The dark green Rover pulled into a reserved space in the parking lot. The man who got out wore a tweed sport jacket, corduroy trousers, and nondescript walking shoes. The clothing didn't disguise his powerful frame or his athlete's grace of movement as he walked toward one of the brick buildings around the parking lot.

He was hatless, so the breeze ruffled thick black hair cut unfashionably short. Women were apt to describe his face as ruggedly handsome. This did no justice to the penetrating quality of his large gray eyes. They flicked their gaze continuously from point to point, never leaving anything around him unobserved for more than a few seconds.

Then the man reached the door of the building and vanished from the sight of the two men watching from the window above. The taller one turned to the other and said, «As much as I hate to admit it, Richard looks in splendid form.»

«You don't really hate to admit that he's fit for another trip, do you, J?» said the second man.

«Not really, Leighton. But if I thought he weren't, I'd insist on a delay no matter what hopes you had for your new booth!»

Leighton ran his long arthritic fingers through what remained of his white hair. Then he smiled thinly. «I hardly need to be reminded of that, J.»

«True.» Lord Leighton was actually being exceptionally moderate. His scientific genius was world famous. So was his temper. When someone seemed to be in the way of one of his experiments, he behaved like a she-bear defending her cubs. Although he was past eighty, he showed no signs of mellowing.

But then, J reflected, that was hardly to be expected. The man was a bloody genius, and had a right to be proud of it, particularly when he was still producing fine work. Also, if you're born with a hunchback and half-crippled by polio as a child, you learn to fight your own battles early. No one else will fight them for you. Not for the first time, J thanked whatever or whoever was responsible that he himself still enjoyed good health at an age when he could have been drawing his civil service pension.

The main reason J wasn't retired was the man who'd just entered the building. His name was Richard Blade. J had picked him as a promising candidate for the secret intelligence agency MI6A when Blade was fresh out of Oxford. He'd more than fulfilled that promise.

Then Lord Leighton conceived the experiment of linking an advanced computer with a human brain Blade's, to be precise. He hoped to create a superior combination of human and electronic intelligence, by having the computer generate a field matching Blade's brain waves. The actual result was Blade's being hurled off into a parallel world. Leighton christened it Dimension X after Blade got back.

Giving the mystery world a name didn't make it any the less mysterious. It didn't help, either, that Blade turned out to be the only man in the free world who could make the journey. Others returned insane or not at all. Millions of pounds and dozens of Lord Leighton's experiments later, this was still true. Meanwhile, J had a busy time defending Project Dimension X from enemy agents, accidents, and sheer human stupidity. He had almost as busy a time defending Richard Blade from Leighton's wilder experiments.

To J, Blade was more than a friend or a trusted subordinate. He was the son the aging bachelor spymaster would never have. To Leighton, Blade was hardly more than an experimental guinea pig.

Or at least he had been once. That was before Leighton's experiment with the new KALI computer let an immaterial but deadly monster from another Dimension loose on the world. Blade eventually defeated the Ngaa, and Leighton seemed to have learned his lesson. At least he hadn't sprung either of his latest ideas on J and Blade at the last minute, the way he used to.

Also, the Project was actually beginning to creep toward solutions to some of its long-standing problems. Blade could now take some equipment with him, even though it had to be expensively fabricated from a special alloy he'd discovered in a Dimension called Englor. The transitions themselves no longer left him weakened or suffering from headaches. From the last trip he'd even brought back a live, functional animal-

«Yeep!» A small brightly colored shape darted out from behind Lord Leighton's desk. It was Cheeky, the «Feathered One» from the Dimension of the Crimson River. He was about the size and shape of a monkey, but covered from head to foot with bright blue and green feathers instead of fur.

He was also telepathic.

J had always been open-minded about the possibility of telepathy. He'd seen too many odd things in too many lands only a little less strange than Dimension X. Leighton had always been a militant skeptic.

What Cheeky did when he was around Blade had converted J to a believer. Even Leighton was saying, «I'd like to run some experiments under carefully controlled conditions. That's been the biggest stumbling block in dealing with ESP poorly designed experiments run by believers or outright nut cases!»

J put his foot down, however, on running the experiments right after Blade's return from the Dimension of the Crimson River. Blade was obviously suffering from something like combat fatigue. Although he was the sanest and toughest man J had ever known, with enough courage and survival skills for any six normal people, Blade still reached the limits of endurance at times.

Was the sheer loneliness of Blade's profession also catching up with him? J had to wonder. Blade's fiance, Zoe Cornwall, had broken off her engagement because the Official Secrets Act didn't let him explain his trips to Dimension X. When they were on the verge of getting back together, she was kidnapped and horribly killed by the Ngaa. By all accounts Blade had left a good dozen children in the various lands of Dimension X, but in England he had neither wife nor child nor steady girlfriend nor much of a home life to help him forget the grim battles he had to fight alone in Dimension X.

That was why J was so glad when Blade went out and bought himself a country house in Hampshire. He was even happier to hear that Lord Leighton contributed part of the money. Now Richard was busily restoring the place. While he was doing this, he'd be too busy between trips to feel lonely. When the house was finished, he would have a place he could call his own to come back to.

If he lived long enough, he would even be able to retire there and-who could say? — marry and raise a family.

Cheeky yeeeeped again, breaking J's train of thought, and started racing around the room. Leighton stood protectively in front of his desk, arms spread wide to keep the feather-monkey from jumping up on it and scattering valuable papers to the four winds. J wondered if it was his own thoughts about Richard Blade which had excited the little animal. Then he heard familiar footsteps on the stairs outside the office.

So did Cheeky. He ran to the door, leaped up, and caught the doorknob with both paws. He swung there, turning the knob while he kicked at the door frame with both feet. The door swung open and Richard Blade walked in.

Seen close up, he seemed to have gone gray-haired all at once. Then J took a still closer look and recognized plaster dust. He also saw dark rings of grit under Blade's usually well-manicured fingernails.

«Just come from the house, Richard?»

«Drove up this morning,» said Blade with a grin. «The workers knocked off at their usual time, leaving the job half-arsed. So I finished it off myself. Up until midnight doing it, too, and then of course there wasn't any hot water!»

Leighton made a tut-tutting noise of mock indignation. «The union will get you for that, Richard.»