by George Wier
“Yes,” she agreed.
Billy noticed Jack Ross’s robotic arm. “What the hell are we going to do with that?”
“We’re going to use Jack’s fist to clamp these two poles together.”
Billy gave her an appraising smile. “I like you,” he said. “You’re smart.”
[ 118 ]
On the bridge, Tesla retrieved the alien sword from beside the pilot chair, pivoted and fled back the way he’d come.
Before he left the bridge, he heard it: a bone-jarring stacatto and a high whine.
“My God!” he exclaimed. “They’re drilling into us!”
Tesla flew from the command deck far faster than he had entered.
[ 119 ]
Billy and Ekka covered their ears, but the vibration shook their teeth in the sockets. It was painful.
Billy removed his hands from his ears and grasped the robotic arm from the air. He manipulated the hand, prying the fingers slowly open. He braced the end of the pole against the door where the aliens were cutting into the ship, then walked backward along the pole until he reached the end. Then he placed the pole in the grip of the robot hand.
Ekka followed suit and helped Billy by inserting the end of the second pole next to the first. There was too much space. The two poles didn’t touch.
Billy worked his way up the oversized arm and reached inside the exposed housing of the upper arm. He grabbed a cable and pulled. The elbow bent slightly. He grabbed a smaller cable and pulled hard. The thumb of the great robot hand closed. He found another cable and pulled. The forefinger closed. He grabbed the nest of remaining cables and yanked with all his strength. The hand clamped shut and the two poles clanked together. They both heard it, even through the din from the drill.
Billy glanced at the doorway and saw it was glowing red hot.
Ekka was the first to notice the bright light from above and the immense shadow that flew before it. She jostled Billy and gestured him to move the poles closer to the central shaft.
They both looked up in time to see Nikola Tesla ride a lightning bolt down the central shaft. His hands clutched the varnish of the shaft itself and his feet were on the pommel of the alien sword blade. The sword was like the blade of an ice skate beneath him, and the form of man and blade could have been a downhill skier bending almost horizontal for a death-defying jump. Tesla traversed four stories of the central shaft in less than two seconds
Billy and Ekka let go of the poles together and fell backwards and away from each other.
At the last instant, Tesla pulled up on the point of the alien blade by using his twisted suit coat as reins.
There was a blinding flash of light that did not end for some time.
[ 120 ]
Tides ebb and flow. The sun rises and the sun sets. Love begins and love dies and is reborn again. Vision fades. It also returns.
Ekka Gagarin knew this sea. It was the sea of thin air inside the space ship Arcadia. And it was home. For a time she could see nothing, could hear nothing except the distant hum of the transmogrifier, and could feel nothing but lassitude, beckoning to her. The phasing, multicolored spots came first before her vision, bursting, however dimly, in all the colors of the spectrum in spectacular shapes and patterns. At first she tried to discern some meaning to it all, and then decided she knew what it was. Her sight was returning to her and her eyes were already open.
“Billy?” she called weakly.
“Here,” he said. He was far away and the sound was faint, but she could hear him clearly.
“Nikola?” she called.
“Here,” he said. Tesla was closer to hand.
“Can you see?” she asked.
“My sight is returning,” Tesla said. “I knew what was coming and closed my eyes at the last second. But the light went right through my eyelids anyway.”
And then Tesla laughed. At first it was a bemused chuckle, but soon it grew.
“What are you laughing at, you damned Slavic jackanape?” Billy called, but even he was bemused by Tesla’s laughter.
The laughter went on for a full minute, and Ekka and Billy waited as their vision returned. They saw each other at each end of the Arcadia and Tesla tumbled in the air between them, an alien sword in his hand.
“Because,” he said. “One trillion volts. I have ridden the lightning bolt. I am Thor. I am Zeus!”
“I don’t know about Thor,” Ekka said. “Or Zeus.”
“Me neither,” Billy agreed. “But I do have to admit. You, sir, are a god.”
[ 121 ]
There was no evidence of an alien spacecraft outside the ship. There was no wreckage, and there were no bodies. There was, however, a perfectly spherical shiny object out there, tracking alongside the Arcadia.
“What do you think it is?” Ekka asked Billy.
“I can’t say for sure, but you remember that shark-looking thing they were trying to eat the door with?”
“The drill,” Tesla said.
“Yeah. That. I think that’s what it is now. Just a ball of metal.”
Tesla nodded thoughtfully. “I daresay there will likely one day be many uses for the great ether. There is no telling what may be developed here. I should like to have a look in the library of the Patent Office in a hundred years’ time. There is no telling what mischief we may find.”
“We’d better get to the bridge,” Ekka said. “We have no Judah Merkam to plot our course.”
“Nor Koothrappally to figure the math,” Billy said.
“But we do have a pilot,” Ekka said, and nudged Billy’s arm.
“I say. We do at that,” Tesla said, and punched Billy’s other arm. “A damned good one.”
[ 122 ]
The Earth filled the bridge viewing window.
