The Lost Pleiad

by Sesh Heri

  “I let her get away,” Ade said.

  Earhart smiled, studying Ade’s face.

  “I’m surprised you don’t fly,” Earhart said. “I understand that you started the Department of Aeronautical Engineering here at Purdue many years ago.”

  “Oh,” Ade said, “I didn’t do that by myself. I helped push the department along a little. I like to do that kind of thing when I can.”

  “Like the stadium,” Putnam said.

  “That’s right,” Ade said. “Getting the aeronautical engineers off the ground was a very long time ago.”

  “How long?” Earhart asked.

  “Oh,” Ade said, “I think we got it going about 1910, if I remember correctly. You know, all those great pioneers of aviation had just sprouted their wings— the Wright brothers, Glen Curtiss…the great stunt pilots were coming along. People like Lincoln Beachy and Art Smith and Harry Houdini were taking to the air. It was an exciting time for aviation.”

  “It’s still an exciting time for aviation,” Earhart said. “More exciting than ever.”

  “Didn’t mean to say that it isn’t,” Ade said. “You, most of all, make it exciting,”

  Ade turned to Putnam, and said, “You must be very proud of her.”

  “Amelia doesn’t need my pride,” Putnam replied, his eyes half-closed, heavy-lidded, patronizing. “Nor does she need it from anyone else. She has plenty enough herself.”

  “As so she should,” Ade said with a chuckle, and he turned back to Earhart. “I suppose Mrs. Roosevelt has passed the word that I had an idea I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “She did,” Earhart said. “Is that why we were invited to this dinner?”

  “Oh, Miss Earhart,” Ade said, “I arranged this whole dinner just so we could talk.”

  “Did you, now,” Earhart said.

  “He’s not joking,” Putnam said.

  “Just wait till you hear my punch line,” Ade said.

  “Eleanor told me that you had what she called ‘an intriguing proposition’ for me,” Earhart said.

  “That was nice of her,” Ade said, “considering that she had no idea what my proposition was. But then Mrs. Roosevelt is very nice.”

  “Yes, she is,” Earhart said.

  “Well, yes,” Ade said, “I would agree that what I am proposing is intriguing. Very intriguing. It has to do with…Electra.”

  Earhart’s eyes darted over to her husband. Putnam was staring intensely at Ade, not moving a muscle. Earhart’s eyes moved back to Ade.

  “Electra?” Earhart asked in a vague tone. “The Lockheed plane?”

  “Not the plane per se,” Ade said. “I’m talking about what the Lockheed Electra is specifically being designed and built for— Electra…the project.”

  “I don’t think this is the place to discuss that,” Earhart said, looking over to her husband. Putnam frowned and shook his head.

  “Don’t worry, folks,” Ade said. “I’ve already had this room thoroughly checked for hidden microphones and other listening devices. Four men are stationed outside this building to prevent anyone from entering. The service staff has been escorted out already. We are completely alone. This is a secure area.”

  “You’re not here about a promotional scheme,” Earhart said.

  “Now who’s joking?” Ade asked.

  “You’re with the government,” Earhart said.

  “I work for FDR,” Ade said. “We’re very close, at least as close as you could expect, considering that I am a Republican and he is a Democrat. We don’t get into politics. On other matters we see exactly eye-to-eye.”

  “The President has something new in mind now in regard to Electra,” Earhart said.

  “That’s right,” Ade said. “He wants to attach another chore to your mission. That will make Electra a three-tiered program. Tier Number One: a public exhibition with your around-the-world flight. Tier Number Two: your already arranged secret mission to drop out of sight in the South Pacific so the Navy and the Army Air Corp can reconnoiter the Japanese installations while claiming to be doing an air-sea search for your lost plane.”

  “That’s Tier Two,” Putnam said. “We know all that. What’s Tier Three?”

  “Tier Three,” Ade said, “is too sensitive to discuss even here.”

  “You claimed this was a secure area,” Putnam said.

  “Even with all our precautions,” Ade said, “this area is not secure enough to discuss the specifics of Tier Three. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to resume our discussions concerning Tier Three elsewhere.”

