Guardians Of The Coral Throne

Chapter 2

As always, the underground corridor seemed to stretch out for an empty, echoing, gleaming mile ahead. Blade quickened his stride, wanting to cover the distance as fast as possible. As always, he found himself getting more and more keyed-up as the place and time of his trip into Dimension X approached.

Beside him strode J, keeping pace with Blade in spite of his sixty-odd years. J had not always been a deskbound spymaster. He had put in his years in the field, and done his field work with deadly efficiency. Even today he never seemed entirely comfortable with sitting and watching younger men set out under his orders to risk and sometimes lose their lives.

«You're sure you're feeling altogether fit?» he asked Blade.

«Perfectly, sir. Not an ache, not a twinge. I spent an hour in the sauna last night, and I honestly couldn't be feeling better.»

«That's good. Not that it would be easy to persuade Leighton to hold things off, unless you showed up in a wheelchair.»

«Oh, I doubt if the old boffin's that tough,» said Blade with a grin. «I imagine a pair of crutches would be enough to convince him.»

«Quite possibly. But he'd probably ask for a doctor's certificate in that case.»

«Three certificates, you mean, sir. And from different doctors.»

«No doubt.»

The two men's caustic wit at Lord Leighton's expense was only partly sincere. Much of the time the scientist lived up to his reputation of having a computer where other people had a heart. At other times it was obvious that he really cared about Blade as more than a prize guinea pig for his grandest experiment.

«It's very good to hear you're feeling fit,» J repeated. «I would feel rather bad of you had taken a tumble carrying out one of my ideas.»

«No need to worry on that score, sir,» replied Blade. «It's only good sense to give me a refresher course in modern commando and field-survival techniques. After all, there's no guarantee I won't land in a technologically advanced Dimension again. I've done it several times already. If I do it again, I may find myself part of a modern army rather than leading a sword-swinging horde. I might as well be able to make myself valuable anywhere.»

«True enough,» said J. «But I have the feeling you find being the leader of the sword-swingers more, eh, fun?»

Blade nodded. «I couldn't agree with you more, sir.» It was sometimes uncanny how well the old man understood him. But then part of J's skill at his work was sizing up people, and he had been watching Blade for a fair number of years.

Now they were at the door to the main computer rooms. The last of the electronic sentinels scanning the corridors of the complex and guarding its secrets gave them its invisible looking-over. A computer registered their characteristics and matched them with data on people authorized to enter the complex. It was a fairly sophisticated computer by most standards. But it was a helpless idiot compared to the monster that filled the innermost chamber, Lord Leighton's private sanctuary.

The scientist himself was waiting to meet them as they entered the sanctuary. All around him the chamber was gray-gray rock above, gray tile on the floor, the gray crackled finish of the towering consoles of the huge computer. With his white hair, pale skin, and hunched body inside its dirty white lab coat, Leighton looked like some weird creature accustomed to lurk in deep, lightless caves. But his eyes were bright and his smile was surprisingly warm and open.

«Welcome, gentlemen, welcome. No rush this time-it's going to be slow and careful. If I thought we could repeat the results of the last trip by rushing, I'd be more than happy to do so. But our best psychiatrists think whatever caused Richard to return to Tharn was in his own mind. They'd rather like some more time to try digging it out of him, sooner or later.»

J raised an eyebrow. «I suppose you didn't think of postponing this trip while they did it?»

Lord Leighton looked as shocked as if he had just been accused of sacrificing virgins by the light of a full moon. «And hold up the entire Project for someone's wild-goose chase? I hardly think that would be reasonable.»

J looked at Blade and Blade looked back at him. They were both thinking the same thing. Lord Leighton was a fine one to talk, considering how often he had held up the Project, added thousands of pounds to its budget, or actually endangered Blade's life and limb on his own wildgoose chases! But there was no point in mentioning this now. Blade headed for the dressing booth carved into the rock wall, while J went over and unfolded the spectator seat that Lord Leighton had installed for his benefit.

Inside the booth Blade went through the usual routine of stripping and smearing himself with smelly grease as protection against electrical burns from the computer. He had done this so often by now that he could do it almost by reflex while his mind considered other matters.

