Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (12 page)

Only then did it register, her final
statement before the crazies started: "That kind, yes."

What
kind, damn it! We'd been talking about radiation and living
waves.
That
kind!

I decided to take that back to the shower
with me, too, with "something in the eyes."

"Living wave" radiation, eh? Fancy that.

Chapter Thirteen: Making Waves

I don't know if I have mentioned, yet, that
I am sort of a scientist myself. The largest problem in my life, I
guess, is that I am "sort of" many things. Guess I just have too
many interests. Never could seem to focus myself into any one
career-slot long enough to become expert In it. Then, too, I never
really felt the financial pressure—that hungry feeling, as some
have expressed it—which sometimes will keep one's nose to a
grindstone. I am fortunate—or unfortunate, however it strikes
you—to have come into a tidy little trust, funded in my behalf
before I was born or even conceived, which takes care of my basic
needs 'til death do us part— and I am not really a greedy person,
have no particular desire to amass a fortune of my own...so what
the hell, I kicked back a long time ago and decided to just let the
world come to me as it would.

The navy time was my only
long-term commitment to anything—but I was actually set up for that
before my birth, too. It's the Ashton family tradition. Each male
son in the line is born with a silver anchor up his ass, and he can
take it out only upon graduation from Annapolis. Big deal, you may
say, poor kid—has to put in four whole years of an otherwise
dissolute life at a tuition-free college—not only tuition-free but
they give you a salary, to boot, and a guaranteed career job upon
graduation.

Which is fine, sure, if
that's where your interests lie. Problem with me was that my
interests lay everywhere
but
in a naval career—and there is that matter of the
years of obligated service after you graduate. So I simply tried to
make the best of it, spread myself out as much as I could, took
every class, every war college I could finagle my way into. Along
the way, I became a little bit of everything and not a hell of a
lot of anything. Which is where I'm at right now.

I have a basic grounding
in the physical sciences and a touch here and there in the
theoretical extensions. I can converse reasonably intelligently in
the language of mathematics. I can even converse reasonably
intelligently with digital computers and have a real party with
analog computers. It is possible for me, in certain situations, to
stand toe to toe with theoretical physicists and to at least give
the impression that I know what they are talking about. I give you
all this just so you will know where I am coming from in that which
follows.

Because, I have to be
right up front with you, I still did not know what the hell was
coming down that pike at Palomar. Okay, sure, "a previously unknown
form of radiation" may sound rather bland—but, hey, we are talking
last-quarter twentieth-century, the age of space, the world that
Einstein and Planck and Bohr have defined for us. We even have
people on this planet who are arguing (and very intelligently) over
the exact temperature of the primordial universe at the precise
one-one-millionth of a second after the expansion began. They
stopped arguing quite awhile ago over the precise contents of the
universe, or the nature of nature, after the first one-hundredth of
a second.

We are talking "creation
physics" now, and these people are measuring time and events by the
hundredths of a second—a time that began perhaps fifteen billion
years before they were even born.

So, yes, it can be a
rather astounding statement to have one of these brilliant folk
casually remark that a "previously unknown" form of radiant energy
has just been found out. I am sure it was rather astounding to all
of them, as well, in view of the fact that they had already very
neatly bundled up all the contents of this universe as of the first
minute of creation.

A "previously unknown" factor could wreak
considerable havoc upon the structure of everything else they
thought they'd known. Unless...

Unless, of course, this was not merely a
"previously unknown" force but something totally new in the
universe. And something "new," in this 15-to-20-billion-year-old
structure—I mean something intrinsically new, some new nature of
nature—would, it seemed to me, have the very deepest ramifications
for mankind.

So that is where I was at, in trying to make
sense of Laura Summerfield's surprising hint that this supposedly
intelligently directed irradiating beam was a "living wave." What
the hell did that mean?

I need to talk to you for
just a moment about wave dynamics. Rather than go into a deeply
technical discussion, let me just say—and it is probably safe to do
so—that virtually everything that moves, vibrates, or "shines" does
so accompanied by a "wave." There are sound waves, light waves,
electric waves, magnetic waves, even gravitational waves; in the
new quantum physics, all radiant energy is defined in terms of
wave
lengths
which
are determined by the energy and momentum of elementary particles
which—embedded within and apparently responsible for
waves
—behave as sheer
energy.

But now, as for this matter
of
living waves
—biological matter is put together using the same elementary
particles as those found in ordinary matter. The cells of your body
are built of atoms that are manufactured inside of stars, those
atoms are composed of elementary particles such as protons and
electrons, various quarks and widgets and whatever, and each of
these is subject to the same laws that govern the behavior of
elementary particles everywhere.

Our very
brains
vibrate with
energy waves. The brain wave is that which is being measured by an
electro-encephalograph. So-called
beta
and
alpha
rhythms are simply
characteristic states of what may be called wave systems produced
within the brain. There has been nothing to indicate—in my
understanding, anyway—that brain waves are significantly different
from other energy waves, however. The EEG actually measures changes
in electric potential, which is essentially the story of radiant
energy anywhere.

So what is a
living wave
?

