Champions Of The Gods rb-21 Read online

  Champions Of The Gods

  ( Richard Blade - 21 )

  Джеффри Лорд

  Роланд Джеймс Грин

  Champion of the Gods

  Blade 21

  By Jeffrey Lord

  Chapter One

  The man called J stood in the autumn rain at the Tower of London and waited for Richard Blade. A gray, wet, dismal day in London always made him feel particularly old. When he was waiting on a day when Richard would be taking a trip into Dimension X, he felt even older.

  J's erect bearing and dignified manner hid a good part of his age from the casual observer. They didn't conceal it from himself. He was aware of every one of his years, more than forty of them devoted to a by-now legendary career in espionage. He had begun it behind German lines during the First World War. Like all spies who lived long enough, he was ending his career behind a desk, watching younger men go out to carry out his orders or die trying. The strain resulting from this could be concealed like his age, from casual observers, but not from himself.

  Watching Richard Blade go out into the unknown was the greatest strain of all. J did not love any of the others like the son he'd never had. None of the other young men traveled so far, or faced such dangers with nothing but their own wits and muscles. None of the other young men were doing work so important for England.

  Quite some time had now passed since the day Lord Leighton had wired Richard Blade's brain to a computer and sent him off into the somewhere called Dimension X. That somewhere had deserved the name then, and it still deserved it now. They didn't know all that much about it. There were times when everyone except Lord Leighton wondered if they ever would!

  But they did know that an infinity of other worlds lay out there in Dimension X, each world with its own knowledge, people, resources. If the day ever came when England could regularly tap that knowledge, those resources-well, perhaps the sun might rise on a new British Empire.

  So time after time Blade went out into Dimension X. Each time he risked his life, each time he added a tiny bit of knowledge to the little they already had. Eventually they would learn the key to Dimension X or Richard Blade would not come back. No one knew which would happen first.

  J turned away from that grim train of thought as Richard Blade appeared in the doorway. He moved toward J with that distinctive stride of his, a stride like a tiger on the prowl. Some secret agents could look like bookkeepers or refuse-lorry drivers. Richard, God help him, could never look too different from what he was, a superbly skilled man of action.

  The two men shook hands. «I hear the psychiatrists have been giving you a particularly hard time,» said J.

  «I suppose you might say that,» said Blade. «As usual, they seem to think there's something important about whether I bit my nails as a boy. And if I did, which hand did I bite more often, and which finger of that hand did I start with?»

  J laughed and pressed the concealed button to summon the elevator up from Lord Leighton's secret research complex two hundred feet below. They stood in silence until the heavy bronze door to the shaft hissed open.

  When they were safely out of earshot in the descending elevator, J spoke again. «They gave you a clean bill of health, though?» Damn it, that sounded like the question of a nervous old grandmother! But J knew he was always nervous when it came time for Richard to be shot off into nowhere. Since he didn't have anything to do now except sit and watch, he didn't even have to pretend to be calm. Not with Richard, at least.

  «Oh, they did. My head's in the same shape as always, both inside and out. But they took a bloody long time to decide it! Frankly, it's a relief to be heading off into Dimension X again.»

  J smiled. «Leaving me to face the day-to-day routine?»

  Blade had the grace to sound slightly embarrassed.

  «Well, sir, you must admit you've always had the better head for administrative detail. I could never have done half of your job.»

  «No, Richard. You've always been the perfect and complete field man. You'll still be one, even when we find someone else to send into Dimension X and stick you behind a desk yourself.»

  «I wonder when that will be?»

  «Getting tired, Richard?» J did his best to make it sound like a joke.

  «Not precisely. But I must say I'll be a damned sight happier when the whole Project doesn't depend on me alone. I can cope with swords and slippery roads, but there's always such a thing as simply running out of luck.»

  That was a fact J had accepted long ago, but thinking about it never improved his mood. The Project was Richard, when all was said and done. No other living man could travel into Dimension X and return safely.

  Without Richard, alive, sane, and ready to go, Lord Leighton's giant computer was so many millions of pounds' worth of useless components and circuitry. Nor would all of J's administrative work and all the Prime Minister's help for the Project have any purpose either, with Richard gone. Once more J uttered a silent prayer for just one other person to send into Dimension X.

  But he had been praying for quite a while. So far nobody had turned up. He was beginning to wonder if anybody ever would.

  Damn! He certainly was in a grim and gloomy mood today. He didn't need to look calm with Richard, but he jolly well owed it to the man to at least look more cheerful!

  They walked from the elevator down an underground corridor leading through the whole complex to the computer rooms. Every step they took and every word they spoke was monitored by the electronic surveillance network that guarded the secrets of the complex and the Project. So far no one had learned those secrets and lived to carry them to hostile ears.

  The first few computer rooms were packed with auxiliary equipment and the technicians to handle it. There seemed to be more of both each time J came down here. One technician was certainly new-a tall, almost statuesque blond woman with a strong face that was handsome rather than pretty.

  J saw that Blade was noticing the woman too. That was something else that didn't change, either. One couldn't say that Blade had a weakness of women, however. No woman ever affected his work in the slightest. In this as in so many other ways, Richard was both an English gentleman and a superb professional.

