What lay on the other three sides of this park was a matter of educated guesswork. Blade kept angling steadily farther and farther away from the road, listening to the traffic' noises slowly fade. He also listened for any sound that might give him a clue of what lay in the other directions. He was as alert as a hunting animal. He also had to fight an urge to laugh at the notion of having to use his skills in escape, evasion, silent movement, and all the rest here in his native country.
Suddenly the sound of voices came from the other side of a screen of bushes. Blade dropped fiat on the ground and listened. He heard footsteps, the metallic chink of military equipment, then more voices. One of them had an unmistakable flavor of cockney.
«'E must've 'eaded this way, or, Blooey'd 'ave picked 'im up. «
«Don't know 'bout that,» said the other voice. «If he's running around starkers, he might be a bit off in the head. I'm not going to worry, no matter what Sergeant Bloody Lamb says.»
Blade lay still until both the footsteps and the voices faded away, and for a little longer after that. The hunt was on, that was certain. It sounded as if the army was taking part in it. That made no sense, unless he was in or near some military installation, which didn't seem likely.
In any case, he'd have to turn back, at least for the moment. The bushes and trees ahead made a barrier too thick to push through quickly or quietly. Blade rose to a crouch and began retracing his steps, moving even more quietly than before.
After a hundred yards or so he changed direction again. His new course took him down a gentle slope, heavily overgrown with low shrubs. He was able to keep under cover all the way down the slope, until it suddenly steepened and he found himself standing on the edge of a stream. The stream flowed through a steep-sided gulley nearly eight feet deep. Fifty feet upstream a narrow, whitewashed wooden bridge crossed the gulley.
Crossing the stream looked like a gamble, whichever way he did it. But he didn't seem to have any choice, and he certainly had no time to lose. He carefully scanned every tree and bush and patch of open ground he could see. Then he slipped from the shelter of the last bush and slid down the side of the gulley.
He landed with a faint splash in a slow-moving trickle of cool, muddy water. He crossed it in two steps and began to look for handholds in the bank in front of him. Just one, and he'd be up the bank and back under cover.
Blade was just reaching out for a likely-looking root when someone shouted angrily.
«Hi there! Stop, in the name of the law!»
A large man in a London policeman's uniform was standing on the bridge, glowering down at Blade. He was also pointing at Blade an equally unmistakable and thoroughly vicious-looking submachine gun. It was a remarkably incongruous weapon for a London bobby, normally armed with nothing more formidable than a truncheon and his bare fists.
Blade's eyes flicked quickly up and down the gulley. There was no cover he could possibly reach before the bobby could put half a dozen bullets through him. He stepped away from the bank into the center of the stream, turned to face the bobby, and carefully raised both hands over his head.
The chase was over. It would have been over even if he'd had a weapon to pick off the bobby, submachine gun and all. Security in this wartime Britain must be very tight indeed if even the bobbies were carrying submachine guns. In that case, resisting arrest would be fatal, sooner or later.
«That's much better,» said the bobby, with grim cheerfulness. «Now, come toward me, verrrrry slowly, and just stand quiet where I tell you.»
Blade shuffled toward the bridge, the oozy mud of the stream bottom sucking at his feet each time he put them down and clinging to them each time he raised them. It was like walking through a bowl of sticky oatmeal.
Blade was ten feet away when the bobby held up one hand. Blade noticed that he was wearing tan gloves with some sort of red badge on the backs. No doubt a wartime uniform change.
«Right there, now.» The bobby took the whistle hanging around his neck, stuck it in his mouth, and began blowing long shrill blasts. The submachine gun remained pointed straight at Blade.
Now that he was close enough, Blade recognized the submachine gun the bobby was carrying. It was an Israeli Uzi. It was an odd weapon to see in the hands of a London bobby, but under the circumstances neither surprising nor sinister. The Uzi was one of the best submachine guns in the world. When the war broke out, no doubt someone in the Ministry of Defense had arranged a license to manufacture it here in Britain. Just another detail of this new and confusing time in which Blade found himself. There was going to be a whole great mass of those details before things got sorted out for him, if they ever did.
The bobby stopped blowing his whistle. «Now, I don't know what you think you're doing, running around without any clothes on. This is Englor, not some black country down in the tropics. We've got laws, and at a time like this-«For a moment the bobby seemed too disgusted over Blade's behavior to go on, but that moment didn't last long. The bobby's lecture did.
As it went on, Blade began to wonder if the man had some sort of speech defect. Every time he spoke the name of the country, it came out «Englor.» Something wasn't working right-either the policeman's tongue or Blade's hearing.
Before the bobby could finish reading Blade the whole lecture, help arrived in the form of two soldiers. Both wore battledress and combat webbing and were also carrying Uzis. Hard on their heels appeared the military man Blade had first met, his pistol still in his hand. His face was a good deal redder than before.
«Is this the man, sir?» asked the bobby.
The man stared at Blade. It was a cold and unfriendly stare. Then he nodded and holstered his pistol. «I am Lieutenant Colonel Michael Morris, Duke of Pembroke's Own Light Infantry. Who might you be?»
Blade did a quick set of mental calculations. Refusing to give his name would be extremely suspicious. Giving a false name would be just as bad. What would be a false name under the circumstances? «Richard Blade» might get him in as much hot water as any name he could make up on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, it would stand up better under any interrogation with truth serum or lie detectors, and he had to reckon on that possibility. All in all, it would probably be better to give his own name.
«Richard Blade.»
«Well, Mr. Blade,» said the colonel. «I don't know what you think you're up to, trotting about the parks in your-in your present state of dress. But I'm quite sure a magistrate will be interested in finding out as soon as possible.»
That was no surprise. Blade wondered if the next question from Colonel Morris would be where he'd left his clothes. Blade hoped that question would remain unasked, because it could not be easily answered. At least it could not be answered in any way that would not lead to all sorts of other questions and in the end probably to danger for the secret of Dimension X. Blade was determined to keep that secret, even from his own countrymen and at the cost of his own life. He, would only relax on that point if he found himself face to face with J or Lord Leighton, alive and in the flesh.
Apparently Colonel Morris didn't care about Blade's clothes. He merely motioned to one of the soldiers, who threw a folded poncho down to Blade. Blade unfolded it, pulled it over his head, and scrambled up the side of the gulley. Morris took salutes from the two soldiers and the bobby, then strode briskly off down the path. The bobby led Blade off in the opposite direction, with the two soldiers falling in behind. The bobby had slung his submachine gun, but Blade noticed the two soldiers still held theirs at the ready.