Wonder of the Worlds

by Sesh Heri

  288

  turned, forked into two, then into three, then into six tunnels. Tesla counted his steps as he went and noted where he turned. Another person would have been lost, but Tesla drew a map in his head as he went. He realized he was moving in a circle through the labyrinth. He could hear the footsteps of the guards coming from behind. He now realized the pattern of the labyrinth and knew that he was moving in a spiral toward a central room—a central room which he believed would lead the way back out. And in a moment he did reach that central room, and when he did, he was greeted by a storm of bats f luttering up and around him.

  Tesla looked up. The bats were f lying up into a circular shaft that extended upwards vertically hundreds of feet. Somewhere far above, Tesla could see a pin-point of light punctuating the upper opening of the shaft. Tesla looked down and around and realized that this room was a dead end, that there was no way out but straight up, and so he f lipped the anti-gravity switch on his belt and rose straight up through the shaft. Below him, the guards appeared and fired up at him. The electric rays of their guns missed Tesla, or, perhaps, it was Tesla’s anti-gravity field that de- f lected the rays. The only thing that Tesla knew for certain was that he could see the electric rays coming from the guns of the guards below; some of the rays shot past him straight up through the shaft, while others struck the side of shaft as he rose upward in his f light. The guards continued to fire up into the shaft in a continuous barrage. The stone walls of the shaft began to glow red, and the air in the tunnel spun about, until it formed a super-hot whirlwind. The shaft became a furnace and the whirlwind became a tornado of f lame twisting upward to meet Tesla in his f light. Tesla could feel the fire approaching him, the soles of his boots burning his feet, the air in his pressure suit suddenly too hot to breathe. He turned his anti- gravity switch to the sixth position—and held his breath. The tornado of f lame spun itself into a whirling ball directly under Tesla, almost licking his heels. The walls of the shaft were a streaked blur. Tesla was moving upward at a rate of nearly two hundred miles an hour and going faster every instant. The ball of fire twisted at his feet, reaching up, its tongues of f lame licking his knees. The opening out of the shaft loomed directly above Tesla. He darted through it and out into the main cavern.

  At that same moment, the fireball exploded.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sober, Sanctified, and

  Stercoranated

  We clapped on the power, and went for them a-biling. We was there in no time, and come a-whizzing down amongst them, and they broke and scattered every which way, and some that was climbing the ladder after Jim let go all holts and fell.

  — Huck, Tom Sawyer Abroad

  I sat at the control board in the pilothouse of Tesla’s airship, watching the telephone, waiting for it to ring. It had been nearly two hours since Tesla, Lillie West, George Ade, and Houdini had f lown out over the edge of the volcano, disappearing to our sight. I knew it had been two hours, for I held my watch in my hand and saw its second hand sweep along its face until it had completed another circuit, adding another dreadful minute to all the others that had already passed.

  I looked over to Czito who stood by the windows, looking down toward the edge of the volcano. He had been standing there nearly the whole two hours, only to step away at intervals to pace back and forth and then return to the windows again. There was a very thick, unpleasant silence in the pilothouse, punctuated only by the low rhythmic hum of the airship’s engine and the ticking of my pocket watch. I slipped my watch back into my vest pocket and looked back to the telephone and fixed my stare upon it once again. It stared back at me, obstinately silent. I picked up the telephone’s earpiece and spoke into the mouthpiece:

  289

  290

  “Hello? Hello? Tesla? Are you there? Are you anywhere? Damn it, Tesla, answer me!” There was no answer, only a crackling, rushing sound of air. I slammed the earpiece down on the pedestal, stood up, and looked over to Czito. He had turned around and was staring at me, his face white with shock and fear. “Well, Czito,” I asked, “where are they?” “They’ll show at any moment,” Czito replied. “Well,” I said, “I’ll tell you now: I have no intention of leaving them here.”

  I went over to the window where Czito stood and looked out. Below us lay the rim of the giant volcano, silent and gray-black. Beyond the rim was a broken plain of volcanic rock stretching off into a hazy covering of distant white clouds tinted pink at their edges with the setting sun. I took out my pocket watch and looked at it again. The two hours were up— and then some.

  “Damn it!” I said, “I can’t stand this!”

