by Sesh Heri
“What’s all this?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“Books!” Gabriel Kron gushed. “Books, books, and more books!”
“Comic books?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“Oh, yes,” Kron replied, slightly bobbing on his feet with an excitement he could hardly contain. “The comic books are some of the more interesting material!”
“The time code generated these?” Vannevar Bush asked.
Kron nodded, “Yes, but we’re calling it the Oracle Code now.”
“What good are ordinary comic books?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“They’re all comic books— from the future!” Kron said. “And not just comic books, but novels, short stories, essays, magazine articles, non-fiction biographies, scientific treatises— and all of them about Nikola Tesla— and all of them— all of them from the future!”
Vannevar Bush picked up one of the comic books and looked at it.
“It goes on and on,” Kron said. “There’s no end to it.”
“And the time code generated all of this?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“My computers generated all of this using the Oracle programming,” John Von Neumann said from where he sat at the table.
“These are all the result of test runs we’ve been making on Oracle using the Houdini journal,” Kron said.
“So,” Vannevar Bush said, “you’ve successfully completed the decipherment.”
“Yes, yes!” Kron said. “It was all very simple, just as I told you the other day. We had to complete the triad of equations and then the ennead. Oracle is a machine, nothing more, nothing less. Simply a machine. And like all machines, it is derived from the Great Machine— the Wheel— a rotation around a fixed point, producing a single load on one point in the circumference of the rotation. This load constantly shifts from point to point on the circumference, maintaining a fixed relationship with the center. Orientation of the rotation! The load is characterized by the nature of the convergent forces acting upon it. On a wheel rolling over the ground, it is the geometry of the ground’s surface, the wheel’s surface, and the speed of the wheel’s point of rotation moving parallel to the ground that characterizes the convergent forces— the submitted information, if you will— in the form of friction. Friction is a vibration of some frequency. The frequency of friction from the ground interferes with the frequency of rotation of the wheel, and this interference produces a third pattern— a standing wave shaped as an equilateral triangle, one of its vertices positioned at the load end of the wheel, the point where it makes contact with the ground. This is the triadic structure with the ennead implied in a single rotation. The information encoded in the ground manifests as a standing wave in the wheel. This is how Oracle functions. The triadic tensor equations are the wheel— the submitted text— in this case, the Houdini journal— is the ground— and the friction between the two manifests the standing wave! And there are your standing waves: those comic books, novels, stories, articles, and essays! All produced by applying an available text about Nikola Tesla— in this case, the Houdini journal— to the triadic tensor equations, the time code!”
“The Oracle,” John Von Neumann corrected.
“But,” Vannevar Bush said, “Most of these works are fictional. Of what use are they to us?”
“Ah,” Gabriel Kron replied, “if we appreciate the multi-dimensional aspects of the time code— uh, the Oracle Code, I mean— then we might consider the real possibility that all works of fiction manifest in some other dimension as a reality. Likewise, we ourselves may only be fictional characters in a novel written by someone in another dimension. Right at this moment, someone may be reading the words I am speaking now as printed words in a novel, a work of fiction. In that dimension, I and all the rest of you and our whole universe is nothing but a whisper in the imagination of some author’s mind— and a glimmer in the mind of some other-dimensional reader. If that is so, then these works of fiction before us here may represent somewhat accurate representations of events occurring in other dimensions parallel to our own— or even more incredible, they may represent fiction from a parallel universe describing events of our past that may have already actually transpired— or events of our future that may yet really happen.”
“What about Amelia Earhart?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“We’ve been programming the computers with every detail of Amelia Earhart’s life we can find,” John Von Neumann said. “We are now cross-referencing all that with the Houdini journal, all our available Tesla files, and then submitting all of this cross-referenced material to the Oracle Code.”
“When will we get something?” Vannevar Bush asked.
“Any second now, I think,” Gabriel Kron said. “This is why we called you.”
