Tesla's Signal (41 page)

“There's rumors of a dangerous warlock in the mountain,” said Julius. “He makes storms. We had a terrible hailstorm the other night. Damaged my corn, killed one of my chickens.” He advanced, hands on his hips. “That wouldn't be you, would it?”

“Aw, he's just simple, Julius,” said a townsman in suspenders. “Leave him alone.”

Niko held out his hands in an appeasing gesture. “Don't be afraid. I never meant any harm...only wanted to make life better for mankind.”

Scowling, Julius grabbed Niko's shoulder—and removed it with a yell. “Good Lord! He's got some kind of sparks coming from him!”

“Sorry,” Niko said. “It's just because...short circuited.”

“He's in league with the devil!” Julius cried.

“Now now, there must be a scientific explanation,” said the storekeeper. “Static electricity, maybe.”

“We'd better get the Reverend,” the farmer's wife Blanche said.

“Don't you go anywhere,” Julius warned Niko, pointing a finger. Another neighbor appeared with a shotgun. The mechanisms of the gun fascinated Niko. The town clock, and the electric lamp, also caught his attention. He just sat on the ground, speaking softly to the cosmic forces that he sensed around him, watching the people with abstract interest.

A man in a black coat and hat appeared. “I'm the Reverend Decker,” he addressed Niko. “Here, let's sit on the porch and talk. Okay if we sit here, Miss Annie?” He turned to an old woman in a rocking chair, at the far end of the shadowed porch. She had the thin, papery skin of advanced age, and her hands shook with palsy. Her eyes stared ahead with the blank stare of the blind. She showed no sign of being aware of her surroundings.

The Reverend motioned for Julius and the shotgun man to move away, then sat on the edge of the porch and beckoned the mysterious stranger to sit next to him. “Son, are you a Christian? Would you pray with me?”

“Of course, Father.” Niko kept silent during the prayer, until a question occurred to him. “Are you my
tata?”
 

“Eh?”

“My...my father. He was also a man of the cloth. Wanted me to join the clergy too. I disappointed him. I went to engineering school instead.”

The Reverend blinked. “Look here, son, the townspeople are scared. They don't like mysterious goings-on. There's word of a sorcerer on the mountain. Now they're all wearing crucifixes and putting up hex signs everywhere.” The Reverend pointed to a round plaque on a nearby roof, painted with a six-pointed star design.

“Ah...the hexagram: double three. Illustrating the balance between Matter and Spirit. I...I regret that I disappointed Father. But I did serve God in my own way. I spent my life trying to understand God's works. I...I wished to be in touch with the cosmic forces of the universe.”

“Cosmic forces, eh?” The Reverend looked interested. In a lower voice, he said “I met a man who talked like that once. It was at a world religious conference, at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.”

“Yes. A holy man from India—Swami Vivekananda,” said Niko. “We talked many times. I told him that I believed in a universal substance, of which all things are made: the
luminiferous aether.
We spoke about how all beings are of a common substance, the God consciousness that fills the universe. Therefore, all beings are brothers.”

“Isn't that curious,” the Reverend said. He looked up at the townspeople. By this time a small crowd had gathered. The appearance of any stranger was of interest in an isolated village like this. But this man was much stranger than most.

“Wait'll I write up this story,” the town journalist muttered. “It'll make the front page of the
Call
.
”
 

“He's doesn't seem to be a Methodist,” the Reverend told them, “but I think he's just a harmless vagrant. Well educated, too. I say we let him go on his way.  After all,” he observed, “the dogs seem to approve of him.”

It was true. Farmer Julius' two German Shepherds had settled down peacefully beside the wanderer.

“That sure is odd,” said the neighbor with the shotgun. “They usually chew the legs offa strangers.”

By this time the Deputy had arrived. “I heard a report of a dangerous lunatic on the loose. This the one?” He spat out a wad of tobacco and  came up to look at the lunatic, who gazed back with the calm of a still pond.

“What's wrong with you, Mister?” the Deputy demanded.

“I had an overload. Short-circuit,” Niko said. “Ninety million volts.”

“That's what he's been saying all day,” Julius shouted. “Talking about 'lectricity' and 'cosmic forces'.”

“Maybe you should call a doctor,” the Reverend said. “Have him taken to a sanitarium.”

“The hell with that,” the Deputy cried, “I think this fella's a wanted criminal! Look at this paper here...” He rummaged in his front pocket, took out a crumpled poster.
Wanted: Nikola Tesla
.

He tapped the picture with his finger. “That's your name, eh? Will, keep him covered him with that shotgun.”

***

Clara pushed the Roadster as fast as it could go, over the narrow wagon roads that connected rural Pennsylvania.

“Miss Clara? Is it really necessary to go this fast?” said poor Dr. Davidson. “If we go any faster, we'll take off into the sky.”

“Wish we could.” She gave an uneasy laugh. “Sorry. It's just...” her laughter dissolved into tears. “I'm afraid something's wrong with Niko. I've been calling him on his radio watch, but he doesn't answer.”

Clara had loved the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania, but now she found herself cursing the endless miles of hills and forest that stood between her and Nikola. After a seemingly endless climb over Route 322, she at last arrived at the crossroad of Hemlock Lane.

