Dragons Of Englor rb-24 Page 3

  As it went on, Blade began to wonder if the man had some sort of speech defect. Every time he spoke the name of the country, it came out «Englor.» Something wasn’t working right-either the policeman’s tongue or Blade’s hearing.

  Before the bobby could finish reading Blade the whole lecture, help arrived in the form of two soldiers. Both wore battledress and combat webbing and were also carrying Uzis. Hard on their heels appeared the military man Blade had first met, his pistol still in his hand. His face was a good deal redder than before.

  «Is this the man, sir?» asked the bobby.

  The man stared at Blade. It was a cold and unfriendly stare. Then he nodded and holstered his pistol. «I am Lieutenant Colonel Michael Morris, Duke of Pembroke’s Own Light Infantry. Who might you be?»

  Blade did a quick set of mental calculations. Refusing to give his name would be extremely suspicious. Giving a false name would be just as bad. What would be a false name under the circumstances? «Richard Blade» might get him in as much hot water as any name he could make up on the spur of the moment. On the other hand, it would stand up better under any interrogation with truth serum or lie detectors, and he had to reckon on that possibility. All in all, it would probably be better to give his own name.

  «Richard Blade.»

  «Well, Mr. Blade,» said the colonel. «I don’t know what you think you’re up to, trotting about the parks in your-in your present state of dress. But I’m quite sure a magistrate will be interested in finding out as soon as possible.»

  That was no surprise. Blade wondered if the next question from Colonel Morris would be where he’d left his clothes. Blade hoped that question would remain unasked, because it could not be easily answered. At least it could not be answered in any way that would not lead to all sorts of other questions and in the end probably to danger for the secret of Dimension X. Blade was determined to keep that secret, even from his own countrymen and at the cost of his own life. He, would only relax on that point if he found himself face to face with J or Lord Leighton, alive and in the flesh.

  Apparently Colonel Morris didn’t care about Blade’s clothes. He merely motioned to one of the soldiers, who threw a folded poncho down to Blade. Blade unfolded it, pulled it over his head, and scrambled up the side of the gulley. Morris took salutes from the two soldiers and the bobby, then strode briskly off down the path. The bobby led Blade off in the opposite direction, with the two soldiers falling in behind. The bobby had slung his submachine gun, but Blade noticed the two soldiers still held theirs at the ready.

  The little procession tramped briskly back through the park, retracing more of Blade’s steps, heading directly back toward the main road. Blade found himself becoming steadily more alert and observant out of sheer curiosity. What had happened to his country since he’d stepped into the computer, with the passage of time and the strains of this new war? Who was the enemy? Who was winning? He wanted answers to these and a hundred other questions.

  In a few more minutes they reached the main road. It stretched away in either direction, bordered on one side by the park and on the other by a mixture of ordinary suburban villas and small shops. Blade looked at some of the signs in the shop windows. Nothing out of the ordinary there, although he didn’t recognize some of the brand names. There also seemed to be fewer advertisements for beer, and more for wine. Well, if there was a war on and France was an ally, why not? Nothing surprising there, although he rather hoped that one could still get Mackeson’s Stout. It had always been one of his favorite drinks.

  To Blade’s right was a police van. It was dark blue, with a large crest and some white lettering that he couldn’t recognize on the door facing him. The two soldiers swung away to the left. Blade looked after them and saw four large army trucks and two tank transporters parked by the curb. All six vehicles had ring-mounted machine guns on top of the cabs, with soldiers in black berets manning them. Other soldiers were emerging from the park and climbing into the backs of the four trucks.

  On each of the two tank transporters sat two small tanks. Like the Uzi submachine guns, they were a perfectly recognizable type. They were Scorpions, the light reconnaissance tanks the British Army had introduced a few years before. Some of the antennas and other external hardware were different, but the silhouettes seemed virtually identical. Blade felt somewhat relieved. He definitely couldn’t have been pushed too far into the future if the RAF still flew C-130s and the British Army still used Scorpion tanks.

  All this time, traffic had been passing back and forth along the road in front of him. He’d noticed a perfectly ordinary mix of cars and trucks and buses, with an occasional motorcycle or scooter. Now his eyes were drawn to a large green truck that pulled up to the curb in front of a newsstand. Several bundles of newspapers were thrown out and the truck started off again. Another policeman climbed out of the police van, darted across the street in the intervals between cars, and bought an armful of newspapers from the boy at the stand.

  Blade’s own bobby took his arm firmly and led him toward the van. As they approached, the other man laid most of the newspapers down on the hood of the car, then opened the one he held. Blade looked at the newspaper, and suddenly he felt all his internal organs from his throat down to his groin turn into solid ice.

  The newspaper had the exact form of the familiar London Tames. But it called itself Imperial Times. Under the newspaper’s name was a motto, «For Emperor, For Englor.» Its price was given as «One Imperial Shilling.»

  That was bad enough, but it wasn’t the worst. The headlines read, bold and black:

  RUSSLANDER ULTIMATUM. RED FLAMES SAY:

  EVACUATE NORDSBERGEN. FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS HOSTILITIES NOW INEVITABLE.

