by Джеффри Лорд
«In time for tea?» interrupted Leighton with a grin. «Quite so, quite so. Well, J?»
J nodded. «It seems reasonable enough, if it's all right with Richard. And if there's any-delay-in getting you back, we can go ahead with some of the planning anyway.»
It was obvious to Blade that J was simply trying to remind Leighton that Blade was not his property, to be sent hither and thither like a case of canned asparagus. Blade appreciated J's efforts, but he couldn't see the point of them.
All his debriefings after Dimension X missions were down on tape where any trainer or psychologist could settle down with a beer and play them to his heart's content. And he didn't want to spend days or weeks waiting around for «consultation» with a Dimension X mission hanging over his head. He wanted to go down into the complex, into the computer, and into Dimension X as quickly as possible.
He did just that the next afternoon. The preliminary routine was the same as it had been fourteen times before. In fact, the preliminary routine was threatening to become a crashing bore. But not even Lord Leighton knew that much about Dimension X or the processes that would put Blade there. Not even Lord Leighton could say for certain if leaving out any of the procedures would help or hinder. So Blade and the scientist went through the same old routine with the conscientious care of fighter pilots doing preflight checks on their planes.
Blade goes into the changing booth-check.
Blade strips himself naked-check.
Blade smears foul-smelling black grease all over his body, to prevent electrical burns-check.
Blade leaves the changing booth and sits down in the master chair-check. (And as usual, the chair sitting in its glass booth reminds him of an electric chair, and the rubber of the chair's seat is cold against his bare bottom.)
Lord Leighton comes up to the booth and busies himself attaching cobra-headed electrodes all over Blade's body-check. (And as usual, by the time Leighton finishes, Blade looks as though he is being overgrown by some bizarre tropical growth. Wires of a dozen different colors run off from the electrodes into the guts of the computer.)
Lord Leighton steps back, surveys his work with both care and pride, and then goes over to the master console-check.
Blade leaned back in the chair as far as the attached electrodes would let him, and stared upward. The vast computer consoles in their crackled gray finish loomed over him like the ruins of some abandoned and forgotten city.
Lord Leighton, standing at the main console in his dirty white lab smock, looked like some cheerful gnome inhabiting the ruins. Blade took a deep breath, and forced as much of the tension out of his body as he could. From this point on there was no routine. He could not predict, he could only hope to survive.
Leighton turned toward him. For a moment Blade thought the scientist was going to ask if he was ready. But the questions appeared only in Leighton's eyes, not on his lips. And Blade replied in the same way, nodding silently. Leighton's gnarled hand flexed once or twice, then came down. The red master switch came down with it.
As the switch moved, a low muted whine rose up from somewhere far below. It filled Blade's ears and made his teeth ache. It sounded like a gigantic dentist's drill, and in instinctive reaction Blade shut his eyes and clenched his fists.
But no sharp pain seared through any of his teeth. Instead the whine increased in volume until it was a deafening roar. Now it sounded more like a jet engine winding up for takeoff than any kind of drill. Blade felt the blackness around him become tangible and start to shake and quiver and pulse against his skin. It was like being in an immense bowl of jellied soup that someone was shaking violently. And all the while the whining roar tore at his ears.
The sound rose still further, and Blade knew that his mouth was open and he was screaming in agony as it tore through him. This was sound that could reduce a man's eardrums to powder, his brain to jelly, his whole body to an oozing red paste. If the sound was real, Blade knew he had only a few more seconds to live. But the terrible whine filled his brain so completely that there was no room left in it for any kind of fear or panic.
The sound rose yet further. It passed the point where Blade's brain would accept it any more. Silence fell down on Blade like an enormous weight, crushing him down into blackness.
Chapter THREE
Blade first became aware of the sound of insects. They were in the long grass that rose up around his aching head, whining softly to themselves. Hearing them was an agreeable surprise. After the nightmare sounds of his transition from home dimension, he would not have been surprised to wind up deaf. Perhaps the sound had never had any physical reality? It might have been merely a hallucination produced by his brain as it writhed in the grip of Lord Leighton's computer.
