The Torian Pearls

Chapter 27

«So, Richard,» said J. «How do you feel about this last trip?»

Soon after he'd started sending out agents instead of going out himself, J had discovered the need for something more than the formal debriefing. Of course that was still necessary and always would be. But if after that debriefing you sat down with the man over some good whiskey and talked things over less formally-well, it was sometimes surprising what came out.

Blade sighed. «Frankly, it was somewhat like the first time I ran into the Menel. I have the feeling I was snatched back just about the time the real work was about to begin. Not only in dealing with the Menel, but in so much else. There's Loya and our child, there's Paor, there's ….» He broke off and shrugged. «I could go on for half an hour, but I think you get the idea.»

«I do,» said J. «But if we always gave you time to finish everything you've started, you'd be spending ten years in each Dimension.»

Blade laughed. «That's perfectly true. I never was one for leaving business unfinished, even as a boy.» He sipped his whiskey in silence for a moment. «I suppose I did get through everything that absolutely had to be done. I also left practically everybody alive and healthy when I came home. That's a pleasant change.»

«Everybody, except the Vodi,» put in J.

«True. But I don't think the Vodi are going to be on my conscience. Nor the Menel, either.»

«Lord Leighton is having fits over the Menel, you realize. If he had a soul, I think he'd sell it to have the Menel diary in his hands. He's been saying that we might learn the true relationship of Dimension and space if we could only translate that diary.»

«I know,» said Blade. «I was wondering myself what the Menel being in that Dimension meant. Did they have interdimensional travel? Or were the Torians and the Kargoi somehow in-something-that was physically the same as the Dimension of the Ice Dragons. I stopped wondering about it, after a while. I had too many other things on my mind, and I knew Lord Leighton could do a better job of puzzling it all out anyway.

«One point where I have done more thinking is on what the Menel were really after. I wondered if they could seriously hope to conquer the Dimension with their implanted animals. I couldn't see how that was possible, so I wondered if the Menel were a pack of fools.

«I don't think they are. I now think that what they probably hoped to do was flood a particular area with implanted animals. That could make the area uninhabitable, by killing or frightening away all the 'primitive' inhabitants. The humans might even come to call the area accursed. Then the Menel could move from their island to the mainland and settle in. They would be nearly as safe from premature human interference as they'd been on the island. But they would have more room and more resources of metal and everything else. In a generation or two, they would have the strength and the weapons for a full scale war of conquest.

«They didn't reckon on running into a people as tough as the Kargoi. The Kargoi might have died to the last warrior, but I think they would have destroyed most of the Menel animals in the process.»

«Perhaps,» said J. «But I don't think having you to lead them-ah, hindered them in any way.»

Blade flushed. «I suppose not. In any case, the Menel were beaten off, and now their secret is out. Also, they will face a united human race in at least part of the world. That's something I'm sure they won't be expecting from a 'primitive' race. Who knows? In a generation or two they may be ready to give up the struggle. I'd give a good deal to be on hand when that happens.» There was a distant look in Blade's eyes, one that J would have called dreamy in any man less practical and tough-minded. «If some human could approach the Menel as an equal, who knows…? I wondered about that, too.»

«You'd have Lord Leighton's support in going back, that's for certain,» said J. «But we still haven't got a controlled-return process reliable enough to risk you. Even if we did, you might land back in the same Dimension, but twenty-five years in its past or three hundred years in its future.»

«Complicated, isn't it?» said Blade drily.

«Rather,» said J, in the same tone. Then, more cheerfully, «I have some genuinely good news for once. My sources tell me that Scotland Yard has closed the file on the 'Mystery Hero' affair. So there's no one from the Yard going to be on the lookout for you any more.»

Blade looked as if he wanted to jump up and down and cheer. Instead he merely rose, a broad smile on his face, and shook J's hand. «That is good news, sir. I think it calls for another drink.»

«Indeed it does,» said J, and turned to the sideboard. It was good to see Richard so happy, and the news was a great relief to him as well. Richard had saved more than a dozen lives in a train wreck a few months ago, and his reward had been to find Scotland Yard on his trail. He'd had to vanish from the scene of the wreck to avoid compromising the Project with the publicity, and the police promptly concluded that the «Mystery Hero» had vanished for some sinister reason. It had been most damnably inconvenient all around, and for a considerable time it had denied Richard some of the peace and quiet he so badly needed between trips into Dimension X.

Now it was over. A small victory, but sometimes it seemed there was no other kind.

The two men raised freshly filled glasses, and drank.