The Lost Pleiad

by Sesh Heri

  Kel-Kar went to the side of the vehicle and pressed a button. The glass dome pivoted upward.

  “All of the transport tubes have been destroyed,” Kel-Kar said. “The only way to the sculpture of Helu is by this vehicle. The tunnel before us leads to an airlock on the surface.”

  Kel-Kar waved Tesla forward. Tesla stepped forward and Alayna helped him climb into the vehicle. Slowly Tesla swung one leg over the side of the vehicle and then the other. Kel-Kar and Alayna eased Tesla down into the seat, and then got inside themselves. Kel-Kar closed the glass dome down over their heads and piloted the vehicle up off the floor of the room and into the dark tunnel at its far end.

  Kel-Kar increased the speed of the vehicle until the walls flashed by them in a streak. In a few more moments, sunlight burst upon them. They had rapidly ascended thousands of feet and were now traveling through a giant glass tube built into the side of a rocky outcropping on the surface of Mars.

  Kel-Kar said: “Automatic systems will now take over and accelerate this vehicle to the surface airlock.”

  They continued on their streaking path, the support ribs of the giant glass tube flashing by them every instant. In less than a minute, they approached the surface airlock. The vehicle came to an instant stop. They saw the airlock ahead of them slide open. In the next instant they were passing through it, only to abruptly stop again inside the lock. Behind them the airlock closed. Then the sounds of gears and pumps pressed in upon their ears. In seconds the sounds faded into silence as the air in the chamber was rapidly drawn out. In the vacuum, there was nothing to carry sound to the ears. Then the door in front of them suddenly slid open, revealing a circle of pale blue sky. Kel-Kar piloted the vehicle through the opening.

  The surface of Mars burst upon them, an ochre plain below, a blue sky above. Kel-Kar sent the vehicle up into the sky on a direct vertical ascent into outer space. The surface of Mars rapidly flattened and dropped away. The blue of the sky deepened its hue until it went black.

  “I’m taking a direct course for the City of Helu,” Kel-Kar said. “There may be some royal craft in the lower atmosphere that will try to stop us.”

  Tesla looked down upon the surface of Mars, which seemed to turn below them like a giant globe.

  “How long until we arrive?” Tesla asked.

  “Only a minute,” Kel-Kar said. “This craft is capable of hyper-dimensional travel.”

  Tesla nodded. He looked back down at the surface of Mars and could now actually see the land features below moving beneath them. In another minute, he noticed that Kel-Kar was adjusting the controls in front of him. Tesla glanced down again and saw that the surface of Mars was rapidly rising to meet them. They were making a vertical descent directly down into the City of Helu.

  Suddenly the City of Helu burst into view and Kel-Kar instantly stopped the descent of the vehicle. Directly below they could see the ruined pyramids of the city and the sculpture of Helu as a profile on the horizon.

  “Helu,” Kel-Kar said. “Our ancient sun god.”

  “Half lion, half baboon,” Tesla said. “The ancient Egyptians on Earth called him ‘Babi.’”

  “As did our ancient people,” Kel-Kar said.

  “In the myths of the ancients,” Tesla said, “Babi was the doorman of Set, the archangel of our material universe. Babi barred the way of the soul to the higher dimensions of spirit. Those few who had achieved the Magnum Opus could choose their time of dying and command Babi to pull back the bolt barring the way to the Heavenly Realms.”

  Kel-Kar piloted the vehicle to the base of the sculpture of Helu. Above a dune of sand appeared a circular recess beneath a ledge of rock. Kel-Kar pushed a button on the control panel before him, and the circular recess opened up, revealing a black void beyond.

  Kel-Kar took the vehicle through the opening. Once inside the dark tunnel, he pushed another button on the control panel, and the door behind them slid shut. Gradually the sound of gears and pumps sounded as air was pumped into this chamber. In a minute, the door before them slid aside, and Kel-Kar moved the vehicle forward through its opening and landed on the floor directly on the other side of the door. They had landed inside a great cavernous room with gray walls.

  “We are now inside the sculpture of Helu,” Kel-Kar said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mirror World

  “The best mirror is an old friend.”

