Leighton squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 2
The tranquilizer took a surprisingly long time to take effect, though the dose was literally enough to stop a horse. The dart pistol had originally been brought into the project when Blade had returned from one of the X dimensions with a horse. This animal, perhaps the largest thing ever brought back from the «other side,» had nearly wrecked the laboratory before the tranquilizer gun had arrived, and Leighton had reasoned that Blade might someday return with another horse, or something worse, and had kept the pistol, never dreaming that he would have to use it on Richard.
When Richard's fit of violence finally subsided and he lay in a crumpled, semiconscious heap, Leighton made a hasty inspection of KALI's components in the immediate area, but found no damage. J looked on, stunned.
Leighton pressed the button on the intercom and summoned a squad of technicians with a stretcher and a straight jacket. Blade's powerful body, such an asset in the field, had become a liability, even a danger.
Still unable to speak, J followed as Blade was carried to the elevator and transported to the hospital complex an additional hundred feet below the computer rooms. Lord Leighton hobbled at J's side, keeping up with difficulty on his stunted legs, but J was only dimly aware of him.
As the elevator door hissed open at the bottom of the shaft, they were confronted by a red-faced fat little man in tennis shoes, white slacks and an appallingly flowery short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. This was Dr. Leonard Ferguson, Principle Psychiatric Officer for Project Dimension X.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. «A straight jacket? We're not following our standard operating procedure, are we?»
«Obviously not,» Leighton snapped.
J shared Leighton's dislike of Ferguson. Neither could he forget that Ferguson had once attempted to force Blade's retirement from the project on the grounds of an «impairment of decision-making powers.» In a certain Report 97, Ferguson, with the support of his team of consulting psychiatrists, had predicted that Richard's mental condition would «in the future lead to some dysfunctional withdrawal at a crucial moment.»
J had overruled Ferguson, but now…
J glanced at the fallen giant on the stretcher and thought with anguish, Perhaps Ferguson was right!
J's gaze swung to the fat man's face in time to detect the faintest trace of a triumphant smile.
«This way,» Ferguson said crisply, starting down the hall. «His bed is ready.»
J slept and woke again, there on the couch in the Staff Lounge. In the underground hospital there was no night, only an endless artificial day. When he awoke the second time, J took out his pocketwatch and inspected it with bleary incomprehension for a considerable period before realizing that it had stopped.
He dragged himself to a sitting position and looked around. The room was empty at the moment, but he harbored dim memories of doctors and nurses coming and going, conversing in low voices so as not to disturb him.
He groped in his pockets for a cigar or one of his well-loved pipes, then realized he had left every form of tobacco back at his office in Copra House. He muttered a curse, remembering his own words. «I understand it won't take very long.»
With a sniff of mock self-pity, he stood up and brushed himself off, then slipped on his gray suitcoat, which he had carefully hung over the back of a chair to avoid wrinkling it. After tying his Cambridge tie as neatly as he could without a mirror and generally straightening himself up, he went in search of someone who could tell him what was happening.
After prowling up one door-lined passageway and down another, he finally came in sight of Dr. Ferguson, who was coming out of one of the rooms, deep in worried conversation with a burly white-clad orderly.
«Dr. Ferguson!» J called out, breaking into a trot.
The fat little man looked up and smiled without warmth, at the same time dismissing the orderly with a gesture. «Ah, there you are, old man. Before you say another word, I've been instructed to tell you to call Copra House. Your secretary is rather worried about you, I think, though I told her you were… «
«Copra House can wait, Ferguson. How is Blade?»
Ferguson's smile wilted slightly. «Come along to the Lounge, there's a good chap.» He took J gently by the elbow. «We really must have a chat, you and I.»
J shook off the pudgy fingers, but did come along as Ferguson guided him back to the Staff Lounge, seating him on the same couch where he had recently been sleeping.
«Coffee?» the psychiatrist asked.
«No thanks. Just answer my question.»
«I think I'll have a cup. It's been a long day.» He turned the spigot on the large white percolator and stared with distaste at the unsavory black brew that splashed into his cup.
J growled, «I've had about as much as I can take of your patronizing bedside manner, doctor.»
With a sigh Ferguson crossed the room and drew up a chrome and plastic chair in front of the couch, then sat down and sipped his coffee, regarding J with troubled eyes. At last he said, «This was bound to happen, sooner or later.»
«What was bound to happen, damn you!» J leaned forward.
«The subject does not respond to any of the usual treatments. I've tried to proceed with the customary debriefing under hypnosis, but your Mr. Blade cannot or will not cooperate. As nearly as I can determine, he is suffering from a case of complete amnesia.»
«Amnesia? You mean he can't remember what happened to him in the X dimension?»
«If that was all, we'd have nothing to worry about. We've evolved routines to deal with that. No, this is a different kind of problem, a different order of magnitude, you might say.»
«You mean he can't remember his name?»
«His name? Why, my dear boy, he can't remember the English language! He can't remember not to wet the bed!»
«But you have drugs. You have Leighton's bloody memory machines.»
Ferguson sipped and grimaced. «Yes. Quite. We tried them of course. I even had a go at shock therapy.»
«Shock therapy? You used shock therapy on Blade?»
«Yes. I gave him a bit of a buzz. Thought it might help, but it didn't.» He shrugged fatalistically. «But there must be something… ««I'm open to suggestions. My own little bag of tricks is empty. True amnesia is rare, you know, except on the telly and in films. There actually is no treatment of choice for it. Thanks to all the experiments you and Leighton have been doing on this poor chap, this hospital probably knows more about such things than anyone else, but it seems that, as much as we know, it is not enough.»
«Damn you, Ferguson!»
«Damn me? You're projecting, old man, as we say in therapy. If you must damn someone, damn yourself. This is all your doing, you know.»
«What are you saying? Blade is my friend. If there's a living soul I care about, it's him.»
«Really? You've a funny way of showing affection, if you'll pardon my saying so. Downright kinky, to use a layman's expression. But that's how it goes in Her Majesty's Service, doesn't it? England is everything, the individual nothing. If you're angry though, I don't blame you. A useless emotion, anger, but it hits us all now and then. I've a lovely little pill here.» He reached for the breast pocket of his flowery shirt. «It'll grow rose-colored glasses on the inside of your eyes.»
J edged away. «No, thanks. I'll be all right.»
The psychiatrist took out a plastic bottle filled with white oval capsules. «You know, J, I use these little rascals myself. Perfectly safe, one at a time. And someday, if jolly old England gets a bit much for me, I can swallow a dozen at a gulp and kiss the whole bloody mess goodbye.» His tone had been growing steadily more bitter, but now his mood changed abruptly and he smiled again, stuffing the bottle back in his shirt pocket. «But if I tell you my troubles, you'll probably send me a bill for listening. I would, if I were in your place. It's your friend Richard Blade we should be talking about»