Time Twisters Read online

  “There would be no trouble powering even the most dynamic electric engine, in line of sight,” Tesla said. “An entire fleet could be powered from a single transmitter.”

  “An armada of dirigibles,” the duke said, a glow coming to his eyes that worried Berzgi.

  “Large ones,” Tesla said. “Ones capable of carrying ten or even twenty tons of cargo.”

  “But only if they remain in sight of the transmitter,” Gottel said. “This would require a network of transmitters.”

  “Is this a problem?” Tesla asked. “If you establish a cargo route between, say Vienna and Berlin or Vienna and Paris, transmitters are easily placed along the way.”

  “Mountaintops, towers, other elevations, increase the range,” Gottel said, “but some countries might be unwilling to allow such radio broadcast units on their sovereign soil.”

  “I’ve considered this,” Tesla said. He paced as he got the strange, distant expression Berzgi had come to know and dread. Tesla thought. Hard. No problem was beyond him in this state. Uneasy now, Berzgi started to stop the scientist from solving this dilemma but was too late.

  “An aerial unit. Place a broadcast unit in a large dirigible and loft it. Six thousand feet? That is possible, although lower might be preferable. From this airborne laboratory can be sent radio waves in all directions. Relay units would be cheaper than actual generating units. Yes, yes, leave the generators on the ground and relay the power through a series of tethered dirigibles.”

  “Heavier than air flights will be possible one day soon,” said Gottel.

  “Think of the weight you can save using my electric motors and this,” Tesla said, placing his hand on the housing of the power broadcast unit.

  “A fleet of great airships that darken the sky as they fly off to . . . their missions,” Gottel finished lamely.

  “Off to their wars,” Berzgi said under his breath.

  The sun began slipping lower in the west, hidden by taller buildings now. Tesla walked to the verge of the roof and looked down.

  “See that,” he said, pointing to the light bulbs already on in the building across the street.

  “They waste Edison’s power,” Gottel said, “turning on their lights so early. It is still daylight.”

  “You don’t understand,” Tesla said. “Those are lit by induction. By the same broadcast that powers that.” He looked up into the sky. The small test vehicle was slowly spiraling downward, under Berzgi’s now expert control. In a few more minutes the hydrogen-filled dirigible would be securely moored to a pole on the roof.

  “They steal your power? Our power?” asked Gottel.

  “It’s theirs for the taking. The radio waves are broadcast, sent out in all directions.”

  “Another enem . . .” Gottel coughed to cover himself. “Another cargo dirigible could use our power?”

  “Yes,” Tesla said.

  “That is not acceptable. Only Austro-Hungarian airships must be powered by the ground generators!”

  Tesla pursed his lips, thought for a moment, then said, “There is a possibility of ‘locking’ the power broadcast.”

  “How is this done?”

  “You could broadcast only on a specific frequency,” Berzgi said, in spite of himself. “Your airships are attuned to this frequency. None other would be.”

  “This is possible?” demanded Gottel.

  “Berzgi has become quite the inventor,” Tesla said. He walked to a coop of pigeons he kept on the roof and reached inside, letting one ride on his finger. He looked at the bird for an uncomfortably silent minute before speaking. “It can be done. I see the blueprints perfectly in my mind.” He stroked the pigeon’s feathers, then returned it to the chicken-wire cage.

  “I must have them immediately. Things on the continent require immediate use of this invention.”

  “Do you have an airship constructed that can accept my relays and electric motors?”

  “Half a hundred,” Gottel said, his eyes burning like coals. “Give me the blueprints and they will be airborne within six weeks.”

  “Quite a chore,” Tesla said. “The transmitters need to be built, but they are far easier to construct than the airships themselves. How large would this fleet be?”

  “Fifty,” the duke repeated. “Of cargo ships.”

  “Yes, of cargo ships,” Tesla said. He walked across the roof to examine the mini-airship that had finally returned to its mooring. A quick examination of the radio controlled and powered engine caused him to nod in satisfaction.

