Authors: L. Woodswalker
Alu took up the thread. <
From the first day I sensed your existence
,
I knew you were the one we needed.>
What do you need from me?>
Niko glanced upward in alarm. <
It is? When?>
Alu came closer and addressed the two Earth beings. <
Both of you could work here...we'll build a lab for you...we'll reestablish the Source as a place of science and wisdom. You and Air Song will have many hundreds of turns to study, learn and teach the secrets of the universe. Is that to your liking?>
Niko hesitated.
He was wrong. He did know, and the knowledge stabbed him like a lance through his heart...if he still had a heart.
He stopped as the pain overwhelmed him, and forced himself to go on.
The Colleagues kept silent. Clara just gazed at him with understanding, and brushed back his hair and stroked his cheek.
Akai floated nearby.
And several of them
began to set up a vast triangular Gate at the top of the sky.
Alu came up to them.
hen your 3rd-d life is finished, will you come back and stay with us?>
Niko and Clara hovered before the Gate, sharing one last embrace. They floated and twirled like twin rose petals in the golden sky of Lumina.
***
A small transparent opening appeared in front of the former Wardenclyffe site. Unnoticed, a man tumbled out. He collapsed onto the ground and lay still as the Gate faded away.
Eventually a farm boy came by on a hay wagon. “Hey, mister...you all right?”
Niko woke up, blinking. There was so much he wanted to ask. First of all..
.am I really back on Earth? How much time has gone by since...the Angels?
Are the U'jaan really gone?
The Wardenclyffe site looked peaceful, and abandoned. He noticed that all the scrap from his mighty Tower had been carted away. Grass had grown over the burned-off spots, and the laboratory had been boarded up.
The leaves on the trees had turned orange and brown: autumn had come. Weeks, or even months, must have gone by on Earth since the tumultuous events in New York City and the space above the planet.
“What's been happening here? The...the Tower?”
“Oh, that big Tower's gone,” said the boy. “I hear that crazy scientist fella, he couldn't pay his bills, so they tore it all down to sell for scrap.”
What?
Niko couldn't believe it. Had people really forgotten
everything?
“What about that 'crazy scientist'? Are the police looking for him?”
The boy shrugged. “Beats me. Look, I'll give ya a ride into town. You could stay at the Salvation Army. And maybe get some clothes,” the boy added, gazing disapprovingly at Niko's lack of proper attire.
Niko finally managed to contact Abraham Lowe by telephone, and they met soon afterward. Sadly, Niko gave him the news about about Clara.
“I knew my Clara-leh was too good for this world,” said Abraham, grasping Niko in a tight embrace and breaking into unashamed tears. Niko did not flinch away.
Abraham took him in. For awhile Niko couldn't do much except wander around in a daze. Abraham refused to let him wallow in depression. “Nick,” he said, “you're family now...the closest thing I got to a son.”
They located Hugo and some of the other Station survivors. These were the ones who were directing the cleanup and recovery. Katharine Johnson and other society ladies staged benefits for the devastated neighborhoods, although they never seemed to grasp what had happened. Nor did the rest who had been under the thrall of the Orb.
“It was the Bolsheviks,” people said. “They tried to overthrow the government.”
“It was the Kaiser's zeppelins,” was another theory.
“No one really knows the truth except us,” said Hugo. “Perhaps it's better that way.”
Hugo took Niko out for a drink. Niko looked at the glass for a moment and realized he had felt no compulsion to calculate the volume.
Why not?
Because it doesn't matter anymore. I destroyed the Earth and then saved it. What difference does the volume make?
He smiled, for the first time since he had lost Clara.
“Nick, your adventures have inspired me to start a new magazine,
Amazing Stories
.
”
Grinning, he pushed a copy of the publication across the table. The cover depicted a tentacled monster grasping a screaming woman. “People love this stuff.
Science fiction,
they call it.”
Niko gave an uneasy laugh. “Hugo...what happened on Earth after the battle with the alien ships?”
Hugo shrugged. “Well...those Martians, they just...seemed to forget what they were doing. They just ran for their lives.”
“Ah. Perhaps they had been receiving control messages too. From the Orb, or the Command Ship.”
“Yes. Strange creatures, all right. I went out to Shoreham as soon as I could,” said Hugo. “It was confused there for awhile. People weren't sure what they'd seen. They thought it was a battle with German bi-planes, or something like that. If you talk about Martian invaders, people think you're crazy.”
