Viki was right, of course. He was on the arrogant side. Nature, birth, background and training had all conspired to make it so. Blade was aware of this venial sin and fought against it, not always with success. At the moment, just now, he was piqued and irritated. First because he seemed to have misjudged Viki, or to have been badly fooled by her dumb showgirl mask, and second because he had no desire, need or intention of forsaking sex for philosophy and the finer aspects of life. He’d brought her down from London for one thing and one thing only — bed. And it was, by God, going to be bed, when and as often as he chose, and nothing else.
«Dick! Wait for me. I’m a girl, remember, not a great monster like you.»
She was lagging far behind. He went back and picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder and began to climb again.
Viki panted in his ear. «You had a phone call while you were practicing to swim the Channel. I forgot cigarettes and had to go back and someone rang up while I was there.»
Blade trotted easily up the steep incline. «Who?»
«Very mysterious. It was a man, but he wouldn’t leave a name. He left a message for you.»
«What?»
«To call J as soon as you got back to the cottage. That was all. Just to call J.»
He nodded and stepped up his pace. What could J want? Everything was worked out, all plans made. Blade was due at Lord L’s house in Prince’s Gate for his final briefing at eight the next morning. Then on to the Tower of London and the trip through the computer into some new Dimension X. So? Some last-minute hitch? Blade shrugged. He would call J, of course, but in his own good time. Vila, warm and vibrant and bouncing on his big shoulders, had first claim.
Viki bit his ear. Then she thrust her tongue into it. Blade, who was lugging her along in the fireman’s carry, moved a brawny hand up the inside of her pants-clad leg and gripped her firmly where she joined. She squirmed.
«Leave off that, Dick. For God’s sake. Do you want to drive me crazy?»
«You started it, ducks. When a girl kisses a man’s ear like that it’s like a green light flashing. And anyway, why play games — you know you love it. You want it as much as I do.»
Silence. Blade trotted, easily. Viki joggled up and down on his shoulder, her spectacular breasts crushed against the back of his neck. He could feel them even through the thick coat.
She bit his ear again. «You’re right, of course, you big bastard. I guess I am a bad lot. But only where you are concerned! That I will have you understand, Dick Blade. I don’t act like this with — with every man I go out with. But with you I just don’t know — I don’t seem to have any willpower. All you have to do is touch me and I do anything you want. And I don’t like it. I hate it. And I think I hate you.»
«Good,» said Blade. «Keep it that way and we’ll get along very well.» He squeezed again, manipulating her expertly, and she moaned and caught at his hand and tried to pull it away. Blade laughed.
When they reached the cottage he piled logs on a smoldering fire and took a fast shower to get the salt off him. He had a brandy and soda and debated whether to call J now or later. He decided on later.
Viki, sitting primly in a big leather chair near the fire, was reading an old copy of Punch as Blade moved restlessly about in his robe. She kept glancing at him over the magazine. She sat with her long legs tightly crossed. When he offered her a drink she refused it. Blade shrugged and made another for himself. It must, he told himself, be the last. He was due in London at eight and that meant an early start It would be nice if he could sleep tonight — sleep as he had once slept, without the hideous nightmares that brought him awake screaming and covered with cold sweat. Sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care.
Sleep? Macbeth hath murdered sleep.
Macbeth hell! Lord L hath murdered sleep with his damned computer. Dimension X hath murdered sleep.
Logs were roaring in the fireplace now. Blade stood in front of it, drink in hand, and stared into the blue-yellow flames. Viki had put down her magazine and was watching him intently. He ignored her. Outside the snug little cottage the wind hooted in derision.
In that moment Richard Blade knew what ailed him. Or rather he admitted it to himself — for the first time. He was afraid. There was nothing wrong with his brain and certainly not with his body. It was fear. Fear was the canker-worm eating away in his guts. And it was incredible. This sort of fear was beyond understanding. He had known fear before — as what man in his dangerous profession had not — but it was the healthy and necessary fear that kept a man alive. This present fear, the thing he now endured, was a slimy loathsome presence in his entrails.
Blade did not want to go up to London tomorrow. Blade did not want to go through the computer again. Blade did not again want to make the awesome and appalling journey into Dimension X.
Blade would do all those things. He would force himself to do them. It was unthinkable that he should not. Otherwise he would not have been Richard Blade.
Viki, back to her small, whiney voice again, said, «I’m hungry, Dick.».
He was across the room in three strides and picked her up. He held her high over his head, as easily as a child holds a doll, and brushed her dark head against the timbered ceiling. His laugh filled the cottage and boomed over the March wind off the Channel.
«As my American friends say, ducks, I have got news for you. You are not hungry. Not for food. You are hungry for love. For sex. For a long and unstinted bout of sex that will never end. Never.»
Viki struggled. She kicked him in the chest. «I am not,» she moaned. «I’m not, Dick. Really. Please. I am terribly sore there. I don’t want—»
He dropped her. She fell into his arms and he crushed her with one big arm and kissed her fiercely. «You do want,» he told her.
Abruptly she stopped struggling and slid her sharp little tongue into his mouth. She nodded and pulled away for a moment to say, «Yes, you awful beast. You make me want. God — I must be as crazy as you are.»
Blade lifted her by the elbows and carried her to the fire. He kissed her again. Viki responded avidly, but said, «There is no tenderness in you, Dick. None at all. You are just rogue male, all of you. And I am mad for you. I don’t understand any of it. Nor you. Nor me.»
