Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “So that’s what had the fellow so frightened,” Jack said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said. “He had already tried to cut the metal by every method known to science, and had failed, and then this strange thing happens to him.”

  “The metal object caused the teleportation?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said. “It had been heavily charged with what I call ‘time waves.’ It had absorbed forward and reversed time waves for millions of years. Only that kind of metal could absorb that type of energetic wave, that extremely hard type of gold.”

  “How could gold be so hard?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “It couldn’t,” Mr. Tesla said. “Not ordinary gold. This bright red metal isn’t ordinary gold. It is gold in an atomically slow-spin state.”

  “Slow-spin?” Lt. Nimitz asked. “I know about ‘fast-spin’ or ‘high-spin’ gold. The crystal that powers this ship contains it.”

  “That’s correct,” Mr. Tesla said. “It is my own discovery. The secret of fast-spin gold manufacture I— and only I— know. I have a secret licensing agreement with the U.S. Navy for the use of the power crystals which I manufacture.”

  “But ‘slow-spin’ gold?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said. “’Slow-spin’ gold is an advanced concept. Fast-spin gold is what the ancient alchemists called the Philosopher’s Stone. The electron shells of fast-spin gold displace toward the nucleus of the atom, and therefore such atoms cannot form atomic bonds. Such fast-spin gold, then, has the material form of a white powder. This powder can be solidified by interlacing it into other liquids and solids. The ancients mixed the white powder into wheat dough and baked it into bread. To create my Master Crystal, I invented a way to infuse fast-spin gold into specially prepared quartz crystal. In this process, some of the molecules and atoms of the quartz are also accelerated into fast-spin states and then all of this fast-spin matter is infused into a solid structure of ordinary quartz.”

  “But you say this red metal is composed of slow-spin gold atoms,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tesla said, “the exact opposite of the fast-spin type of gold. The electron shells of a slow-spin gold atom displace outward from the nucleus, increasing the strength of atomic and molecular bonds.”

  “And that’s why it’s so hard?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “That’s why,” Mr. Tesla said. “No human on earth has ever been able to create slow-spin gold, although the ancient Atlanteans knew of its existence and called it rubi, which meant both ‘red,’ and ‘to rub.’ The Atlanteans associated redness with friction. Notice that various kinds of friction and burning produce some tone of red. This phenomenon is intimately connected with time, specifically with that aspect of time involving the slowing of one system in relation to the speed of another. The creation of slow-spin gold requires that the ordinary gold be immersed in a dense field of ether and then discontinuously transported into a field of rarified ether. In the sudden teleportation, the space between the electron shells and the atom’s nucleus carries with it the dense ether, and when the atom is teleported into the rarified ether, the dense ether within the atom explodes outward, expanding the electron shells and imparting a tremendous centrifugal force which slows the spin of the atom. This results in gold atoms with expanded electron shells which form super-strong atomic and molecular bonds.”

  “But you say no human has ever manufactured this kind of gold,” Lt. Nimitz said.

  “The density of the ether required for such a manufacturing process requires an amount of energy that no one on earth has ever been able to generate,” Mr. Tesla said. “This Time Modulator below us was manufactured somewhere out in space millions of years ago, blown like a bubble in interstellar space, and then brought into our solar system and buried deep in the land mass of the earth at a time when our planet had only a single continent. Seven such Time Modulators were buried in seven major volcanoes on Pangaea: one at the center of the continent which is now the Sinai Peninsula, and the other six at volcanoes positioned equidistantly along the perimeter of the super-continent. As the continents broke apart, each of the Time Modulators were carried along with the land mass in which they had been embedded. In our time, one exists in Alaska, another in Siberia, another in South Africa, another in Peru, and the last two— Sonoma Valley in California and this one here on what in our time will be Guadalcanal. Major volcanoes originally stood on all of these sites. Some of these have been obscured and eroded by the movement of the continents. The Time Modulators themselves appear to have also shifted out of alignment with the original volcanic tubes to which they were attached. Some non-human agency has returned to earth at intervals and added extensions to the Time Modulators to compensate for the distortions of continental drift. They have added extension rods connecting the time modulators to their original volcanic masses. In Sonoma Valley, for example, we have found extension rods reaching underneath the land mass of California all the way to Lake Tahoe. Here, it appears that the Time Modulator has remained in very close proximity to its original volcanic site. If this land mass below us will be Guadalcanal in 1915, then much of this volcanic structure must have sank beneath sea level, probably at the time of the destruction of Atlantis some few hundred years from our present time here.”

