Liberator Of Jedd rb-5

by Джеффри Ллойд

  Liberator Of Jedd

  ( Richard Blade - 5 )

  Джеффри Ллойд

  Лайл Кеньон Ингел

  Liberator of Jedd by Jeffrey Lord

  Chapter One

  Lord Leighton was, at best, an indifferent speaker. For some reason which J was unable to fathom the old man had agreed to make the tiresome journey to Reading and address a seminar of Britain’s leading brain surgeons gathered at the University. Later, when the confusion and danger was over, J was to guess that the old man had hoped to learn something about the human brain that he did not already know. What this could possibly be J could not surmise; the old fellow had already far surpassed the mortal brain by building a seventh generation computer — now waiting for Richard Blade in its guarded vault beneath the Tower of London — and so J put the rare expedition down to vanity, boredom and a desire to exchange chitchat with other scientific minds.

  Lord L, J thought now, must get very weary of talking to J. For J was most definitely not a scientific brain. He was a prosaic and pragmatic man, a spy master when he had time to work at it. Which was not often these days. The truth was that J, caught up as he was in the computer experiments and Blade’s dangerous forays into Dimension X, at times nearly forgot that he was head of MI6A.

  Just now, as he squirmed on the hard seat and watched Lord L hem and haw and clear his throat, J was a little bored himself. Also tired and hungry. And worried about Richard Blade.

  Lord Leighton clung to the lectern for support, rather like a frail old lion propping himself against a tree, and peered at his audience with hooded yellow eyes. His mane of white hair, thin and silky, haloed his pink scalp as though defying gravity.

  «In such an electromechanism as the modern computer,» he was saying, «we have at least succeeded in eliminating the danger of schizophrenia. We build computers to a complex schema, most complex, but when they are built they function exactly as intended. This certainly cannot be said of the human brain.»

  Lord L moved a bit, shifting his hold on the lectern to ease the omnipresent pain in his hump, and J felt a surge of pity and admiration for the old scientist. How did he ever manage to keep going?

  For that matter how did Richard Blade manage to keep going? The boy had made four harrowing and desperate trips into Dimension X. In the morning he would go through the great computer again. His fifth time out J sighed and shook his head, causing the man in the next seat to regard him curiously, and decided to reserve all his sympathy for Blade. The boy was tense. Nervous. Drinking a little too much and chasing far too many women. All symptoms of strain and fatigue, J thought, though Lord L did not agree.

  «The chief difference,» his Lordship was saying, «is that a computer, a cybernetic machine, is a unit, a single component, so to speak, and so it has the advantages and the integrity of such a unit. Man, on the other hand, really has three brains. The pity, and the source of most of our troubles, is that those three brains must function as one brain. This they find hard to do at times. And sometimes impossible. The three brains fight each other. And I think, though I admit to a great oversimplification here, that this is one of the reasons why man continues to war against man. In a world run by computers there would be no wars. Because to computers war would just not make sense.»

  J fidgeted and sneaked a glance at his watch. Some twenty minutes to go. Then, with any luck, they could catch the 10:47 back to London. J wondered what Dick Blade was doing at the moment Probably something much more sensible than listening to a crowd of elderly pundits discuss something that one didn’t understand, in a jargon that was all but incomprehensible. J sighed again and shifted his lean nates on the hard chair. Yes. Blade was probably, in the parlance of youth today, making out.

  «The oldest of our brains,» said Lord L, «is reptilian. We have had it for billions of years. The second brain, engrafted onto the first is, of course, lower mammalian. The third brain, the latest to be melded to the first two, is also mammalian. But late mammalian. It is what makes man — man. Usually we call it the neo-cortex.»

  Lord L paused a moment, leered at the audience and added: «And that, gentlemen, is why we are always in so damned much trouble! That bloody neo-cortex of ours.»

  Titters. Then laughter. His Lordship, when the mood was on him, could sound more like a Cockney than a man born near Bow Bells, and his language could put a coster-monger to shame.

