Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series)

by Pendleton, Don

  "A lot worse?"

  "A lot worse, yes."

  "Like the dolphins."

  "Yes. About six months ago she met this woman who claims to have some sort of psychic connection with dolphins. Her name is Dee Townsend. About Penny's age, and—"

  "What would that be?"

  "Penny's age? Oh, I—you can't ask me that."

  I grinned. "Okay. What about this psychic?"

  "I guess she's psychic only with dolphins. At least she claims to be. She leads these groups to Zuma Beach twice a week. They sit out there and call the dolphins." She shrugged. "I guess they come because the same people keep going back and back."

  "You say the name is Dee Townsend?"

  "Uh-huh. I think she's quite sincere. But she's a little batty, too."

  I said, "But the dolphins come."

  Julie smiled. "Okay. Maybe she's not so batty."

  "What kind of messages are they getting from the dolphins?"

  "Peace and love and brotherhood and all the usual stuff. Dee is writing a book. So I guess there's more to it than that. But it seems mainly, what I get from Penny, just that they love us and are worried about us, and they're afraid we're going to destroy the planet. Them with it, I guess."

  I said, "Uh-huh."

  "Penny has joined the antinuclear group. I guess she has donated quite a bit of money. And she goes to their rallies. You know she was arrested last month in Nevada."

  I said, "No, I didn't know that."

  "Uh-huh. It was a protest demonstration. They sat in the road and blocked the entry to that underground test site. The police came and hauled them away. Penny was one of those."

  "What else has she been into?"

  "Oh it's always something. Central America, the Middle East, whatever. Penny's always good for a few dollars and a celebrity face on television."

  "Is this what you call scattered?"

  "Wouldn't you? She hasn't made a picture in a year and a half."

  “Ted told me that, yeah. Guess he's pretty upset about it."

  "Well it's his meal ticket, isn't it."

  I mildly suggested, "Maybe that's not entirely fair. It sounds to me like it has been a symbiotic relationship. They feed each other. Why shouldn't he be concerned about that?"

  She said, "I guess you're right. But where is he now? —with all this going on?"

  I said, "All this what?"

  "You know what I mean. All this."

  "The dolphins."

  "Yes."

  "And the swimming pool."

  "Yes."

  "And Donovan."

  "Yes." She blinked at me, caught herself; said, "What? Who is Donovan?"

  "He's the guy in the silver suit. The kind Penny was wearing last night."

  "What?"

  "You know what. Focus on it. Penny was wearing a uniform. It was like a workout suit except silvery metallic. Donovan wore one, too. Focus."

  "I—I can't. I thought I—but it..."

  "We were aboard the spacecraft. Penny was there. Donovan was there. Silver uniforms. Big domed room. Long ramp. Focus. We went down the ramp hand in hand and ended up on my living room floor. Focus, Julie, dammit."

  “I can’ t.”

  I had to believe it, because I had been watching her eyes and reading the fuzzies in there. All she was getting were phantom fragments freezing between the synapses.

  But I thought I knew how to get at it.

  "Ever been hypnotized?" I asked quietly.

  "No."

  "Do you trust me?"

  She silently debated that one for a moment, then replied, "I guess so."

  "Would you like to find out for sure how crazy you are?"

  "I think so."

  "Let me put you in trance."

  Her gaze rebounded from mine and fled to an inspection of our surroundings. Presently her eyes rested on me and she began breathing again.

  "Do you know what you're doing? I mean, is it safe?"

  I said, "Promise, I know what I'm doing and your consciousness will be entirely safe with me. I think it's important that we find out what is buried in your memory gaps. I'd love to find out what is buried in mine, but I don't know anyone competent who I would trust with that. You're lucky; you've got me."

  She looked about her again, said in a weak voice: "Right here?"

  "My place," I said.

  "Oh dear," she said.

  "What more could you give me at my place," I pointed out, "that you have not already given?"

  She laughed quietly, took my hand, looked down at it; murmured, "Let's go find out."

  Chapter Twenty-two: Of Spoken Word

  There is nothing magical or mystical about hypnosis. A lot of phenomenal stuff can happen under hypnosis, sure, but that is because the mind itself is phenomenal and hypnosis can free it up to do its thing. The hypnotic trance is simply another state of consciousness, entirely natural, during which the hypnotist directly accesses the deeper domains of the mind.

  There is more to it than that, of course, and there are various levels of trance. The deeper the trance, the more phenomenal the results, but even the lightest levels of trance can produce marked alterations of personality if the therapist is patient and persistent. What that means is that eight to ten or more light-trance sessions may be required to achieve the same results that a single deep-trance session would produce. Of course I did not have time for patience and persistence, so I was hoping that Julie Marsini would prove to be a good subject for deep-trance hypnosis.

  As it turned out, she was an excellent subject. I have worked with hypnosis quite a bit, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of subjects I have known to achieve the very deep somnambulistic level in the first session. In that level of trance the subject can open the eyes and walk about the room without breaking the trance, can produce startlingly strong positive and negative hallucinations, can even produce different personalities, and of course has absolute memory recall.

