Dragons Of Englor

Chapter 6

Blade slowly became aware that he was in a bed, with sheets and blankets under and over him and pillows piled high under his head. A hospital bed? No, the usual combination of sterile, antiseptic hospital smells was missing. This room smelled of fresh air and flowers, like a guest room in a comfortable country inn.

He opened his eyes. What he saw confirmed the impression of the smells. The room was large and I sunlit, with French windows on one end that gave a view of well-kept green lawns and flower beds, with trees and a lake in the distance. It was furnished with the bed, two large armchairs, a writing desk and chair, a small table, and a large antique wardrobe. There was restful green carpeting on the floor and wallpaper in a subdued floral pattern on the walls. The room was comfortable, without being luxurious.

Blade sat up in bed, threw off the blankets, and examined himself. He was wearing pajamas, blue silk ones that fitted as if they'd been custom-tailored. In its own way that was as impressive a demonstration of the resources of the people who held him prisoner as the big VTOL transport plane.

Blade had no doubt that he was a prisoner, although from the room around him he might have concluded that he was more of an honored guest. The French windows were undoubtedly wired with alarms and bolted inside and out, while concealed surveillance devices were just as undoubtedly monitoring his every movement, if not his every breath.

Blade climbed out of bed, took off the pajamas, and examined his body for signs of what might have happened to him since the one-eyed man knocked him out. He could find no cuts, bruises, burns, or even needle marks.

That didn't prove that nothing had happened to him, of course. Skilled interrogators could reduce a man to a whimpering wreck without leaving any traces on his body. By using spray injectors they could fill him full of a dozen different drugs without leaving a single needle puncture. He could have been broken thoroughly and pumped dry, then filled with amnesiac drugs so that he would not remember a second of the whole grim process. At least this could have happened if the people who held him were top-caliber professionals, and they probably were.

Examining himself again, he realized that he'd been shaved, bathed, manicured, and fed. So it would be nearly impossible to tell how long he'd been here from the growth of his beard or nails or how hungry he felt. He pushed the desk and one of the armchairs aside to clear a space in the center of the room. Then he went through a series of vigorous exercises to limber up and test for any loss of muscle tone.

He could detect none. Apparently he hadn't been a prisoner long enough to get out of shape. He continued with the exercises until he'd worked up a good sweat, then went into the bathroom. It was gleaming and modern, with a full set of towels, colognes, bath salts, and the rest. No razor or scissors, of course, but he'd hardly expected them. He stepped into the blue-tiled shower and turned on the water.

A hot shower left him feeling relaxed and ready for almost anything. He was toweling himself dry when the door clicked open and a woman walked in. Blade hastily wrapped the towel around himself and snatched a robe from the bathroom closet.

The woman paid no more attention to him than if he'd been one of the pieces of furniture. She walked over to the bed and began making it with the brisk, practiced movements of the experienced housemaid. She wore a plain blue coverall, and from her face and graying hair Blade judged that she was about forty, neither seductive nor seducible. From the way she moved he suspected that she was both armed and combat trained.

Blade had no intention of trying to take the maid and use her as a hostage. At the same time he could never stop absorbing facts about his surroundings and drawing conclusions from them. He never knew when he might suddenly need something he'd learned that way. He did know that this habit had saved his life a number of times.

The maid went on making up the room, still paying no attention to Blade. When the last jar of bath salts was dusted off and placed back in the medicine cabinet, she finally turned to Blade. Her thin lips creased in an apparently sincere smile.

«Ah, Mr. Blade. You're awake.»

Blade nodded. «I am,» he said, matching her politeness with his own. It could do no harm.

«Very good, sir. I'll tell the Master. I'm quite sure he'll be happy to hear it.» She turned and was gone before Blade could even begin to wonder, let alone ask, who or what «the Master» might be.

Less than five minutes later the door opened again and the one-eyed man entered. He walked with a brisk, military stride. It was a moment before Blade noticed that he also walked with a slight stiffness in the lower part of his right leg. Blade recognized that stiffness as the sign of an artificial limb. No doubt that was part of the reason for the revolver in the quick-draw holster under the man's left arm. He might be a bit slow on his feet, but there was nothing wrong with his hands or arms. Blade remembered the lightning stroke with the hypodermic and took care to keep his hands in clear sight as he sat down in one of the armchairs.

The one-eyed man drew up the other armchair and sat down facing Blade. Blade suspected that the distance between them was carefully calculated to be greater than he could cross before the one-eyed man could draw, fire, and hit him. The man looked like the type who would make that sort of calculation continuously and by instinct.

