He left the water and stalked toward the waiting girl, droplets of salt water beading on his massive tanned body. To a sculptor's eye Blade would have seemed fashioned of brown concrete, with every muscle and tendon defined with the precision of a Praxiteles. So perfectly formed and proportioned was he that at first glance the eye was fooled. He appeared much taller than his six-foot-one and much heavier than his two hundred-ten pounds, and he had taken blues in all major sports at Oxford with an ease that suggested games for babies. Which, to Blade, they were. His physical prowess had been, quite often, a source of actual embarrassment to him. He did so easily what other well-endowed men could not do at all.
Viki Randolph had a whiney voice when she chose to use it, and she chose now.
«You were long enough,» she accused. «I don't much like it, you know, being left to freeze on this bloody beach while you go pretending you're a seal or something.»
Blade smiled and slapped her behind. He knew how to handle this type. He let his hand linger for a moment and squeezed a buttock. Viki gave him a look and pulled away.
«You're pouting,» he said, «and it does not become you, ducks. Come on, then. Back to the cottage and I'll see to it that you are well warmed up.»
Viki watched him warily. Blade gave her a leer and a wink. She groaned. «Oh, no! Not again. Don't you ever think of anything except sex? Or do anything else?»
Just then Blade wanted a brandy and soda more than he wanted her. He watched as she gathered her belongings from a blanket, using a small flashlight to find cigarettes and purse and various oddments. The wind took on a shriller note and though he began to goose pimple he was not cold.
They started toward the path that led up the cliff to the cottage, Viki carrying the things in a pouch made of the blanket.
«I am a reasonable man,» Blade said. «If you will tell me anything else that is as important, as interesting and as much fun as sex, I will give it due consideration and let you know if I agree. Now what could be fairer than that?»
She surprised him then. The whine left her voice as she said, «The trouble is, darling, that you treat me like any stupid totsy. Just another dumb showgirl. You don't really talk to me. You talk at me. And you're never serious, not even for a moment. You act as if it would be a waste of time to be serious with me, as though I wouldn't understand you. You're arrogant, Dick. Very arrogant. And you don't even know it.»
Blade stalked on ahead. The path was difficult here, steep and switchbacking back and forth, with a fallaway of some 200 yards. It was the highest cliff on the Dorset coast and among the locals was known as Suicide Leap.
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.