FORTY

October 14, 1888, Kokin Brod, Serbia

We walked back up to the house, but the guests he expected did not materialize. The nearby villages were supposed to send militia volunteers to help defend against the Turks believed to be on their way. Instead, most of them sent their regrets. Between the azhdaja and the reports of Turkish marauders in the area, no men could be spared. Tesla’s angry reaction told me I was right about one thing—he was long on hardware and short on bodies to man the defenses.

We retired to his library, he to brood in an overstuffed chair, me to trade “make my day” looks with my personal pistolero. Before long, Gabrielle joined us. She looked at me for a moment, her expression a mixture of sadness and concern, but not guilt as far as I could tell.

“Nikola,” she said, “the people in the kitchen just told me they saw signal rockets burst in the air high above the ridge, one every five minutes for half an hour, the evening before last.”

“What of it?” Tesla said, but then glanced at me. “You smile, Dr. Fargo. You know what that means?”

Smiling? Probably grinning like a little kid was more like it. Yeah, I knew what the rockets meant.

“Serbia celebrates the Fourth of July in October?” I ventured.

“Non,” Gabrielle said. “It is the signal for Cevik Bey to cross the frontier and march to the aid of Capitaine Gordon’s party.”

“That would be the party that was wiped out,” I said. “Gee, I guess somebody survived after all. I wonder who?”

Gabrielle looked from Tesla to me, and then she nodded in understanding. Tesla had lied to us.

“Your expression betrays you, Dr. Fargo,” Tesla said. “Are you rethinking your position? Let me remind you that if the British and Turks take this facility, you will lose the means of returning to your own world. Is that the result you desire?”

No, it wasn’t. So why had I smiled? I guess I was glad somebody I knew might still be alive. He was right, I needed for him to win in order to go home, but I didn’t have to rejoice in the fact. Singe the Old Man’s whiskers. . .

“You really like the number three, don’t you?” I said.

Tesla looked startled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Three gun redoubts, laid out in a rough triangle, each redoubt with three guns. Three machinery buildings. Three Forever Engines. An iron walking machine with three legs. Your quarters are on the third floor, the third door from the stairs. You have four buttons on your jacket and five on your vest but in both cases button only the top three. There’s room in the hangar for three zeppelins, even though you only have one here now. With one crashed on the mountainside, I’d say you have another one out there somewhere on another mission. Is it waiting for the Hochflieger Ost? Bet you wish you had a radio right about now, huh?”

He stared intently at me, and his right hand moved to his jacket, fiddled with the fourth, unbuttoned, button, but he did not button it.

After an uncomfortably quiet dinner, we all turned in. I think all of us knew that tomorrow would bring some sort of a decision. Despite Tesla being shorthanded, a guard stood watch outside my door, and Tesla locked the bolt behind me himself. After about fifteen minutes or so the guard unbolted the door and opened it to let Gabrielle in.

“It’s polite to knock,” I said.

“En Francais,” she said. I remembered that was how she and Tesla kept the locals from understanding what they were saying. I nodded. “If I come again I will knock,” she continued in French, “but I have come to tell you something and must leave quickly. This is difficult for me. My path is confused.” She frowned in distress for a moment but continued. “My brother is convinced that with the inquisitiveness of your world and its vast scientific and industrial resources, it is only a matter of time before they return to this world, particularly once you tell your story there. Then they may be the architects of our future here. He does not believe your people will side with him.”

“He’s right. So he’s not going to send me back after all.” I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and here it was.

“Yes, he is. He will do as he promised. However, that is not all he plans to do. He has a plan which I do not understand—it has to do with electromagnetic fields, which he understands better than I. But be believes he can use his device not simply to transmit material between the worlds, but electromagnetic energy itself.”

“Maybe. Don’t see why not. So what?”

“He listened to everything you told him about solar flares, their potential effects on your world and how they are triggered by changes in the sun’s magnetic field. He plans to cause a large solar flare in your universe. He says it will kill no one but will destroy much of your technological base. Is this possible?”

I say down on the bed. Possible? I didn’t know if he could actually trigger a solar flare from here, but if he could—damn. A big enough flare, just one as big as the 1856 flare, would pretty much fry the processors of every private and commercial computer in the world, not to mention scrub their memories, end satellite communication, crash every stock market, and bust every bank in the world. It might not kill anyone directly, but millions would die from its effects eventually. It would end my world as I knew it.

“Yes, it’s possible.”

“I cannot help you, Jack. You understand? My loyalties are with my brother and this world. But I thought you should know this. Perhaps when you are back with your daughter you can make precautions so the two of you will be safe. He says he must build up and discharge the energy in the lake at least three times to create the necessary effect, which will take over a month, so there will be time for you. Now I must go.”

Once she’d left I washed as thoroughly as I could in the water basin, did my toilet, changed into clean clothes, and lay on the bed. I wasn’t sure I could sleep, had lots to think about, and if something happened suddenly in the night, I wanted to be ready. I left off my boots as a concession to civilization. One thing was sure: I couldn’t let Tesla follow through with his plan. I didn’t know if he could really carry it off, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t take the chance. No matter what else happened, Tesla couldn’t be allowed to follow through on this plan.

I dozed for an hour or two, but woke with my mind teeming with the possibilities of the coming day. I knew Tesla was weak in personnel, but his defenses were set up to be mutually supporting, and with telephone wire strung to all of them, he could probably move his men around to where they were needed most. If Cevik Bey came, he would have about five hundred or more men with him. I would be surprised if Tesla had a tenth that number, but they would be manning Gatling guns and cannons firing explosive shells—formidable force multipliers.

In most heroic action stories the Turks would come howling down the valley and Tesla’s men would fire until their guns glowed with heat, cutting down hundreds of the attackers, and it would all come down to the last handful of Turks trying to overwhelm the last handful of defenders. But that’s not what it would be like. After two days of hard marching over the mountains, the Turks would be tired. If they were good soldiers, and the Bosnian riflemen were supposed to be some of the best the Turks had, they would put in a determined attack. But no one was here to commit suicide, especially if there was no prospect of success.

Fifty or a hundred unanswered casualties would be enough to break the Bosnian attack. If they had the notion the defenders were suffering as well, if there was a prospect of success, they might keep coming even with those losses, but it would be tough, and there was no hard science involved in this. I’d seen a battalion-strength attack stopped dead in its tracks by four casualties. You just never knew what would happen on Game Day until you suited up and kicked off.

I thought about Gabrielle and where she stood in all this as well. She stood with Tesla. That stand brought her less joy than I think she anticipated, but she clung to the decision with the desperation of someone who has already tried everything else. In her mind, this was her last shot at humanity, whatever she imagined that to be. I wondered if Asperger’s was a net asset or liability for a spy. It was hard to tell, since she was the only spy I knew in this world.

No, that wasn’t quite true, was it? I knew two spies. Tesla had told me enough to figure out who his man was on the inside in London. If I had the chance, I’d have to tell Thomson that bit, if Thomson was still alive. Okay, I knew two spies.

No . . . wait. A question had nagged at me for a while, and finally I had the answer to it. I knew three spies.

I heard a sound in the hall and sat up in bed. A scratching—the sound of the bolt being carefully opened. The hall was as dark as the interior of my room, but as I heard the door open I saw a shadowy face appear in the opening. A hand knocked lightly on the door, as if to wake me.

“Gabrielle?” I asked.

“Terribly sorry, old man, but I’m afraid it’s just me.”

“Gordon?”

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered. “And give us a hand with this guard, would you? There’s a good fellow. The brute must weigh sixteen stone!”