The man rested his left hand on the arm of his chair and looked at Blade. «Mr. Blade,» he said, «my name, for the purposes of our conversation, is R. I am Director of the Special Operations Division of the Office of Military Intelligence of the Imperial Armed Forces. I am here to offer you a position with the Special Operations Division.»

Blade kept his face carefully expressionless. «Perhaps you can tell me more?»

«Certainly. Regardless of the various unknowns in your background, you seem to have the skills and instincts to make you an exceptionally fine field operative for the Division. I need not tell you that we are entering a period of desperate crisis for Englor. I rather doubt I need to tell you that men highly gifted for field intelligence work are rare. In a crisis like this they are exceedingly valuable. I am offering you a position to which you seem well suited, where you can make an exceptionally valuable contribution to Englor's fight against the Red Flames.»

Blade was astonished. About the last thing he'd expected was such a blunt offer of a position as a secret agent in the service of Englor, and from Englor's chief spymaster! What had they learned about him-or not learned about him-that made them willing to make this offer?

Blade leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. «I take it that you've-«He was about to use the phrase «interrogated me,» but thought better of it. «-that you've examined my qualifications as thoroughly as you feel is necessary.» A cumbersome phrase, but neutral.

«Yes,» said R. There was a crisp finality in that single word that told Blade a great deal. It told him that he had indeed been interrogated, that they'd found out a great deal about him, and that he would never learn what they'd found out, no matter how many times he asked. In fact, asking would be not merely a waste of time, it would be dangerous.

Blade very badly wanted to know how much he'd said. Above all, he wanted to know if he'd revealed that he was-from another Dimension. He might not have said so in plain words, but this was a scientifically advanced Dimension. Its interrogators could interpret his words and draw conclusions from them in ways that men from a world of swords and castles never could. Revealing his origins to these people would amount to revealing the Dimension X secret, and to people who might be able to make use of the knowledge. Blade did not know how advanced Englor's computer technology was. He suspected it was uncomfortably close to that of Home Dimension.

It was maddeningly frustrating. How much did these people know? Blade knew that he was a difficult subject for interrogation, but he also knew that any man can be broken, given enough time and the right techniques.

Well, if he wasn't going to find out, he wasn't going to find out. In any case, the odds were somewhat against their having dug out anything dangerous. That would have certainly required more than the few days at most that he could have been under interrogation. Also, there was R's offer of a position as a field operative. It seemed hard to believe that a «mystery man» or a traveler from another Dimension would be casually offered such a position-at least by an intelligence professional like R.

Blade set his mind more or less at rest and nodded. «Very well. It's certainly an appealing offer. May I ask-is there any penalty for refusing?»

R smiled and shook his head. «None whatever. Well, perhaps a slight one. It will cause less talk if you do not return to your training unit. So you'll be passed as fully trained and assigned with the rank of corporal to the Royal Yorkshire Light Infantry. Their field battalions are all with the Eighth Army in Gallia. No one in the Yorkshires will know there's anything unusual about you, and there will be a cover story for the men in the training battalion. We aren't interested in coercing you, Mr. Blade. We want you as a free agent, or not at all.» A lift of the gray eyebrows told Blade that the pun was intentional.

«I see.» It was not hard to decide what his answer should be. He was being offered a chance to spend his time in this Dimension doing exactly the same type of work he'd done in Home Dimension for years. He'd done it well then, he'd do it well now. It was also the best opportunity he could hope for to dig out whatever useful secrets this Dimension might hold. Finally, it would be interesting, and Blade was a natural adventurer who hated boredom almost more than he did armed enemies.

«Do you want an answer now?» he said.

R nodded. «If you feel yourself in a position to give one, yes.»

«I accept.»

R smiled, rose to his feet-slowly, but quite gracefully. He came over to Blade with his hand outstretched. Blade rose and they shook hands.

«You'll have to pass through our regular training course, naturally. I don't imagine that someone with the qualities you've shown will fail, however. So, Mr. Blade, I think I can say with some confidence-welcome to the Special Operations Division.»

They shook hands again, and R opened the door. As he went out, the maid entered, pushing ahead of her a wheeled cart with an array of covered dishes, glasses, bottles, and pots.

Blade sniffed the various odors, and suddenly realized that he was a good deal hungrier than he'd thought.

Blade was again face to face with R only six weeks later. He spent the first three of those weeks in what was nominally the «training course.» After the first few days it became obvious that he was not being taught the skills he would need as a Special Operations agent. He was being tested to see if he already had those skills.