A bank of lights behind the men began flashing and a loud hum filled the air.
“That’s it now!” Gabriel Kron exclaimed.
John Von Neumann leapt to his feet and dashed over to a printing machine just in time to grasp the first page coming out of it.
“What’s it say?” Gabriel Kron demanded in a fever-pitch of excitement. “What’s it say?”
“A title,” John Von Neumann said. “And a text. It’s a story, it appears.”
“What’s it say?” Gabriel Kron snapped loudly again, striding toward Von Neumann.
“A title,” John Von Neumann announced, “reading: The Lost Pleiad.”
CHAPTER ONE
Arrow in Flight
“From troubles of the world I turn to ducks
Beautiful comical things.”
F. W. Harvey
‘Ducks’
Feathered wings of snowy-white swept across the glowing turquoise expanse, flashing together, clustering, and then separating and opening the air, and then forming again, like breath.
It was the vision of life that Nikola Tesla sought, not with his eyes, but with his heart. His gaze fell deep into the turquoise, looking for a special sight, recognizable, his own; it was a wing-tip, pearl-gray, and the wing to which it belonged: pearl-white, a living color more precious than all pearls, a living wing flying toward him alone. But he could not see it among all the other wings in the turquoise sky. He could not see it though he looked with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind. Where was the wing he loved? Where had it flown? So far that it could not be seen by his heart? Then he remembered. The wing was gone, gone from out of the world’s blue, no where in the world at all. The wing was gone because the bird to which it belonged was gone— the bird he had loved above all beings in the world. The bird was a pigeon with gray-tipped wings, a female pigeon. Nikola Tesla would have recognized that pigeon anywhere. If she were here, fluttering among all the other birds descending from out of the sky to light upon the brilliant green grass of New York’s Bryant Park, Nikola Tesla would see her. But she was not here now, Nikola Tesla realized suddenly. She was neither here nor anywhere else in the world, for she no longer lived, and he would never see her again as long as he lived. The impossible thought penetrated to the center of Nikola Tesla’s heart, and he could no longer see, no longer feel, could no longer know the world, feel the world’s up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards. Nikola Tesla was lost amidst familiarity, alone; for now, without the pearl-white female pigeon with gray-tipped wings, the world simply existed; it no longer lived.
Then as Nikola Tesla gazed down upon the brilliant green grass, its every blade sharply defined in its lifeless reality, the webbed foot of a duck moved into the field of his vision. He looked up, and saw three white ducks waddling toward him, pushing their way through the fluttering wings of pigeons.
“Quack!” said the middle duck, and Nikola Tesla blinked and came out of his daydream to find that he was now years in the future.
The female pigeon with gray-tipped wings had now been dead for many years, and Nikola Tesla no longer gazed into the turquoise with his heart.
“Uncle!”
Nikola Tesla looked up. He had heard the voice of his nephew, Sava. Tesla rea
lized that he was no longer standing under a turquoise sky of springtime, but a blazing, clear blue sky of summer. The heat weighed heavily upon Tesla’s shoulders, and he saw that his nephew had taken off his hat to wipe his brow and his hair was plastered to his forehead by the mid-day heat. Tesla stood before the open door of a car garage— he had just opened the door before slipping into his daydream. In the cool shadows of the garage’s interior sat a brand-new 1931 Pierce Arrow automobile.
Sava stepped into the garage, and his glance moved along the glistening hood to the glowing circles of the automobile’s white-walled tires. He peered over into the driver’s window at the embroidered upholstery and the gold trimming along the dashboard.
“Yours, uncle?” Sava asked.
“It has been provided for my use,” Nikola Tesla replied.
“And you will use it today?” Sava asked. “Are we going to drive it?”
“Yes,” Tesla replied. “Now you have exceeded your quota of questions for today. Any further questions will be postponed until tomorrow— or perhaps even the day after.”
