Джеффри Лорд: Pirates Of Gohar

Blade mentally crossed his fingers. He was comfortable with machinery, but more so with pre-electronic-era equipment than with Leighton's pet computers and similar modern marvels. He knew just enough about them to know how many things could go wrong even under the most favorable conditions.

That thought led Blade on to a specific suggestion. «Do we really need to have all the workshops down here in the Complex? They take up space, and we don't exactly have that to burn.»

«Nor hardware either,» said Leighton with a wry grin.

«Very true. Some of them are a fire and smoke hazard, or could send an electrical surge onto the main circuits and damage the laboratories. Also, having the workshops down here means higher security ratings for all the people who work in them, more paperwork, and more expense.»

Leighton cocked his head on one side and pulled at the tuft of white hair protruding from behind his left ear. «You do have a point, Richard. Possibly a very good one. It would mean more traveling for me, of course-«

«I hadn't thought of that. I'm sorry.»

«Don't be.» Leighton interlaced his fingers and cracked all his knuckles with a sound like a string of firecrackers. «The day I get too old to travel from here to-oh, some suburb-and back twice a week, I'll be too old for the rest of the job as well. No, what concerns me more is security for an outside laboratory. Here everything is behind those damned Special Branch men on the surface and underneath two hundred feet of earth and rock.»

«That's true, sir. But-and correct me if I'm wrong-how much could anyone tell about the Project from simply looking at the components? I couldn't tell if they belong to a stereo set, a tank's range-finder, or a missile guidance system.

«In fact, it could improve our security, putting all the work that isn't readily identifiable above ground. The fewer people we need down here, the better we can screen each one, and the less chance anybody has of penetrating the Complex.»

Blade knew what he was talking about there. Twice the Russians had put agents inside the Complex. Neither of them had survived to report anything, but there'd been a stronger element of luck in this than Blade liked.

Leighton nodded slowly. «You may very well be right. I'll certainly join you in raising the question with J. But I must say, I thought you always left this sort of thing to the desk types?»

«I used to, but this is fairly important to the Project. That means it's important to whatever chances I have of dying in bed. Also, if I do die in bed, it will be because I eventually do wind up behind a desk. Hopefully it will be a desk connected with the Project, but it's going to be a desk all the same. I might as well get used to the idea now.»

A faint chiming crept in from the corridor outside the room-Leighton's private signal. «Speak of the devil,» he said. «That's probably J now.»

The old spymaster seldom showed it, but he saw Blade as the son he'd never had. It took something really desperate in the way of emergencies to keep him from coming down to the Complex and seeing Blade off to Dimension X.

It was J. He was waiting outside the main computer room, Lord Leighton's private sanctuary. No matter what clearance they had or where else in the Project's Complex they could go, no one got through the last door to the computers except in Leighton's company.

J still looked austere, undramatic, and superbly tailored, with no visible clue to his profession even to the most discerning eye. It was obvious that he was in excellent condition for a man of his age, but what that age was and what he did to keep in condition would be mysteries.

There was a slight change. When the Project began, one could have taken him for a senior civil servant. Now one could take him for that same civil servant, recently retired. Appearances weren't entirely deceiving. As the Dimension X Project grew and stretched out tentacles into more and more areas that needed security precautions, J had less and less to do with the day-to-day activities of MI6A. Except for major decisions, his three Deputy Directors virtually ran the store now. No one objected to this arrangement, either. Even the most obtuse Prime Minister or Minister of Defense knew that J working half-time was worth any other two men working full-time. There are great names-the equivalent of Rembrandt or Einstein-in the shadowy world of intelligence and espionage. J was one of these.

After the usual greetings, J and Leighton sat down to talk, while Blade went off to the changing room. He threaded his way among the gray crackle-finished consoles of the main computer. There weren't any loose wires dangling, and everything had been largely cleaned up. Just as well-it would be years before anyone let Leighton play with the sleek, squat consoles of the KALI system again.

Inside the changing room the routine was nearly the same as always. Blade stripped down and pulled on a brief loincloth. The loincloth was more like the fig-leaf in a painting than anything useful. Blade hardly ever arrived in Dimension X other than naked as a newborn babe. When he did, it seemed to be more a matter of luck than anything else. At least he no longer had to smear himself with that foul-smelling black grease to prevent electrical burns.

When he returned to Leighton and J, they'd just finished discussing his proposal for an above-ground laboratory complex. «Sound enough, in theory,» said J. «I much appreciate your suggestion, Richard. Unfortunately we still can't be sure how much about the affair of the Ngaa reached the opposition. We did our best, but that may not have been good enough. If it wasn't, the KGB may know enough about the Project to recognize anything associated with it. Then they'd give any new laboratory a high priority and give us a first-class headache. Frankly, I'd rather devote our resources to getting that second capsule operational.»

Leighton grinned like the Cheshire cat. J was normally rather reluctant to give his blessing to any of the scientist's cherished ideas. Getting J behind the two-capsule rig made it almost a foregone conclusion, given time, money, and hard work.

«So would I, sir,» said Blade. «I usually need all the help I can get in Dimension X.»

«We'll listen more carefully than usual for any strange noises from the opposition,» said J. «If we don't hear anything in the next few months, we can certainly give the matter some further thought.» He looked around at the rock walls. «This blasted tomb certainly does cost a bloody fortune.»

Blade stepped up to the KALI capsule, the twin of the one in the damaged workshop. This one had its lid standing open and the padded interior, contoured specifically to Blade's body, standing open. As he lay down, he saw Leighton press the START button on the controls for the main sequence. Then the scientist and J gripped the lid and carefully swung it shut on Blade. Now he was in darkness, as complete as if he'd already been in a lightless alternate universe. He knew that he was also linked to the computer more thoroughly than he'd ever been in the days of wires and cobra-headed metal electrodes.

Then there was no more blackness, only an eye-searing flash, which made Blade think he'd been shifted into still another universe, one filled with light. He felt a tingling all over his skin, a series of sharp blows on his chest and temples, and then he was falling endlessly through a cool clear blueness.

The dream-like falling sensation went on until Blade got used to it. It began to remind him of the days he'd been weightless in Riyannah's spaceship on the way to Kanan, during perhaps the strangest and certainly the most far-traveling of his adventures. That time, he'd traveled not only some unmeasurable distance across the Dimensions, but at least a hundred light-years across interstellar space as well.