That suggested they knew or suspected something unusual about his background. Refusing to worry about that, Blade concentrated with grim determination on passing every one of the tests as impressively as possible. There were tests in marksmanship and parachuting, weapons and vehicle maintenance, unarmed combat, swimming and scuba diving. There were tests of his reaction times, analytical abilities, stress tolerances, memory, and every other quality that it was possible to measure. There was testing ten and sometimes twelve hours a day. It was a grueling routine, but the beds were soft, the food was good, and Blade's iron constitution and machinelike endurance did the rest. No one, least of all Blade, was surprised when at the end of the three weeks he was declared to have passed all the tests by a wide margin. In some of them he'd made the highest scores ever recorded in the school.

He spent another three weeks learning things a little less basic, such as ship and aircraft recognition, Red Flame military customs, the use of Russland weapons, and the like. The Russland language was as nearly identical to Home Dimension Russian as the language of Englor was to Home Dimension English, and Blade spoke competent if not fluent Russian. The language instructors said he would have trouble passing as a native Russlander, but no trouble at all passing as a citizen of one of the conquered satellites.

While Blade was in training, the Red Flames were busily setting about adding Nordsbergen to their empire. Or at least they were arranging things so that they could move in any time they wanted to, in force, with no danger of facing effective resistance.

Their surface ships and submarines swept across the shallow Baltan Sea that lay between Russland and Nordsbergen, and out through the Straits of Gratz into the Nord Sea. They completely ruled the coastal waters of Nordsbergen. Landings were reported on a number of the islands along the coast. Fortunately, all the troops and equipment of Englor had already been evacuated.

In the air, Russland planes were over Nordsbergen twenty-four hours a day, flying low, flying high, buzzing cities and military installations, watching everything that went on, doing little damage but making a thorough nuisance of themselves. They were reported to be concentrating heavily over the high range of mountains in central Nordsbergen.

Here in the training school Blade didn't have to keep his mouth shut on matters of strategy, tactics, and politics. «There seem to be good sites for radar stations all along the range,» he said. «With long-range sets up there, the Red Flames could extend their warning network halfway across the Nord Sea.»

«That could very well be it,» said one of the instructors. «We've had reports of Russ experiments with large prefabricated domes. They could be used for housing radar sets.»

The Imperial Navy and Air Force made no effort to interfere with Russland operations over and around Nordsbergen. At the same time, they left nothing undone to keep a close watch on those operations. The Imperial Army was wasting no time either. Battalions and brigades arrived from overseas areas of the Empire almost every day. Other battalions and brigades crossed the Channel to join the Eighth Army facing the Red Flames on the eastern border of Gallia.

There was good reason for these troop movements. The Russlanders were steadily reinforcing their own armies in their satellite countries. In a single week eight new divisions were identified by Imperial Military Intelligence, three of them armored divisions. A mighty mass of men and tanks and guns was gathering opposite the Eighth Army, outnumbering it at least three to one. Against that kind of odds, even the better training and better weapons of the Imperial Army might not be enough. There was a race on between Englor and the Red Flames, a race to see who would be the first to be ready to strike. It was by no means certain that Englor was going to win that race.

At the end of the six weeks, the instructors at the school declared Blade fit and ready for a field assignment. He was ushered into a paneled office in the administration building of the training center, to find R facing him from across a vast polished desk. Spread out on the desk were a map of Nordsbergen and a number of files and photographs.

Blade scanned them briefly, then met R's eye. He could read nothing in that eye. That was familiar. J always held himself in, blank-faced and expressionless, when the time came to send a man out on a mission. R was the same.

«The instructors have been most impressed with your progress,» said R. «They feel you're entirely ready for a field assignment. You've come along remarkably fast, all things considered.»

Blade knew there would be no point in showing he knew perfectly well he'd been tested, more than trained, these past weeks. R might not entirely appreciate knowing that Blade was that perceptive. Blade didn't want to risk even the slightest delay in leaving on his first mission for Englor. He felt trained and ready to the point of impatience.

«This is your first assignment,» said R, making a sweeping gesture that took in all the material on the desk. He folded up the map and scooped everything into a leather case, then handed it to Blade. «Study all this thoroughly, memorize the map and the codes, and call me back within forty-eight hours.»

They shook hands and Blade went out. As he passed down the corridor, he found that he had to force himself to remember this was not Home Dimension and the man he'd just left not J. He found his mind settling into the familiar patterns of preparing for a field mission, patterns well established in the years he'd worked for MI6.

Well, this was his original profession, the one where he'd shown his skills and made a name for himself. This was field intelligence work, with only the names changed from what he'd done for MI6.

In a sense, perhaps this was home-as much of a home as he could ever hope to have until he retired, if he lived that long.