The Lost Pleiad

by Sesh Heri

  “I am Kel-Kar,” the Prince of Mars said.

  “And the woman,” Tesla said, raising up on one elbow. He reached up and rubbed his forehead. “Why did she cry? Why did she run?”

  “You shouted at her,” Kel-Kar said.

  “Has no one ever shouted at her before?” Tesla asked. “I only shouted. She— she confused me. She— she startled me. I only shouted. Only shouted, that is all. No call for her to cry and run.”

  Tesla had pulled himself upright and had swung his feet to the floor.

  “Alayna is a commoner on our world,” Kel-Kar said. “She still has the customs and habits of a commoner. On our world, if a commoner touches a royal, it is death to the commoner, no matter what the reasons of the touch.

  “But we are not on your world,” Tesla said. “And I am not one of your royals.”

  “You reacted as a royal would react to the touch of a commoner,” Kel-Kar said, “And so Alayna reacted as if you were a royal. Perhaps she believes you are a royal on your world.”

  “I am not,” Tesla said, “but something perhaps better than a royal.”

  “What is that?” Kel-Kar asked.

  “I am an American,” Tesla said.

  “Ah, yes,” Kel-Kar said. “But not by birth.”

  “By choice,” Tesla said.

  “Yes,” Kel-Kar said. “I know.”

  “You do?” Tesla asked. “It seems everyone here knows a great deal about me.”

  “That is true,” Kel-Kar said. “You have been a subject of great interest by all here at Site Y. Your presence has been felt by your absence. That is a rough translation of an old aphorism on my planet, and there it has been applied to you as well, but not in a complementary way.”

  “No?” Tesla asked.

  “On my world of Khahera,” Kel-Kar said, “you have been remembered for many years as the cowardly assassin of our king, Kel.”

  “I did not assassinate your king,” Tesla said. “He was trying to kill me. I only defended myself.”

  “I know both versions of the tale,” Kel-Kar said. “I have heard the telling of the incident many times as a member of the Royal House. You see, Kel was my grandfather.”

  Tesla looked up at Kel-Kar.

  “You blame me for his death,” Tesla said.

  Kel-Kar shook his head.

  “Not blame,” Kel-Kar said. “My grandfather was a butcher. He slaughtered millions of his own subjects in the deep fire pits of Khahera. He loved to inflict suffering on others, upon even his own family. He warped my father’s mind and soul. My father tried to warp my mind, but I escaped him. I escaped Khahera itself. I came to earth and saw other lands, other ways. So did my companions who came with me.”

  “Alayna and Lazlo and Gilgo?” Tesla asked.

  “Not Lazlo and Gilgo,” Kel-Kar said. “They turned up later with Professor May.”

  “Just who is this Professor May?” Tesla asked.

  “No one knows for certain yet,” Kel-Kar said, “but Marconi is trying to find out. You should rest now. If you are to continue to work, you must rest.”

  Tesla lay back on the bed.

  “I’ll rest,” Tesla said. “You just tell the young lady that I am not a royal.”

  “I will tell her,” Kel-Kar said.

  “I am an American,” Tesla said. “But that has nothing to do with me not wanting to be touched. I just don’t like it. And she startled me. Tell her.”

  “I will,” Kel-Kar said.

  “She should not be upset,” Tesla said. “There is no sense in it.”

  “No,” Kel-Kar said. “there isn’t.”

  Kel-Kar kept looking down at Tesla.

  Tesla closed his eyes.

  “I am resting now,” Tesla said.

  “Good rest to you,” Kel-Kar said.

  “About the king,” Tesla said, “the present king of Mars— your father.”

  “Yes,” Kel-Kar said.

  “Is he a butcher?” Tesla asked.

  “The bloodiest yet,” Kel-Kar said.

  “What will you do if you ever see him again?” Tesla asked.

  “I will kill him with my bare hands,” Kel-Kar said.

  “Why?” Tesla asked, opening his eyes. “Why with your bare hands?”

