He didn't have much expertise in automobiles but he knew a poorly tuned engine when he heard one, and this one sounded like a collection of railroad spikes whirled around in a drum. He ran outside just as the ungodly sound faded to a stop.

To his astonishment, there stood Clara on the running board of a large black delivery vehicle. It looked like it had seen better days. The paint was rusty; the surface pitted. A cloud of smoke hung about its engine compartment. “Look what I got us, Niko!” She took off her cap and gave him a jaunty wave.

“Clara!” He dropped his tools and ran to her. He almost grabbed her in an embrace, but turned at the last minute to look into the vehicle. “What in God's name have you got there?”

“I found us a flivver! My uncle had this old rust bucket sitting on his lot. He didn't have time to bother with it...he was going to salvage it for scrap. I asked him if I could bring it to you!”

“But Clara—I'm not an automobile mechanic!”

“No, but I bet you could replace that gasoline engine with one of your transformers and run it a hundred miles on one charge. Am I right?”

“Well...” he scratched his head. “Maybe. Good God, you have the craziest ideas.”

“Yes, that's why I'm here with
you.”
She pointed her finger at him with an impish grin. “But seriously—we're going to Wardenclyffe next week, aren't we? We need transportation for our equipment—we don't want to depend on trains and street cars. And especially not on horses. I'm scared of horses,” she confessed.

***

Shoreham, Long Island

“It's majestic,” said Clara. She stared at the Wardenclyffe Tower, a soaring network of girders topped by a cupola like a glowing crown. The aluminum ribs shone in the sunlight, silhouetted against a crisp blue sky.

“It's postcard-perfect,” Niko agreed. His Promethean dreams of grandeur awoke once more. Wardenclyffe Tower would someday channel the power of the gods—and no banker could take that away from him!

They pushed their way through an overgrowth of weeds to reach the sprawling brick laboratory building, with its rank of tall arched windows. Within the lab, all was just as Niko had left it. Glass works and fabrication facilities, generators and transformers—all of them just waited to be woken to life.

“Now let's take a look at the underground works.” Beneath the Tower lay a labyrinth of tunnels, and the core windings of the Magnifying Transmitter designed to tap the earth currents.  “I have never even tested how high a voltage I could generate. Not till tonight. “

Somehow the tests always happened at night. The transmission was better, and besides...Niko was just a night owl. He worked better in the dark; that was when the sparks glowed brightest.

They spent the day setting up oscillator circuits. Just after sunset, Niko tightened the last bolt. “We're ready. Let's get started!”

The wind whipped around his coat as climbed up the metal staircase. Five stories, ten...still he climbed higher, bearing a backpack full of signaling equipment. Clara waited at the bottom with her instruments and control boxes, ready to throw the switch.

At last he reached the cupola and stood on the platform, catching his breath. For a short while he just stood there admiring the gorgeous view. The shoreline stretched out below: the water of Long Island Sound glittered and the farmlands glowed a rich amber with the last rays of day. Dusk turned to night and the electric lights went on: strings of jewelry adorning the earth. It was a sight of glory to bring tears to a man's eyes.

He had brought one of his wireless lamps up to provide light as he finished connecting his transmitter. A chilly wind picked up and he had trouble making his fingers work.

He looked at Clara's tiny figure far below, signaling him with a fluorescent tube. He checked the Waltham watch that told him it was 10 pm. Then he took out the other watch, the one in the gold case, and held it to his lips. He and Clara had just finished adjusting the matching set of gold watches this morning. They each contained a miniature telephone  receiver and a tuning circuit, and they were surely the first miniature wireless-speaker radio receivers ever built. To the devil with Marconi's Morse code! “We're ready, Clara,” he spoke into the watch. “Throw the switch!”

Clara ran into the building. “All right Niko. Switching—
on!”
Her voice emerged from the small speaker in the radio watch case.

Like a sleeping dragon, the great transmitter awoke. Excited electrons began their swirling dance, faster and faster around the primary coil. When their energy could not be contained, they leaped across the gap and spiraled up the column.
Come,
Niko called to them, waving his fingertips in encouragement, and the electrons reached the top and burst out of their cage. The curved metal ribs of the cupola began to glow with a faint blue-white aura. As the voltage rose, sparks reached outward and the whole top of the structure flickered like a lightning storm. A halo of electrical streamers radiated out of the Tower in every direction and it took all of Niko's control to stay still. His soul wanted to fly with his currents!

When the voltage rose higher than anything he had ever produced—it was time for the next step. “Clara! We're ready! Focus the output!”

A directional pulse. Aim at a certain point in the sky.
He had studied all of his Colorado readings and tried to reproduce the exact location and frequency on which the Martian message had come. Now he just needed to send the same message of three simple pulses that they had sent.  
Beebeebeep. Attention, friends from Mars, are you there? Earth to Mars! Come and talk!
 

He sent the signal for several hours. The temperature dropped. Niko's legs began to fall asleep. He wondered if he could boost the signal any farther. No...didn't want to short out the generators like he had done in Colorado. But this transmitter was putting out twice the power that Colorado had done! Any Martians within a million miles should get his signal!
Attention, friends from space!
 

