"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 09 - Kingdom of Royth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

they had any good agents that might be available for a joint Anglo-American project. Making the
inquiries widely enough to get useful information but not so widely that American curiosity was aroused
and they started inquiring in their turn had been one of the most delicate jobs of J's whole career. He
thought it had gone well. At any rate, he already had seven names and the promise of a thorough search
of the staffs of American intelligence agencies for more. Between that and the Prime Minister's equally
discreet inquiries inEngland 's armed forces, something should turn up.
Of course, it would be preferable for the Project to remain an all-British affair. If the Americans
provided men, they would also be sure to demand a share of any benefits from the Project. But even
dividing the benefits with the Americans was preferable to suspending the Project entirely. And it was
even more preferable to keeping it going with Blade alone until it destroyed him.
J caught himself. Was he thinking too much of saving Blade and not enough of their common duty
toEngland ? If he was, it was time to face the fact that he was getting old and hand over his job to a
younger, more dispassionate man. Then he remembered that even if he retired as chief of M16, he would
still be involved with Project Dimension X. The Prime Minister had specifically asked him to stay on even
after retirement as the Government's representative with the Project. He had agreed. The Prime Minister
had tried to present this as a high honor, and J supposed that in a way it was. But, and here he grinned
again, it was also an easy way of saving the Prime Minister from having to deal directly with Lord
Leighton very often. Leighton might beEngland 's most brilliant scientist, and he might have forgotten
more about computers than any other five men in the world had learned. But that didn't make him any
less eccentric, irritable, or maddeningly difficult to work with.
J was still running futuresтАФBlade's, his own, and the Project'sтАФback and forth in his mind when the
Rolls drew up at the entrance to the Tower. He climbed out, then smiled broadly as a tall figure with an
escort of dour Special Branch men loomed up out of the darkness. It was very decent of Richard to
come out to meet him here on the surface, even though they couldn't exchange any serious words until
they had left the escort behind.
They did that at the massive, gleaming bronze doors marking the head of the elevator shaft down to
the complex far below. The door swished shut behind them and the elevator began its unnerving plunge
downwards. J turned to Blade and thrust out his hand.
"How are you, Richard? I'm sorry I couldn't get back until just now. I wouldn't have been able to do
even that if the P.M. hadn't sent an official car out to the airport for me."
Blade grinned and took the offered hand in a strong grasp. "It wouldn't have mattered. Lord Leighton
said we were going to wait before starting the sequence until you arrived, however long that might be."
"Well, I'll be damned!" J's eyebrows rose. "I'm almost prepared to believe that Lord L is developing
some human feelings at last."
"Quite possibly. HeтАФ" Blade was interrupted as the elevator sighed to a stop. The doors slid open,
revealing the familiar long corridor stretching away under the lights.
As they stepped from the elevator, Lord Leighton popped out of a side door like the White Rabbit.
He looked even more like an industrious gnome than usual as he scuttled ahead of them down the
corridor on his polio-twisted legs. His hunchbacked body bounced inside the grimy white laboratory
smock. As they moved along through the familiar series of electronically guarded doors, he kept up a
cheerful stream of comment.
"Very glad you could get back in time, J. Richard knew you'd want to be around for the send-off;
talked my arm and half my leg off persuading me to wait. No good reason not to, of course. We can start
the main sequence any time we choose. The problem's always going to be making adjustments once the
sequence is started. So far we haven't had any malfunctions in the middle. We'll have to make some
modifications in the sequencing procedure, though. Put in a provision for "holds" like the Americans use
on their space launches. Don't want to put Richard halfway into Dimension X and leave half of him here,
do we?"
J found Leighton's cheerfulness more than a trifle ghoulish and his technical comments about as
intelligible as if they had been in Chinese. But it again occurred to himтАФmight Leighton possibly be