Just now it was considering his last trip. After an incredible amount of effort and money wasted trying to get a Controlled Return, Blade managed one quite by accident. He returned to a Dimension he had previously visited. This was an enormously satisfying experience for him. The Dimension was Tharn. Tharn, where his son ruled. Tharn, where he fought the murderous assaults of the Looters and destroyed them. Tharn, where he was Mazda, the living god who had saved the People twice. It had been the most surprising and the most satisfactory experience of his whole career in Project Dimension X, and that was saying a good deal!

Could he do anything on his own to try for another Controlled Return? Was there something he could have in his mind at the moment the computer gripped it, to produce one? Possibly. But even if he could, would it be worth the risk? He decided not. Dimension X was still largely unknown. He had visited perhaps twenty out of literally an infinite number of possible Dimensions. How he got to any of them was still largely a mystery. Any human brain, his own included, was still almost as much a mystery as Dimension X. So he would follow Lord Leighton's guidance, and play things straight and simple this time. If he added his own element of unpredictability to all the normal problems, who knew where he might end up?

Blade picked up the loincloth hung ready for him on a peg and knotted it about himself. That was one hopelessly predictable element about his trips into Dimension X. The loincloth and anything else he might put on would be a total waste of time. He would arrive naked as a newborn baby, as always.

He opened the door of the booth and stepped out into the chamber. J was already seated. Lord Leighton stood by the main control panel, watching the dance of the lights on it. The «countdown» had started.

He walked over to the chair that squatted in a glass booth, overshadowed by the looming masses of the computer's consoles. He sat down and started breathing slowly and deeply. The rubber seat and back of the chair were cold against his bare skin.

Lord Leighton went swiftly to work. Hundreds of wires in a dozen different colors led out of the computer, each wire ending in an electrode shaped like a metal cobra's head. Now Leighton taped the electrodes one by one to every part of Blade's body from scalp to toes. Ears, neck, arms, legs, chest, shoulders-even his penis-seemed to be sprouting dozens of tiny snakes.

Finally the job was done. Through the jungle of wires Blade saw Lord Leighton step over to the controls again and make a final visual check. The scientist didn't trust anybody or anything to function without his personal supervision, not even his prize computer. Blade didn't mind that cautiousness at all. He knew from much experience how thoroughly even the most sophisticated machine could tie itself in knots without human care.

Everything seemed to check out. Leighton looked at Blade, an inquiring frown on his ugly face. Blade deliberately looked at J first, grinned in farewell, then looked back at the scientist and nodded. Leighton's hand rose, then came down on the red master switch and swept it down to the bottom of its slot.

It seemed at first that the lighting in the chamber was flickering on and off. Then Blade realized that it was not just the lighting. Everything around him-Lord Leighton and J, the computer, even the rock walls-was flickering in and out of existence. As the world flickered, a highpitched drone began to fill Blade's ears, like the buzzing of a swarm of gigantic bees flying around and around the chamber.

Gradually the droning grew louder, until his ears began to ache from it. His surroundings flickered on and off faster and faster and began to change color. Lord Leighton turned gold, J turned bright glowing red, the computer consoles turned silver with all the blinking lights on their faces turning blue, the rock walls above and beyond turned dark green.

The droning grew still louder, until it seemed like a solid object being driven into Blade's ears to rupture his eardrums and pierce his brain. The world around him began to soften around the edges, then flow and slump downward like a stick of butter melting in a hot pan. As it flowed, it gave off gurgling and rumbling noises that rose even above the droning. The noise around him was now so terrible that Blade wanted to scream. His mouth was open, but he knew that he would never be able to tell if any sound was coming out.

The world around him finished dissolving. All the colors broke up and flowed madly into one another and around one another and over one another. It was like being in the middle of a gigantic whirlpool trying to whirl in three or four directions at once. Blade saw streams of incandescent color flowing through him, but felt nothing.

Still the droning went on. The world was all madly racing colors and terrible noise, more and more furious each moment.

Then it was nothing at all but a blackness and a freezing, silent cold that Blade felt in the split-second before he stopped feeling anything at all.