  I put my watch back in my vest pocket, and started off toward the pilot’s wheel. “We’re going down there,” I said. Czito stepped in front of me, and said, “Mr. Tesla said to wait here!” “I’m in charge here,” I said, pushing Czito aside. “We’re going down.” “You can’t,” Czito said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. “I can and I will!” I said. I reached for the wheel, but didn’t grasp it, for Czito grabbed hold of both of my arms and pulled me back. “Damn it, Czito!” I shouted. “Let go of me!”

  I broke free of Czito’s grasp, spun about, and grabbed Czito by the lapels of his vest. “Don’t you get it?” I shouted. “Don’t you understand? Tesla’s just trying to save our necks!” “He ordered us to report to President Cleveland!” Czito shouted back.

  “Report?” I shouted. “Report what? That we left him to die? Cleveland can’t do a damn thing! Nobody on Earth can do a damn thing! It’s up to us!” I released Czito’s lapels, and added: “And you know it.”

  Czito looked at me a moment, his eyes f lashing in anger and fear. Then the fire in his eyes died down and they went empty and hollow. Czito bowed his head down, and nodded.

  Six and a half thousand feet below us, George Ade, Lillie West, and Houdini f lew on a circuit through the giant cavern, firing their ray guns at guards stationed on the upper balconies. The guards fired back with both electric rays and bullets. The force fields surrounding the air pressure suits of the three aeronauts acted like invisible bubbles of steel, def lecting every- thing in their path.

  Then several of the guards rolled up something to the edge of one of the balconies that looked like some kind of cannon. They fired a ball of fire from this cannon and it struck Houdini in mid-air. The boy magician’s knapsack erupted in sparks, his whole body was enveloped in a shimmering green haze, and he began dropping downward in sudden jerks. “Ahhh!” Houdini screamed.

  Houdini f lipped the anti-gravity switch on his belt, but he continued to descend like a falling leaf. Then he began going down in a rapid spiral. He leaned for ward, swooped down over a bridge, and tumbled to its sur- face. A crowd of Martian guards ran out on to the bridge and converged upon the spot where he lay. “George!” Lillie cried. “Come on!” Ade shouted, gesturing for Lillie to follow him to another bridge one hundred feet below them.

  Another ball of fire sped out into the cavern, this time toward Ade who shot to one side as the ball passed within feet of him. The ball continued on its course and exploded against a distant wall of the cavern with another shatter- ing electrical ‘boom!’ Ade and Lillie landed on the bridge and ran to an entrance in the cavern’s wall of rock. They reached the entrance and stopped inside the threshold, leaning against its stone wall. “George,” Lillie cried. “We have to go after him! We’ve got to try to save that boy!”

  “He’s dead, Lillie,” Ade said, his voice hard and even. “We both know he’s dead.” A fusillade of bullets exploded on the f loor in front of them. Lillie and Ade f lattened themselves against the stone wall. Ade waited a second, then leaned around the corner of the stone wall and fired his ray gun. He could see a group of guards on the bridge drop down and scurry for cover. Ade drew back behind the wall. “I’m going out firing straight ahead,” Ade said. “As soon as I’m out, take off over the heads of the guards and f ly directly to the cave entrance.” “What are you going to do?” Lillie asked. “Don’t
worry about me,” Ade said. “Just head for the entrance.”

  Ade fired his ray gun around the corner of the stone wall, and then drew back again. “You’re going back,” Lillie said. “To help Tesla. Aren’t you?” “I’m going back,” Ade said. “George—” “No arguments!” Ade snapped. “Not this time!” “George!”

  293

  There was another fusillade of bullets followed by a f lash of fire; a ball of electricity exploded on the ground in front of them. Ade lunged forward, firing his ray gun in a continuous blaze, incinerating several guards charging forward on the bridge. Ade drew back behind the stone wall. “Lillie,” Ade said, “You may think you’re Helen of Troy, Betsy Ross, and Susan B. Anthony all rolled into one. But I know what you are.” “What am I, George?” “Just one woman. You’re Lillie West—and that’s all who you need to be.”

  Lillie reached up to Ade with her gloved hand, but he turned, lunged forward around the corner, and ran forward with his ray gun blazing out right and left. An instant later, Lillie West swooped over the head of George Ade and hurtled up above the Martian guards, firing down on them in her f light.

