"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 36 - Return to Kaldak" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

empty rooms before long.
 As usual, Blade stepped into the changing booth to get ready. Once, had had to strip to a loincloth and
smear himself with foul-smelling black grease to prevent electrical burns from the mass of electrodes
which linked him to the computer. Now he pulled on net underwear, heavy socks, woolen trousers and
shirt, and a light windbreaker. He slipped one knife into a wrist sheath and hung the other along with a
canteen on his belt. A light rucksack held a poncho, a spare canteen, extra socks and underwear, soap
and toothbrush, several days' rations for himself and Cheeky, water purification tablets, snares, fishing
line, and the disassembled crossbow.

Meanwhile, Cheeky was pulling on a modified dog sweater and belting on his own miniature knife. He
wasn't quite intelligent enough to reason out for himself how to use unknown tools. He only had to be
shown a couple of times, though.

With Cheeky perched on his shoulder, Blade stood as the wire-mesh booth was lowered over him. Last
trip it had been about the same size and shape as the glass booth which held the rubber-padded chair of
the original computer, before the KALI capsule. For this trip it was six inches larger all around, to
provide just enough room for Cheeky. Looking out through the mesh, Blade saw Leighton standing by
the manual control panel.

That was all right with Blade. For the first time he wouldn't reach Dimension X alone. For the first time
he was also taking someone else into its unknown dangers. He was glad to see that Leighton wasn't
adding to those dangers unnecessarily by using the untested new automatic sequencer.

"All right, Richard?" said Leighton.

Blade gave a thumbs-up gesture and Cheeky imitated him. Leighton's hand pulled the red master switch
in one swift motion to the bottom of the slot.

From where J sat on a folding stool, the booth suddenly seemed filled with green light, with Blade and
Cheeky clearly visible inside it. Then the light turned silvery, Blade and Cheeky blurred, and both they
and the light vanished.

Leighton stood with his hand on the switch until the lights on the consoles seemed to satisfy him. To J,
they made less sense than so many Egyptian hieroglyphics. Finally the scientist turned to J.

"Do you need a drink as badly as I do?"

"Probably more so."

"I sincerely doubt if that would be possible," said Leighton. He reached under the control panel and
came out with a silver flask and a thermos jug.

"Weak or strong?"

Blade only saw the green light. Then the wire mesh and the room beyond it wavered. He seemed to be
looking at them through the hot air rising from a fire. He felt a stab of some strong emotion in his mind
from Cheeky, not quite fear but certainly discontent with the situation.

Easy, Cheeky, thought Blade. I've been through this dozens of times. It's not so bad after the first time.
He hoped it was nothing more than facing the unknown which was bothering Cheeky.