Tesla's Signal (6 page)

“None, I swear by the Moons of U'jaa.” Z'duun hesitated, then added, “we have observed faint chemical signatures. Perhaps signifying a small amount of hydrocarbon combustion.”

“Ah! Critical point. We must proceed quickly. Summon the crew.”

3: The God of Thunder

New York City 1899

“I'm Robert Johnson of
New Century Magazine,
and this is my wife Katharine.”
 

“We've heard so much about you,” said Katharine, a tall, willowy society woman who wore a pearl-trimmed gown. She extended her hand.

“Charmed, Ma'am.” Niko bowed and kept his hand behind his back.

Katharine smiled. “Ah yes, they say you don't like to shake hands.”

“For health reasons, Ma'am. The skin is full of microscopic bacteria. ” 

But there was another reason too. One day after an electrical show, his friend Mark Twain had seized his hand—and jumped with a slight electric shock. More than static electricity could account for.
I'm full of electric current
, thought Niko.
I'm a human capacitor.

A capacitor could be very dangerous. It was best that Niko refrain from touching others.

“Sirs, Ma'am. Follow me, please.” The maitre d' showed them to a corner table at the luxurious Delmonico's Restaurant.

“It was so good of you to give me an interview,” said Robert, as they sat down. “The article will probably be in the next issue of
New Century,
maybe the cover story...why, whatever are you doing?”

Niko had a pile of napkins in front of him, with which he carefully polished each piece of silverware while abstractedly staring into space. “Oh...forgive me. I know it seems peculiar. It is just... a health precaution.”

He then ordered a bowl of soup. It took him awhile to finish it. “Forgive me, I like to calculate the cubic volume of each spoonful. I have some odd obsessions,” he confessed with a slight grin. “They help me feel secure.” Yes. Such mental rituals kept his mind anchored to earth, so it didn't go spinning off into the aether.

The Johnsons reacted with tolerant amusement, and Robert took out his notebook. “Could you summarize your latest researches for the non-technical readers?”

“I'm going to Colorado to experiment with wireless telegraphy.”

“Sending messages without wires?” Robert Johnson said. “How is that possible?”

“Because electromagnetic waves can travel through the upper atmosphere, and perhaps the earth itself. These waves carry signals that can be translated into sound.” Niko's long sensitive fingers traced the shapes in the air as he spoke. “One day, a person will be able to hear an opera, or a piano piece by Scott Joplin, performed a thousand miles away. But I need to get out of the city. The New York police would prefer that I do my experiments elsewhere,” he finished with a laugh.

He didn't elaborate on the incident last month, when one of his oscillators had almost leveled a city block.

“By George, that's fantastic,” said Katharine. “Someday the air will be full of messages flying hither and yon.”

“It will. There'll be universal communication with all parts of the globe. And that will eliminate misunderstanding, hatred, prejudice.”

And,
Niko added silently,
perhaps we could communicate with other worlds too...
 

Once, he had met beings from another world. He had never spoken of it to anyone. Sometimes he wondered if the whole experience had been merely a hallucination.

“We're living in the dawn of a great new age,” said Robert. “Why, that's perfect—that'll be my headline.
'Tesla Predicts the Dawn of a New Age'.”
 

Niko excused himself soon after the interview. “Forgive me, I'd like to stay for conversation, but I have so much to do to get ready.”

And that was the truth. Moving to Colorado meant ordering special equipment, closing his lab, and having everything packed and shipped westward. The stress wasn't healthful at all, and he was very short on help—because his secretary Miss Eps had just walked off the job.

What made her leave? Did I offend her somehow?
Niko wondered, as he loaded a crate of tools. Women were always trying to catch his eye. And after he rebuffed their advances, they said that he was stand-offish. How was he to tell them that
I'm sorry, I'm not inclined toward a romantic relationship because
, well...because...kissing a woman's lips and stroking her hair would be...just
un-hygienic!

Well? Maybe he
was
stand-offish. People were so much harder to understand than electric currents. That Miss Eps for instance—she was kind of an odd girl. She wore that huge distracting crystal brooch and that absurd hat, with handfuls of jewels and metal gew-gaws attached to the brim. One could barely see her face underneath it, and she refused to take it off.

Yet she seemed very intelligent. She was so quiet...she barely said two words. But when she did speak, she revealed a thorough understanding of his work—unusual for a young woman. It somehow didn't fit with her outlandish taste in fashion. Well...the girl had only lasted three days—
she must have really hated me
, he thought with regret, as he loaded spools of copper wire. He made sure to count the spools to get the correct quantity. He was going to need a lot of wire for his new project, and he had just had a falling-out with a vendor about that.

He sighed. Communication was such a problem...

***

Colorado Springs, Colorado 1899

“Ah!” Niko took a deep, satisfying breath: no coal smoke, no sewage effluence...just clean, cold mountain air. “This place is perfect, Anton. I'm so glad you could join me here.”

The two of them gazed up at the jagged walls of the Rocky Mountains. The ice-covered summit of Pike's Peak shone in the afternoon sun.

The wagon driver had just delivered the last load of supplies to their new outpost, just outside of Colorado Springs. The equipment stood in a pile near a large wooden barn, which had once housed prize stallions. Now the building would host Niko's most ambitious electrical experiments in high-frequency currents.

“I hear there are more lightning strikes here than anyplace in North America,” Niko said.

“The night sky is sure to be dazzling. I brought my telescope.” Anton took out a cylindrical object from his valise. “Back in New York City, I forgot the stars even existed.”

But first, there was work to be done.

