by Sulivan, Tricia; Nevill, Adam; Tchaikovsky, Adrian; McDougall, Sophia; Tidhar, Lavie
“Did Professor Ruskin make any assessment as to this phenomenon, Commissioner?” Tesla asked.
“He advised us that it was the result of the disturbance made to the snow’s surface by the backwash of the meteor when it crashed to earth. He considered it to be a consequence of atmospheric turbulence.”
“Remarkable,” pronounced Tesla, in the way he always did when confronted with stupidity, and then he strode off in the direction of the striations which ended abruptly one hundred yards distant at the edge of the Circle.
“Tell me, Major, do these marks extend beyond this point?”
“No, Sir.”
“Excellent.” Again Tesla crouched down to make a more particular examination of the snow and the footprints and strange circular patterns embossed in it, then, seemingly satisfied with his perusal, he looked towards Roosevelt, “Commissioner Roosevelt, would you apprise me of the number of constables you have under your command in the New York police department?”
“We have ten thousand sworn officers comprising New York’s finest.”
“Then you must mobilise all of them.” Tesla scribbled in his notebook, tore the page out and then handed it to Roosevelt. “They must make this enquiry of all bootblacks and cobblers in the city, commencing with those plying their trade in the vicinity of dairies. There must be no delay, time is of the essence. This must take precedence over all other police activities.”
Roosevelt read Tesla’s note. “What? Are you insane, man? What can be so all-fired important that my men must make these ridiculous enquires?”
“Why, Commissioner?” Tesla stepped back as though flummoxed by Roosevelt’s stupidity. “In order to prevent the successful invasion of this planet by creatures from Mars, of course!”
I must tell you, I’ve never been a great admirer of New York. When the Yankees sacked the South after the War of Northern Aggression, this was where most of our wealth ended up: to my mind, this den of perfidy was the epitome of urban ugliness, an ugliness that befits the manner by which it enriched itself. The streets overflowed with wagons and carriages and a surfeit of horse manure, the pavements were crowded with a mish-mash of people bustling at too great a pace for their own sanguinity and the tenements squatted, cheek by jowl, standing as shrines to the squalor that was Yankee America.
Over it all trailed the mesh of delinquent wire which conveyed the miracle of electricity through the city and at the centre of this web of power stood the workshop of Nikola Tesla. He had the fourth floor of a six-storey building; a large, functional space crammed with electrical apparatus of all descriptions, these manned by a diligently preoccupied gang of fifteen or so workers. But far from being the portal into some utopian future I had expected, this was rather a place where too many ideas competed for too little space.
Owing to Tesla making a detour at a music store to buy – for reasons he declined to elucidate – a variable pitch pipe, our journey from Central Park took longer than anticipated, the upshot being that the meteor was waiting for us when we arrived at his workshop. Roosevelt might have been a bully and a braggart but he was an efficient bully and braggart.
Tesla set to work immediately. “We are fortunate,” he announced, “that one of the electrical engines I used to such effect at Chicago’s World Fair of 1893 is ideally suited to the examination I am about to make of the meteor.”
With that he removed the meteor from the crate it had been packed in and placed it in the centre of a round steel platform itself surrounded by a large circular cage, the bars of the cage formed from cables that led to one of Tesla’s patented polyphase electrical generators.
Only when Tesla had established that all the connections were to his satisfaction did he indulged me with an explanation. “Professor Ruskin’s opinion that this meteor is chondritic in make-up is, of course, nonsense. This meteor is metallic and is, I believe, of Martian manufacture.”
“Martian?” I enquired, determined that Tesla should explain these outrageous claims, but he remained steadfastly evasive.
“Later, Major, later. First allow me to verify my conjecture.” He nodded to his assistant who worked a lever governing the level of current flowing around the cage and immediately the generator huffed and puffed into life. “There is much debate as to what are the factors which stimulate life, but to my mind the one aspect that has been sadly neglected by investigators is the importance of rotation. If our planet did not rotate life would never have emerged, without the discovery of the wheel civilisation would have eluded us and, of course, without rotation we would have been deprived of that most practical and useful form of electricity, the alternating current. But of more pertinence to our present enquiries, rotation is the key to unlocking the enigma that is the meteor.”