  I had steered the airship down along the wall of the volcano, following the staircase cut into the rock. Czito stood by the windows, peering down. “It ends down there,” Czito said. “There’s a stone platform and some kind of slab set into the wall.”

  “Do you see any sign of them?” I asked. “No,” Czito replied. “Nor of anyone or anything else.”

  I brought us all the way down to the bottom of the staircase and stopped the airship so that we hovered there in front of the stone door. “They must’ve gone in there,” Czito said.

  We looked blankly at the stone door for a moment, and then I picked up the spyglass and looked through it to the wall of the volcano where it dimin- ished into the distance toward the north. About a mile away I could see an- other gray rectangle in the black wall of volcanic rock. “Look at this,” I said to Czito, and gave him the spyglass. “It’s another door all right,” Czito said, looking through the spyglass. “A big one.”

  Czito kept looking through the spy glass, and then, in another moment, he said, “Uh-oh.” “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s opening,” Czito said, and he gave the spyglass back to me.

  I found the giant door again in the circle view of the spyglass and saw that it was slowly sliding back, revealing a dark interior beyond. Then out of the shadows of the door’s threshold the blunt prow of the Martian airship slid out into the ruddy sunlight. I felt a crawly sensation on my scalp and my knees began to go weak. “Jesus!” I whispered. “What?” Czito asked. “It’s the Martian airship,” I said. “It’s coming out of its hell-hole.”

  294

  “They’ve seen us,” Czito said.

  “Of course they’ve seen us!” I said. “They’re coming to finish us off.” I looked around the pilothouse and then glanced above at the gun tower. “Do you know how to man that electric Gatling gun up there?” I asked. “I do,” Czito said.

  “Well then,” I said, “get up there in the cat-bird’s seat and get ready to blow a hole through that goddamned f lying tin can out there!” Czito made no reply, and when I turned my head to look at him I saw that he was clambering up the steel ladder to the gun tower as fast as he could go.

  I looked back through the spyglass and found the big door in the circle of its view again. The door was still open, but the Martian airship was gone! I turned the spyglass out to the north and the Martian airship f lashed into view. It was hurtling straight toward us! I tossed the spyglass aside, grabbed the pilot’s wheel, and tapped the accelerator pedal with my foot. We shot upward toward the Martian airship while it barreled down toward us. “Czito!” I shouted.

  An electric ray shot out from above on our airship’s gun tower and hit the front of the Martian airship with a big boom. The Martians fired back with a ball of fire, and it hit directly under the prow of our airship. [Keer-rack-a-rackle SMASH!]

  “That was a weaker electric charge than what they were shooting at us before!” Czito shouted. “A lot weaker!” “They must not be hooked up to the crystal,” I said.

  The Martian airship was moving in an arc to come in at us from behind. Czito fired again and hit the Martian airship with another ray. [Fzt! Boom!]

  “We’re not even scratching them!” Czito shouted. “We need more power or we’re finished!” “And how in the hell can we get more power?” I shouted back. [Beroom! Boom! Bumble-SMASH!]

  A big ball of fire had struck our airship and knocked me backwards. I fell against the control board aft of the pilothouse and saw that several bulbs on it were lit up. “It’s all lit up down here on the board!” I shouted.

  Czito shouted, “We’re going into overload—dielectric breakdown!” He slid down the ladder and bounded to my side. His hands flew up over the board, plugging several cords into sockets. The lights on the board f lashed off. “We can’t take another hit!” Czito said.

  I lunged for the pilot’s wheel and pulled us up; we were about to crash on the floor of the crater. I steered us back up into the sky, and, just as I got our airship straightened out, the Martian airship shot a ball of fire at us. I brought our airship hard to larboard and the ball shot by the starboard windows of the pilothouse.

  295

  “If you know a way for us to get more power, now’s the time to tell it!” I shouted to Czito.

  “There is no way,” Czito said, “unless… ” “Unless the hell what?” “Unless we put all the power of the ship’s engine into the ray-gun,” Czito said. “But we can’t do that.” “Why the hell not?” “We need the engine for f light.”

