Liberator Of Jedd

Chapter Three

Blade, naked but for the loincloth, his body smeared with tar grease, sat in what he had come to think of as the «electric chair» and watched Lord Leighton tape the last shiny electrode to his inner calf. Lord L, in a long white surgeon's coat that covered his hump, seemed his usual cheerful and efficient sell. Not exactly a benign type, the old man, but Blade had never thought of him as sinister. Nor did he now. J was upset and nervous over what he imagined Lord L's plans to be.

An hour earlier, in J's cramped office in Copra House in the city, Blade had listened to his chief's suspicions with growing incredulity. J came very near to making Lord L out to be a kind of Dr. Frankenstein.

«I tell you, Dick, he means to get a knife into your brain!» J tapped his pipe nervously on his teeth. «His Lordship isn't satisfied with things as they are, particularly with your memory retention. He won't be satisfied until he works out a means of direct communication with you while you are in Dimension X.»

Blade, who had deposited Viki at her Belgravia apartment half an hour before, kissed her goodbye and given her fanny a last pat — and vowed never to see her again — was feeling very fit. Better than in weeks. Inaction and boredom were at an end. He had peered deep into his psyche and found the cause of his discontent — he was actually looking forward to the new foray into Dimension X. With certain reservations. He was a pitcher that did not intend going to the well forever. He intended, at the proper time, to suggest that they find a new man and begin training him.

This was not the time. He said to J, «I thought my memory cells were functioning excellently. After all the work Lord L has done on them, all the hours I've spent under the chronos machine — and he never said anything to me! Never indicated that he was dissatisfied with the results.»

«He wouldn't. Not to you.» J began to pace his tiny office. «And he won't say anything, not until he is ready. That, I suspect, will be sometime after you get back from this trip through the computer.»

«I'll get back.»

J nodded. «There is always that, of course. But when, if, you get back, then you had better be on your guard, Dick. You know how smarmy, how persuasive, the old man can be. Don't let him talk you into anything. Though even if he does, I—»

J broke off and jammed his pipe fiercely into his tobacco pouch. Blade waited.

«I am,» J continued, «quite prepared to take steps. I will not allow him to tinker with your brain, Richard, in any surgical way. If you haven't the willpower to stand up to him, I, as your commanding officer, can and will forbid it.»

Blade picked up his Burberry and slung it over his shoulder. It was a bleak and drizzling morning. «I think I can handle it,» he assured J as he was leaving. «You should know that, sir. When, to your recollection, was the last time anyone made me do anything I didn't want to do?»

J did not appear reassured. «You don't know that old man as I have come to know him,» he said bitterly. «He is a scientist, not a human being. He will stoop to anything — he'll play on your sense of duty, my boy, on your devotion to England.»

«All that is a bit of old hat now,» said Blade. «But I know what you mean. I'll be careful. You're not coming to the Tower?»

J sank into his swivel chair. «Not this time. No point to it, really. I just stand around outside and worry. I can do that here.»

Blade left with J's usual blessings and luck and took a taxi to the Tower of London. Now, sitting in the chair in the glass booth, deep in the guts of the huge computer, bound like Gulliver with varicolored wires, he watched Lord Leighton fiddle with a series of knobs, toggles and buttons on a large gauge board. This was a new addition and Blade had never seen it before. In another segment of the gray computer housing was the familiar red button, set alone in its plaque and festooned by a hundred wires, that would send Blade into Dimension X.

By now Blade realized that things were different. Lord L was not following the usual routine. As a rule he wasted no time. Like a compassionate executioner who wished to spare his victim the terror of waiting, Lord L would smile, clap Blade on the back and press the button that sent him swirling away. But not this morning.

His Lordship was reading the gauges carefully and making minuscule notes in a large, ledger-like book. He seemed unaware of Blade's presence. He sidled back and forth in front of the instrument board, his polio-ruined legs causing him to lurch and sway like a white, fragile spider. He kept muttering to himself as he made entries in the book. Now and then he reached back to stroke the pain in his hump.

