Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (23 page)

Laura picked it up, very soberly. "The jinn
are life."

I looked at Holden and
said, "Okay, I'll take those other twenty-four words."

He waggled the eyebrows and replied, "Let
Laura do it. It's her field."

"Some field I picked," she
said, with a grim smile. "Doesn't even belong to our universe, it
appears."

"Ho, we're all aliens," Holden
commented.

"Is that the conclusion?”
I wondered.

Laura said, "It is the inevitable result of
our conclusions."

I said, perhaps in an incredulous tone, "Now
wait a minute..."

Jennifer shot me an oblique gaze. "We've all
had the same reaction, Ashton." She sighed. "Ego problem, I fear.
Certainly we should have been prepared for it, though. The pointers
have been there, all along."

I said, "I just don't get
the graveyard atmosphere in here. If you people have the solution
then it is a triumph of science. So where are all the triumphant
scientists?"

Holden said, "Ho, my
sentiments exactly. She said ego problem, though, and there's your
clue, Ashton. See here, these people have immersed their very
lifetimes in the study of this universe as the home of mankind. Now
they've discovered it's only a blasted
way
station
, so to speak. Put yourself in
their place, my boy. Way you do that, way I did it, was to imagine
myself the only self-aware ant in the colony. Oh, say, how puffed
up I am, how delighted with my own brilliance after I have deduced
all the secrets of the anthill. Then, one adventurous night, I
crawl out onto the face of the planet and behold the lights of the
city. In a sudden intuitive flash, I divine a whole new order of
anthills and an intelligence so far surpassing my own that I am
abysmally humbled with awe. And I don't know whether I should
venture out into that magical night with all its unknown perils or
if I should very quietly retreat into my own hill and pull the hole
in behind me."

Laura was giving him a warm
gaze as he spoke. When he finished, she said, "Very
good,
Holden."

Jennifer sighed and said, "Yes, Holden has
it by the balls. Just wish I could..."

Holden waggled eyebrows at me and said,
delightedly, "She's been so horny since she rolled back."

"Haven't we all," Laura said, but without
humor. "And now it seems..."

Something was wrong, here. Holden's analogy
may have been right on the mark and perhaps partly responsible for
the mood of the group, but there was more to it than that—quite a
bit more, I decided.

Before I could get an angle on the thought,
though, Esau/Isaac stepped over from the blackboard and extended
his hand to me.

I shook it, asked him with a smile, "Are you
Esau or are you Isaac?"

He smiled back as he
replied, "Isaac, of course. Regret the little charade, Ashton. Jen
told us that you were familiar with some of my work." He ran a hand
across his face. "Didn't want to shock you too much with this, uh,
anomaly. Remarkable thing, isn't it."

I replied, "Remarkable is an understatement.
I was just down in the dining hall, checking out the
portraits."

He smiled. "Yes, well..." His gesture
included everyone present. "You see what has happened."

"I see," I said, "but I really do not
understand."

"Nor did we, at first. Had
us completely fooled. Thought the jinn were interacting
biologically, at the cellular level—but good Lord—it was happening
too fast. A biological inductance was perfectly understandable,
yes—even a rapid effect, locally, as any other spontaneous
mutation—but broadcast uniformly throughout the organism? Good
lord!—we had a tiger by the tail and we knew it. Then Laura showed
us that the interaction was not biological."

I said, "So you were using yourselves as
guinea pigs."

"Unwittingly, yes, at
first. Didn't know what we were involved with there, you see. We
had noted what appeared to be biological interaction. We were doing
focus studies, similar but much less concentrated than last night's
experiment, using tissue specimens. Noted some small effect on the
specimens, enough to enormously mislead us for awhile. But then we
began to experience the changes within ourselves. Then, yes,
conscious guinea pigs. And you see the result before
you."

I gazed at Holden and said, "But..."

"But, yes, isn't it so often the way...? Our
greatest friend and most generous benefactor experienced a negative
effect early on. We very regretfully were forced to exclude him
from—"

"Ho, made me senile, you see!" Holden
rumbled from the sidelines.

Isaac smiled at him and said, "Senility is
reversible, Holden, you know that. At any rate, I'll take you
senile over twenty ordinary men at their best." He turned back to
me. "We know better, now, thanks to you and your postscript for
Holden."

I said, "I remember that but it hardly seems
earth- shattering."

"Ho!" said Holden.

Isaac smiled at him and
said to me, "A philosophical postscript, perhaps, but it has led us
to a reassessment of the data and a better understanding of
Holden's negative reaction."

"The negative has become a positive!" Holden
said delightedly.

Laura took his hand and declared, "And we're
going to take care of this mismatch, aren't we."

He said, "Bully, ho, bully!" and tears
sprang to his eyes.

Jennifer surged to her feet and strode away,
left the room.

Isaac watched until she was entirely out of
sight, then observed, "She is deeply troubled."

I asked the obvious question. "About
what?"

He replied, "About the
jinn. What it means. Where it is taking us."

I said, quietly,
"You
know
where
it is taking you, Isaac."

He said, as quietly, "Yes.
We do, now. And that is the problem."

"Do we," Holden rumbled, "pull the hole back
into our anthill? Or do we venture into the great unknown?"

Isaac said, "He means that
quite literally. And we must make the decision very quickly, while
the option is still there."

I gazed about the quietened room and
decided, "But you've already made that decision, haven't you."

He gave me a warm smile
and an affectionate pat on the shoulder and replied, 'To use your
terminology, Ashton, the decision has made us."

I could see that. Yes. I could see it all
around that quietened room.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Turnabout

I went looking for Jennifer and found her in
the great room, at the window, staring into the night. The scene
was exactly as I had last seen it—the geometric designs, the
equipment still in place.