Over the next few weeks they modified the building and assembled a massive Tesla coil which filled most of the room. Out of its center a tall antenna rose toward the sky, tipped by a shining copper ball.

When the apparatus was complete, Niko stepped out to admire it. “Ah, I do believe Thor is about to pay us a visit,” he said, squinting at the bank of thunderheads looming over the mountains.

He grinned like a small boy as they watched the Thunder God assemble ranks of threatening gray clouds. A flash lit the sky, followed by a rumble that echoed from the peaks.

“Niko, hadn't you better come inside?”

“No, no—the lightning is my friend!” Niko adjusted a bank of instruments mounted inside a crate. He had always loved the storms...but a thunderstorm in the Rocky Mountains was an altogether different beast: primal, tremendous, Nature at its most powerful.

“Niko, please—you'll be killed,” Anton cried, but Niko didn't even hear.

The storm built up to a deafening crescendo. Flashes of light and cracks of thunder split the sky as Thor hurled his fury at the Earth. Niko pulled a protective tarp over the instrument panel, but he himself never budged. Drenched to the bone, he cried his encouragement with every strike and watched the needle jump.

“Ah. Worn yourself out, have you,” he said to the Thunder God, as the storm diminished and the needle settled down. He sat to write his notes, when the needles began to jump again.

“Ah! See that, Anton? The storm is hundreds of miles away by now. Have the electrical impulses traveled all around the Earth and bounced back to us? Yes indeed. It appears that Earth is a massive conductor.”

He scribbled furiously. “Now, let us see if we can duplicate the effect with our
own
lightning. Ready? Throw the switch!”

Blue fire began to climb up the copper column. He rushed out to see the streamers of man-made lightning dancing about the antenna. The echoes rumbled back and forth from the peaks. The needles oscillated wildly.

“We've done it, Anton! We've created wireless electrical waves! Now, once we get the proper frequencies...” he murmured, while holding a piece of wire between his teeth and twirling knobs on the instrument panel, “then we'll be able to send messages anywhere. Everyone in the world will have a tiny receiver, small enough to fit inside their vest pocket. With instant communication, the Earth will become like a huge brain!”

“Ha!” Anton slapped his knee. “So I'll be able to talk to my new lady friend any time I like?”

“Perhaps. And also, maybe we'll be able to.......” Niko trailed off.
Could I sent a signal to another world...to the beings of light, who called themselves 'Aon'?
 

Over the years, other matters had captured his attention. But now he brought the memory out and examined it.
The Aon wanted to exchange knowledge. Could they be building a transmitter even now...could they be signaling Earth?
 

“What's the matter, Nikola? You're staring into space.”

“Yes, that's right—
space!
You see...there must be other worlds out there with intelligent life. Perhaps it's possible to build a transmitter powerful enough to talk with them.”

Anton palmed his forehead. “Dear Lord, you're out of your mind. I should have had you taken to the sanitarium back in Budapest.”

***

“Well I'll be damned,” Anton cried. “It's actually working!”

“Still think I'm crazy?”

They had placed light bulbs in the ground, 26 miles from the lab. The sun had set, and the bulbs  glowed with an eerie beauty in the dusk. “You see?” Niko said. “We've transmitted power through the earth. If we built receiving towers, we could give energy to the whole planet. Wouldn't that be grand?”

“Well, I don't know.” Anton took a picnic basket from the wagon. “That would take a lot of coal furnaces.”

“No, no! No coal furnaces!” Niko practically danced with excitement. “Energy comes from the natural forces of the earth, my friend...water, wind, the sun itself. Listen, Anton...” he lowered his voice. “There is limitless energy in the universe. Cosmic rays or 'aether.' When we can tap this energy, we can say goodbye to smoky, coal-fired generators.”

Anton opened a bottle of wine. “The coal-mining magnates won't want to hear that.”

“But think how much better for humanity. No smokestacks filling the air with soot...no more people dying of the black lung.” Niko hadn't touched his sandwich. He grabbed a pen and started to draw on his napkin. “See? Build a tower....say, close to New York. Another one on the opposing point in the earth. Perhaps in China. Another in South America. Once you built the towers, the cost of electricity would be almost nothing!”

Anton blinked. “Yes, that's fantastic, but...why would you give away something for nothing? Why not sell shares and become a millionaire?”

Niko laughed. “I am more interested in benefiting Mankind. Think what man could do with abundant energy. Universal plenty...nations wouldn't have to fight for resources. An end to war!”

“Well, that would be grand, but...Christ Almighty, you're a strange one. Most people want to make their fortune. Why do you want to be a saint?”

“Well...I had an older brother, Danilo. He was the eldest son—handsome, brilliant. Destined for greatness. As for me, I was...a trouble, and a worry to my parents. Then one day Dani was riding his magnificent stallion, and it threw him off. He died that night.”

Niko twisted his fingers together. “I was a small boy...always thinking about the currents, trying to make them move. I'll never know if it was me who caused...if I did something that spooked the horse.” Niko found it hard to speak. “Mother and Father were so heartbroken. When someone dies, the one who's left has to make up the balance.”

“Hmm. That's a hell of a burden to grow up with,” Anton said, food and drink forgotten.

“I had to be the prodigy that my brother would have been. Mother and Father thought I would not amount to anything. They feared I'd end up in a lunatic asylum. I had to show them I wasn't mad...my dreams could do great things for the world.”

Anton tried to lighten the mood by raising his wine glass. “I'll drink to that You've already done great things—Saint Nick Tesla!”

***

But Niko still had one final experiment to do.