Читать книгу Olivia Brophie and the Pearl of Tagelus - Christopher Tozier - Страница 10

“When I was a young man, I was friends with a man named Nikola Tesla. He was a famous inventor, equally famous as Thomas Edison. You do know who Edison is right?”

Gnat stared blankly at him and grinned.

“You know, the inventor . . . ?” he asked again.

Gnat grinned.

“Just ignore him,” Olivia warned.

“Well, anyway, Nikola and Edison were rivals. Every time I turned around, they were both inventing something new and amazing. Edison invented the light bulb. Nikola invented the radio. Edison invented the phonograph, Nikola invented the AC motor. And on and on they went. They both wanted to be the greatest inventor to ever live. But more than anything, Nikola wanted to harness the power of the Earth and provide free energy to the world. He realized electricity could be distributed anywhere without wires and without bills from the electric company. Imagine that, being able to turn on the light without having to plug it into the wall! He thought Edison was just trying to make money instead of making the world a better place.”

“Then, one day, when I returned from a trip to India, Nikola was a changed person. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He didn’t answer the door when I knocked. He had fallen into cavorting with mystics and priests from overseas. The newspapers said he was mentally ill and was obsessed with the number three. He became interested only in cosmic rays and telluric currents.”

“What are tell . . . ur . . . ic currents?” Olivia asked. Gnat grinned blankly.

“Telluric currents are the invisible magnetic fields that the Earth generates. Here let me show you.” Uncle walked over to a desk and rummaged through the bottom drawer.

“Ah, here it is. This compass points to the North Pole, see? Well, it turns out that it doesn’t really point to the North Pole, it points to the magnetic North Pole. The magnetic pole is the point of strongest magnetic output from the planet. The thing is, the magnetic pole moves. It isn’t a single place. It isn’t a place at all actually. It is an outpouring of telluric energy. The magnetic field around the Earth is a three-dimensional field, like a bird cage around the planet, only it never stops moving and fluctuating. The telluric field is that same birdcage flowing through the planet itself, underground and such. Energy flows out of the Earth at the magnetic poles, but it must return to the Earth. What goes up must come down, right?”

“A compass is only capable of reacting in two-dimensions, it isn’t an accurate representation of the magnetic field. You see?” He showed Olivia the needle spinning. “It only sees in straight lines. It can point you toward the magnetic pole, but it doesn’t show you the magnetic currents and waves fluctuating all around us. It doesn’t show you where the energy reenters the planet. It is like being in a submarine and only having a tiny window to see through. Everything you see is true, but it is only a very small piece of the whole picture.”

Olivia had a worried look on her face and raised one eyebrow. She was afraid to ask what cosmic rays were. She assumed they came from outer space.

“I’m sorry. I get excited. It will all become clear. Many months passed and Nikola wouldn’t see anybody. I left messages for him and nope, not a peep. Then, one day, I was shopping at the used bookstore, and I picked up an old book on the burning of ancient Alexandria’s Library. A tattered note fell out from between the pages. It read:

Meet me under the 2^nd Street bridge, Eastside. 4 P. M. Nikola.”

“Who was this note for? How did Nikola know I would possibly find it? He had no reason to believe that I would be looking at that particular book on that particular day. I was filled with doubt and questions. It might not even have been my friend Nikola. Maybe it was a note left decades ago by another Nikola. But I did what it asked. And just as promised, at 4:00 p.m., Nikola was there. He stood in the shadow of the bridge and talked quietly. He looked exhausted and dirty.

“Nikola told me that he was being watched and followed, and warned me to be very careful. He needed me to do something very important for him and he would pay me all of the fortune that he had earned inventing over the years. He handed me two wooden boxes the size of shoe boxes, one marked ‘N,’ one marked ‘S.’ Nikola whispered, ‘These are the seeds. I need you to place the N at the Magnetic North Pole and the S at the Magnetic South Pole. Whatever you do, do NOT open either box until you are at the pole and ready to plant it. Also, you must go alone.’”

“I told him that this was a big job and would take me a year to complete. You don’t go wandering around the poles on a whim, you know. Especially alone. He then handed me an envelope with his entire life’s fortune. “I’m counting on you,” he said. “I am too tired and they are watching me.”

“What is this about? You are asking me to risk my life,” I asked.

Nikola’s eyes darted back and forth. He leaned in close to my ear, “There is a third pole, Harold. And it explains everything. They will kill you for it.”

“I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but for some reason, I believed him. Back then, it was my job to lead expeditions. I was used to actually helping someone else get to an exotic place. Certainly I could do it alone. It might even be easier because I wouldn’t have to haul some bookworm scientist on my back up a mountain or across a river of piranhas.”

“OK, Gnat. You are going to have to stop grinning at me like that. I haven’t even seen you blink in the last ten minutes,” Uncle put his hand on Gnat, who promptly fell over onto his side, fast asleep.

“Well, I’ll be. Maybe we should continue this tomorrow.”

“You can finish. There isn’t anything to watch on our invisible TV,” Olivia said.

“All right,” Uncle chuckled. “So I made my way north with the box marked ‘N.’ It was very heavy for its size. It was almost impossible for me to keep the box closed as I couldn’t wait to see what was inside. I traveled as far as I could by train. Then I traveled as far as I could by ship. Finally, I had to buy twelve dogs and a sled. I loaded up that sled with all of the salt pork that could fit, a gun, snowshoes, skis, and plenty of blankets. I went during winter because I knew it would be easier to travel on snow than traveling on summer mud.