In the minutes of waiting, Richard Blade stumbled on another truth. If the hazardous computer experiments were affecting him, they were, in no less degree if in a different manner, also affecting Lord L and J. Neither man was the same as when this thing had started. Strain, fear, tension, guilt and responsibility all had taken their toll. Odd, Blade thought, that he had not seen it before. But then he had been concentrating on his own woes.

At last Lord L turned from the board and hobbled toward the chair where the naked, electrode-bound Blade waited.

Blade, as usual, was nervous. And when he was nervous he was blunt. «What is it, sir? Something gone wrong?»

The old man did not answer at once. He stared at Blade with his yellow lion's eyes. Through the encompassing walls of the monster computer came, very faintly, the susurration of hundreds of lesser computers in the vast outerchambers. Monitored by men in white smocks who did not dream of what went on in this small inner sanctum.

«Not exactly wrong,» said Lord L at last. He pointed at the gauge board. «It's just that I want to try something new, Richard, a new approach to our work, and I think you should know beforehand.»

Blade looked deep into the yellow eyes. «Does J know about this?»

«No, my boy. J does not know about it. If he did he would only object to it. Make obstacles. And without cause. There is not the slightest danger — other than, er, the usual risks, of course.»

«You had better explain it to me, sir. I'll decide about the risks.»

«Of course, Richard. Of course.»

Lord L flipped open his book and ran a finger beneath a line of what appeared to Blade to be ideograms. Beneath it was a cartouche with a mass of hieroglyphic symbols. Under this was a long column of mathematical abstractions. All Greek to Blade. He waited patiently.

«As you must know,» Lord L said, «I have kept records of each experiment. Extremely detailed and minute records. It has long been in my mind that, if I could achieve a 'fix' on any particular setting, I could use it over and over again. That setting would always be valid and I could send you again and again into the same Dimension X. The advantages of this are obvious, Richard.»

Blade nodded. He could see. One of the great disadvantages of Project DX and one over which the Prime Minister was grumbling — mindful of the millions of pounds being expended — was that they could never be sure into which Dimension X the computer would hurl Blade. In his first four trips out he had landed in a different dimension each time. The first three tunes it had not mattered greatly — he had found nothing of tangible value, nothing that could be exploited to enrich Home Dimension. But on his last expedition, into Sarma, he had found mountains of uranium. Enough, and cheap enough, to make England the leading atomic power in the world. All that was needed was a means of getting it back to Home Dimension, and at this moment in the Scottish Highlands a little band of top scientists was working on teleportation.

His Lordship, as though probing Blade's mind, nodded and showed his long teeth in a smile. «Yes, Richard, I know it is all very much in the future. But the Prime Minister is a practical man. He is a politician, not a scientist, and he has to make an accounting. He thinks it is time we began to show a profit. So with his permission, I might even say his urging, I am trying this new experiment. I am going to try to send you back into X Dimensions that you have visited before. I have selected Alb as the first and have set the computer accordingly.»

Alb! Blade half smiled as he remembered the Princess Taleen. A saucy wench. Lovely and tawny skinned and a savage in lovemaking. It would be nice to see her again. Or would it? She was as dangerous as a barrel of dynamite.

«There is nothing of value in Alb,» he said, and grinned. «Nothing to make the Prime Minister happy. Sarma would be more like it. The uranium.»

Lord Leighton frowned impatiently. «I know, I know! You are missing the point, my dear boy. This is to be only a brief experiment at best. I will keep you in Alb for only a few moments, then bring you back. Because, if I can send you to Alb by choice, by predetermined setting, I can get you back any time I choose. I am sure of it.»

Blade was not so sure. And he saw why Lord L had not confided in J. «You mean, sir, that this is in a very real sense a brand-new experiment and you offer no guarantees?» He gazed at the awesome loom of the giant computer. «This is not really the same computer, sir?»

Lord L jammed his book beneath his arm and clasped his fragile blue-veined hands on his white-smocked breast. He favored Blade with one of his best smiles. As J would have put it, he was being smarmy.

