"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 34 - Ruins of Kaldac" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

and he'd worn it safely through the transition into this Dimension!

Blade thought of the first time he'd seen the loinguard, just this morning. He'd arrived at the Tower of
London a few minutes early, then waited under the hard eyes of the Special Branch men who guarded
the entrance to the Project. Eventually J arrived, as erect and ageless as ever, looking like a retired civil
servant rather than one of the great spymasters of modern times. He'd chosen Blade straight out of
Oxford for MI6A. He still headed the agency, but now he was also chief of security for Project
Dimension X. He was about the best qualified man for the job, and it also let him keep a watchful eye out
for Blade, who was the closest thing to a son he'd ever known.

The two men rode down in the elevator to the Project's complex buried two hundred feet underground.
Then they took the walk down the long gleaming corridor to the computer rooms. By now Blade could
have walked the corridor blindfolded. As they passed the last of the electronic sentinels which monitored
the corridor for intruders, J turned to Blade. "Leighton called me last night, Blade. Said he's got a surprise
for us."

Blade managed to restrain his enthusiasm. A "surprise" from Lord Leighton could be almost anything. It
was likely to be a new development the scientist thought he or J would oppose if they knew about it too
far in advance. Lord Leighton's creativity and enthusiasm sometimes ran ahead of his good judgment.

"Did he say anything else?"

J nodded. "He said it had to do with the Englor Alloy #2."

That was somewhat more encouraging. In one Dimension Blade found a country called Englor, strangely
like Home Dimension England in many ways, locked in a deadly struggle with an opponent just as
strangely like the Soviet Union. Englor's airplanes were built of alloys far beyond anything in Home
Dimension, and Blade brought back formulas and samples for several of them.

It turned out that the most powerful electrical field imaginable would flow through an object made of
Alloy #2 from Englor as if it weren't there. When Blade traveled into Dimension X, he was surrounded
by a strong electrical field and couldn't wear anything which might disrupt its flow. With equipment made
of Alloy #2, he might hope to reach Dimension X in something more than his bare skin, armed with
something more than his bare hands!

Unfortunately there were problems in producing Englor Alloy #2 (EA 2 for short) with Home Dimension
technology. The problems had been solved only to the point where a few ounces could be produced
each day, at a cost of more than five pounds an ounce. On his last trip into Dimension X, Blade carried a
length of wire made of EA 2. It made the round trip with him, so at least the theory about traveling with
the alloy was sound enough. Now it seemed that Lord Leighton might have some practical applications of
the theory to show Blade and J.

Leighton met them at the entrance to the computer rooms and scuttled ahead of them to his private
workshop. He looked rather like a gnome hurrying to show his treasure. The surprise lay on the wooden
table in the workshop. Blade picked it up and turned it over several times in his hands. It was a loinguard
shaped exactly like a standard athletic supporter but made entirely of EA 2. Blade would have
recognized the silvery sheen, the flexibility, and the light weight even if J hadn't informed him.
 Blade put the loinguard back on the table and looked at the scientist. "Thank you for the thought, sir. But
I'm not one of those people who keep their brains between their legs."