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  Wonder of the Worlds

  SESH HERI

  LOST CONTINENT LIBR ARY Publishing Company California

  Wonder of the Worlds

  Copyright © 2005 By Sesh Heri

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to

  The Lost Continent Library Publishing Co. 7231 Boulder Avenue #505

  Highland, CA 92346-33133 www.lostcontinentlibrary.com [email protected]

  FIRST PRINTING SEPTEMBER 2005

  ISBN: 0-9727472-8-1

  Cover Art: BOB AUL

  Printed in the United States of America at Morgan Printing in Austin, Texas

  Introduction

  It is with great excitement and pride that I present to you the first edition of a novel that is bound to become a favorite among adventure fantasy readers. I cannot begin to list the synchronicities between the vision of this com- pany and the author’s experience in the writing of this book. What I cannot say enough is how talented Mr. Heri is as writer and illustrator. It is rare upon first read of a submission to find a work so polished technically as this novel was on the day I received it. Rarer still is a vision so well realized and crafted through the story. I believed from that first reading that here is a future classic in the genre. There is much in this novel that history buffs will recognize and enjoy, as the author’s research has been exhaustive, specifically relating to Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain. Students of alternative history will rejoice.

  Young readers take note: though some of these people may not be within your personal frame of reference, the heroes of this tale really lived and knew each other, in most cases. So did the technology. So, too, could have a world envisioned by Mr. Tesla. Maybe it does…

  Walter Bosley

  Publisher

  Rancho Mirage, 2005

  Foreword

  Wonder of the Worlds is a work of fiction written in the style of fantastic realism: Realism, because the story’s setting and characters are based upon historical places and persons; Fantastic, because some of the facts upon which the story is based are not a part of our conventional model of reality.

  The most fantastic reality in Wonder of the Worlds is the main character, Nikola Tesla, a person who once really lived and whose real accomplishments were every bit as fantastic as the legends that swirl around his name. Another fantastic reality in Wonder of the Worlds is the group of anomalous formations on the planet Mars in the region of Cydonia. Whether these forma- tions are artificial, as Richard C. Hoagland has claimed for over twenty years, or are natural as NASA has insisted for just as long, these oddly shaped masses on the Martian surface are fantastic, for even as natural formations they are an enigma; their geomorphological processes are unknown and fractal analysis shows a discontinuity between the formations and the surrounding surface of the planet. The claim that there is a connection between ancient Egypt and the anoma- lies of Cydonia is certainly fantastic, but the reality of the claim has not yet been established with conclusive proof. There are, however, several bits of evidence to suggest that knowledge of Mars has been secretly passed down for thousands of years through various groups and individuals. Perhaps there is a golden chain which reaches back to ancient Egypt, Atlantis, and ultimately to the planet Mars. That is the premise of Wonder of the Worlds. It may be fiction. It may be fantastic fact.

  You decide.

  Sesh Heri

  5

  Prologue

  Do you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures?

  — Huck, Tom Sawyer Abroad

  New York City, January 3rd, 1943

  “Impossible! Mark Twain is not dead!”

  The words exploded from the lips of Nikola Tesla, addressing his messen- ger boy, Kerrigan, who stood on the threshold of Tesla’s apartment. A sealed envelope was held outward in the messenger’s right hand. “This is not like you, Kerrigan,” Tesla said. “Step inside.”

  Kerrigan obeyed and closed the door. He watched Tesla, who was dressed in a dark blue bathrobe, move across the room. Tesla stopped in front of his cage of pigeons and looked in through the bars at the gray and white birds. “Did you feed them?” Tesla asked. “Yes, sir.” Tesla studied his pigeons, then turned back around. Kerrigan noticed that Tesla’s face was paler than usual, and that the old man’s luminous blue eyes were strangely out of focus. “Now let’s have it. Why haven’t you delivered the envelope?” “I did exactly as you said, sir.”

  “Are you sure you went to the correct address?”

  “Yes, sir. 35 South Fifth Avenue. Only it’s not South Fifth Avenue anymore. They changed it to West Broadway. And the people there told me that Mr. Samuel Clemens was Mark Twain, the man who wrote Tom Sawyer.” “That is correct.”