  Worst of all was the date. Somehow, this was the same day as it had been when Blade sat down with the computer. The day, the month, and the year were all identical.

  Blade shook his head. Either his eyes were telling him more lies than he could imagine, or else he was not in the future.

  Yet this wasn’t the England of Home Dimension, either. It was a land-an empire-called Englor, facing war with somebody called the Red Flames who ruled a land called Russland.

  Where and when was he?

  Chapter 3

  There was a long, painful moment for Blade. He felt utterly alone, as alone and isolated as he had ever felt while passing from Home Dimension into Dimension X. Never in all his life had he felt quite so confused, quite so disoriented, or quite so close to the brink of outright fear.

  The moment came to an end as Blade’s superbly disciplined mind reasserted its control. Now he could once again ask himself a few basic questions, and this time he could also come up with some sort of answers.

  Where was he? Undeniably, in spite of all the signs that pointed the other way, he was in Dimension X. The computer had done its work as well or as badly as ever.

  However, this was a Dimension unlike any other he’d ever entered. This Dimension looked and sounded and felt so much like the Home Dimension he’d left that it was perfectly possible to mistake the one for the other.

  Blade conjured up a mental image of Dimension X as an endless series of different worlds, lined up side by side and stretching out of sight into-call it infinity, for want of a better name. Anyway, in this series a world like Gaikon with its warlords or Brega with its warrior women would be far down the line, far away from Home Dimension. This Dimension where he’d landed, on the other hand, would lie practically next door to Home Dimension.

  So far so good. Lord Leighton could undoubtedly find a thousand and one flaws in that image if he had the chance. But Lord Leighton was in the England of Home Dimension and Blade was here in the Englor of Dimension X. The precise accuracy of the image didn’t matter. What did matter was that Blade found it useful for settling and arranging his thoughts.

  So he was here, in this next-door Dimension that seemed so much like home. «Seemed» was perhaps the most important word in that sentence. The people of this Dimension
carried submachine guns and flew airplanes and drove tanks and trucks and cars. They wore the same uniforms and drank the same drinks and probably made love in familiar ways.

  Deceptively familiar. That would be the real danger for him in this Dimension-forgetting that it was Dimension X, in spite of everything that positively shouted otherwise. Forgetting that one little fact could lead to embarrassing mistakes.

  Or worse than embarrassing. That was another problem this Dimension offered, one which Blade had only rarely encountered before. This was an advanced, civilized, organized society, one that was also on the very edge of war.

  In more primitive Dimensions, Blade could escape punishment for mistakes by simply hitting the nearest dozen people over the head and taking to his heels. No one could follow him faster than a horse could gallop, and no one could search him out in the wilderness if he didn’t want to be found. No one would think his behavior at all unusual, either.

  Here in Englor things would be very different. He would have to escape from a dozen men with Uzis, not a dozen with swords or spears. If he did escape, they could pursue him in cars and helicopters and planes, with tear gas and rifles with telescopic sights and infrared detection devices for night work.

  If by some chance he did get clear, there would be no wilderness with game and fruit to live on, or wandering tribesmen and hunters to take him in. There would be cities and suburbs, towns and villages, farms no farther than a telephone call from their neighbors. Everywhere there would be hotelkeepers and salesclerks and bus drivers, asking for money or identification or both before they would lift a finger to do anything for him.

  Of course, hitting people in the first place simply wouldn’t do! Hitting one person would get him locked up. Hitting a dozen would get him locked up for a long time. Killing anybody would be even worse. Blade somehow did not think Englor would be reluctant to impose the death penalty.

  Blade was no foolish romantic believer in the virtues of primitive societies. He was very conscious of the advantages of antibiotics, jet planes, hot showers, and guns. At the same time, he was painfully aware that it was a much tougher proposition escaping from civilized captors, if and when escaping became necessary.

  There was only one solution, at least for now. He would have to behave himself so that he would not get into any more trouble than he was already, and therefore would have no compelling reason to escape. If the penalty for indecent exposure was fifty pounds or thirty days-well, not having the fifty pounds, he’d serve out the thirty days as a model prisoner and then see what his prospects were when they let him out. His first and foremost goal would be to make sure that they did let him out on time, and everything else would be set aside for the time being.

  After he got out, things could be different. Being in an advanced society had its benefits as well as its headaches. Englor was only similar to Britain, not identical. It was quite possible that research and development in some key areas had followed different paths than in Britain. It was almost certain that research and development were more generously financed, at least in those areas useful for military purposes. That was an almost universal rule in any civilized society that faced a major war.

  These differences in research and development could mean much or little. They could mean nothing more than slightly improved versions of essentially Home Dimension articles, from jet planes down to bootlaces and emergency rations. They could also mean some fundamental breakthroughs that could easily be translated into hardware-and hard cash-if he could bring the details back to Home Dimension. If he could bring back the secrets of a new and superior missile guidance system, for example-well, generals and admirals would be fighting each other in the halls outside Lord Leighton’s office for the privilege of giving money to Project Dimension X!

