Tesla's Signal (22 page)

“Thank you, my friends.” He put his palms together, as if in prayer, and bowed his head. “You have saved me, so I will live.”

***

Niko hadn't been to church in decades, but now the ancient religious symbols were the only things that he could cling to.

“God in heaven, help me not to be a monster.” Shivering violently, he left the Bridge and walked along the waterfront toward Clinton Street. “Saint Sava, help me be a human being.”

Dawn came to the waterfront with the moan of foghorns and the clang of buoys. In the streets of New York, the earliest street vendors opened up for business. Nobody swooped in to grab Niko. Maybe he had overreacted. Maybe the police
were
just there to give him a citation. He sure hoped nobody had been hurt in his 'earthquake'.

I'm a dangerous man. St. Sava help me not to hurt anyone else.
 

Though weak and shaken, he made it back to the Clinton Street Station. He found a sack of groceries: bread, cheese and fruit.
Dear Clara must have left them. She wanted me to eat.
 

At the thought of Clara, he almost came undone...but he fought for control. He couldn't let her see him like this. If he wanted to be human, the first thing necessary was to eat some food. He had eaten almost nothing since...the ship. He looked at the block of cheese:
six inches by three inches
. He cut pieces of exactly one inch square, and crammed them into his mouth one by one.

After he ate, he lay on the mattress and slept. Ate again, slept some more. Spent time counting the bricks, while he tried to recover from... whatever had happened...and reassemble himself as a human being.

He stayed in his safe haven that day and the next. No one could bother him. No conversations, no thoughts, no place to go...just solitude, while he slowly put himself back together. Cell by cell...synapse by synapse.

When he regained some strength, he rummaged around and found his backpack full of handy gizmos and tools. He also found two of Clara's ingenious induction guns. One fit in his pocket; the larger one fit in the backpack.
Might need one of those guns
. Niko could not explain why, but he felt like a desperado with his back against the wall.

What next? He would pull himself together and make plans
.
First,he needed clean clothes and a decent meal. Then...he needed to speak to
someone.

He had to warn the world of what was coming.

12: Signs of the Serafim

Void Stalker

“Captain K'viin reporting to my Lords of the High Council.” K'viin faced the screen and bowed deeply to the highest commanders. “Most august Lords, I regret that there has been...an accident.”

“Indeed?” The Abode Lord and his High Council stood grim and rigid in their chamber aboard the Command Ship, a massive vessel that hovered in high stationary orbit. “What type of accident? Engine malfunction? Asteroid collision?”

K'viin wished it had been something like that. “No, Council Lords.” He tried to keep his nervous fluids under control as he described a disaster caused by an Earthman who had proved more destructive than a meteor. “...and he somehow managed to destroy our Primary Orb. We are unable to determine how—”

“What! By the Darkvoid!” The Command Ship was over five thousand void-measures distant...but still K'viin cringed from his superior's fury.  “You told us that this species had no military capability. Have you been lying to us?”

K'viin bowed his long neck in submission. “No, Abode Lord...the planet Earth has no weapons except primitive chemical explosives. I believe that this Earthman
'Tes'laa'
is an anomaly—and the only potential threat on this whole planet.”

“Then track the vermin by his implant,” the Abode Lord snapped out, clenching his claws. “Eliminate him, seize his devices, keep whatever might be useful and destroy the rest. Why have you delayed?”

K'viin dared not look up. “Lord Councilors...we are unable to locate him. We believe that...his implant may have malfunctioned.”

“By the Cold Vacuum,” the Abode Lord cried. “Are there no competent technicians in your crew? Receive your discipline for these failures!” He reached to press a button, which remotely controlled a device implanted in the U'jaan officers. K'viin waited for the inevitable punishment, and accepted the strokes of crippling agony without complaint.

“Now get up, worthless scraping.” The Abode Lord turned to the rest of the Council. “Second Commander, we must immediately fabricate another Orb. See to it!”

He then opened a channel to address every officer of the U'jaan Sky Fleet. “My fellow Voyagers, for many void-years we have operated in stealth, implanting important authorities of Earth. Without them knowing, they await our summons. Now it is time to call our disciples to us and begin the active phase of our Plan. K'viin!”

“Yes, my Lord?” K'viin scrambled up and bowed low once more.

“Prepare a squad of attack cruisers and begin disruptive maneuvers. Step up recruitment!” The Abode Lord made a grasping motion. “Call our disciples into service, and imprint new converts. Send them all out on a most urgent mission: bring us this creature called
Tes'laa!”
 

***

New York City

“Miss Lily Palmer?” Clara spoke into the telephone. “This is Miss Kara. I'm home from the Conservatory. Would you like me to do some performances?”

“I'd be delighted,” said Miss Lily. “I'll send a carriage to pick you up.”

“Thank you, Miss Lily, but I prefer the streetcar.” And so Clara put on her shimmering black Miss Kara gown with silk kimono, a fan-shaped hat, and the persona that went with it: the shy but dramatic Russian music student. The streetcar brought her to the fashionable Fifth Avenue neighborhood with its marble-fronted mansions, and deposited her at the most ornate house on the street.

