"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 14 - The Temples of Ayocan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

feet up, instead of just thirty?"
"Quite so. And go smash when you come down. Lord Leighton doesn't want that, not at all."
"How nice of him," said Blade. But there was a grin on his face that took some of the sarcastic bite
out of his words. Lord Leighton was determined to appear the unwavering and completely emotionless
scientist, with no concern for anything but the results of his experiments. Perhaps he had really once been
that unconcerned about Blade's welfare. But no longer. Both Blade and J knew that Lord Leighton had
come as close to affection and concern for Blade as he could. In fact, he was probably almost as
concerned about Blade's welfare as he was about his computers. Not as concerned as J, though, for J
loved Blade like a son.
"Very," said J, matching Blade's tone and expression. "He's going to try some experiments to get the
computer adjusted properly for the survival kit. But they'll take quite a while, along with everything else
he has to do. So for the time being you'll be going into Dimension XтАФahтАФin the altogether again." Blade
nodded.
They passed through another door, and the scrutiny of its electronic watchdogs, and then they were
in the computer rooms themselves. Blade nodded and smiled to the white-coated technicians manning
consoles and working on breadboard layouts. By now all of them knew him by sight, and he knew most
of them. The turnover among the staff of the underground complex was slow. Once Lord Leighton got
hold of a qualified man, he was reluctant to let him go.
 Finally the last and smallest door slid noiselessly shut behind them. They were in Lord Leighton's
inner sanctum.
It was also the place where Lord Leighton seemed most at home. Almost anywhere in the outside
world, he was an unimpressive, even grotesque figure-hunchbacked, white-haired, scuttling about on
polio-twisted legs, his wrinkled and mottled face showing his eighty-plus years with brutal clarity. He
looked like an aging and unfriendly gnome, with only the bright dark eyes showing any signs of health and
vigor. But among the computers he had created, he looked differentтАФvery normal, very much in
command.
There was a brief exchange of greetings and pleasantries as Blade and J entered. But Lord Leighton
was obviously impatient to get things moving. From the pattern of lights on the master console of the
central computer, Blade realized that the main sequence was already underway. Within a few minutes the
computer would be ready to hurl him into Dimension X.
With no survival kit to worry about, his own preparations were no different from what he had gone
through a dozen times before. In fact, the preparations had become a drill, like field-stripping a machine
gun or making a parachute jump. He had learned both during his commando training. But it was easier to
be careful with the gun or the parachute. With them, how much care one took could make a big
difference, even the difference between life and death. With the trips into Dimension X, nothing in the
preparations seemed to make any difference. He always arrived naked as a baby, his head throbbing.
But why take chances? With as much care as ever, he stripped off his own clothing. Then he
smeared every inch of his skin with the foul-smelling black gunk that was supposed to prevent electrical
burns. Perhaps it actually did. Then he knotted a loincloth around his middle, no doubt as futilely as all the
times before.
He stepped out and walked to the chair in the center of the room. The seat was cold against his bare
thighs as he sat down. His head almost brushed the glass roof of the cubicle that held the chair, while his
feet rested on the rubber mat where it stood. Around him the huge consoles of the main computer rose to
the rock ceiling of the chamber. In their gray-crackled finish the consoles seemed almost as ancient and
solid as the rock of the walls and roof.
J stepped back and sat down in the observer's chair, while Lord Leighton went busily to work. If
there was anything slow or aged about his hands, one would never know it to watch him putting the
electrodes on Blade. There were scores of them, in the shape of gleaming metal cobra's heads, leading
into scores of wires in a dozen different colors, the wires linking Blade to the computer.
Now Blade was fully wired in place, with electrodes hanging from every part of his body that they