Billy had spent countless hours in the library of his former girlfriend, studying maps, looking at globes of the Earth. He knew all of the continents and most of the major countries and their relation to each other. His mind, however, went blank as he confronted the great slowly turning blue and white globe before him.
Ekka was down inside the engine room, ready to cycle the transmogrifier up or down at his command through the speaking tube. Tesla rode beside him in the seat to his right to give him advice and encouragement.
But it was all The Kid at the controls of the craft.
“I read about you in a dime novel,” Tesla said.
“Oh yeah?”
The Earth now filled the entire sky.
“Yes. Your shootouts. The Lincoln County War. Your final comeuppance when Pat Garrett came for you and shot you in a bar. Wonderful stuff.”
“I read that one too,” Billy said. “That looks like Australia down there. Over there is Africa. I’d say we’re coming down on the whole wrong side of the world.”
“Ah,” Tesla said. “We’re antipodal.”
“Speak for yourself,” Billy said. He looked at Tesla, who was about to explain. Billy smiled. “Just kidding. I know what it means. It means opposite side. I may be a back country yayhoo, but I’m not illiterate.”
Tesla likewise smiled.
Billy pulled the speaking tube toward him. “Ekka, ramp up the power a bit.”
“How much?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Just a smidge.”
“Done!”
“Say, Nikola,” Billy said. “Watch this.”
Billy the Kid did a barrel roll, pulled back on the yoke to line up the Arcadia with the closest landmass.
“India,” Tesla said. “Would that Koothrappally were here.”
“Me too,” Billy agreed.
[ 123 ]
The Arcadia came through the upper atmosphere at twenty thousand miles per hour. She was, however, no child of inertia, but was instead the product of gravitation. Ultimately, her wake was the affinity of the music of the spheres.
On the bridge of the ship, the man who was born William McCarty and who had taken the name Billy Bonney out of deference to his mother, flew the gravitationa
l winds of Earth as though he were on the back of an Apache-bred pinto.
He stabbed for the heart of the great orb rushing up to meet them by calling for a cut in power and then pressing the nose of the ship downward. He rolled again counter- clockwise to get his bearings on the landmass by using the ocean and the small island beyond.
“I think that’s Ceylon,” Billy said.
“Yes. It is.”
Billy craned his neck to the right and the coast of Africa beyond.
“Um, Billy,” Tesla patted the dash.
Billy looked up, saw the cloud layer coming at them. They were coming in too fast.
“Full power!” Billy called into the speaking tube.
“I’ll try,” her voice came back.
“What do you mean, ‘try’?”
“Yes,” Tesla said. “What does she mean?”
Billy moved the right stick to the right and then rolled into the turn. The clouds whipped by them as if they were passing through a fluffy white curtain.
“The gear shifter is...sticky,” Ekka replied. “Also it’s bent. I think someone hit it with something.”
“Jack Ross,” Tesla and Billy said together.
“Give us what you can, darlin’,” Billy said back to her. “Um. Please.”
The hum from the main coil increased, but not nearly as much as it should have.
“Do S-curves to shed some speed,” Tesla said.
“Yeah. Sounds right.”
Billy shot over a vast, lush landscape with only a vague idea of where the great island was located ahead. He was so low over land that he couldn’t see the water of the Indian Ocean. He took three S-curves one after the other. Their speed bled away and the hum of power on the ship increased and decreased, coming in fits and starts.
“Problem?” he called to Ekka.
“Yes,” she said. “We have a problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The gear shifter just broke off. We’re never going to come to a full stop.”
“That,” Tesla said, “could very well be a problem.”
“Dammit,” Billy said.
“What?”
“I got an idea.”
“I think you had better tell me.”
“Billy?” Ekka called. “What are you going to do?”
“We’re landing,” he replied.
“Where” Tesla asked.
“On water.”
[ 124 ]
In the engine room, Ekka Gagarin hovered over the broken gear shift housing. The electric lights in the engine room flickered along with the constantly increasing and decreasing transmogrifier cycle.
The lever had broken off inside the housing. An inch of metal protruded upward from it, and constantly moved back and forth along with the oscillation of the engine and the lights.
Ekka looked around.
The deck around her was littered with tools and components, but she could see nothing of any use.
A constant rattle from the wall drew her attention. It had been there all along while she was trying to concentrate, but she had shut it out. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking at. She had seen the silvery glint of it so many times before, but never outside of the company of Jack Ross. It was his original robotic arm.
Ekka leapt across the room and removed it from the iron bracket that held it in place. Conklin had said the arm was too badly damaged to be reattached. She had seen Billy manipulate the giant robotic arm by pulling on the cables inside. It was possible that she could do the same with Jack’s original, smaller arm.
She returned to the transmogrifier with the final useful remnant of Steam Ross.
[ 125 ]
The Arcadia began losing altitude over the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. She shed speed, but without full power to the transmogrifier, the gravitational pull of the planet began to take hold. Only her forward inertia kept her in the air. Her trajectory, however, was that of a descent.
