Free Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series) by Don Pendleton Page B

removed mine and tossed it across the room; said, "Who needs
it?"
    She
released hers at the underarm cinch and rearranged it across the lap without
looking at me. Beautiful body, yeah. Glowing flesh, sculpted breasts, very
inviting.
    I
said, "That looks much more comfortable."
    Eyes
down, she murmured, "It is. Thank you."
    We
concluded the meal in silence. I lit a cigarette, offered her one, she
declined. She still was avoiding my eyes. I said, "What's bothering
you?"
    "Nothing
is bothering me," she replied.
    "Queen
Victoria," I suggested gently.
    She
smiled and shook her head. "No, I've never felt confined by that standard.
Guess I—well maybe so. Maybe I'm wondering what you think of me."
    "Does
it matter?"
    "That's
bothering me, too. It does matter."
    I
chewed it for a moment, then asked, "So what do you think of me?"
    She
raised luminous eyes to mine, smiled, said: "You touched depths in me that
had never been touched before. I think it confuses me. I'm wondering if it
confuses you."
    I
said, "I think you're talking about falling in love."
    "Maybe.
I feel sweet sixteen again."
    I
said, "Couldn't have been so long that you would have forgotten how that
feels."
    She
said, "Oh yes it could."
    Those
eyes were looking at me from far across the galaxy. I found myself shivering
inside and knew that I had to ask the question.
    "Are
you one of them, Julie?"
    "Yes.
But then so are you."
    "In
what way?"
    "In
every way. They've awakened you now, as they awakened me."
    "Why?"
    "Why?
Because it is time again."
    "Time
for what?"
    "I
don't know. I just understand that it is time again."
    'Time
for something very important."
    "Yes."
    "We're
supposed to help."
    "I
think so, yes."
    "How?"
    Those
luminous eyes fell to an examination of the tablecloth. Suddenly I was into
her. I can't explain how this happens because I do not understand it myself
even though I have had such experiences throughout my life. I just knew
suddenly that our minds were touching and that I was knowing what she was
knowing. Not in words but in images, feelings, emotions.
    I
encountered a great sadness in that interchange, an almost overpowering sense
of regret, coupled with images of great destruction and widespread tragedy.
    It
came and went in a flash, but I had the images in my mind now, and I had the
great sorrow.
    Julie
said, very quietly, "You just invaded me, didn't you."
    I
replied, now totally enveloped in her mood, "Not intentionally. Sorry. Can
we talk about it?"
    "No."
    "Then
would you like to make love again?"
    "Yes."
    I
stood up and took her hand and led her to my bed, and we did it again—the right
way, this time—with tenderness, with feeling, and with respect.
    And,
afterward, Julie said to me in a whispery voice, "Life is not a game. It
is a terribly complex mission, and this is our only reward."
    “ This is?"
    "Love
is."
    I
understood then why she wanted so desperately to be in love. Why we all do. And
why some of us opt out for unsatisfactory substitutes easier to achieve. Find a
negative human expression and you have encountered one of those substitutes.
That was my illumination, there between the sheets with a fellow alien from the
far side of the galaxy. But I still did not know what time it was.

    More
than thirty-five years ago, at the very dawn of the modern UFO age, a scholarly
Russian Jew from Israel landed on our shores with a manuscript that would
forever challenge man's view of himself, of his own history, and of his solar
system. The man's name is Immanuel Velikovsky, and his Worlds in Collision was destined to ignite a fire storm of
controversy that now stands as the most shameful attempt to suppress
nonpolitical ideas since the Inquisition.
    Velikovsky's
great sin was that he chose to accept as literal truth the vast treasury of
written history which modern scholars universally regard as religious myth.
Another great sin was his vast intellect and fearless determination to state
his views into the teeth of academic dogma and