J found Leighton's cheerfulness more than a trifle ghoulish and his technical comments about as intelligible as if they had been in Chinese. But it again occurred to him-might Leighton possibly be developing some human sensibilities about the whole Project? Was the cheerful patter an effort to conceal a sudden nervousness of his own, as well as to attack the nervousness he assumed J and Blade were feeling? J certainly didn't mind admitting to having the wind up a bit, as usual. He turned to look at Richard, striding along in massive silence beside him. Blade's lips wore a very faint smile, but it seemed to be pasted on, out of keeping with the rest of his manner, which was preoccupied and a bit tense. Hardly surprising, that. Blade had been a first-class field operative for MI6 for the better part of twenty years and had survived more unexpected dangers than most men would encounter in ten lifetimes. But even the worst field assignment didn't throw an agent literally naked into a situation about which he knew absolutely nothing beforehand. So far, Blade's physical and mental qualities had brought him through safely. But this sort of good luck couldn't last indefinitely.
As if he had been thinking along the same lines, Blade turned to J and said, «How was the American mission, sir? Do I plan to retire on my laurels after this trip?» There was a note of self-mockery in Blade's voice that made J feel a little better. Richard was as ready as ever to take whatever the world-this or any other one-might throw at him.
«Don't start planning your retirement yet,» J replied in the same light tone. «It's too soon to see if the Americans can come up with anybody good enough. I have a few names, but that's all for the moment. I haven't yet even worked out a proper cover story for bringing them over here for testing.»
Blade nodded. «Lord L thinks he may be on to a method for the advanced testing of candidates. Not just physically, but mentally as well.»
J nodded grimly. He thought of the ruined shell of a man locked away for the remainder of his life in a North County institution because his mind had not survived the trip into Dimension X, even though his body had returned. Lord Leighton turned around and also nodded.
«If the mental breakdown was the result of some physical effect that the computer has on the subject's brain, we're barking up the wrong tree. And if it turns out that Richard is the only man in the world with a brain immune to that effect-well, we're in a nasty situation. But if it's simply a question of a man's being unable to adapt to such a fantastically different environment, one of the psychiatrists thinks he may have developed a new method of testing for stress tolerance. If it-ah, here we are.»
As always, the main computer room, filled with the great shadowy bulks with their crackled finish and the swarm of writhing multicolored wires reminded J of an abandoned temple of some fantastic and sinister religion overrun by the jungle. And the squat black chair in its glass cubicle in the middle looked like an altar for sacrifices of a highly unpleasant sort.
Blade, however, seemed entirely relaxed and at home. He turned to J and said, «Well, sir, it looks like that time again. No point in making Lord L wait any longer.» They shook hands, and Blade stepped into the dressing room.
Inside, he quickly stripped naked and began smearing on the black paste that protected him from electrical burns as the computer's immense power surged through his body. Now that the time was drawing near, he felt his tension slipping away. It was replaced by anticipation. Apart from what it might bring for England, the whole Project offered him an endless series of challenges and adventures. And it was a love of these that had helped bring him into the intelligence service in the first place.
This time, of course, he was not running away from a broken love affair or running toward some place he hoped might cure an inexplicable and maddening impotence. He had resigned himself to a series of fleeting relationships with women as long as he was working on the Project. As for his virility, neither he nor any of his recent partners could have any reasonable complaints on that score. No, it was just a case of going out once more to do what he did well and, when you got right down to it, enjoyed doing.
He pulled on the loincloth. This was purely a gesture, since it had never yet survived the trip. He stepped out into the chamber and strode over to the chair. He knew the routine by now to the point that he felt like twiddling his thumbs as Lord L adjusted the net of restraining straps, then began attaching the cobra-headed electrodes to every part of Blade's body. This went on until he was festooned with wires-blue, green, yellow, red-leading off in every direction into the guts of the computer, like some mad artist's vision of an octopus.
Then there was a further wait, while Blade's impatience began to build. Of course Leighton had to double-check everything. Still, why did he always have to be so bloody slow about it? Blade took several breaths as deep as the straps permitted and tried to relax.
Finally everything was ready. J moved aside and raised a hand in farewell as Lord L stepped slowly up to the main console and poised his hand over the master control switch. He turned and looked inquiringly at Blade. «Ready, my boy?»
«Ready, sir.»
«Good luck.»
The gnarled hand pressed the master switch. There was a hum of surging power, then the shrill wailing of a hundred thousand flutes filled the chamber and made the air turn a liquid green. Everything around Blade turned green too, except for the figures of J and Lord L. They turned blue, then shrank and became dwarfed and monkeylike, scratched themselves and clambered frantically up the face of the computer. The electrodes writhed and twisted and pulled themselves free from his body, turning to snakes as they did so. The snakes wriggled furiously across the floor and swarmed up the face of the computer after the fleeing monkey figures.
Just as the snakes reached them, the face of the computer itself cracked open in a hundred places. Blade cringed as the great slabs of facing came pouring down on him and then poured through him, and a tangible blackness flooded out from the vast hole where the computer had been, gushing out until Blade was completely surrounded by it and the snakes and monkeys were both gone.
Then the blackness receded slightly, and Blade was standing on a concrete block with harsh blue lights pouring down on him from all around. A voice was chanting tonelessly, «Five-four-three-two-one-LIFT-OFF!» Fire spewed out from under the block and he and it together began to rise into the sky. Quickly they were out of the blue lights, rising again into thick blackness, until the flames gushing from the block died and it fell away. Blade hurtled alone through the dark, then felt himself slowing. His climb ceased; he rolled over and began to fall, silently, with no sensation of air rushing past or of anything except the falling, the endless falling.