  — George Herbert

  “Other than the airlock,” Kel-Kar said, “none of the ancient machinery work down here. We will have to access the crown of Helu by a single, spiral stairway, three hundred feet in height. Come.”

  Kel-Kar pressed a button and the dome of glass pivoted up above their heads. Alayna and Kel-Kar got out of the vehicle and then assisted Tesla in his slow exit. He got one leg over the side, then the other, and then stood up upon the stone floor with Kel-Kar and Alayna holding his arms.

  “I am not a cripple,” Tesla said. “I am capable of standing and walking on my own. Just lead the way.”

  Kel-Kar and Alayna released Tesla, but kept looking at him.

  “I tell you, I am all right,” Tesla said.

  Kel-Kar nodded, then turned and strode across the vast space. He turned to look back only once as he went to see Tesla marching behind him with Alayna following in the rear on what almost seemed tip-toes. They continued on for more than a thousand feet.

  They reached the opposite wall and went through a massive stone archway. Kel-Kar took out the key he had taken from the headboard of his father’s bed, inserted it into a plate in the door, turned the key, and the door clicked open. On the other side was another room, dark and filled with jagged shapes. Kel-Kar turned on an electric torch he had been carrying and cast its beam on a spiral stone staircase curving up into the darkness.

  “We are directly beneath the brow-crown in the sculpture of Helu,” Kel-Kar said. “It is up there, about three hundred feet.”

  Tesla looked up into the darkness. In the scattered light of Kel-Kar’s electric torch he could see the spiral stairway diminish away like a giant corkscrew.

  “The Statue of Liberty,” Tesla said. “This is just like the spiral stair access to the crown in the Statue of Liberty on Earth.”

  “Do you need to rest?” Kel-Kar asked.

  “No,” Tesla said. “Let’s go up.”

  Kel-Kar handed his electric torch to Alayna, and then turned and went up the spiral staircase. Tesla followed up behind him, and behind Tesla came Alayna, holding the electric torch upward so that its beam cast upon Tesla’s back and Kel-Kar’s feet. Each of them grasped the slick, moist railing of polished stone on their right.

  At the one hundred foot level, Tesla turned and looked back down over his shoulder. He saw nothing but a black void beyond the glare of the electric torch held by Alayna.

  On they mounted up the spiral, foot by foot, Tesla’s legs growing weary, trembling with fatigue. The trembling became so obvious that Alayna blurted out, “We must stop and rest!”

  “No!” Tesla snapped. “We continue! To the top!”

  On the three of them climbed the three hundred feet of spiral steps. It seemed to Tesla that they were not moving, but stationary in a void as the steps upon which they climbed moved forever past them and down, only to be replaced with more steps in an infinite progression.

  Just as there seemed to Tesla that there would be no end to their upward ascent, they began to hear a humming sound. This sound was strange to the ears of Alayna, but familiar to the ears of Tesla and Kel-Kar.

  “The coil is still functioning,” Tesla said.

  “Yes,” Kel-Kar said, “there is still an electrical current flowing in the system up there.”

  Kel-Kar reached the summit. He reached out in the darkness, felt for a switch, found its handle, and pulled it down. The central dome beneath the crown of Helu blazed with light.

  Tesla emerged from below and stood looking up at a giant coil of wire mounted vertically under the dome. He estimated that the co
il was at least another three hundred feet in height above their heads. Alayna came up from below and stood beside Tesla. She glanced all about, her eyes wide and unblinking.

  “This place represents the pineal gland in the statue of Helu,” Kel-Kar said. “This was once the place of cosmic communication for the ancient civilization of Khahera.”

  “And it still operates?” Tesla asked.

  “It is electrified,” Kel-Kar said. “My father’s sages only understood the rudiments of its operation. Perhaps you can understand more.”

  Tesla stepped forward, studying the coil looming above him. Then he looked down.

  “A control panel?” Tesla asked.

  Tesla stood looking at an intricate panel of switches.

  “These are not the original controls,” Tesla said.

  “No,” Kel-Kar said. “They were devised by my father’s sages. The original control is over there, very simple, but very mysterious. The sages could not understand how to use it.”

