The Martian Falcon (Lovecraft & Fort) (18 page)

CHAPTER 23
Johnny’s Dream

‘Is that really you, boss?’ said Carmine.

‘It’s really me,’ replied the ghost of Johnny Sanguine, which stood by the fireplace of his drawing room in Brooklyn.

Carmine looked the white-suited figure up and down. ‘It sure as hell
looks
like you…’

Johnny gave him a broad smile and spread his arms wide, as if to say
Here I am. Believe it
.

‘What happened to you? You were staked. That fucking bitch!’

‘Yeah, she staked me all right – did a real number on me. But I’m still here.’

‘How?’ asked Carmine. ‘Vampires can’t come back as ghosts. It ain’t natural!’

‘No, it isn’t. Believe me, I was as surprised as you. I don’t know how it happened, but I can guess. It was the Martian Falcon.’

‘The…’ Carmine hesitated and shrugged. ‘How?’

‘There’s a lot more to that bird than meets the eye. It’s got something inside it. Maybe something supernatural, or maybe something to do with Martian technology. I dunno, but whatever it is, it… took hold of me somehow, grabbed my soul and kept it here. And it spoke to me.’

‘It
spoke
to you?’

‘Yeah, or maybe it
wasn’t
the bird, or what’s inside it…’

Carmine shook his head. ‘Boss, you ain’t making much sense. Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Of course I’m not okay, numbnuts! I’m a fucking ghost! Vampires aren’t supposed to be ghosts! But here I am, trapped in this world… powerless… all I can do is talk, beating my gums like a two-bit lawyer!’ Johnny began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace. ‘But that statue, it… I think it’s like a telephone…’

‘A telephone?’ said Carmine.

‘Yeah, a telephone, but I don’t know who or what’s on the other end of the line. I keep getting… images, like dreams… yeah, dreams, only I’m not asleep…’

‘Hallucinations?’ said Carmine. ‘Maybe we should get you to a shrink.’

‘Carmine, it must take a hell of a lot of practice to get that stupid. A
shrink
? They’re not hallucinations. Something is communicating with me. I need to know what it is.’

‘Why?’

‘Because whatever it is, I think it’s powerful enough to recorporealise me.’

‘Recorp what?’

‘To make myself physical again. That’s what I think it’s telling me. These dreams… in them, the Falcon… it
opens
somehow, whatever’s inside it is free… and I’m whole again – undead again, instead of just dead. We need to get that statue back, Carmine.’

‘But we don’t know where it is. All we know is Rusty staked you and skipped with it.’

‘I know where it is. Crystalman has it.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Carmine. ‘How the fuck are we going to get it back off of him? He’s big time, Johnny…’

Johnny stopped pacing and turned to Carmine. ‘Are you saying I’m not?’

‘No, boss, I ain’t saying that. Course not. But…’

‘But nothing! He’s got a place out on Long Island. I know – I’ve seen it, and what’s under it. You wouldn’t believe it, Carmine. All kinds of Dero shit he’s got down there; even those grubby little fuckers are scared of him. Anyways, I followed Rusty after she staked me, followed her all the way to Crystalman. He’s got the bird, and I want it back!’ He paused and gave a silent sigh. ‘But you’re right, Carmine – or as close to right as you ever get. It’s going to take a lot of muscle to go up against Crystalman – a
hell
of a lot – and I’m not sure we’ve got enough to do it.’

‘So what’s the answer?’ asked Carmine.

‘A truce and an alliance.’

‘Who with?’

‘Capone.’

‘
Capone?
That diesel-powered piss pot?’

‘Capone,’ Johnny repeated.

Carmine looked confused, so Johnny waited patiently for the penny to drop. When it did, Carmine’s face broke into a huge grin. ‘You’re saying we use Capone and his zombies as our foot soldiers,’ he said. ‘We let them go in and draw the fire while we get the Falcon.’

‘While
I
get the Falcon. And when I’m done, I’ll either leave them for Crystalman to take care of, or we take them out ourselves once I’m back. Whaddaya say, Carmine? Good plan?’

‘Good plan, boss! But how do we get Capone and his soup-for-brains zombies in our corner? He ain’t gonna be easy to convince. He may be a walking dumpster, but he ain’t stupid.’

‘You got that right. We’re gonna need someone else in our corner first. Cormack O’Malley’s already in my pocket…’

‘Father O’Blivion? You don’t say!’