Well, he'd try again tomorrow. And next week and next month. Sooner or later they'd hear his message, and when they did, it would be the greatest moment in history: the moment when Man learned he wasn't alone in the universe.

Wait.
Had he just heard an echo of his own signal?
Dear God!
He checked the second meter. The needle was jumping wildly. “Clara, check your readings. Is there a malfunction?”

“No, the readings are fine down here.”

“Then...it's happening. Someone's answering my signals!”

He tried not to get his hopes up. It could be a voltage leak somewhere. He turned to a bank of controls and lowered his power. Now it showed clearly:
someone else
was producing the echo.
It's Them.
 

“I'm getting an answer—I'm sure of it!”

The signal rose and Niko's excitement grew with it, his heart pounding in his chest. Now he had to tune his receiver to catch them more clearly. The Martians must be trying to home in on his location...

Dizzy with anticipation, he gripped the railing. He began to scan the sky: were the Martians really out there...would he soon be able to see them? That star over there—was it getting bigger?
Yes it is
. In fact it was expanding at an exponential rate. What had been a star, had become a glowing disc. It must be approaching at a tremendous speed—rushing at him like a locomotive. He felt a tremor of fear along with his excitement and awe. “Clara, it's them! By St. Sava! They're coming!”

Clara rushed out of the lab. He could see her far below, waving her arms, shouting in excitement—even as he himself was shouting at the approaching visitors. “Hello! Come and visit! Welcome to Earth!”

The glowing disc was nearly upon him when it came to a complete stop in midair, then hovered slowly about the Tower as if inspecting it.

Niko gripped the platform railing with sweaty hands. His heartbeat pounded in his throat.
The Martians really did come!
 

The disc appeared to be about the size of a house. It gave off a faint, high-pitched hum.
Holy Trinity,
Niko found himself praying, though he was not a religious man.

A brilliant ray stabbed out and pulled him into the air like a giant magnet.
Anti-gravity!
Excitement became sudden terror. The signal watch fell out of his hand.

A black square appeared beneath the vessel's surface. “Clara! Goodbye,” he cried, as the Martians pulled him in.

8: The Sky Voyagers

A moment of blackness...a jumble of sounds. He opened his eyes to find himself in a vast enclosure, which seemed much larger than the vessel that had taken him up. The chamber appeared dimly lit, except for blinding squares upon the walls.

Several towering figures bent their long necks to study him.

These are not the Aon.
That was his first coherent thought. For he saw no glowing auras, no shapes of light. These creatures, though oddly proportioned, were solid biological beings like himself. Which meant—
there are
many
sapient races in the universe!
 

And this ship...how big was it? Large as an ocean liner? He noticed a floaty feeling, as if he had lost half his weight. “G-greetings,” he said, holding up a hand. “Are you...from Mars?”

They made low, rumbling sounds: their voices, perhaps. He gazed upward, trying to see their features. Masks covered the lower parts of their tall, elongated heads; peaked helmets hid the rest. They bent from their great height as if to inspect him, and thrust out devices which Niko could not identify. The confusion overwhelmed him; he could not make his eyes and brain work. Too sleepy...

He opened his eyes after a time, but he still couldn't make the perceptions come right. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He found himself spread out on a table...pinned down like an insect in a museum collection. A piercing light stabbed his eyes and he had the feeling that a probing instrument was being thrust right into the inside of his brain.

Confusing sights and sounds bombarded him. Devices invaded, tested, recorded. Alien examiners spoke, their voices pitched so low that they were almost below human hearing.

He had no idea how much time had passed. It seemed like an eternity, during which he could not move or speak or think clearly.

Slowly the incredible truth returned to him:
I am on a Martian ship!
 

They sat him up. Someone pushed a vile-tasting liquid into his mouth. He struggled to get his bearings and took inventory of himself. He seemed to be physically intact, although they had replaced his clothing with a garment like a nightshirt, and attached several devices to his body: a cuff upon one wrist; a small device clipped to an ear.

A peculiar, mechanical-sounding voice spoke from inside the ear-piece. “Attention, Earth creature: can you hear me?”  

His hand went to the device. “Why, yes...I can hear and understand!” He gazed up at his hosts in wonder. Their presence seemed to emanate an invisible glow, which filled him with worshipful awe.

At last he took a close look at the beings from another world. The Martians possessed four limbs, much longer than those of a human's, and bent at different angles. The upper limbs ended in a cluster of long, delicate grasping claws which served as fingers.

At the place where a human's shoulders would be, Niko noticed a small extra attachment, like a stubby wing.

A scaly but flexible gray substance covered their bodies. He wondered whether it was clothing, or their actual skin. Textured stripes, green and brown, decorated the surfaces. Perhaps these were identifying marks, rank insignia or decoration—or bodily coloration.

It was their great height that was most intimidating. They loomed over him, making him feel tiny and helpless. Niko was used to being taller than everyone else!

Despite his disorientation, he gathered his courage. This was what he had dreamed of.
Interplanetary communication:
meeting intelligences from other worlds. Of course everything would seem strange and frightening—even more than coming to America had been.