  J did not laugh. That bloody neo-cortex. Blade’s neo-cortex that Lord L had been tinkering with for months now. Taking it apart and putting it together again. Scrambling the molecules and atoms and reassembling them in a manner that allowed Blade to wander into Dimension X. A dimension that no other man on this earth might see or know. Only Richard Blade.

  J found himself shivering. He was sweating and it was almost cold in the hall. How long could Blade keep it up? How many times could he go into Dimension X and come back? Come back sane and whole?

  Of a sudden J found that he was badly frightened. The terror of the thing, of what they were doing with Blade and the computer, descended on him like black dead weight for the first time.

  He could only hope that Richard Blade did not feel the same. A frightened man would stand no chance whatever out in Dimension X.

  Lord L hobbled around to the other side of the lectern and clung to it, sipping from a glass of water. «As you all know,» he continued, «it was an Englishman, Charles Babbage, who designed the first ‘analytical engine’ in 1820. He thought it out rather fully, as a matter of fact, though of course the technology of the time was not up to building it. And I might add that since 1820 a great many of us have not known whether to damn or praise Mr. Babbage.»

  More titters and laughter.

  Lord L went into his peroration. He wound it up quickly, for which J was grateful. Only a quarter of an hour had been granted for questions. They might catch their train yet.

  A tall balding man, young for this assembly, was asking a question.

  «Do you think it possible, Lord Leighton, that we will ever learn to control human behavior by changing the pattern of the brain cells? Will the time come when we can restructure the cellular molecules, rearrange the constituent atoms? Completely change the electrochemistry of the brain?»

  It seemed to J that Lord L, tottering by the lectern, looked directly at him. There was a wisp of smile on his Lordship’s thin lips as he answered.

  «I think that is very possible. I believe it is being done now, to a certain extent, on monkeys, by planting electrodes in the brain and controlling the subject by remote radio stimulation.»

  J felt an overwhelming desire to go to the men’s room and vomit. He now understood why Lord L had made the trip to Reading. The sly old bastard was looking for a brain surgeon. He had plans, new plans, for Richard Blade. Just scrambling his brain cells and sending him into Dimension X was no longer enough. The scientist in Lord Leighton was taking over from the human being.

  He was not normally a profane man, but now J let a string of obscenities race through his mind. It wasn’t going to happen! Not while he was bloody well alive. Dick Blade was like a son to him and they were not going to butcher him. Rage overwhelmed J. He would see to it. He would blow the whole damned Project DX first.

  Going back to London they had a first-class compartment to themselves. J wasted no time in voicing his suspicions. Lord L made no attempt at denial. The old man was arrogant and crusty and very much aware of his eminence as Britain’s first scientist. As such he never stooped to lying.

  «My dear J,» the old man said, «there is no need to get all in a lather. It was a thought I had, a stray and tentative thought, nothing more. And of course we should have
to have Blade’s permission for any, er, any such brain surgery.»

  «I’ll see that you don’t get it,» said J angrily. «I goddamned bloody well will see to it. The boy has done enough. Maybe too much. There are already personality changes in him that I don’t like.»

  Lord L gave him a bland look, hooding his yellow eyes in the way he had. «I suppose so,» he murmured. «Bound to be a few changes, my dear fellow, when your cortex has been restructured as many times as Blade’s has. No help for it. But you overlook a point — such changes are not necessarily for the worse. I am quite as fond of Blade as you are, and I study him most carefully — though I admit I lack the emotional overload you carry — and so far I have seen nothing harmful, no cause for alarm.»

  J knew he was no match for this aging little hunchback. Lord L had a mind like a razor and he could slash you to bits with it. J set his jaw and retreated into stubbornness.

  «I remind you, Leighton, that I am head of MI6A and that Blade is under my direct command. There will be no such operations as I am sure you have in mind. If necessary I will go directly to the Prime Minister. He was in the infantry. He will understand about combat fatigue.»

