Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (9 page)

We were discussing
conditioned realities, remember. If it is that difficult, and
apparently it is, for many modem humans to think freely, imagine
how much more difficult it must have been for early men to make the
break from the sensible world and to leap the mind into an entirely
new and nonsensible world which, nevertheless, was more real than
the other.

I am not saying that the
"Lord" of Moses was a flying saucer—but it sure sounds like one,
and
something
fed
those folks in that desert for a couple of generations, "manna" or
whatever. I am not saying that the ancient Hindus ever actually
got off the ground but the Vedic texts give very convincing
descriptions of "...an apparatus that moves by inner strength like
a bird, whether on earth, in the water or in the air [and] is
called a Vimana by the priests of the sciences...[and] can move in
the sky from place to place, country to country, world to world—"
One of the epics purports to give an eyewitness account of a trip
in one of these incredible machines, during which the whole earth
shrinks beneath its ascent to the size of a ball suspended in
space. Again, if it did not happen, who told that ancient poet that
the earth would look like that from such a height? If this author
was the first science-fiction writer, he is to be congratulated on
a superb leap of mind which carried him from virtually the Stone
Age to twenty-first-century earth and Star Wars complete with laser
weapons and arsenals our own technical genius is still trying to
devise.

So. I am standing there beneath the Eye,
trying to leap the mind into an understanding of what could have
been experienced here that sent a senior scientist scrambling to
the White House hotline.

Don't go stuffy on me, please.

My mind has just now begun the leap.

C
hapter Ten:
Vectored

Souza left his car at the
Hale and rode with me to the "monastery" for a quick look around.
He had been there earlier, a couple of hours before the nightwatch
began, and bluffed his way inside—but it probably did not require
much bluff because things seemed rather loose in there. The
residence probably got its name from a time when just about all
astronomers were male—and it was a rather remote site, too far
from Cal Tech for daily commuting, so they rotated staff up there
and tried to make things as comfortable as possible during the
stays on the mountain.

Actually, the place had a sort of
traditional "men's club" look—heavy leather chairs, walls of books,
that sort of thing. The sleeping quarters were not much, remarkable
only for their simplicity and the heavy black shades for daytime
sleeping.

Two young men were present—very young men,
collegiate—eyeing the bulletin boards when we walked in. Souza and
I just acted as though we belonged there, and so did they.

"What's the latest on
Halley?" Souza inquired breezily as we walked past.

"Still a fuzzball," one replied, glancing up
with an absent grin.

"Big letdown," said the other. "Much ado
about popcorn in the sky."

So...these kids were not
poets. Probably had a bleak future in astronomy, then. Souza and I
went on through to the kitchen and got some coffee, carried it with
us and sipped at it while we nosed around.

I tried just once, while I
was in there, to pick up another fix on Jennifer Harrel but had to
withdraw quickly because of the same "static" I'd encountered at
the foot of the mountain.

Souza saw me grab my head. "What's wrong?"
he growled.

"Some kind of crazy energy
enveloping this mountain," I replied, almost groggy from the effect
of it. I sat in one of the armchairs and balanced the coffee in my
lap for a moment, trying to pull it all back together.

A man of about fifty came
into the clubroom while I was seated there, walked over with hand
extended to introduce himself. He wore blue jeans, the uniform for
this mountain, and a shirt similar to the one Jennifer had worn at
our first meeting. He was just "Fred," apparently functioned as
some sort of stationkeeper, permanent resident staff.

I shook hands with him and said, "I'm
Ford...this is Souza. We're meeting Jennifer Harrel."

He raised both eyebrows in an exaggerated
show of understanding, replied, "Does she know that?"

I tried to make a rueful smile as I said,
"She'd better, after dragging us all the way out here."

He chuckled. "Happens to all of them, once
they've been on the mountain. They talk about absentminded
professors but star people beat them all." The grin broadened as he
dropped the punch line on me. "I just ran her over to Summerfield's
for the night."

