Warriors Of Latan

Chapter 1

«Halloooo, Richard!»

The ballroom of the old country house was large enough to raise echoes. Lord Leighton's voice, J thought, might be powerful enough to raise ghosts, if the old place had any left. The scientist was past eighty, hunchbacked; his legs were twisted by polio, and he walked with the aid of a cane. He still had a powerful voice, however-not to mention a sharp tongue, which J had felt more than a few times.

The two men heard thumpings and footsteps from somewhere above, then a shrill yeeep-yeeep-yeeep that grew rapidly louder. «He's home,» said Leighton.

The scientist appeared to be bracing himself, with his knob-knuckled hands gripping his cane tightly. Lately he had taken to using a cane outside his laboratories. Possibly he really needed it, but J suspected it also contained a few disagreeable surprises for any would-be kidnapper or assassin. Tear gas, poison darts, a miniature hand grenade? J wasn't going to ask merely to satisfy his curiosity; as long as he didn't know anything official about the cane, he wouldn't have to answer the questions of nervous civilian authorities.

A loaded cane made excellent sense if Leighton was going to be moving about very much in the world outside his laboratories. The mind inside that bald head had been one of the great scientific talents of modern England for half a century. Now it held the most vital secret of all-the secret of Dimension X. And it was the responsibility of J, as head of security and intelligence, to keep that secret safe, to keep the mission functioning smoothly, preventing the interference of Russians, Chinese, or anyone else who would want to explore the unknown.

Before J could follow that line of thought any further, something small shot out of a hole in the ceiling like a missile. It seemed to have homing properties as it shot across the ceiling toward J, then dropped down on his shoulder.

«Hello, Cheeky,» J said.

The missile was a monkeylike creature, about two feet from its head to the base of a long tail. In place of fur, however, Cheeky had glossy blue feathers. In the dusty and decayed grandeur of the old house, he was an exotic splash of color.

He started pulling J's hair with one paw while he ran the other through his feathers, combing out dust and bits of plaster. J knew the hair-pulling was a gesture of affection, but still didn't want to wind up as bald as a tomato because the feather-monkey liked him so much.

Footsteps sounded behind the two men, and they turned to see Richard Blade striding toward them. No matter how tired or work-stained or casually dressed he was, Richard always strode, never just walked, unless he was too badly hurt to be on his feet at all. Standing six feet one, he moved his two hundred and ten pounds of muscle and bone with the deceptively easy grace of a tiger on the prowl-a grace that hid more than a tiger's deadliness.

Of course, if Richard Blade hadn't been as lethal as he was, he almost certainly would have been dead a long time ago, far away. Richard Blade was the other half of the secret of Dimension X-the only man whose qualities of mind and body let him travel time after time into a series of deadly and bizarre parallel worlds, the only living human being who could travel into Dimension X and return alive and sane.

Dimension X was discovered quite by accident, like so much else in the history of science. Lord Leighton was experimenting with hooking up Richard Blade's brain to what was then his most advanced computer, hoping to create a superior combination of human and electronic intelligence. Leighton had, hoped Blade's superior mental and physical abilities would be enhanced by connecting him to a computer, and that Blade would, in turn, improve the computers capabilities. Direct interaction, it was called, but instead of learning all the information stored in the computer, Blade was hurled off into the unknown, from which he returned only by the use of his wits and strength, with a good deal of luck thrown in.

Obviously the ability to explore a parallel Dimension, with lands that mirrored Home Dimension, and use their resources would be enormously valuable to England. So Project Dimension X was born.

A few years and a few million pounds later, they'd actually made some progress-although not much in proportion to the time and money spent, not to mention the number of scars on various portions of Richard Blade's anatomy.

As he always did, seeing Blade again after an interval, J studied the younger man closely. He didn't expect to see any changes, and didn't. Blade was older, wiser, and more experienced than he'd been when they first met. J was head of the secret military intelligence agency MI6A then, and Blade was its newest field agent, straight out of Oxford. Today Blade still walked alone, a man born into the wrong century, better fit for the life of a professional adventurer than anyone else J had ever met.

As Blade appeared, Cheeky let out a wild yeeeep of delight and launched himself from J's shoulder toward his master and friend. He forgot to let go of J's hair as he did, and a large tuft of it went with the feather-monkey. J winced and rubbed the spot.

«Cheeky, that was bad of you,» said Blade sharply, lightly slapping the feather-monkey about the head and shoulders several times.

«Mreeeep?» said Cheeky. He sounded contrite, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking. The only person who could was Blade himself. He'd found Cheeky in Dimension X, among the warring lords of the Crimson River, and immediately established a telepathic link with the feather-monkey. The two could communicate by sending each other mental images or pictures. Their minds seemed to communicate without the use of their senses, and this strange bond tied them together in a close relationship that Blade had never known with any human.