  “And they said he was dead.”

  “Nonsense. They always say he is dead. Haven’t you ever heard the famous Mark Twain saying, ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’?”

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  Kerrigan shook his head.

  “Go back,” Tesla said. “Go back and deliver the envelope. Mark Twain is alive. He was here last night and sat in that chair for an hour. He is in financial difficulties and it is imperative that he receives my envelope.” Tesla opened the door and waved Kerrigan out. Kerrigan went through the door, but stopped in the outer hall and looked back, confused and helpless. “Go back, Kerrigan. Mark Twain has never let me down. And I shall never let him down.”

  With that, Tesla slammed the door.

  Kerrigan stood in the hallway a moment longer, trying to decide what to do. He knew it was pointless to try to deliver the envelope again. But how would he deal with Tesla? Then it occurred to Kerrigan that his supervisor would know what to do.

  Back at his Western Union office, Kerrigan stood watching as his supervi- sor opened Tesla’s envelope, unwrapped a blank sheet of paper, and took out twenty-five one-dollar bills. The supervisor said, “This wouldn’t help Mark Twain pay for his cigars, even if he were alive. Tesla’s lost his marbles.”

  New York City, January 8th, 1943

  It had been five days since Tesla had hallucinated Mark Twain. Since then, he had moved through a mental haze, broken at intervals by a lucidity which left him panicked. Sharp pains would stab his chest. He would sit down until the pain ceased and the mental haze descended once again. On the morning of January 4th, Tesla found himself

  looking into the window of Macy’s on 34th Street. He did not know how he got there, what he was doing, or where he was going. Then he felt in his pocket a bag of birdseed and remembered he was on his way to feed the pigeons on the steps of the library before going to see his assistant, George Scherff. Tesla strode toward Fifth Avenue. When he reached it, he stopped, gasping for breath, a pain shooting through his heart. He leaned against the wall and looked up at the Empire State Building. A thought f lashed through his mind: I shall meet my end here. But then Tesla caught his breath. The pain was gone. He turned, and proceeded up Fifth Avenue. Among the crowd, Tesla was only a tall, gaunt old man, dressed in a dark gray suit, the best fashion of an earlier generation. The crowd on the sidewalk flowed past Tesla in both directions, an alternating current of human energy. The people in the crowd passed with no awareness that the source of the energy upon which they depended for their daily existence now moved among them like an unlighted beacon.

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  Tesla reached the library and stopped in front of its steps. Pigeons clustered about his feet. He brought out the bag of birdseed and began scattering it. Gray and white wings f luttered.
“No need to crowd, my friends,” Tesla said. “Enough for all.”

  Tesla’s view of the birds sharpened his focus. Suddenly, his lucidity re- turned. No! The birdseed was meant for this afternoon! He was scheduled to meet with George Scherff at ten o’clock. It was now ten minutes to ten. Tesla threw out the remainder of the seed and hurried to see Scherff, who was waiting across 40th Street in Tesla’s office twenty stories overhead.

  When Tesla entered his office, Scherff was already at work, adjusting a bank of vacuum tubes, which comprised a large and complex electrical switching system. Scherff said, “The Navy liaison officer called. He wants to know when we’ll have the switching system available.” Tesla said, “I will not be held to a deadline when men’s lives are at stake. The system must operate safely, and—”

  Tesla could not close his mouth. A knife of jagged pain ripped from his throat to his chest to his right armpit to the tip of his right finger. A chill shot up his spine. Tesla’s knees gave out, and he collapsed into a chair. Scherff lunged forward. Tesla held up his hand, holding Scherff back. “Not a word!” Tesla gasped.

  “I must call you a doctor—an ambulance!” “No. No doctor. No ambulance. That is final.” Scherff stood looking at Tesla, saying nothing. Tesla sat, marshalling his strength. After a long moment, Tesla stood up and said, “I am going home.” He walked to the door and opened it. Scherff said, “I’ll finish up here.”

