Tesla's Signal (3 page)

“You must excuse my poor friend,” said Anton to several onlookers. “He has had a nervous breakdown.”

***

Kostopol, Ukraine

The girl held back tears.

“You must be silent, little bird.” Uncle put a hand over her mouth. “We have to hide here till they leave.”

They huddled in the basement of the family shop, concealed behind tools and crates. She pressed her hands to her ears, trying to shut out the sounds from outside: breaking glass, screams, the shouts of the mob, the stomping hooves of huge, fierce horses.

“Here...hold onto this.” Uncle hugged her tight and pressed a warm, metallic object into her palm: one of Father's pocket watches.

She loved watches: for hours she would sit mesmerized by the shining balance wheel as it spun back and forth.
Tick-tick-tick
.
..what time is it now?
That was a game that Father used to play with her. Now she concentrated on the gleaming second hand: how many times it would circle round until the killers went away?

Tendrils of smoke began to waft through the air. The mob must be setting fires. She tried not to cough, for fear of discovery.

“When will they stop?”

“When the
yetzer ha-ra
, the Evil Inclination, has finished possessing them. Come, little bird. Let's work on lessons,” Uncle whispered. “Can you tell me about the attributes of the Most Holy?”

She smiled through her fear. In her family, study of the Wisdom came before anything else. She closed her eyes and focused: one must learn to control emotions, taking refuge in the world of the Mind. “The Attributes...once called
keter...hochma...binah...tiferes.
”

“Very
good. What else do we call these attributes?”

“The...the elements. Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen... carbon.” She couldn't remember any more.

“And what are the Flames of the Serafim?”

She knew that Uncle was trying to distract her from what was happening outside.
The flames
. “Th..the Flames of the Serafim are...gravity, magnetism, electricity.”

“Very
good! Now, listen to today's lesson,” said Uncle. “The flow between the human and divine is likened to the flow of electro-magnetism, as it turns the wheel of the world.”

Upstairs, a door shattered. “Death to the
Zhidy,”
the mob shouted, charging into the shop
.
Their heavy boots shook the ceiling above. The girl gripped her uncle's shirt and buried her head against his chest.

“Little bird, why don't you do some reading.” Uncle picked up the girl's satchel, which she brought everywhere. “Let's see what you've been studying.” He pulled out a volume.

While the mob smashed and looted above, her hands closed around one of her favorite books. She loved books―more than dolls, even more than candy. You could climb right into a book, and escape from the world. Now would be a good time to escape.

Principles of Physical Science
. A shaft of light came through the basement window to illuminate the headings:
Faraday's Law. Magnetic Attraction. Electromotive Force.
 

She began to read the words, though she did not understand all of them. Uncle had taught her about the mysterious power of lightning: the Divine Spark which lay dormant in metals and earth. Her family had always known about those forces. Grandfather spoke of the Wisdom of the
Ein Sof
, the Infinite. Now the Teaching had a different name. It was called
Science
.

She meditated on the flow of the Divine Spark until she could see the whirling electrons. She imagined waking the Power―a lightning bolt stabbing down from the sky, to strike the murdering mob.

Someday I will be that lightning bolt
she thought.
I will be Electricity!
 

“If we survive this slaughter, let us leave this country,” said Uncle. “There is no life for us here anymore.”

“But where shall we go?” said the girl, wiping her eyes.

“To the Promised Land. America!”

***

Abode

A large cylindrical shape floated through the void of space. Its inhabitants called it
Abode.
 

In one of the great habitat's monitoring rooms, a machine spat out a load of data. A Specialist studied it for several rotations, then reported his news to the Abode High Council.

“Council Lords, the Analyzer has detected a likely world,” he informed the circle of tall figures. “It is of the proper size and contains water, iron, trace minerals, oxygen. It appears to support abundant life—I have all the readings right here.”

“Have you detected signs of high civilization?” said the Abode Lord, august master of the High Council. “Space traffic, communications, military orbiters?”

“We have seen none, Lord.”

“Very well. Let us take up orbit nearby, and send the fleet ship
Void Stalker
for further studies.”

The Abode Lord then made his way to a chamber at the center of the great habitat called Abode. Touching his head to the floor, he bowed to the huge female who lay on a vast spongy platform.

“Holy Queen Mother,” he said, “we have found a world, and are moving in to investigate.”

“Excellent! May good fortune favor our noble, exiled race.” She reached out from beneath her coverings and pulled him toward her. “I am pleased indeed. Come and share Bliss.”

2: Alternating Current

New York City, 1888

“Ready, Mr. Westinghouse?” Niko's hand hovered over the switch. He dared not fail.

“Hold your horses,” said industrialist George Westinghouse, a great barrel-chested fellow with a walrus mustache and impressive mutton-chop sideburns. “Explain exactly  what you've got there.”

“Yes sir.” Niko gave a slight bow. He still retained his European manners after six years in America. “We will generate alternating currents in three phases, and send them through a transformer to step the voltage up. It can then travel a great distance with very little line loss. The voltage is then stepped down with another transformer. Finally it can turn a motor such as this one, and perform the work of a hundred horses.”

On the day of his vision, he had seen the whole system in his mind: magnets and coils of bright copper wire, the color of earth's blood, drawing out the electrons into a miraculous dance. And then further refinements to control and guide the currents, braiding them as Mother's fingers twisted the yarn on her knitting needles.