I went up behind her and touched her lightly
on the shoulder with my lips. She shivered and said, "Bet you can't
guess what I was just thinking about."

I told her, "Turn off the jinn and I'll give
it a shot."

"I have been very frightened of you, you
know."

"Shouldn't be. I seldom ever leave teeth
marks."

"Worse than that, my love. You leave worse
than that."

I said, "But that's not why you ran from me
at Malibu."

"No. That was a challenge."

"It was?"

"Yes." Our eyes were
meeting in the reflective surface of the window. "I decided if you
were genuine then you'd find us. If not...who needed
you."

I said, "Cold. That is very cold, Jen."

"I needed you, genuine or not. Still do.
But, then, your authenticity has been resoundingly established,
hasn't it."

“
Has it?”

"Yes. You have the jinn."

"Or they have me."

She shivered. "It seems
they have us all." Hollow laugh. "Difference between thee and me,
my love—you've always known it. Pardon me if it takes me awhile to
get used to the idea."

I pointed out, "By whatever name, you know,
it's the same force. Same result."

"For you, maybe. Not for me."

"Why not?"

She turned and presented
herself to me in a fashion model's pose. "What do you see, Ashton?
A mature woman with one foot into her sixties? Hardly! But that
Hale seduction story I confided to you happened
thirty years
ago. You were a mere
child, yourself, at the time. My God, Ashton, I was twenty-seven
years old and still a virgin! Bride of science, indeed! Well, I'm
fifty-seven now and a virgin still, to all practical purposes.
Never married, never bore a child, never loved a man so much that
it made me ache inside."

I said, "I understand."

"Do you? How could you possibly understand?
Wait thirty years, Ashton, then look back and tell me that you
understand. How could you possibly understand?"

I shrugged, smiled, and
said, "So, maybe I don't."

"No, maybe you don't. This is not a cosmetic
job I'm wearing, you know. I'm ovulating again. I am at the very
peak of life again. I have a second chance at it. Can you
understand that? A second chance! I can do it all again! But, this
time, with the benefit of mature viewpoint."

"I think that's great," I told her. "So why
all the agonizing...?"

"Oh damn it, Ashton, you know I can't do it
again!"

"Why not?"

She turned back to the
window, brooding darkly onto the night. After a moment, she quietly
declared, "This all means something, doesn't it. It has very deep
meaning."

"Life's like that," I said.

"I mean..."

"I know what you mean. What you need to
understand, though, is that nothing has changed, not really. Your
perceptions may have changed. But the thing being perceived has
not changed. Which reality do you want, Jen? Do you want the aching
love, the house full of kids? Nothing wrong with that. Take it. And
feel blessed. But don't feel damned by any alternative. Take what
you need, Jen. Because what you need needs you, also."

"That is very profound, Ashton."

"It's just that kind of world,
Jennifer."

She said, "Thank you. I love you. I could be
your mother. But I love you."

She was not looking at me, though, not even
at my reflection. Her arms were crossed at her chest, feet wide
apart, head bent.

I told her, "That's the sweetest thing one
person can say to another," and then I got away from there and left
her to her own thoughts.

The timing was pretty good on that, too,
because Greg Souza was at the front door. He pulled me outside,
then into a car, saying, "Damn, it gets cold up here at night."

We lit cigarettes, cracked a window for
ventilating the smoke. I asked him, "What's up?"

"Time," he replied.

"What does that mean?"

"I owe you this, because of—and don't ever
say that I don't pay my bills. It's no breach, anyway, because I
got this indirectly."

"So tell me what you got, Greg."

"This old Indian mission down here at the
foot of the mountain..."

"Yeah?"

"It is now a staging area. Soldiers and
equipment all over the place."

I said, "Okay. Is this a rerun, Greg? Didn't
you already tell me they're declaring a military zone?"

"Yeh. But I told you eight o'clock."

"So now what are you telling me?"

He consulted his wrist,
said, "It is now five minutes past two. In fifty-five minutes, a
big government jet will land at the air base up by Riverside. It
will disgorge a large contingent of civilian and military
scientists, whose mission is to lock up everything here—I
mean
seal
it—audit and pack up all the data that has been developed by
Donaldson's team, and haul the whole thing back to Washington for
analysis—Donaldson and his people included."

I said, "They'll have a hell of a time
packing up the jinn."

He said, "The what?"

"Private joke," I said. "I take it our
scientists have no vote in the matter."

"You take it right. No more vote than any
other draftee."

"Like that, eh?'

"Yeh, exactly like that.
And they're not waiting for eight o'clock. They'll be coming here
by choppers from Riverside. Soooo...I figure, what with the usual
milling around and all on the ground at Riverside, maybe an hour.
They could be here by four. So if you would like to avoid all
that..."

I said, "They'd take me, too?"

"Hey, you're on
my
list, pal. But who's
to say what they'll think if they find you cozying up, here. They
might decide to just, uh, what the hell, debrief you
too."

I said, "Okay. Thanks, Greg."

"I'll be right out here somewhere. Keeping
things in sight. You know. So, when you're ready... Just present
yourself. I'll come collect you."

"I'll want my car."

"Give me the keys. I'll move it. I have a
hunch nothing will move out of that gate after these guys arrive.
Pentagon bunch. You know them."

Yes, I knew them. Had been one myself, once,
as had Souza. We both knew them.

I gave him the keys and told him, "Be
gentle, please."

He chuckled. "Yeh, I know, she bruises
easy."

I told him, "We were wrong about Jennifer
Harrel, though."

"Yeh?"

"Yeah. It will seem crazy but it's not.
She's who she says she is. And I'm not so sure I want to miss any
of this, Greg. I want to see some Pentagon faces when they know
what I know."

"What is this you know?"

I gave him a long look, then told him, "Naw,
naw, you'd never believe it."