  Blade was so preoccupied sorting out his own thoughts and planning his own best course of action that he forgot completely about the policemen waiting to take him before a magistrate. He was reminded of their existence only when one of them elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

  «Wake up there, chum, and climb in, It’s time we got moving.»

  Blade shook himself back into some sort of alertness and climbed into the front seat of the van. He was promptly handcuffed to a bar on the dashboard. Then the other policeman climbed into the back seat, his Uzi still aimed in Blade’s general direction. Doors slammed shut, the motor purred to life, and the driver swung the van out into traffic.

  Apparently, a simple indecent-exposure case was nothing to cause a great fuss. From the conversation of the two policemen, Blade realized that he’d been a victim of bad luck as much as anything else. The military convoy had been passing by the park when Colonel Morris called the police.

  The convoy commander had volunteered his men to help search the park for the naked man, with the idea of giving them a little practical fieldwork. Without the soldiers’ help, the police could hardly have covered the park thoroughly enough to catch Blade, Uzis or no Uzis.

  The van rolled smoothly through traffic, without the siren wailing or the roof light flashing. Blade had plenty of opportunities to watch London passing-this London that was the capital of the Empire of Englor.

  Most of the wines advertised seemed to come from a country called Gallia-no doubt this Dimension’s version of France. Blade saw no other countries mentioned anywhere-above all, nothing that might possibly be an equivalent of the United States of America.

  This Dimension held the Empire of Englor, where he was now. It held Russland, whose Red Flames were for some reason or other Englor’s archenemies. It held Gallia, which made wine, and it held Nordsbergen, which the Red Flames were asking somebody, presumably Englor, to evacuate under threat of war.

  Four countries, and that was apparently all. Blade began to wonder if this Dimension was such a close neighbor to Home Dimension as he’d thought. There seemed to be a good deal missing from this world, including about a hundred countries. At least a dozen of them would have been mentioned in any number of advertisements and newspapers easily visible as he passed. Blade had the odd sensation of being in a world created in a startling likeness to Home Dimension, then for some reason left unfinished.

  The van was keeping to the main road. From the signs Blade could read its name-«Agar Road S.W.» There was no such road that he could recall in Home Dimension London, but there was very little else to remind him that he was not passing through the inner suburbs of his home city. The news vendors, the pubs, the small parks, the railroad station with the crowded orange electric train pulling in-all of these were familiar. The only jarring details were the headlines the news vendors had posted up, and the fact that the electric train had «Imperial Railways» in large blue letters on both sides of all three cars.

  A few blocks past the railroad station, the police van turned off Agar Road and began to follow a winding route through an industrial district. Here it was even harder for Blade to remember that he was in Dimension X. The factory buildings were grimy brick and grimier glass, with corrugated iron roofs. High above them rose tall brick chimneys, and around them spread the cracking asphalt of parking lots, the rusty rails of industrial spur lines, and occasional faded and straggling patches of grass that still fought on against fumes and neglect. There was nothing here to tell Blade what city he was in, let alone what Dimension.

  Then suddenly the road took them around the corner of a factory, and Blade was abruptly reminded where he was and what he might be facing. In a brick courtyard formed by three large warehouses stood four tracked vehicles, each mounting four launching tubes for guided missiles. One large van appeared to house controls, another appeared to be living quarters. A large radar antenna stood on the roof of each of the warehouses, slowly rotating. Among them, the three antennas covered the complete circle of the horizon. They stood ready to detect any low-flying intruders and feed data to the computers in the van and the missiles ready on their launchers.

  The missiles and their supporting equipment didn’t match any d
esign Blade had seen or heard of in Home Dimension. That didn’t matter. They were obviously not much different from a dozen types in service in Home Dimension.

  What did matter was what it meant to see the missiles here. They were a vivid, even harsh reminder that this was a Dimension on the verge of war-and war with modern weapons, with all their monstrous capacity for wholesale destruction.

  The police van eventually emerged on the other side of the factory belt and pulled up at a sprawling gray stone police headquarters. Blade was unloaded, led inside, and processed with a calm and methodical efficiency. Apparently the London police ran to the same type of solid professionalism here as they did in Home Dimension.

  Business was slow, so Blade spent the night in a cell by himself. The food was no better and no worse than jail food usually was, but ample. Apparently rationing hadn’t yet started in Englor, in spite of the threat of war.

  Most of what he could see around him matched what he would have seen in the average police station in London. The few differences were the more dramatic for that extra element of contrast.

  The dress uniform (judging from the photographs on the walls) was white, with red stripes down the seams of the trousers. Along with WANTED notices on the bulletin board were a number of posters warning against loose talk, spreading rumors, and other wartime vices. Blade found particularly interesting one that positively screamed in foot-high letters «KEEP IT QUIET! THE ENEMY MAY BE LISTENING!»

  The «listening» enemy was depicted as a barrel-chested, bearded blond peasant-type soldier, wearing a greatcoat and a conical fur cap with a leaping red flame emblem on the front. In his hands he carried an assault rifle with a large banana-shaped magazine, and half a dozen grenades hung from his belt.