There it was. The wide ledge, the chasm, the gallery beyond people with the diamond images. Blade stepped to the brink of the abyss and held out his torch. He stared down and laughed.
"How do you fare, Galligantus?"
He made his way along the ledge to where she waited a little apart and on her plinth near the edge. She glittered, she gleamed and sparked, her magnificent body drank in the torchlight and shattered it and refracted it in a thousand glorious colors. Janina.
She smiled at him across the chasm. Her arms reached out, she beckoned.
Janina spoke: " You have come at last, my heart. I am glad. I have waited so long. I have waited a thousand years, Blade. I can wait no longer. Come to me."
Blade laughed and waved the torch. "Be patient a little longer, my love, my Janina. I come."
As he made his way back to where the chasm was narrowest the crystal came to life in his brain. For days it had been trying to get through and Blade had fended it off, had refused to concentrate or listen, had fought off the computer impulses. Now they were too strong, so strong that it was as if Lord L, in minuscule, was within his brain case and shouting.
Teleportation attempts a failure this time . . . unforeseen problems . . . prepare return to Home Dimension at once . . . bring what you can ....
Blade refused to concentrate. He would not answer. He would not go. What did they know, those fools back in HD? He had found Janina and he did not intend to leave her. She was calling him even now, her voice sweet, low and melodious. "Come to me, Blade. Hurry-hurry."
Fools! But not Blade. Not any longer. He would never go back. Never back to the blood and the agony and the tears, the stupidity and the greed, the pain and despair and aging, the l.u.s.t and inhumanity, disease and death. Not Richard Blade. He was too clever for that. Who needed Home Dimension? Janina had waited a thousand years; he had gone into h.e.l.l six times; now they had found each other and it was enough. Forever it would be enough.
He found a crevice and wedged the torch into it. He ignored the throbbing signals in his brain. He went to the abyss and calculated the leap again. Fifteen feet, give or take a few inches. Once over there would be no returning. Loth Bloodax had made the leap back, but Blade knew that he could not do it. Nor did he want to. He would remain with Janina.
Janina. From down the gallery she called softly. "Hurry, Blade. Hurry."
Blade backed off and measured his run. At its widest the ledge was thirty feet deep. That much run, no more, and if he faltered he was lost. He went a last time to peer down into the pit. Nothing. Nothing but depth and murk and silence.
The crystal fought through.
Aware your intent ... forbid it ... prepare to return HD at once . . . your mental condition unsatisfactory . . . .
Pain slashed through his head. Blade sank to his knees and groaned. He fought to his feet and with an enormous effort blanked out the computer impulses. Oh no they didn"t! They were not going to cheat him at the last moment.
"Come to me, Blade. Hurry."
He began to run. He had dropped his swordbelt and his feet were bare. He ran leaning forward, head down a bit, sure-footed, faster and faster and faster.
He leaped. With a last push of his legs he flung himself out and over the abyss. He soared over darkness and the microsecond it took seemed to Blade an eternity. He floated, arms outstretched, fingers tensed into talons, waiting ....
He was going to fall short.
His reflexes were faster than his brain. His hands relaxed and he let his body go limp. His forearms struck the ledge and for a moment he hung by elbows alone while his fingers sought for a fissure, a hair-line crack in the stone-anything.
Blade began to slip. One elbow sc.r.a.ped off the ledge. His weight was dragging him down. His fingers found nothing but smoothness. He tensed them again, hooked them, trying by sheer strength to make his hands and wrists support him. His other elbow slipped off the ledge.
The fingers of his right hand slid into a crack and held. He dangled. The fissure was so minute that only his nails and fingertips supported him. Blade strained. Blade willed all his great strength into his right hand. He sought frantically with his left for another handhold.
He found it, deep and life-saving, wide enough to let his hand slip in and get a firm purchase. With a moan of pain he relaxed his right hand. He dangled for yet another moment, gaining breath and new strength, then lurched up and got his right elbow over the rim. A moment later he was on the ledge, amidst the gallery of Hitt kings and queens.
Light came dim and murky from the flaring torch over the chasm. He made his way carefully through the glinting diamond images, brushing past them, unseeing and uncaring. Janina was waiting for him.
