Wizard Of Rentoro

Chapter 1

Dawn broke over London as Richard Blade's train pulled into the station. It was a dawn that promised a clear, sunny day, rare for London at this time of the year. It was a pity, thought Blade, that he'd been spending the morning sleeping and the afternoon far below the Tower of London. By the time sunset flamed over London, he would be far away from the city, from Britain, from the whole world.

He would be somewhere in Dimension X, the infinite unknown on the other side of a barrier made by his own brain and his own senses. When that brain was linked to Lord Leighton's computer, when those senses were twisted out of their normal shape, the barrier vanished.

He'd crossed into Dimension X twenty-seven times since the day Lord Leighton first linked his brain to a computer and opened the door to Dimension X. Each journey brought new dangers to test Blade's skill and strength to the limit. He'd escaped from some of those dangers by the narrowest of margins. Sooner or later, he would not escape at all, unless someone else could be found-someone able to travel into Dimension X and return to Britain alive and sane. For the time being, that someone did not exist. Richard Blade was the only living human being who could cross from Home Dimension into Dimension X and return without destroying his mind or his body.

Yet whatever the danger to him, he could not end his travels into Dimension X. Out there lay resources and knowledge beyond price. The exploration of Dimension X had to continue, whatever the risk to Blade, whatever the frustrations when a possible discovery turned out to be nothing, whatever their ignorance of the dangers. It had to continue, in the hope that Project Dimension X would someday justify all the blood, sweat, knowledge, and money that had been poured into it since it began. The stakes were too great.

Blade no longer expected that happy day to come soon. At times he wondered if he'd live to see it. Blade didn't let himself dwell on that much. He had too much self-control to worry about things that couldn't be helped. He also had too strong a sense of duty. Britain could not do without his services-therefore he would go on serving. This sense of duty had taken him to every corner of the world as the top field agent for the secret intelligence agency MI6. Now it was taking him to even stranger places.

In any case, if Blade was frustrated, what about J and Lord Leighton? J had been Blade's chief in MI6 and now worked for the security of Project Dimension X. He loved Blade as a son, yet accepted seeing Blade hurled off into the unknown time after time. He was also clearly seventy. He might not live to see the Project bear fruit, even if he never took any trip more dangerous than a taxi ride through the streets of London!

And Lord Leighton? The computer that opened the door to Dimension X was his creation. Project Dimension X was his brainchild, absorbing the last years of his life and career. Leighton was ten years older than J, his spine twisted into a hunchback, his legs twisted by polio, what little hair he had left snow-white. His scientific career had earned him several fortunes and the right to a peaceful retirement. Yet here he was, brilliant mind and twisted body both hard at work, with little to show for it so far.

Blade at least could forget the frustrations and failures of the Project in the grimly simple business of trying to stay alive in Dimension X. Lord Leighton and J weren't so fortunate. They had the Project staring them in the face every waking minute, with nothing to distract them. Perhaps, thought Blade, he was the lucky man after all.

Blade took a taxi from the station to his flat, undressed, ate breakfast in his dressing gown, and slept until noon. Then he took a shower, shaved, and pulled on the first clothes that came to hand.

There was no point in dressing up for a trip to Dimension X. He always began the trips wearing nothing but a coat of foul-smelling black grease and a loincloth, and ended them wearing nothing at all. All the clothes he was pulling on now had to do was keep him from getting wet, cold, or arrested for indecent exposure until he got to the Tower.

The taxi crept through London's traffic and deposited Blade at the Tower. The grim-faced Special Branch men who guarded the entrance to the underground complex checked Blade's identification and passed him through. The elevator plunged two hundred feet down in a few seconds, and the long echoing corridor led him to the computer section.

J met him at the far end of the corridor. When they were at the door leading to the main computer, out of earshot of the technicians and programmers, the older man turned to Blade. «The Prime Minister wasn't very happy about your report on the American trip,» he said.

«I didn't write it to make the old-the man happy,» said Blade shortly. Actually, there was no point in being harsh. The Prime Minister was another man doing his best and enduring a great deal of trouble. Without his efforts in providing money and discouraging inquisitive members of Parliament, Project Dimension X would long since have fallen apart.

«No, but he did have hopes that the Americans might be able to contribute more. I'm afraid he has the usual notion that in the American intelligence services money grows on trees and they can give it away by the barrel to any likely project.»

Blade laughed and shook his head. He'd gone off to the United States with some of those same notions himself. He'd spent a working vacation, taking desert-survival and underwater-demolitions refresher training, looking over a few possible candidates for Project Dimension X, and generally keeping up his contacts in the American intelligence services. Parts of the month had been pleasant enough, but in the end he'd been disappointed.

«The CIA's too busy putting its own house in order to be very receptive to new and expensive projects,» he said. «The money's there; but it would be like pulling teeth to get them to spend it on a British request.

«Even if they were willing to spend it, their internal security's below standard these days. By the time they'd come through with the money, somebody would have leaked everything to the press. Then Project Dimension X would be on national television, the front page of the Washington Past, and God knows where else.»

J winced at the idea. After a moment he asked, «What about approaches to some of the other American agencies the military ones, for example? They aren't under such close examination by the press.»

Blade recognized J's tone. The older man was not seeking information on a matter of which he was ignorant. What he wanted was Blade's point of view, on a matter where the facts were already known. J had been in intelligence work for the better part of half a century, and knew as well as any man alive how much more there was to it than simple facts. A great many of J's friends and allies were alive because he'd gone beyond the facts. Almost as many enemies were dead.

«No, they aren't,» said Blade. «But that won't help us. The CIA is just as jealous of its status as ever, in spite of all its troubles. If we approached-oh, the Defense Intelligence Agency, for example-without giving the CIA at least the chance to turn us down, there'd be the devil to pay! We could kiss good-bye any hope of American cooperation for about the next five years. We don't want to have to wait that long, I think.»