Within the conservatory, Clara set up the Theremin and took her place in front of the audience: a lot of wealthy, overdressed ladies and gentlemen. She thought of the last time she had played for them. So much had changed! For a moment Clara didn't think she could go through with this charade, because the woman who had been 'Miss Kara' was long gone. Clara had met her hero...she had fulfilled her life's dream of working with Nikola Tesla, acquiring his wisdom, sharing her own inventions...it was everything she had dreamed of since she was a girl.

But then things had gone wrong. A glowing ship from space had stolen her beloved friend and associate. Thanks be to the Holy Name he'd come back alive...but he was a mental wreck. He was hiding in a manhole!

Nu?
On second thought, perhaps the manhole was the best place for him. Clara understood: after all, she and Uncle had hidden from the Cossacks in a drainage culvert. Those Martian
goniffs
...God knows what they had done to Niko. Clara repressed a shiver.

It's better if you don't get involved,
he'd said.
You deserve a normal life.
 

She had stalked off. A block later she turned back, expecting to see him following. But the street remained empty, the manhole cover back in place.
Why doesn't he come after me? I'd have stood by him. I'd face down a whole regiment of Martian Cossacks for Nikola.
 

But he had rejected her help.
Maybe he never really cared.
 

She had never expected romantic or physical love from Nikola. But surely something even deeper had grown between them!
We were like twin souls. Surely he felt it?
 

Angrily, Clara brushed tears away.
I guess he felt nothing for me. I was just an assistant...handy with a soldering iron.
So why throw herself at him?
If he still wants me, he knows where to find me.
 

She had checked the Elgin watch, tuned to his heart, numerous times. But she did not think it could detect a man underground. Or perhaps he had just thrown it away.

Stop being an idiot,
Clara told herself. What was the point of loving someone, anyway? They'd just as likely die of consumption...be trampled by a horse...killed by Cossacks.

Clara thought about the normal life she would have without Niko. Uncle or some busybody on Essex Street would find her a match...some dry goods merchant, or at least a book seller, someone educated...and she'd start churning out babies. Maybe she could name one of them
Nikola.

Well she supposed she could play a lot more concerts. If she really tried, she could make a name for herself as a musician. Yes, she could travel around with the great Leon Theremin, a man she admired almost as much as Nikola. She could wear exotic clothes and hobnob with high society people like these. Make enough money to get herself a real place, instead of a quilt in the back of Uncle's shop or a dusty couch in an abandoned generating station.

For a moment Clara entertained the fantasy of living a respectable life. Owning an automobile...now
that
was something Clara would like. Maybe a Pierce-Arrow Runabout or a lime-green Olds with whitewall tires. But not a Ford, of course.

The train of thought lasted for about two seconds before Clara cut it off. Of course she would never abandon Niko. He was in trouble...maybe more trouble than any human being had ever been in.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the talented Miss Kara and her futuristic instrument, the Theremin!”

Lily Palmer played a gentle arpeggio on the piano. Miss Kara raised her hands, closed her eyes. As she did before every performance, she saw Mother's face.

Mother had played violin, weaving notes on the breeze.
Music is the language of the Infinite,
she would say. Now
Mama-leh
lived in a place filled with the eternal music.
Rest in peace with the Serafim,
Clara told her mother, and pulled the first wavering note from the aether.

But the next notes were for Niko.

Her right hand floated upward above the volume loop and her left hand caressed the air across from the antenna, honing in on the perfect frequency. If only he could hear it...

Nikola,
she would like to tell him,
music is a power every bit as strong as electricity
. Such a lonely man...such a beautiful soul he had, yet there was a side of him that he kept hidden. Only the music seemed to touch that side.

Miss Palmer started playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata: the most melancholy, soulful piano piece ever written. Clara's sensitive fingers wove the aether into corresponding frequencies. Niko had showed that a transmitter could send a signal to a receiver miles away, if both were in resonance. Why not now? If she and Niko came into resonance, could they share thoughts?

As she played, she closed her eyes...opened her mind and soul. In a state of total relaxation and receptivity, she saw Niko's face. The image dissolved into a tall, blue flame within a triangle. Then that shape dissolved into a pair of wings
The signs of the Serafim!
 

Something white caught her eye. A pigeon had gotten in somehow; perhaps a servant had left the window open.
Isn't that odd.
She recalled seeing a pigeon just like this one, when she'd found Niko on the Tower.

Now the pigeon perched on a white marble statue and glided over to the Tiffany lamp. It perched on the piano, stared directly at her, and sang the purest glowing tone she had ever heard. As she stared in fascination, the note turned to words inside her head.

Clara's fingers trembled on the note.
Is that pigeon really talking to me?
 

said the pigeon.

 

The pigeon ruffled its wings, rose up and flew out the window.

Clara blinked in astonishment.
Had she hallucinated the whole thing?
What's Lily putting in her cocktails?
 

Miss Lily played the final chord and let it die away. The audience began to applaud, but Clara didn't even hear them. She packed up her instrument, still astonished at what had happened. She recalled the tales of her ancestor, the miracle-working Rebbe of Rovno, and how the Serafim would visit him in the guise of a bird or animal.
Is that what I just saw?