Tesla's Signal (7 page)

He twisted a wrench and made the final connections. If he hoped to send messages across the void of space and talk to extraterrestrial beings, he'd need one hell of a lot of voltage. “Ready, Anton? This new transmitter should give us more than twice the previous output.”

They fired up the apparatus. Ten million...twenty million...
crank it up higher!
The beam shot out toward the heavens, crackling and sizzling like God's own frying pan.
Blam!
The mountains roared back the echoes.

Anton put his hands over his ears. “Jesus Christ! Look at the power building up!” He pulled his friend out of the way. “You want to be fried to a cinder?”

A recklessness seized Niko: he had to push the limits.
How high can it go?
A forest of forked lightning filled the sky. Niko spread his arms, beside himself with ecstasy, and danced with the currents as he had danced as a small child. But this was more than bright lights and loud noise. This was a message!
Attention, attention
, he directed his cries to the heavens. Out there somewhere lived intelligent beings, possibly more advanced than Earth: wondrous beings like the glorious Aon.
Hello, interplanetary friends! Can you hear my signal?

Suddenly, with a disappointing snap, the whole glorious spectacle fizzled out of existence. It all went dark. “What the devil—Anton, did you pull the switch? We've lost power!”

Just then they got a frantic call from the engineer at the town generating station. “You maniac, you've overloaded the system. The whole town's blacked out. Come down and fix it at once!”

The next morning found them in town, arms deep inside the town's generating plant. “Look, Anton, I'll finish this up,” Niko told his friend. “Why don't you get some rest.”

“All right. Maybe I'll visit my lady friend.”

He continued soldering connections and rewiring circuits, and it was not until afternoon that he returned to his laboratory up in the hills. He spent several hours repairing his own equipment. By sunset, he brought the system back up and checked the instruments.

The panels slumbered: no lightning storms were detectable anywhere within 50 miles. When darkness came, he went out to admire the stars shining above the Rockies, brilliant and glorious as they would never be in New York. One of them seemed to be moving.
A meteor shower?
 

A loud series of pulsed signals interrupted his reverie.

He ran into the lab to see which instrument had malfunctioned. Here it came again:
beebeebeep
. Pause.
Beebeebeep
.
One-two-three.  
Pause.
One-two-three.
 

He checked the instruments again. Where was this coming from? Lightning strikes were random; this was regular. After five minutes it still had not stopped.

He scowled at his instruments. “Are you playing a joke on me?”

He tried turning the receiver in different directions. Tried to pinpoint the signal with several auxiliary receivers.
Electrical activity nearby? A stray telegraph signal?
 

Scowling, he asked a question of the empty room.
“Is there another Lightning Lord in these mountains? Someone else with a transmitter?”  

Slowly, he eliminated all of these possibilities.
No, none of those things. Then could it possibly be
...

Niko ran a finger over his mustache, speculating.
Could the signals be coming from space?
 

“By the Holy Trinity!” His skin prickled. Was this the message he had been waiting for? He gripped the receiver as if he could squeeze answers out of it. “Are you from another world—the world of the Aon? Tell me your message!” This was surely the most important moment in human history. He had received a message from the stars!

The signal continued all night. Niko did not sleep one bit, but just sat bolt upright: listening, imagining patterns and codes within the mysterious pulses.

By morning, the signals weakened. Because the Earth turned away from the source, he thought. He waited for Anton to arrive. “Come quickly, I have tremendous news!”

That night they set up Anton's telescope. “Show me where they came from,” said his friend.

Niko produced his sheaf of readings. Anton stared into the eyepiece of the telescope and gave his verdict. “Hmm. I'll be damned! It's right about...in line with the planet Mars!” He adjusted the focus. “There, take a look. There's the Red Planet.”

Niko looked at the tiny orange ball. Could the wise, luminous Aon live on Mars? But the world of his vision seemed to be fiery and filled with energy...more like Venus. While most astronomers thought Mars would be a cold, dry world. But still...Mars was just around the corner, relatively speaking. Perhaps the Aon had built a space-going ship and come to visit? Earth might be their next stop...“What's that curious object?”

“What object? Let me see.”

Anton looked for awhile. “Mmm...I don't see anything...your eyes must be better than mine.”

Niko restrained the urge to hop about with impatience.

“Ah, you probably saw a meteoroid,” Anton said. “Or an asteroid. There's all kinds of objects floating around in space.”

“You think I imagined it. You think I'm crazy, don't you.” Niko began pacing in a tight circle. “We need better receivers—a better telescope. We need to signal them again!”

When they went to fire up the transmitter, they discovered that a critical component had shorted out.

“We'll send out for more supplies. We must extend our stay—”

“Uh, Nikola, I meant to tell you...I'm going to be leaving.”

“What! You can't leave now—”

“I'm sorry. I got a job offer in Denver. Better pay and it's a lot warmer.”

“But...” for a moment, words failed him. “But—this is the greatest moment in human history! The first conversation between Earth and another world!” In his agitation, he grabbed hold of Anton's shoulder.

“I'm sorry, Nick...really. But you see...my lady friend's pregnant.”

The men said little as Anton packed up to leave, and Niko accompanied him to the train station in town. As the train pulled in, Anton turned to Niko and handed him the telescope.

“Here, Nick, you take this. I won't be able to stargaze once I move to Denver. Well, there's my train. Good luck, sir, I hope you find your Martians.”