The grass was not only long, it was stiff and sharp. Blade felt it prickling and jabbing against his bare skin. Slowly, painfully aware of his throbbing head, he sat up and looked around him. The movement startled the insects around him into silence or frantic efforts to escape. Some of them flew across his field of vision, bright darting splotches of red, black, and purple. The whine and hum from the grass died away as he became more aware of his surroundings.
It was just after dawn, with a morning mist hanging low over the ground. A yellow glow higher up told of the rising sun, and patches of blue sky promised a clear day. But in the swirling grayness of the mist, six gigantic dark shapes loomed up tall and grim. They soared up to incredible heights-a mile or more, if Blade was judging their distance correctly in the mist. But even through the mist their outlines were too regular to be natural.
As the mist began to lift, Blade realized that he was standing almost at the base of the seventh of the gigantic towers. The seven formed a huge circle, a good three miles in diameter. In the middle of the circle Blade could make out a sunken, cleared space about half a mile across. The sunken circle seemed as bare, flat, and featureless as a military parade ground. It was paved-with a yellowish coating that reflected more and more brightly the rising sun.
Blade turned his eyes upward, to examine the tower looming over him. He had to crane his neck until it ached, to see the top. In fact, looking up at it gave him a sickening moment of vertigo. It rose so high from such a slender base that Blade almost expected it to stagger suddenly, to topple over on him and crush him into the rocks and vegetation around its base.
All seven seemed to be as identical as seven automobiles of the same make and model turned out on the same assembly line, except for their colors. The one towering above Blade was a glossy dark green that reminded him of a ripe avocado. From left to right around the circle, the other six gleamed orange, dark blue, golden yellow, flaming red, somber flat black, and glossy white. Except for the black one, all seven were so highly polished that the sun blazing off their towering sides struck painfully into Blade's eyes.
Each of the seven rose well over a mile from a base not more than five hundred feet square. Blade did not know very much about architecture, but he could recognize a building technology decades or centuries beyond anything known in home dimension. How had these seven towers come to be where they were, apparently all by themselves? The mist had almost entirely lifted now. He could see no signs of any other buildings beyond the circle of towers, or any signs that the towers themselves were inhabited.
Blade looked up at the green tower above him again. As he did, his doubts about whether these monsters were inhabited were suddenly answered. Around each of the seven towers, two hundred feet or so above the ground, ran a two-story balcony, jutting out some fifty feet or so on all four sides of the towers. Dark figures were appearing on the balcony above Blade, dwarfed by the distance. Blade could not at first even tell whether he was seeing human beings or some more fanciful and perhaps much less agreeable creatures.
Then one of the figures stepped to the edge of the balcony. Without stopping or hesitating, he stepped out into space. Blade suppressed a gasp and watched. He expected to see the figure plunge downward, to smash itself among the roc
ks and shrubs at the foot of the tower.
Instead, the figure seemed to float slowly, as if it had no more weight than a soap bubble. As it descended, Blade realized that it was in fact human. The man was dressed from head to foot in the same glossy dark green as the finish of his tower. Blade thought he could also see a sword blade on the man's belt, flashing in the sun.
For a moment he wondered if he should take cover and wait to see what happened. Certainly there was room to hide around the base of the tower. A belt of tumbled boulders, shrubs and small trees, long grass, and little gullies and hills extended for nearly a mile around the base of the green tower. The other six also seemed to be surrounded by such a fringe of semi-wilderness. Did these people preserve those tracts for recreational purposes-as parks-or was it that they simply didn't care? Blade remembered the Sleepers of the Dimension of Dreams, and how they had let an entire city crumble to ruins while they sank into their Dreams.