  “What about that white point of light that keeps flashing like a beacon above the Time Modulator, the sphere?” Lt. Nimitz asked. “What do you think that is?”

  “Why, Lieutenant,” Mr. Tesla said, “Don’t you know? That point of flashing light is the center of the vortex— it is the Bell itself.”

  “What do we do now?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  “The Martians cannot be far away,” Mr. Tesla said. “They must have landed somewhere down there below, not too far from the Bell. We must carefully reconnoiter the jungle. Order all men to battle stations and bring the Cypher’s exterior force-field to full power.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Lt. Nimitz said, and he went into the control room to carry out Mr. Tesla’s orders.

  Inside the Martian airship, TAR-A-GAL had returned to the central control room, and had brought Charmian along, she now in handcuffs again. He ordered her to stand by the chair where he sat as he issued orders to his crew.

  There was a great bustle of activity, and although Charmian could not understand the Martians’ speech, it seemed clear that whatever damage had been done to the ship in its crash landing had now been repaired. A crew man came into the room and handed TAR-A-GAL a piece of stiff board upon which a row of figures had been written in Martian glyphs.

  “Ah!” TAR-A-GAL exclaimed as his eyes fell upon the glyphs. He mumbled something in Martian, and then looked over to Charmian and said, “The numbers. The old man has delivered the numbers we need. You stand there— just there, woman. I want you to see your house burn.”

  A crew man at a control board said something to TAR-A-GAL and TAR-A-GAL replied sharply. The oval viewing screen lit up to show a view of the area outside the ship— the jungle and the sky of pink and green clouds. The view shifted after a moment and revealed a dark cylindrical shape silhouetted against the bright sky. It was the U.S.S. Cypher.

  TAR-A-GAL barked an order, and the scene projected on the viewing screen shifted; the treetops of the jungle dropped out of view, and now all that could be seen was the sky and the U.S.S. Cypher slowly turning and growing larger in the sky.

  TAR-A-GAL made a shout, and on the screen a ray of light shot forth toward the Cypher and enveloped it in a bright halo of shimmering light. At that same instant, through the bulk heads and floors of the Martian ship, a rumble like thunder shuddered back and forth.

  Then on the viewing screen a second ray of light shot out from the Cypher, and in that same instant a tremendous thunderclap sounded all around the ship, and the whole control room was shaken, and Charmian was nearly thrown to the floor.

  A Martian crew man called out loudly. TAR-A-GAL answered with a sharp order, and the scene on the viewing screen shifted; the
Cypher moved off the edge of the screen. The Martian ship was turning away from the Cypher and was flying toward the wall of the etheric vortex.

  TAR-A-GAL shouted out a series of sounds— staccato orders; he was reading from the glyphs on the board he held in his hand— he was pronouncing to his crew men the numbers of the time frequencies which Dellshau had given.

  Inside the U.S.S. Cypher all hands were at battle stations. Mr. Tesla stood in the pilot’s cabin with Lt. Nimitz, Mr. Czito, and Jack. They all stood watching as the pilot and the copilot gave chase to the Martian airship which now was plummeting toward the wall of the vortex.

  “They’re headed straight for the wall!” Lt. Nimitz snapped. “They’ll be smashed to pieces!”

