by Jack L Knapp
But his mind insisted on following different thoughts, refusing to consider what would happen when his money dried up. As for raising more money, he had nothing left to sell. Despite prodigious intellectual property rights and promise of even greater inventions in the future, the cupboard was bare.
His most important invention languished, held back for lack of funds. Construction was nearly finished, but what to do about paying the few men who’d remained with him? Would he even have enough to pay for the coal he needed to fire the generators?
Nikola Tesla considered what to do next.
#
T’s bubble flashed as it materialized. Momentarily disoriented, T collapsed the bubble and hovered, still some five thousand feet above the ground. The air was bitterly cold, even through the leathers and the sweater he wore beneath them. Far off to the northeast he saw the lights of a city. Dropping down to just above the tops of the sparse trees, he accelerated toward them.
Could this be Salt Lake City? T remembered the city as being much larger than this. If so, he’d appeared southwest instead of south of the city as he’d intended. Orienting himself, T flew toward the lights.
Circling the town did nothing to solve the mystery. Cars appeared to be fairly modern, not the latest models but not all that far from the 2015 norm. Puzzled, he searched and finally located a sign that proclaimed this to be the town of Sandy. Consulting his map, he realized he’d landed about 20 miles farther to the southeast than he’d intended.
Half an hour later, he arrived in the city. The magnificent cathedral was unmistakable, as were the mountains to the east. Lodgings near the cathedral would almost certainly be more upscale than he needed, not to mention more expensive. Heading along the slopes of the snowcapped mountain range toward South Salt Lake, T found a place he could land without being seen. The weather was pleasant, cloudless, and the temperature was in the low 70’s.
He opened the full-length zippers on the outside of the legs and removed the leather over-pants, revealing a nondescript pair of loose jeans. The boots would attract little attention, nor would the sweater he wore over his plain sweatshirt. Rolling the leather pants into a compact bundle which he then wrapped in the jacket left him with an easy to carry package that was unlikely to attract attention. Tucking it under his left arm, T set out to reconnoiter the city on foot.
The open sided, roofed shelter had a plastic-covered cardboard listing times for bus arrivals on this route. Best of all, an open-topped trash container held a folded newspaper. T fished the newspaper out of the trash receptacle and settled down on a bench to read the headlines.
The newspaper was the Salt Lake Tribune and the date was September 3rd, 2000.
Satisfied, T refolded the newspaper and returned it to the trash. Looking around, he saw the usual layer of graffiti but almost no trash. Perhaps people here kept the litter down.
T thought about the headlines. He’d traveled a little less than 300 miles and had gone back roughly 15 years in time. Was this a reasonable approximation for a time jump, about five years for each hundred miles teleported while inside the bubble? He’d also been south of where he intended to land, something else to think about.
Opening his notebook, T recorded the information. The data was incomplete, but more trips would allow him to refine the numbers. Calculating directions, he’d traveled roughly east-north-east. Figuring northeast at 45 degrees and due east at 90 degrees, this meant he’d followed a direct-line course of roughly 53 degrees, based on the strip map. This had resulted in a displacement south of his intended destination, perhaps a difference of two degrees magnetic. If his course deviation from north did cause the displacement, this information could be important.
Had Einstein started like this? T smiled to himself as he jotted down the information.
He expanded his telepathic sense, feeling for the faint tickle that would indicate the presence of an active telepath. The usual low static revealed the presence of other people, but none sensed his search. This meant he had reached a time before the School he’d attended had come into existence, which was fortunate. A serious paradox would have resulted had T made contact with a younger version of himself!
He sighed. Ray had gone someplace, Libby was somewhere else, just as T himself was. Not that location was particularly important; levitation, carried on long enough, rendered distance immaterial. Time, though, that was the important datum. Even a preliminary spread of years could be searched, as opposed to blindly attempting to occupy the same small stretch of the timeline.
Now that he had preliminary figures, including an approximate distance, direction, and time displacement, could he come up with some idea of where and when Libby had gone? Or, for that matter, where Ray might have gone, and was there a time correlation for that too?
Best guess, a strong maybe. Or maybe not all that strong. Still, another teleport should give him more data. For the moment, approximations were close enough. Later, with several teleport-jumps recorded, more exact values could be calculated.
Cheyenne lay almost due east from Salt Lake City, but first he’d have to go beyond the Wasatch Range to be safe. That journey would cover more distance than his first teleport, probably about 320 miles. Assuming his figures were correct, he’d arrive there sixteen years before now. The easiest way through the mountains would be to follow the main highway, US Interstate 80, then bend north toward the Wyoming border. Teleporting should, in theory, be safer if there were no high mountains between the start and end points. It might not make a difference, but erring on the side of caution would do no harm.
He had another thought; gold ownership had been restricted for a time and the price fixed at $35 an ounce. Perhaps it would be best to exchange some of his gold for coins? T felt a momentary twinge of regret that they’d sold all the Maximilianos from Doc Noss’ cache, but US double eagles were common and easily converted.
T walked on, looking for a jewelry shop. The clerk would know the name of a coin dealer.