  Julie was in a somnambulistic trance five minutes after I began the induction routines. She opened her eyes upon command—laughed, wept, sang, shivered, and shuddered upon command—altered her own heartbeat, and raised and lowered her own blood pressure upon command.

  I had a hot one and I loved it. At a more relaxed time I would have paid this girl to sit for me in a research project. But the time was not relaxed, the circumstances not right for leisurely research. So I went right to work on her repressed memories. She was comfortably reclined on the old leather chair in my study, eyes open and looking at me, and if someone had walked in on that conversation there would not have been a clue as to what was actually going on there.

  "Are you comfortable?"

  "Oh very."

  "Stay comfortable. Shift about however you'd like to remain comfortable. Remain focused on me. Any other sounds that may come into this room will only deepen your trance. You will find no distractions. Focus on me. Respond only to me. Speak only the truth, only the whole truth, and speak only to me. Do not fabricate answers for me, Julie. Do not try to please me by telling me something simply because you think I want to hear that particular thing. It will not please me, Julie, if you tell me anything but the truth. Do you understand?"

  "Yes. I understand."

  "What is your name?"

  "My name is Julie Marsini."

  "And how old are you, Julie?"

  "I am—I think I am—I was told that I was four when Poppa found me. That was twenty-four years ago. So I guess I'm twenty-eight. Is that right?"

  "The mathematics are right, yes. You say Poppa found you. Where did he find you?"

  "I guess I was in a home."

  "But you don't know for sure?"

  "I don't know for sure. I was four when Poppa found me.

  "How about your birth certificate? Doesn't it tell you when you were born?"

  "I don't have one. I never had one. Poppa always laughed and said he found me under a rock."

  "Poppa was Giorgio Marsini?"
/>   "Yes."

  "Was he nice to you?"

  "Oh yes."

  "You loved him."

  "Oh yes, I loved him."

  "Did he ever talk to you about where and how he found you?”

  Julie smiled, enjoying some warm memory. "Under a rock in Never Never Land."

  "Do you love Penny Laker?"

  "Oh yes. We are like sisters."

  "Do you like living with Penny and working with Penny?"

  "Oh yes."

  "There's nothing else you'd like to be doing with your life?”

  "No. What else would I do?"

  "You're a bright girl, a pretty girl. You could do anything you wanted to do. What do you want to do?"

  "I must serve my sister."

  "What? You must serve her?"

  "Yes, I must."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Who told me that? Who told me that?"

  "I asked you, Julie. Who told you that you must serve your sister?"

  My subject was becoming agitated. I moved quickly to another question.

  "It's okay, just relax, everything's okay. Tell me about the dolphins."

  "Peace and love."

  "Did you know that dolphins are carnivorous? They are predators."

  "They eat fish, I think."

  "Yes, and that makes them predators. So where is all this peace and love when the big fish is eating the little fish?"

  "Well a dolphin is not a fish."

  "I was speaking figuratively. Dolphins are no different than men, are they? Don't we both hunt and fish and eat flesh?"

  "I guess so."

  "So I guess peace and love depends upon the point of view."

  "I guess so."

  "How many dolphins are in your swimming pool right now?"

  “Two, I think."

  "How do you know that?"

  "I saw two. Didn't we see two?"

  "Yes, we saw two dolphins swimming in the pool. What are those dolphins eating? The ones in your pool. What are they eating?"

  "I don't know."

  "How did they get there?"

  "I don't know."

  "Who enlarged the pool?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did Donovan enlarge the pool and bring the dolphins?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes? Donovan did that?"

  "Maybe he did."

  "You know Donovan, then."

  "I must serve my sister."

  "Did Donovan tell you that?"

  "No. I don't know." She was getting flustered again. "D'Ahnov'e'n."

  This last word came with clicks and tongue trills. I had no idea what she'd said.

  "Give me that again, Julie. That last word. Say it again."

  She said it the same way. I asked her to spell it. She spelled it the way I showed above. A phonetic spelling that comes close but does not duplicate the clicks and trills is: Duh-awn-ove-ee-un.

  I was momentarily flustered myself.

  "That is Donovan?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "Okay. Let's take it back to the very first time you saw or met with Donovan. Drift back to that point in time, your first meeting with Donovan. Now tell me about it,"

  "Uh, forbidden, I cannot."

  "No, I think you can. Someone has programmed you, Julie. Now we're going to de-program. I want you to tell me about your very first meeting with Donovan."

  "I cannot."

  "Was Penny there?" I had encountered a block, and I was trying to get around it.

  "Penny is always there."

  "Can you see her uniform?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you describe it for me?"

  "Yes. It is like silver lamé. It fits very closely like a bodysuit."

  "What is Penny's name when she is wearing the uniform?"

  "Her name is Penny."

  "What is her other name, her real name?"

  "She is Penny. Penny loves me. I will serve my sister."

  "Clear to the grave, eh?"

  "Till it is time."

  "Time for what?"

  "Time for the change."

  "What change?"

  "You know... change, metamorphosis, the new world."