  Lord Leighton met them at the door to the final room, the one holding the main computer. The scientist looked tired. J realized with a slight shock that this was only the third or fourth time Leighton had looked tired. Normally he bustled around in his filthy, once-white lab coat like some aging but still robust gnome. But he was more than eighty years old, his spine twisted by a hunched back, his legs twisted by the polio he'd had as a child. It was a minor miracle he hadn't been in his grave ten years ago.

  The three men shook hands all around and passed through the last door. The room beyond was almost entirely filled with the vast gray crackle-finished masses of the main computer, rising to the rock ceiling and looming high over the men below. There was so little in this room that seemed made for human beings or even to human proportions) The computer consoles seemed like the images of strange gods in the crumbling temple of some forgotten and sinister religion. The metal-framed chair in its glass booth in the middle of the room seemed like an altar where Lord Leighton would shortly sacrifice Richard Blade to those gods.

  J looked at Blade and smiled, amused at the workings of his own imagination. Richard, as usual, was as calm as if he had been preparing to step into a swimming pool for half an hour's brisk workout. Or if he was showing any emotion, it was anticipation, anticipation of what might be waiting for him in Dimension X. J knew that he himself had once gone off on field missions in much the same frame of mind. But those days were far behin
d him now.

  J pulled out the folding spectator seat installed for his benefit on one wall and sat down. Blade had already vanished into the changing booth. J leaned back as far as he could, wished he could light a cigar, and watched Leighton bustling about the room, making final checks on the computer.

  A few minutes later Blade emerged from the changing booth, stripped to a loincloth and smeared from head to foot with a sticky, strong-smelling black grease. The grease was supposed to prevent electrical burns. The loincloth did absolutely nothing that anybody had ever been able to figure out. Blade always landed in Dimension X alive, sane, his head aching, and naked as a new born baby.

  Blade sat down in the chair in the glass booth and Lord Leighton went to work. Like a gardener fastening vines in place, lie fixed scores and hundreds of wires to every part of Blade's body. Each wire ended in a cobra-headed metal electrode taped to Blade's skin. When Leighton was finished, Blade reminded J of a statue-a statue in some city long abandoned to the jungle, now completely overgrown with a tangle of creepers and vines. As always, Blade sat perfectly still. With all the wires attached to him, he couldn't have fidgeted even if he'd wanted to.

  As Lord Leighton moved over to the master control panel, remembered to ask one of his usual questions. «Any tricks this time?»

  «No. We're still accumulating data on Blade's return to Tharn.»

  J nodded, relieved. Lord Leighton was firmly determined to improve the Project in every possible way. So far all they could do was land a stark-naked Blade somewhere and bring him back with whatever he happened to be holding on to at the time. There was a lot more than that to be done if England was ever to benefit from all the millions of pounds poured into Project Dimension X.

  So far, though, nothing they had done had broken the pattern. Once Blade had returned to a Dimension he'd visited before, the land of Tharn. But that had apparently been pure accident. Lord Leighton hated «accidents» with a violent passion, and sometimes he became a little too determined to prove the superiority of the scientific method. When that happened, he sometimes threw novelties into the computer without consulting anybody else or even taking proper thought for Blade's safety. So far they had been very lucky. Richard himself had said that there was always such a thing as running out of luck, however. As he always did, J mentally crossed his fingers and prayed that this would not be the time.

  The lights on the control panel showed that the computer was reaching the end of the main sequence. In a few seconds it would be ready to receive Lord Leighton's command to hurl Blade into Dimension X.

  Lord Leighton reached out with one thin, twisted hand, in a surprisingly smooth and sure gesture. The long fingers closed on the red master switch. The scientist seemed to draw himself almost straight. This was his moment, the moment when the miracle he had made possible would take place again.

  Lord Leighton pulled down on the switch. There was no sound, no thunderous roar to mark the power let loose, not even a faint hum or hiss. But a searing golden light flashed through the chamber. Every bit of metal and glass sparkled and glowed as if it had been dipped in molten gold.

  J squeezed his eyes shut against the glare. When he opened them, the chair in the center of the room stood there in its glass booth-empty.

  Chapter Two

  It usually took a little while for Blade's senses to reorient themselves as Home Dimension faded out and Dimension X took shape. Usually he whirled through a nightmare of strange sounds and even stranger sights while this happened.

  This time things were different. A hammering pain exploded in his head and a searing golden light swamped his vision, leaving him staring blindly into total darkness. Before he could even draw a breath he landed with a distinct and unmistakably real thud an a hard, lumpy surface.

  The headache was much worse than usual. Even raining a hand sent pain stabbing sickeningly through his head. He felt nauseated, but he couldn't even gather the energy to retch. He lay still with his eyes closed until he felt the pain beginning to fade. A few minutes after that he was able to open his eyes, sit up, and then rise to his feet.

  He was standing in the bottom of a shallow bowl formed by slopes of reddish-yellow sand and shiny jet-black gravel. The rim of the bowl was a series of undulating crests of wind-packed and wind-furrowed sand. Overhead a blazing sun made a cloudless blue sky seem almost luminous. Blade already felt the heat searing down on his naked skin. He licked his lips, which suddenly felt a great deal drier than they should have.

