«Are you ready, Richard?»
«Any time you are, sir.»
«Good.» Leighton pressed the desk button again. «Initiate main sequence and prepare the transfer chamber.» Then he rose and led the way out into the corridor.
Nothing had changed in the main computer room. The computer consoles still loomed gigantic above the men passing among them. They seemed to crowd out against the walls and up against the roof of the underground chamber. Their sullen gray crackled finish was still as immaculate as ever. Leighton was an unashamed fanatic about cleanliness.
Finally they reached the innermost chamber. Here the rubber-padded chair stood in its glass booth. It was waiting for Blade to sit down in it and be hurled, hopefully equipment and all, into Dimension X.
This time, however, there was a change in the long-established routine of preparing Blade for his trip. He still went into the changing room, still stripped naked, still smeared himself all over with a black foul-smelling grease to prevent electrical burns. He still pulled on a loincloth. But when he stepped out of the changing room, Leighton was waiting for him with a complex harness of leather straps. It was somewhat like the webbing harness blade had used during his military service, and he had no trouble getting it on. When he had done so, Leighton attached the haversack to the chest strap and hooked the boots on the belt. Then he stepped back and surveyed his work.
«You see,» the scientist said to J, «we can't risk any irregularities in the electrical field that surrounds Richard as he transfers. So we have to make sure that he stays in the center of the field, and that his gear doesn't interfere with placing the electrodes. Otherwise we might wind up putting only part of him part way into Dimension X. I think that would be rather awkward.» J grimaced at the idea. That was one of the long-standing nightmares, shared by everybody who knew what the project was really about. There too luck had been running in their favor-so far. «Or we might not get his equipment through. And what's the good of that?»
Blade sat down in the chair. The weight of the sack on his chest was unfamiliar, and he felt it dragging him forward. But he managed to lean back and relax as Leighton went into the next part of the routine-attaching the cobra-headed electrodes all over Blade's body. The sack made no difference there. Leighton deftly inserted half a dozen electrodes in under it, and two in under each of the boots.
The process of attaching the electrodes seemed to take longer this time. Was Leighton trying to compensate for the extra matter to be sent through the computer by increasing the density of the electrodes? It was an interesting technical point, but not one that particularly interested Blade now. As the actual moment of the transfer approached, his mind as usual was entirely focused on that transfer and what might be waiting for him in Dimension X.
That unknown would never lose its power to excite him. Dimension X was the ultimate gift to a man of Blade's adventuresome disposition. It was never the same on two successive trips. There was a sub-project working to remedy that, and Blade had to admit it was a useful one. How could one properly explore or exploit Dimension X on a hit-or-miss basis? But there were times when he selfishly hoped that the sub-project would never succeed. The idea of a regular commuter run between Home Dimension and Dimension X didn't appeal to him.
While these thoughts were running through Blade's mind, Lord Leighton was scuttling about, making the final checks. At last he stationed himself at the main console, hand poised over the red master switch. He turned to Blade. He did not ask the question out loud this time, but it was plain on his wrinkled face.
Blade nodded. «Ready and waiting, sir.»
Leighton's gnarled hand seemed to drift down to the switch, then snap it down in a single sharp motion. As the switch came down, so did total darkness. Silent, chilling, stifling, it blotted out the computer room, Lord Leighton, and J in a single instant.
In the next instant the darkness lifted, and Blade was alone in the center of an enormous silver sphere. A translucent silver though-outside he could see flowing and swooping green and blue shapes. Only shapes-nothing he could recognize. Vaguely he felt that he did not want to get a closer look at them.
Then they faded slowly, as the sphere around him gradually became opaque. Not only was it becoming opaque but it was contracting in on him. And it was beginning to spin. The faster it spun, the faster it contracted. The curving surface rushed in on him from all sides, reached him, folded itself around the contours of his body, writhing and jerking as it did so. Its touch was sterile, cold, and dry. It began to tighten, and kept on tightening until Blade felt his vision dimming and his breath coming with difficulty. His vision faded still further, and the silver began to turn dark. Blue, gray, black. It was gone, everything around him was gone. Then a sudden chill, and air rushing past him. A smashing blow that seemed to split his head apart. Then a sudden plunge into a new blackness.
CHAPTER TWO
As consciousness slowly returned, Blade realized that he felt considerably worse than usual. His head felt as if somebody had tried to split it open with an axe, and he felt bruised and scraped and gouged all over. He opened his eyes, but closed them again as sunlight stabbed into his eyes, making him wince and his head throb even more. Finally the pain in his head faded away enough so that he tried opening his eyes again.
Two things struck him immediately. First, that battered feeling was nothing imaginary. His body was covered with welts and scrapes and a thick layer of dirt and dust. Blood had clotted black in several open cuts-fortunately small ones. Second, he was as naked as he had ever been. Not even the loincloth had made the trip. Somewhere between Home Dimension and where he was now, he and his survival kit had parted company.
«Damn it,» he said wearily, and lurched to his feet. His head spun and whirled, and he nearly fell flat on his face. Hastily he sat down again, and from a sitting position surveyed his surroundings.
He was on the edge of a dense patch of stout wiry bushes with pale green leaves and smooth black bark. Directly behind him a near-vertical cliff shot up thirty feet, with more of the bushes crowning it. He must have landed on top of the cliff, gone over the edge, and dropped the whole thirty feet into the second patch of bushes below. That was a much narrower escape than he liked to think about. If it hadn't been for the bushes at the bottom-well, a thirty-foot drop onto hard ground laced with rocks could easily have broken his skull or his back. Or it could have merely disabled him, and left him to die slowly of thirst and starvation. As it was, he felt as if he had been worked over by half a dozen men armed with clubs. He stood up and experimentally flexed his limbs. Everything seemed to be in working order. But the effort sent fresh pains shooting through his head. He sat down again and continued his survey.
Ahead of him, the ground dropped away in a rocky forty-five degree slope. At the end of that slope, more than a mile away and nearly half that far below him, a valley floor spread out. Part of it was bare rock and gravel, with a dry river-bed slashing through it. The rest was covered with patches of scrubby bushes and stunted trees. Above the valley floor, steep slopes of jagged blue-gray rock sloped upward to even more jagged ridge lines. Beyond those ridge lines, even higher peaks rose dark against the blue sky except where their tops shone with snow caps. In the blazing sunlight and the clear air, Blade could follow the course of the valley for several miles as it wound away into the distance.