Blade came back to consciousness lying on his stomach on the floor while Riyannah straddled his buttocks, gently massaging his neck and shoulders. He tried to move and discovered why she was massaging him. Every muscle and joint in his body ached as if he'd been pounded with clubs or crippled by arthritis. He decided to lie quietly and let Riyannah finish her work.

Her slim fingers were strong and highly skilled. After a few minutes Blade felt most of the actual pains fading to dull aches. «All right, Riyannah. Enough.» She climbed off him and sat cross-legged on the rug as he rose and tested each arm and leg separately.

«You were unconscious long enough to make me start to worry,» she said. «I didn't know if it was your mind or your body, but I was frightened. Menel ships don't carry doctors to treat other races.»

Blade found that he was horribly thirsty. He went over to the water tap and drank until all the dryness was out of his throat. Then he took Riyannah in his arms and stroked her hair. He could feel her trembling as he held her.

«This Transition wasn't as long as the ones aboard Earth ships, but it was more intense. Different wavelengths of the two fields, I suppose, but there wasn't anything in it that's going to be dangerous. You don't need to worry about me.»

«That's good,» said Riyannah slowly. «I–I thought I might have hurt or killed you by getting you aboard a Menel ship. I don't want to think about-«

«So don't think about it,» said Blade, silencing her with a kiss. «I needed to get to Kanan, and it was certainly too far to walk.»

She laughed, then her hands began moving on him, not massaging but in a different, very familiar way. He picked her up and carried her to the bed, and as he did his lips traveled down her throat to her breasts.

Afterward Riyannah fell asleep as if she'd been stunned. Blade found that once again his mind was working so fast he couldn't have slept if he'd wanted to.

He'd been wired into Lord Leighton's computer and hurled into Dimension X twenty-nine times now. Each time most of the sights and sensations which came to him as his brain twisted were unique. Some of them were identical ones by now, especially the feeling that the fabric of space itself was shaking, tearing, pulling apart, and his own body doing the same. Sometimes that sensation lasted for no more than a few heartbeats, but it was always there, unmistakable and unforgettable.

Now he'd felt the exact same sensation as the Menel ship made its Transition across the light-years. Like the geography of Targa, it was hard to believe this was a coincidence. Never mind that the Transition needed a Zin Field generator and the passage between Dimensions used Lord Leighton's computer linked to Blade's mind. There was something the two had in common.

What? Blade realized that the one little word was perhaps the most important question he'd ever faced in the whole history of Project Dimension X. It was also the one he was least likely to have answered.

Did the shift into Dimension X involve a shift in space as well? Blade had often wondered. Did the Transition through space also involve at least a brief passage through another Dimension? Or was it something else entirely, perhaps simpler, perhaps more complicated, certainly beyond Blade's ability to even guess?

Lord Leighton's computer might not be just a flawed, narrow, irregularly open door to other Dimensions. It could become a door to interstellar space, the settlement of other worlds, contact with other intelligent races, the immortality of humanity as it spread out from Earth-

Blade found himself sweating and stopped letting his mind run so far and so fast ahead of the facts. The questions his experiences here raised were nothing less than awesome. He still couldn't hope to answer any of them without the cooperation of the Kananites, and he wasn't even on Kanan yet. Even after he reached the planet, he suspected that getting Kananite cooperation would be a chancy business. And if all the people who could help him were scientists, whose basic language was some completely alien system of mathematics-

Blade realized that for once he was faced with problems which might simply be more than his mind could grasp. For all his gifts he was a practical man of action, not a theoretical scientist. If Lord Leighton were here, he could undoubtedly draw far more conclusions from the same amount of data than Blade could ever hope to. He'd also probably have less trouble getting more information out of the Kananites. Lord Leighton had been hammering appropriations out of boards and committees for nearly fifty years. He could take the Council of Kanan in his stride!

Except that Lord Leighton was now not only Dimensions but light-years away. Blade would have to do the best he could with what he knew and hope that would be enough.

Chapter 15

The starship made four more Transitions on its way to Kanan. Blade got used to the effects so quickly that on the last two he didn't even lose consciousness. He still felt the old familiar sensation of wrenched, disrupted space, and talking with Riyannah revealed she felt something very similar. He wasn't particularly surprised, since the Kananites were so humanoid. He wondered what the Menel felt in the moment of a Transition.

In ship's time it took nearly three weeks to complete all five Transitions. They came out of the last Transition on the edge of Kanan's system, thirty light-years from Targa. Then at a leisurely forty-five thousand miles a second they cruised in toward Kanan.

The trip took seven days. Kanan's star was a yellow type G, like Targa's star and like the Sun itself, but rather more massive. So its gravity field was stronger and a starship needed to make its last Transition farther out. Blade found himself growing impatient to reach Kanan, whatever waited for him there, and bored with life aboard ship.

They came into orbit around Kanan from the planet's night side. On the screen Blade saw an immense shadowy globe hanging against the darkness of space. The bluish light of its two moons left shimmering paths on the oceans, but the land masses were black pits.

In each of those pits glowed huge jewels, with a hundred faces in as many different colors-the Cities of Kanan, each holding forty or fifty million people. Around each of them spread a faint dusting of glowing powder-the lights of farms and country retreats. Other dots of light moved swiftly across the face of the darkness-spaceships and space stations in low orbits around the planet.

It was breathtaking, and Riyannah nearly had to drag Blade away from the screen to start packing their bags for landing. He moved about the cabin with only half his mind on the job. The other half was turning over memories of that jewel-studded globe.

For the first time in weeks, Blade felt strongly the knowledge that he was only one man facing a whole planet which might not be friendly or even cooperative. He also felt something else, just as strong and far less pleasant.

What a magnificent target Kanan made, seen from space!

Blade and Riyannah rode down to the planet's surface aboard an arrow-slim shuttle not much larger than a Home Dimension jet fighter. The shuttle flight took them halfway around the planet and gave Blade a good view of its geography. It had two large continental masses, both in the northern hemisphere, and an Australia sized island occupying most of the north polar region. From the southern end of the larger continent a string of islands trailed off across four thousand miles of ocean. Some of those islands were larger than Britain. Kanan seemed to have a little more water than Earth, but not enough more to crowd the billion Kananites.

Blade also counted at least a dozen large starships in orbit around Kanan, half of them Menel. If he'd still been inclined to distrust the Menel, he would have changed his mind now. One Menel ship with half a dozen hydrogen bombs aboard could slaughter fifty million Kananites in a surprise attack. Yet the Kananites let Menel ships orbit the planet as if they were totally harmless. The Kananites were willing to trust the Menel with the safety of their home planet, and they'd had five hundred years of experience with the walking asparagus stalks. The Kananites might be slow to react to a crisis, but they weren't fools. The Menel were safe.