"I see."
"Wish I did. What does it mean?"
She came inside and perched on the edge of a chair,
gazing at me through those distant eyes. "Is it like a platitude? Like, 'time heals all wounds'?"
"Not like that," I said. "More like..."
“Time is mere vibration," she said dully.
"Right," I said, "thank you." I now understood just a tad more than I thought I did.
Chapter Nine: Body Language
"Sorry," I explained, "you walked in on a little conversation I was having with myself."
She looked at her feet as she replied, 'Talking to yourself is okay, they say. It's when you start answering"
I said, "Oh well, I'm certifiably crazy anyway. How far can I get beyond that?"
She looked up at me, started to say something but checked herself, stood up with a bounce, and went to the window to peer out onto the ocean. The sun was setting, streaking the sky with awesome reds and purples.
She was dressed simply in blouse and short skirt, walking shoes, carried the same tote bag that I'd noticed the first time she came calling. I could see the outlines of her thighs through the skirt as she stood at the big window, and I kept getting flashes of the way she'd looked in the string bikini.
Strikingly pretty girl, I decided, and wondered why she hadn't struck me that way the first time.
"I hope you're not crazy," she said while still gazing through the window. The mood was sober, almost somber. "Because I am really scared and I need someone really sane to talk to."
I went to the bar, said: "Then we'd better start with some lubricant. What's your brand?"
She turned to me with a tentative smile, said, "What?"
I picked up a bottle and shook it gently.
She said, "Oh. Maybe some white wine, if you have it. Or..."
"Have it," I assured her.
I floated an ice cube in a glass of bourbon, poured some Chablis, carried the drinks to the couch, invited her with my eyes to join me there. She came over and sank down at the far end—far enough that I had to stretch the arm to pass the wine to her. She sipped it delicately with no evidence that she was even tasting it and we sat there in a sort of brooding silence while she rehearsed her speech or whatever and I quietly allowed it.
Finally she said, "Maybe I'm going crazy myself."
"Maybe," I replied agreeably.
"You asked me today if..."
"Yes?"
"You were asking about Penny, and you asked if she'd been having these memory gaps and...all that."
"Yes?”
"Well she has. And I think I have, too."
"Since when?"
Those eyes hit me at full voltage then receded back to the other side of the galaxy as she replied, "Will I'm not sure. But at least for the past year. The first time it happened, I mean the first time I was aware it happened, Penny told me that I had probably just left the body for a moment."
"There's a way to check that," I suggested.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Tell me exactly what you were doing the first time you noticed a discontinuity."
"Of...?"
"Of time, of experience."
"I was driving along the Hollywood Freeway."
"And what happened?"
"Well I wanted to get off on Sunset. I woke up on the Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks. I totally spaced twenty minutes. It was the middle of the afternoon."
"Tell me what you were thinking just before..."
"I was thinking I had to get off on Sunset. I was supposed to be meeting Penny at her agent's office."
"And where were you at that time?"
"Just a couple of exits away. I started moving to the right so I could exit and the next thing I knew I was in Sherman Oaks. I know I wasn't unconscious because it was very heavy traffic and I have a hard enough time with that when I'm fully awake."
I said, "Give me another example just like that but not while you were driving."
She immediately replied, "Well this afternoon. I was sitting in the lanai reading, and Penny was doing her pool time. I heard her in the water and I always keep a corner of the mind alerted when she is in the pool. You know, I try to stay aware of her. And I was aware and alert to her even though I was reading. But then it was like a snap of the fingers and you were sitting across the table from me and Penny had left the pool."
"You don't remember us sitting there talking while Penny swam?"
"No I—"
"You don't remember her getting out of the pool and joining us at the table?"
She wet her lower lip with her tongue. "No."
"She spoke to you about the dolphins."
"What dolphins?"
"The dolphins for the pool."
That struck her as funny, even through the worry. She laughed softy and said, "That would be the ragged end for Ted, I'm afraid."
"Penny told you that Ted was no longer a problem."
"Meaning what?'
I shrugged. "You don't remember any of that?"
"No. So what is happening to us?"
I said, "You began this by reminding me that I asked you today about Penny's memory gaps."
"Yes?"
"Do you remember when I asked you that?"
"Today sometime. Wasn't it?"
"Was it?"
I saw a flare deep in the eyes. She screwed up her face and gazed across the room.
I asked her, "Are you even sure I spoke about that?"
After a moment she replied, "No. I can't remember the exact..."
I said, "It was this afternoon in Brentwood. In the lanai, beside the pool. Penny was in the pool. You and I sat at the table and talked. Focus on that."
"I...I can't seem—I don't even remember you leaving."
I said, "That's because you left first. But we talked, and we talked before and after Penny left the pool. Don't you remember any of that?"
"No."
"You don't remember discussing dolphins for the pool with Penny."
She laughed again. "No."
"Or anything in particular I said while the two of you were talking about the dolphins?"
"No."
"Yet you retained what I said about Penny."
After a moment she said, "Maybe I dreamed it. I don't remember hearing you say it but I know you asked about Penny's memory gaps."
