Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Disintegrate?” Mr. Czito exclaimed. “My God!”

  “It is shifting back and forth between our dimension and higher dimensions,” Mr. Tesla said. “We have to go down on the mountain and along the valley and plant the aerials. That will stabilize the time and space dimensions of the valley’s land mass. Now get those sailors down here!”

  Mr. Tesla went up the ladder, and Mr. Czito went over to an inter-ship telephone mounted on the wall to call down the sailors.

  Two minutes later up in the bridge, Mr. Tesla and Lt. Nimitz stood watching as the ship’s pilot brought them up out of the ocean and shot them suddenly over the Coast Ranges of California. The white pigeon flew into the bridge and landed on the control board in front of the pilot.

  The view of mountains shifted below, and in an instant the pilot stopped the ship so that they hovered over Sonoma Mountain.

  “My God!” Lt. Nimitz exclaimed as he looked down upon Sonoma Valley from the windows of the pilot’s cabin.

  The whole of the valley was shimmering and shifting like a heat mirage. In the skies above giant bolts of lightning exploded in long streamers amidst swirling clouds and rainbow curtains of aurora borealis. In places, great chasms yawned deep into the earth, exposing a vast network of giant red metallic cylinders.

  “Lt. Nimitz, I’m turning command of the Cypher over to you,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “I thought you were taking command,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “I’m turning command over to you for now,” Mr. Tesla said. “I’m going down to the valley with four of your sailors and Mr. Czito.”

  “You’re going down into that hell?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “We’ll be wearing the new pressure suits,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “But that’s— “ Lt. Nimitz started to say.

  “Lieutenant!” Mr. Tesla snapped. “I thought you accepted my command.”

  “I do,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “Then do as I say,” Mr. Tesla said. “Take command of the ship while I go down there.”

  “Sir,” Lt. Nimitz said. “If you’re going to command this ship, your place is here.”

  “I am going to command this operation,” Mr. Tesla said, “and this airship is only part of the total. I must go down to the valley to direct the placement of the aerials. Only I can do it. Now I’m wasting precious time explaining. I will do no more explaining of my orders.”

  “Aye, aye,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “I and the rest of the men will fly downward in the sky in an expanding hexagonal formation. Then when we reach the correct positions, I will direct our team to land and plant the aerials into the ground. You have the pilot follow behind us in the Cypher. When we have planted the aerials, we will return to the ship.”

  “Aye, aye,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  Mr. Tesla turned and went out of the pilot’s cabin, out of the main bridge, and down the ladder to the bottom deck.

  Down in the valley everything was disintegrating. What was happening down there was told to me a year later by Charmian, just as Jack had related it to her in the days after all this had happened.

  Charmian and I had been taken away in the Martian airship just as Jack had opened his eyes where he lay on his bed on the cottage’s little sleeping porch. He turned and looked up and out of the windows to the gray sky flashing with lightning.

  “What the hell?” Jack mumbled to himself. He leapt up and looked out the windows and saw the lightning and the hills shimmer like a reflection on water that has been distorted when a stone has been tossed through it.

  “Oh, no,” Jack moaned. “No! No!”

  Jack grabbed his dental plate lying on the table next to his bed, shoved it into his mouth, and then jumped up and ran out of the sleeping porch, through his office, and across the hall to Charmian’s rooms. He found her bed unmade but empty. He grabbed a pair of pants from a cabinet and slipped on a pair of boots, and then dashed back out to the hall, threw open the front door, and ran down the porch steps. At the bottom of the steps, he stopped, and reeled about. An enormous peal of sound like the reverberation from a giant gong flooded earth, sky, and air, and he was suddenly stricken with an intense headache and dizziness. He staggered across the yard to the front gate as the sound throbbed, dimmed, and faded. He got to the gate, went through it, and stumbled out on to the ranch’s main road. There he stood for a moment, his hands waving about, trying to keep his balance.

