A light appeared below, soft and pearly, spreading out, taking shape, taking the shape of Alixa, her proud body bare, rising toward Blade. And Blade let himself fall away from the sandy ceiling, down, down toward Alixa, down into her, down through, down into the murk that suddenly lost all its tint of green and turned cold and black.
CHAPTER 22
«And now,» said J as he and Lord Leighton settled themselves in armchairs, «I think it's high time we thrashed out some questions this last mission has raised.»
«Certainly, certainly,» replied the scientist, opening a cabinet beside his chair and pulling out a bottle and glasses. «Would you care for some brandy?»
J shook his head. «Not now, thank you.» They were in a small but lavishly furnished waiting room, part of the hospital complex that lay a further hundred feet down below the computer room under the Tower. Three rooms away, Richard Blade, bathed, bandaged, and electronically monitored down to the slightest wiggle of his little finger, was sleeping peacefully. It was a hypnotically induced sleep, into which he had been sent after finishing his narrative of his latest adventure in Dimension X. It was this adventure and some particularly disturbing things about it that J wanted to thrash out with Lord Leighton.
Lord Leighton poured himself a small glass of brandy and sniffed at it, then set it on the cabinet and made a steeple of his thin fingers. «I hope you realize that the chronic distortion involved in this mission is a very disturbing phenomenon. Previously we have had a one-to-one congruence between X Dimension and Home Dimension time. That is, if Blade felt nine months had passed in Dimension X, nine months had also passed here. But now Blade comes back after what was the better part of a year to him, and only four months have passed here. The chronic distortion has reached two for one or more the first time we encounter it.»
J nodded. That was indeed one of the matters he wanted to discuss with Lord L but not the principal one. «Frankly, I think what we need to consider is whether we had any reason to keep him there so long at all. If he had returned after only-«
«Quite true, quite true,» said Lord Leighton, in a tone of voice that J recognized as actually admitting nothing of the kind. «But we have to consider this in the perspective of repeated missions. Suppose the next time we get a distortion but in the reverse direction? Let us say Blade stays in Dimension X a time that is for him only a few days, but several months pass here. It lends an extremely disturbing element of unpredictability to the whole Project.»
«As if we didn't have enough already,» said J rather sourly. He was not particularly interested in running to earth this particular hare that Leighton had started. But he held his peace for nearly ten minutes while the scientist wandered off into totally unintelligible realms of technical and scientific abstraction. Even Lord Leighton, and even when discussing a scientific topic dear to his heart, could run out of things to say, however. When this finally happened, J was ready.
«It's all very well to worry about things we can't control-oh, very well, that we can't control now-but the more immediate problem is something else. Richard was gone nearly nine months, came as close to being killed as he ever has-and for what? The people in that Dimension were, frankly, a collection of the most unprepossessing specimens I've ever heard of. Life there seems to have been 'dull, nasty, brutish and short,' but Richard spent nine whole months there, helping them to solve a perfectly ordinary problem with pirates that they probably could have handled just as well themselves.»
Leighton sipped his brandy and nodded.
«My God, Leighton, when I think of how close we came to losing him in some squalid little affair with a mess of pirates …. Pirates!» He uttered the word as though it were the blackest obscenity he could think of.
J was still shaking his head in disgust when a nurse entered, trim and crisp in her hospital uniform. «Excuse me, gentlemen. Mr. Blade is awake and asking for both of you.»
Leighton laboriously pulled himself out of the chair and stood up. «Well, then, since Richard is awake, why don't you ask him yourself?»
«Eh?»
«Did he think it was worthwhile, getting involved in that 'squalid little affair'?»
They followed the nurse out of the waiting room and down the hall to Blade's room. He was sitting up in bed, looking tired but cheerful, and greeted them warmly as they entered. After the initial handshakings, Leighton looked at J with a well-why-don't-you-ask-him expression written all over his face. J cleared his throat, looked first at the ceiling, then at the floor, then finally at Blade, and said:
«Richard, there's something I've been meaning to ask you about this last affair. Did you think it was worth it, in terms of what Project Dimension X set out to do?»
«Meaning exploring the various phases of Dimension X to bring back things of value for England's use?»
«That's one way of putting it, yes.»
Blade appeared to be having an unusual amount of trouble phrasing his answer. He grimaced, frowned, pulled at his lower lip for a time, then said, «Yes, sir, I think it was. In an odd sort of way, I'll admit. There's nothing that I can see wrong with exploring these X Dimensions for England and bringing back materials and techniques for our use here. But it seems to me that we ought to be able to offer them something in return. Since we haven't yet worked out a way to take anything material through the computer transfer, the next best thing seems to me the sort of thing I just did-helping them cope with their problems. Sometimes I have a perspective on the problem that they don't, or skills, or something like that. And this wasn't the first time I've spent extra time helping the local people. Remember Tharn? Or the Gnomen?»
J did. Lord Leighton smiled. «I see your point, Richard. Well, as long as you are willing to keep at it, you'll have plenty of opportunities to arrange your little aid-for-trade exchanges. And now, I think you look like you need some more sleep.» He ushered J out into the corridor and closed the door behind them, then turned to the other and grinned impishly.
«I rather suspected Blade was going to say what he did, so I let him say it. I agree with him absolutely, but of course I knew you'd take it much better from him than from me.»
«Well, I'll be damned!» said J, in frank amazement. «You are getting to be a romantic altruist in your old age!»
This time Leighton's grin was more sheepish than impish. «Better late than never, eh?»
«No doubt. But if you're going to indulge this notion of running the Project as a sort of interdimensional welfare agency, I think it would be wise to step up the search for more candidates besides Richard. Everything I've already said on that point still stands.»
In the monitored hospital bed, Richard Blade was not worrying about the Project or the need for other people to take his place in it. He was thinking of Royth and above all of Alixa. Beautiful, passionate, level-headed. Of all the memories he would have of Royth, she was the one he would not lose. Alixa, yes, and Brora, tough, loyal, putting an end to Cayla at the cost of his own life and willingly so. And Tuabir. He was glad he and Lord L seemed to see eye-to-eye on the point he had raised. There were people in each of the multitude of worlds in Dimension X who deserved help, who would get it from him whenever he could, however he could. This brought his mind back to his first sight of Alixa, then their first bout of love, and presently he fell asleep.