  “When do we resume our discussions?” Earhart asked.

  “Almost immediately,” Ade said. “But we must leave right now. I have a car waiting for us. I promise we can get to our destination in only a very few minutes.”

  “I like this already,” Earhart said.

  George Ade rose from his seat and Amelia Earhart and G.P. Putnam followed his action and also stood up. Ade extended his hand toward the door of the dining hall, and Earhart and Putnam started out, followed by Ade.

  Outside the hall, Earhart and Putnam came upon two men in dark suits standing next to a black Ford sedan.

  “I’m afraid we must leave you here, Mr. Putnam,” Ade said.

  “I’m privy to everything my wife does,” Putnam said.

  “No longer, I’m afraid,” Ade said. “You don’t need to know any of this. You can’t know any of it. It’s out of my hands.”

  Putnam looked over to Earhart.

  “I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” Earhart said to Putnam.

  “We won’t be long,” Ade said.

  “I don’t like this,” Putnam said.

  “I perfectly understand,” Ade said. “But rest assured, the security is necessary, and in the best interests of you and your wife.”

  Putnam stared at Ade, and then glanced over to Earhart.

  Amelia Earhart nodded.

  Putnam looked back to Ade, let out a long breath, and said, “All right.”

  Amelia Earhart threw a wave to Putnam and walked toward the Ford sedan. One of the men in dark suits opened the sedan’s door, and Earhart slipped inside the car.

  “Good night,” Ade said to Putnam.

  “Good night,” Putnam said, looking at Earhart in the car.

  George Ade got into the back seat beside Amelia Earhart and the man in the dark suit closed the car door.

  Inside the Ford sedan, the second dark-suited man had already gotten behind the driver’s wheel and was starting the car.

  “We haven’t far to go,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “Not tonight,” George Ade said. “Only a short distance to the east.”

  “Something’s out there,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “Yes,” George Ade said. “It’s an unusual aircraft.”

  “Is it connected to Tier Three?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “Directly connected,” George Ade said. “Have you ever heard of something called the Mars Club?”

  “Yes,” Amelia Earhart said. “I believe my husband must’ve mentioned it at one time or another. I think Admiral Byrd said something to him about it. It’s some kind of gag, isn’t it— some kind of joke of sorts going around in New York? I seem to connect it to the Players Club.”

  “That’s right,” George Ade said. “It was sort of a joke started at the Players Club— actually many years ago now. The joke of the thing is that to qualify as a member of the club you have to complete a trip to Mars, and you have to prove that you went by presenting a descriptive essay, usually dramatized in some ludicrous fashion by the inductee.”

  “Who thought up such nonsense?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “Actually, it was Samuel Clemens,” George Ade said, “aided and abetted by the actor Joseph Jefferson and Nikola Tesla.”

  “Tesla? The inventor of the Tesla Coil?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” George Ade said. “But, actually, he has invented a few other things too.”


  “Really,” Amelia Earhart said. “Such as?”

  “Such as the system of alternating current electricity,” George Ade said. “You know, like those electrical high tension wires up there that our car is passing under at this moment.”

  “I thought that was Edison,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “Yes, I know,” George Ade said. “That’s what everybody thinks and what everybody is supposed to think. But Thomas Edison didn’t invent that giant network of wires up there stretching all the way around our world now. It was Nikola Tesla who invented it. Tesla did it all, and all by himself.”

  “Electricity— universal electricity,” Amelia Earhart said. “It has transformed our world. It has…created the world we live in today.”

  “Tesla created the technological world we live in today,” George Ade said.

  “There is a reason that Tesla has been forgotten,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “There is a reason,” George Ade said.

  “He discovered something else,” Amelia Earhart said, “something besides the universal electricity.”

  “A new power, Miss Earhart,” George Ade said. “Tesla discovered a new power, a new power, and a thousand times the strongest in the earth. He called it ‘longitudinal electricity,’ and he used it to build an airship back in the 1890s that was so powerful that…”

  “It flew all the way to Mars,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “It flew all the way to Mars,” George Ade said.

