Pearl Of Patmos rb-7

by Джеффри Лорд

  «Very odd, that marriage. Can’t imagine why either of them got into it. It isn’t as though she were a totsy on the make-quite a good family, you know. Her father is Baron Gervase. Tons of money. Pulp and paper products in the Midlands, something like that.»

  Blade gave his boss a sideways look. This was a facet of J he had never seen before. But then J was a spy-master and it was his job to know about people. All sorts of people. Still—

  It rather amused Blade to see J on the defensive. «I do occasionally read Anthony Asquith’s column in the Mirror,» the older man admitted. «Pays to keep up with things, you know.»

  «Of course,» said Blade gravely.

  «It’s mostly guess and hearsay,» J continued. «But now and then one comes across a kernel of truth.»

  Blade nodded. «I’m sure.»

  J sucked at his pipe. It had gone out. «A little light reading is good for one at times.»

  Blade laughed. «You needn’t apologize, sir.»

  «I’m not apologizing, damn it. It’s just that, well, I know it is all a lot of bumf, but it is fascinating to read about these people at times. Utterly worthless, most of them, with far too much money, but one has to admit that they are not humdrum.»

  «Yes,» agreed Blade. «One must admit that.» As the taxi lurched forward at last he regarded J covertly. J was head of M16, England’s chief spy apparatus. Certainly nothing humdrum about that job-except, perhaps, to J. Since the advent of the computer J had been head of MI6A, the Security Authority set up to preserve the secret of Dimension X. He was a member of a select small group sharing the greatest secret since the Manhattan Project. Yet he read gossip columns to ease his boredom. Or, and in all honesty this must be a more likely reason, to ease his tensions, to gain some relief from the awesome burden of responsibility he carried.

  Blade shook his head. It was a mad world.

  They were out of the traffic snarl now and making good time. J, now that he had confessed his weakness, had in effect cried peccavt to the charge of reading a gossip monger, prattled on happily. Anthony Asquith, in the Mirror, was apparently an ardent champion of the Lady Diana. Hardly a column passed that did not mention her.

  Blade remembered something she had said on the beach-something about cameras? «As long as there are no cameras»? That made sense, unless the lady lied. Very few of those people reeUy minded the flash bulbs.

  «When they quarrel,» J was saying, «or get too bored r with each other, Lady Diana simply takes off without any explanation. The boredom, I should imagine, is mostly on her side. She takes her checkbook and a suitcase or two and just goes. Sooner — or later she always turns up-in New York, Hong King, Tangier, the south of France. It is said,» and J chuckled, «that the lady has a whim of iron.»

  They were nearing the Tower of London. Blade, listening to J with one ear, sought to reconstruct a picture of Sir David Throckmorton-Pell in his mind. Pictures of the judge, `The Rope,’ did not appear in the public prints as often as did those of his wife, but Blade had seen them.

  He scowled as the image formed in his mind. Sir David, peruked and black-gowned, his white bands glistening in contrast to the dark and feral face, the parrot nose and thin lips, the small eyes not quite wide-set enough. A perfect picture of a hanging judge. The Rope. The old bastard, Blade thought with what he acknowledged was irrational anger, must be seventy. Or very near.

  As the taxi stopped near the ancient Tower, another picture flashed into Blade’s mind. He was in the dock and Sir David on the bench. The Old Bailey was crowded and they all knew. Sir David knew. He was puttifig the black kerchief on his periwig as he prepared to announce sentence.

  «You, Richard Blade, sometimes using the nom de plume of Hercules, have been tried and found guilty of the crime of consupiscence toward the Lady Diana. You have, further, known the lady carnally and in so doing have defiled the coastal waters of Her Majesty. For this heinous crime I sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.»

  Blade laughed. J was watching him with a puzzled expression. «What is it Richard? We’re here, you know.»

  «Nothing,» said Blade. «Nothing at all, sir. I just thought of something ridiculous.»

  J paid the cabby. «I wish 1 could think of something plausible to tell Lord L. He won’t believe traffic. He only leaves his labs once or twice a year, and then he goes in a limousine to see the Prime Minister.»