  Tesla went to the other panel indicated by Kel-Kar. He stopped and looked down at a metal plate molded with impressions shaped like a pair of human hands.

  “This is all that was originally here?” Tesla asked.

  “This was all,” Kel Kar said. “Be careful touching the metal impressions. You will experience strange things— sensations— visions…thoughts.”

  Tesla slowly placed the palms of his own hands into the metal impressions. He stood for a moment, unmoving— then suddenly jerked his hands away as if he had been touching a hot stove.

  “It is an oracle,” Tesla said, “a thing that I envisioned creating eventually with my Wardenclyffe Tower. It answers questions, but one must know which questions to ask and how to ask them. Otherwise…it will destroy the questioner.”

  “It has driven several of my father’s sages mad,” Kel-Kar said. “That is why my father’s workers tried to install the manual controls over there.”

  “Crude,” Tesla observed, looking back over Kel-Kar’s shoulder at the intricate switch board. “It could never work properly. This system is too finely made…too complex…too…multi-dimensional….”

  “Can you use it?” Kel-Kar asked.

  “Perhaps,” Tesla said. “Perhaps I can use it. After a lifetime of mental discipline, I may be equal to the task. Then again, I may not. This system may destroy me. I will try. I can only try. I will make a mental attempt to tune the coil to Amelia Earhart’s signal. If she is still broadcasting, I may pick up her voice. We might even hear her voice in this chamber.”

  Tesla turned back to the metal impressions, placed his hands in them, and closed his eyes. In the darkness under his eyelids Tesla saw a pattern of grid-work pass before his view. He concentrated on the frequency of Amelia Earhart’s longitudinal signal: 2160 kilo-pulses. The grid pattern changed, the lines merging and separating to form the frequencies and modulations of Amelia Earhart’s longitudinal signal.

  In a moment, Kel-Kar and Alayna heard a woman’s voice reverberate through the domed chamber. Tesla heard the same voice in his head and recognized it as that of Amelia Earhart.

  “Mr. Tesla,” Amelia Earhart said in a calm, clear voice. “I am reading you on 2160 kilo-pulses. You are speaking too fast. Slow down.”

  “I was not speaking at all, Miss Earhart,” Tesla said. “I was only thinking. You have been hearing my thoughts.”

  “What system of communication are you using?” Amelia Earhart asked, her voice continuing to reverberate through the chamber.

  “An ancient one,” Tesla said, “located on the planet Mars where I am now situated. Where are you?”

  “Far away,” Amelia Earhart said. “I am in a world much farther away from Earth than Mars. I am on Naloponaka, the sister world of Earth, circling the star Electra in the constellation of the Pleiades. I have been brought here by the Neniu.”

  “I must speak with you,” Tesla said, “but I cannot do it through this device. It requires all my concentration of will to operate it. I must cut off transmission now.”

  Tesla jerked his hands away from the metal impressions and stumbled backwards. Kel-Kar grabbed hold of him.

  “The Neniu,” Tesla whispered.

  “Are you all right?” Alayna asked, coming up beside Tesla and grasping his shoulder.

  “Yes, miss,” Tesla said. “I will be…in a moment. The device…it exacts a cruel price on the user. I do not believe it was made to be used by an ordinary human mind. It is far too powerful.”

  “How will you contact Earhart, then?” Kel-Kar asked.

  Tesla looked up at the giant coil, a look of defeat spreading across his face. Then his face froze. Kel-Kar did not know the meaning of this expression, but Alayna somehow sensed that Tesla had come to a realization.

  Tesla reached into his coat pocket and brought out the small gold box that he had taken from the breast pocket of Marconi’s pajamas.

  “The KA Projector,” Tesla said. “I will use the KA Projector.”

  Kel-Kar and Alayna looked at each other and then back to Tesla.

  “But will it operate properly?” Kel-Kar asked. “Is it powerful enough to project you into the stars?”

  “Powerful enough?” Tesla asked. “The device has no power of projection at all. It is only a processor of information and a binder of the subtle astral forces to the physical forces. The projection is accomplished by the astral body, and therefore the projection can occur anywhere in the universe.”