  “Because that is the way he killed my mother,” Kel-Kar replied.

  “Your quest— your revolution on Mars,” Tesla said, “it is not entirely political.”

  “No,” Kel-Kar said, “not entirely political.”

  Tesla nodded and closed his eyes.

  “Good night…Kel-Kar,” Tesla said.

  “Good night, Mr. Tesla,” Kel-Kar said.

  The Martian prince stepped out of Tesla’s room and slid the door shut.

  Tesla drifted off into a delirious sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lost in Fact

  “All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.”

  — Plotinus

  When Tesla awoke, he found what he thought was new clothing hanging on the wall in front of his bed. He realized that his own clothes had been removed by someone in the night and a white linen sleeping gown placed upon him. He shuddered with revulsion at the thought of foreign hands upon his body. The revulsion in him brought him upright and he threw his bedcovers aside and stood up upon the floor.

  Tesla went to the clothes hanging on the wall and grasped them. He now realized that these were all his own clothes, somehow cleaned and pressed and ready for wearing. Who in particular had done this laundering he had no idea, but he knew that it was ultimately done on orders given by Marconi and carried out with precision by others.

  Tesla inspected the clothing.

  The shirt and underclothes were immaculate; that is, for Tesla, moderately acceptable for wearing.

  Tesla glanced about the room, and then dressed rapidly in his clothes. Having dressed, he ran his hand along his chin. He felt a familiar smoothness. He realized that someone had shaved his face the night before and knew that he must have been in a heavy slumber.

  Tesla went to the door of his room and it automatically slid back. He looked out into the empty corridor. He did not know where he was.

  Tesla stepped through the door and looked down the corridor to his left, and then to his right. He arbitrarily began walking to his right. He walked two hundred feet down the corridor. Suddenly a large door slid open and Marconi stepped through it.

  “Very good!” Marconi said. “You’re up and about already and don’t look half as bad as they said you did. Just because a man is up in age people make a fuss. Have you noticed that?”

  “Yes,” Tesla said. “Think old and you are old.”

  “Precisely,” Marconi said. “Look at Fulcanelli. Even before he completed his Elixir he moved as a youth. And by his alchemical reckoning he is only a youth, a mere one hundred twenty-five years of age.”

  “A mere babe in arms,” Tesla said.

  “Then what are we?” Marconi asked.

  “Embryos,” Tesla said.

  Marconi laughed, “Even embryos need nourishment. Let’s get to breakfast. This way.”

  Tesla followed Marconi back into the corridor, and then the two of them walked toward a large door two hundred feet ahead of them.

  “I have been studying your drawings,” Marconi said. “They are magnificent.”

  “Not absolutely completed as yet,” Tesla said.

  “Nevertheless,” Marconi said, “I have taken the liberty of using them to begin construction of the magnifying receiver. I already have our engineers working on it.”

  “I want to see what they are doing,” Tesla said.

  “And you will,” Marconi said. “But breakfast first. We both need to eat.”

  “I have a specific diet,” Tesla said. “Not just anything will do.”

  “I know,” Marconi said. “I have informed my chef and he is preparing your meal. It is of the very best ingredients, cooked according to the highest standa
rds of the culinary art.”

  “That is all well and good,” Tesla said. “But I have my own standards of the culinary art.”

  “You will like it,” Marconi said. “Wait and see.”

  “I will wait,” Tesla said, “and not only see— but taste!”

  “Yes,” Marconi said, “taste above all.”

  Marconi and Tesla continued down the corridor in silence. When they reached the large door, it parted in the center to reveal a great dining hall with walls painted in sky blues and sea greens. Circular dining tables filled the space. People— Martians and Earthlings— were seated at the tables eating breakfast. Marconi and Tesla passed along the tables, Marconi nodding and waving at various individuals as he passed. They reached stairs that led up to a small mezzanine beyond which was a wall of glass revealing the central cavern of Site Y. This mezzanine was Marconi’s personal dining room.

