Pirates Of Gohar

Chapter 1

Lord Leighton was eighty years old. He'd been born a hunchback, and his legs were twisted from polio as a child. Yet the wrinkled hands and long arms were still surprisingly strong and skilled. He easily unlocked the heavy steel door and started pushing it open. Then Richard Blade stepped forward to help the scientist.

Richard Blade was one of those dark men who look older than they are when they're young and much younger than they are when they get older. He stood an inch over six feet, and his two hundred pounds moved with the ease and grace of a hunting animal in perfect condition. He placed one large hand against the door and with a single smooth motion pushed it open.

Beyond the door was a small low room, with a bare concrete floor and whitewashed stone walls. In one corner a gleaming metal ovoid seven feet high rested in a steel cradle. It might have been a lifeboat for a spaceship. On the wall opposite the door was a rack of electronic testing gear, and on the floor in front of the rack a pile of components. Much of the gear and all the components were smoke-blackened, twisted, or half-melted. The ceiling over the testing rack was also black, and Blade detected a faint smell of burned insulation.

«Good God,» said Blade. He'd seen far worse accidents with electronic gear, but not in this top-secret complex. «Who did what?»

Leighton shoved both hands into the pockets of a filthy laboratory smock and grimaced. «As far as we can tell, some idiot installed Circuit 19 backwards.» He shrugged. «It could have been much worse. The circuit breakers kept the surge out of the capsule itself. The automatic alarms shut the door, the fire extinguishers suffocated the fire-«

«And suffocated the technician?» asked Blade with a perfectly straight face.

Leighton gave Blade a gnome's smile. «No, but I wouldn't have minded if they had. All the automatic elements worked perfectly. It was the human element that failed. And people still ask me why I love computers!»

Blade's face and voice hardened. «Perhaps. But I seem to recall that it wasn't a human being who released the Ngaa in this Dimension.»

Leighton's eyes met Blade's-and then the scientist looked away. «Richard, that also was ultimately human error. My error. The KALI computer made only those mistakes I allowed it to make, in my-ah, misplaced-confidence that it was completely self-correcting.»

Blade's face softened again, and he felt a sudden genuine warmth toward Leighton. The old man looked like a cheap horror-movie version of the mad scientist, who will cheerfully risk destroying the world to prove one of his theories. He wasn't. His reaction to the one time he'd actually come close to doing this proved it.

Not that Leighton wasn't as brilliant and eccentric as any man in the history of science. Even his worst enemies didn't deny the brilliance, and his best friends admitted he was eccentric to the point of being maddening. His brilliance had conceived a computer far ahead of anything in existence at the time, and his eccentricity led to the idea of linking it with a human mind. He hoped the resulting combination of human flexibility and machine capacity would produce a super-mind.

For the subject of the experiment he chose Richard Blade, a top field agent for the secret intelligence agency MI6A. Blade was one of the finest combinations of sound mind and sound body in the world, and Leighton expected notable results.

He got them. The computer hurled Blade, mind and body alike, into an alternate reality. They called it Dimension X when he came back to tell them about it. The name was still appropriate, because after years of work, millions of pounds, and many more trips into Dimension X, there were still more questions about it than answers. They couldn't even be sure that all the strange places Blade went to had a distinct physical existence. Could they simply be images his computer-distorted senses fed into his brain?

The unanswered questions piled up, but they didn't stop the research. The value to Britain of such a whole new world, with unimaginable resources, was obvious. Successive Prime Ministers kept Project Dimension X going, even in the face of the country's economic problems.

They also kept it going under the tightest security blanket in British history. Blade's former chief at MI6A, the near-legendary spymaster known only as J, became the Project's security chief. He did his best to keep the Dimension X secret, and his best was more than good enough, until events put not just the Project but the whole world in deadly danger.

Leighton was using a completely automated technique for sending Blade into Dimension X, based on a new computer, the Kinematic Analog Leighton Integrator. The initials also spelled out the name of KALI, the Hindu goddess of destruction-a grimly appropriate acronym, as it turned out.