«When did you return from your last trip into Dimension X, my boy?»

«Six months ago.» J had insisted on six-month intervals, time to find and assess any damage to Blade's brain tissue.

Lord L nodded. «Right. Six months. And during those six months I have been working every day, up to eighteen hours a day, on this machine. Of course it is not the same computer, Richard. How could it be? I don't intend it to be. Science can never stand still.»

Blade blinked at the old man and pretended to think. Pretended because he already knew what he was going to do, what he must do — go through with it. Never mind that it was a totally new approach and dangerous as hell. What else could he do? Who else was there? It was, after all, his job. His duty.

He nodded curtly to Lord L. «Okay, sir. Let's see if you can put me back in Alb. Let's get on with it.»

Lord L hobbled to the red button. He waved a hand. «Good boy. Good luck.» He pressed the button.

Lights flashed on the instrument board. Gauges spun. Blade felt the slow itch of the current pulsing in his veins and arteries. Soon now there would be pain and more pain and then an exploding universe. He would be hurled, flung, not up or down or out, but into a new dimension. He would awaken as naked as a newborn babe in some strange land, and the fight for survival would begin. He would—

He became aware, and because of that very awareness, knew that something had gone wrong. There was pain, yes, but it was only the current clawing at him. Racking him, flowing through the conductors of his bones, twisting him. Pain. Blade wanted to scream and found his jaws locked. He was still in the chair, still in the glass booth, still in Home Dimension. Burning and yet not scorched. There was no smell of burning flesh. Long blue sparks flashed from his toes and fingers, and a crackling halo encircled his head. And now smoke.

Smoke. Dense, greasy brown, it poured into the tiny enclosure from the guts of the machine. Miniature lightning stroked back and forth across the room and in the forked luminescence Blade saw Lord L staggering toward the instrument board. The old man was bent double, coughing and shielding his eyes as he fumbled for switches and toggles and buttons.

Blade made a great effort to leave the chair. The current still bound him. He struggled and threshed about, pitting his great muscles against the current and the tiny wires that held him as if they had been chains.

Lord L pressed a final button. The current drained away. Blade snapped the wires, brushed aside the electrodes and was about to leave the chair when he stopped and stared.

Between himself and Lord Leighton was a spinning vortex of brown smoke. It moved and undulated, writhing, taking form and then it ceased to be smoke and became—

What? What was it? For one of the few times in his life Blade knew the heart-shocking thrill of pure physical terror. Not so much at the man who stood there, if it was a man, but at the manner of appearance. Blade hesitated, his hands braced on the chair arms, wary, and now responsive to the massive dose of adrenaline pumped into his system by fear.

The creature shared his fear. And acted. It let out a high snarl of rage and terror and rushed at Lord Leighton. In its right hand, raised to kill, was a crude stone axe. The old man cowered back against the gauge board, his hands raised to fend off the blow, his voice quavering in a shrill scream.

«Help, Richard! Help me. Get it!»

Blade left his feet eight feet behind the thing and brought it down in a flying tackle. Its legs were covered with hair and it had a rancid animal smell. It was small, hardly half the size of Blade, but wiry and bulging with muscle. And as fast as a cat.

Lord L was screaming something that Blade could not make out. No time. The creature was on its feet and striking at him with the axe. Blade fended it off and got a wristhold and sent the axe flying across the room. The gaping mouth opened and long fangs slashed at Blade's throat. Blade held it off and struck with a tremendous right cross. He missed the jaw and jarred his hand and arm on an oversize skull.

A constant stream of furious sound came from the throat of the thing. Small deep-set eyes hated Blade. The thing screamed and slashed with long nails: «Orggggghhhhh— Orgggggggg— Ohhrrrrggrrr.»

Lord Leighton's voice, as from a far place, fell into recognizable words. «Be careful, Richard! For God's sake, be careful. Don't kill it! Don't hurt it! For God's sake, don't kill it!»