“Don't I know it,” Niko agreed. “Do you think that...any of the aliens survived?”
Hugo shrugged. “I heard stories about 'demons' that were killed by enraged mobs. And then there's a rumor that the wreckage of an alien ship crash-landed somewhere in the Appalachians. The government stepped in and covered the whole thing up. I guess it wouldn't be good for the economy if people knew there were non-human intelligences out there.” Hugo gestured at the heavens. “Oh, and they spread the story that they had torn down Wardenclyffe Tower for security reasons. They said spies from some enemy country were using it.”
“Amazing. How can they get away with such lies!” Niko stared at the wall and finally gathered the nerve to continue. “And Hugo...what about the Angels' human servants? What about...Shelia?”
Hugo laughed. “I hear she opened up a house of ill repute. She's calling it the Silver Chamber, or maybe the House of Angelic Blessings. Something with that Angelic theme.”
Niko shuddered at the words 'Angel' and 'Silver Chamber.' “That calls for another drink,” he decided. “What about Tom Edison?”
Hugo chuckled. “They say that old dog has lost his sense of humor. His health has gone downhill, and he wants nothing to do with electricity. He's gone into the pre-fab concrete business. There's a big market for concrete in New York, you know. A lot of rebuilding going on.”
New York seemed to be in the middle of a construction boom. “They tore down a lotta those old buildings,” a newsboy told Niko. “They wanted to modernize. Are you new in town? I'll give ya a tour. Over here is where the Anarchists blew up a bunch of stuff.”
“Anarchists?”
Niko stifled a laugh. “Has the whole world forgotten everything? What about...Nikola Tesla?”
“Tesla? Oh yeah, wasn't he that mad scientist who said he talked to
Mars?
The boy twirled his finger around his ears in the
crazy
sign.
***
No one remembered the Angels, but people suffered the aftereffects in the form of paranoia: fear of outsiders; suspicion of being invaded. Niko understood: he had been through it himself. He thought this subconscious fear and xenophobia may have contributed to the great World War.
The world transformed itself in those years. Electricity and radio became commonplace. Machines that ran on alternating current transformed industry and everyday life. Engineers explored the possibilities of remote control, and the pulse-detection science which they called
radar
. All of these had been the brainchild of Nikola Tesla. They had laughed at him when he had spoken of these things. Now others took the credit...and Niko faded into oblivion.
Other scientists proposed theories about matter, light and energy: the same theories Niko had previously discussed in his lectures. These scientists got the Nobel Prize—while the name of
Nikola Tesla
mysteriously vanished from history books and textbooks, as if it had fallen through a dimensional gate.
That was the way Niko wanted it.
He came up with helpful discoveries that might dispel ignorance, increase communication and understanding, and ease Mankind's way to the Future. But he made sure that the credit went to someone else.
If people looked into the subject of
Tesla,
they would find a genius who had created wondrous inventions and brilliant ideas, about a hundred years ahead of their time. And who had also designed some powerful devices and weapons which could cause great damage in the wrong hands. He made sure that the specific details of these devices were thoroughly erased.
Henceforth the history books would only speak of an eccentric genius who had failed to achieve his dream...who had faded into less than a footnote. Schoolchildren would never once hear the name of the inventor who brought humanity into the modern age.
Yes...best if the world forgot he had ever existed.
Never again would Niko see his creations used for evil.
***
The silver-haired man sat on a bench in Bryant Park, surrounded by pigeons. Despite the shabbiness of his suit, he projected an air of impeccable dignity. He carried on intense conversations with the birds while they perched on his shoulders and pecked seed from his hands.
These days he could barely scrape together his hotel rent, and his only remaining lab was the one inside his head. There he constructed mighty engines that defied the laws of physics. He visualized current vortexes and spinning arcs that crossed the dimensions, and his gaunt face glowed with an inner radiance.
A couple of women, out on a stroll, sat on a park bench nearby. The peculiar man caught their eye. “Who's that fellow? I see him there every day. He looks familiar,” said one to the other.
“He used to be a famous inventor,” said the other. “But now all he does is feed pigeons, and talks to them too.”
“I wonder who he is. What did he invent?”
“Why don't you ask him, Maude?”
Maude came up to Nikola. “Excuse me, Sir, you look familiar. My friend says you used to be famous.”
Niko looked at her and noticed she was wearing a pearl necklace. He flinched back, covering his eyes.
Many of his earlier compulsions had faded away...but this was one fear he could not shake. To this day it terrified him to look at
pearly round objects
.