"Yes, damn right it's bully." He hugged me and I hugged him back without a trace of embarrassment. "See here, my friend," he said, after the embrace, "I have been authorized to invite you to stay with us. It was a unanimous vote. We'd all like you to be one of us."
I said, "I already feel that I am one of you, Holden. But I appreciate the gesture."
"It's no gesture, my boy. Let me assure you, it's no gesture. And our adventure is just beginning. We'd like you to share that with us, if that is your desire. No pressure, of course, ho!—no!—no pressure of any kind, not in a matter such as this!—but—'"
I said, "I don't have a lot of rollback available, Holden. If you could bottle a few jinn for me, though, why I'd be delighted to take a rollback or two home with me for future use."
He laughed and I laughed and we had a good time with it while he explained that was not exactly what he'd had in mind; then Isaac came over and the whole thing turned very sober again.
"The troops are coming," I told him, then went on to relate what I'd learned from Souza.
The news did not particularly surprise him. "Perfectly understandable," was his comment. "Actually they have been very patient with us. Much more so than..."
I knew what he meant. I said, "It was a disaster over there."
He nodded and replied, "Yes, I got that from Washington yesterday morning. And I can understand their concern that this thing be approached with full safeguards. However..."
I said, "You know what the pressures will be, I'm sure. They'll want to put you people in test tubes and probe for every conceivable effect. And they'll want to draw more blood than your bodies are capable of producing. They'll be trying to synthesize and package this thing, and I would suppose the first move would be toward establishing a brain bank—politicians first, no doubt—to preserve senior wisdom. You people are going to be first-line curiosities. If Barnum were alive today, he'd be lobbying for the exploitation rights." I was beginning to feel like Scenario Souza, but Isaac came to the rescue.
"We have considered all that, of course," he told me, "and it has helped form our decision. Do you know what that is?"
I knew what it was, yes. I'd known it hours earlier, back in the circle, before any talk of "decision." But it was not all that clear a knowingness, more a vague premonition or a priori reasoning to an inevitable effect.
"Essentially, yes," I replied. "I know what you must do."
"Good." He looked to Holden, back to me. "Will you join us?"
I said, very quietly, "Not this time, Isaac."
"I understand," he said. "You have worlds of your own to conquer, first, what?"
I said, "Something like that, yes."
We shook hands, and then we embraced. There were tears in his eyes. He said, "God bless you, Ashton."
"He blessed me with you, Isaac," I replied. "And Holden, and all the others. Tell him, when you see him, that I told you that."
He smiled a smile of pure delight, turned it onto Holden, then the two old friends bade me farewell and went arm in arm into the great room.
Laura had been waiting her chance at me. She, too, embraced me, and very warmly. I kissed her lightly on the lips and she gave me a moist nibble then laughed softly and said, "I hope you understand."
I replied, "Of course I understand. Some things I don't, though."
"Such as?"
"The rollback itself."
She said, "Well, don't feel bad. It had us going for awhile, there, too. We were trying to ascribe it to a chemical reaction, some hormonal effect at the cellular level. Very dynamic process, you see. It took your insights to make us see that the process was occurring at a much more fundamental level."
"Which is?"
She laughed again and told me, "You already have the answer to that."
"I do?"
"You gave it to us."
I said, "But I have a lousy memory."
She laughed some more—obviously very happy, at this moment in time—then said, "There isn't time now, my dear, to refresh your lousy memory but I'm sure it will all come back to you, bit by bit. You will awaken in the middle of some night, I'm sure, and cry out 'Eureka!' And then you will understand how space-time structures are vested with living energy from outside space and time to expand within space and time in thermal equilibrium."
"You are speaking of an energy packet," I decided.
"Of a type, yes. The space-time structure that arises is a direct consequence of the energy initially vested in a living field. This structure imbeds itself in matter as a guiding-wave structure to harmonize with spatial properties, expending its own vested energy in the process. As the initial living energy is dissipated, the guiding waves are proportionately weakened and the material structure suffers consequent destabilization. This is the phenomenon we observe as the aging process. It is not a strictly biological process, as classical theory supposes, but is a consequence of entropy."
I said, "Really."
"Yes. Well, to qualify that, entropic influences within the living system which are then broadcast throughout the biological structure."
I said, "So the rollback results from an increase of energy in the living field."
"A shot in the arm, so to speak, yes. The jinn revitalize the living system."
"Which, I suppose, are jinn, itself."
"Jinn systems," she corrected me.
"Got you," I said, but I was not sure of that. I would have to think about it. Even then, probably, I would never be sure.
I told her, "Godspeed, Laura."
She told me, "Speed as relative to what?"—laughed softly, pinched my cheek, and left me standing there with forty billion questions trembling at my tongue.
The adventure, yes, for these people, was just beginning.
Chapter Thirty: Eye to Eye
For all my spouting on the subject, I know nothing of life and death, birth to burial and all that comes between. I am an observer and know it, but know not what I observe nor even where I stand for point of view.