Tesla opened the hood of the Pierce Arrow. Sava came up behind Tesla and saw that the car’s engine had been removed. Tesla spun about to look his nephew in the face.
“What did I just say?” Tesla snapped.
“No questions,” Sava replied.
Tesla studied Sava’s face, and then turned back around to bend down into the empty space of where the automobile’s engine was supposed to be. Instead of an engine, only a compact, round, brush-less electric motor was mounted in its place, along with a cooling fan in the front.
“Bring the box,” Tesla said, looking down at the motor.
Sava went out of the garage, went to a car parked outside by the curb, unlocked its back door, and gingerly brought out a long, black box. He was able to close the car door with his left hand while holding the black box under the crook of his right arm. He carried the black box to the garage, and, when he returned there, he found that Tesla had already closed the hood of the Pierce Arrow and was now inside the automobile, sitting on the front passenger seat.
Tesla reached over, rolled down the driver’s window one inch and said, “Get in.”
Sava opened the door, and handed in the black box to Tesla who placed it in his lap.
“Hurry up,” Tesla said.
Sava slid into the car seat behind the steering wheel and closed the car door.
Tesla opened the lid of the black box. Inside the box nested a small short-wave radio receiver and twelve vacuum tubes. Tesla took out the short-wave radio receiver and slid it into a specially-made recess in the dashboard. There, he swiftly slipped two bolts through brackets in the receiver and spun two threaded nuts down upon the bolts to lock the receiver securely to the brackets in the recess. He then took a small electrical cord coming out of the receiver and plugged it into a receptacle in the dashboard. Finally, he took out each of the vacuum tubes in succession and screwed them into the top of the short-wave receiver. When he had screwed the last tube into its socket on top of the receiver, Tesla took hold of two rods extending from the front of the receiver and pushed them forward until a click sounded.
“Power is on,” Tesla said. “Start the engine.”
Tesla handed Sava the Pierce Arrow’s ignition key.
Sava took the key, placed it in the ignition switch, and turned it. He heard nothing.
“That’s it,” Tesla said. “Press the accelerator.”
Sava put his foot on the accelerator and pressed down. The Pierce Arrow instantly responded, rolling out of the garage. Sava made a quick turn out of the drive and on to a suburban street of Buffalo, New York.
“Can I ask a question?” Sava asked.
“That is a question,” Tesla snapped.
“All right,” Sava said.
“What is the question?” Tesla asked.
“Where are we going?” Sava asked.
“North,” Tesla said. “I will give directions. Keep on going up this street until I tell you to turn. And keep a sharp eye about you. If you see the same vehicle behind us for more than half a mile, turn back around the way you have come.”
“Someone is following us?” Sava asked.
“Drive!” Tesla ordered. “Drive now, question tomorrow!”
Sava accelerated the Pierce Arrow up the street, following Tesla’s instructions. He dutifully made half a dozen turns until reaching the main highway stretching north to Niagara Falls.
Reaching an open stretch of macadam, Tesla suddenly ordered: “Floor the pedal.”
Sava obeyed his uncle’s order, and in an instant the Pierce Arrow began a rapid acceleration to 90 miles an hour.
“It doesn’t even feel like we’re touching the ground!” Sava exclaimed.
“Why are you slowing?” Tesla asked. “Maintain your speed all the way until we get into town.”
“But I see cars coming!” Sava shouted.
“Then you best stay on your side,” Tesla replied.
The oncoming cars rapidly flashed by the Pierce Arrow— shu! shu! shu! shu! shu!— their horns blaring— whhhaaaaoooooo— whhaaaaoooooo— whhaaaaoooooo— each a long Doppler-distorted scream. The brilliant sun coming from above had rapidly softened and now as Sava continued to drive north along the highway a summer rain shower began pelting the windshield. Sava’s right hand fumbled for the windshield wiper control.
“Don’t be so clumsy!” Tesla said. “Here’s the switch! Turn it and be done with it.”