"As though," I suggested, "maybe someone else told you about it."
She showed me a worried frown. "Yes."
Her glass was empty. I took it from her and went to the bar to refill it. The phone rang before I could do that. The caller was Ted Bransen. He sounded far away, totally nonaggressive, frightened.
"Ford? Something crazy has happened."
"Where are you, Ted?"
"You're never going to believe this. I've been trying to reach Penny for half an hour. Do you know where she is?"
I looked at Julie. She was lost in her own thoughts, curled onto the couch, gazing across through the window at the final rays of the setting sun. I think I will always remember her just that way, in just that moment.
I told Bransen, "I don't know where she is but I'll try to find her if it's important. What's happening? Where are you?"
"Jesus, I still can't believe it. I'm in Buenos Aires, Ford."
I muttered to myself, "Not another," then raised the voice to inquire, "How's the weather down there?"
"Weather's fine. I'm not. I don't know how the hell— my secretary says I called her at nine o'clock from my car while en route to the office. I told her to cancel all my appointments for the day, or so she says. How the hell did I get to Argentina?"
I sighed, looked again at Julie, said, "You don't remember."
"I do not remember a goddamn thing except driving along this strange goddamned street. I stop for directions and discover I'm in Buenos Aires, for God's sake. It's like the goddamned Twilight Zone, Ford. I've lost more than eight goddamned hours. This is crazy. I don't know anybody in Argentina. Wh
y would I come to Argentina?"
I asked him, "What is the last thing you remember before Argentina?"
He replied in a voice still shaking: "Goddammit, I was on my way to work."
I was mainly just trying to calm the guy. He sounded as though he could shatter at any moment. I said, "So you went on to the airport instead and hopped a flight to anywhere. Happens all the time, in this high-pressured world we live in. Just relax and—"
"I don't have my fucking passport!" He was screaming at me. "I didn't take any fucking airplanes! Don't you understand what I'm telling you? I'm on my way to the office. Okay? I'm driving along and suddenly realize I'm lost, don't recognize anything. I stop and ask and they say fucking Buenos Aires, for God's sake. I'm not crazy. I'm telling you I'm not crazy!"
I said, "Try to cool it, Ted. Of course you're not crazy. It is not crazy to have a spot of amnesia. It is not—no airplanes? Are you saying...?"
"My car, right, same car, the Bentley—I'm driving to work in the Bentley and next I know it's eight hours later, I'm still driving the Bentley, but now I'm in Buenos Aires. Amnesia doesn't move a car from Santa Monica Boulevard to Buenos Aires in eight hours, does it?"
I said, "Ted, listen..."
"I'm in all kind of trouble, dammit. No passport, no sticker for the car, can't explain how I got into the country. I can't tell these people I was just driving to work, can I? What the hell do I tell them? They'll put me in a straitjacket if I..."
I said, "Hold the phone, don't go away. I'm going to give you the number of a man to contact there locally. Now call the guy. He'll understand and he will not put you in a straitjacket. Just a minute, I have to get the number."
I put down the phone and went into the study, found the name and number in Buenos Aires I was looking for, picked up the phone in there, and passed it on to the bewildered Ted Bransen. He said, "Thanks," in a barely audible voice then asked me, "What is going on here, Ford?"
I replied, "Not sure. Just call that number, tell the guy the truth, he'll help you."
"Is this a doctor?"
"Not a medical doctor, no. But he is a scientist and he will understand and he will help. So call him."
"Okay. Try to find Penny. Tell her I'm okay, but dammit, don't tell her about this."
I hung up before replying, "She could probably tell you about this, Ted." I stared at the telephone for a moment just trying to size the thing in my mind, then I went back to the other room and hung up that phone.
Julie was now standing at the window.
And standing right outside the window—well, actually, hovering at about twenty yards off the deck, was a bright blue oval light about twelve feet in diameter. Another stood slightly above and several hundred yards to the rear, and it was much larger. It is very difficult to describe these things because the colors are unlike any color we usually experience on earth and the movements are unlike anything we usually see moving through our skies. Even the light itself has a different quality, otherworldly, totally alien.
The small saucer was doing a little dance.
Just sort of like a graceful wobble, tilting on its axis in a rhythmic dance.
And Julie's body was sort of like duplicating that motion.
The implications were fairly obvious.
They were conversing.
Chapter Ten: Wish Upon a Star
At this point, things become a bit jumbled in my mind, almost dreamlike, but I knew and I know that I was not dreaming. It was happening in the real world and in real time. I just did not know how to define "it."
I think I saw the small saucer moving closer to the house but there was no sound. It just sort of floated in to hover with the leading edge almost touching the deck outside. I turned to check out Julie at that moment, who was just standing there now like in a trance and softly humming a tune like a lullaby but none I could identify.
When I looked back toward the saucer again, a ramp had come down from the center of it and these little creatures were scampering across it. They had very quick movements with occasional freezes, like squirrels do, or like someone who is not well coordinated, or maybe like mechanical devices. Maybe they were robots. Whatever, they had the ability to run, walk, fly, and hover with a minimum of effort, and they moved very quickly.