I began this case in one of those unnerving confrontations with brutal death and I am still aware of the bruises placed upon my senses by that confrontation, but I am no closer to an understanding of any world in which such ignoble trespasses occur as a matter of routine. I am aware of and immersed in the human longing for justice and beauty and compassion, and all the transmutations thereof as viewed in our institutions and philosophies, so I cannot turn blindly and mutely away from human suffering with trite phrases to appease the pain, and yet I know that the brutalities and the ugliness and the pain inherent in our human situation is not the true story of mankind, is not the moving force that propels us from amoeba to starman—but also do I stand dumb and frozen in the apprehension of that force, unable to comprehend or to even intelligently examine its face or its implications.
So that is where I was, on that Tuesday morning atop Mount Palomar, as my new friends made final preparations for the greatest adventure of all. Isaac had hit it squarely on the head in his observation, moments earlier, that I would not join them in the adventure because I had my "own worlds to conquer." All of my worlds are within myself, and I had conquered none of them. How would I then dare to venture into a greater unknown, unsure as I was of the most intimate unknowns?
I could not go with them, no, but I must admit that I greatly would like to have done so. I felt a deep sadness, also, with the realization that the time for the great farewell had arrived. I had developed a strong affection for these hardy souls, despite the brief time I'd known with them, so it was an especially emotional moment when Holden came back to me in the "safe zone" to take my hand once again in a private good-bye.
"Wouldn't be here, except for you, you know," he reminded me, the strong old voice thick with emotion. "You are a remarkable young man. See to it that you stay that way. Do not surrender to frittery. Keep the horizons distant."
I replied, "Thank you, Holden. Come back to see me, from time to time, why don't you. Keep me straight.
The door is always open, you know."
He said, "Ho, yes, that would be bully. Very well. I shall try to arrange that."
And then there was Jennifer again.
She told me, "I think I just may find the time to do it all. What do you think of that?"
I told her, "Eternity is a very long time. So why not?"
She kissed me, passionately, said, "I'm going to do this again someday, too. With you."
I said, "Maybe you will, kid. I hope you do."
"You're still calling me 'kid.' That's sweet."
I said, "Are we talking biological age or what?"
She said, brightly, "You're right. Maybe you're old enough, somewhere, to be my great-great-grandfather."
I told her, "I think it's more likely that we all began together, in that 'somewhere,' where time and age are meaningless."
She arched her brows at me and said, "Give me time to think about that, eh?"
'Take all the time in the world, kid," I told her. "You've got it."
And then, finally, there was Isaac.
I asked him, "Are you Esau? Or are you Jacob?"
He laughed dryly as he replied, "Delighted that you read the old accounts, Ashton. Keep doing so. Much wisdom there, if one can find the key. Take that very story, now..."
I wondered, "Who told it first?"
He suggested, "In your terminology, perhaps it told itself."
"I like that, yeah," I decided.
"All the records are in the lab, Ashton. We've combined them all into a commentary. I doubt that much can be done with them, without the jinn, but..."
I said, "Well, it will keep the boys busy for a long time, anyway. Maybe it will even inspire some new mandala theory and a new age of wizardry."
He sighed. "At least there will be no jinn bombs. I jest, of course."
I said, "Yes, I caught you there, Isaac."
He went away smiling, and that is my final memory of Isaac.
It was twenty minutes before four o'clock on Tuesday morning, Palomar Mountain time, when they all took their places in the circle. Several new items of instrumentation had been added to the equipment. The control panel was preset with an automatic timer and I had been cautioned to remain in the safety zone behind the bar. There was no light in there, now, except that provided by the starry night, but I could see them clearly, all of them, and I could even hear their excited breathing.
But then the machinery started.
I was staring so intently into that twilit room, for what seemed an interminable period, but later turned out to be a matter of some thirty seconds, that I began to wonder if my eyes were playing tricks.
I could see movement, in there—or I guess you could call it movement, some fine disarrangement of the molecular atmosphere, and this movement was infused with a pale glow of color. I wondered if that same effect had been present when I was in that circle during the earlier "experiment" or if this was a new wrinkle produced by the added instruments. I would want a shot at those records in the lab but doubted very much that I would ever see them. And I wondered if I were seeing the jinn or the jinn effect—like a bubble chamber—or if my eyes were just playing tricks.
But then I saw Holden lean forward in his chair and swivel that beautiful old head toward me. He was glowing, and I mean literally. As bad as the lighting was, I could have counted the hairs of his brows, and I knew that he was looking me straight in the eye.
Something happened there, in that eye contact. Something ignited inside my own head and I had the sensation of peering out through a telescope—or maybe it was down through a microscope—infinity is infinity, isn't it, from whichever end—I just know that I was looking into an entirely different reality, and I was seeing it through that eye-to-eye contact with Holden.