  His Lordship, when he found the going unpleasant, was given to non sequiturs. «In my war,» he said mildly, «they called it shell shock.»

  J was shocked at his own reply. «I don’t give a good tinker’s fuck what you called it in your war. That boy has been into Dimension X four times and tomorrow he goes out again. All right So be it. But when he comes back this time, if he comes back, I am going to pull him out of Project DX. Blade has done his bit. You had better start looking around for a new boy.»

  Lord L smiled sweetly and leaned to tap J’s knee. «I think we shall have to leave that up to Blade himself, J. And I also think that you know what his answer will be if it comes down to a question of country and duty. In any case it is all very much in the future. Now please do be quiet and let me think — I’ve a nasty little problem in quadruple feedback circuitry to solve.»

  His Lordship slumped in his seat, eased his hump, and began to scribble on the back of an old envelope.

  J’s first anger had faded. He now regarded the old man with his usual mixture of admiration and loathing. The cold-blooded old bastard was right, of course. Dick Blade would do anything that was asked of him. Meet any test, volunteer in the face of any danger, keep going out into Dimension X as long as he was needed. It was just the way Richard Blade was made.

  J leaned back and tried to relax. The train was racing through a small village where a few lights still gleamed here and there. A crowd was spilling out of the local, laughing and shouting cheerful good nights.

  J thought that he would call Blade as soon as he got back to his office. He would not be sleeping tonight anyway and there was work piled on his desk. He would just call and check to make sure that Blade was ready for the ordeal tomorrow. His fifth time through the computer into God only knew what.

  Again he wondered what Blade was doing at the moment. He hoped it was something pleasant. Something very pleasant.

  Chapter Two

  Richard Blade was at the moment enjoying himself. Not many men, even fine swimmers and top-flight athletes, as Blade was, would have shared his enjoyment. He was half a mile from shore in the icy Channel. A raw mid-March wind was slicing off whitecaps and whipping up waves. The water was, as Viki complained, fit only for polar bears. But Blade found himself reveling in it.

  Blade was naked but for a jockstrap. He floated and stared at the sullen dark sky, overcast and with no hint of stars or moon. A cold wave slapped at him viciously. Blade rolled through it and slid down into the trough. He was feeling better. The muzzy feeling from too many brandy and sodas had gone. He ran his teeth over his tongue and felt the thick coating. It had become a regular morning thing — the coated tongue. He was putting away too much booze. Far too much. He did not seem able to stop the drinking and he never got drunk. Weary at times, utterly weary, and with moments of desolation and despair that he had never known before, but never drunk. In a way it was a cheat.

  And there was the little matter of satyriasis. Blade’s smile was grim. His sexual appetite these days was excessive, to say the least. Not at all like the old Blade. Then he had been satisfied with one woman and very little booze. But that had been the old Blade. Before Dimension X. Before he had gone four times through the computer. He had had Zoe then and they had planned to be married. All this before Lord Leighton and the monstrous computer and Dimension X. And the Official Secrets Act which precluded Blade from so much as hinting at his real job or the reasons for his long absences.

  Zoe had left him and married another man.

  Blade let a wave carry him toward the cove where Viki waited, a slim forlorn figure shivering in a British warm. She thought he was a little crazy. Blade went deep and swam powerfully beneath the turbulence, thinking that perhaps his latest girl was not too far off the mark.

  Not that he had any real doubts about his sanity. He didn’t. And he had never been in better physical shape. It was just that he knew, and admitted — and so must J and Lord L — that the brain-scrambling trips through the computer were affecting him. Looking at it dispassionately, Blade mused as his lungs began to pain, it would have been extremely odd if his brain had not suffered a few changes. It was to be expected. The important thing was not to panic — don’t push the panic button. It was nothing he could not handle. He felt sure of that.