  “And the Mars Club,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “The Mars Club,” George Ade said.

  “Is not a joke,” Amelia Earhart said.

  George Ade rolled down the window next to him and pointed out toward the dark sky to the east. A luminous blue cigar floated serenely in the black expanse.

  “No, Miss Earhart,” George Ade said. “The Mars Club is not a joke.”

  Amelia Earhart gazed at the luminous blue cigar floating in the distant sky, her eyes fixed, not in astonishment, but in the recognition of a thing inevitable, a long-awaited destiny.

  After a moment, Amelia Earhart asked, “And you, Mr. Ade, you are a member of the Mars Club yourself— are you not?”

  “A charter member,” George Ade said, rolling the window back up.

  “Green light, Mr. Ade,” the driver behind the wheel said.

  “I think you’ll find this of interest,” George Ade said to Amelia Earhart, and then he turned to the driver, and said, “Have them engage the beam.”

  The driver picked up a microphone from the dashboard and spoke into it: “We’re ready. Go.”

  A beam of light shot down from the luminous blue cigar and engulfed the black Ford sedan in a glaring nimbus of white light. Everyone in the car felt an immediate reduction in their weight.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” George Ade said.

  “I’m not,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “The beam reduces our weight by twenty percent,” George Ade said. “We’re being lifted directly into the airship.”

  Because of the brilliant light, nothing beyond the windows of the sedan could be seen, and so the driver, Amelia Earhart, and George Ade could not see that the car in which they were seated was now hurtling skyward at a speed of one hundred miles an hour. In almost an instant their car had been lifted from off the surface of the road along where they had been moving and shot straight up through the sky to the distant glowing blue cigar. As they approached the long, glowing cigar, a white light shone forth at its tip, as if some giant had suddenly lit it with a match. The white light was streaming out from a giant loading door. The black Ford sedan shot through the loading door and landed gently on an interior deck.

  Inside the Ford sedan, the passengers’ eyes adjusted to the light, and they could see that they had been transported into what appeared to be an airplane hangar.

  George Ade said, “We’re now aboard the U.S.S. Cosmos one of six in a fleet of airships operated by a secret Presidential intelligence office called Majestic Seven. Come with me, and I’ll introduce you to the admiral of the fleet.”

  George Ade opened the door of the sedan, stepped out, and the held the door as Amelia Earhart stepped out on to the deck. As she stood up, she saw two men walking toward her. One was a tall, elderly man in a gray suit. The other man, square-jawed and powerful in his movements, wore a naval officer’s uniform. In the instant following, Amelia Earhart recognized the man in the uniform: it was Admiral Chester Nimitz.

  “Miss Earhart,” Admiral Nimitz said, shaking Amelia Earhart’s hand.

  “Admiral,” Amelia Earhart replied.

  “This is Nikola Tesla,” Admiral Nimitz said, indicating the elderly man standing by his side. “Mr. Tesla is the designer of our airship fleet.”

  “Mr. Tesla,” Amelia Earhart said, shaking the inventor’s hand.

  “Miss,” Tesla said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “We have a lot to discuss,” Admiral Nimitz said. “Let’s go in here.”

  Admiral Nimitz led the way to a briefing room off the main loading deck. Amelia Earhart, George Ade, and Nikola Tesla followed Admiral Nimitz into the room. There they all sat down in plush theatre seats. The light in the room dimmed and a rectangular screen lit up in front of them, displaying an enlarged color photograph of a jungle landscape taken from the air. In the midst of the jungle, a gigantic cherry-red metallic sphere bulged above the treetops.

  Admiral Nimitz said, “This photograph was taken by me in 1915 from an airship above the island of Guadalcanal.”

  “The thing is huge,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “Two hundred feet in diameter,” Admiral Nimitz said.

  “What is it?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “A time machine,” Nikola Tesla said. “One of six such devices buried around the earth long ago. This one on the island of Guadalcanal was dug out and exposed to the surface thousands of years ago by the ancient priests of Mu.”

