Tesla's Signal (37 page)

The Pearly Round Object!
It searched for him like a giant eye...its glare penetrated his brain. There was no place to hide...
they
wanted to capture him and finish what they had started. He couldn't remember what they had done—just the overwhelming terror.

With a cry, Niko scrambled up, staggered out to the clearing and started walking in a circle. But he could not outpace the Orb. He counted exactly 327 steps each way, trying to make the numbers blot out the terror. He kept walking until the sky brightened and birds began to sing. Another day dawned at the summit of Tussey Mountain.

This is absurd. Get a hold of yourself
, he willed, taking deep breaths for a count of three seconds each. He put water on and made tea. The mug held exactly 250 cubic centimeters of fluid.
Numbers: predictable, controllable, comforting. Emotionless.
 

At 11:30 a.m. he knew that Clara should be home, or at least on her way. Unless...what if something had gone wrong? The clock ticked so loudly it sounded like gunshots in his head. But the important watch, the wireless radio connection to Clara, stayed maddeningly silent.

He turned on the pulse-detection board and still saw the cluster of signals, off in the northeast quadrant. He shivered with apprehension: a Martian ship lurked out there, or maybe a whole fleet.

By noon, he couldn't keep his hands off the signal watch any longer. “Clara? Come in, please. Calling Clara.”

The watch beeped once: signal received.

“Clara? Where are you? Are you coming home soon?”

The reply came out of the tiny watch microphone, sounding flat and tinny. “I'm on my way to New York, Nikola.”

“What!” He almost dropped the watch. “
Bože moi!
What did you say?”

“I'm sorry, Niko.” Her voice sounded faint and scratchy. “I told you I was going and I meant it.”

“But Clara! You...” his breath came in gasps; he couldn't get the words out.

“I left right after the concert. I've been driving all night.”

“But...you said you were just going in town...you
lied
to me!” He felt like he'd been hit in the gut.

“I'm sorry I had to lie, Niko, but it was the only way.”

Niko gripped a spool of wire. They had quarreled,  and now she had gone and
left
him!
What if something happens to her?
He would never get the chance to express his...to tell her how much he...

The thought remained unfinished, even in his head.

“Clara,
please
don't go to New York
.
Something's changed. My instruments are picking up a disturbance there. The Martians— ”

“Oh, don't worry. Dr. Davidson came with me. He wants to look for his daughter, and he's here to
protect
me.” He could hear the sarcasm right through the tinny little telephone speaker.

“Be careful. For God's sake. Come back soon...
ljubavi moja,”
he ended, the last words too low for her to hear.
My love.
 

He put the watch down and glared at it as if it had personally betrayed him.

***

She had driven all night: up and down the mountain ridges, across the fertile valleys. She took the circuitous roads, passing carriages and Model T's and farm wagons––past Harrisburg and Allentown, through the farms of New Jersey. When possible, she had pushed the Roadster to its maximum. Sometimes it was faster to bypass the rutted roads and just drive across fields. But when she approached populated areas, she would slow to a prudent 25.

Davidson was a nervous passenger. “Look out for that horse!” he'd yell. “There's a wagon in the way.” “Slow down, or we'll end up in the river.”

“Don't worry, Professor, I know what I'm doing.”

“Sure you don't want me to take over?”

“No, Professor Davidson, I don't need you to drive. I
love
driving!”

After several hours of this, Professor Davidson developed a craving for liquid refreshment and wanted to stop at a roadside tavern.

Then he became talkative. “So, Miss Clara, I can't help but be curious. Have you managed to entice life-long bachelor Tesla into a...domestic arrangement?”

Clara sighed. “Why does everyone want to pry into Mr. Tesla's private affairs?”

Davidson winked. “Well...it's just a natural thing. Every man has certain urges...”

“Nikola has other uses for his natural energies,” she muttered.
Like shooting millions of volts of electricity from his body.
 

She jammed her foot on the accelerator.

***

Niko was not a praying man. But today he had no choice. “Dear God in Heaven,” he murmured, staring into the sky, “if you bring Clara back safely...then I'll be a man and face my fears. I'll conquer my fear of...that thing. That
Pearly Round Object
.
”
 

He turned to his desk, determined to keep working: there was no time to waste in fruitless anxiety.
Clara's a big girl. She can take care of herself. Can't she?
 

He kept saying it over and over, but no sooner did he convince himself, then another wave of terror pounced and sank its teeth into him.

The Pearly Round Thing
. He could feel its implacable force pressing on his mind, trying to crack him open like a walnut. Most likely the Martians had locked onto his frequency and they'd be coming for him so that they could take him back into their ship and—

No...!

He looked over his shoulder at the sky.
They
were out there somewhere beyond that deceptive blue. Invisible...implacable. Watching Earth, waiting to swoop down and destroy like cruel, capricious gods. Davidson's question echoed in his head.
How are you going to engage them?
How indeed? They could strike wherever, whenever they chose. He had been mad to think he could stand against them, even with his clever gadgets...his Teleforce dragons.
Dear God, have mercy on us!
 

While he paced about holding onto his head, the large radio began to crackle with static. A faint voice came in. “Attention Tesla, Attention...” said the voice. “Calling Nick Tesla.”