  Then Jack saw the U.S.S. Cypher approaching slowly over Sonoma Mountain. Surrounding it were six points of light like stars. The points of light spread apart in the sky and lowered toward the ground. One of the points of light approached Jack, and came down toward him. He could suddenly see that it was the figure of a man holding something like a torch— a torch mounted upon a very long stanchion or pole. Around the brilliantly lit head of the torch long electrical streamers shot forth and reached out in every direction over the land. The figure landed feet first upon the ground over in the pasture on the other side of the fence from Jack. He could see that the figure was a man wearing something that looked like a full-bodied suit of copper armor. The figure pushed the pointed tip of the stanchion into the earth and the torch dimmed somewhat. Jack could now see that it wasn’t a torch. It was a brilliantly glowing copper ball with great electrical streamers flowing from it.

  As soon as the copper-armored figure planted the stanchion with the copper ball, the figure flew up into the air and then down again, landing feet first in front of Jack.

  Now Jack could clearly see that this figure was a man in a metallic pressure suit. Through the red visor of the helmet Jack could see a man’s face, and, as the man in the suit stepped forward, Jack recognized the face— it was Nikola Tesla.

  “Mr. London!” Mr. Tesla said through a speaker in his helmet. “You must come with me!”

  “My wife—“ Jack cried. “My sister! The Houdinis!”

  “Mr. London!” Mr. Tesla shouted.

  “The ranch hands!” Jack shouted.

  “Mr. Czito!” Mr. Tesla called. “Have you planted your aerial? … Then come over here. I’m in front of the farmhouse. I’ve found Mr. London. He’s in shock. We have to try to save as many people as we can. All the rest of you men— plant your aerials and assemble here in front of the farm house!”

  In a moment another figure flew down from out of the sky. It was Mr. Czito. Then the other sailors appeared in the sky, and swooped down to land on the road.

  Suddenly there was a great crack of thunder, a flash of light, and everything became totally silent. A field of glowing light surrounded all the men in the pressure suits and enveloped Jack as well. They looked out upon the valley and could see the electric streamers flowing from the copper ball slow their motions and then freeze in position in the air.

  “What’s happened?” Mr. Czito asked.

  “The atoms of our bodies are moving so fast that we are viewing the world around us in a single instant of time,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “The world,” Mr. Czito said. “The world is frozen.”

  “Keep Mr. London within range of the field of our suits,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “What’s happened?” Jack cried. “What’s happening here?”

  “A major time distortion,” Mr. Tesla said. “We have stabilized the vibrations of this valley with the placement of the aerials. All matter in the valley is now pulsating in the same time frequency again, but the stabilization has created a dimensional lock and we are now frozen in a single instant of temporal pulsation.”

  “Mr. Tesla!” one of the sailors called. “I’m detecting an odd concentration of energy over there.”

  The sailor held a small box in his hand and was pointing it at the meadow that lay between the cottage and the barns.

  Mr. Tesla walked toward the meadow.

  “Bring Mr. London with us,” Mr. Tesla said.

  Everyone marched down into the meadow. With every step in the grass there was a great flash of light, and the blades of dry grass blinked out of exi
stence. All the men in the pressure suits were instantly cutting a swath out of the ground wherever they walked. They reached the center of the meadow. Mr. Tesla stopped, everyone else stopped behind him, and he raised his hand which was holding some kind of strange gun. Suddenly, from this gun, Mr. Tesla fired a wide-spreading beam of light. Within the cone of the beam a series of images suddenly appeared— they were ghost-like images of Charmian and me— a series of semi-transparent images of Charmian and me reaching up into the sky— an imprint of us traveling up in the Martian’s anti-gravity beam.

  “That’s my wife!” Jack shouted. “And Houdini! Harry Houdini! What’s happened to them?”

  “That’s not them,” Mr. Tesla said. “Those images are only an etheric imprint of them— a kind of three-dimensional motion picture imprinted upon the ether— an image of something that has just happened. The imprint is already fading away. Look up there.”

  Mr. Tesla shined the strange beam higher into the sky.

  “It’s an airship,” Mr. Czito said.