Chapter Eleven
The motel wasn’t new, but it was comfortable. T paid for a room, using bills he’d gotten from the coin dealer. Almost half of his raw gold had been converted to US gold double eagles. Each contained almost an ounce of gold, and the coins had all been circulated at some point so they showed signs of wear. As such, they were slightly less valuable than the uncirculated twenty-dollar pieces, reducing the premium T had paid the dealer.
He ate supper, then washed his underwear in the sink and hung it from the towel rack in the shower. T was asleep by eight o’clock.
The sun was not yet up when he left the hotel next morning. He’d checked out by dropping the key through a slot, then walked away, already dressed for the flight through the Wasatch range. He intended to follow Interstate 80 east until he was clear of the highest peaks, and the lower elevation should limit his exposure to the cold. T had no problem seeing the peaks, even in the moonlight. The snow reflected more than enough light for that. Levitating as soon as he was sure he was unobserved, T headed for the pass and the Interstate.
The sun was peeking over the hills to the east when he left the high mountains behind. Holding his altitude, he took a compass bearing and rotated until he was lined up on a heading of eighty-seven degrees. Consulting his map, T fixed the area in his mind. The distance to Cheyenne was just over three hundred and twenty miles, slightly greater than the distance he’d teleported from his ranch near Little Dry Creek to Salt Lake City. Would the longer distance of the teleport carry him back the calculated time or some different amount?
T formed his bubble, closed his eyes to better concentrate on his destination, and teleported.
#
Ray found a job working part-time at the livery stable. The pay was poor, enough for food and a bit more but not for lodgings. He avoided the dives south of the settlement, eating a single meal each afternoon at one of the small cantinas south of San Felipe de Neri church. His makeshift home was a place in the bosque lining the riverbank, the c
learing just wide enough to spread the scrap of canvas he’d cadged from the liveryman; this would give him a place to stay while he decided what to do next.
So far, he’d not figured out with any certainty what year this was.
His Spanish, improving rapidly, marked him as an outsider. He’d made no friends, so simply asking someone what year this was would likely bring more notice than he wanted. Occasional conversations with visitors to the livery stable, usually limited to the short time it took Ray to tack up a mount or harness a horse to the wagon, had provided some information but not enough.
The church was the center of village life. It faced onto the small plaza and was surrounded by homes and businesses, none very elaborate. Adobe was the construction material, easy to come by, easy to make into sun-dried bricks. Most of the parishioners were Mexican, though many still considered themselves to be Spanish. In any case, the service was conducted in Latin or Spanish and Ray lacked the fluency to follow the words.
The livery stable was a mile south and the corral was near the river, at least for the moment. The Rio Grande was as yet untamed and prone to frequent flooding. The corral and even some of the houses had fallen prey to past floods. The church suffered occasional damage but it was easily repaired.
To the north, about half a mile from the corral, was Old Town. The small offshoot settlement south of the livery was already being called New Town. It was the haunt of the rougher element that had found its way to Albuquerque.
The job gave Ray a chance to buy a used set of buckskins and a pair of boots, obtained from a Mexican bootmaker whose shop faced La Placita on the west side. The boots had low heels and stub toes, unlike what was commonly available in 2015. Two leather loops hung down on each side of the tops, making it easier to pull the tight boots on each morning. A wooden bootjack made the job of removing them at night easier.
Ray had also acquired a flat-crowned hat. A sombrero would have been cheaper, but he had felt foolish when he tried one on. He’d settled for a second-hand black hat with a medium brim, not an uncommon sight around town.
The liveryman had given him a knife when he discovered Ray had none. “Man’s got to have a knife. Harness always needs work, you’ll need to replace lacings and thongs.”
“Thanks. You can take it out of my pay next Saturday.”
“Aw, no need for that. It’s just an old knife that somebody left in a saddlebag I bought. I sold the saddlebags but the knife’s been laying around ever since. You need it more that me.”
“Thanks anyway.”
#
“Sarah, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, because I’m not. But we eat the same thing every night, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in trying something I really like.”
“What is this thing? We are eating well now, we still have half of the cow elk that my cousin brought us and our stew contains much meat. We have bread, there are the vegetables the young women gather, there is salt. What is it you want to do?”
“Sarah, have you ever heard of a hamburger?”
#
T popped into existence over a barren prairie. Mountains loomed low on the horizon, far to the north. Rotating slowly, he saw no sign of people. There were no roads, no houses, no aircraft. He had obviously missed Cheyenne, but in which direction? Too far to the left, or too far to the right? Likely he had come in short of the town, rather than materializing too far to the east.
But regardless, the solution was the same. Facing east, T collapsed the bubble and flew on. Half an hour later, he turned north. Ten minutes later, he changed course to the west, forming a search grid. Sooner or later he’d find some sign of habitation, unless somehow he’d gone back much further than his calculations had predicted.
Twelve minutes later, he spotted an object to the north. Puzzled, he looked down on a huge faded-yellow concrete arrow. Footings showed that some sort of structure, possibly a tower, had once stood at the base of the arrow.