‘Yeah, he was the first one I spoke to after I went to Crystalman’s place. I fed him a line about needing to get the Falcon from Crystalman so we can send it back to Mars on the new X-M ship.’

‘Back to Mars? Why did you tell him that?’

‘Because I needed to make sure none of those idiots smash the damn thing when they get to it. I needed to give O’Malley an objective that didn’t involve destroying the Falcon, and it wasn’t enough to just tell him it needs to go back to the Metropolitan Museum. No one’s going to put their life on the line for
that
reason.’

‘I sure as hell wouldn’t,’ said Carmine. ‘So… O’Malley’s definitely up for the caper?’

Johnny chuckled. ‘Yeah. I told him that God told me it had to be done, so I could redeem my soul.’

‘And he believed you?’

‘He had no choice. I mean, that’s what he does, right? Help souls to redeem themselves. He’s famous for it. How could he pass up the opportunity to do that with a vampire? Thinks he’s gonna get a big pat on the back from the Almighty when his own time comes. Fucking idiot.’

Johnny’s smile faded a little as he recalled what he had told O’Malley. The Primal Mind, he had called it; the name had come to him in one of his dreams. O’Malley had assumed he was talking about God, and Johnny had let him believe it; but he very much doubted that the thing that spoke to him had anything to do with God.

‘O’Malley’ll be useful enough: he always was good in a fight. But the real reason I need him is because he’s tight with Charlie Fort, and it’s through Fort that I’ll get to Capone and his stinkin’ army.’

Another penny dropped. ‘So that’s why you stopped me and the boys from smoking them on the Expressway. Fort and the other guy.’

‘That’s why. Fort’s working for Capone, obviously. If we can get to Fort through O’Malley, get him on our side, he can persuade diesel-dick to work with us. Now… did you do like I told you? Did you get the boys to keep an eye on Fort’s apartment?’

Carmine nodded. ‘The cops must’ve let them go pretty quick after the business on the Expressway. Fort went back there, and then the other guy showed up this morning. Then they left for LaGuardia…’

‘LaGuardia?’

‘Yeah. Couple of our boys tailed them and saw them buying tickets to Denver.’

‘Denver,
Colorado
?’ said Johnny.

‘Yeah.’

Johnny began to pace slowly back and forth again. ‘What the fuck are they doing in Colorado?’

CHAPTER 24
The Teleforce Projector

Tesla took Fort and Lovecraft to a far section of his vast laboratory, which contained yet more arcane equipment. Fort shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What the hell does all this stuff do?’

‘Tools of the trade, Mr. Fort,’ Tesla replied.

‘The trade being…?’

‘To discover the secrets of the universe, of course. To study the behaviour and interactions of everything that exists, from the tiniest building blocks of the atom to the most gigantic and distant of the interstellar nebulae and the great galactic filaments drifting through the eternal void. That’s my trade, my calling. To discover how it all works, why it all exists, what it all
means
…’

‘And if it means nothing?’ said Lovecraft. ‘If there
is
no reason for it, no purpose, if we are nothing more than transitory entities lost in a chaos eternally incomprehensible to us?’

Tesla gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Are you an existential nihilist, Mr. Lovecraft?’

‘No, I would say not. I allow for the possibility of ego-created values and purpose, and for the transitory comfort they may bring to the thinking individual; but they could only ever exist on the human scale, and could never have any bearing on, or significance to, the wider cosmos. My own position is that they would be about as relevant to the cosmos at large as the philosophy of an ant would be to us. In fact, I prefer to term myself a Cosmicist…’

‘I’ve never heard of that,’ said Tesla.

Lovecraft gave a small embarrassed cough. ‘A word of my own coinage, by which I mean that the cosmos of patterned energy, including what we know as matter, is of a nature absolutely impossible of realisation by the human brain; and the more we learn of it, the more we perceive this circumstance. Even allowing for the most radical conceptions of the relativist, we form so insignificant and temporary a part of it that all notions of special relationships and names and destinies expressed in human conduct must necessarily be vestigial myths.’

‘Howard…’ said Fort.

‘But then surely you must be a pessimist,’ Tesla declared.

‘Indeed not!’ Lovecraft rejoined. ‘I am not a pessimist but an
indifferentist
– that is, I don’t make the mistake of thinking that the resultant of the natural forces surrounding and governing organic life will have any connection with the wishes or tastes of any part of that organic life-process. Pessimists are just as illogical as optimists, insomuch as both envisage the aims of mankind as unified, and as having a direct relationship to the inevitable flow of terrestrial motivation and events.’

