Tesla's Signal (43 page)

Niko reached the threshold of the most painful memory of all...the one he couldn't face.
No...I can't go on.
 

Azel just waited patiently. Niko forced himself to continue. He opened the memory as carefully as if it were a vial of poisonous gas.

A time came when the punishments
stopped
. At some point, the Masters stopped torturing him and seemed very pleased with his performance.
You've done well, K'va Tes'laa. With your help, our conquest of your planet will be complete within a few rotations.
 

It will? What...what did I do?

You have put the Earth creatures into our hands. They will have no chance of resisting us now. Because of what you've accomplished, every one of the humans will be ours to control, to use or dispose of as we wish.

But Master,
Niko cried,
what did you make me do?
 

Forget about the human cattle—they are nothing to you. You are one of us now.
They placed him on a platform that brought him up almost to their level. V'kaan caressed him as if he were a cherished pet and gave him Blessings so intensely pleasurable to his body and spirit that he craved only to surrender himself forever.
You are such a valuable servant. So precious, so honored. You shall be like a god, traveling the heavens with us. Whatever you desire, it is yours.
 

But Niko struggled against the cloying bliss frequency which sucked at him like sweet quicksand.
Masters,
he kept screaming.
Mistress! I beg you—please tell me! How did I help you conquer Earth?
 

Niko cringed in agony of spirit. <
What did I do? Did I invent a way for those monsters to enslave my own kind?>  
 

Mentor Azel embraced him more securely. <
Be easy, friend. I don't believe you did anything at all.>
 

know
that I didn't help those monsters...sell my soul to them?>

Niko felt as if a thousand-pound weight had been removed from his spirit.

***

The memories came flooding back after that. <
Tell the others...bring Akai...I want to tell them about everything I saw in the Martian ship.>
 

All of the Seeker companions finally gathered in a tall spire surrounded by cyclonic clouds. On one side loomed a black shadow of the Darkside. The other side was bathed in the blinding Dayside light.

Niko faced Akai, the Obelisk who was the Teacher, and all of the Aon scientists who had been his guides.

He envisioned the twists and turns, corridors...always turning left, going downward. <
The ship must have a spiral layout. Can you see? They took me to a huge space, filled with machines and devices...big as a warehouse. They called it the Technology Cache
.
>
 

Niko gave them the images: gigantic pylons of black metal. Fine, floating filaments. Tubes filled with pulsing light. Red and purple cones that whirled in the air. Spheres, lights, knobs, glowing screens...

 

Niko opened his mind like a book and showed them.
 
A glowing net...a whirling collection of tubes...a pulsing globe... a small object that looked like crumpled-up fan blades. <
I reached for it, and as my fingers came close, I felt a burning sensation, and my fingers disappeared!>
 

Sudden excitement rose from the Aon assembly.

 

Akai said.

 

said pyramid-shaped Axio.
 

Niko wished he could sit down. Exhaustion was taking its toll. Then he recalled he had left his body somewhere, probably in another dimension.

Another question occurred to him. <
If you can move across dimensions, and get inside the U'jaan ship—then why can't you simply destroy them?>
 

Akai turned a darker shade. <
But you see...that's our problem. Over the thousands of turns it has become difficult for us to interact with dense matter and the 3rd-d. That's why we need our devices, and alliance with other life forms from the Star Sea.>
 

Niko persisted.
energy?>
 

Ayin floated closer.

 

Niko tried to hide his disappointment.

 

Alu pulsed with regret.

 

Feeling frustrated now, Niko persisted
.
His desperation came out in a rush. <
Can you give me a formula...a diagram... something that might help? Just show me a schematic and I'll remember it.>
 

The obelisk and the sphere conferred with the flame and wings.

And all of them came into his sight: Akai, and Axio, and many others with names he could not quite catch. They came in a myriad of shapes...winged beings, pyramids, flames, mathematical abstractions which faded in and out of view.

Niko yearned to spend awhile calculating their angles, volumes. For a moment he forgot his own problems.

 

Akai told him
.

Alu added.

The Obelisk spoke.

A series of glyphs and diagrams began to appear on a wall of the chamber.
,
a quartz crystal can be used to focus the vortex field. And look, here are some formulas for materials you might find helpful.>
The Pyramid
spoke a few simple symbols. <
This is for
shyllan
—the shielding material. The U'jaan themselves took this from our world and used it for their ships. It may provide shielding for you as well.>
 

Niko wondered how could have ever doubted the Aon. These were the beings who had first inspired him to seek extraterrestrial life. Beings who would guide him, and the human race, like loving parents or elder brothers...only offering their counsel freely. Sharing, not forcing. He absorbed the knowledge, happy as a child at Christmas, until a disturbance interrupted him.

Several new Aon beings suddenly burst in among the Seeker group. Their shapes were spiky, their colors somber.

Akai backed up.
 
 

Axxa, a shape made of several sharp points, faced the Seekers. <
Teacher Akai! Why are you giving scientific information to an alien being? This cannot be permitted!>
 

A sharp-winged Aon faced Niko, almost dragon-like with hostility. <
We are the Guardians of the Source. Our world was plundered by aliens once—we won't see it happen again
.>

Akai faced the interloper. <
Guardian Axxa, this being is a friend, not a threat—he is not like the Despoiler Host!>
 

Axxa flared crimson. <
How do you know? Dense-matter beings cannot be trusted! They are an unstable form of life—always reproducing, expanding! Tell this alien to leave at once!>
 

Alu stood up to the Guardian.

 

Axxa's color deepened even further.

 

Akai intervened with a sharp flash.

The teacher turned to Niko. <
I apologize, friend Bright...regretfully, you must go now.>
 

said Ayin.

Niko assured them
,
 

Alu and the others raised wings, bidding him a sad farewell. <
Stay strong, Bright!>
 

***

After this Niko floated alone in the Star Sea, for an uncounted time. So cold, so lonely. The Universe now seemed to be a hostile place. He wished he knew how to get back home.

He had learned that even ethereal energy beings had the same concerns as humans: survival, fear of the stranger, concern for their own safety. Now he was on his own: no more depending on cosmic mentors to look out for him.

All that Niko had left now was contemplation of the knowledge that had flashed before him. The shapes, and formulas in a script he could not know. Joy and sadness, fortune and disaster could come and go, he reflected—but in the end, all that would remain was the ultimate touchstone of Pure Thought. It was comfort in times of sadness...calm in times of fear. So Niko thought on all he had seen in the world of Lumina. The shapes of the Aon: he rotated them around in his mind, visualizing them in all their dimensions. A 4-d or 5-d world: if multiple dimensions were a reality, what sort of devices could he construct, and what would be their properties?

The devices on the U'jaan ship: those, too, gave him eons of challenge. They had been invented by other races—so each of them was another well of inspiration and hope. The whirling cones, the tubes that vanished into nowhere, the spheres one inside the other...
morph vector, manifestor, Nexus Key!

He stored all of it in a chamber of his mind, like a precious book which he would soon open.

I'll show you, Z'duun! I'll figure out all of your machines...and I'll use them to destroy you!

But first, he must find his way back home. And that seemed impossible. In every direction he perceived mighty stars, cosmic gas clouds...but nothing familiar; nothing he could grasp.