"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 11 - Dimension of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

appropriate placesтАФor at least what Mrs. Griggs thought were appropriate places. Blade could not help
laughing at the sight. The guerrilla warfare between bachelors and their cleaning ladies had been raging
long before he was born and would be going on long after he was dead. Undoubtedly, it would go on
until cleaning ladies became reconciled to clutter or bachelors became tidyтАФneither of which would
happen this side of the Day of Judgment.
It was certainly more than silly to worry about Mrs. Griggs' peculiarities, when within another
twenty-four hours he was going toтАФwell, what was the correct word for moving into Dimension X?
Lord Leighton himself was still trying to pin down the exact relationship of Dimension X to Home
Dimension. Were the two dimensions completely parallel тАж with only the state of Blade's brain and
therefore of his senses standing between them? Or were they merely parallel in some ways and divergent
in others, each with some sort of independent continuity? Since their times could get out of phase, Blade
suspected the latter. Lord Leighton also suspected the latter and had nearly had kittens about it more
than once. However, he had also adjusted the computer so that Dimension X time and Home Dimension
time stayed in phase.
 In fact, Project Dimension X was developing all sorts of complications that not even Lord Leighton
had anticipated the first time he plugged Blade's brain into what now seemed like a primitive and remote
ancestor of the computer around which the project centered. There was a search for other suitable men
who could survive the trip into Dimension X тАж a search so far unsuccessful, although J was making
discreet inquiries of American intelligence agencies, the prime minister himself, the British intelligence
services, and the armed forces. The stresses of passing into Dimension X were enormous, and once
there, a man also had to have the wits, reflexes, and muscles to cope with an environment that might
threaten him with anything from Stone Age ape-men to nonhumans from interstellar space.
One other man had passed into Dimension X, to be sure, and had even survived thereтАФuntil he
encountered Blade. But that one man had been Blade's Russian Doppelganger, a carefully trained and
carefully chosen twin of Blade himself, created by the KGB. Now he lay dead in Sarma. Finding another
twin for Blade among the ranks of the free world's trained soldiers and agents was improbableтАФand
creating one was unacceptable. They would just have to keep on searching and hope for good luck.
There was also a project for finding a way of repeating trips into one dimension, so that it could be
explored thoroughly. Now they could only fire Blade off more or less at random. Such a development
would also mean that materials could be brought back from Dimension X in large quantities instead of
tantalizingly meager samples that turned the scientists assigned to analyzing them green with envy. This
had only been done once before, when they had been able to send Blade after his Russian twin into the
strange intrigue-riddled world of Sarma. Lord Leighton in particular was consumed by a passion to send
Blade back into the world of the Ice Dragons to resume contact with the alien Menel. The prime minister,
however, was consumed with an equal passion not to go on pouring out money on Leighton's whims,
money that would sooner or later have to be accounted for to Parliament. The Controlled-Return
Subproject had finally gone through, but Leighton was predicting that at the present rate of nonprogress,
ten years might go by before any major breakthroughs.
And there were other subprojects by the handful, all of them the result of bees that had buzzed into
Lord Leighton's white-thatched bonnet some time in the past and given him ideas for new avenues to
explore. Not surprisingly, this constant stream of requests for funds to underwrite Lord Leighton's new
notions gave the prime minister screaming fits, and constant guerrilla warfare rumbled and muttered
between the two men.
All this took place far above Blade's head, much to his relief, and did not affect his own role in the
project one way or the other. Of course, if some other man thought equal to the trip turned up, he might
have a restтАФor possibly a partner. But for the time being, his part in each mission began when he
presented himself at theTowerofLondon and descended to the underground complex to be prepared for
his excursion. Which was fine with himтАФhe was an adventurer by temperament. He found the dangers of
Dimension X, which he could meet by his own resources of strength and skill, more tolerable than he
would have ever found the strain of sitting where Leighton sat, where all his hopes and dreams would be