  Down in the bowl there was not a breath of wind blowing. Occasional wisps of sand whirling past overhead told of a strong breeze higher up. Blade started up the side of the bowl. Remembering his survival training, he moved slowly, to avoid working up a sweat that would cost his body precious water.

  The rim of the bowl gave him a better view of the landscape. He turned his face away from the wind, to keep the sand out of his eyes, and shaded his eyes against the sun with one hand as he scanned his surroundings. He could see a long way in the clear desert air. For many miles all he could make out were humps, ridges, and more pits and bowls, mile after mile of lifeless sun-scorched sand and gravel. The only thing moving anywhere was an occasional dust devil.

  Blade could already feel the furnace-hot, sand-laden wind blowing over him, invisibly but inevitably sucking the moisture out of him. How many miles of desert lay between him and human life in this Dimension? More important, how many miles lay between him and the nearest water?

  Blade firmly reined in his curiosity. The deep desert was no place to indulge a desire to see what lay beyond the next hill. It was a place for one rule, and one rule only, for anyone who wanted to live as long as he could. Make your water last as long as possible. One way to do that was to not move by day-not a mile to see over the next ridge, not a single foot if you could help it.

  Blade moved a hundred feet or so, to a patch of soft sand in the lee of a small hump. He sat down and started digging himself in, working slowly to avoid getting sweaty or tired. A foot below the surface, the sand was thirty degrees cooler. Even a thin layer would keep the merciless sun from flaying the skin off his body.

  In a few minutes Blade covered everything except his head and one arm. He worked the arm as deep into the sand as he could, closed his eyes, and did his best to go to sleep. He couldn't think of anything else to do.

  The drop in temperature after the sun went down awoke Blade. He dug himself out from under the protecting sand, brushed himself off, and stood up. Taking refuge under the sand had helped. He felt thirsty, but well rested and not at all dehydrated.

  Now he could walk without fear of the sun and the sand-laden wind trying to suck the moisture and the life from his body. The air was still and silent. Blade felt his skin puckering at the chill of the desert night. What seemed like a million bright and totally impersonal stars shone down from the sky. It was time to get moving.

  He moved along swiftly, listening for any sound, looking for any light or movement. He saw nothing at all and heard nothing except the soft swish and crunch of his own bare feet on sand and gravel. This desert seemed as lifeless by night as it did by day. A good place to get out of as soon as possible.

  An hour later he was climbing a ridgeline that marked the crest of a gigantic sand dune. He stood as close to the edge as he dared and watched the leeward face of the dune swoop down and away. The face plunged five hundred feet down, and long fingers of mounded sand stretched out half a mile or more into the desert. What lay beyond was swallowed in the darkness. No light shone, nothing moved. It was like looking into a bottomless pit lined with black velvet.

  Blade's eyes scanned the visible face of the dune from left to right. Two-thirds of the way across he stopped and stood up, looking more carefully. Down in one of the little valleys between the sand mounds was a cluster of-things. Things that were unmistakably paler and sharper in outline than anything Blade had seen so far in this desert. Color and outline might be a trick played by shadows or overstrained eyes. T
hey might also indicate something not of this desert.

  Blade moved cautiously down the face of the dune, not wanting to risk starting a sandslide. He did not breathe easily until he felt under his feet the hardpacked level sand on top of one of the mounds. Then he turned and began scrambling along the fringes of the dune toward the valley where he had seen the shapes. Soon he stood at the head of the little valley, looking down onto the floor. The shadows here were deep, but they did not hide what lay below.

  Bleached and frayed robes and the bones of men and animals lay scattered about on the sand. Some were half-buried, others lay as if they had just been dropped there by a casual wanderer. From one threadbare hood the empty eye sockets of a whitened skull stared up at Blade.

  Blade stared back down at the skull. As silent as it was, it told him one welcome fact. This Dimension had human inhabitants.

  This didn't surprise Blade. On all his trips into Dimension X he'd always found at least one people who were unmistakably human, whomever and whatever else he might find besides. Sooner or later he suspected he was going to wind up in a Dimension where the only intelligent race looked like birds or snakes or eight-foot turnips. He was perfectly happy to see that day postponed as long as possible.

  There were a dozen or so complete human skeletons, the remains of several animals, plus assorted odd bones. The animal skeletons showed high arched backs, long necks, enormously long legs, and large splayed hooves for traveling across sand. Blade suspected the live animals would look remarkably like camels.

  Blade knelt and examined the clothing of the dead men. It made him think of old pictures he had seen of Bedouin tribesmen. The basic garments were long flowing robes. Once they had been a dazzling white. Now they were faded and frayed, slashed and stained with their late wearers' blood.

  Under the robes the riders had worn light tunics and trousers, and on their feet soft boots, now dried until they were cracked, hard as wood, and quite unwearable. Blade wrapped his feet in rags instead. But he was able to find a wearable tunic, trousers, and a robe. In these salvaged clothes he would look like something risen from the grave, but he would at least have a layer of cloth between his skin and the sun and sand.