I said, "She didn't mention...?"

"Nawww, she forgot you. Don't take it
personal. You fellas aren't astronomers, are you."

A statement, not a question.

I admitted it. "Just friends. We were going
to meet here and get a tour, then on to Summerfield's. Hell,
now...I don't even know how to get to Summerfield's."

"That's easy," Fred
assured me. He whipped out a little spiral notebook, made a sketch,
tore out the page and handed it to me. "Can't miss it. Big white
place, hangs out over the side of the mountain, glass dome on top.
Just follow my map. Seven, eight minutes from here."

I persuaded Souza to let me go it alone,
much against his better judgment, on the condition that I keep him
posted on developments.

"Your mobile phone still
on the fritz?" he inquired, eyeing it as we made our way back to
the Hale.

I replied, "Yeah, damn thing... who wants to
be tied to a telephone, anyway? Been in the shop twice since—"

"You should get it fixed," he insisted.
"Could save your life, one of these days. What's this energy thing
you mentioned?"

I told him, truthfully, "Don't know, for
sure. Some sort of disturbance, right on my wavelength. This is
Indian country, so..."

He said, "Yeah," as though that explained
everything to his satisfaction. As he was transferring to his
vehicle, he leaned back to remind me, "Call." He had checked into a
motel at Rancho California, on his way up. I had a matchbook in my
pocket, with the telephone number printed on it. I promised again
to keep him posted. "And watch your ass. Those jerks could still be
skulking around here, somewhere."

I doubted that, in view of the wounds. But I
promised, also, to watch my ass, then I pulled away and left him
standing there in inky darkness beside the eye.

Fred's map was easy to
follow; not many roadways across that mountaintop. I found the
place just where he promised I would, and it looked just about the
way he'd described it—except that the "glass dome on top" roofed
only that portion of the big house that was cantilevered out from
the side of the mountain—and the walls of that section were glass,
as well. I took a bearing with the compass mounted on the
Maserati's dash and decided that these folks could probably see
fifty miles into the Pacific from that room on a clear day. A
winding drive took me over to it, past several small outbuildings
and a twenty-five-foot dish antenna poised to track the heavens;
the thing looked to me just a bit too large and considerably more
elaborate to be a TV-satellite dish—what the hell, I decided, maybe
it's a radio telescope, and why not?

I counted six vehicles parked off to the
side—a couple of pickups plus a variety of vans and Jeep types. And
the house was even larger than it had appeared from the roadway.
Not a lot of light showing from inside, but the tinted-glass of the
bubble projection was casting a muted, bluish glow and I could hear
faint musical strains from the porch.

A very elderly Indian woman wearing a white
uniform-dress responded to my ring and beckoned me to enter without
question. It was, by now, an hour past midnight—and there seemed to
be a party in progress. I could not see the glass-enclosed room
from the entry foyer but I knew where it ought to be and I could
hear the murmur of voices from that quarter blending with the soft
strains of a Strauss waltz.

If this, I was thinking, was another example
of Spartan living supposedly exemplified in the scientific
community, then things were definitely looking up for scientists.
It was quite a place, easily on a par with the House of Isaac. But,
of course, only the twenty-five-foot dish standing outside made any
sort of statement relating this residence to the halls of
science—so I was just rambling in the mind, and I knew it.

I told the old woman, "I am Ashton Ford. To
see Dr. Harrel, please."

Ancient jaws ground an invisible cud as the
only direct response to that announcement; she shuffled off without
really looking at me, leaving me to wonder if she had heard, or
understood, or cared. But another person came down a moment
later—neither ancient nor chewing a cud, a dazzlingly beautiful
woman of maybe twenty-five with swinging hips encased in denim
(what else, on that mountain?), a tank-top thingamajig of some sort
of elastic material sculpting magnificent breastworks and a
glistening peekaboo belly, bare feet, eyes sparkling with
excitement—raven hair, straight and shiny and falling to the hips.
She was obviously Indian, or some-such, but she placed a glass of
wine in my hand and told me, "I am Laura Summerfield. I sent word
to Jen. Won't you come in?"

