"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 03 - Jewel of Tharn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Blade 3: Jewel of Tharn

by Jeffrey Lord

Chapter 1
The lights were burning late at Number 10 Downing Street. Big Ben had, just struck three and still the
three men sat around the long, green-topped table in the Privy Council room. Blue smoke from J's pipe
wreathed upward to form baroque curlicues in the white light of a high chandelier.

The Prime Minister took a sip from the small brandy snifter before him. He said: "It is a sort of death, I
suppose. A death in life. Which this man Blade is willing to undergo again and again. You say he accepts
these risks gladly?"

Lord Leighton, England's greatest scientist, a shrunken little man with a grotesque hump and glittering
yellow eyes, nodded and said: "He does. Gladly."

J, who was Richard Blade's friend, and superior in M16A, made a grumpy sound in his throat. "I don't
think `gladly' is precisely the word, sir. Blade is no fool. He couldn't have been my top man for twenty
years if he were. He is a handsome fellow, right now in, the prime of life, and he has a great deal to live
for. The world, as the saying goes, is his oyster. Yet he has volunteered. He does accept the risks
willingly. That's the better word, sir. Willingly. It is, simply a matter of duty, of serving England, and that is
something that Blade understands better than most." J's pipe went out and he fumbled for matches.

The Prime Minister looked at Lord Leighton and J, then down at the pile of flimsies before him. He put a
pudgy finger on the papers, as though he expected them to fly away, and cleared his throat.

"Very well, gentlemen. Let us see exactly where we are. I will begin by saying that I do not understand,
Lord Leighton, do not comprehend in any degree, this miracle that you have brought about. I am a
politician, not a scientist, and God knows I have enough problems in this world without seeking for new
ones in odd corners of the cosmos--or wherever it is that you send this man Blade. I-"

Lord Leighton, who would have interrupted God if he felt like it, broke in to say, "Not a question of
cosmogony, sir. I tried to explain that in my report. Not a question of time or space, either. It is a
question of the dimensional rift my computer so alters the molecular structure of Blade's brain and body
that he is able to perceive, and live in, dimensions that none of the rest of us are aware of."

The Prime Minister, who did not like being interrupted, gave his Lordship a rather cold stare.

"You tried to explain a great many things in your reports, Leighton. I in turn have just explained that I
don't understand them. Not really understand. Now, if you will allow me to get on?"

J busied himself in lighting his pipe again, covering a smirk. Lord Leighton, highest boffin in the land,
could be arrogant, and a trifle condescending, with lesser brains than his own. Already, on several
occasions, J had felt the rasp of Leighton's impatience.

The Prime Minister continued. "Blade has been out on two of these-these journeys?"

Leighton was silent, his small leonine eyes half closed. He looked sulky, but J knew better. Leighton
wasn't sulking-he was merely thinking ahead a couple of centuries.