"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 33 - Killer Plants of Binaark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Dimension X travel was perfected. They'd provided millions of pounds to finance Lord Leighton's
successive brainstorms and protect the secret of Dimension X. So far the return on all this money and
effort had been rather modest. If you caught him off his guard, even Lord Leighton would admit this.
"We're worse off than Alexander the Great," the scientist had often grumbled. "He only had one
Gordian knot to undo. We've got two. We have to find somebody besides Richard who can survive the
trip. We also have to learn how to send our people to the same Dimension more than once."
"Yes, and Alexander ended up cutting the Gordian knot with his sword," J had replied. "I rather
doubt if we'll be able to adopt such a straightforward method."
When Leighton said over the telephone that he might have part of the solution to both problems, it
brought J and Blade to theTowerofLondon as fast as Blade's car would carry them. "Not that I expect
miracles," said J as Blade's Rover sped through the foggy streets ofLondon . "But he did sound rather
more excited than usual."
The Special Branch men on guard at the Tower passed them at once. They, then rode down in the
elevator and walked along the main corridor of the Project complex, past the electronic monitors that
guarded its secrets. At the end of the corridor was the white room where Lord Leighton waited for them
with three feet of blue-gray wire.
Now Blade and J stopped looking at the wire and looked at each other. Blade picked up the wire,
straightened it out, and tested it against the edge of the table. It cut easily into the wood.
"New alloy, I suppose," he said in a carefully neutral voice.
"You don't recognize it, Richard?" said Leighton. "Of course you wouldn't. Perhaps this will refresh
your memory." He pulled a crumpled sheet of notepaper out of the breast pocket of his smock and
handed it to Blade.
Blade read it. "This is the formula for one of the alloys from Englor."
 "Yes. Our scientists haven't been able to produce it in large quantitiesтАФtoo expensive. But they've
managed to produce thirty pounds or so that are well up to specifications."
One of the strangest Dimensions Blade ever visited was one where an alternateEngland called Englor
fought for its life against alternate Russians called the Red Flames. This Dimension was a mixture of the
completely familiar and the weirdly different. One of the most notable differences was in metallurgy.
Englor used a number of alloys that made most of the ones in Home Dimension look like plastic. Blade
came back from Englor with the formulas for three of those alloys. Metallurgists had been breaking their
tools, budgets, and hearts ever since trying to reproduce them.
"It's good news, of course," said J. "But precisely what does it mean for the Project?" He was always
a trifle more ready to talk back to Leighton than Blade.
"We discovered something about the metal the formula didn't show," said the scientist. "It's not
affected by electricity. Something about the molecular structure lets electrical currents through as if the
metal wasn't there. It can't possibly disturb an electrical field."
Blade's eyes lost their sleepy look. "Then I could wear anything made of this metal without disturbing
the electrical fields during the transition to Dimension X."
"Precisely," said Leighton. His voice took on something of a lecture-room tone. "As you know, the
basic problem of the transition has always been creating a completely even, completely identical electrical
field over and around Richard for each transition. We solved part of the problem by building the KALI
capsule, after we eliminated the initial failings of the system."
J and Blade looked at each other again. Those "initial failings" had in the end killed thirty-two people,
let a deadly peril into the world from Dimension X, and very nearly destroyed the Project. As it was,
most of the new self-programming KALI computer was so much junk, and only the seven-foot capsule
that enclosed Blade like a coffin remained from that particular experiment.
"But wearing something into the capsuleтАФthat would disrupt the electrical field all over again," said
Blade.
"Unless it was made of this new alloy. I've got hereтАФ" Leighton rummaged in all his pockets "тАФno, I
forgot it. But I made a sketch of a suit of the wire youтАФor another travelerтАФcould wear, reinforced at