  “A Martian airship,” Mr. Tesla said. “Your wife and Harry Houdini have been captured by Martians.”

  “Captured?” Jack shouted. “When?”

  “Only minutes ago,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “We’ve got to get them!” Jack shouted. “We’ve got to get them! Get them now!”

  “We will,” Mr. Tesla said. “But we must remain calm.”

  “Calm?” Jack shouted. “Don’t tell me to be calm! She’s not your wife! We’ve got to get them! Get them now!”

  “Mr. London!” Mr. Tesla said, taking Jack by his shoulders. “Mr. London! We will get them! We’ll get them! But stop and think. You’re in shock. Stop and think.”

  “I’m in shock,” Jack said. “I’m in shock.”

  “We’ll get them,” Mr. Tesla said.

  “We’ll get them,” Jack said.

  “What about the others here on the ranch?” Mr. Czito asked.

  “As far as we’re concerned, they’re all frozen in time,” Mr. Tesla said. “Only Mr. London here was in the domain of our time field when the time-freeze began.”

  “And in the rest of this valley?” Mr. Czito asked. “What about everyone in Sonoma Valley?”

  “They are all in the same instant of time,” Mr. Tesla said. “For us, the whole earth is frozen in a single instant of time— the whole solar system— the whole universe.”

  “We’ll get them,” Jack said. “We’ll get them!”

  “We’ll get them, Mr. London,” Mr. Tesla said. “You men help Mr. London into the ship. Lt. Nimitz! Are you there? Are you still in our time domain? Are you hear me there? … Bring the Cypher down here to the meadow. Do you see us? … Very well, then. Bring the Cypher down.”

  In a moment, the U.S.S. Cypher dropped out of the sky, and hovered over the meadow. The large escape trunk in the stern of the ship opened and all the men, including Jack, stepped up inside it. Then the door of the trunk slid shut behind them, and the Cypher rose in the sky, swooping over Sonoma Valley, and then out in a straight line to the skies above the Pacific Ocean.

  On board the Martian airship Charmian and I stood looking at the crewmembers below us. The Martians stared back at us without moving. Then suddenly from their midst I heard a voice, deep and commanding, shout out an order in the Martian tongue. Two of the Martians came forward, mounted up to the platform where Charmian and I were standing, and took each of us by one of our arms. Charmian swung out with her fist and struck the Martian in front of her with a right cross to his chin. The Martian reeled backwards and toppled off the platform. Laughter erupted from the Martians below us. But then that deep, commanding voice broke through the air, and the laughter ceased instantly.

  Two more Martians mounted the platform and grabbed Charmian by both of her arms. She began flailing about, kicking and biting at them.

  “Get back, you goddamned brutes!” Charmian shouted. “Get back!”

  The Martian in front of me turned to assist his crew mates who were fighting to subdue Charmian. This third Martian slapped Charmian across her face. Before I could move, Charmian had spun her face back around and spit into the Martian’s eye. That was my cue.

  As the Martian’s hands went up to his face, I slugged him in the stomach and then plowed into the other two Martians, breaking their grip on Charmian.

  Now more Martians came forward, and Charmian and I fought a pitched battle against them, swinging our fists wildly, connecting with chins and stomachs. Charmian kicked out with her knee and boot, destroying the manhood of several of the crew. There were shouts and screams and cries, but ultimately we were surrounded, engulfed, and subdued by the Martian crew men— big, tall men in military uniforms— big, tall, bald-headed men with skin so pale that their faces had the white cast of a circus clown’s visage. Some of the men had irises that glowed pink in the dim light, while others seemed to have no irises at all, so that they looked like someone whose eyes had turned up to show only the whites. In a moment the commander of the Martians stepped forward, and I saw that he was one of these complete “white-eyes.”

  “It is foolish to struggle,” the Martian commander said in his deep voice. “You cannot escape us. This is not the stage of one of your flimsy little theatres. You are now in the grasp of the iron fist of Khahera.”

  “So you know who I am,” I said. I felt sets of ten hands grasped around my body from my waist to my throat. Both Charmian and I were surrounded on all sides, gripped by the hands of many men.