  "Where is the new world?"

  "I don't know. Return. It will return."

  "Return from where?"

  "From the depths, from the slumber."

  "Where are the depths? Where is the new world slumbering?"

  "Pyramid."

  "Pyramid? What does that mean, Julie? Tell me what pyramid means to you."

  "Promise. We shall return."

  "Try triangle. What does the triangle mean?"

  "Trine. Holy trinity. Union. The triangle is perfection. It is father, son, and holy ghost. It is three gathered together in my name. It is..."

  "Go on. What else does the triangle mean?"

  I immediately wished I hadn't asked that. Because Julie began talking a streak in that other tongue, the click-and-trill language, and I did not get her back again until I terminated the trance.

  I later dubbed that part of the tape and took it to a language expert at UCLA. He thought I was playing a joke on him, wanted to know how I'd managed to get an African Bushman and a dolphin at the same microphone at the same time. I just let it go at that because I knew the guy couldn't help me anyway.

  As for Julie and that first trance session, I thought it best to keep the wraps on for the moment, so I brought her back with no memory of the trance. She looked at me with a smile and said, "Didn't work, huh?"

  "We'll do better next time," I assured her.

  “When will we try again?"

  "Later tonight, maybe," I replied.

  "Oh. Well. How will we ever fill the time between now and then?"

  But of course she knew how. We both knew how.

  Time is relative, you see. It can be a burden or a joy, a trial or a celebration.

  We both opted for joyful celebration, which is what loving should always be. Even and especially with the new world a-dawning, and D'Ahnov'e'n waiting in the wings to cart the old one away.

  Chapter Twenty-three: Tagged and Bagged

  If you keep up with the UFO stuff then you probably already know that many people who experience so-called encounters of the third kind—usually an abduction experience—have very little conscious memory of the encounter until the echoes of it begin to plague their dreams or until they seek therapy for a mental disturbance caused by the encounter. Hypnosis is usually employed in the latter case, the victims regressed, and the story extracted from their subconscious, such as in the highly publicized case of the New England couple, Betty and Barney Hill. The Hill case has become a textbook example of such encounters, in which the victims usually remember seeing a UFO and then report a discontinuity of experience, sometimes with a memory gap of many hours.

  Under hypnotic regression, they then relate a terrifying story of capture by strange beings who subject them to medical examinations but otherwise treat them kindly and let them go.

  For a close parallel with a better yardstick, try to put yourself inside the hide of an endangered animal such as a bear or mountain goat in the American West who is chased down by a helicopter and shot with a tranquilizer gun by an animal conservation team, then either tagged for future tracking or airlifted to a better feeding area.

  How do you describe the experience to your friends? More than that, how do you explain it to yourself?

  A human is surely in every respect as much or more an alien to a mountain goat as visitors from the Pleiades are to us. Don't try to tell the mountain goat where Denver is located, certainly not Los Angeles, and don't expect him ever to understand why these strange creatures who walk upright on their hind legs swoop down from the skies to abduct him, stick sharp objects into him or attach strange devices to him, then let him go.

  Of course we can find an even closer parallel. Roll it back a few thousand or even a few hundred years with a time machine and go exploring with a Land Rover, see what kin
d of stories are developed by intelligent human beings of that time frame who encounter you during your explorations.

  To get an idea, though, of just how close to us—how much like us—are these modern aliens in their terrifying flying machines, consider the human world of just two hundred years ago and check how far we have advanced technologically in that short span of time. You've turned the clock back in just two centuries to the time before railroads or steamships, before radio or the telegraph, before vaccinations or blood transfusions or even anesthesia. That is the more alien world to people of today. Space travel and supersonic transportation—radio and television and global communications networks—organ transplants and test-tube babies—automobiles and freeways and subways and skyscrapers—there is the alien world to men like Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, neither of whom could have accommodated a mental model of our world from their viewpoint of a mere two hundred years ago.

  So what if the Pleiadians are a couple of hundred years more advanced than us. That does not make them gods. If our technological pace of only the past fifty years continues into the year 2200 a.d., how quaint will our world of today seem to our descendants?

  So I find it very strange that men and women today speak from our halls of science in such limiting terms, who ridicule without even investigating any report of visitors from other worlds, who use our own infantile understanding of science and technology as a yardstick to measure the limitations of older worlds than ours.

  Isaac Newton could have had no mental model of the Concorde SST or even a Piper Cub. In his wildest fantasies he could not have concocted a vision of today's La Guardia Airport or the launchpads at Cape Kennedy'— not even the automobile or express elevator or the Empire State building—motion pictures?—television?—Yankee Stadium?—how about a vacuum cleaner, when he did not even know electricity?

  Does the average person today really understand how far we have come in just the past century? Or how about just the past sixty years, the beginning of which marked Lindbergh's heroic flight across the Atlantic?

  So what about Julie Marsini's "new world" and what could that signify?

  Could it mean that Planet Earth is about to become a member of the intergalactic community of enlightened worlds?

  Or were we going to be chastised and demoted and sent back to try to learn it right next time?