  “A time machine,” Amelia Earhart said. “Is such a thing really possible?”

  “I assure you it is very real,” Admiral Nimitz said, “and more fantastic than anything H.G. Wells could have ever conceived.”

  “Mr. Wells gets his ideas from our work,” Nikola Tesla said.

  The photograph on the screen slid aside and was replaced with another that showed the same jungle, but without the cherry-red sphere. In this photograph, the sphere had been replaced with a conical-shaped hill covered in thick vegetation.

  Admiral Nimitz said, “This is the same place on Guadalcanal taken about a year later, after out engineers came in and re-buried the sphere.”

  “The time modulator,” Tesla said.

  “I thought it was a time machine,” Amelia Earhart said.

  “Yes,” Tesla said. “The machine modulates time, controls the passage of time on earth. It can be used to change time, reverse time, even— yes. But its primary function is to modulate and harmonize time on earth.”

  Admiral Nimitz said, “We think that the sphere on Guadalcanal— and five others just like it around the world— acts to synchronize earth time with the rest of the galaxy.”

  “They synchronize earth time with the center of the galaxy,” Tesla said.

  “Yes,” Admiral Nimitz said. “That’s what I meant. The center of the galaxy.”

  Tesla said, “Ancient texts refer to the center of the galaxy as ‘The Hidden Sun’ or ‘The Black Sun.’”

  The photograph of the jungle with the conical hill slid aside and was replaced with a photograph of a white cylinder with a round top. Around the circumference of the cylinder a series of metallic knobs protruded from slots in the cylinder’s surface.

  “This is a model of the Bell,” Admiral Nimitz said.

  Tesla said, “The Bell was a device created long ago as the key to operating the red metallic spheres, the time modulators. Ancient texts are inconclusive as to what happened to the original Bell. We believe it was once housed within the capstone of the Great Pyramid, and this may have been destroyed in an a
ncient interplanetary war, leaving only the spherical time modulators behind. At the turn of the century, the Martians re-discovered the method for constructing the Bell.”

  “Why is it called ‘the Bell’?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “That is what it was most often called in ancient texts,” Tesla said. “It was also called ‘the Key to Time,’ ‘the Bell of Time,’ and several other things also. It was called ‘the Bell,’ I believe, because it functions exactly like an ordinary bell, except that, instead of propagating sound waves through the air, it propagates superluminal waves through the ether.”

  “It’s an extremely dangerous device,” Admiral Nimitz said. “It can be used as an energy source to propel an anti-gravity craft, it can propagate destructive waves of energy at speeds exceeding light. When its potential power is fully developed it could destroy a whole city in a single flash.”

  “But its most fearsome power,” Tesla said, “is that it can control the flow of time, forwards and backwards.”

  “Backwards?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  Admiral Nimitz said, “Mr. Tesla and I have had direct experience with the Martian Bell’s capacity to control time in the reverse direction.”

  “I would think,” Amelia Earhart said, “that such a thing would be too dangerous to even be allowed to exist.”

  “Yes,” Admiral Nimitz said. “That’s our thinking as well. Mr. Tesla and I destroyed the Martian Bell in 1915, but apparently not before its method of construction passed to the Germans via their allies, the Martians.”

  “Martians are in alliance with Germany?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  Admiral Nimitz said, “The Martians formed a brief alliance with the Germans before the Great War. It was actually an alliance forged with the Thule Society. In 1916, a civil war broke out on the planet Mars, and we believe the alliance between Germany and Mars was severed at that time.”

  “And has the alliance been re-established since then?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “We don’t think so,” Admiral Nimitz said, “although the possibility of some unofficial communications between Germany and Mars may be going on at present through either a secret society, or, more likely, through the Nazi Party itself. Presently, the government on the planet Mars is in chaos. Their protracted civil war has continued for nearly two decades. There are several revolutionary factions on Mars, and at least one of those factions has acquired the means for interplanetary travel. As a result of this, there are a number of Martians now on earth who we continually watch.”