Alb! Blade half smiled as he remembered the Princess Taleen. A saucy wench. Lovely and tawny skinned and a savage in lovemaking. It would be nice to see her again. Or would it? She was as dangerous as a barrel of dynamite.

«There is nothing of value in Alb,» he said, and grinned. «Nothing to make the Prime Minister happy. Sarma would be more like it. The uranium.»

Lord Leighton frowned impatiently. «I know, I know! You are missing the point, my dear boy. This is to be only a brief experiment at best. I will keep you in Alb for only a few moments, then bring you back. Because, if I can send you to Alb by choice, by predetermined setting, I can get you back any time I choose. I am sure of it.»

Blade was not so sure. And he saw why Lord L had not confided in J. «You mean, sir, that this is in a very real sense a brand-new experiment and you offer no guarantees?» He gazed at the awesome loom of the giant computer. «This is not really the same computer, sir?»

Lord L jammed his book beneath his arm and clasped his fragile blue-veined hands on his white-smocked breast. He favored Blade with one of his best smiles. As J would have put it, he was being smarmy.

«When did you return from your last trip into Dimension X, my boy?»

«Six months ago.» J had insisted on six-month intervals, time to find and assess any damage to Blade's brain tissue.

Lord L nodded. «Right. Six months. And during those six months I have been working every day, up to eighteen hours a day, on this machine. Of course it is not the same computer, Richard. How could it be? I don't intend it to be. Science can never stand still.»

Blade blinked at the old man and pretended to think. Pretended because he already knew what he was going to do, what he must do — go through with it. Never mind that it was a totally new approach and dangerous as hell. What else could he do? Who else was there? It was, after all, his job. His duty.

He nodded curtly to Lord L. «Okay, sir. Let's see if you can put me back in Alb. Let's get on with it.»

Lord L hobbled to the red button. He waved a hand. «Good boy. Good luck.» He pressed the button.

Lights flashed on the instrument board. Gauges spun. Blade felt the slow itch of the current pulsing in his veins and arteries. Soon now there would be pain and more pain and then an exploding universe. He would be hurled, flung, not up or down or out, but into a new dimension. He would awaken as naked as a newborn babe in some strange land, and the fight for survival would begin. He would—

He became aware, and because of that very awareness, knew that something had gone wrong. There was pain, yes, but it was only the current clawing at him. Racking him, flowing through the conductors of his bones, twisting him. Pain. Blade wanted to scream and found his jaws locked. He was still in the chair, still in the glass booth, still in Home Dimension. Burning and yet not scorched. There was no smell of burning flesh. Long blue sparks flashed from his toes and fingers, and a crackling halo encircled his head. And now smoke.

Smoke. Dense, greasy brown, it poured into the tiny enclosure from the guts of the machine. Miniature lightning stroked back and forth across the room and in the forked luminescence Blade saw Lord L staggering toward the instrument board. The old man was bent double, coughing and shielding his eyes as he fumbled for switches and toggles and buttons.

Blade made a great effort to leave the chair. The current still bound him. He struggled and threshed about, pitting his great muscles against the current and the tiny wires that held him as if they had been chains.

Lord L pressed a final button. The current drained away. Blade snapped the wires, brushed aside the electrodes and was about to leave the chair when he stopped and stared.

Between himself and Lord Leighton was a spinning vortex of brown smoke. It moved and undulated, writhing, taking form and then it ceased to be smoke and became—

What? What was it? For one of the few times in his life Blade knew the heart-shocking thrill of pure physical terror. Not so much at the man who stood there, if it was a man, but at the manner of appearance. Blade hesitated, his hands braced on the chair arms, wary, and now responsive to the massive dose of adrenaline pumped into his system by fear.

The creature shared his fear. And acted. It let out a high snarl of rage and terror and rushed at Lord Leighton. In its right hand, raised to kill, was a crude stone axe. The old man cowered back against the gauge board, his hands raised to fend off the blow, his voice quavering in a shrill scream.

«Help, Richard! Help me. Get it!»

Blade left his feet eight feet behind the thing and brought it down in a flying tackle. Its legs were covered with hair and it had a rancid animal smell. It was small, hardly half the size of Blade, but wiry and bulging with muscle. And as fast as a cat.

Lord L was screaming something that Blade could not make out. No time. The creature was on its feet and striking at him with the axe. Blade fended it off and got a wristhold and sent the axe flying across the room. The gaping mouth opened and long fangs slashed at Blade's throat. Blade held it off and struck with a tremendous right cross. He missed the jaw and jarred his hand and arm on an oversize skull.

A constant stream of furious sound came from the throat of the thing. Small deep-set eyes hated Blade. The thing screamed and slashed with long nails: «Orggggghhhhh— Orgggggggg— Ohhrrrrggrrr.»

Lord Leighton's voice, as from a far place, fell into recognizable words. «Be careful, Richard! For God's sake, be careful. Don't kill it! Don't hurt it! For God's sake, don't kill it!»

The sweating, struggling Blade had no time to appreciate the irony. He was too busy keeping whatever it was from killing him. Again and again he fought the fangs away from his throat and tried to get in a knockout blow, even a killing blow and to hell with his Lordship, but the creature was as fast and as slippery as a greased snake. It kept leaping at Blade, growling its Orggggggggg— orggggggggg—

Then Blade did what he should have done before. He stepped away. The thing stood gazing at him, hunched, long arms dangling, huge jaw thrust forward, looking at Blade in puzzlement and confusion.

Blade feinted with a left.

Orggggrggggggg— It sprang at him again.

Blade shifted his feet and brought the right in level and just right and with all his shoulder leverage behind it. His fist crashed home on the prognathic jaw. The man, animal, thing or creature slumped into a heap on the floor. Blade, panting and bleeding from a dozen scratches and cuts, stood looking down at it.

Lord Leighton leaped forward and caught Blade's arm. The old man was livid, sweating, shaking all over and in a mingled delirium of apprehension and delight. He literally danced round the supine figure on the rubberized floor of the computer room. The words came tumbling inchoate, hardly understandable.

«Don't hurt him — you mustn't hurt him — easy does it. A prize, Richard, a prize! Beyond my wildest dreams! A treasure — a veritable treasure. Must not harm it — by no means harm it— I— Something went wrong — something went wrong and—»

Blade wiped sweat from his eyes. «Yes, sir. Something sure as hell went wrong. What is it? Where did it come from? What are we going to do with it?»

Lord L ignored him. He was kneeling by the thing, examining the hairy body, stroking it like a baby with the colic.

«I don't know, Richard. Don't care. No time for all that now. But it must be from another dimension — a time lapse and possible parallel development and millions, maybe even billions of years. I—»

Lord Leighton came suddenly to his feet. He peered at Blade with his hooded eyes. «Top secret from now on, my boy. Absolute top security! No one must know about this. Absolutely no one. You understand that, my boy? Do you? An order, Richard, an absolute order.»