  Kel-Kar and Fulcanelli were already seated at the table. The Martian Prince and the Master Alchemist stood as Marconi and Tesla approached.

  “Sit, sit,” Marconi said. “Let’s eat and then get to work.”

  They all sat down at the table.

  An Earthling in a chef’s uniform bounded up the stairs carrying a silver platter. He sat the platter down on the table in front of Tesla.

  “What’s this?” Tesla asked warily.

  “Cooked to your specifications,” the chef said, lifting the silver cover and revealing a silver dish filled with steaming hot milk. Beside the dish was set a silver tray filled with saltine crackers.

  “You have the milk too hot,” Tesla said with a sniff.

  The chef’s smile dropped.

  “It will cool, I suppose,” Tesla said. He took hold of a pair of tongs lying on the tray and picked up one of the crackers with them. He brought the cracker to his nose and sniffed it.

  “Nabisco brand?” Tesla asked.

  “Oh, absolutely,” the chef said.

  “Very well,” Tesla said. “This will do for an emergency. If I remain any longer I will train you in this dish. It is simple in concept and therefore the cooking of it is deceptive. The cooking of it is not simple; it is a subtle art.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tesla,” the chef said.

  “You did fine,” Marconi said to the chef. “You may go.”

  Tesla sipped the hot milk and then dropped some crackers into it for them to soak. He watched the crackers intently for a few moments, and then took a spoon, broke up the crackers, and then dipped up a fragment of cracker and half of a spoonful of milk and put the steaming contents into his mouth.

  “This will do,” Tesla said. “I can get by with this for awhile.”

  Marconi watched Tesla eat and realized that Tesla was enjoying his food and had complemented the chef in the only way he could allow himself to do.

  All of the men at the table ate in silence, an implicit understanding passing between them; it was urgency and desperation and respect wrapped in a charged atmosphere that any moment seemed ready to relieve itself with thunder and lightning.

  Then, almost in unison, they had all finished their breakfasts, even Fulcanelli who had eaten only a small bit as a token of politeness. Waiters came stealthily up the stairs, removed the dishes and silverware, and slipped away down the stairs again just as stealthily.

  “Now,” Marconi said, “as to the work. I want all of you to come with me to see what our engineers are doing.”

  Down the stairs of the mezzanine they all went, Marconi, Tesla, Kel-Kar, and Fulcanelli. They crossed the dining hall and went out of the large door. Again Tesla followed Marconi down the long corridor they had walked along earlier that morning, now with Kel-Kar and Fulcanelli following along behind. They reached another intersecting corridor and turned along it to the right. They followed this corridor to where it terminated at a door. Marconi waved his hand, the door slid open, and they all passed through into a laboratory 400 feet high by 300 feet square. The 200 feet diameter circular armature of the magnifying receiver stood already completed in the center of this room.

  “Very good,” Tesla said. “I will supervise the winding of the coil. It must be carried out with precision or this device will not function.”

  “We will leave you to your work,” Marconi said, nodding to Kel-Kar and Fulcanelli. The three of them turned and went back out of the door.

  Tesla turned to look at the base of the armature where it was attached to the floor of the laboratory. He went over to two Earthling engineers who were just beginning the laborious process of winding the coil.

  “Hold off there!” Tesla snapped at them. “We will need six other workers. Do you have any anti-gravity platforms?”

  “Certainly,” one of the engineers said.

  “Very good,” Tesla said. “Bring all the lift platforms you have available and get the six other workers. We will assemble over there in that corner for a conference before we proceed.”

  By mid-day the process of winding the giant coil of the magnifying receiver was well under way. Tesla refused to take lunch, but stayed in the laboratory to supervise another shift of workers. He found that much that he had explained to the earlier shift, he now had to explain to the second shift, repeating himself several times as the work began to progress.

  Late that night, Tesla continued to work with a third shift of engineers. Finally Marconi came into the laboratory and stood before Tesla.

  “You must rest,” Marconi said, “or you will collapse again.”

