"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 10 - Ice Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Ice Dragon
Blade Book 10


by Jeffrey Lord




Chapter 1
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Richard Blade had the habit of cultivating new physical skills whenever he had the time for it. Therefore it
was not surprising that J's orders to report for a new Dimension X mission found him rock-climbing
inWales . He no longer needed to stay at the little cottage on theDorset seashore, even while awaiting
orders. A modified American two-way survival radio made it possible for MI6's powerful transmitter to
reach him anywhere in theBritish Isles .
So between the intensive sessions of weapons training and unarmed combat, the casual women, the
nights on the town, and the voracious reading, he piled climbing gear into the trunk of the MG and
trundled off to northernWales , to test himself against its crags and cliffs. He supposed this compulsion to
test his body to the limit would pass someday. But although forty was looming on the horizon, he was still
at the peak of his physical powers. The doctors attached to the Dimension X Project had assured him
that he had many years, many more than most men, before his body would start to decline.
The doctors should certainly know. Each of the nine times he had returned from whatever dimension
Lord Leighton's giant computers had hurled him into, he had been poked, prodded, monitored, X-rayed,
and generally examined almost cell by cell. By now the doctors (among them several of England's most
brilliant medical minds, working faithfully without any idea of what project Blade was working on) should
know his physical makeup better than any man's had ever been known before. They also assured him
that so far there were no signs of major damage from all the stresses his brain had endured from those
same computers.
That was a good thing to consider, as the MG purred westward through gray stone, thatched-roof
villages just coming awake, on the last lap toLondon . It was a clear brisk autumn morning, the sky
marred only by the blur of smog over the great city itself, and the trees by the road were beginning to
flame scarlet and orange.
Of course, all the probing and testing hardly stemmed from any disinterested concern for Blade's
health. He was a much-glorified guinea pig, whose reactions were of the utmost scientific interest, and so
far he was the only guinea pig the Dimension X Project had. The only other man who had traveled into
Dimension X had returned permanently insane. J, the head of the special intelligence section MI6, Lord
Leighton, the creator of the computers, and the Prime Minister himself were industriously looking for
other candidates, but even for that the medical probings were vital. What qualities did Blade have that
kept him sane during his other-dimensional adventures? Did other men have them also? If not naturally,
could they be induced by proper training? Blade knew that on the research staff of the Project were at
least two of the finest psychologists in the world; would they someday be put to finding ways of
conditioning other men's minds into imitations of his own? That, frankly, was a rather unpleasant thought,
but he knew that Lord Leighton was quite capable of insisting on it to keep the project goingтАФand both
J and the Prime Minister would probably approve. He would have to ask J when they met inLondon how
the search for other candidates was going.
It was nearly eleven before he swung the MG off the highway and plunged into the tangled,
traffic-filled streets ofLondon 'sWest End . A little after noon he drew up into the garage behind the
building that contained his new apartment. He climbed the stairs to the third floor, carefully unpacked and
stowed away his climbing gear, then fixed himself a light lunch. It was usually wiser to go through the