She was wearing a heavy cable-stitched sweater. As he searched under it, pulled it high and unfastened her brassiere, Blade admitted the accusation. It had not always been true. There had been a time—
To hell with that. One did not live in the past. Nor, in his profession, did one count on the future. There was only now.
The brassiere came loose. He lifted each perfect breast from its nylon sling. Soft milk-white marble brushed with flickering fire shadow. He caressed and kneaded and felt her go lax. Her knees sagged and he held her tight.
He pulled the sweater up over her dark cap of hair and tossed it away. The brassiere followed. Viki stood naked from the waist, her piquant face uplifted to his, the gypsy eyes narrowed and watching him. Her hands, small red-nailed talons, reached inside his robe and pounced. She sank against him and moaned.
«I can’t, darling. I just can’t. You are just too enormous. I told you— You have made me so sore now I can hardly walk. Please, Dick, can’t we— I mean I–I know other ways. I’ll make you happy. I promise.»
Blade was not a selfish man. Much of his enormous success with women was due to his regard for their pleasure. He gave her a half smile and said, «But will I make you happy? That is the question, ducks.»
Viki pulled his robe open and stared down. She would not look at him. It was either a trick of the firelight — or she was blushing.
«Oh, yes, darling. I will be quite happy. I really rather like to do it, you know.»
She giggled suddenly. «You are the first one, man or woman, that I have ever admitted that to.»
«Your secret is safe with me,» Blade said as he carried her to the bed. «And I want you to be happy, Viki. I really do. So if you like to do it you certainly shall do it.
»
He did not awaken until after two. The fire had expired. Viki was sleeping soundly beside him, her mouth open a bit. Blade pushed it shut with a gentle finger and rolled out of bed. The cottage was cold and the gale from the Channel was gathering strength. He got into his robe and went to the phone, resolutely passing the brandy bottle and the siphon. No more of that. He might be afraid of going into Dimension X again but he was no drunk. And no coward. No one would ever know of his fear but himself, and he would keep it to himself. He would handle it somehow. Because he must.
He got a trunk call through to the office in London. J answered on the third ring. He sounded tired, but his remonstrance was mild enough.
«You took your time about calling back, dear fellow. Delay in message?»
«No, sir. I was swimming in the Channel and then, well, sir, I had some other business to attend to. Then I fell asleep. Sorry.»
«No real matter,» J said. ‘It is just that I want you to stop past the office in the morning before you go on to Prince’s Gate for the briefing. I want a chat with you. Understood?»
Mystified, Blade said that he understood. «That’s all, sir?»
He heard J yawn in London. «That is all, my boy. And, er, no need to mention this little visit to Lord L. Also understood?»
Blade agreed. J said goodnight and hung up after suggesting that Blade get all the sleep he could.
Blade cradled the phone and stood for a moment staring at the pile of gray ashes in the fireplace. Viki snored softly. Blade glanced at the brandy bottle and shook his head. For the first time in weeks he didn’t, really didn’t, want a drink. Maybe that phase was over. Now if he could just get the slimy ice out of his guts whenever he thought of Dimension X.
He saw no point in going back to bed. He would not sleep again and it was better to stay awake and try to think this thing through. In the final analysis a man had to help himself — no one else could.
Blade rebuilt the fire, pulled up a chair and, smoking an infrequent pipe, stared into the flames and wondered where he would be this time tomorrow night? Would there be fire in this new Dimension X? Would they know the secret of flame?
What weapons? What dangers? What kind of men must he face — if they were men — and what sort of brains would they have? Cunning, cruel, complex or childish?
Viki snorted in her sleep and rolled over. Blade smiled. Who would have thought little Viki to be such an accomplished fellatrice? Blushing and shamed, or at least shamming it, and performing with an expertise that bespoke long experience. He smiled again and shook his head. How could you know, really know, about people? Anyone — even himself. People were robots wearing masks. They kept their real selves locked up in the vaults of their skulls. All the world ever saw was a reasonable facsimile. Even himself. Even Richard Blade. Who could ever guess about him? Guess at the unguessable.
He stood up and brushed his hand swiftly through the air. There. He had just invaded a dimension that he, nor any other living man with a normal brain, could not perceive or comprehend. This time tomorrow, with his brain cells restructured by the computer, he might well be wandering in that dimension. He alone of all the men in all the world.
In that moment Blade began to understand a little. And felt a growing relief. It was not so much fear — as fear — that plagued him. It was instead the terrible loneliness that he must bear. He examined the idea for several minutes and found that he was being honest with himself. The awful loneliness that he alone must bear. Just to be able to tell someone would help, but that he could not do. It was a burden that he must carry alone.
Even Lord Leighton and J could not share the load. They knew and yet they did not know. They had never been out there.
Blade laughed aloud. So be it. He was glad. Loneliness he could bear. Fear he could not. Not for long. It was good to know the true nature of his enemy. And now he could have a drink.
He poured himself a large brandy and drank it straight, then hurled the glass into the fireplace. And laughed again. He felt so much better, like a man let out of a prison cell.
Viki stirred at the sound of shattering glass. She peered from beneath the covers at him. «What is it, Dick? Are you getting drunk all by yourself?»
Blade went to tuck her in. He kissed her lightly and patted her shapely rump. «No, ducks. Now go back to sleep. I’ll be getting you up at five and we’ve a long cold ride ahead.»
«I still think you’re mad,» she said, and fell back into sleep.
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 gut
s 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.
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