“Good bye, Anton...good luck with fatherhood.”

Back at the lab, Niko sat by the receiver. But it remained silent. Sadly, he took inventory of his situation. He had burned out his main transmitter, used up all of his supplies, and drained his funds. “Friends from space,” he whispered, “I cannot answer you yet. Not until I can build a much larger transmitter. Yes...that's what I'll do. I must build a great, monumental tower to reach out to the stars.”

***

Anton gazed into his shot glass, listening to the sounds of clinking mugs and conversations. He had stopped in at the Rancho Saloon before catching his train.

“Well if it isn't my buddy Anton!” A voice interrupted his reverie. He turned, to see his former co-worker Cormac grinning at him. “I ain't seen you at the telegraph station all summer. What the devil have you been doing with yourself?”

“Working with my inventor friend Nick Tesla, in his mountain lab. It's been quite a lark!”

“No kidding! I hear he's a strange one.”

“Oh, he is that!” With a shot of whiskey in him, Anton's voice became loud; his gestures expansive. “He's about the smartest fellow on the planet. He means to hook up the whole world with electric power. No wires, mind you.”

“You don't say!”

“Yep! Thinks he can invent a little box to talk to anyone in the world. And not only that...” Anton lowered his voice. “He says he got a
message from Mars.”
 

“What! That's loco!” Cormac twirled his finger.

“Yep. I knew him back in the Old Country.” Anton leaned closer and spoke in a confidential tone. “He's a great fellow, but if you ask me, he's got a couple of screws loose. Or maybe he's from some other world himself.” Anton slapped his knee, laughing. “So, how about yourself, Cormac, what have you been doing?”

“I'm a reporter for the Denver
Sun
. Know what? This would make a hell of a story. Say, bartender, could we get a refill? Give my friend here a double.”

***

Void Stalker

“Captain K'viin, I've picked up a strange signal from our target world,” said Science Specialist Z'duun.

“Truly? Describe this signal, if you would.”

“It was a focused beam of high-intensity electrical energy.”

“That sounds like a product of technology. I thought you had determined that this was a primitive world?”

“That is what I thought. If the planet had advanced science, I would have detected it immediately. Until now there has been nothing.”

“Hmm.” The Captain digested the information. “Have you sent a test response?”

“Yes, Captain, I sent a standard repeating searchpulse. But there were no further signals.”

“Then it was probably a natural phenomenon. A powerful storm or ionic upheaval. We'll proceed to the next stage of our mission: observe... research...obtain specimens. Establish a culture interface.”

“Yes sir,” said Z'duun, and turned to gather his crew members.

***

On the same night that Niko boarded his train to Chicago, a woman named Shelia left the Ten-Gallon Roadhouse on the outskirts of town.

She staggered toward her shack in the hills. Business had been good that night. Smiling, she patted her bosom, making sure the thick wad of bills was securely stuffed into her bustier.

A sudden bright light in the sky caught her attention. A silvery disc had appeared from nowhere. It shot directly toward her, fast as a speeding train.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph...gotta quit the drinking!” 

The disc came to a stop overhead and hovered there, giving off a faint hum. An opening appeared in its underside. A blinding beam shot out from the opening and searched the ground.

Finding a target, it sucked the woman up into its belly. Emitting a faint whistle, it receded as quickly as it had come and vanished into the darkness.

4: The Tower

New York City, 1900

“Welcome back to New York.” Robert Johnson ushered Niko into the parlor. “I heard some extraordinary things about your stay in Colorado. You received a message from Mars?”

“By Heaven! How did you know? Has someone else already perfected a wireless system to spread news around the world?”

“I think so,” Katharine laughed. “It's called gossip.”

“Faster than a speeding locomotive,” Robert agreed.

“Well, never mind that.” Katharine poured Niko a glass of merlot. “I have a fine evening planned for us tonight. My good friend Lily Palmer is hosting a musical soirée. You must come with us!”

“Miss Katherine, it sounds lovely, but I really can't spare the time... there's so much to be done.”

“Nonsense,” said Katharine. “You'll love it! Miss Lily always comes up with something interesting. I hear she's found some musicians with a wonderful new instrument that works by electricity! Come, you're going to have fun, if I have to force you!”

It was a new century and people loved any novelty. Those who could afford the latest electrical gadgets delighted in showing them off. So Niko allowed his friends to take him in a carriage to Mansion Row, across from Central Park. “Miss Lily Palmer's family made their fortune in the railroad business,” Katharine explained.

Evidently Miss Palmer had inherited enough of a fortune to entertain in grand style. Today she had gathered a crowd of the elite into a ballroom filled with white marble statues, silk curtains and crystal chandeliers. The front of this grand salon had been sectioned off to form a stage, which displayed an elegant white piano.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an evening of entertainment,” said Miss Lily, a vision of loveliness in a tight-waisted gown with many layers of ruffles and flounces.  “First, my dear cousin, Miss Margerie  will perform Chopin's Sonata No. 1 in C Minor.”

Niko loved music, but tonight he squirmed with impatience to get back to work. Since returning from Colorado he had singlemindedly devoted himself to one goal:
build a tower—install a transmitter powerful enough to contact the beings from space.
'Martians'? Perhaps.
Yes, just call them Martians.
..that was easier for people to understand. After all, Mars was practically a next-door neighbor!

But first Niko would have to acquire funding. Hence, the society functions that would put him in touch with wealthy investors.