  “Of course I know who you are— Harry Houdini,” the Martian commander said. “Or should I say your real name— Ehrich Weiss, stage actor and professional buffoon. I know you and everything about you. And this woman here— I know who she is: Charmian London, wife of Socialist hack and petty criminal Jack London. I have studied all the intelligence reports relative to your cases. Your lives, such as they have been, have almost reached their conclusion. The little time the two of you have left will be rendered in service to Khahera, to our king, and to me.”

  The Martian commander barked something in his own tongue and the crowd of crewmen surrounding us began to push us forward.

  “You’re a coward,” I said, “to need twenty men to subdue one man and one woman. You hide behind your men. You fear to even speak your name to me. You’re nothing.”

  The Martian commander roared like a lion, tore through his men and came upon me, grabbing me by the lapels of my coat. I looked directly into his white eyes.

  “I am TAR-A-GAL!” the Martian commander screamed, “and soon I will tear your head from your neck with my bare hands!”

  I kept looking into TAR-A-GAL’s white eyes. I could feel his breath upon my face, hot and fetid.

  “TAR-A-GAL,” I said. “What’s that— your maiden name?”

  TAR-A-GAL screamed and then struck my face. I went back against the Martian crew men.

  “Spit in the big sissy’s eye!” Charmian shouted.

  TAR-A-GAL shouted something in Martian, and the crewmen pushed us forward again. We came to a corridor in the ship and Charmian and I were led down along it by our captors and then through a door.

  We had been pushed into what amounted to the Martian’s brig, a small room of metal walls and floor. Several of the Martians who had been grasping us by the arms came into the room with us. As these Martians held us, another crewmember came in carrying two sets of very nice bracelets I would have like to have had for my handcuff collection. They looked a little like Bean Giants, but I had never seen their exact make before. This Martian snapped these fancy handcuffs around my wrists, and then put an identical pair on Charmian. We were then shoved against a wall, and the Martians passed a chain through a hole in the handcuffs and then the chain was passed through a metal eyelet in the wall, and pulled down taut through this eyelet until our locked wrists came up over our heads. Down near the floor the chain was passed through another metal eyelet and locked together in a tensioned loop by a large padlock. This put Charmian and me side-by-
side with our backs against the wall, our arms over our heads, and our wrists locked into the handcuffs.

  When this locking procedure had been completed,

  TAR-A-GAL entered the room.

  “You have created a disaster, you idiot!” TAR-A-GAL shouted, and he slapped me across the face. “Your tampering has distorted the workings of the Bell of Time and has brought havoc to not only your world but mine as well. The time of the solar system is now breaking up into separate times. Matter is literally projecting back and forth into parallel universes. Can your stupid little mind grasp that fact? You have destroyed the time of the solar system!”

  “Now don’t cry,” I said.

  “Buffoon,” TAR-A-GAL said. “You may have fractured our time, but your own time is very short. You will die very soon.”

  “I could die from boredom listening to you,” I said.

  “I will make sure you die another way,” TAR-A-VAL said. “A much more painful way.”

  “Your boring us is pretty painful,” I said.

  TAR-A-GAL lunged forward and stopped directly in front of me, so that he loomed over me.

  “You will soon know my power,” TAR-A-GAL said. “Both you and the woman will know my power.”

  Then TAR-A-GAL turned and started out the door.

  “I know your power,” I said. “It’s in your breath. What’ve you been eating— red onions?”

  Charmian started laughing. TAR-A-GAL turned about slowly to look at me. He stopped, staring, and then turned and went through the door. The other Martians looked at Charmian and me a moment, and then they, too, filed out of the room one by one. The last Martian to go out slid the metal door shut behind him, and I heard a familiar metallic clicking which I recognized as wards falling into place within a lock.

  “Who the hell are those freaks?” Charmian gasped.

  “They’re Martians, men from the planet Mars,” I said.

  “There really are men from the planet Mars?” Charmian asked.

  “There are,” I said, “and you’ve just met some.”