A voice behind her decided, "No he will
not!" in no uncertain tone. It was Jen, herself, of course—very
upset and moving quickly to throw the rascal out. She took the wine
away from me and returned it to the beautiful Indian maiden,
speaking volumes to her in a single look.

Laura made
a faux-pas
face and
gracefully withdrew, leaving me to handle Jen's towering wrath on
my own.

"What the hell are you doing here!" she
hissed, trying to keep the voice down and failing to do so. "Did
Souza?—no!—impossible!—that's only been...!" She peered at her
watch, then scorched me again with those eyes. "Did you follow me?
How...disgusting! How could you do... ? Just who the hell do you
think you are, Ford?"

"I think," I replied
quietly, "I'm the guy who shot a couple of geeks off your back
awhile ago. But, of course, if you'd like to rewind and start that
frame again..."

She said, "Oh," in a small
voice, turned away from me, dropped the chin. "I thought Souza did
that." She turned back to me, gnawing the lip, said, "It's still a
detestable trick. You set me up. Then sat back and watched to see
what I would do. I feel like I've been raped."

"I know the feeling," I told her. "Because I
did not set you up. I went to my place on the beach, found a dead
man waiting for me, beat it back to you as quick as I could,
discovered the hard way you'd taken a powder on me, without even a
by-your-leave, not a whisper of thanks—just kiss off, buddy boy,
and it really was not nice, not very nice at all. So, yeah, maybe I
understand the rape feeling."

I did not really feel that way about it, but
I wanted her to think I did.

She could not look me in
the eye. And the voice, when it came, was contrite without
surrender, baffled without surprise. "How did you know I was coming
here, then?"

"You don't believe in that stuff," I
reminded her, "so just call it a hunch. I'm just glad I wasn't too
far behind. Someone has your number, Doc. Any idea who?"

"No, I have no idea who," she replied
miserably, suddenly becoming aware of a lot of tension in the neck
and trying to placate it with both hands.

I spun her around and went
to work on that lovely neck with my own experienced hands. "Look,"
I told her, "I think I understand what you're going through—to some
degree, anyway. I was just kidding about the rape. I don't feel
that way. And you're entitled to all the anger you want to put into
this thing. But that won't solve anything. You need a friend with a
bit of experience in this sort of thing. I like you and I've got
the experience. I can be nice, very nice in bed and I'm really
great with nervous-tension necks, so..."

"You sure are," she said, luxuriating under
the massage.

"So what do you say? Want to throw in with
me, kid? Say no and I'll walk out the door and never look back. Say
yes and I'm in it to the bitter or better end, whichever comes
first."

A hint of smile was on the
lips as she inquired, "Did you say
better
or
bed
her?"

"That's right," I replied, "whichever comes
first." She laughed, then, that softly melodious sound I was
beginning to love and said, "That sounds nice, very nice."

I thought so, too.

Which shows, really, what a lousy psychic I
really am.

Chapter Eleven: The Gathering

I counted fifteen people
in the big bubble room, including Jennifer, Laura Summerfield—our
hostess—and myself, all male, except for two other attractive
women, and all young—midtwenties, say—except for Holden
Summerfield, Laura's husband, a distinguished looking gentleman
whose age I would peg at about seventy-five. He could easily have
been Laura's grandfather—but he was a gracious host and seemed to
be interacting comfortably with the others. A California white wine
was the prevailing libation and trays of snack foods were scattered
about.

It was very definitely a party.

Yet it seemed, somehow, to
be something more than that. I could not exactly place a finger on
the difference, but it was palpably there nevertheless—something in
the very atmosphere of the place, an excitement or a sense of
delicious anticipation they all seemed to share. These people were
all downright scintillating yet working hard to restrain it—a
subdued excitement shining through all attempts to clamp it
down.