That telepathic link, J now knew, might be one of the biggest advances the Project ever made. Or at least that was Leighton's best guess-not that he was ever willing to admit that he was «guessing,» of course. He regarded «guessing» as an obscene act. Nevertheless, the peculiar bond between Cheeky and Blade seemed to enable the feather-monkey to travel into other Dimensions, too. Maybe now the scientists were close to discovering how to send other human beings to Dimension X.

With a subdued Cheeky on his shoulder, Blade led the way to the part of the house that he had already cleaned and redecorated. He had bought the country house for himself a short time ago; it was to be his haven in Home Dimension, a place to house the growing menagerie of creatures he brought back with him from his strange travels. Built in the eighteenth century and neglected since before the Second World War, the house was going to need even more work before it was really comfortable. But at least you could move about through it now without falling through the floors or having portions of the ceiling fall on you.

Blade removed dustcovers from three chairs and pointed to a fine mahogany sideboard on top of which were glasses, bottles of liquor, and a dish of dried fruits and nuts. «If you gentlemen can make free with the contents of the sideboard, I'll go take a shower. Cheeky will play host.»

«Yeeeeekkkkkkhhhhh!»

J looked at Blade. «You almost said that with a straight face. «

«Who? Me or Cheeky?»

«You.»

«Too bad. I didn't mean it as a joke.» Blade set Cheeky on the floor and went out. The two men stared at Cheeky, then at each other.

«If I thought Richard was playing a practical joke-«began Leighton indignantly.

J waved a hand in dismissal of that idea. «He's about the last man in the world to do that. No, I think he really does expect us to treat Cheeky as our host.» J went over to the sideboard and poured out two glasses of scotch for himself and Leighton and handed the mixed fruits and nuts to Cheeky. The feather-monkey picked up the dish, yeeeeped something that might have been «Thank you,» and then jumped up on top of the sideboard without spilling a thing from the dish and started nibbling.

Leighton was silent as he took his glass, then shook his head again. «If Richard isn't joking, what does he think Cheeky is?»

«Or who. Remember, he always calls Cheeky 'he.' «

«I'm not likely to forget it.»

«Oh, confound it, Leighton! Why don't you stop beating around the bush and come out and say that you think Richard's gone bonkers! You're thinking it so loudly I can hear you, and I'm not telepathic.»

Leighton drained his glass and set it firmly on a closed container of plastering compound, then made a steeple of his long fingers. «I'm not worried about Blade's — sanity, J. I hope you realize that if I were, I would have said so.»

J nodded. Leighton wasn't as close to Richard as he was. J had known Richard longer and better, seeing him almost as the son he never had. Leighton, in contrast, had started off seeing Richard as hardly better than some exotic and expensive sort of laboratory animal. He'd mellowed over time, though-it was only a rumor that he had a computer where his heart should be.

«What bothers me is something else,» Leighton went on. «Suppose this bond between Richard and Cheeky gets so close that it's impossible for Richard to link telepathically with anyone else we might want to send to Dimension X?»

«If there is anyone else.»

«Now who's being skeptical about telepathy?» said Leighton, with a twinkle in his eye. «Oh, I admit I was one of those who dismissed it. So damned many charlatans running around, it was hardly worthwhile picking out the real phenomena. But I can face facts. Richard's not a superman, not a mutant, not some creature from outer space. He's as human as you and I. Where there's one like him, there have to be others.»

«First catch your rabbit,» quoted J.

«Precisely. Unfortunately, because of all those bloody charlatans, we'll have to devise our own methods of finding telepaths.»

«And I suppose for that you'll be asking the Prime Minister for another hundred thousand pounds from the Special Fund?»

«I suppose so,» said Leighton bluntly. «Of course, the Russians have done a significant amount of real research into the paranormal. I'm certain my contacts there would give me a substantial-«He stopped as he heard the spymaster starting to choke at the idea of asking the Russians for help.

After a bit, J calmed down and took another swallow of whiskey. He really ought to stop rising to Leighton's baits that way! He sipped more whiskey and considered other possibilities raised by Blade's telepathic ability with Cheeky. For instance, suppose the bond between Blade and Cheeky grew so close that Blade ceased to be interested in forming relationships with those who didn't have telepathic abilities. Could Blade even lose interest in women? That could be dismissed as a fantasy. Richard would probably flirt with the nurse watching over his deathbed!

Or suppose Richard got so used to the link with Cheeky that he came to want the same link with a woman? Did that mean their elusive telepath, whom they hoped to send to Dimension X when Blade could no longer perform, would have to be a woman? And what if the woman was too badly needed for traveling into Dimension X to stay close to Blade…? Sooner or later, Blade would no longer be fast enough and tough enough to survive easily in Dimension X, and he would have to be replaced. When that happened, Blade's life work would be over. If there wasn't anyone waiting to help him make a new life…

Things could get a trifle complicated in that event, J realized. He tried to sort out the possibilities, conscious as he was of a distaste for speculating on Richard's personal life in this manner. Richard was, after all, a grown man.

