"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 21 - Champion of the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

Champion of the Gods
Blade Book 21


By Jeffrey Lord




Chapter One
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The man called J stood in the autumn rain at theTowerofLondon and waited for Richard Blade. A gray,
wet, dismal day inLondon always made him feel particularly old. When he was waiting on a day when
Richard would be taking a trip into Dimension X, he felt even older.
J's erect bearing and dignified manner hid a good part of his age from the casual observer. They
didn't conceal it from himself. He was aware of every one of his years, more than forty of them devoted
to a by-now legendary career in espionage. He had begun it behind German lines during the First World
War. Like all spies who lived long enough, he was ending his career behind a desk, watching younger
men go out to carry out his orders or die trying. The strain resulting from this could be concealed like his
age, from casual observers, but not from himself.
Watching Richard Blade go out into the unknown was the greatest strain of all. J did not love any of
the others like the son he'd never had. None of the other young men traveled so far, or faced such
dangers with nothing but their own wits and muscles. None of the other young men were doing work so
important forEngland .
Quite some time had now passed since the day Lord Leighton had wired Richard Blade's brain to a
computer and sent him off into the somewhere called Dimension X. That somewhere had deserved the
name then, and it still deserved it now. They didn't know all that much about it. There were times when
everyone except Lord Leighton wondered if they ever would!
But they did know that an infinity of other worlds lay out there in Dimension X, each world with its
own knowledge, people, resources. If the day ever came whenEngland could regularly tap that
knowledge, those resources—well, perhaps the sun might rise on a newBritish Empire .
So time after time Blade went out into Dimension X. Each time he risked his life, each time he added
a tiny bit of knowledge to the little they already had. Eventually they would learn the key to Dimension X
or Richard Blade would not come back. No one knew which would happen first.
 J turned away from that grim train of thought as Richard Blade appeared in the doorway. He moved
toward J with that distinctive stride of his, a stride like a tiger on the prowl. Some secret agents could
look like bookkeepers or refuse-lorry drivers. Richard, God help him, could never look too different
from what he was, a superbly skilled man of action.
The two men shook hands. "I hear the psychiatrists have been giving you a particularly hard time,"
said J.
"I suppose you might say that," said Blade. "As usual, they seem to think there's something important
about whether I bit my nails as a boy. And if I did, which hand did I bite more often, and which finger of
that hand did I start with?"
J laughed and pressed the concealed button to summon the elevator up from Lord Leighton's secret
research complex two hundred feet below. They stood in silence until the heavy bronze door to the shaft
hissed open.
When they were safely out of earshot in the descending elevator, J spoke again. "They gave you a
clean bill of health, though?" Damn it, that sounded like the question of a nervous old grandmother! But J
knew he was always nervous when it came time for Richard to be shot off into nowhere. Since he didn't
have anything to do now except sit and watch, he didn't even have to pretend to be calm. Not with