So saying, Tesla urged more power into his contraption and, as though raised by some magical force, the meteor levitated, to hover a foot or so above the steel floor, and then slowly began to rotate. And the more current that was applied, so the meteor spun with ever greater rapidity. I will admit that I was spooked and for a moment I was inclined to high-tail it out of the workshop but, fortunately, curiosity kept my feet pinned to the floor.
“The clue to the speed of the rotation I must inculcate in the meteor was given by our musically-inclined witness. As the rotational speed increases so too, I suspect, will the amplitude and pitch of the sound created by the meteor.”
It was a correct supposition. A thin, low hum became audible which gradually increased in volume and in pitch as the rotational velocity of the meteor accelerated. But there were other changes: as I watched, the colour of the meteor altered, the sphere gradually coming to emit an eerie light which suffused the whole workshop.
“Excellent,” intoned Tesla. He looked over to his assistant, “I would be obliged, Alfred, if you would employ the von Stampfer stroboscope to measure the speed of the spin.”
This the assistant did by causing a perforated disk to rotate in front of a lamp. “Five hundred revolutions per minute, Mr Tesla,” he advised.
“If my ear does not deceive me, I think we are approaching F Sharp,” and to confirm this, Tesla took up his newly acquired pitch pipe and blew a note.
“Not quite … just a touch more power, I fancy … enough. Hold it there. What is the speed of rotation?”
“Six hundred revolutions per minute.”
“Of course! It is utterly predictable that our Martian cousins should work in multiples of three, three being the most important number in the Cosmos.” He looked over to me. “You have a fine pocket watch, Major – a Watham, if I am not mistaken – so I would be obliged if you would mark the time now and alert me when nine minutes have elapsed, the time it would have taken the meteor to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Thus we stood, Tesla’s eyes never leaving the spinning meteor as sparks began to crackle around its circumference, orbiting it a little like Saturn’s rings.
“You have marked the time, Major?”
“As you instructed, Sir.”
“Then I would be most obliged if you would sing out the instant that nine minutes have elapsed.”
“Ten seconds… nine… eight …”
Tesla took a firm grip on the power lever.
“…seven… six… five… four… three… two… one.”
Tesla threw the lever and immediately the meteor froze in mid-air, darkened, paused for a moment as though uncertain as to its status vis-à-vis gravity and then crashed down onto the steel floor.
“We have replicated the forces experienced by the meteor as it landed on Earth and I am hopeful that our mimicry will persuade the meteor…” Tesla stopped and pointed a finger. “Behold, what was hidden is now made plain. Tell me, Major, could there be any greater pleasure than discovering that which another would hold secret?”
And it was a wonderful secret: the surface of the meteor became transparent, and then peeled back to reveal what was concealed inside. There, before my wide eyes, I saw that at the heart of the meteo
r was a spiral, radiating out from the core, in the manner of an ammonite.
“What does this mean?”
“It means, Major, that our meteor was designed to transport the… creature that was housed in this spiral across space and to land it safely on our planet. The trail leading from the meteor was made by the creature after it had disembarked and slithered and squirmed across the snow in search of a host.”
“A host?”
“It is obvious from the marks I discovered in the snow that the creature loitered, waiting for a suitable host to become available. This opportunity was presented by the dairymen who delivered the milk churns to Columbus Square, the circles made by the churns in the snow attesting to their presence. Our parasitically-inclined Martian bored through the sole of one of the workmen’s boots and entered his body via his foot – the reason, one can only assume, to take command of his mind and his will. Again this was most eloquently recorded by the impressions made in the snow. You will now appreciate, Major, the urgency I assigned to the locating of a workman in possession of a size ten pair of boots, studded with hobnails, the right boot having a circular hole of three-sixteenths diameter in the centre of the sole.”
“Which is why you suggested that Roosevelt directed his enquiries to cobblers and bootblacks.”