Billy snapped the fingers of his right hand three times in rapid succession.
“What are you doing that for?” Tesla asked.
“Sometimes after the third snap, an idea will pop right into my head.”
“Did one?”
Billy glanced at Tesla. “Uh. Nope.”
“We have to be over water when she comes down, or we’ll never survive.”
“I know.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Tesla inquired.
“I’m not sure, but I’m bringing the nose up.”
“I don’t believe that will help.”
“Maybe it’ll help us to not see where we come down,” Billy said.
“Yes. You are right.”
Billy The Kid pulled back on the left stick and the nose of the Arcadia came up into clear blue sky.
There was a sudden burst of power from the central shaft beneath them.
“How’s that?” Ekka’s voice came over the speaker.
“That’s good,” Billy called. “Can you keep it like that for awhile?”
“Maybe a minute!” she shouted.
“That’s all I need.”
Billy and Tesla breathed again, each relieved that Ekka somehow bought them a few unlooked for moments of life.
“I say, old chap,” Tesla said. “It’s been fine having you along for the voyage.”
“I feel the same.”
“I suppose, what I meant was, that if we don’t come out of this alive, it has been rather good to know you, Mr. Kid.”
“It’s Bonney. Billy Bonney.”
“Yes. And you may call me Nik.”
Billy laughed. “I would not dare. But thank you, just the same.”
And then the hum beneath them ceased completely.
[ 126 ]
Ekka was pleased with herself and with the makeshift gear lever. She used all of her might to keep the bundle of cables form Jack Ross’s robotic arm taut in her grasp. Her bicep strained. She braced her left arm under her right elbow for support and any additional ounce of strength she could muster.
Half a minute ticked by. She felt the burning in her hand, wrist, forearm, and bicep.
“Hold, dammit,” she spat through clenched teeth. Her arm shook, her jaw trembled. Her feet and spread legs spasmed as she pushed them downward into the deck.
The seconds that drifted by became, each one, an exercise in enduring pain and forcing her body to bend to her indomitable will.
She heard Billy’s and Tesla’s voice faintly over the speaker. She couldn’t make out any words, but the two men appeared to be chatting. She thought of Billy’s handsome smile, even as she fought the urge to cry out from the strain.
Ekka knew that every second she bought for the Arcadia was important. It meant her life and it meant the brilliant Nikola Tesla’s life. It also meant the life of the man she loved, and whether that life might continue.
She held the cables even as she felt them slipping beneath her grip. When the fingertips of the robotic arm slipped from the remnant of the ship’s main gear, Ekka checked the inexorable back and forth movement of the thing by sheer stamina and force of will. When Ross’s fingertips completely failed, the metal rod spun away into the dark housing beneath, disappearing out of sight.
[ 127 ]
Judah Merkam’s space ship Arcadia lost the last vestige of its shimmer from the dying transmogrifier and surrendered to the overwhelming gravitation pull of that conglomerate of molten nickel, iron, rock, and water we call Earth. She sailed forward for a moment out of sheer momentum before her bow began to come down.
The Arcadia slapped the water of the Indian Ocean as a stone angled at the correct attitude might strike the still waters of a millpond. She struck...and skipped.
The first strike was the hardest, as the both ship and the ocean absorbed the greatest amount of inertia.
On the bridge of the doomed ship, Nikola Tesla banged his forehead into the velvet cushions of the dashboard, then rocked backward in his chair. One of his molars c
ame loose, but he was otherwise unharmed, but for a mild concussion. Beside him, Billy Bonney held his hands and arms before him as a shield. They struck the instruments and gauges and protected his face and head and ribs. He emerged unscathed except for the weeping wound in his shoulder.
In the engine room, Ekka Gagarin was thrown the entire length of the chamber and through the hatch into the sudden darkness of the main chamber. Her arms came into contact with the central spire and she grasped it to stop her forward plunge. The electricity of the coil was long dead.
The second and third strikes were lighter by far.
Fourteen times the Arcadia struck the salt waters of the southern hemisphere. On the last strike, which felt to her surviving crew members genteel in comparison to the first and successive impacts. She was swallowed by water within sight of land.
[ 128 ]
The Arcadia plunged downward seven fathoms before her buoyancy took hold and brought her back to the surface. At her lowest level, the bodies of Edward Teach and Denys Jay-Patten exited the rear of the strange craft and seemed to embrace one another like star-crossed lovers.
The ship emerged from the depths a dozen yards from a Ceylonese fishing boat. The wave from her birth into the world swept under the boat and rocked it.
A fisherman and his two sons sat up from their midday nap beneath the shade of their canvas sunscreen and gaped at the seaborne craft.
On the bridge, Billy waved at the fisherman. The youngest of the tanned brown fishermen waved back.
[ 129 ]
Ekka Gagarin waited for Billy. She held onto the central shaft with both hands. Her feet dangled in the air twenty feet from the inner hull below, and her strength was beginning to flag. At the worst she might come out of the deal with a broken leg.
“I’ll get you!” Billy called. “Hold on!”