  «I’m sure he will forgive us, sir. Here comes our escort.»

  The burly Special Branch men who met and escorted them around to the site of the old Watergate were new to Blade. J saw to that. These men were outsiders, on the fringe of things, never allowed in the sanctum newly carved from the rock far below the Tower. They served for one tour only and were forever after bound by the Official Secrets Act.

  J and Blade followed the men down a long tunnel, through the now-familiar maze of sub-basements to a bronze elevator door. One of the Special Branch men pressed a button and they waited. A hydraulic sighing began in the shaft.

  One of the guards, a beaky nosed man with. shoulders nearly as wide as Blade’s, eyed J and said, «His Lordship has called up several times, sir. Inquiring for you. Seemed to think you had gotten lost in the Tower somehow.»

  J acknowledged this with a nod and a grunt. A moment later the car arrived. J stepped into it with Blade. He was now permitted to accompany Blade as far as the master computer room, a privilege that had not been easily won. Lord Leighton was a tyrant in his own domain. There were those, in fact, who considered the old boffin a tyrant in any domain.

  There were no controls in the car. As some signal was given from below it began to dive, down and down, gaining speed. Blade, and J, had both been through this many times and still could not keep their stomachs in place.

  The elevator car seemed to be in free fall. J clung to a handrail, biting fiercely on his pipe, a look of near panic on his face. Blade laughed. He knew that Lord L himself manipulated the elevator. His Lordship was having his little joke-and paying them back for being late.

  Brakes gripped and held and the car began to slow. It eased to a stop and the bronze door slid back. Lord Leighton was waiting for them in a well-lighted foyer, barren except for a desk and two chairs. His Lordship stood, supporting himself at the desk, his polio-racked body encased in a white gown that hung on him like a shroud. He was a hunchback and as they moved toward him he grimaced and shifted his position to ease the constant pain in his hump. He glared at them with his yellow lion’s eyes and directed all his venom at J.

  «Where in the bloody hell have you been, man? How many times do I have to tell you that when I make a setting on the computer we must stay on schedule. To the 1000th of a minutel Now you’ve gone and bloody well bollixed up things-now I’m in the middle of a cycle. We’ll have to wait until I can reset.»

  J was a man who did not, as a rule, allow himself to be bullied. He often quarreled viciously with Lord L. Now he turned the other cheek and made propitatory sounds. Lord L ignored him and crooked a finger at Blade.

  «Sit down, Richard, sit down. Sorry there isn’t another chair, J, but then we don’t really need you, do we?»

  «I don’t mind standing,» J said calmly.

  «Suit yourself.» Lord Leighton shrugged and slipped crabwise into a chair at his desk. He picked up a pen and began to riffle through a thick sheaf of papers. «Might as well stay here. We’re as private as we would be in the computer cage. It will be an hour or a bit more before I can bring the machine into exact phase again. You’re looking extremely fit, Richard. Fit and ready. You are ready, I presume? No qualms? No last minute doubts?»

  Blade, who had remained standing in deference to J, said that he felt very well.

  «No more than the usual qualms and doubts,» he. added. He thought of what J had said about finding a replacement and was about to mention it when he saw J shake his head. It was not to be spoken of. For a moment he wondered why, then sloughed it off. J must have his reasons, as would Lord L. It
would be most difficult, Blade thought, to find a replacement for him. He was not given to false modesty. But he had been through the computer six times, his brain structure twisted and altered to enable him to perceive and adapt to Dimension X. He could not-they all knew it-go on indefinitely. Of late Blade had often likened himself to a veteran fighter who wanted to quit before his brains were hopelessly scrambled. But for now he must forget that. The mission was upcoming.

  There was another factor. Only now, for the first time, did he admit it to himself, bring it into the open, let it seep from the unconscious to the conscious level. He had met, at long last, a girl who might make him forget Zoe Cornwall. Who might fill the void in him, ease the ache, banish the pain. She had come from limbo into the June day and then limbo had swallowed her again. Now that he knew who she was, his Diana, it looked even more hopeless than before. Yet Blade was ready to admit, only to himself, that he might have fallen in love. The incident, and the girl, were past forgetting. He did not want to forget.