  “Is this an order?” Tesla asked.

  “It is,” Marconi said quietly.

  “You are not much of a slave driver,” Tesla said.

  “No,” Marconi said, “not anymore.”

  Tesla picked up his coat where he had thrown it over a chair.

  “All right,” Tesla said. “I’ll go. I am not used to being bossed, but perhaps I need a boss now. Professor May predicted that you would become my boss.”

  “He said that?” Marconi asked.

  “Yes,” Tesla said, “And he was right. I am bossed now— bossed by a donkey.”

  Tesla had slipped on his coat and now brushed at his lapels.

  “Yes,” Marconi said. “A tragic end for you, isn’t it?”

  “And for everyone,” Tesla said. “But what am I to do?”

  Tesla walked out of the laboratory and Marconi followed after him.

  In the outside corridor, Tesla looked about confused.

  “Now,” Tesla asked, “that room where they had me— the room with the bed— where is it?”

  “I’ll take you there,” Marconi said.

  “Led by a donkey,” Tesla said, following along behind Marconi.

  With Marconi’s help, Tesla got to his room. As soon as he got inside by himself and closed the door, he fell upon the bed, exhausted. He reached out to the light switch on the counter next to his bed and turned it off. The room went black. He lay there in the blackness for a moment almost paralyzed, and then fell into a deep sleep.

  Then Tesla awoke suddenly from a terrifying nightmare. It was the kind of nightmare so harsh that no conscious memory of it remains, only a metallic taste in the mouth. This Tesla had. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness, could see a dim crack of light around the door of his room. The light came from the outside corridor that was brilliantly lit day and night. Tesla was suddenly filled with an inner restlessness and turmoil, a feeling that he had never experienced before in his life. He rose from his bed and noticed that he was still fully dressed. This time no foreign hands had touched his body while he slept.

  Tesla went to the door and slid it open, blasting his eyes with white light. He shut his eyes, saw red, and groped his way to the outer corridor. There, in the light, Tesla’s uneasiness only increased. He held his right hand up to his face and covered his eyes until they adjusted to the light. He tried opening his eyelids slightly and saw his shoes slowly moving forward across the floor, one step after another, one shoe after another.

  Finally Tesla opened his eyes. He was i
n a long corridor. He did not know where he was.

  “I am not lost in thought,” Tesla mumbled aloud, “but lost in fact. I am very lost. More lost that I have ever been….”

  Tesla reached another corridor, turning off to the right and left, a corridor just like the one through which he had been walking. He turned right into this corridor and continued down it several hundred feet. He approached yet another corridor, intersecting at a right angle. At this corridor Tesla turned left. He continued walking, one hundred feet, two hundred feet. He reached yet another corridor. It looked the same as all the others. All of the doors had numbers and all of the corridors had symbols at each corner, but the numbers and the symbols had no meaning for Tesla.

  “I will not knock on any doors yet,” Tesla said aloud. “I will not wake up people to do what I can do for myself.””

  Tesla kept walking. The corridor stretched ahead one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet. Tesla kept walking, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet.

  Then Tesla stopped and looked behind him. The corridor stretched off into a bright, meaningless distance, unmoving, soundless— directionless.

  Tesla turned to the front and looked ahead. The corridor stretched ahead one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet.

  Tesla kept walking, kept looking, kept hoping— kept listening— listening to the soundless air that pressed upon his eardrums. Then he heard it.

  The sound was a far-away something, a mute tone such as might be emitted by an arch ventriloquist, intent upon trickery and deception.

  “Who’s there?” Tesla whispered, his voice now shaking. “Is that someone calling me?”

  Tesla kept walking, kept listening, listening for that mute tone, that far-away sound coming from a place that might have identity.

  Tesla reached yet another corridor. He turned to his right. Not more than fifty feet away he clearly saw an open doorway and beyond it a balcony wall of some kind. Beyond the balcony Tesla could see the distant walls of the main cavern of Site Y, the place where the saucer craft landed and departed.