Blade decided that he was trying to analyze not only ahead of the facts, but at the wrong time. The man in green was less than a hundred feet above Blade's head now, and descending steadily. He was definitely wearing a sword-no, two swords-at his belt. On his head was a cylindrical helmet with cheek pieces and a crest from which a green plume waved. A warrior, obviously.
Now Blade understood how the man was descending so effortlessly through the air. He was riding down on a kind of flying trapeze. Three stout bars of glossy green metal formed an equilateral triangle. The warrior stood on one of these and clung to straps fastened to the two side-pieces. Blade could see no rope or wire attached to the trapeze. Had these people conquered gravity, like the alien Menel in the world of the Ice Dragons? That was an intriguing thought, but Blade reminded himself sharply that this was not the time for analysis or speculation.
Should he duck for cover or go forward to meet the warrior? It was almost too late to hide. Besides, he had to make his first encounter with the inhabitants of this Dimension sooner or later. The odds were good on their having something worth taking back to home dimension. Advanced civilizations usually did, and these people seemed to be quite highly advanced.
As Blade reached this decision, the warrior in green reached the ground. He did not ride his trapeze down the last few feet, but instead jumped while it was still eight feet above the ground. He landed and rolled like a trained tumbler or paratrooper. Blade mentally noted this as suggesting a high level of training among this Dimension's warriors. The man was up again almost instantly, and as the trapeze settled to the ground beside him, he snatched it up and held the upper end of the triangle, against his face. There was apparently a microphone in the trapeze, but the warrior's voice boomed out loud enough to have been heard on the balcony two hundred feet above without any electronic help. Certainly Blade heard it clearly enough, as he crouched behind a bush a good one hundred feet away.
«I, Kir-Noz, Warrior of the First Rank of the Tower of the Serpent, declare that I am First on the Ground this day of war against the Tower of the Eagle. Let those who have the keeping of the Book of Honor record this day.» The warrior dropped the trapeze and spread his arms wide, drawing his two swords as he did so. They flashed in the sun, a long sword and a shorter one, both curved, both with green-enameled hilts. Then he thrust the swords back in their scabbards and began to walk slowly away from the base of the tower, his eyes on the ground.
He had covered perhaps fifty feet when Blade rose from behind his concealing bush. The warrior's eyes opened in amazement, staring at this unexpected apparition. His jaw sagged so that his mouth gaped open like that of an idiot or a dying fish. Blade took two steps forward and held out both hands, palms outward in a gesture of peace.
«Greetings, warrior,» said Blade. He could be certain that the warrior would understand his language as well as he understood the warrior's. During the transition into Dimension X the parts of Blade's brain that controlled his language skills changed. As a result of these changes, Blade reached each new dimension with an instinctive command of the local language. It no longer surprised him as it had the first few times, although he didn't fully understand the reasons. (Neither did Lord Leighton, in fact.) But it was no less welcome now for the fifteenth time than it had been the first. Sign language was more useful in adventure novels than in survival situations where your life might depend on getting your message across fast and accurately.
Seeing that the warrior was too astonished to reply for the moment, Blade continued. «My name is Blade. I come in peace to the people of the Tower of the Serpent, from a distant land called England. I would speak with the rulers of the Tower of the Serpent.»
These words seemed to push the warrior beyond simply standing and goggling at Blade. His jaw closed with a snap and his hands dropped to his sword hilts and closed around them. «You are not of Melnon?»
«What is Melnon?» asked Blade.
The warrior looked as though Blade had just asked, «What is the sun?» or, «What is rain?»
«Melnon is the world,» he said sharply. «Are you of the world or are you not?»
«I have come to the world that is Melnon, from England. I have come in peace.»
«You say that you come from the Beyond?» The warrior gestured with one hand, outward beyond the circle of towers.
«If all outside the towers of Melnon is the Beyond, then yes, I do come from the Beyond.» Blade wasn't sure whether being from the «Beyond» would get him treated as a monster or as a god. So he was careful to qualify his statements.