He almost jumped in surprise. Who was contacting him on such a wide bandwidth? Whoever it was, they didn't have his particular frequency, but were making a general address to the nation at large. Not Hugo, then...?

Niko tuned a dial till the voice came clear. That didn't sound like Clara. In fact, the sneering voice was all too familiar.

“Attention Tesla. Can ya hear me? This is your old buddy, Tom Edison. Remember me?”

Niko's hands curled into fists.

“Nick, I'm here broadcasting from your Tower in Shoreham. Nice digs you got here.”

What? What's Edison doing in Wardenclyffe?

“Did ya hear? We're installing one of these Orb gizmos on top of your Tower. Looks great!”

Niko's stomach seemed to drop through the floor.
Yes
.
Should have known Edison would be with
Them. Oh yes—this explained the strange pulses he had detected last night.
The Martians have taken the Tower!
 

“Anyway, Nick, I just want to give you a message from my Angel buddies. Remember how you pushed me out of the electrical business? You won the War of the Currents—made a fool out of old Tom, didn't ya? Well, listen here: my Angel pals asked me what was the most important technical advance of the human race. I pointed them to your precious alternating current generator plant at Niagara. Don't ever say I don't give ya the proper credit!”

Edison indulged in a little chuckle and went on. “So now they're gonna blast the hell out of it. The only folks who'll get electricity are the friends of Sister Shelia and the good servants of the Angels. Who's the winner now, Nick? Eh?”

Edison's uproarious laughter blasted through the receiver.

“Jesus Christ.” Niko stared at the radio, feeling as if he had been hit with a brick. The Angels were going to send America back to the Dark Ages.
Edison put them up to it.
And he gloated, as if this was his personal victory!

“Here's a message from the Blessed Angels,” Edison went on. “Did ya hear about the big earthquake in San Francisco? Thousands of folks died. They say it's all your fault for disobeying them. They want
you,
Nicky. Come on, son, all they want is the help of a
great engineer
like you. If you give yourself up, they'll leave everyone else alone. But otherwise—they're gonna punish the whole goddamn world.”

What?
Niko's hands closed around the radio receiver.

“Come on, Nick, how selfish can you be? I thought you were an altruistic fellow. Dont'cha care that hundreds are suffering because of
you?
If you don't turn yourself in, they say that a lot more people are gonna die. They have a ray to destroy ocean liners, airships...they can do all kinds of nasty stuff. Fires, tidal waves, what have you. And it'll all be your fault. Can ya hear me? This is your old buddy Thomas Edison...”

“Kiss a goat,” Niko muttered in Serbian, and switched the radio off.

He put his hands on the Tesla coil and let the tingling voltage wash over his hands, as he absorbed his enemy's words.

Was Edison right?
If I give myself up—sacrifice myself like Jesus—will the Angels leave the rest of Earth alone?
 

Was it possible that all of the Martians' doings—the mind-control, the destruction—were attempts to get Nikola back, just so he could help them with an
engineering problem?
 

The pain of realizing that humanity was being punished because of him...that was almost worse than his fear of the Aliens.
If I let Them take me...would it mean saving the world?
 

His hands gripped the coil.
After all...it was I who brought them here. Every bit of the suffering, the disasters...it's my fault.
So it was only right...yes, it was the only way.

He reached a shaking hand toward the transmitter button.
All right,
he would say
. I give up. I'm a better man than you, Tom Edison. I care about my fellow humans. Put me in touch with your Martian masters. When they assure me that they'll stop punishing Earth, then they can come and get me—
 

“No.”

In a fit of rage, Niko swept the radio transmitter to the floor. “No, no, no!” His fingers raked through his hair.
Have I gone insane?
 

How stupid did they think he was? First off, you couldn't believe a word Edison said. If he said it was black, it was white.
“It was just a joke, son!”
 

Secondly...it didn't make sense. If the Martians were harmless...if they just wanted his help with an engineering problem...then why had he run from them in the first place? And why did they fill him with such unreasoning terror?  

No, no. Of course the 'Angels' wouldn't leave Earth alone when they had Nikola. They hadn't come to Earth just for him. Destroying the Niagara power station—erasing humanity's technology—that was a sure sign that they meant war.
Conquest.

The bastards had recruited Edison. Knowing Tom, he'd probably gone quite willingly. Tom would sell his own mother if it gave him an advantage.
If it doesn't make a buck,
he used to say,
I'm not interested in inventing it.
Now Edison had somehow gotten the Wardenclyffe transformers powered up. The Tower was meant to be the center of a world broadcasting system. Now the invaders would use it as their Silver Chambers were used: to broadcast mind-control frequencies.
They mean to spread their control over all the world.
 

And why had they launched a manhunt for Tesla?
Because I know what they're doing—and I'm the only one with the science that could resist them.
 

He paced around the lab, counting his steps in threes, but strangely, the emergence of his old enemy Edison had focused his mind.

He picked up the radio transmitter, his hands shaking.
I almost fell for it.

Till now his fear of the Martians  had been formless, built on guesswork suppositions around his blanked-out memory. Now Edison had given a familiar face to their evil. Niko knew exactly what he was facing—and what his goal had to be.