  But then the Martian airship reached the wall, and it did not explode or fall to the ground. Instead, Mr. Tesla and the others in the pilot’s cabin witnessed a bizarre spectacle— an object passing through a distortion in time and space. When the Martian ship reached the wall of the vortex its prow end stretched out and elongated as if it was made of rubber, and then it stretched further until it became only a dark line against the sky. This dark line then wiggled as it shrank in size, and the whole body of the Martian airship then distorted, shrank, and was pulled along with its prow into the wall of the vortex. Then the Martian airship just flashed out of existence in a blink.

  “What happened?” Lt. Nimitz asked. “What has just happened?”

  Mr. Tesla stared at the sky a moment and then said, “The Martians have found a way to travel in time without requiring a link with the Bell.”

  “Where have they gone?” Mr. Czito asked.

  “I have no idea,” Mr. Tesla said. “But I strongly suspect they will soon be back.”

  “What will we do?” Lt. Nimitz asked.

  Mr. Tesla replied, “We will wait for them.”

  Inside the Martian airship the control room was silent. Everyone watched the viewing screen that showed the flashing lines of the etheric tube composed of grid lines. They were all flashing forward in time, flashing to the year 1913— the month, August— the night of the 22nd. The Martian ship plummeted through the nodes of time, rapidly switching its counter-rotating force fields back and forth.

  Then the tunnel flashed away and the viewing screen showed Sonoma Valley glowing in the light of a summer’s moon. They had traveled in both time and space, and the space they traveled may have been as great— or greater— than the time, for the solar system itself had vastly changed its position in space in over 12,000 years. The Martians had jumped through time and space discontinuously through their passage in the etheric dimension.

  “Do you recognize this place?” TAR-A-GAL asked Charmian with a smile.

  “You should know it,” TAR-A-GAL said. “It is your home. Or I should say: it was your home. You no longer have a home. Watch carefully, woman.”

  TAR-A-GAL snapped an order to one of his men and the scene on the viewing screen shifted. Charmian could clearly see that they were approaching Wolf House from the direction of Sonoma Mountain. The view shifted around a stand of redwoods, revealing the house’s rooftop and, below, its walls of redwood and volcanic rock— a dark mass now almost medieval in appearance.

  “Now,” TAR-A-GAL said, turning again to Charmain. “The old man— Dellschau— said something about a safe. I do not suppose you would know anything about that, would you?”

  Charmian stood silently, staring straight ahead.

  “I thought not,” TAR-A-GAL said. “I had not planned on your assistance. We have other methods of locating what we want.”

  TAR-A-GAL went over to a control board and spoke with one of his crew, and then he and that same crew man went over to a circular screen on the wall, closed a switch, and the screen lit up. Charmian saw that this screen projected something like an x-ray view of the interior of Wolf House. The view on the screen could be widened or magnified by a control switch on the wall. TAR-A-GAL and his crew man kept watching as the walls and courtyard of Wolf House flashed into and out of view. Suddenly TAR-A-GAL said something, and the view on the screen magnified to show a glowing square and a pin-point of light within it.

  “Ah!” TAR-A-GAL exclaimed, returning to his chair. “We have located the safe containing the cap. In a moment it will be in our possession.”

  TAR-A-GAL barked an order to another of his crewmen. The scene on the main viewing screen shifted; the Martian airship was moving directly over the roof of Wolf House.

  Then one of the crew men said something and TAR-A-GAL burst out laughing.

  “I’ve just been informed that we have brought the safe aboard ship,” TAR-A-GAL said. “It was a very efficient operation. Only a small hole was burned through the roof of your house!”

  Another Martian said something to TAR-A-GAL.

  TAR-A-GAL laughed.

  “I’m told that we are apparently being filmed,” TAR-A-GAL said to Charmian. “One of my men has detected peculiar electrical activity among the branches of the trees out there— clumsy motion picture cameras!”

  The viewing screen’s image shifted to a redwood tree and then magnified to show the dark outline of a box mounted on the upper reaches of its trunk.

