"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 28 - Wizard of Rentoro" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Wizard of Rentoro
Blade Book 28


By Jeffrey Lord




Chapter 1
^┬╗
Dawn broke overLondon as Richard Blade's train pulled into the station. It was a dawn that promised a
clear, sunny day, rare forLondon at this time of the year. It was a pity, thought Blade, that he'd been
spending the morning sleeping and the afternoon far below theTowerofLondon . By the time sunset
flamed overLondon , he would be far away from the city, fromBritain , from the whole world.
He would be somewhere in Dimension X, the infinite unknown on the other side of a barrier made by
his own brain and his own senses. When that brain was linked to Lord Leighton's computer, when those
senses were twisted out of their normal shape, the barrier vanished.
He'd crossed into Dimension X twenty-seven times since the day Lord Leighton first linked his brain
to a computer and opened the door to Dimension X. Each journey brought new dangers to test Blade's
skill and strength to the limit. He'd escaped from some of those dangers by the narrowest of margins.
Sooner or later, he would not escape at all, unless someone else could be foundтАФsomeone able to travel
into Dimension X and return toBritain alive and sane. For the time being, that someone did not exist.
Richard Blade was the only living human being who could cross from Home Dimension into Dimension X
and return without destroying his mind or his body.
Yet whatever the danger to him, he could not end his travels into Dimension X. Out there lay
resources and knowledge beyond price. The exploration of Dimension X had to continue, whatever the
risk to Blade, whatever the frustrations when a possible discovery turned out to be nothing, whatever
their ignorance of the dangers. It had to continue, in the hope that Project Dimension X would someday
justify all the blood, sweat, knowledge, and money that had been poured into it since it began. The stakes
were too great.
Blade no longer expected that happy day to come soon. At times he wondered if he'd live to see it.
Blade didn't let himself dwell on that much. He had too much self-control to worry about things that
couldn't be helped. He also had too strong a sense of duty.Britain could not do without his
servicesтАФtherefore he would go on serving. This sense of duty had taken him to every corner of the
world as the top field agent for the secret intelligence agency MI6. Now it was taking him to even
stranger places.
 In any case, if Blade was frustrated, what about J and Lord Leighton? J had been Blade's chief in
MI6 and now worked for the security of Project Dimension X. He loved Blade as a son, yet accepted
seeing Blade hurled off into the unknown time after time. He was also clearly seventy. He might not live
to see the Project bear fruit, even if he never took any trip more dangerous than a taxi ride through the
streets ofLondon !
And Lord Leighton? The computer that opened the door to Dimension X was his creation. Project
Dimension X was his brainchild, absorbing the last years of his life and career. Leighton was ten years
older than J, his spine twisted into a hunchback, his legs twisted by polio, what little hair he had left
snow-white. His scientific career had earned him several fortunes and the right to a peaceful retirement.
Yet here he was, brilliant mind and twisted body both hard at work, with little to show for it so far.
Blade at least could forget the frustrations and failures of the Project in the grimly simple business of
trying to stay alive in Dimension X. Lord Leighton and J weren't so fortunate. They had the Project
staring them in the face every waking minute, with nothing to distract them. Perhaps, thought Blade, he