  Lord Leighton made chicken tracks on his stack of papers and muttered to himself. J, his pipe going like a blast furnace, paced the foyer. Blade smiled wryly and wondered at their reaction should he tell them the truth: that he had found a girl he wanted above all other women. That he had as much right as any other man to a normal life, to give and take love and to have children and a home, and he was bloody well going to do it. He did not have to go through the computer in-he glanced at the Greenwich chronometer whirring over the desk-in less than half an hour. There was no law in England that could force him to do so.

  He could resign. Resign and go back to his town flat and pack and start looking for Diana. J would understand, J would even approve, and there was always his job with M16. J, beneath his proper exterior, had come to loathe and fear the computer experiments. He would welcome back the Richard Blade who had been, BTC, one of his top intelligence agents.

  And Lord L? The old scientist would go first into convulsions, then turn canny and coaxing, eventually threaten, and if all this failed he would in the end acquiesce and never speak to Blade again. Not because Blade had failed his country, but because Blade had failed Lord Leighton, and science.

  Lord L glanced up at the chronometer and dropped his pen. «It’s time to go, Richard. By the time I do the reset and get you properly hooked up the phase will come around. We mustn’t miss it a second time.»

  A blank steel door led out of the foyer. J went as far as this door, then halted and held out his hand to Blade.

  «I’ve had second thoughts, dear boy. His Lordship is right. You don’t really need me.»

  His Lordship snorted and banged on through the door. Blade shook hands with J. «Goodbye, sir. Just in case, you know.»

  J winced. «Yes, of course. All nonsense, of course. Leighton may not be the sweetest old boffin in the world but I trust him to bring you back. I’ll see you, my boy, I’ll see you. Good luck out there.»

  «Thank you, sir. Goodbye.»

  Blade followed Lord L down a long straight corridor that led into the computer complex. Leighton moved fast for an old man and a polio victim, scuttling along sideways and dragging one leg. His mass of white hair, thin and as light as down on a pink scalp, waved in the air as he moved. It gave him the appearance of wearing a halo which, Blade thought with a concealed smile, the old genius certainly did not deserve.

  They paused at the first auto-security check station. Lord L placed his hand, palm down, on a square of green glowing glass and stood aside so Blade could do the same. Somewhere in the complex a sentry domputer would read their palm prints and compare them with master prints on record.

  Without preliminary Lord L said, «Did J tell you that we are trying to find another lad?»

  Blade nodded. Obviously the subject was not taboo if His Lordship chose to speak of it.

  «Don’t like the idea myself,» said Lord L. He glared at Blade with his leonine eyes and rasped, «Lot of nonsense.. The trips into DX are getting safer all the time. I’ve slaved to make the computer foolproof. No reason why you can’t come and go indefinitely, Richard. No reason at all. Only J says he is worried and J had got the ear of the Prime Minister. J is afraid you’ll have a breakdown. Rot, I call it. Pure sentimental rot. No place for that sort of thing in science. What do you say, Richard?»

  A metallic voice spoke from the wall grille. «Check out. You may proceed.»

  They walked through a high voltage barrier-it would have knocked them unconscious had they tried to penetrate it without the permission of the scanner-and approached an L-turn in the corridor.

  Blade, who never submitted to coercion of any type, was nonetheless tactful. The old man was not everybody’s cup of tea, but Blade had a genuine liking for him, and enormous respect for his awesome talent and, not least, his courage. More than once Blade had speculated as to how he himself would stand up to polio and a hump and old age. Could he face it so boldly, keep the light of energy and defiance burning in his eyes. He would doubtless never know, being not only young but a superb specimen, but he had doubts.

  Lord L was still waiting for an answer. Blade said, «I am inclined to agree with J, sir. It isn’t so much that I am tired, or afraid of the cumulative effects of brain restruotuning-though there is that-as it is a matter of luck. I think about that, sir. A man’s luck does run out, you know.»