It was a brief glimpse, the flash of a shutter and then it was gone, and I realized that although I seemed to be looking through Holden I was no longer looking at Holden. That is, not the physical Holden. I blinked, and in that blink the whole thing resolved and I could see the physical Holden in his chair, head swiveled for eye contact with me, and I saw also another Holden, an ephemeral Holden shimmering against the window glass some ten to twelve feet above the physical Holden, a rapidly shrinking holographic image of Holden.
This was all very quick, hardly more than a finger-snap in time, yet I saw it clearly. The holographic image, or whatever, contracted to a point then flared up again and expanded instantly into an almost fearsome sight. The closest thing to which I can relate this second image are drawings I have seen of the human nervous system—the nerve trunks, themselves, streaming down from the brain, and of course the brain itself. Then, much quicker than I can tell it, here, that second image convoluted into a small standing wave of sheer energy, contracted to a point, and vanished.
I said, or something inside of me cried out, "Ho! bully!"—but already I was involved in the other transfigurations as one-by-one they slipped away and winked into the night.
To say that I was overcome by all this is to simply lose the meanings of words. I was frozen to the bar stool, a lump of space-time matter attempting to assimilate the meaning of meaning, and I was still there at four o'clock when Souza and the advance guard entered the house.
Someone turned on the lights and someone else threw the main power breaker to the equipment. That broke my spell but I still sat there a frozen lump while Souza ventured into the circle.
A moment later, I heard him say, his voice coining as though from the far side of the universe, "They're dead. My God, they're all dead."
But I knew better. I could still see in the eye of my mind that thoroughly delighted and enraptured old face of my good friend Holden as he swirled to a kinder place, where time and age are not even states of mind, simply do not exist, and cannot be found in the meaning of meaning.
Ho! Bully!
Epilogue: Casefile Wrap-Up
Well, I did not get that ride in a saucer, or even see one, but any flying machine has to be satisfied with ranking as a minor phenomenon and nowhere in the same class with jinn, so what the hell. I guess they departed with the team, because I have found no "static" around Palomar since that event.
But where did they "depart" to? "Where is that?" as Holden would say.
I wish I knew. I have had all manner of weird dreams, almost on a daily basis, ever since—but they do not really tell me anything useful. It is not enough to simply declare that they are "dead," because I really cannot think of them that way. There were no marks on the bodies, no visible evidence of any sort of destructive violence, and I cannot believe that those people were even remotely thinking of "dying"—at least not in the usual sense in which we humans commonly think of death. Rather, they evinced all the excitement and sense of adventure of any travelers embarking on a delightful exploration of uncharted territory. The general mental atmosphere shared by that entire group during those final minutes on earth was one of "sober joy," if that is not a contradiction in terms.
I have to believe that they had some understanding, or at least some presentiment, of what they were headed toward. The whole phenomenon of biological age regression, mind-blowing in its own right, was reduced to a mere side-effect in their total sensing of what was opening to them. Certainly they had not invited me to join them in a "suicide pact," for God's sake, but in an exciting adventure.
And maybe they were not the first to experience something like this. Certainly our myths, legends, and religious beliefs—and these are legion—must be based on something more substantial than mere imagination. All the mystery religions have their equivalent of "the ascension" as well as various concepts of conscious union and personal relationships with the divine. Where such ideas have come from, barring divine revelation, is anybody's guess, so feel free to call it how you see it.
This group was not a religious group, unless you want to call science a religion—as well it may be. I believe that they regarded the jinn as a natural phenomenon and that they saw nothing at all superna
tural about the circumstances—no more so than, say, had they been boarding a flying saucer for transport to another universe.
To this world, of course, they were indeed dead. The official "cause of death" was recorded as "radiation poisoning," but don't hold your breath waiting for evidence of that to be presented to a coroner's jury—or even for a jury, period. Also do not sit up waiting for any sort of public statement from Washington on this case, not if the eyes and jawlines of that Pentagon task force mean anything. They "debriefed" me for twelve hours straight then threw up their hands and ordered me to remain available for further "testimony," but I've heard nothing from them since the day I drove down off that mountain. The mountain is still there, of course, and that giant eye on the sky continues to probe the mysteries of the space-time universe.
Greg Souza is back into his routine with industrial security, on the surface, anyway, and he has yet to evince any curiosity whatever about the events of those final hours at Palomar. One scenario too many, maybe. For one of the lighter and almost comical sidelights to this case, Souza was actually "retained" by a group that sometimes fronts for the iron curtain diplomatic missions in this country. He'd also been "retained," of course, by our own government, so he was riding both steeds for awhile, there, trying to pull the ends together. I have heard nothing to this day about the operators I tangled with, their identities, none of it. It's as though none of it ever happened, except that final event, there, atop the mountain, and I guess that is just as well.
I did learn that none of these scientists left any immediate family. Isaac's estate, most of which was tied up in that mansion in Glendale, went to establish a fund for particularly gifted students who would be lost to science without financial assistance. The childless Summerfields, Holden and Laura, left just about everything to a trust that had been in place for years to be used "for the advancement and integration of the sciences, the arts, and the philosophies"—with a significant percentage of that directed toward Pala scholars.
Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Page 18
