Authors: Christopher Priest
I noticed that he would not take the carriage too close to the building, and I had to walk
the last four or five hundred yards by myself.
The laboratory was a square construction with sloping roofs, built with unstained or
unpainted wood, showing many signs of impromptu decisions about its design. It appeared
that various small extensions had been added after the main structure went up, because the
roofs were not all at the same pitch, and in places met at odd angles. A large wooden
derrick had been built on (or through) the main roof, and another, smaller rig had been
built on one of the side sloping roofs.
In the centre of the building, rising vertically, was a tall metal pole that tapered
gradually to what would have been a point, although there was no visible apex because at
the top there was a large metal sphere. This was glinting in the bright morning sunshine,
and waving gently to and fro in the fresh breeze that was blowing along the mountainside.
On each side of the path a number of technical instruments of obscure purpose had been set
on the ground. There were many metal poles driven into the stony soil, and most of these
were connected to each other with insulated wires. Close by the side of the main building
was a wooden frame with a glass wall, inside which I saw several measuring dials or
registers.
I heard a sudden and violent crackling sound, and from within the building there came a
series of brilliant and horrific flashes: white, blue-white, pink-white, repeated
erratically but rapidly. So fierce were these explosions of light that they glared not
only at the one or two windows in my sight, but revealed the tiny cracks and apertures in
the fabric of the walls.
I confess that at this moment my resolve briefly failed, and I even glanced back to see if
Randy and his carriage were still within hailing distance. (No sign of him!) My faint
heart became even fainter when, within two or three more steps, I came upon a hand-painted
sign mounted on the wall beside the main door. It said:
GREAT DANGER
Keep Out!
As I read this the electric discharges from within died away as abruptly as they had
started, and it seemed a positive omen. I banged my fist on the door.
After a wait of a few moments, Nikola Tesla himself opened the door. His expression was
the abstracted one of a busy man who has been irritatingly interrupted. It was not a good
start, but I made the best of it.
“Mr Tesla?” I said. “My name is Rupert Angier. I wonder if you recall our correspondence?
I have been writing to you from England.”
“I know nobody in England!” He was staring behind me, as if wondering how many more
Englishmen I had brought with me. “Say your name again, good sir?”
“My name is Rupert Angier. I was present at your demonstration in London, and was greatly
interested—”
“You are the magician! The one Mr Alley knows all about?”
“I am the magician,” I confirmed, although the meaning of his second query was for the
moment lost on me.
“You may enter!”
So many impressions about him at once, of course reinforced by my having spent several
hours with him after our first exchange. At the time I noticed his face first. It was
gaunt, intelligent and handsome, with strong Slavic cheekbones. He wore a thin moustache,
and his lanky hair was parted in the middle. His appearance was in general untended, that
of a man who worked long hours and slept only when there was no alternative to exhaustion.
Tesla is equipped with an extraordinary mind. Once I had made my identity clear to him he
remembered not only what we had corresponded briefly about, but that I had written to him
earlier, some eight years ago, asking for a copy of his notes.
Inside the laboratory he introduced me to his assistant, a Mr Alley. This interesting man
appears to fulfil many roles in Tesla's life, from scientific assistant and collaborator,
to domestic servant and companion. Mr Alley declared himself to be an admirer of my work!
He had been in the audience during my show in Kansas City in 1893, and spoke briefly but
knowledgeably about magic.
By all appearances the two men work in the laboratory alone, with only the astonishing
research equipment for company. I ascribe this near-human quality to the apparatus because
Tesla himself has a habit of referring to his equipment as if it had thoughts and
instincts. Once, yesterday, I heard him say to Alley, “It knows there's a storm coming”;
at another moment he said, “I think it's waiting for us to start again.”
Tesla seemed relaxed in my company, and the brief hostility I had experienced at the door
was nowhere evident during the rest of my time with him. He declared that he and Alley had
been soon to break for luncheon, and the three of us sat down to simple but nourishing
food that Alley quickly produced from one of the side rooms. Tesla sat apart from us, and
I noticed he was a finicky eater, holding up each morsel for close inspection before
putting it in his mouth, and discarding as many of them as he consumed. He wiped his hands
and dabbed his lips on a small cloth after each mouthful. Before he rejoined us, he swept
away his uneaten food into a bin outside the building, then scrupulously washed and wiped
dry his utensils before placing them inside a drawer, which he locked.
Rejoining Alley and myself, Tesla interrogated me about the use of electricity in Britain,
how widespread it was becoming, what was the British government's commitment to long-term
generation and transmission of power, the kinds of transmission being envisioned and the
uses to which it was being put. Fortunately, because I had planned to have this meeting
with Tesla, I had done my homework on the subject before leaving England, and was able to
converse with him on a reasonably informed level, a fact for which he seemed appreciative.
He was especially gratified to learn that many British installations appeared to favour
his polyphase system, which was not the case here in the USA. “Most cities still prefer
the Edison system,” he growled, and went into a technical exposition of the failings of
his rival's methods. I sensed that he had rehearsed these sentiments many times in the
past, and to listeners better equipped to take them in than I was. The upshot of his
complaint was that in the end people would come around to his alternating current system,
but that they were wasting a lot of time and opportunities while they did so. On this
subject, and on several others related to his work, he sounded humourless and forbidding,
but at other times I found him delightful and amusing company.
Eventually, the focus of his questions turned to myself, my career, my interest in
electricity, and to what uses I might wish to put it.
I had resolved, before leaving England, that were Tesla to enquire into the secrets of my
illusions he would be one person to whom I would make an exception and reveal anything in
which he might show interest. It seemed only right. When I had seen his lecture in London
he had had all the appearance of a member of my own profession, taking the same delight in
surprising and mystifying the audience, yet, unlike a magician, being more than willing,
anxious even, to reveal and share his secrets.