Fort sighed. ‘Howard…’

‘That is,’ continued Lovecraft, ignoring him, ‘both schools retain in a vestigial way the primitive concept of a conscious teleology, of a cosmos which gives a damn one way or the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitoes, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos or any other forms of biological energy.’

‘Ha!’ cried Tesla with a loud laugh. ‘I could talk to you all day, Mr. Lovecraft; for while I believe you are wrong, I think you’re wrong in a truly
fascinating
way. You should be a philosopher, sir, not a private detective!’

‘He’s neither,’ said Fort loudly. ‘And with all due respect, Dr. Tesla, we have to get back to New York as quick as we can to prevent someone from rendering the question of the meaning of existence moot.’

‘Ah, you’re quite right, of course,’ said Tesla. ‘Sorry, Mr. Lovecraft, but I think we shall have to continue our conversation some other time.’

‘Indeed,’ Lovecraft replied, shooting a frown at Fort.

‘So,’ said Fort, ‘the solution to our problem…?’

Tesla went to a large workbench and picked up an object that looked like an old blunderbuss – albeit one made of silvery metal and festooned with switches and dials. ‘This,’ said the inventor, his voice suffused with pride, ‘is my Teleforce Projector, the most powerful weapon ever created.’

Fort whistled. ‘Looks pretty impressive. What does it fire?’

‘A beam of charged particles…’

‘A death ray?’ said Fort.

Tesla shook his head in irritation. ‘Not
rays
, Mr. Fort,
particles
. Rays are not applicable because they cannot be produced in requisite quantities and diminish rapidly in intensity with distance. All the energy of New York City – about two million horsepower – transformed into rays and projected twenty miles, could not kill a human being because, according to a well-understood law of physics, it would disperse to such an extent as to be ineffectual.’

‘Right,’ said Fort.

‘My apparatus projects particles of microscopic dimensions, enabling it to convey to a small area at a great distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that nothing can resist. The nozzle sends concentrated beams of particles through the air, of such tremendous energy that they can bring down a fleet of ten thousand enemy aircraft, at a distance of two hundred miles from a defending nation’s border, and can cause entire armies to drop dead in their tracks.’

‘Astonishing!’ enthused Lovecraft. ‘I would have thought that a device of this power would have to be many times larger than the instrument you’re holding.’

‘You’re quite right, Mr. Lovecraft – at least, that was true initially. The prototype was indeed much larger; in fact, you stopped to admire it in the main laboratory.’

‘Your wireless magnifying transmitter?’ said Lovecraft.

‘Correct. The projection of charged particle beams is the least of which it’s capable, and it only took a bit of tinkering to reduce it in size to the point where it can be wielded by a person.’

Lovecraft suspected that it had taken a lot more than a ‘bit of tinkering’ but said nothing.

‘The non-aggressive transmission of usable energy is a much subtler problem,’ continued Tesla. ‘But I’m gradually finding my way towards a solution.’

‘Easier to destroy than to create,’ said Fort without irony. ‘Makes sense.’

‘True,’ nodded Tesla, ‘but I envisage this as a weapon of defence rather than attack. It’s no exaggeration to say that the flying machine has completely demoralised the world – oh, of course their peacetime uses are many: transportation of people and cargo, exploration and so on; but one of the greatest fears besetting the people of the civilised world is the threat of aerial bombing by hostile foreign powers. The Teleforce Projector offers a means of absolute protection against this and other forms of attack.’

‘The ultimate weapon,’ said Lovecraft. ‘The one which makes war itself obsolete.’

‘Precisely!’ said Tesla.

Fort glanced from Lovecraft to Tesla and shook his head.
A weapon that makes war obsolete?
he thought.
There’s no such damned thing, and there never will be
. ‘So how does it work?’ he asked.

‘Well…’ Tesla hesitated. ‘The technical details are a little complicated, but basically the barrel of the Projector is an open-ended vacuum tube with a gas jet seal that allows the particles to exit in a high-velocity air stream, which is produced by a miniaturised version of my Tesla Turbine located in the stock, which also contains a device capable of charging the microscopic metallic particles to in excess of fifty million volts. The beam is created and directed by means of a series of electrostatic repulsors on the inner surface of the barrel.’ He handed the Projector to Fort. ‘Feel the weight.’