  “Anywhere?” Alayna asked.

  “As long as the information entered into this little box is correct,” Tesla said. “If the information is correct, the projection can be made. And I have all the information I need— my name— ”

  Tesla pressed the numbers of his name into the buttons on top of the gold box.

  “My place and time of birth— ”

  Tesla entered the latitude and longitude of his place of birth, along with the date and time.

  “My present position— ”

  Tesla entered the latitude and longitude of their position in the City of Helu.

  “And the name of this planet— Mars— ”

  “No,” Kel-Kar said. “It should be ‘Khahera.’”

  “Yes,” Tesla said, “of course, ‘Khahera.’”

  Tesla pressed the numbers for the name Khahera.

  “And the place where I want to go,” Tesla said. “To Amelia Earhart, on the planet circling the star Electra, in the constellation of the Pleiades, four hundred forty light years from our sun.”

  Tesla looked up before pressing the final numbers.

  “This is goodbye,” Tesla said.

  Kel-Kar nodded.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Tesla,” Alayna said. “Shall we see you again?”

  “It is unlikely,” Tesla said.

  “Then this is truly goodbye,” Alayna said.

  “It is,” Tesla said. “Will you two remain here on Mars?”

  “We remain,” Kel-Kar said.

  “It is your home,” Tesla said.

  “Yes,” Kel-Kar said, “it is home.”

  “Then,” Tesla said, “goodbye.”

  “We will not forget you,” Kel-Kar said.

  “Nor I you,” Tesla said.

  Then Tesla pressed the buttons on the box that numbered the identity of his destination. There were many numbers, but he kept pushing the buttons until he had completed all of the numbers. Finally, he pressed the last number. Now he had only to press the button at the bottom of the box.

  Tesla looked at Kel-Kar and Alayna. They were looking at him, already seeing him far away.

  Tesla pushed the final button.

  To the eyes of Kel-Kar and Alayna, Tesla seemed to blink out of existence. But to Tesla’s eyes, Kel-Kar, Alayna, and everything about him suddenly ceased to exist. He instantly found himself in the black of outer space.

  In another instant, he blinked into a brilliantly lit cloud of glowing gas. Stars shone in the distance like strings of bright pearls. Then, in another blink, Tesla f
ound himself hurtling toward a glowing blue and white sphere.

  I am returning to Earth, Tesla thought.

  But in the next instant, Tesla saw that the blue world below him was not the Earth, but a planet that was a mirror reversal of it. He saw below him a mirror-reversed North American continent. On this world the San Francisco peninsula was on the east coast. An instant after noticing this, Tesla was high in the air above the reversed San Francisco. He could see a reversed Golden Gate Bridge and a reversed Oakland Bay Bridge. Then in the next instant, Tesla found himself hovering over a reversed Oakland, California, over what on Earth would have been the Oakland Airport. And then— in the final instant of his journey— he stood before—

  Amelia Earhart.

  Her plane, Electra, sat off in the distance behind her. Beyond the plane, temples of white marble glistened in the sun.

  “Did the Neniu bring you here?” Amelia Earhart asked.

  “No,” Tesla said, taking a gasp of air. “I came by this little device which I hold in my hand. It is called a KA Projector. I see you are alive and well.”

  “Mine is not the life I once knew,” Amelia Earhart said. “I have been changed, transformed. It is difficult to explain. I exist in another dimension now. The way you see me now is only a projection of thought created by the Neniu so that you can understand that I still exist.”

  “You recorded the frequencies of the time modulator on Earth,” Tesla said, “the complete series— the Table of Destinies.”

  “Only part,” Amelia Earhart said, “but a very dangerous part. The Neniu took them. They have them now. They have taught me many things.”

  “Will you be able to return to Earth with me?” Tesla asked.

  “No,” Amelia Earhart said. “I have been translated. I haven’t died, but it is a similar kind of dimensional shift. I can interact with the material universe, but my soul belongs to another dimension now. I have new work to accomplish. In a very real sense, I have died to the people of Earth, to my family and friends.”