  «Bah,» said Lord L. «We make our own luck. You’ve been listening to J.»

  «It’s not that, sir. He barely mentioned it. The thought, about luck, is my own.»

  They went through another security check. Their photos were taken and sent to an electronic brain for scanning. The brain compared and concurred. They were sent on.

  Lord Leighton slowed his pace. They were now winding their way through a maze of cubicles, each containing a computer and a white-smocked attendent. This was the guts of the Computer II Annex, devoted to both routine and recondite projects. A humming and clicking, the sound as febrile as locusts on the move, filled the area. Here were data banks for practically everything that concerned Her Majesty’s Government and its subjects. Blade always experienced a sense of unease when he passed through this section. These whirring, spinning, blinking machines held the most intimate secrets of millions of people. They catalogued sin and virtue impartially. They were dispassionate and untouchable. They could not be seduced and they never lied. Nothing was forgotten, nothing forgiven, no favors asked or taken.

  After a last security check-this one by voice print they left Computer II Annex and got into Computer I. This was the original space, gouged out from the living rock far beneath the Tower, in which Lord Leighton had assembled his first computer. The machine that had sent Blade to the land of Alb.

  As they entered the master control room, where the gigantic sixth-generation computer squatted like a brain encased in gray crackled armor, Lord L shot a look at Blade and said, «I still say it is all nonsense. But I am a reasonable man. We’ll discuss it, Richard, when you get back this time. Now, if you’ll get ready-I have some adjustments to make for the reset.» He disappeared behind a large finlike shield.

  Blade went through the familiar preparations. He found the usual cubby and stripped down to the buff. He put on the — loin cloth and smeared. himself with tar paste against burns. Then he went through a door into the penetrailia of the computer. The chair was waiting on its square of rubberoid fabric inside the glass housing. Again, as it always did, it reminded him of an electric chair. He had never seen an electric chair, though he had been in the States, many times, but he had seen pictures and this chair was very similar. J, and even Lord L, agreed in that. It had, over the months, become something of an occupational joke.

  Blade went to the chair and sat down. The seat was of molded rubber and cold on his bare arse. He stared, without much thought, at the hundreds of tiny colored wires that extended from portholes in the machine casing. They ran into thick leaders, these blue, red, yellow and green wires, and, about thirty of the leaders, each tipped with
a shiny elecrode the size of a shilling, would be attached to his body. In the massive guts of the machine the wires diversified and thinned and multiplied, copulated and had progeny, and in the end numbered over a million. A million aluminum, steel and copper nerves-and Lord Leighton knew the exact location and precise function of each one.

  His Lordship entered the room and went to the glittering instrument board facing Blade. Watching him pull toggles and set levers, twist dials, head to one side, hump grotesque under the white smock, Blade felt the usual chill of anticipation coming over him. And with it renewed awe and respect for this crippled old man. Lord L had told him once that the average human brain contained some ten billion complex cells.

  «The trick,» Lord L had laughed, «is to use every one of them to the limit. But we don’t, you know. Most people use less than a third of their brain capacity. Laziness.»

  Blade could not believe that this applied to Lord L.

  The old man finished his instrumentation and came to where Blade waited in the chair. As he began taping the electrodes to the big man’s flesh he went into the usual line of patter designed to quiet Blade’s nerves. Blade did not need this-his was a natural and healthy fear-and there had been times when he wished the old man would not run on like a hangman trying to make his client’s last moments more comfortable. But it would have done no good to complain; the logorrhea was habit by now and, in any case, His Lordship was hardly aware of Blade’s presence at moments like this.

  Lord L patted an electrode into place below Blade’s left ear. «Aha, just so. Did I tell you, Richard, that I am writing a book about this experiment?»

  He gave Blade no time to answer. «I am, you know. I am calling it The Theory of Intellectronics. Of course I won’t be able to publish for years yet, maybe never, but I intend to finish the book just the same. Unvnm let me see. Yes, I believe that is right. We have never used a gen ital connection before, have we?»