During the winter, the sun doesn’t even rise in the Arctic, you know. It stays dark twenty-four hours a day. The dogs and I traveled by the light of the aurora borealis, the northern lights. Wow, what a trip! All of those beautiful colors swirling in the sky! Here is a little secret, Olivia, that no one in the world knows, not even your aunt. Sometimes, when the dogs were asleep and the wind silent, I could hear the northern lights. Whizzing and whirling in the sky like giant ghosts. Swooshing and buzzing. I never told anyone because I knew no one would believe me.

“I believe you!” Olivia piped in.

Uncle put his hand on her head. “Thank you,” he said, “you are very kind.”

“The traveling was getting harder and harder,” he continued. “I crossed over glaciers and fjords. I saw an old wooden ship trapped in the ice, the sails still flapping on the masts. The weather became unbearable and I was running out of salt pork. The dogs were getting worn out and they stopped wanting to run. I could hear wolves and began to fear that a polar bear was stalking us. Wolverines were always circling around, just far enough away that I couldn’t shoot them.

Then, on the northern edge of Baffin Island, just west of Clyde River, I found a small Inuit town. Those nice people took me in and fed me. But it was clear that the dogs were not going to run for me anymore. They were exhausted. My only option was to walk myself to the North Pole.”

“Then I had an idea. A crazy idea. I don’t know if the cold finally got into my brain, or if the aurora made me lose my senses. I had a rope that was a quarter mile long, so I fashioned a harness trap. Inside the trap I put what was left of the pork. I put my skis and backpack on. And then I waited. And waited. Snow drifted and piled up on me. The villagers came out to me and put their hands on me to see if I was still alive. And then it happened. A wolverine came to the bait. I sprung the trap. Perfect! I had harnessed a wolverine! And off we went, three times faster than the dogs. What you may not know about wolverines is how strong and fast they are. They can run twenty-four-hours-a-day for two weeks. I skied along a quarter mile behind him, like a water-skier. I had rigged the harness so I could steer the wolverine in the direction that I wanted to go, but when I pulled out my compass it was as if he already knew what to do. He ran for two days pulling me and I never had to change his direction. We crossed two hundred miles of ice and snow, lit only by the green and blue aurora.”

“And then he just stopped. He sat down on his haunches and stared at me. Even that far away, I could see his yellow eyes glowing in the Arctic darkness. We were there. The Magnetic North Pole! The thing is, it didn’t look like anything. There weren’t any lights or signs. Only miles and miles of ice. But I could sure feel something. I was energized, invigorated. I forgot my hunger and exhaustion. I took out the N box and carefully undid the latch. I finally would be able to see what the seed looked like. Inside was a perfectly round, dark silver ball. As the lid came up, the ball jumped! Now I was convinced I was crazy. I lifted it out and placed it on the snow. The seed rose up from the ground and hovered a few inches up in the air. It was moving on its own! I had never seen anything like it. It shot to the left twenty feet, adjusted its position, and settled just barely above the snow. The seed had found the right place for itself! To the seed, the earth’s magnetic currents were as obvious as a river and it wanted to be directly in the flow. Remember how I told you that the magnetic pole moves? Well, the seed moves with it, like a sailor adjusts to the wind. It was Tesla’s greatest invention and nobody knows about it to this day. Except me. And now you. It is still there to this day, following the magnetic currents across the vast tundra.”

“I had done it!”

“My wolverine stood up, trotted along the rope right past my feet, and started running south. Two days later we were back in the Inuit village. The winter turned rough and I had to spend the rest of the season on Baffin Island. Let’s just say that I’ve eaten my share of seal meat. I was also way behind schedule. Back in the US, I didn’t even try to communicate with Nikola. He didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.”

“It is getting late. I will tell you about my trip to the South Pole another night. But suffice it to say that I was successful, even if it did take me twice as long. Part of my finger is still down there somewhere I suppose.” Uncle held his hand up and showed Olivia the stub where his right ring finger used to be.

“Gross,” Olivia could barely peek at the stump.

“When I got back from the South Pole, I learned that Nikola had died mysteriously of a heart attack and the government had seized all of his research papers and inventions. There was nothing left. Just an empty room. I called his laboratory in Colorado and no one answered. The American public thought he was a crazy old man, and the government made sure that was the way it stayed. I knew there was more to what was going on. What was Nikola up to? How could they ruin a man like that and take everything? I called every government office and no one knew anything. I was rich with Nikola’s fortune and didn’t even know why. I’m telling you, they murdered him! They murdered him!” Uncle’s voice was getting louder. His tiny eyes grew large and wild.

“They killed him for what he knew!”

In a flash of gingham and freckles, Aunt came rushing into the room and tackled Uncle from his chair to the floor. “Don’t you upset the kids with your crazy schemes,” Aunt screamed as she pinned his arms back. “Let’s get everyone into bed. Come on. Right now!” Aunt scooped up Gnat and hustled off to the far-reaches of the house.

Olivia stood up to go to bed. Uncle picked himself off the floor, grabbed her by the arm and said quietly and quickly, “Olivia. A package arrived six months after I returned. Inside was a measuring tool, a meter of sorts. I call it the Teslatron. I still have it. I realized the seeds were injecting particles into the telluric currents and now I can follow them with the Teslatron. Now I could figure out how it all works. The third pole is somewhere around here. The third pole is where all of the energy flowing from the magnetic poles reenters the Earth. Its discovery will change everything. And it is out here. In these woods!”

Olivia pulled her arm away and walked to her bedroom. “There is no TV, and I’m forced to live in a madhouse,” she thought. What does she care about a third pole? There is no way Uncle is that old. But she fell asleep dreaming about fierce freckles, packages with no senders, the northern lights humming in their own beauty above her in the sky, and a wild wolverine pulling her deeper and deeper into darkness.