Chapter 2

Lord Leighton was not pleased with Blade's decision. He sat hunched sideways in his chair and stared at the younger man with yellow eyes, looking every bit the hunchbacked and evil-tempered little gnome he was. Lord L was very old and very famous and quite properly considered himself the foremost cybernetic genius of his time.

«It is not nearly time,» he complained. «We've only just implanted the crystal. Your hair hasn't even grown in yet.»

«Damn my hair,» said Blade. «I want to get on with it. Otherwise I might not go at all. I might funk it.»

J had been sitting quietly in a corner, sucking on his pipe and listening and watching, rather enjoying himself. Enjoying Lord L's discomfiture. J had noticed that in himself of late-more and more he had come to dislike Lord L, and all scientists, and he had struggled against it and lost.

Now he said, «Funk it, Richard? Not you. You never funked anything in your life, much less a mission of this importance.»

«I might this one,» said Blade. He smiled at J. Theirs was very nearly a father-and-son relationship. Blade was fond of the older man even though they were opposite types and the generation gap was great. J was dry as dust, Establishment to the core, something of a fussy old woman in dress and manner-and as much a genius as Lord L in his own line of work. He was a security man, head of MI6 and also of MI6A, the special security branch created for Project DX. He did his job superbly and hated it. As he spoke again he found himself almost wishing that Blade would funk it, would drop out and refuse the upcoming mission. They had a new man on tap, a trainee, and though he was no Richard Blade he would do.

Lord Leighton said: «Look, my boy. You don't really understand the problems. The telemetry is working, and the laser microprogramming is coming along, but there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done on the encephalographic code. And that is the crux of the whole matter! What we have just done, directing your route this afternoon by computer impulses, is primitive compared to what I hope to do. I tell you, Richard, the possibilities are limitless. There is literally no end-«

«And that,» said J dryly and with some malice, «is just the trouble. There never is any end to it, Lord L. There never will be, if you have your way. In any case, I'm sure that Dick has his reasons for wanting to start the mission now»

They were in the office suite far below the Tower of London. All three men were at present living there. J had given up his comfortable quarters on Half Moon Street and Blade had closed his flat in Kensington. His Lordship, though he owned a house in Prince's Gate, had to all intents and purposes lived under the Tower since the missions into Dimension X began. It was J's private opinion that Lord L would have slept with his precious computers if possible.

They were waiting for his answer. Lord L left his chair and shuffled about, looking frail and with his hump grotesque beneath his smock. Blade recognized the implicit appeal and steeled himself-he had seen it all before: Lord L representing himself as an old man, an aging genius about to die, a poor old fellow with a polio-wracked body who must be granted this last favor. Let things be done his way, just this last time.

J also recognized the gambit and his smile was icy. He nodded to Blade. «Speak up, Dick. You have never complained before, or tried to interfere in any way. You have obeyed orders, kept your mouth shut and performed splendidly. Surely you must have your reasons now. We're listening.»

The trouble was that Blade could not put his finger on it, really could not explain the feeling, the hunch or intuition, or whatever you wanted to call it, that had swept over him so suddenly when he leaped into the taxi. One moment it had not been there. The next moment it was. The urge to go, to begin the mission. It was almost as though the computer itself, working through the crystal in his brain, had spoken to him.

Blade did the best he could. «It is a feeling I have,» he told them. «A strong, an overpowering feeling, that I should go now. I can't name it and I won't try, but it's there. I think I had better obey it.»

Lord L snorted and said something vulgar. He was given to bad language when thwarted.

J nodded and smiled and said, «If you feel that strongly about it, my dear boy, by all means I think you should go. As soon as you like. I see no drawbacks, no reason for delay. The Prime Minister need not be consulted, though he will have to be informed after the fact. So I think-«

«Who gives a bloody good goddamn about the Prime Minister!»

Lord L hobbled around and around his desk. His thin white hair floated atop his pink skull and his leonine eyes had a baleful gleam. He pointed a graphite-stained finger at J.

«You know what you can bloody well do with the PM! It is my experiment I'm concerned with. This is our last chance, damn it. You know that, J. After this mission they will cut off our funds, and that will be the end of Project DX. It's a shame, a crime, a criminal waste and worse stupidity, but that is what they will do.»

J crossed his tweedy knees, blew on his pipe and gave the old man an insincere smile. «Maybe not. Not if we bring back some treasure this time.»

Lord L clenched a gnarled fist and shook it at the ceiling. «Treasure shit. Those fools can only think in terms of material things-gold, platinum, gems, uranium! Stupid pots that can't see beyond their noses. Project DX is treasure, damn it. The greatest discovery ever made by man. DX makes the moon landings look like a row on the Thames. We send a man into new dimensions, into dimensions that people do not even know exist, cannot conceive of existing, and we get him back safely. Five times we have done this, and those misbegotten bastards want to close us down because we aren't showing a profit. Suppose the Americans had thought so-they would never have landed on the moon!»

«A nation of shopkeepers,» J said smugly. «Profit or we don't play.» He began to ream his pipe. The worst was over. Lord L had forgotten his immediate displeasure with Blade, and with J, and had taken off on the powers that be. The thing was-and J, even loathing the X missions as he did, had to admit it-that the old man was right.

The outburst was over. Lord L went back to his desk and slid into his chair like an old crab, easing his hump.

Blade said: «About being out there five times, Lord L–I am the man who has done it and it has been my intuition, my hunches, if you please, that have kept me alive more often than not. I have survived all those various hells because I have followed my instincts. I think I had better follow my instinct now.»

The old man was making scribbles on onion-skin paper. He did not look up. «Very well. If you are so determined-it is your life, Richard, and you know best how to safeguard it. And, no matter what J thinks, your safety has always been my chief concern. It was, in fact, my main reason for implanting the crystal in your brain-so the machine could tap your stream of consciousness and, by means of the encephalographic code, give me a printout of your thoughts at the very instant they were occurring. I would know, Richard, exactly what you were thinking every moment. I would be aware of every situation in which you found yourself. In times of great danger I might be able to help by reversing the process and feeding my thoughts to you through the machine. Two heads are often better than one, Richard. It might save your life.»

Both Blade and J recognized the last appeal. The old man did not give up easily.

Richard Blade went to a chair, sat down quietly and did not speak for a few minutes. He had given much of himself to the DX experiments and he had not shirked duty. His body was still intact, but for the myriad scars, and he was not mad. Yet his brain was not the same and never would be again. Each time the computer altered his brains cells, restructuring them so he could perceive and exist in a new dimension, new deviation from the norm took place. The machine never restored the cellular configuration to exactly what it had been. The Blade who sat in this room now, thinking these thoughts, was as different from the Blade who had undertaken Mission No. I as the puling infant Blade was different from the grown man who had graduated Oxford and gone straight into MI6. No help for it. But there was a law of averages. Once more to the brink and let that be an end to it. He did not particularly fear the physical dangers, the battles he fought, the monsters he faced, the sexual exhaustion at times forced on him. He feared that his brain would be destroyed. He feared death, yes, but that was a secondary fear. Lord L and J. . they could not dream of what it was like out there. He could not tell them. Words did not do the job. It was like war. You had to undergo it personally to know what it was like.