“Now, let us begin!” He blew on his fingertips, breathed a fragment of prayer—and pulled the switch. The device started right up with a pleasing hum: smooth, powerful, exactly as he had imagined it.

Westinghouse studied the apparatus, then broke into a grin. “Stupendous!” He gave Niko a hearty thump on the back, almost knocking him over. “Others have tried...but you're the first to have succeeded. Yes indeed, the future is here! Shall we discuss business over dinner?”

They took seats at the exclusive Delmonico's Restaurant.

“I dream of a world powered by electricity.” Niko's expressive fingers traced patterns in the air as he spoke. “It could keep us all warm, annihilate distance and hunger.” He began to carefully wipe the silverware, for one must remain vigilant against disease-causing germs. “Brute labor will be eliminated. The forces of nature will be the obedient servants of mankind.”

But there was much more.
All the universe is a vortex of energy. Electricity as we know it...only a small part.
There were infinite dimensions, cosmic forces which humans could barely perceive. He had caught a tiny glimpse, when he had spoken to the Aon.

“Yes indeed,” Westinghouse boomed out. “The Future is upon us, my boy! Waiter, bring us some wine. Now listen here, Mr. Tesla. I'd like to make you an offer for all of your alternating current patents.”

Westinghouse took out a pad and began sketching out a preliminary contract. He wrote out a large sum of money—large enough to make Niko gasp for breath. “You're going to be a millionaire, Mr. Tesla. What do you think of that?”

Niko could not find words to answer.
Mother, Father, I did it! You see, I'm
not
a madman!

“Of course, Tom Edison won't take this lying down,” Westinghouse added, in a confidential tone. “He's got his fortune wrapped up in direct current.”

“Edison,” Niko muttered, and his gentlemanly facade cracked for a moment. “The devil with Edison.”

For a moment he stared into space, remembering.

***

Niko had arrived in America with four cents, a folder of drawings, and a head full of dreams. As soon as he had stepped off the boat, he made his way to the lab of his hero: the famed American inventor Thomas Edison.

“Sir,” Niko said, “I have come from overseas to seek work with you.”

Edison ran a hand through his untidy hair. The great inventor wore a stained, rumpled vest and his shirttails hung out over his paunchy belly.  Niko himself preferred to present the image of a gentleman, with impeccable grooming and wardrobe.  

“Oh, ya did? Well let's see what you got.” While Edison squinted at  Niko's drawings, Niko gazed in awe at the great man's workshop. The office was as untidy as the man. Employees rushed about, looking nervous and overworked, amid a noisy chaos of cables, tools, and clutter.

Hm.” Edison didn't seem impressed with Niko's folder. “Alternating current, is it? Listen here, boy. You seem to have some smarts, but alternating current is a dead end. America runs on direct current.”

By which he meant the Edison Electric Company, the only provider of electricity to New York. Edison's customers were the tycoons like J. P. Morgan, who could afford a generator in their basement.

“But sir, direct current cannot travel far without serious voltage loss. It requires a generating station every two miles. My proposed system could transmit affordable electric power for hundreds of miles without—”

“Now listen, son,” Edison cut him off. “You may have picked up some odd ideas with your fancy European education, but that's not how we do things here. You want a job? I'll start you at ten dollars a week.”

Niko was not one to run from hard work—sometimes twenty hours at a stretch. He installed hundreds of cables; crawled into attics and substreet conduits to repair short-circuits. He squeezed beneath massive dynamos in search of a loose connection.

During that time he learned that getting a closed mind to open was more difficult than splitting a boulder with an ax. Never mind that Edison's direct current generators were inefficient and unsafe. Edison only cared about the bottom line. “If it doesn't make a buck,” the Boss was fond of saying, “I'm not interested in inventing it.”

Eventually the Boss took notice of his hardest-working employee. “I see you're a smart college boy. Let's see what you're made of,” he said with his customary smirk. “There's 50 thousand dollars in it if you can improve the performance of my Clinton Street dynamos.”

The more difficult the challenge, the more Niko liked it! That summer he spent hundreds of hours in the smoky hellhole, where armies of sweating workers continually shoveled coal into a bank of furnaces, producing steam to run the generators.

When the task was done, Niko reported to his boss. “Sir, I have improved your output by 300 percent. May I have my fifty thousand dollar bonus, please?”

“What?” Edison stared with bland incomprehension. “A bonus of
fifty thousand dollars?
My dear boy, that was a joke.”

Niko gaped in shock. “Ex...excuse me? You said...”

The Boss slapped his knee. “There may be 50 thousand dollars of savings in it...but I never said it would go to
you!”
Edison doubled over with laughter. “You just don't get our American sense of humor, do you!” 

“Sir,” said Niko, through clenched teeth, “I resign.” He jammed his hat on his head and walked out. “Perhaps someday I'll show
you
a joke,” he added under his breath.  

And so Niko strode out into the teeming streets of New York. With so many desperate immigrants arriving every day, jobs were scarce. After failing to secure other employment, he was reduced to digging ditches.

But now Niko's days of manual labor were behind him, for he was about to become the richest man in town. “We will see who's joking now, Tom Edison,” he muttered.

To celebrate, he went out and bought himself a tailored suit, silk vest and tie. And he strolled about town, feeling like the king of New York.