  “I will take this unit and that airship,” Gottel said.

  “These are what you will use?”

  “They are. You don’t need them. Berzgi will give the plans. That is a better way of getting the information to your principals.”

  “You still hate Edison?”

  The duke’s question took Tesla by surprise.

  “He is not my friend.”

  “You would do him harm?” the duke pressed. “He and those who support him, like the American War Department?”

  “I do not wish him harm,” Tesla said slowly, “but I do not wish him well, either.”

  “A death ray need not be aimed at him,” Gottel said slyly. “It would be useful against his equipment, much as your other death ray was.”

  “Perhaps, yes,” Tesla said, looking across the street at the burning light bulbs—powered by his broadcast unit. He snapped his fingers. Berzgi cut the power and the lights died. Gottel failed to recognize the significance of the action.

  “Nikolai, I have been your friend these past months,” Berzgi began. His mind tumbled over and over, turning once coherent ideas into a churning mess.

  “You have found a better job. So, take it. I can pay little more. You know all my money goes into my experiments.” Tesla flipped a switch and produced corona discharges throughout the laboratory.

  “This death ray of yours—”

  “It’s not a death ray. You and Gottel must stop calling it that.” He turned off the beamed energy and motioned for Berzgi to follow him to the roof where a new experiment had been set up. Berzgi followed Tesla up the steep iron stairs, every footstep clanging like a gong.

  “It is Gottel,” Berzgi said, rushing ahead with what amounted to reason against his homeland. “He has fooled you. He’s using you to produce weapons for our country—for our old country. There is great political unrest in Europe.”

  “I know,” Tesla said.

  “You do not know, my friend. And you are my friend. A good one. I am privileged to work with you. That’s not what I want to say.” Berzgi made shooing motions, as if driving off flies. “There will be war in Europe soon. Prussia, the Balkans, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, all against Western Europe. The duke is building a fleet of airships to take part in that war. They will be invincible! Because of you!”

  “Warships,” Tesla said in an offhand manner, “can-not be invincible.”

  “But they are, with your inventions. The electric motors. The broadcast power. They will carry nothing but weapons. No cargo for peaceful trade, Nikolai, weapons! They will fly to an enemy city and bombard it. With your death ray, they will lay waste to the entire countryside!”

  “There is no death ray,” Tesla said. “If Gottel thinks I have worked on one these past months, he is wrong.”

  “But I have seen how you light a bulb by aiming a horn at it.”

  “A focusing lens, yes, a crude one to start. I have improved it over my first feeble efforts.”

  A pair of well-dressed men came onto the roof and stood silently.

  “Who are you? Go away. No observers,” Berzgi said angrily.

  “Let them stay,” Tesla said. “Please, Berzgi, no questions. Let them watch. Use the radio broadcast unit to get our hydrogen-filled friend aloft.” Tesla ran his hand over the sleek, taut canvas skin of the mini-dirigible, as if stroking the feathers on one of his beloved pigeons.

  “They should not see this,” Berzgi said, hesitating to obey.

&
nbsp; “Do it.” Tesla spoke sharply, then, more gently,

  “Please, my friend. Turn on the broadcaster.”

  The unit hummed and the dirigible motor started as the radio power grew in intensity. Berzgi had become expert at spiraling the dirigible upward, applying power as needed and using the radio-controlled ailerons and rudders to keep it above the rooftop. The setting sun caught the bulging sides and turned the hydrogen-filled bag into a silver fish angling its way ever up, trying to break the bonds of the earth.

  As it reached a thousand feet, Tesla went to a second unit he had installed some distance away at the edge of the roof. He made a few adjustments, then flipped a switch. Berzgi immediately let out a yelp of surprise.

  “Nikolai, I have lost power! The dirigible will blow away on the wind!”

  Tesla turned to the men, pointed to his unit, then said to Berzgi, “Turn off the broadcaster.”