  “You are finished here, Mr. Scherff,” Tesla said. “Both of us are. Close the office for me.” “But what about the Navy?” Scherff asked. “They are no longer my concern.” “Mr. Tesla… ?” “Conf lict, Mr. Scherff, conf lict. Without it nothing can stand, nothing can manifest. And what comes of the manifestation? More conflict, Mr. Scherff, more conf lict. More conflict on and on and on. For so long I did not understand. For so long I engaged myself in the conf lict. But now I understand. Only now. And now I am free.”

  Tesla swayed slightly in the doorway. Scherff stood with his hand over his mouth, his eyes wide. Then Tesla said quietly, “Close the office and take that vacation of which you have long dreamed. For myself, I am going home. Goodbye, Mr. Scherff,” and he turned and went out through the door, closing it behind him.

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  On the morning of January 5th, Alice Monaghan knocked at Tesla’s door, and said, “Mr. Tesla! It’s maid service.” Tesla called weakly from inside, “Come in.”

  Alice inserted her key and opened the door. Tesla was sprawled in an arm chair. He was wearing only his pajamas, with a blanket thrown over his knees. “Mr. Tesla!” Alice said. “Are you all right?” “I have a slight cold; that is all. You do not need to clean today.” “Shall I call for the doctor?” “No. I have no need of doctors. Only quiet and rest. Put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door as you go out.”

  Tesla gave Alice the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign that he had been clutching in his hand. “But are you sure—”

  “My dear lady, let us not argue. Now go.”

  Alice turned reluctantly and went out, closing the door of Tesla’s apart- ment behind her. She hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob, and then pushed her cleaning cart on down the hallway. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hung on Tesla’s door for the next two days.

  On January 6th, Tesla heard a faint knock at his door. He rose from bed slowly, made his way unsteadily to the other room, fumbled with the door- knob, and opened the door. No one was there. He looked up and down the outside hall. It was empty. He was about to close the door when he saw some- thing lying on the f loor in front of his doorway. It was a book bound in red leather. He bent over slowly, picked it up, looked up and down the hall again, and finally closed the door. Tesla slumped into a chair and opened the book. It was a thin volume, only thirteen pages long. He began to read. On page four his eyes became heavy, but he made a great effort to focus on the page of the book and stay awake. He kept reading, and finally finished page thirteen. “The spirit comes forth from the day, and the letter passes away,” Tesla said, and drifted off to sleep. Tesla awoke in the chair. The red book was gone. He looked about the room. The book was nowhere in sight. His door was still locked from the inside. Tesla nodded. He understood. He had no questions.

  On the evening of January 7th, a massive electrical storm formed over New Jersey. It pushed eastward and, by nine o’clock, approached Manhattan.

  Before the path of the oncoming storm, the island of Manhattan lay sprawled, an eight-mile long granite mass, a natural electrical body charged within a few volts of its full capacity. As the electrical storm passed over the Hudson at 10:25 pm, those last few deficit volts were f lowing into the island’s

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  granite bed-rock: they were flowing from the shuff ling feet of pedestrians and from the sparks of subway wheels; they were f lowing from the relentless pres- sure of continental drift and from the tide-friction of Manhattan’s two rivers; they were f lowing from the ground wires of electrical machines and from the bedposts of the city’s sleepers. The electricity f lowed into the island’s granite bedrock volt by volt—the electricity of life—and death. At that moment, Nikola Tesla, laying in a coma, awoke, his eyelids fluttering. He looked at the ceiling, and whispered, “Draw back the bolt, Ba-bi! Open the door!” Then his eyelids f luttered again, and closed.

  Nikola Tesla stopped breathing. A faint electrical impulse shot out from his heart as it contracted for the last time. The electrical impulse traveled through his bed to the f loor of his apartment, then downward 33 stories through the steel skeleton of the Hotel New Yorker and into the granite bedrock of Man- hattan. From 7th Avenue it sped eastward under 34th Street to the Empire State Building where it joined millions of other electrical impulses that were gathering in a crowd to rush up the steel skeleton of the great building. Tesla’s electrical impulse rushed forward, twisting its way up through steel beams and pipes, then broke through to the outside granite walls, rushed over the obser- vatory deck and to the building’s pinnacle—the radio tower. The storm clouds were directly overhead. Manhattan had reached its electrical capacity.