He turned out to be incurious, though. I sensed that nothing would be gained by my harking
on the subject. Instead, I let him direct our conversation, and for an hour or two he
rambled entertainingly over his conflicts with Edison, his struggles against bureaucracy
and the scientific establishment, and most of all his successes. His present laboratory
had been funded, in effect, by the work of the last few years. He had installed the first
water-powered city-sized electricity generator in the world; the generating station was at
Niagara Falls, and the beneficiary city was Buffalo. It is true to say that Tesla had made
his fortune at Niagara, but like many men of sudden wealth he wondered how long he could
make last what he had.
As gently as I could I kept the conversation centred on money, because this is one of the
few subjects where our interests genuinely meet. Of course he would not impart details of
his finances to me, a virtual stranger, but funding is clearly a preoccupation. He
mentioned J. Pierpoint Morgan, his present sponsor, several times.
Nothing was discussed between us that touched directly on the reason for my visit here,
but there will be plenty of time for that in the days ahead. Yesterday, we were just
getting to know one another, and learning of each other's interests.
I have said little of the dominant feature of his laboratory. All through the meal, and
during the long conversation that followed, we were overshadowed by the bulk of his
Experimental Coil. Indeed, the entire laboratory can be said to
be
the Coil, for there is little else there apart from recording and calibrating apparatus.
The Coil is immense. Tesla said that it had a diameter in excess of fifty feet, which I
can well believe. Because the interior of the laboratory is not brightly lit the Coil has
a gloomy, mysterious presence, at least while it is not being used. Constructed around a
central core (the base of the tall metal pole that I had seen protruding through the
roof), the Coil is wound around numerous wooden and metal battens, in a complexity that
increases the closer in to the core you explore. With my layman's eyes I could make no
sense of its design. The effect was to a large extent that of a bizarre cage. Everything
about it and around it seemed haphazard. For instance, there were several ordinary wooden
chairs in the laboratory, and several of these were in the immediate vicinity of the Coil.
As indeed were many other bits and pieces: papers, tools, scraps of dropped and forgotten
food, even a grubby-looking kerchief. I duly marvelled at the Coil when Tesla conducted me
around it, but it was impossible for me then to understand any of it. All I grasped was
that it was capable of using or transforming huge amounts of electricity. The power for it
is sent up the mountain from Colorado Springs below; Tesla has paid for this by installing
the town generators himself!
“I have all the electricity I want!” he said at one juncture. “As you will probably find
during the evenings.”
I asked him what he meant.
“You will notice that from time to time the town lights momentarily dim. Sometimes they
even go off altogether for a few seconds. It means we are at work up here! Let me show
you.”
He led me out of the ramshackle building and across the uneven ground outside. After a
short distance we came to a place where the side of the mountain dropped steeply away, and
there, a long way below, was the whole extent of Colorado Springs, shimmering in the
summer heat.
“If you come up here one night I'll demonstrate,” he promised. “With a pull on one lever I
can plunge that whole city into the dark.”
As we headed back, he said, “You must indeed visit me one night. Night-time is the finest
time in the mountains. As you have no doubt observed for yourself, the scenery here is on
a grand scale but intrinsically lacking in interest. To one side, nothing but rocky peaks;
to the other, land as flat as the top of a table. It is a mistake to look down or around.
The real interest is above us!” He gestured towards the sky. “I have never known such
clarity of air, such moonlight. Nor have I ever seen such storms as occur here! I chose
this site because of the frequency of storms. There is one coming at this moment, as it
happens.”
I glanced around me, looking for the familiar sight of the piling anvil-topped cloud in
the distance, or, if closer, the black mass of rain-bearing cloud that darkens the sky in
the minutes before a storm actually breaks, but the sky was an untrammelled blue in every
direction. The air, too, remained crisp and lively, with no hint of the ominous sultriness
that always presages a downpour.
“The storm will arrive after seven this evening, in fact, let us examine my coherer, from
which we can ascertain the exact time.”
We walked back to the laboratory. As we did so I noticed that Randy Gilpin and his
carriage had arrived, and were parked well away from where we were. Randy waved to me, and
I waved back.
Tesla indicated one of the instruments I had noted earlier.
“This shows that a storm is currently in the region of Central City, about eighty miles to
the north of us. Watch!”
He indicated a part of the device that could be seen through a magnifying lens, and jabbed
a finger at it at odd moments. After peering at it for a while I saw what he was trying to
indicate — a tiny electrical spark was bridging the visible gap between two metal studs.
“Each time it sparks it is registering a flash of lightning,” Tesla explained. “Sometimes
I will note the discharge here, and more than an hour later I will hear the thunder
rumbling in from far away.”
I was about to express my disbelief when I remembered the intense seriousness of the man.
He had moved to another instrument, next to the coherer, and noted down two or three
readings from it. I followed him to it.
“Yes,” he said. “Mr Angier, would you be good enough to look at your timepiece this
evening, and note the moment it happens to be when you see the first flash of lightning.
By my calculation it should be between 7.15 p.m. and 7.20 p.m.”
“You can predict the exact moment?” I said.
“Within about five minutes.”
“Then you could make your fortune with this alone!” I exclaimed.
He looked uninterested.
“It is peripheral,” he said. “My work is purely experimental, and my main concern is to
know when a storm is going to break so that I might make the best use of it.” He glanced
over to where Gilpin was waiting. “I see your carriage has returned, Mr Angier. You plan
to make another visit to see me?”
“I came to Colorado Springs for one reason only,” I said. “That is so that I might put a
business proposition to you.”
“The best kind of proposition, in my experience,” Tesla said gravely. “I shall expect you
the day after tomorrow.”