Tesla reached and turned the windshield wiper switch. Up ahead, through breaks in the lowering gray, blue sky shone out and shafts of sunlight formed angled columns that seemed to support the clouds, the base of the shafts sunk deep into the dark gray-greens of distant woods. Tesla adjusted several dials on the short-wave radio receiver while watching a small needle fluctuate in a gage at the receiver’s base. The windshield wipers worked back and forth, wet metronomes, timing the music of oncoming car horns.
“I’m going to slow down,” Sava said.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do!” Tesla snapped. “Maintain your speed. Ninety miles an hour. We’ve almost caught up with them.”
“Them?” Sava asked. “Who are ‘them’— they?”
“Martians,” Tesla said.
Sava shook his head.
“What did I tell you about questions?” Tesla asked.
“Not to ask them,” Sava said.
“Just maintain your speed,” Tesla said.
Then Tesla sat forward. He had seen a sudden fluctuation of the needle on the gage.
“There!” Tesla said. “It’s this spot— right here. Stop the car. Now! Stop!”
Sava slammed his foot down on the brake pedal and the Pierce Arrow came to a shrill rubber-screaming stop. The road surface was so wet that the car slid sideways and came to a halt at an angle across the road. Had it been the day before, they would have now been engulfed in a cloud of dust; but now the air was clear, filled only with the sound of the rain pelting the car’s roof.
“Turn around,” Tesla said, “and drive back slowly the way you came. Slowly.”
Sava turned the car around, and they crept back down the highway at ten miles an hour.
In a moment Tesla said, “Here. Stop here.”
Sava stopped the car. Tesla opened the door on his side and jumped out. He ran down the embankment of the highway and out into an open field. One hundred feet into the field Tesla stopped and stood still, looking up into the sky.
Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the ground only feet from where Tesla stood. A moment after the thunderclap, Tesla turned and ran back up the embankment to the Pierce Arrow. He jumped into the car, slammed the door, and said, “Back around again now. Get out of here. Fast as you can. Now.”
Sava turned the car around and accelerated it back up to 90 miles an hour. The car horn music began again, and now headlights came on bright. Horns and headlights, horns and headlights, endlessly repeated to the Doppler melody.
“What’s happening?” Sava demanded as he drove the car on through the rain, the cars, and their noise. “What’s going on here?”
“A drive,” Tesla said.
“What kind of answer is that?” Sava snorted.
“What kind of question is that?” Tesla snorted back. “I told you not to ask any more questions, yet you persist in your questions! I told you before we left New York you could only come with me if you asked no questions. And what have you done? You’ve done nothing but ask questions all the way here on the train and now all the way up here to the falls! Keep your speed up! You’ve dropped back to eighty-five!”
Sava floored the pedal again and clenched his teeth.
“All right!” Sava shouted. “I’ll ask no more questions. But I will tell you one thing and one thing only! This is all peculiar— mighty peculiar!”
“Ah!” Tesla said. “Finally you are beginning to understand!”
For the next eight days Nikola Tesla and his nephew Sava drove back and forth between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, making what Sava believed to be a test run of his uncle’s remarkable new motor.
One day, stopped at an intersection, a passerby spoke up to Sava who sat behind the driver’s wheel of the Pierce Arrow: “Your car has no exhaust!”
“That’s because we have no engine,” Sava replied.
Tesla, sitting in the passenger seat of the Pierce Arrow, rolled up his window and waved Sava to go forward.
On the eighth day, Tesla slipped behind the driver’s wheel and took Sava on a circuitous route through the countryside, finally bringing the Pierce Arrow to a halt in front of a barn some 20 miles from Buffalo. Tesla got out of the automobile, went over to the barn, unlocked a padlock on its doors, and then swung both doors open. Tesla then went back to the Pierce Arrow, got behind the wheel again, and drove the car into the barn.
“What’s this?” Sava asked.