"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 08 - Undying World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Undying World
Blade Book 08


by Jeffrey Lord




CHAPTER 1
^┬╗
It was unthinkable that Richard Blade, of all the men in the world, should be impotent. Yet it had
happened. He was in the prime of life, with a massive and superbly conditioned body, a keen and highly
trained mind, and yet the fact had to be facedтАФhe was a member of the limp phallus club.
He did not believe it at firstтАФcould not believe it. Nor could he bring himself to confide in anyone,
not even Dr. Saxton Colby, the psychiatrist for Project Dimension X. In any case Dr. ColbyтАФthe only
medical man inEngland with a security clearance high enough to enable him to work with the
ProjectтАФhad enough on his mind at the moment. Blade's replacement had gone through the computer
once and had returned raving mad. He was now in a sanitarium inScotland where, as Dr. Colby told J
and Lord Leighton, he sat on his bed all day and stared at the wall.
"He repeats," the doctor said, "one sentence over and over. He never says anything else. Never."
The worm has a thousand heads. The worm has a thousand heads.
When Lord L and J asked for a prognosis, the doctor had shrugged and had given them a straight
answer. "In my opinion the man will never be sane again. He's a vegetable now and he'll remain one. I
don't know what he encountered out there in Dimension X, and I don't want to know, but it was horrible
enough to drive him right out of his mind. Either that or the computer itself is to blame. The stress of going
through the machine, of having the molecular structure of his cortex altered, was enough to send him
around the bend."
J had little to say. He had long been bitterly opposed to the Project. Lord Leighton's viewpoint was
different from that of J or Dr. Colby. To the old man it was a simple manifestation of the law of averages.
It was bound to happen sooner or later and now it had.
"Most unfortunate," his Lordship said, "but I refuse to blame myself or the computer. The lad was
simply not up to it. I doubt that any manisup to itтАФwith the single exception of Richard Blade."
Dr. Colby departed to catch a train back toScotland . J and Lord Leighton were alone in the
restricted area of the Tower Computer Complex. His Lordship sat like a gnome behind his old desk, his
polio-ruined legs sprawled before him; now and then he rubbed the pain in his humped back. He
regarded J with yellow lion eyes in which lurked a question.
"You're not going to mention any of this to the boy?"
Lord L, who was somewhere in his eighties, only referred to Richard Blade as a boy when he was
preparing to make a sentimental pitch. J knew this. He narrowed his eyes at the old man. He knew what
was coming and he intended to have no part of it, in fact to fight it every step of the way. Blade, whom he
loved as his own son, had suffered enough, had done far more than his share in the damnable adventure
called Project Dimension X.
But he decided to bide his time. The old man was a formidable opponent and J did not like to
confront him except in cases of dire necessity. For the moment he temporized.
"I won't have to tell him anything," he said. "Richard was there when you brought Dexter back
through the computer. He saw the state the man was in, so he must know. Who better? Richard has been
out in that hell seven times."
Lord L opened his mouth, then closed it. He sensed J's mood and decided to alter his tactics. He
would, of course, get his way in the end.