Blade went into Dimension X, and when he returned, a being called the Ngaa returned with him. It was the collective mind of the ancient inhabitants of a dying world, seeking a new home on Earth. The Ngaa left a trail of death and destruction behind it, and nearly brought Project Dimension X to a disastrous end. Eventually Blade took his life in his hands, returned to the Ngaa's Dimension, and destroyed it, but as J said, quoting the Duke of Wellington about the Battle of Waterloo: «It was a damned close-run thing.»

In fact, it was much too close for everybody's peace of mind. The automated KALI computer was dismantled, and the only component of the system Leighton still used was the transition case-the seven-foot oval capsule now in front of Blade. In it, electrical current flowed evenly through his whole body in the moment of his transition into Dimension X. With the old technique of electrodes placed by hand, the flow of current varied. Using the capsule seemed to reduce the stress of the transition, perhaps enough so that in time other men and women could survive to travel into Dimension X.

That would be an immense relief to everyone, starting with Richard Blade himself. He was still the only living human being who could travel into Dimension X and return alive and sane. Being the Indispensable Man is a rosy dream only for those people who haven't really had to be one. For them, it's a nightmare.

So Leighton was allowed to go on experimenting with the KALI case. Blade took his remarks about «human elements» and «why I prefer computers» as hints Leighton might be experimenting more boldly than that. Blade was the last man in the world to stand by and let this happen.

The nightmarish affair of the Ngaa led directly or indirectly to some thirty deaths. One of the dead was a woman named Zoe Cornwall. Once she and Blade hoped to marry, until the increasing demands of Project Dimension X and the Official Secrets Act, which protected it, drove them apart. Blade hadn't really stopped loving her, and her lonely death on a distant world left scars that he didn't expect to heal soon, if at all. Leighton would start translating his more exotic notions into experiments again only over Richard Blade's dead body.

Now he'd heard Leighton admit that he'd made a mistake-what was more, a mistake involving computers. Some of Leighton's friends would no doubt say this proved the old man was finally losing his grip. Blade hoped it really meant that Leighton was no longer convinced of his own infallibility.

Leighton cleared his throat, and Blade realized that he'd been standing there like a zombie, paying no attention to what Leighton was saying. The scientist started over again.

«Fortunately there's no damage to the capsule, and that saved most of the really irreplaceable components. It would take a year to replace that. The testing gear was mostly off-the-shelf hardware. We'll lose a month and a few thousand pounds, nothing more.»

Blade mentally crossed his fingers. He was comfortable with machinery, but more so with pre-electronic-era equipment than with Leighton's pet computers and similar modern marvels. He knew just enough about them to know how many things could go wrong even under the most favorable conditions.

That thought led Blade on to a specific suggestion. «Do we really need to have all the workshops down here in the Complex? They take up space, and we don't exactly have that to burn.»

«Nor hardware either,» said Leighton with a wry grin.

«Very true. Some of them are a fire and smoke hazard, or could send an electrical surge onto the main circuits and damage the laboratories. Also, having the workshops down here means higher security ratings for all the people who work in them, more paperwork, and more expense.»

Leighton cocked his head on one side and pulled at the tuft of white hair protruding from behind his left ear. «You do have a point, Richard. Possibly a very good one. It would mean more traveling for me, of course-«

«I hadn't thought of that. I'm sorry.»

«Don't be.» Leighton interlaced his fingers and cracked all his knuckles with a sound like a string of firecrackers. «The day I get too old to travel from here to-oh, some suburb-and back twice a week, I'll be too old for the rest of the job as well. No, what concerns me more is security for an outside laboratory. Here everything is behind those damned Special Branch men on the surface and underneath two hundred feet of earth and rock.»

«That's true, sir. But-and correct me if I'm wrong-how much could anyone tell about the Project from simply looking at the components? I couldn't tell if they belong to a stereo set, a tank's range-finder, or a missile guidance system.

«In fact, it could improve our security, putting all the work that isn't readily identifiable above ground. The fewer people we need down here, the better we can screen each one, and the less chance anybody has of penetrating the Complex.»

Blade knew what he was talking about there. Twice the Russians had put agents inside the Complex. Neither of them had survived to report anything, but there'd been a stronger element of luck in this than Blade liked.

