Darrell M Dodge

The Antik Harp Darrell M Dodge

Adventure-hungry Clyde Sinclair leaves his childhood home in Massachusetts and lands a job with a wind energy company in Boulder, Colorado. In Boulder he meets George (Cosmo) Cist, a nuclear engineer and member of the "Combine," a quasi-religious organization that discovered the meaning of pictographs warning of climate change (predicted in the 1960's by NASA), revealed by the interaction of an obsolete computer and an ancient Jews harp. Clyde joins Cosmo piloting the towboat Glendy Burke, delivering wind turbines to test the possibility of protecting Combine "clergy" in an underground "Noosphere" by first experimenting with Indians in a converted oil tank. The goal is to see how long people could live in that environment. Abandoned by Cosmo because of his likeability, Clyde finds more adventure than he anticipated when he is kidnapped at a ballgame by a Mistress, whose dungeon he reluctantly escapes. He then encounters Beatrice, a beautiful red-haired ex-flight attendant who accompanies him to meet members of the Combine. Several weeks later, when Clyde leaves for Ambridge, Pennsylvania, with Beatrice, he begins to wonder about the legality of the Combine's activities.