The late Carnegie scientist Gustaf
Stromberg, as long ago as the early 1940s, hypothesized an
"immaterial living structure" which is responsible for the
intelligent organization of living matter at the cellular level,
and spoke of "the autonomous field" as something which "must be of
a very profound nature, since it must in some way or other be
associated with the ultimate origin of energy, matter, life, and
mind." His autonomous field produces immaterial structures which
may be thought of as living waves—and Stromberg spoke also of "...
a world intimately connected with our own consciousness." I have
found no evidence that this particular aspect of his work has
seized the imagination of other scientists or even their respect; I
do know that flags flew at half-mast in his native Sweden when he
died.

So much for that. I had
worse problems at hand. Jennifer Harrel, for instance. Obviously
she had not been entirely honest with me. No—that is too kind—she
had lied like hell to me, deliberately, with purpose. I wished to
believe that her motives were all good, in that respect. Her chief
concern, rightfully so, was the security of Isaac Donaldson and
this program of his, whatever it was. She knew that I had been
retained to ferret him out. Right away that made us antagonists.
It is perfectly understandable, then, that she did everything in
her power to lead me away from Isaac rather than toward him. I
could understand and accept all that. What I could
not
accept was the very
shaky foundation upon which I had been building my understanding of
this case; everything I knew or thought I knew could be
false.

That is not the most comfortable place to
be—perched up there on a mountaintop surrounded by scintillating
strangers, all of whom could be playing some weird game which I
perhaps would not understand even if I knew all the rules and
conditions.

I had the very strongest
urge to get the hell away from there—to call everyone I had ever
known or had even been introduced to in Washington—to blow the
whistle on this whole operation—to let the pieces fall where they
may.

But, damn it... Something
in the eyes, maybe. Some deep sadness, or... What the hell was it
about these people that put them so much beneath my
skin?

Esau, now... that guy
really bugged me. But not in any way I could grab with the mind. He
seemed a nice young man, engaging, quick, attractive—but something
in the
manner
,
and maybe that was it, all of it—despite the blue jeans and
Pendleton shirt, the guy seemed to have just emerged from an
Edwardian parlor or some such damn...

And Laura, now
there
was something very
different, an absolutely flaming beauty, fairly oozing sexuality,
but those same eyes, a look of... of what? Wise, yeah. She
looked
wise
. And
that, somehow—to my sense of harmony, anyway—I'm talking
old
wise, wisdom—but a
sort of
sad
wisdom—that, to me, was out of place with the rest of the
package.

I could not leave it at that. I could not
leave, period. I was not so sure they would allow me to leave,
despite Laura's recent assurance that I was not a "prisoner."

So I was stuck with these people, for better
or for worse—or, at least, until more "worse" showed up.

For the moment, anyway, I would give them
the benefit of the doubt.

I just hoped they wouldn't end up whisking
me away to another world, in another galaxy, at the far edge of the
universe. Or, God forbid, to a totally different universe.

Chapter Fourteen: Holy Grams

A wheeled serving cart
laden with fruit, ham and eggs, juices and fresh coffee was waiting
for me when I quit the bathroom that second time. I attacked it
voraciously and very quickly dispatched everything there except for
an apple and a banana which I stashed for later. I felt better
after the first bite and was fairly bursting with energy when I got
up from there.

My clothing, freshly
cleaned, was laid out for me on the bed. I put everything on and
went adventuring. Could not find anyone to adventure with, though,
until I got to the bubble room. Holden was there, staring rather
absently at an issue of
Sky &
Telescope
magazine. He dropped the
magazine at my approach and sprang to his feet with surprising
agility to greet me, very solicitous, those great eyebrows dancing
with every word and gesture.

I assured him that I was okay and that I was
being marvelously taken care of, thanked him for his hospitality,
asked if I might use the phone. He gave grand permission and led me
to it. I climbed onto a bar stool and punched the number for the
motel in Rancho California while Holden discreetly returned to his
chair near the window.

Souza had checked out of that motel on
Sunday.

So I tried his office, spoke briefly to
Foster, was passed on through to a very grouchy private
detective.

"Where the hell are you?"
he snarled.

I said, "Still on the mountain. I see you've
gone home."

"Why not? No percentage in me hanging
around..."

I reminded him, "Thought home was a bit too
hot for you."

He growled, "So I cooled
it and came home. What're you up to?”

I told him, "I've been unconscious since
about one o'clock Sunday morning."

"You sure have," he sniffed.

"Literally," I told him. "Can't explain it
any better than that right now but...how did you cool it?"

"Finally got to the right people," he
replied, still sulking. "Don't worry, I cooled it for you,
too."

I said, "Thanks. Well I—"

"Don't tell me anything, Ash. I don't want
to know anything. I'm off the case."

I asked him, "That's how you cooled it?"

"In a manner of speaking, yeah. I suggest
you come home, too."

"Can't do that," I told him.

"Your retainer expired at seven o'clock this
morning. So you're on your own."

I said, "Okay. No big loss, Greg. You don't
pay too well, pal, when you pay at all."

He protested, "I don't owe you a
damn..."

"Maybe you do," I told him. "You brought me
into this mess. If I have to fight my way out of it..."

"You don't have to do that."

"For my own peace of mind, yes I do. I want
some information from you."

"Don't have a hell of a lot." But he was
lightening up.

"You mentioned the other night that some
other scientists were missing."

"Yeah."

"Who are they?"

"Hell I don't have their names."

"Do you remember how many?"

A pause, then: "Dozen or so, I guess.
From..."

I reminded him, "Yeah, you said from M.I.T.
and Yale, I think, some other places. You don't remember any
names?"

"I don't know that I
even
had
any
names," he replied.