I have a very difficult time describing these entities, so please bear with me—and I don't even know what to call them, so let's stick with entities. I'd say around four feet tall, sort of thick bodies but very skinny limbs. I think there were four limbs but I wouldn't swear to that. No obvious waist or neck; I don't remember hands or feet. The eyes were what you really noticed. About the size and shape of small eggs, very black and glittery, took up most of the face. Not sure if what I saw at the sides of the heads were ears or antennae. No nose, very strange mouth—just a slit from ear to ear. They are almost comic-looking and so were their movements. No sounds that I recall. I think more than likely they were robots.
I don't remember them coming inside. I do remember feeling very alarmed. Okay, scared; I was just about frozen with it. I do remember thinking that I should not resist but just let it happen and hope for the best. They were fully in charge of the situation and I knew it. No physical resistance was possible, I was thinking, so I may as well relax and go with it.
That is what I tried to do.
I don't know how many there were. But they were all around me. They lifted me up, I guess, and carried me out—and I probably weigh more than the whole bunch put together. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that they lifted or carried me. I don't think I walked but also I don't remember being touched. It was more a floating sensation. I don't remember being taken out of the house or entering the saucer. I do remember a cramped room in very bright light but no sensation of movement. I believe the small saucer than rendezvoused with the larger craft because I also remember "floating" along this very long ramp, like going up into the bowels of a very large structure.
I went through a couple of air locks—or something like air locks—and then I was on my feet, I was alone, and I was walking along this brightly lighted corridor toward a huge, domed room. A Michael Rennie type of character (The Day the Earth Stood Still) walked out to greet me. He wore a jumpsuit and soft black boots. The suit was made of some soft, thin fabric that fit him like skin from his neck to his ankles and wrists, no cuffs, a sort of glowing metallic silvery color.
He was about my same height and build and he wore a very gentle and reassuring smile. The lips were a bit thin but I have seen lips that thin on earth; the eyes a bit almond-shaped and I could not discern an iris, but not all that noticeable; ears rather small and shaped sort of like upside-down from ours.
We talked just like people.
He said, "Hello, Ashton. Thank you for coming without a fuss. Please be assured that we mean you no harm. You may call me Donovan."
I said, "Is that your real name?"
He replied, with a chuckle, "No, but it's close enough. You would have trouble with our pronunciation."
He led me into the domed room and over to a large oval window. I could see the lights of Southern California, from Santa Barbara to San Diego, spread like sparkling jewels far below.
"Do you recognize that?" he asked me.
I said, "I've never seen it from this height but I know where it is."
Donovan smiled and said, "Stay right here," then he
went to a control panel about twenty feet away and did something there.
I felt a slight lurch, barely noticeable. Donovan called to me from the panel, "Now what do you see?"
It sure wasn't Southern California below me now. For one thing, the image was reversed. As though we had swung around the earlier scene to regard it from the other side.
I looked at him and shook my head. He did something else at the panel and I experienced another faint sense of movement. When I looked out the window again, the scene below was much closer. I could pick out moving streams of lights that had to be cars moving
along highways—a number of bridges, tall buildings.
I said, in a voice much too quiet for him to have heard, "L.A. to New York at the snap of a finger."
But he heard that. He called over to me, "Very good," and then as I was watching we blipped over to London for a closeup on Big Ben, to Paris and the Eiffel Tower, to Honolulu and Diamond Head.
When Donovan rejoined me at the window, California was again directly below.
"How do you do that?" I asked him. "You just broke every physical law in the universe."
He laughed quietly and replied, "Not quite. But we keep trying."
The guy was very "human." Wouldn't take much Hollywood makeup for him to be indistinguishable in any crowd on earth. I felt like a mental pygmy in his presence, though.
He must have read my thoughts because he told me in very gentle tones: "We are not that different, Ashton. Not as close as brothers, perhaps, but certainly closer than cousins. Your origins are my origins."
I asked, "Where would that be?"
He said, "It no longer exists and has not during the time of man on earth, so how could I tell you in terms that you would understand."
I suggested, "But you know all about man on earth."
He smiled. "More than you might believe. Oh, you are a troublesome bunch. But we love you nonetheless."
I said, "Well that's comforting. A lot of people think you mean to eat us or something."
He smiled again and replied, "Please be assured that we are confirmed vegetarians."
Before I could think of anything else to say, we were joined by another couple.
Both female.
One was Julie, dressed just as I had last seen her.
The other was Penny Laker, or a pretty close double. She wore an outfit identical to Donovan's and on her it was a knockout.
Julie's eyes looked a bit glassy, otherwise she seemed okay in every respect. She gave me a tight smile and said, "Isn't this exciting?"
I replied, "Better than Disneyland."
The four of us laughed.
Penny touched my hand and said, "We have important work, Ashton. Will you help us?"
“Time to conquer earth?" I asked, trying to smile as I said it.
Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series Book 6) Page 5