Free Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective by Don Pendleton Page B

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