“Correct.”
It was then that a breathless police officer appeared at the entrance to the workshop. “Begging your pardon, Mr Tesla, but Commissioner Roosevelt requests you attend him promptly. He says we have your Martian by the heels.”
“Excellent!” announced Tesla as he sprang to his feet. “Let us be away, and Major… I would be obliged if you would come heeled.”
We were taken deep into the Bowery, the fetid underbelly of the city, where all of the flotsam and jetsam of the world congealed when they arrived, bemused and breathless in the New World. It stank and, as we stepped down from the cab onto the broken pavement, Tesla raised a silver vinaigrette to his nose and inhaled the perfume, but I suspected that even this was overpowered by the smell of effluent suffusing the street. And it wasn’t just our sense of smell that was exercised, our ears were similarly assailed, the district being as noisy as it was pungent. It was the harmony of life reduced to cacophony with every one of the crowd of people who swirled around us shouting, singing, screaming, crying, cursing or, in the case of one lunatic, banging on a drum. I stood stunned by the febrile, desperate energy of the place and by its poverty.
The police officer who was our escort led us to a tenement, up the stoop crowded by urchins, through the battered front door and along a dark corridor where Roosevelt was waiting upon us. “The man we have taken is a ruffian named Tommy Fairbanks,” said he, “betrayed by the cobbler who repaired his boots this morning. But be warned, Tesla, his wife, a strumpet named Sally, has insisted on being present when he is interviewed and she is as sharp as her husband is dull.” Roosevelt made to open the door he was guarding but Tesla placed a hand on his arm.
“You must appreciate, Commissioner, that although I am able to discern some of the abilities and ambitions of these damnable Martians, the nuances are still a closed book to me. We do not know, for instance, if these creatures are able to reproduce and that necessitates we move swiftly with our interrogations. Therefore I would ask you to be generous if my inquisitorial technique becomes… robust.”
“Robust away, Tesla,” chortled Roosevelt, “the man we have taken is a good-for-nothing newly arrived from London and much used to hard knocks.”
“And, Major,” Tesla whispered to me, “if you would station yourself by the door and keep your revolver at the ready. If either of these miscreants acts in an untoward manner, you have my authority to shoot them.”
The room Roosevelt ushered us into was small, cheaply furnished, with a young, brutal-looking man seated at the table and a woman, presumably his wife, loitering against the far wall. A stove was burning in the corner, the heat doing little to dispel the dampness of the room; the stove was surrounded by a mist caused by the moisture leeching out of the plaster on the walls giving the place a strange, almost fantastical, aspect.
Tesla conjured a handkerchief from his sleeve and dusted the seat of the room’s second chair.
“‘Oo the fuck are you?” challenged Tommy Fairbanks – a real ornery-looking brute, glowering out at the world like he was fit to be tied – as Tesla slid into the chair.
“You should be advised, young man,” Tesla replied in a conversational tone, “that I have a congenital dislike for small talk and for social niceties and, when I am obliged to visit such a pestilential abode as this, such dislike borders on loathing. You will speak only when I instruct you to do so.”
“Never mind all that shit, just ‘oo the fuck…?”
My belief is that Fairbanks never actually saw the cane as it rotated from a position next to Tesla’s side, arched through the air to land squarely – with a sickening thwackkk – across the fingers of the left hand that was resting on the scarred surface of the table. Fairbanks rose several inches into the air and then fell, screaming, to the ground.
“That I hope will serve as an object lesson to you. You assumed that my advice not to interrupt me is capable of challenge. This is fallacious: my instructions are not the subject of debate, negotiation or demurral. Failure to accede to these instructions will, as you have discovered, incur punishment that is swift, appropriate and painful.”
Fairbanks, still groaning and casting venomous looks in Tesla’s direction, pulled himself back onto his chair, holding his damaged and rapidly swelling left hand carefully in his right. “You’ve broken my fuckin’ ‘and, you bastard.”