Before J could take this line of thought much further, he was interrupted by the return of a freshly showered Blade. The younger man poured himself a strong whiskey and sat down, then fixed the other with a wry look.

«Well, what grand plans and schemes do you have for your guinea pigs this time?»

«Actually, Richard-nothing,» said Leighton. «Or at least nothing except trying to land both you and Cheeky in the same place this time!»

«I should bloody well hope so!» exclaimed Blade, and Cheeky made emphatic noises of agreement. They both remembered all too well their separation during the transition to Kaldak, when they landed in separate places in the Dimension. «What do you want us to do to help matters?»

«I think the telepathy is the key to getting you and Cheeky or you and anybody else to land together,» said Leighton. «If you and Cheeky can concentrate on holding mental contact right through the transition, that will give you a better chance.»

«You're assuming the new booth is sufficiently foolproof so that I don't need to be alert for its playing tricks?»

«Yes.»

Blade nodded slowly. «That's reasonable enough. In fact, even if it did have some bugs left in it, there's not much I could do about them during the actual transition. Much better to concentrate on staying with Cheeky. Right, little friend?» He scratched the feather-monkey, who yeeeped in agreement. «Is there anything we should do besides concentrate?»

«I sincerely wish I could suggest something, Richard,» said Leighton. He summarized his conversation with J. «I suspect that the most reliable method we've ever had available for telepathy is Cheeky himself. Unfortunately, there's only one of him.»

«I could leave him behind-«began Blade, but Cheeky interrupted him, squeaking angrily and making faces at everybody. Obviously he was determined to stay with Blade, sink or swim.

«Your friend doesn't seem to care for the idea,» said Leighton dryly. «If we don't send him through this time, we won't be able to field-test the telepathic link. I also suspect that the first few times we use Cheeky to test for telepathy, we'll need you around to communicate with him. I do appreciate your willingness to leave him in our hands, but it's not necessary this time.»

Leighton looked meditatively at the cracked plaster of the ceiling while he sipped more of his drink. «Actually, there is one more thing you could do. Would you object to reducing the amount of equipment you take with you? Or at least the amount of metal?»

J started to protest. One of the great blessings of the new booth was that it created an electrical field that flowed evenly around Blade, undisturbed by anything he wore or carried. This allowed him to go into Dimension X properly equipped for both battle and survival. «Why metal?» asked J. «Is there something wrong with the electrical field after all?»

«No. It's the telepathy I'm thinking about. Suppose it was all the metal in Richard's gear that disturbed the link last time?»

J didn't disagree. At least it was a comparatively reasonable hypothesis. However, he couldn't resist a chance to twit the scientist. «That sounds rather like the old legends about the fairy folk who were vulnerable to cold iron. What have you been reading lately?»

Leighton started to glare, then chuckled when he realized that J was pulling his leg. «If one assumes that paranormal powers exist, and that the 'fairy folk' were a people who had them-well, the legends make a certain amount of sense. Or at least as much sense as anything else in this whole confounded business!»

«No doubt,» said J. «And also, if we can equip Richard adequately, so that what he takes with him will help him to survive but won't look too peculiar to the people of another Dimension, it will help protect the Dimension X secret.»

Blade choked on his drink and muttered something that sounded to J rather like «Bugger the Dimension X secret.» J almost sympathized with the sentiment. Richard had been through a good deal on his return to the Dimension of Kaldak to protect the Dimension X secret. The Kaldakans had looked upon him suspiciously because of the strange equipment he carried, and in order to avoid interrogation about how he had come to be in Kaldak, he had to go to great pains, including nearly committing incest with his own daughter.

«I dislike admitting this,» said Leighton slowly, «but I find myself compelled to suggest that perhaps there is no such thing as the Dimension X secret.» Both J and Blade stared at him.

«Consider the Wizard of Rentoro, who traveled into Dimension X by his own unaided mental powers,» Leighton continued. «Consider the Menel, the space-traveling aliens who seem to exist in more than one Dimension. Consider how little we know for certain about Dimension X and how to get from here to there. Then ask yourself-are we the only people who know about Dimension X? I find it increasingly difficult to be terribly optimistic on that point.»

With the proposition stated that way, J found it hard not to agree with the scientist. «If that's the case, we'll have to be particularly careful about security for our research in telepathy. Computers like ours don't exactly grow on hedges, but almost anybody with a thousand pounds' worth of laboratory and equipment can study the paranormal.

«We may not have the only path between the Dimensions. But I'd wager we have the most reliable one. I still want to make sure that everybody else who develops an equally reliable one is on our side.»

They could all drink to that.