65 million years ago, Victoria Wetlands, Earth
Nikola Tesla stayed in the Victoria Wetlands, waiting for the Venus Alliance to decide whether to support his lunar gravity experiment and for an update on the preparations for the transport ship.
He did not feel tormented by the wait. With Maria by his side, Tesla felt at ease both physically and mentally, savoring a happiness he had not known for a long time.
Cynthia gradually grew familiar with Tesla. It turned out she was an active, lively little girl.
Cynthia introduced Tesla to her friends. They gathered around him, sometimes bouncing about with delight, sometimes jumping one after another into the pond, then popping their heads back above the water and waving to invite Tesla to join them.
The only slight disappointment was that Nikola Tesla could not understand the "language" Cynthia and her companions spoke. They communicated with one another through sounds of varying pitches and lengths, as if they were singing.
Maria had once tried to decipher their language system, but with little success. Later, she discovered that Cynthia's mother, Vinu, could understand their songs and translate them. Perhaps it was because mother and daughter shared the same genes and bloodline.
At last, Nikola Tesla received the Venus Alliance's decision. Judging by the attendees at the video conference, Tesla sensed that things might not go as he had expected.
The participants included Director Diston of the Venus Alliance Office, Dean Abbott, and Colonel Feynman. Director Diston got straight to the point:
"Mr. Tesla, after careful evaluation, the Alliance Academy of Sciences and the relevant government departments have rejected your plan to conduct a gravity experiment on the Moon."
"Why? The lunar experiment is meant to test my theory of gravity. If it's correct, then in three years, the enormous ice mass around Saturn will block the superluminal waves and push Jupiter toward the Sun. That will then destroy Mars, Earth, and Venus in a very short time. Humanity on Venus will have nowhere left to stand in the Solar System." Tesla pleaded anxiously.
"Nikola, our time and transportation resources are far too precious. The scientists unanimously agree that verifying your theory of gravity on the Moon isn't the most urgent thing for us to do right now."
Dean Abbott spread his hands with regret and added, "Even if your theory is right, what then? We Venusians can't change the Sun, Jupiter, or Saturn's enormous ice mass. What's going to happen will happen. We can only do what's within our power."
"Mr. Tesla, I'm overseeing the construction of the Mars base. We already don't have enough transport ships, so there really aren't any spare ships for your experiment," Colonel Feynman said earnestly.
Nikola Tesla fell silent for a long time. He remembered how, years ago, after his paper The Dynamic Principle of Gravity was submitted to the Alliance Academy of Sciences, the scientists had almost unanimously questioned and opposed his theory. They had branded him absurd, preposterous, and worse.
Nikola Tesla understood that if he proposed the plan that could solve the crisis three years from now, the scientists, government officials, and even the general public of the Venus Alliance would all oppose him.
Diston was a leader through and through. He gently tried to reassure Tesla:
"Mr. Tesla, the Alliance government appreciates and is grateful for your proposal to migrate people to Mars and Earth. We hope you and Dean Abbott will focus your efforts on transforming and developing Mars and Earth. The Alliance will mobilize all its resources to support this project."
The video conference ended. Tesla felt lost and empty. He had never found the chance—or the courage—to propose his mad plan.
Maria brought him a homemade drink and gently stroked his head. "Is the crisis you mentioned, the one coming in three years, really that serious? Whenever you run into a problem, you can always think of a solution. If you can't tell them, could you tell me? You'll feel better if you let it out."
Nikola Tesla stood up and gently drew Maria into his arms. He sighed deeply. "Alas! My so-called plan is a solution born of desperation. I can't blame anyone. To be honest, I'm not even sure myself that it would work."
The sun sank toward the horizon, and the evening glow spread across the seemingly endless Victoria Wetlands. Lakes and ponds glittered here and there in the golden light.
A breeze drifted by, carrying a faint fragrance through the warm, humid air—the fine particles of pine seeds, or perhaps the seeds of some other gymnosperm, wafting from afar.
Cynthia and her friends played noisily, running happily to the window of Maria's house, with several little golden deer following behind them.
Cynthia pressed her little face against the windowpane and made a playful face. Her mother, Vinu, pulled her away, then turned toward Tesla and Maria and gave them an apologetic, helpless smile.
Maria warmly called to Vinu and invited her inside for a chat. Cynthia and the others, meanwhile, darted toward the nearby pond like a gust of wind. The little deer bounded along behind them, their short, close-fitting coats gleaming golden.
Nikola Tesla's gaze followed the happy group. He watched as they jumped into the pond once more, and saw several little deer leap in after them.
A long while passed, but neither the children nor the deer surfaced. Tesla turned to Maria and Vinu and saw that they seemed entirely unbothered. Curious and slightly worried, he asked, "Can the little deer dive, too? Maria, did you clone them as well?"