  “Should I set the whole forest afire?” TAR-A-GAL asked.

  TAR-A-GAL said something to a crew man, and the crew man made a short reply.

  “The levitating ray does not seem to have set the house on fire,” TAR-A-GAL said. “That is not acceptable. We must have a fire. Wolf House consumed in a forest fire! Burn it all— the motion picture cameras included. No— wait. I know what will be even better— what will fulfill my great Destiny! I will burn Wolf House only! And I will leave the cameras to record the event— for ‘posterity’!”

  TAR-A-GAL laughed and howled. The other Martians in the control room did not move or laugh.

  TAR-A-GAL barked orders to the crewmen. The scene shifted on the viewing screen yet again. The image of Wolf House diminished away. The Martian airship was rising in the sky.

  TAR-A-GAL shouted an order. On the viewing screen a ray of light shot down to Wolf House and struck its walls. A blaze erupted in a gable of the house.

  “That’s it,” TARAGAL said. “Let them see us burn it. The earthmen will not fully understand our power now, but in 1915 they will!”

  TAR-A-GAL erupted in laughter rocking to and fro in his chair. Charmian, who had been standing silently all the while in handcuffs, could no longer contain her rage, and she suddenly swung out and struck TAR-A-GAL across his head, her metal cuffs ripping a deep gash into his forehead. TAR-A-GAL screamed and several crewmen fell upon Charmian and pulled her away.

  TAR-A-GAL shouted something at his men, and most of them broke away from Charmian, but two of them kept holding her by her arms.

  “You will die soon, woman,” TAR-A-GAL said. “But not now. You and the old man Dellschau may still be of some use to me.”

  TAR-A-GAL shouted more orders and the two Martian crew men holding Charmian pushed her out of the control room.

  I had no knowledge of any of these preceding events, of course, and when I stood there stop that stone tower and watched the Martians spirit Charmian away on that airborne log, I had no reason to believe that I would ever see her again. She had been a link to my time and my world. Now, with her gone, I would have truly felt that I had been abandoned in an alien past except for that fact that the little man standing next to me had spoken to me in English.

  “Who are you?” I asked the little man. “And how can you speak such perfect English?”

  “I will answer all your questions,” the little man said. “And tell you much more. But not here.”

  “Not here?” I asked. “Then where?”

  The little man pointed down and said, “Down.”

  “On the ground?” I asked.

  The little man shook his head. “Under the earth. In the caves. There is much to see. Much to tell. Much to do. Come.”

  Then the little man turned and sped down the spiral sta
irs of the tower, and I followed right behind him with the same rapidity. We got to the tower’s base, and he slid the same rock aside that he had before, and we went through the opening out of the tower. When I had gotten all the way through the opening, the little man slid the rock back and began walking away. I started to follow after him, but stopped, turned about, and took hold of that movable stone and tried to move it— but it was no longer movable, not for me. It felt like it must have weighed more than five hundred pounds. I turned back around and stood up. The little man had stopped and was silently beckoning me to follow him. I looked about, and then walked toward him, and he turned and began walking back to the entrance to the caves.

  We were walking between two of the stone buildings when the little man stopped and held up his right hand with his fingers spread apart. I stopped behind him. Then suddenly, he spun about and pushed me against the wall with great force. An instant later I heard a thrashing, cracking sound coming from out of the depths of the jungle— then a horrible, rotten stench filled the air— then a guttural growl pierced my ears— and then…

  Then I saw why the little man had pushed me against the building. A sound of air rushing became extremely loud and then the thing appeared. It was a giant gray slug or worm about eight feet in circumference and about fifty feet in length. It had no head, no eyes, but only a circular maw at its front end, a round hole filled with concentric rows of teeth, and this maw constantly opened and closed as the thing slithered with incredible rapidity across the ground. The thing moved by out of sight. In a moment its sound faded away, but its stench still hung oppressively in the air.