  “We must reestablish contact. Without power—”

  “Do it.”

  Berzgi angrily flipped the power switch. They would lose the dirigible! With a dying hum, the power broadcaster powered down.

  “Witness,” Tesla said. He fiddled a moment, bent over and aimed a long glass tube upward. As if using a rifle, he sighted along the length, then turned on another switch.

  “Nikolai, the dirigible is responding again. Its prop is turning again!” Berzgi lowered the binoculars and stared. “What have you done? Another broadcaster?”

  “A power beam. A radio broadcast can be jammed. This is directed solely to the dirigible and cannot.”

  “A death ray?”

  “Not that,” Tesla said tiredly. “A power beam. I can direct my power precisely where I want, not broadcast it indiscriminately. Look at the light bulbs around us. What do you see?”

  “None are lit.” Berzgi craned his neck to see if the usual blazing array of light bulbs dazzled him. A few lights were turned on but only because the twilight crept upon them, not because they greedily sucked up Tesla’s broadcast power.

  “Precision in all things, Berzgi,” Tesla said with smug satisfaction.

  Berzgi furrowed his brows for a moment, then said, “Gottel has the plans for the radio transmitter.”

  “The broadcast power unit, yes,” Tesla said. “You understand?”

  “He will have a fleet of airships powered by your broadcast unit—which can be turned off by his enemies!”

  “And other airships powered by this beam cannot be stopped in that fashion. It is not so much a death ray as a lifeline for aerial ships. American ships.”

  “But who are—?” Berzgi turned to confront the two silent observers, but they had disappeared.

  “I owe much to my homeland. If Gottel uses the broadcast power for what he said, Austria-Hungary will grow rich from trade. If he uses it for war, he will find his dirigibles floating helplessly.”

  “Who were they? The men who watched us?”

  “I owe much to my Fatherland, but I am an American. One is an engineer with the Army. The other is a colonel named Pershing, who has great interest in aerial devices, who can bypass Edison and those under his thumb in the War Department.”

  “Gottel paid for this and you are selling it to the U.S.?”

  “Gottel paid for it,” Tesla said, smiling, “and I am giving it to the U.S.A. After this evening’s demonstration, not even Edison can block true progress.”

  “Wireless transmission of power,” Berzgi said.

  “Wireless conquest of the air,” Tesla corrected. He swung his power beam around, and the dirigible obediently followed it across the sunset. “With this perfected, next I must . . .”

  VOICES

  Jackie Cassada

  1.

  She awakened in a room free from the stench of burning flesh and boiling tears. As her eyes adjusted to the soft, warm light surrounding her, she realized that she no longer felt the searing knives of fire scorching her lungs or the devouring hunger of the all-consuming flames that the Church had assured her would purify her soul.

  “Sweet Jesu,” she whispered. “There is no pain at all!” Not even the aches of old battles or the cramped muscles of her recent confinement intruded into the blessed sense of relief and rebirth she felt. Surely, this must be the reward of the faithful.

  She sat, surprised as she did so that she was in a bed—one of softened linens and finely woven blankets, assuredly, but a bed all the same—not unlike the ones she had glimpsed in the dauphin’s court. This was a bed for a noble. The coverlet slipped away, revealing her naked body.

  “Of course,” she said aloud, reveling in the sound of her voice that was no longer hoarse from yelling out commands to her armies or scratched from repeating her story over and over for the inquisitors. “My clothes would have burned in the fire, leaving me clothed only in God’s mercy.” She fought against the impulse to cover herself; if this was her purified body, it was the body of Eve before the serpent’s temptation. Therefore, it was blessed in God’s sight.