Maria explained Tesla's question away. When she conducted animal-cloning experiments on Venus, she had successfully cloned white mice, sheep, and cows.
Before deciding to clone humans, Maria had examined the cloning plan with extreme care. To ensure that nothing went wrong, she left the city and shut herself away in a small building beside the village where Brahma and Vinu lived, studying day and night.
Cloning humans could be called a complex, super-scale genetic engineering project. Maria discovered that artificially synthesized amino acids and proteins might trigger rejection in human stem cells.
After repeated experiments, she finally found a natural gene. It came from the milk of female humpback whales, released into the sea.
Brahma and Vinu's daughter, Cynthia, had tragically died in a shipwreck. The couple had begged Maria to use Gene Cloning Technology to bring Little Cynthia back to life.
So Maria used Cynthia's stem cells and the natural gene extracted from humpback whale milk to clone a "new" Little Cynthia. Using the same process, Maria also cloned a group of Venusians and several little deer at the same time.
The cloning could be called a complete success. Tesla already knew about one small regret: the language systems of the clones seemed abnormal. They could not learn the language of the Venusians and instead communicated with one another through an innate ability to sing.
There was another discovery that Maria did not know whether to call a regret or something else. She found abnormalities in the respiratory systems of the clones and the little deer.
Besides having the same two lungs as Venusians, they had an extra tissue structure resembling fish gills where the upper respiratory tract connected to the pulmonary ducts.
The downside of this structure was that it compressed and reduced the volume of the alveoli, leaving them short of oxygen during strenuous exercise. The advantage was that they could remain underwater far longer than Venusians.
Vinu picked up the thread. "Cynthia loved the sea from the time she was little. Humpback whales were her best friends. Little Cynthia loves playing in the water, too. Alas, it's a shame she's never seen the real ocean."
Vinu's words reminded Tesla of the assignment he had just received at the video conference. Building a Superlight Wave Power Station in the New Tethys Ocean and changing Earth's terrain was the very task he was about to begin. He would obviously need plenty of helpers—people like this mother and her daughter, Cynthia, who longed for the sea.
"Vinu, bring Cynthia and come with us to the New Tethys Ocean. There's a beautiful little island there called Tower Island. I think Cynthia will love it," Tesla invited her.
Vinu said gratefully, "Cynthia loves the sea most of all. If she could see it every day, she'd be over the moon. Can we bring the little deer, too?"
"Of course. That future New Continent is vast enough. Bring the little deer along," Tesla said.
Perhaps Cynthia had played too hard. She sat on the grass beside the pond, panting. The little girl blinked her big eyes and gazed at the ripples on the water. What was she thinking about? The ocean in her memories of a previous life?
The moon had risen high, and Cynthia and her companions' songs drifted through the air. Their melodies were lilting, tinged with a sorrowful, plaintive note. Maria quickly asked Vinu, "What are they singing about?"
Vinu listened carefully. A blissful, dreamy smile spread across her face, and she softly translated the lyrics in time with the melody:
"I miss my home, I miss my home,
My home lives in my dreams.
The skies are clear, the breeze is cool,
My longing stretches on.
How are the people back at home?
I'll never forget them.
A stranger in a foreign land,
Even beauty feels forlorn.
How I long to go back home,
To return to days gone by.
All our loved ones gathered close,
The sky and sea sing as one."
The lyrics deeply moved Nikola Tesla. He wasn't sure what Cynthia meant by "home"—the little village on Venus, or the vast, blue ocean she had loved in her previous life.
He felt that if a symphony orchestra played this beautiful melody, it could be woven into a moving adagio in a grand symphony.
Tesla closed his eyes. The New Tethys Ocean appeared before him, spanning the divide between the Eurasian and Indo-Australian plates. Once the Tower Island power station was built, the landscape would be transformed, and this ancient ocean would disappear. The land would rise, forming the highest plateau and mountain peaks on Earth.
Though the approaching crisis in the Solar System still weighed on him, Tesla set his worries aside and gave a childlike smile he had not worn in a long time. He gently took Maria's hand and clasped it tightly.
In his heart, Tesla gave the grand symphony inspired by Cynthia's song a name:
From the New Continent.
Lines from a poem assembled for the chapter:
"Serenely, I've received a soul that belongs to the times." — Ouyang Zhan, Tang Dynasty
"People say it doesn't run alongside deer." — Chen Pu, Song Dynasty
"The Lady of Frost wipes away the remaining traces of jade-like tears." — Zhang Nie, Song Dynasty
"Will a few branches remain when I return?" — Ren Xiyi, Song Dynasty
Before you continue