«No,» said J. «We don't. But we are going to have to give the Americans a miss for a while. That puts us back to square one as far as finding new people are concerned. Our own agencies and services have already been gone over with a fine-toothed comb. I'm damned if I can see any point in trying them again, and I can't see the Prime Minister supporting it, either.» He sighed, and for a brief moment he looked more than his age.

Blade stood in silent sympathy. Once again he couldn't help feeling that perhaps he was the lucky man in the Project. In another hour he would be striking out across some unknown land far off in Dimension X. J would still be here in Britain, sweating over irritated Prime Ministers, the internal politics of American intelligence agencies, and a dozen other administrative problems.

Any of them would have quickly driven Blade mad. He was not an administrator. A desk could never be his home. He was a natural adventurer, born into the wrong century. Yet somehow he'd found the one job which he could do better than any other human being. That was better luck than Blade would have believed any man could enjoy-certainly better luck than J's or Lord Leighton's.

The door in front of the two men hissed open, and Lord Leighton's gnome-like face peered out at them. His glasses were shoved up on his wrinkled forehead, and for a moment he didn't seem to recognize them. Then he pulled his glasses down into position and gave his usual brief smile of welcome.

In silence J and Blade followed the scientist into the room that was Leighton's private preserve. All around them the gray crackle-finished consoles of the master computer towered toward the bare rock of the ceiling. In the exact center of the room a grimly functional metal chair squatted inside a transparent glass booth. That chair was the beginning and the end for Blade's trips into Dimension X.

Blade left the other two men. J sat down on the folding spectator seat, while Leighton took his position by the main control panel. Blade went to the changing room carved into the rock wall, pulled the door shut behind him, and began stripping of his clothes.

When he was naked, he picked up the pot of dark grease from one corner and began smearing it over every square inch of his skin. It had the consistency of suet pudding mixed with well-rotted rabbit droppings, and smelled nearly as unpleasant. Blade would have been more than willing to leave it off, if it hadn't been for the danger of electrical burns. A frightening amount of current passed through his body as he was hurled into Dimension X. He would riot run even the slightest risk of winding up fried like a chicken.

Blade finished smearing himself, knotted a loincloth about his waist, and stepped out of the changing room. Leighton was standing by the chair now, a bundle of wires and electrodes gripped in one surprisingly large and strong hand. The scientist must be more eager than usual to see me off, thought Blade. Well, he can hardly be more eager than I am. At this point the last of Blade's tension always faded away, leaving behind only a great impatience to be off on his next adventure.

Blade sat down in the chair, feeling the chill rubber of the back and seat against his bare skin. He leaned back and started breathing quickly and deeply, filling his whole system with oxygen. The doctors of the Project had the notion that if he hyperventilated before the computer gripped him, it might help prevent the splitting headache he usually felt after arriving in Dimension X. The headache always went away within a few minutes, but during those few minutes it was often so painful that Blade could hardly move. It would be an advantage to be ready for action the moment he awoke in Dimension X. Only a small advantage, to be sure-but Blade's training and experience had taught him how much even small advantages could mean to survival.

Lord Leighton practically ran in circles around Blade, attaching the cobra-headed metal electrodes to every part of Blade's body. From each electrode a colored wire led off into the bowels of the computer. By the time Leighton finished, Blade sprouted wires from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. He looked like the victim of a mad scientist in a low-grade horror film.

Well, Lord Leighton certainly looked enough like a mad scientist to be cast for the part. There were probably some people who thought he actually was mad. Certainly he could be eccentric, stubborn, outrageous, and totally impossible to get along with. Blade wondered how many of the white hairs on J's head had been added by having to deal with the scientist. Probably quite a few. But it was worth it. Lord Leighton might hold a large part of the future of the human race in his mind and hand.

Blade saw the room around him appearing with unnatural clarity and felt his head beginning to swim. He knew that he'd done enough deep breathing, stopped, and let himself relax. As he did, Leighton stepped to the main control panel and pulled the red master switch down to the bottom of its slot.

A buzzing started in Blade's head, then swelled to a screaming roar. It sounded like a jet plane winding up for takeoff, and Blade half expected the room to start vibrating savagely. It seemed unnatural that there should be so much noise with no movement.

In the next moment the room tilted up on end, as if a giant hand were gripping it and heaving. Blade saw Leighton and J standing frozen as the floor tilted, until they were standing at such an angle that Blade expected them to fall down out of sight. The floor tilted still more and the whole room turned upside down-Lord Leighton, J, the control panel, the computer consoles, Blade in his chair, everything. Now Lord Leighton and J seemed to be hanging head downward, like bats from the ceiling of a cave. The roaring swelled until Blade wanted to scream at the tearing agony in his eardrums.

Suddenly the noise died, and in the same moment the chair detached itself from the inverted floor and plunged downward, carrying Blade with it. He plunged into a vast windy darkness that suddenly spread beneath him. The darkness swallowed him, the wind howled about him, and a numbing chill began to gnaw at his fingers and toes.

The fall through the darkness went on and on, and the cold began to work through Blade's skin into his internal organs. Then there was no longer darkness below, A vast plain spread out in all directions, a plain made of shimmering green light. In a hundred places vast mouths gaped open, mouths with lips of dancing golden fire and blazing silver teeth. Now they seemed to be aware of Blade and they began opening and shutting furiously.

Blade tried to twist in midair, to divert his fall and plunge into the green light instead of into one of the mouths. He failed. A mouth yawned wide directly below him, silver teeth flashed past him, he felt a moment of searing heat as deadly as the cold before-then he no longer felt anything at all.