  [Boom-be-room SMASH!]

  We were hit by another big jolt of electricity; the whole ship shuddered and vibrated. “I’m taking us down for a landing,” I said. “You can’t surrender!” Czito shouted. “Surrender, hell,” I said. “We’re going to kill every single one of those goddamned sons of bitches in that goddamned tin can. If I land and shut off the engine can you use all its power to fire the gun up there?” “Yes!” Czito gasped. “But with the engine off we’ll have no shield—we’ll be sitting ducks!”

  “Only for a second,” I said, “and a second is all we need. I’m taking us down there and landing and when I say fire, you sure as hell better fire—or we’re both dead! Now get up there! We’re going down!” Czito shot back up the ladder to the gun tower and I brought the airship down to within a few feet of the crater f loor and hit the landing switch. Our airship’s landing struts let out a vibration and whine as they came out of the belly of the ship. There was a metallic ‘clunk,’ and I knew the landing struts had locked into place. I brought the ship all the way down, and a grinding sound told me we had made hard contract with the ground. The Martian airship swooped in an arc in the sky and came down toward us. I opened the switch to the ship’s engine, instantly felt our interior gravity shift to the natural pull of the Martian surface, and at the same moment shouted: “Fire!”

  A blue-white ball of fire shot out from our gun tower and plowed into the prow of the Martian airship. There was a terrific f lash of light and a deafen- ing rumble—[KA-BOOM-BA-BOOM-KLA-BLAM!]—and the Martian airship exploded in a fiery spray of particles and fragments. Half the airship was utterly obliterated and the other half dropped straight down and crashed against the crater’s f loor and billows of black smoke poured out of the crushed and twisted remnant. I brought us up into the air and circled the site of the crash and Czito came down the ladder and went to the window and looked down. The black smoke spread out and blew away and all that was left behind was a crushed half- cylinder of metal lying embedded on the crater f loor.

  296

  “You got ‘em, Czito,” I said. “You got the goddamned sons of bitches.” Czito said nothing, but just kept looking down at the wreck.

  Down inside the cavern Tesla flew over the underground city and rose up toward the bridges spanning above him. He had barely escaped being roasted aliv
e by the fireball and now the inside of his pressure suit had become an oven. His lungs felt like they were on fire and he could only manage short, sharp breaths. Beads of perspiration stood out on his face and rolled down from his wet hair to his forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin. Despite this, he kept a firm grip with his left hand on his anti-gravity switch, and in his right hand he gripped his electric ray gun. Tesla saw Martian guards grouping again on the bridges and at the balco- nies of the cavern’s walls. He began spinning as he rose in the air, raised his ray gun, and began to fire. He kept firing as he rose, and the electric ray from his gun began describing a deadly spiral swath of electric fire cutting through all space around him. The swath struck through crowds of guards on the bridges and on the walls, and the guards fell back and scattered for cover, leaving their dead behind. Above Tesla loomed a bridge. He f lew up and around it, saw that it was empty of guards, and landed upon it. He looked at one end of the bridge and then the other. No one was in sight. Tesla felt his head trembling invol- untarily. He took a deep breath of hot air and slowly exhaled. His head stopped shaking. Then Tesla walked forward across the bridge, his ray gun held steady. Below, he could hear the thunderous explosions of ray guns, bullets, and ball lightning.

  Houdini could hear those same explosions, but he was far below in a pit of rock covered by a barred window twenty feet over his head. Another window looked down upon a lower level where a great crowd of people stood and milled about. How did Houdini get into this predicament? Well, when he had tumbled down on to the surface of the bridge, the Martian guards had grabbed him, tore away his pressure suit, bound him in chains, and marched him to an elevator. He and the guards sped downward, somewhere far below the main cavern, and there, in the lower tunnels, Houdini was marched in his chains to a door, shoved through it, and the door slammed shut behind him. In the pitch darkness of his cell his eyes adjusted. In a minute, he realized that he was surrounded by other people. They were all standing around him in complete silence and staring at him. These people were all wearing robes and were pale and bald, just like their king, Kel. Unlike Kel, these people were all cadaverously emaciated—they were not much more than living skeletons. They all stared at Houdini with their hollow pink eyes. Each of them bore upon their