  For the first time, she looked at herself in a clear light, unclouded by the smoke from camp or cook fires or the oily smoke of torches in sconces outside her darkened prison cell. Her scars were gone, and her skin—when she touched her (smooth!) hands to her shoulders and her once-roughened elbows—was as soft as the youngest of babes she had cared for as a young girl in the village of Domrémy. Even her feet had lost the hard, cracked shell of tough skin that came from years of going without shoes and, later, from ill-fitting boots. Something tickled her back, below the nape of her neck, and she put her hands behind her and felt hair, long and soft, like a lady’s hair after her maids had brushed and combed it. She had never been so coddled, but she had seen such lavishing of labor in the French court. She had cut her own hair when her voices told her she would have to become a soldier. She had not missed its weight until now, when she felt it again pulling at the crown of her head.

  Filled with wonder and humility, the girl, not yet out of her teens, known to some as La Pucelle, to others as Jehanne d’Arc, and to more as Joan the Maid, dropped to her knees on the spotless floor, crossed her hands at her throat and bowed her head in prayer.

  2.

  “How long has she been kneeling like that?” the commander asked as he entered the observation room where his lieutenants were watching the latest recoveree. The two women looked at each other, some silent message passing between them, before the taller one rose to her feet.

  “All morning, sir,” she replied, her voice clipped and impersonal.

  The commander nodded. “And you’ve made no attempt to communicate with her?”

  Again, the look, as if neither woman wanted to take the responsibility for provoking the commander’s wrath by giving him news he would rather not hear. The second woman finally stood, her blonde hair hiding part of her face as she stared at the floor.

  “No, sir,” she said, a slight quaver in her voice. “We thought it best to wait for you. Michael always drops the big ones on her. Catherine and Margaret are the support team.”

  The commander’s eyes narrowed, considering the blonde woman’s words. Though she always seemed reluctant to voice her thoughts, Lieutenant Fiero’s skill at observation and fine detail were undeniable. He nodded his head once, in agreement.

  “You’re correct, Fiero,” he said. “We all go in at the same time. I’ll take the lead.”

  “Sir—”

  “What is it, Sauvigne?” the commander regarded the other woman guardedly. Lieutenant Sauvigne could get under his skin with a word, sometimes merely an intonation of her voice. She never crossed the boundary between legitimate challenge and insubordination, but each time she confronted him, she managed to put him on the defensive. It was important to keep her happy, though. She was the one with the degree in medieval French history. She could also speak the French of Joan’s time period and coached him and Fiero with their own mastery of the antiquated language.

  “Is she ever going to be told the truth?” Sauvigne’s voice held
just enough restraint to sound merely inquisitive.

  “That’s a decision we’ll make when the time comes,” the commander snapped, immediately regretting both the quickness of his answer and his revelation that he had not yet made a determination. His “we” was, of course, only a courtesy. All three of them knew that he alone was calling the shots.

  “The immediate question before us is whether we will be able to work with her at all,” he said. “For the present, she must continue to believe that the three of us are her ‘voices.’ Otherwise, I’m afraid we cannot guarantee her cooperation.” He turned abruptly toward the door, motioning for the women to follow him.

  3.

  Joan forgot her surroundings whenever she prayed. Her friends in Domrémy, her family, and, later, her beloved comrades-in-arms could never understand how she could spend so much time on her knees or lying prostrate in prayer. They did not know the joy it gave to her to open her heart to Jesu and the saints, who heard her troubles and gave her comfort, who knew her weaknesses and gave her strength, who received her love and returned it many times over. That she should hear their voices when they needed her seemed the most natural thing in the world. That they asked her to bring the dauphin to his rightful throne and drive the English out of France was little enough in return for everything they gave to her. That she should face the flames of martyrdom at the hands of her English captors was not unexpected. Her voices had told her she would die and be taken up to be with them in heaven.

  This was not what she had expected heaven to be like, however. Even though carnal desires did not exist in God’s kingdom, and she need not fear succumbing to temptation, she felt uncomfortable being naked for too long. She had somehow always imagined that all who entered heaven would be given robes of sanctity. Only the damned remained naked in their condemnation, the more keenly to feel the fires of Hell as it burned their flesh—much as hers had burned, though for much shorter a time than the poor damned souls in Hell.