Leighton nodded slowly. «You may very well be right. I'll certainly join you in raising the question with J. But I must say, I thought you always left this sort of thing to the desk types?»

«I used to, but this is fairly important to the Project. That means it's important to whatever chances I have of dying in bed. Also, if I do die in bed, it will be because I eventually do wind up behind a desk. Hopefully it will be a desk connected with the Project, but it's going to be a desk all the same. I might as well get used to the idea now.»

A faint chiming crept in from the corridor outside the room-Leighton's private signal. «Speak of the devil,» he said. «That's probably J now.»

The old spymaster seldom showed it, but he saw Blade as the son he'd never had. It took something really desperate in the way of emergencies to keep him from coming down to the Complex and seeing Blade off to Dimension X.

It was J. He was waiting outside the main computer room, Lord Leighton's private sanctuary. No matter what clearance they had or where else in the Project's Complex they could go, no one got through the last door to the computers except in Leighton's company.

J still looked austere, undramatic, and superbly tailored, with no visible clue to his profession even to the most discerning eye. It was obvious that he was in excellent condition for a man of his age, but what that age was and what he did to keep in condition would be mysteries.

There was a slight change. When the Project began, one could have taken him for a senior civil servant. Now one could take him for that same civil servant, recently retired. Appearances weren't entirely deceiving. As the Dimension X Project grew and stretched out tentacles into more and more areas that needed security precautions, J had less and less to do with the day-to-day activities of MI6A. Except for major decisions, his three Deputy Directors virtually ran the store now. No one objected to this arrangement, either. Even the most obtuse Prime Minister or Minister of Defense knew that J working half-time was worth any other two men working full-time. There are great names-the equivalent of Rembrandt or Einstein-in the shadowy world of intelligence and espionage. J was one of these.

After the usual greetings, J and Leighton sat down to talk, while Blade went off to the changing room. He threaded his way among the gray crackle-finished consoles of the main computer. There weren't any loose wires dangling, and everything had been largely cleaned up. Just as well-it would be years before anyone let Leighton play with the sleek, squat consoles of the KALI system again.

Inside the changing room the routine was nearly the same as always. Blade stripped down and pulled on a brief loincloth. The loincloth was more like the fig-leaf in a painting than anything useful. Blade hardly ever arrived in Dimension X other than naked as a newborn babe. When he did, it seemed to be more a matter of luck than anything else. At least he no longer had to smear himself with that foul-smelling black grease to prevent electrical burns.

When he returned to Leighton and J, they'd just finished discussing his proposal for an above-ground laboratory complex. «Sound enough, in theory,» said J. «I much appreciate your suggestion, Richard. Unfortunately we still can't be sure how much about the affair of the Ngaa reached the opposition. We did our best, but that may not have been good enough. If it wasn't, the KGB may know enough about the Project to recognize anything associated with it. Then they'd give any new laboratory a high priority and give us a first-class headache. Frankly, I'd rather devote our resources to getting that second capsule operational.»

Leighton grinned like the Cheshire cat. J was normally rather reluctant to give his blessing to any of the scientist's cherished ideas. Getting J behind the two-capsule rig made it almost a foregone conclusion, given time, money, and hard work.

«So would I, sir,» said Blade. «I usually need all the help I can get in Dimension X.»

«We'll listen more carefully than usual for any strange noises from the opposition,» said J. «If we don't hear anything in the next few months, we can certainly give the matter some further thought.» He looked around at the rock walls. «This blasted tomb certainly does cost a bloody fortune.»

Blade stepped up to the KALI capsule, the twin of the one in the damaged workshop. This one had its lid standing open and the padded interior, contoured specifically to Blade's body, standing open. As he lay down, he saw Leighton press the START button on the controls for the main sequence. Then the scientist and J gripped the lid and carefully swung it shut on Blade. Now he was in darkness, as complete as if he'd already been in a lightless alternate universe. He knew that he was also linked to the computer more thoroughly than he'd ever been in the days of wires and cobra-headed metal electrodes.

Then there was no more blackness, only an eye-searing flash, which made Blade think he'd been shifted into still another universe, one filled with light. He felt a tingling all over his skin, a series of sharp blows on his chest and temples, and then he was falling endlessly through a cool clear blueness.