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

Richard, at least.
"Oh, they did. My head's in the same shape as always, both inside and out. But they took a bloody
long time to decide it! Frankly, it's a relief to be heading off into Dimension X again."
J smiled. "Leaving me to face the day-to-day routine?"
Blade had the grace to sound slightly embarrassed.
"Well, sir, you must admit you've always had the better head for administrative detail. I could never
have done half of your job."
"No, Richard. You've always been the perfect and complete field man. You'll still be one, even when
we find someone else to send into Dimension X and stick you behind a desk yourself."
"I wonder when that will be?"
"Getting tired, Richard?" J did his best to make it sound like a joke.
"Not precisely. But I must say I'll be a damned sight happier when the whole Project doesn't depend
on me alone. I can cope with swords and slippery roads, but there's always such a thing as simply
running out of luck."
That was a fact J had accepted long ago, but thinking about it never improved his mood. The Project
was Richard, when all was said and done. No other living man could travel into Dimension X and return
safely.
Without Richard, alive, sane, and ready to go, Lord Leighton's giant computer was so many millions
of pounds' worth of useless components and circuitry. Nor would all of J's administrative work and all
the Prime Minister's help for the Project have any purpose either, with Richard gone. Once more J
uttered a silent prayer for just one other person to send into Dimension X.
But he had been praying for quite a while. So far nobody had turned up. He was beginning to
wonder if anybody ever would.
Damn! He certainly was in a grim and gloomy mood today. He didn't need to look calm with
Richard, but he jolly well owed it to the man to at least look more cheerful!
They walked from the elevator down an underground corridor leading through the whole complex to
the computer rooms. Every step they took and every word they spoke was monitored by the electronic
surveillance network that guarded the secrets of the complex and the Project. So far no one had learned
those secrets and lived to carry them to hostile ears.
The first few computer rooms were packed with auxiliary equipment and the technicians to handle it.
There seemed to be more of both each time J came down here. One technician was certainly new—a
tall, almost statuesque blond woman with a strong face that was handsome rather than pretty.
J saw that Blade was noticing the woman too. That was something else that didn't change, either.
One couldn't say that Blade had a weakness of women, however. No woman ever affected his work in
the slightest. In this as in so many other ways, Richard was both an English gentleman and a superb
professional.
Lord Leighton met them at the door to the final room, the one holding the main computer. The
scientist looked tired. J realized with a slight shock that this was only the third or fourth time Leighton had
looked tired. Normally he bustled around in his filthy, once-white lab coat like some aging but still robust
gnome. But he was more than eighty years old, his spine twisted by a hunched back, his legs twisted by
the polio he'd had as a child. It was a minor miracle he hadn't been in his grave ten years ago.
The three men shook hands all around and passed through the last door. The room beyond was
almost entirely filled with the vast gray crackle-finished masses of the main computer, rising to the rock
ceiling and looming high over the men below. There was so little in this room that seemed made for
human beings (or even to human proportions). The computer consoles seemed like the images of strange
gods in the crumbling temple of some forgotten and sinister religion. The metal-framed chair in its glass
booth in the middle of the room seemed like an altar where Lord Leighton would shortly sacrifice
Richard Blade to those gods.
J looked at Blade and smiled, amused at the workings of his own imagination. Richard, as usual, was
as calm as if he had been preparing to step into a swimming pool for half an hour's brisk workout. Or if