  The electrical impulse of Nikola Tesla exploded with a bone-shuddering crack and boom from the tip of the Empire State Building’s radio tower. In an instant, the millions of other electrical impulses below were drawn along with Tesla’s, forging themselves into a blazing white sword of lightning poised up- ward at the gray-black clouds. Tesla’s impulse was the point of the sword. The point pierced the veil of clouds and thrust home to eternity.

  Now, on the morning of January 8th, the electrical storm of the preceding night had nearly dissipated. Off to the east, out over the Atlantic, white bolts of lightning would f lash at long intervals, followed many seconds later by a low rumbling. The rain had turned to snow, sprinkling the rooftops and streets of the city with a thin, white slush. Inside the Hotel New Yorker Alice Monaghan realized that the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on Tesla’s door had been hanging out for the last three days. She knocked at Tesla’s door. When she received no response, she used her key and entered the apartment. The smell of bird guano filled the air. Alice entered Tesla’s bedroom and found him lying in bed on his back. She ap- proached the bed. Tesla’s gaunt, unmoving face told her he was dead. He was 86 years old. Within fifteen minutes Tesla’s apartment was filled with men in dark suits. They sent Alice Monaghan away and began searching the apartment from

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  ceiling to f loor. One of these men—a man with a face that bore no expression whatsoever—this man made a series of calls from Tesla’s telephone. First he called President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Next he called Kenneth Swezey, then Tesla’s nephew, Sava Kosanovich. After informing Kosanovich of Tesla’s death, the blank-faced man asked, “Do you know the combination to Tesla’s safe?”

  “No,” Kosanovich said, “Maybe one of his assistants knows it—George Scherff or Kolman Czito, but I doubt it.” The blank-faced man called Scherff, but received no answer. He next called Kolman Czito.

  The receiver lifted on the other e
nd, and the shaky, high-pitched voice of an old man answered. “Hello?” “Kolman Czito?” “Who is this?”

  “My name’s not important. I’m with the Majestic Seven Oversight Commit- tee. Does that mean anything to you?” “Yes. Yes, it does.”

  “I’m here at Tesla’s apartment. I have bad News. He’s dead.” “No.” “Yes. He’s dead.” “How?”

  “Heart attack, we think.”

  “No.”

  “We don’t have any time to waste. Do you know the combination to his bedroom safe?” “I used to know it. Long ago. He probably changed it since then.” “Can you come over here and give it to me?” “It’ll take a few minutes.”

  “Make it quick.”

  Czito hung up. He sat for a moment without moving, then slowly slid out of his bed and stood up alone in the half-darkness. Ten minutes later, a little old man stepped out of a Checker cab in front of the Hotel New Yorker. It was Kolman Czito wearing a heavy coat over a pair of pajamas. He slammed the door of the cab and stepped up on to the side- walk. He stood for a moment to catch his breath and looked up at low clouds, dragging along with them veils of rain and snow. Czito glanced directly over- head in time to see a lightning bolt flash within the recesses of a cloud. At that same instant a drop of rain struck the right lens of Czito’s spectacles. The cloud blurred and rumbled. Czito removed his spectacles and wiped them with his handkerchief as he slowly shuff led toward the entrance of the Hotel New Yorker. He reached the

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  entrance, put on his spectacles, and pushed his way through the heavy glass revolving door.

  Inside the lobby, Czito stopped to catch his breath. In the middle of the lobby, two uniformed New York police officers stood as if at attention. Czito looked to his right and noticed a naval officer speaking on the telephone at the hotel’s reception desk. Czito looked up to the ornate chandelier hanging above the mezzanine. “Are you Kolman Czito?” one of the policemen asked. “Yes,” Czito replied.

  “They’re expecting you up there,” the policeman said. “I know,” Czito said, walking forward. “Need any help?” the other policeman asked. “No,” Czito replied, picking up his feet a little more. “I’ll manage.”