“More precisely, young man, I have broken the middle phalange of the forefinger of your left hand. This is a painful injury, but not a debilitating one and as such I would ask you to stop whimpering,” and for emphasis he flexed his cane. Fairbanks was suddenly silent.
“Excellent. And now I think it is appropriate that I introduce myself: I am Nikola Tesla…”
“The electrician?” enquired Fairbank’s wife.
Tesla sniffed. “I dislike that sobriquet. If you wish to be more exact, young lady, better you refer to me as a ‘Futurist’.”
This drew a smile from the girl, “And what’s a ‘futurist’ when it’s at home?”
“A Futurist is a person of elevated intellect who is able to absorb prodigious quantities of seemingly unrelated information; to process, evaluate and form linkages between said unrelated and asymmetrical information; and from these cogitations to make predictions regarding how various futures might thereafter unfold.”
“It sounds like another name for ‘genius’,” observed Sally Fairbanks.
“Genii are ten-for-a-dime, Mrs Fairbanks; if anything, I am an über-genius,” Tesla turned his attention back towards the woman’s husband. “And now let us begin. It is my understanding, Fairbanks, that I am not in conversation with a member of the human race but rather a representative of the Martian people.”
Fairbanks’ face screwed up as he tried to comprehend what Tesla was saying, this making him look as if he were sucking on pickles. “Wha? Wha’ the fuck are you talkin’ abart?”
Tesla frowned. “Really, there is no use in you continuing with this masquerade. You have been unmasked and the secrets of the ‘meteor’ you employed to journey from Mars to Earth discovered.”
“You befuddled? I ain’t no Martian or nuffink.”
For several seconds Tesla was silent, lost in thought. “Fairbanks, I must presume that you Martians are possessed of a superior intellect and therefore you must appreciate that this mimicking of stupidity is counter-productive. If you refuse to enter into dialogue with me I must presume that your intentions are hostile…”
“You’re fuckin’ mad, yous is.”
“This is ridiculous,” pronounced Tesla. He looked across to Roosevelt. “Are you convinced that this is our man, Commissioner?”
“The very one, Tesla.”
“R
emarkable.” Tesla pondered for a moment and then reached a conclusion. “In verification of this, I must ask you, Fairbanks, to remove your right boot. But be instructed that when doing so you are not to move closer to me than two feet, which I am advised is the maximum distance a flea of the variety pulex irritans, of which you are undoubtedly a most attractive host, can jump. My task today is distasteful enough without my having to leave this benighted place verminous.”
“Are you saying oi’ve got fleas?” protested an outraged Fairbanks.
Tesla looked at Fairbanks with disgust, “Your sentence suggests that I am ‘implying’ you have fleas when I am stating it as a fact. And now, if you would be so kind… your boot.” And he tapped the ferrule of his cane against Fairbanks’ right boot for emphasis.
With a sniff and studied reluctance Fairbanks untethered the piece of string that held his right boot, hauled it off and then proffered it for Tesla’s inspection. Tesla flinched back, obviously repelled by the stench emanating from the boot.
“Turn it over.”
Fairbanks did as he was ordered and there, as I had expected, was a hole, 3/16ths of an inch in diameter, drilled through the sole. Once again Tesla was silent as though somewhat perplexed by what he was seeing. Then he smiled and turned to Sally Fairbanks.
“I presume it is redundant to request that you perform a similar service, young lady?”
“Indeed it is, Mr Tesla,” the woman replied in a voice which was rather more commanding than the somewhat ill-educated one she had employed hither to fore.
“Does the creature with which I am conversing have a name?”
“Not one that you have any faculty to pronounce.”
“What is going on?” interrupted an obviously bemused Roosevelt.
“It would seem that our visitor from Mars is somewhat selective regarding the host it inhabits and has transferred from the less salubrious accommodation offered by Tommy Fairbanks to the more intelligent hospitality of his wife. That Fairbanks has a hole in his boot despite their recent repair suggested that it is an exit hole. Our Martian has vacated Fairbanks and entered his wife.” Tesla gave a wry smile. “But now, young lady, the game is up. You are discovered.”
