R nodded. «If you feel yourself in a position to give one, yes.»

«I accept.»

R smiled, rose to his feet-slowly, but quite gracefully. He came over to Blade with his hand outstretched. Blade rose and they shook hands.

«You'll have to pass through our regular training course, naturally. I don't imagine that someone with the qualities you've shown will fail, however. So, Mr. Blade, I think I can say with some confidence-welcome to the Special Operations Division.»

They shook hands again, and R opened the door. As he went out, the maid entered, pushing ahead of her a wheeled cart with an array of covered dishes, glasses, bottles, and pots.

Blade sniffed the various odors, and suddenly realized that he was a good deal hungrier than he'd thought.

Blade was again face to face with R only six weeks later. He spent the first three of those weeks in what was nominally the «training course.» After the first few days it became obvious that he was not being taught the skills he would need as a Special Operations agent. He was being tested to see if he already had those skills.

That suggested they knew or suspected something unusual about his background. Refusing to worry about that, Blade concentrated with grim determination on passing every one of the tests as impressively as possible. There were tests in marksmanship and parachuting, weapons and vehicle maintenance, unarmed combat, swimming and scuba diving. There were tests of his reaction times, analytical abilities, stress tolerances, memory, and every other quality that it was possible to measure. There was testing ten and sometimes twelve hours a day. It was a grueling routine, but the beds were soft, the food was good, and Blade's iron constitution and machinelike endurance did the rest. No one, least of all Blade, was surprised when at the end of the three weeks he was declared to have passed all the tests by a wide margin. In some of them he'd made the highest scores ever recorded in the school.

He spent another three weeks learning things a little less basic, such as ship and aircraft recognition, Red Flame military customs, the use of Russland weapons, and the like. The Russland language was as nearly identical to Home Dimension Russian as the language of Englor was to Home Dimension English, and Blade spoke competent if not fluent Russian. The language instructors said he would have trouble passing as a native Russlander, but no trouble at all passing as a citizen of one of the conquered satellites.

While Blade was in training, the Red Flames were busily setting about adding Nordsbergen to their empire. Or at least they were arranging things so that they could move in any time they wanted to, in force, with no danger of facing effective resistance.

Their surface ships and submarines swept across the shallow Baltan Sea that lay between Russland and Nordsbergen, and out through the Straits of Gratz into the Nord Sea. They completely ruled the coastal waters of Nordsbergen. Landings were reported on a number of the islands along the coast. Fortunately, all the troops and equipment of Englor had already been evacuated.

In the air, Russland planes were over Nordsbergen twenty-four hours a day, flying low, flying high, buzzing cities and military installations, watching everything that went on, doing little damage but making a thorough nuisance of themselves. They were reported to be concentrating heavily over the high range of mountains in central Nordsbergen.

Here in the training school Blade didn't have to keep his mouth shut on matters of strategy, tactics, and politics. «There seem to be good sites for radar stations all along the range,» he said. «With long-range sets up there, the Red Flames could extend their warning network halfway across the Nord Sea.»

«That could very well be it,» said one of the instructors. «We've had reports of Russ experiments with large prefabricated domes. They could be used for housing radar sets.»

The Imperial Navy and Air Force made no effort to interfere with Russland operations over and around Nordsbergen. At the same time, they left nothing undone to keep a close watch on those operations. The Imperial Army was wasting no time either. Battalions and brigades arrived from overseas areas of the Empire almost every day. Other battalions and brigades crossed the Channel to join the Eighth Army facing the Red Flames on the eastern border of Gallia.

There was good reason for these troop movements. The Russlanders were steadily reinforcing their own armies in their satellite countries. In a single week eight new divisions were identified by Imperial Military Intelligence, three of them armored divisions. A mighty mass of men and tanks and guns was gathering opposite the Eighth Army, outnumbering it at least three to one. Against that kind of odds, even the better training and better weapons of the Imperial Army might not be enough. There was a race on between Englor and the Red Flames, a race to see who would be the first to be ready to strike. It was by no means certain that Englor was going to win that race.

At the end of the six weeks, the instructors at the school declared Blade fit and ready for a field assignment. He was ushered into a paneled office in the administration building of the training center, to find R facing him from across a vast polished desk. Spread out on the desk were a map of Nordsbergen and a number of files and photographs.

Blade scanned them briefly, then met R's eye. He could read nothing in that eye. That was familiar. J always held himself in, blank-faced and expressionless, when the time came to send a man out on a mission. R was the same.

«The instructors have been most impressed with your progress,» said R. «They feel you're entirely ready for a field assignment. You've come along remarkably fast, all things considered.»

Blade knew there would be no point in showing he knew perfectly well he'd been tested, more than trained, these past weeks. R might not entirely appreciate knowing that Blade was that perceptive. Blade didn't want to risk even the slightest delay in leaving on his first mission for Englor. He felt trained and ready to the point of impatience.

«This is your first assignment,» said R, making a sweeping gesture that took in all the material on the desk. He folded up the map and scooped everything into a leather case, then handed it to Blade. «Study all this thoroughly, memorize the map and the codes, and call me back within forty-eight hours.»

They shook hands and Blade went out. As he passed down the corridor, he found that he had to force himself to remember this was not Home Dimension and the man he'd just left not J. He found his mind settling into the familiar patterns of preparing for a field mission, patterns well established in the years he'd worked for MI6.

Well, this was his original profession, the one where he'd shown his skills and made a name for himself. This was field intelligence work, with only the names changed from what he'd done for MI6.

In a sense, perhaps this was home-as much of a home as he could ever hope to have until he retired, if he lived that long.