  Viki — pronounced as though spelled with a C — Randolph was at the moment dancing in a West End musical. She had a speaking part — two lines — and considered her career well launched. She was a tall girl with an elfin face and gypsy eyes, slim legs and arms and a tiny waist, and surprisingly large cone-shaped breasts. Her real name was Poldalski and her father was a dustman in Putney. This latter Blade had ascertained more out of idle curiosity and boredom than anything else; he was not a snob and could not have cared less about the antecedents of his bed partners. It had been something to do, finding out all about Viki, and between trips into Dimension X he badly needed something to do. For with the advent of Project DX he was no longer permitted to work at his profession of secret agent. J might have allowed it, but Lord L was adamant. His Lordship had no intention of losing Blade to a bullet, knife, rope or poison.

  He surfaced, blowing hard, and struck out for the cove in a fast racing crawl. Viki waved, and desire surged in him and despite the shockingly cold water he began to achieve tumescence. The hard bind of the jockstrap caused him a slight discomfort. Nothing, he thought, to what Viki would presently feel. She had complained of soreness only that morning, after half an hour of his compulsive lovemaking.

  Blade felt bottom and began walking in to shore. Yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, twice last night and then that long bout this morning. Yes, my boy. Definitely you are afflicted with satyriasis. The Oxford Dictionary called it «insatiable venereal appetite in the male.»

  Ask Viki. For that matter, ask Hester or Stella or Babs or Pam or Evelyn or Doris.

  Do you see, Lord Leighton, what your goddamned machine has done to a onetime English gentleman by name of Richard Blade?

  Blade grinned and laughed aloud into the mad March wind that was tearing across the little beach. Why blame it on poor old Lord L and his computer? Maybe it was just his true nature emerging at last.

  He left the water and stalked toward the waiting girl, droplets of salt water beading on his massive tanned body. To a sculptor’s eye Blade would have seemed fashioned of brown concrete, with every muscle and tendon defined with the precision of a Praxiteles. So perfectly formed and proportioned was he that at first glance the eye was fooled. He appeared much taller than his six-foot-one and much heavier than his two hundred-ten pounds, and he had taken blues in all major sports at Oxford with an ease that suggested games for babies. Which, to Blade, they were. His physical prowess had been, quite often, a source of actual embarrassment to him. He did so easily what other well-endowed
men could not do at all.

  Viki Randolph had a whiney voice when she chose to use it, and she chose now.

  «You were long enough,» she accused. «I don’t much like it, you know, being left to freeze on this bloody beach while you go pretending you’re a seal or something.»

  Blade smiled and slapped her behind. He knew how to handle this type. He let his hand linger for a moment and squeezed a buttock. Viki gave him a look and pulled away.

  «You’re pouting,» he said, «and it does not become you, ducks. Come on, then. Back to the cottage and I’ll see to it that you are well warmed up.»

  Viki watched him warily. Blade gave her a leer and a wink. She groaned. «Oh, no! Not again. Don’t you ever think of anything except sex? Or do anything else?»

  Just then Blade wanted a brandy and soda more than he wanted her. He watched as she gathered her belongings from a blanket, using a small flashlight to find cigarettes and purse and various oddments. The wind took on a shriller note and though he began to goose pimple he was not cold.

  They started toward the path that led up the cliff to the cottage, Viki carrying the things in a pouch made of the blanket.

  «I am a reasonable man,» Blade said. «If you will tell me anything else that is as important, as interesting and as much fun as sex, I will give it due consideration and let you know if I agree. Now what could be fairer than that?»

  She surprised him then. The whine left her voice as she said, «The trouble is, darling, that you treat me like any stupid totsy. Just another dumb showgirl. You don’t really talk to me. You talk at me. And you’re never serious, not even for a moment. You act as if it would be a waste of time to be serious with me, as though I wouldn’t understand you. You’re arrogant, Dick. Very arrogant. And you don’t even know it.»

  Blade stalked on ahead. The path was difficult here, steep and switchbacking back and forth, with a fallaway of some 200 yards. It was the highest cliff on the Dorset coast and among the locals was known as Suicide Leap.