She barely stopped long enough to let Dr. Davidson off at his house, then took off with the tires spitting dirt, racing back to the camp she and Niko had inhabited.

Her worst fears were confirmed: the place was empty.

Fear gripped her belly like an icy claw.
Then it's true...I betrayed him to those cursed Angels. They came from the sky and snatched him away!
 

Clara wished the mountain would fall on her and crush her.
But... surely there would be a sign,
she told herself.
He'd have tried to run, or fight...they'd burn down the cabin with their death-ray...
 

Heart pounding, she inspected every inch of the cabin and the clearing around it. But she saw no signs of violence. Everything remained just she remembered. All the devices were intact. The Tesla coil still stood there, humming faintly with auxiliary power. The radio watch sat on the table.

Impossible that a man strong enough to rescue her from alien enslavement with the power of his mind, could have simply been whisked away. She clung to a shard of hope.
There must be another answer. Right?
 

Her choices were limited. She could drive over all these country roads, asking every farmer and woodsman if they had seen a wanted criminal who could shoot lightning bolts. Or she could call out to him, as he had called her.

***

“Tell the truth, buster!” The Deputy thrust the Wanted poster in Niko's face. “You're him—
Renegade Scientist Nikola Tesla—Public Enemy Number One!
Says here I can get one hundred thousand dollars for you!” He reached for the handcuffs in his back pocket.

And yet a few of the villagers looked uneasy and began to back away.

Niko extended his hands, palms up in submission. “Folks, don't be afraid...I'm not going to strike you down. If you wish to sacrifice me,” he said to the Deputy, “I won't resist you.”

“What?” the Deputy thundered.

“If it would help you avoid the Punishment...” Niko thought he might have picked a memory out of an earlier time. Memories of many times and places swirled through his mind. They used to burn people like him...people who saw things that others did not. Or sometimes a sacrifice was chosen—a substitute to avert cosmic misfortune. That was applicable now. Earth was in terrible danger and it was his doing. If he could be the scapegoat, sacrifice himself to the Enemy and prevent further catastrophe... “I'm willing.”

At that moment, the blind woman stood up.

“Mother,” cried the Deputy, and moved toward the old woman. “What are you doing? Sit down—you'll fall!”

Mother Annie ignored him. She took a faltering step forward and then another. The villagers just watched in amazement.

“I'll be God-damned,” Julius told the Reverend. “She ain't moved or spoke in 10 years.”

Walking on unsteady legs, Mother Annie approached the stranger. Slowly and painstakingly, she bent over Niko. Her palsied fingers stroked his head and explored his face as if analyzing each feature. She straightened, and faced her son the Deputy and the rest of the town.

“You better let him be,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “He's the kind of Messenger who comes once in a thousand years.”

24: The Starry Path

Niko kept walking, over hills, across railroad tracks and through streams, while listening to the sound of the Earth turning. He ascended to the summit of Skytop Mountain and kept on going higher and higher... until he had walked right off the world.

He passed groups of people in conversation: their demeanor reminded him of learned masters at a university. No hatred, no violence...just dignity, kindness and love of learning. People he had known drifted past, and he could see the glory of the starry heavens right through them. Mother...Father...wise minds of many ages spoke soft words of encouragement. He recognized savants of times past who knew how to build mighty works and harness cosmic forces. Astronomers and calendar makers, wisdom teachers, fearless savants who had probed the Mysteries.

“Is this the right path?” he asked Archimedes.

“Keep going, Sage Nikola.”

“If you need help,” said Pythagoras, “all you have to do is ask.”

“Courage, friend,” said Giordano Bruno. “No matter what they do to you, don't be afraid to speak the truth.”

Eventually he started to encounter other kinds of beings: creatures of ice and crystal, floating gas cloud colonies, plasma serpents...collections of intelligent numbers, sentient trees and rocks, group-minds composed of whirling atoms, planets that thought great slow thoughts as they brought life into being.

He beheld a universe unutterably vast, in which he was less than a molecule: he had never experienced such a tremendous mixture of fear, awe and wonder. His journey took him across rivers of stars like sparkling carpets, each point of light a maelstrom of electromagnetic forces, on frequencies far above human comprehension.

He finally reached a plateau where one universe lay atop another. He sensed a tiny gap, turned sideways into it, and disappeared.

***

No human life could exist in this place of intense heat and radiation. Yet in his star-traveling form he partook of this world's vibrant pulsing energy. And there waited a glorious assembly of shapes and colors: the Seekers of Aon.

One of them approached as a single wing of deep golden hue.

 

Niko held out his hands. No, wait. He didn't really have hands. He must have left his physical body somewhere back there. But he could reach out and vibrate molecules to express his feelings.
H
e stopped as a terrifying thought occurred to him.
others
...are you?>
 

The energy-beings took no offense, just gathered around, expressing their support and kindness with shimmering vibrations.  

Alu beckoned.
 

Another of the Aon spoke up, taking the form of a dancing flame.

 

Niko wanted to laugh.

 

Alu began to turn a darker hue
.