The sweating, struggling Blade had no time to appreciate the irony. He was too busy keeping whatever it was from killing him. Again and again he fought the fangs away from his throat and tried to get in a knockout blow, even a killing blow and to hell with his Lordship, but the creature was as fast and as slippery as a greased snake. It kept leaping at Blade, growling its Orggggggggg— orggggggggg—

Then Blade did what he should have done before. He stepped away. The thing stood gazing at him, hunched, long arms dangling, huge jaw thrust forward, looking at Blade in puzzlement and confusion.

Blade feinted with a left.

Orggggrggggggg— It sprang at him again.

Blade shifted his feet and brought the right in level and just right and with all his shoulder leverage behind it. His fist crashed home on the prognathic jaw. The man, animal, thing or creature slumped into a heap on the floor. Blade, panting and bleeding from a dozen scratches and cuts, stood looking down at it.

Lord Leighton leaped forward and caught Blade's arm. The old man was livid, sweating, shaking all over and in a mingled delirium of apprehension and delight. He literally danced round the supine figure on the rubberized floor of the computer room. The words came tumbling inchoate, hardly understandable.

«Don't hurt him — you mustn't hurt him — easy does it. A prize, Richard, a prize! Beyond my wildest dreams! A treasure — a veritable treasure. Must not harm it — by no means harm it— I— Something went wrong — something went wrong and—»

Blade wiped sweat from his eyes. «Yes, sir. Something sure as hell went wrong. What is it? Where did it come from? What are we going to do with it?»

Lord L ignored him. He was kneeling by the thing, examining the hairy body, stroking it like a baby with the colic.

«I don't know, Richard. Don't care. No time for all that now. But it must be from another dimension — a time lapse and possible parallel development and millions, maybe even billions of years. I—»

Lord Leighton came suddenly to his feet. He peered at Blade with his hooded eyes. «Top secret from now on, my boy. Absolute top security! No one must know about this. Absolutely no one. You understand that, my boy? Do you? An order, Richard, an absolute order.»

«How about J?»

Lord L grimaced, hesitated, then with reluctance said, «Of course J. I suppose he must know. But no one else. Absolutely no one else. Now you wait here and watch it while I get a hypo and some drugs. I'll have to knock it out, I suppose. Keep it unconscious for a time. Have to. Otherwise it will only destroy itself or make us destroy it. That must not happen.» He scuttled for the door. «I won't be a second.»

Blade stared down at the thing on the floor. It was breathing heavily through large, flattened nostrils. There were flecks of foam around the mouth. It did not move.

Blade's hand and arm ached from the blow he had given it.

Blade sniffed at the burnt-out computer shell. He found that he could grin. The old boy had really fouled this one up. Six months of work gone up in smoke and the old man had conjured up some sort of a hairy demon from somewhere out there in limbo.

Blade shrugged. And laughed.

He touched the unconscious creature with his bare foot The body hair was long and coarse and clotted with dirt and sweat, and the smell from it was fast overpowering the acridity of the smoke.

Blade was still chuckling when Lord L came back with a tray on which was a hypodermic needle and several small bottles containing a clear liquid. His Lordship gave him a reproving glance as he filled the needle and injected the brute thing on the floor.

«This is a very serious matter,» said Lord L. «Not at all funny, Richard. We have probably made the greatest scientific discovery of all time. A serious matter, my boy. Very serious.»

«Yes, sir,» said Blade. «But now what, sir? Where do we go from here?»

Lord L glanced around as though he expected spies to leap from the shattered computer. «We shall have to be very careful and very cunning. And there is much hard work in store for us. All of us. I have already used my authority to clear the outer areas and seal us off. The first thing, Richard, is that you go and fetch J at once. Best not try to explain this matter to him. I will do that. Go now. Hurry.»

Blade pointed out that he could not have explained the matter to J even had he wished. You cannot explain what you do not understand yourself.

Lord L ignored him. All he said was, «Go at once, please.»

«Is it all right if I dress first, Lord Leighton?»

His Lordship did not hear.