Джеффри Лорд: Warlords Of Gaikon

Which, considering his profession, was bloody unlikely.

He crossed the room to the bar, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of Glenlivet and a glass. He had just put his hand on the soda-water siphon when the telephone rang. Blade picked up the receiver while he poured out the whiskey with the other hand.

«Hello, Richard?»

Blade couldn't help tensing for a moment, and he felt his heartbeat speed up in a brief flurry. The voice on the line belonged to the man called J. He was Blade's chief-among other things.

«Yes, sir?»

«Are you alone?» J had ever approved of Blade's open and energetic pursuit of women, but he had never done anything to interfere with it, either. He would not do that to Blade, whom he loved like the son he had never had. Besides, it was simply not proper for one gentleman to intrude into the private affairs of another or to pass judgment on them. And J was a gentleman to his fingertips.

He was also one of the most formidable spymasters in the history of intelligence operations.

«Yes, sir.» Blade couldn't help adding ruefully, «I hadn't planned to be, but that's the way it worked out.»

J's voice held a tinge of amusement as he continued. «Well, then, Richard. Will you be free to be at the Tower tomorrow at eleven?»

Blade grinned. «Of course, sir.»

«Very good, Richard,» said J. «His lordship will be waiting.» A click, and the line went dead.

Blade slowly put the receiver back in its cradle and finished preparing the Scotch and soda. Then he stretched out on the sofa and sipped it leisurely, savoring the smell and taste of every drop. It might be a long time before he tasted good Scotch again. In fact, he might never do so at all.

There was only one thing Richard Blade ever did at the Tower of London. He descended two hundred feet below it to a secret laboratory complex, to be strapped into a chair in the heart of a gigantic computer, the most advanced in the world. Then «his lordship»-Lord Leighton, England's most brilliant scientist-pulled a red switch. And Richard Blade vanished from England, to reappear-somewhere else.

That «somewhere else» they called Dimension X.

They would go on calling it Dimension X until they knew more about it, which would be a very long time. But Richard Blade was definitely the farthest-traveling man in the world, because he had been into Dimension X time after time. Each time so far he had returned to England alive and sane. Every journey into Dimension X was a grim battle for survival, and sooner or later he was going to lose one of those battles.

But Richard Blade believed that he owed England his best, everything his superb mind and body together could give. He had believed that when he was one of J's best agents in the secret intelligence agency MI6. He had gone on believing it when he became the only man in the world to travel into Dimension X and return safely.

Richard Blade was walking along the main corridor of the Project Dimension X complex below the Tower of London. J was walking beside him. The corridor stretched on ahead of the two men, apparently deserted and lifeless, with no ears to hear or eyes to. see anything the two men might do. But Blade knew that every step he took, every word he spoke, every gesture he made, was recorded by supersensitive electronic devices that scanned the corridor more intensively than a hundred human sentries could have done. The ability to travel to other dimensions was the most closely guarded secret in England, one that millions of pounds and a few lives had been spent to protect. Not even England's friends could be trusted with the secret of what Lord Leighton had done, and as for her enemies-

A thought struck Blade. «Is Lord Leighton planning any special effects for me this time?»

J shook his head. His voice held a mixture of relief and annoyance as he said, «There's really nothing ready to test that hasn't already failed. Lord Leighton doesn't dare make your trips too much more unpredictable than they already are!»

«No,» said Blade. «For better or worse, I'm his indispensable man.»

That was really doing the brilliant little scientist something of an injustice. Leighton normally had more regard for his computers than for any ten thousand human beings. But he did have some regard for Richard Blade, and it wasn't entirely the result of Blade's being indispensable to Project Dimension X. The scientist would rather have his budget canceled than admit it, but where Blade was concerned he almost had a heart.

«No, this time it's just a simple trip,» J continued. «Go out, and do your best to come back.»

That was just as well, all things considered. Sooner or later they would have to develop the ability to send Blade off to a specific dimension at will. And they would also have to stop landing Blade in Dimension X as naked as a newborn babe. And finally, they would have to learn to bring back from Dimension X more than what happened to be on or around Blade at the moment the computer gripped him for the return trip.

All of these things would be necessary if the project were ever to repay the millions of pounds it had swallowed up since its beginning. But in spite of all the time and money spent trying to do them, nothing much had happened. Even the trials had mostly just made Blade's trips more dangerous-and even Lord Leighton agreed that a trip into Dimension X was hair-raising enough at the best of times.

Besides, if Blade were killed, everything would come to a screeching halt. All the efforts to find even one other person who could travel into Dimension X and return alive and sane had also fallen flat.

So Blade was for now indeed the indispensable man for a project vital to England's future. It was not a status he enjoyed, although by temperament he was a natural adventurer.

As they approached the door into the computer rooms, Lord Leighton came out to meet them. He scuttled up to them on his polio-twisted legs, holding out a hand whose long, thin fingers were still surprisingly strong and skilled.

«Good morning, Richard. J's told you we're not putting any icing on your cake this time.»

«Yes, sir. He did.» After a pause, Blade said, «I sometimes wonder if we're not going to solve some of our problems by accident. We'll have given up any hope of finding a solution, and then suddenly one will leap out at us. Then all the sub-projects-«

Leighton shot Blade a venomous look, as if the younger man had just confessed to poisoning babies for a living. Blade managed to keep a grin off his face. Leighton believed almost religiously that the systematic application of the scientific method could solve any problem. Blade and J, on the other hand, had been professionals in the intelligence business. That was a business that ran as much by accident and educated guesswork as by any sort of system.

Now they were passing through a succession of rooms filled with supporting equipment, terminals, and white-coated technicians bending over them. There were three or four of those rooms-Blade had never bothered to count them exactly. Then finally they were in the heart of the whole complex, the main computer room.

The monstrous main computer towered toward the bare rock ceiling. The gray, crackled finish of the ranked consoles gave off no reflections, even from the harsh lighting. Blade walked over to the metal chair that stood in its glass booth in the middle of the chamber and looked down at it.

Then quickly he stepped into the small changing room in one corner of the chamber and stripped himself to the skin. Just as quickly, but much more carefully, he smeared himself all over with foul-smelling, black, greasy cream. Then he pulled on a loincloth and stepped back out into the chamber.

The rubber seat and back of the chair were as chilly as ever against his bare skin. Lord Leighton bustled about, busily attaching the mass of cobra-headed electrodes whose multicolored wires linked Blade to the computer. There seemed to be more of them than usual. Or was it just his impatience to be off that was making the wiring-up process seem longer?