Could this show the direction to a town? Was it a guide for aircraft? In any case, it was man-made and relatively modern in appearance, so T lined up with the arrow and headed west.
He landed on a dirt road fifteen minutes later. Ahead of him lay a dusty town. Far off, he heard the drone of an airplane. Searching the sky, he finally saw the silvery shape approaching the town. As it got closer, T saw the blur of propellers, two on each wing. The sound was also different; this was a piston-powered aircraft. The plane finally landed on the far side of the town.
Was there any other town in the region large enough to rate air service? Unlikely, so this had to be Cheyenne. The town likely served as the air hub for this part of the state.
There was no traffic, so T decided to chance levitating. Remaining low and slow, he drifted toward the town.
Judging by the sun, it was late afternoon. T landed just outside the town and once again bundled his leathers for carrying. He passed a woman working outside, trimming a bedraggled looking rosebush. She looked up as T walked by and nodded. He called a greeting, “Afternoon, ma’am,” and continued on.
Half an hour later he arrived at the business district. A large building, single story, advertised Halladay Motors. A vertical slab jutted above the otherwise flat roof, apparently for advertising. Halladay sold Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs, judging by the V-crest on the upright slab. A showroom on the right displayed new models inside, an Oldsmobile and a shadowy sedan beyond that. The windows slanted inward, preventing sun glare, a clever arrangement. Several cars and a weatherbeaten pickup were parked out front.
T walked past the dealership. A service station just beyond advertised Chevron gasoline and U. S. Royal tires. The sales office was flanked by a pair of open bays. Perhaps such stations still provided motorists with necessary services?
A flat metal stand displayed a stack of newspapers. T walked over and glanced at the masthead; August 14th, 1982.
He found a small cafe and ate supper, the all-American sirloin and fries. This was surprisingly good, or perhaps not surprising after all. There was an excellent chance that the beef was locally grown and grass-fed. It was a bit tougher than he was used to, but the taste made up for that.
He would be heading east, and Connecticut would be later in the day, so probably closer to being dark. It would be best to arrive earlier so that he’d have time to look around before seeking out William Bendix, the purported time traveler. T found a motel on the town’s north side and paid cash for a room.
He washed out his underwear and hung it up on the rack in the bathroom, then stretched out on the bed. Moments later, he was asleep.
#
Nikola Tesla looked up at the great metal floor, all he could see atop the eighteen-story Wardenclyffe Tower. A smaller brickwork tower stood inside the wooden framework, with a cast-iron support structure topping that. The magnifying transmission tower, the first of many, was...frustratingly!...almost ready.
Building the frame and the device had exhausted his funds, as well as what J. P Morgan had invested. Morgan, caught up as were others in the burgeoning ‘Rich Man’s Panic’, had refused to provide more money to complete the tower. The framework was in place, the coil finished and connected, but it would take hundreds of dollars more to finish constructing the outer ball. Without that, the coil would never be able to function at full efficiency.
Workmen would also have to be paid.
Could he allow Wardenclyffe to be taken over by creditors, sold for scrap, without even a test? Perhaps if he spoke to George Westinghouse one more time, there might be enough to complete the tower and finance a full-power test? The Colorado Springs tower, only about fourteen stories tall, had produced spectacular results, but only for a short time. The failure still rankled. This device was larger and more robust; surely it wouldn’t shut itself down as that earlier attempt had done!
He resolved to try. The high-frequency coil waited atop the tower; the metal rods that simultaneously grounded the coil and made the planet itself part of the power system were in p
lace. They were connected to the huge coil above by heavy copper rods that led through glass insulators up to the bowl. Heavy wires inside the metal housing connected rods to the coil. All was in readiness, needing only completion of the dome and enough power to fully excite the device, thereby creating the electromagnetic field. The resultant power, carried between the upper layer of the atmosphere and the Earth itself, would resonate at eight cycles per second. This would electrify the local area at least, although the receivers were not yet in place.
Still, the previous test of the smaller tower he’d constructed in Colorado Springs had proved the validity of the theory. Small earthquakes had shown that yes, his coil could indeed grip the Earth, shaking it, showing that the ground itself would function as part of the broadcast power network. Lightning bolts and a blue corona had shown that yes, electricity was being sent up to that mysterious upper layer around the atmosphere. Low power tests of Wardenclyffe had shown that there were no errors in assembly. This unit was perfect, except for the maddening lack of an outer steel ball around the coil.
Only the watchmen still remained. The other workers had been dismissed; Tesla could no longer pay them. The watchmen would also leave in another week, two at the most.
Tesla headed for the building that housed the power plant’s controls. He would not allow the unit to be broken up for scrap without having had at least a preliminary test!
Chapter Twelve
“What is a hamburger, Lib-ie-ya?”
“It’s a sandwich made of ground beef on a bun. You can add cheese and tomatoes and onions if you want, and there are usually sauces too.”
“I have had sauces in San Francisco,” said Sarah, wistfully. “They tasted very good. We do not have them. I think you must first have all the food you need before you begin growing the peppers and other things the Mexicans use to make sauces.”