Fort hefted the device. ‘Lighter than I expected,’ he said.

‘It’s yours, for now,’ said Tesla. ‘I’ll show you how to activate it and how to select the various settings, how to focus the beam and so on. All I ask is that you bring it back in one piece.’

‘You’re loaning this to us?’ said Fort. ‘Why?’

‘To destroy the Martian Falcon, of course,’ replied Tesla.

‘But the statue’s made of obsidian,’ Fort protested. ‘All we have to do is drop the damned thing.’

Tesla smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that won’t do it. When the X-M expedition returned from Mars, both the Falcon and the rock books were studied by the NCPE’s Materials Analysis Department, which concluded that although they were fashioned from minerals common on both Mars and Earth, something had been done to them – some process, probably chemical in nature, which made them all but indestructible. We have no idea how this was achieved.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Fort.

‘No one did,’ Tesla replied. ‘It’s been kept under wraps by the government. And…’ He gave a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘I’d appreciate it if you did the same and kept it to yourselves. The fact is, the government is trying to apply the indestructibility of the Martian artefacts to our own materials. The applications for industry are numerous to say the least: with access to those kinds of production techniques, we could construct buildings a mile high with barely a second thought.’ He indicated the Teleforce Projector. ‘This is the only device on Earth which has a chance of destroying the Martian Falcon.’

‘Splendid,’ said Lovecraft. ‘Now all we have to do is find it.’

Tesla broke into a broad smile. ‘I have the solution to that problem, too.’

‘I didn’t doubt it for a moment,’ said Fort, replacing the Projector on the workbench.

‘When the NCPE examined the artefacts, they noticed something else about them,’ Tesla continued. ‘All matter oscillates at specific frequencies, but the molecules in the Martian artefacts – the rock books and the Falcon – oscillate at a highly unusual one. It’s probably a side effect of the process by which they were hardened to their state of near-indestructibility, but it’s detectable within a certain range.’

‘Detectable?’ said Fort. ‘By what?’

Tesla led them to another workbench. ‘By this. I call it the AOD, short for Anomalous Oscillation Detector. It’s calibrated for the oscillation of the Martian rock artefacts.’ He picked up an instrument the size and shape of a large flashlight. The front of the instrument was covered with a fine mesh through which could be seen a complex and delicate-looking arrangement of electrical components. In front of the on/off switch on the handgrip was a trio of tiny lights. Tesla indicated them. ‘When you switch on the detector, this light will glow red; that means you’re nowhere near the source of the anomalous oscillation. When you’re within about two hundred yards, the red light will go out and the yellow light will come on.’ The light was accompanied by a bleeping sound. ‘Get to within fifty yards and the yellow light will go out and the green light will come on.’ The bleeping became more urgent. ‘The lights switch between each other according to the direction in which the target lies; so if the green light is on, you know you’re heading towards it and it’s less than fifty yards away. If you turn away from it, the green light will go out and the yellow one will re-illuminate, so you’ll know you’re heading in the wrong direction. Turn back towards the target and the green light will come on again. Simple.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lovecraft, ‘but why did you build this device? Seems like a bit of a pointless exercise, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.’

‘Far from it, Mr. Lovecraft,’ Tesla replied. ‘I designed the AOD for the X-M 2 expedition. It will enable the crew to find further artefacts when they continue the exploration of the city of Cydonia – although now there is a much more pressing need for it.’

Tesla handed the device to Fort, who switched it on and frowned. ‘The green light’s on.’

‘That’s right. I have some samples of Martian minerals here in the lab: fragments of artefacts which were brought back by the crew of the X-M. I used them to calibrate the instrument.’

‘Fragments?’ said Fort as he switched off the AOD. ‘I thought their stuff was indestructible.’

‘
Almost
indestructible,’ Tesla corrected. ‘Don’t forget, they were subjected to a force which destroyed the Martian civilisation and ruined the planet.’

‘True,’ nodded Fort. He hefted the AOD and glanced at the Teleforce Projector on the other workbench. ‘This stuff’s going to come in very handy, Dr. Tesla. We can’t thank you enough.’

‘There’s no need to thank me, Mr. Fort,’ Tesla replied with a slight smile. ‘All you need to do is find the Martian Falcon and destroy it, otherwise Earth may well suffer the same fate as Mars did five million years ago…’