Apparently such subtleties were useless, with this warrior at least. «You cannot be from the Beyond. For it is not of the world, and there are no people except in the world. You are of the Low People of one of the other towers. Or perhaps» — the warrior hesitated as if he were about to use obscene language-«one of the other towers has foresworn the War Wisdom of Melnon. They are sending men among the Waste Land at the foot of the Tower of the Serpent, to catch and kill the First on the Ground.» Kir-Noz drew both swords and flourished them so that they whistled in the air. «The tower that forgot the War Wisdom of Melnon will pay in time. But you shall pay at once!» Without any further words the man sprang toward Blade.
Blade was not caught by surprise. The moment the swords flashed clear, he had stepped back two paces and dropped into a fighting stance. While Kir-Noz was hurling his threat, Blade was surveying the ground around his own feet, looking for any handy-sized loose stones. There didn't seem to be any. So as Kir-Noz charged him, Blade's leg muscles knotted, and he sailed five feet to the right in a single leap. Kir-Noz was moving too fast to stop. He charged straight through the spot where Blade had been standing. His swords carved the empty air with a fury that would have been frightening if it hadn't been so useless. He pulled himself to a stop, turned, and saw Blade standing off to one side.
Kir-Noz charged again. Blade leaped aside again. Kir-Noz kept on going again. By the time they had gone through the sequence a third time, Blade was beginning to wonder what kind of warrior he was dealing with. He wasn't sure whether Kir-Noz was feeble-minded, half-blind, or simply so badly trained that he had never learned to keep an eye on his opponent. Blade's opinion of the competence of the warriors in this Dimension took a sharp downturn.
Kir-Noz's ineptness would be helpful to Blade. He definitely did not want to kill the warrior. But if Kir-Noz had been at all competent, it would have been difficult for an unarmed man to get inside those two sharp and fast-moving swords. As it was, Blade had plenty of time to consider various tricks. In the meantime, he kept leaping aside from Kir-Noz's bull-like rushes. Many years of unarmed combat training had polished his reflexes and left his leg muscles like steel springs, so he had no worries about being able to go on avoiding Kir-Noz. But he didn't want to simply go on avoiding the warrior, any more than he wanted to kill him.
Little by little, Blade led Kir-Noz through the grass, over the rocks, away from the base of the Tower of the Serpent. He wanted the other men on the balcony high above to see what happened to th
eir picked warrior. When Kir-Noz charged for the ninth time they were a good one hundred yards out from the base, in a small field littered with numerous clods of earth and grass. As Blade sprang aside he dropped into a crouch. His hands darted down and snatched up two clods of dirt. He leaped to his feet again and watched as Kir-Noz pulled himself to a stop once more, then he stood and faced the warrior.
«Ho, Kir-Noz,» he shouted. «Here I am, wise warrior of the Tower of the Serpent. Why am I so hard to find?»
The taunt stunned Kir-Noz into an explosion of rage. «When I have killed you, Blade, I will have Queen Mir-Kasa send a message to your home tower. They have done a great wrongness against the War Wisdom of Melnon, to send to watch us a man who carries no swords but only leaps about and waves his arms like a little child of the Low People playing in the dirt!»
«Oh, to be sure,» said Blade sarcastically. «My masters no doubt understand nothing of the War Wisdom of Melnon. And when you have killed me you can say anything you want to them. But first you have to kill me. Come on, Kir-Noz! Show me what a warrior of the Tower of the Serpent is good for, besides waving his swords about as though he were chasing flies away from a garbage heap.»
That last taunt drove Kir-Noz beyond the limits of speech. He screamed wordlessly, like a wild animal on the hunt, then dashed at Blade. As Kir-Noz charged, Blade's arms snapped up, and the two clods of earth he had been carrying sailed through the air at Kir-Noz's face.
They never reached their target, though. Kir-Noz's eyes flicked toward them as they came at him. Then, between one breath and the next, both his swords whistled up and struck with blinding speed in two crisscrossing slashes. The two clods disintegrated into a spray of dust and chopped bits of grass.