The beeping in his brain came again. Prepare return to HD at once . . . prepare return to HD at once . . . prepare to Blade d.a.m.ned them all and closed off his mind. Never. Never go back. Janina was waiting.
She had turned on her plinth. She watched as he left the a.s.semblage of carbonized kings and queens and approached. She smiled.
"You came, Blade. At last."
Blade halted. She moved toward him. Her body ceased to glitter. No longer did the torchlight strike color from every facet. It laved a body that was warm and white and pink, that breathed sweetly, that gazed at Blade with love and held out its arms to him.
Blade heard a sound and wondered why he groaned. He had her, he had come to Janina, and she was in his arms. Why did he moan?
He kissed each perfect breast. Her fingers on his face were velvet feathers. She whispered of love, of the things they would do, and he knew that all was well. Yes, oh yes, they would do all those things together.
Her mouth was a well of tenderness which drew his tongue deep into itself. Her breath was perfume, her flesh sheer witchery, and her hands on his body were the kept promises of heaven after the lies of h.e.l.l. Blade sank to his knees and Janina with him. They lay tight locked in embrace, kissing, and she whispered: "Now, Blade. Now at last."
She stroked him gently. He was rigid, blood-engorged, ravening and, at the moment, more phallus than man. Such sweet torture was past bearing.
Janina whispered. "Ah, Blade. At last-at last- I will have you in me. Ah, Blade-a thousand years I have waited and been true. Ah, Blade-now."
Blade entered the valley of pleasure. Long, narrow, steepsided ravine all pink and convoluted. Everything he had ever known, or wished for, increased a thousandfold. He knew then what death was. This was death. And yet not death, for it was life and beautiful beyond telling and when it was over there would be peace. He understood then, for Janina was both life and death, and they were both one.
Never had his l.u.s.t been so tender. Never had he extended Paradise so long. Janina enfolded him with her legs and arms and caught all of him to and in her and there were still depths in her to seek. On he plunged, deeper into the red ravine.
Janina cried warning, but it was too late. They rolled over the brink of the abyss, still locked together, still loving, still cleaving one to the other.
She whispered as they fell. The last words he ever heard her speak: "Fall with me, my love. Die with me. Do not be afraid."
The pain came then, splitting his brain, ripping him apart, and he screamed and clung to her. He knew. In those last moments he knew. He had lost. The computer had won. They were dragging him back to Home Dimension.
"Janina--Janina-JANINA-"
Silence. Yet she was in his arms. Silent. She did not breathe now, he was sure of it, and terror came and a fierce anger. They had killed her.
She was no longer soft. Her body, pressed to his, was hard and hurting and unresponding.
"Janina?"
Silence.
They fell. Fell. On a ledge was the body of Galligantus. A black vulture crouched over it and tore at a b.l.o.o.d.y hole. They fell.
There was light now and Blade could see the bottom of the pit. Vast and covered with bones and skulls. Obscene things prowled there.
"Janina! I am afraid. Comfort me."
Silence. She was heavy in his arms, her flesh gone to stones, her eyes flat and unresponding. Blade clung to her and sobbed because she was all he had.
They fell. A pit gaped in the bottom of the abyss and they fell on. Into fire and steam. Into pain.
The pain vanished. They were no longer falling. He gazed about and began to laugh. He was walking in London, in crowded London, and it was raining. Janina glittered in the rain and it fell from her eyes like tears. She was an image, a statue, and she wore roller skates and he was pulling her along behind him on a leash. People stared.
A policeman came up to Blade and said, "You can"t go about like that, you know. Not ruddy likely you can"t. Not in London Town."
"What do you mean?"
The bobby took off his helmet and scratched his head. He leered at Janina. "You"ll have to get some clothes on her, you know. And put some on yourself while you"re at it.
Blade looked down. He was naked.
"The time has come," the bobby said.
Blade stared at him. "What time?"
"To talk of lettuce and queens," said the policeman. "And submarines and postage stamps. Any ruddy fool knows that."
"You"re the ruddy fool." said Blade. "That is not the way it goes at all."
"Sa.s.sinnawficer, are you? Comealongnowgoirg to runuin."
Blade swung at him and missed. Too late he saw the club coming. Explosion. A little cartoonist sat in his skull and inked in the following: # !****
Chapter 18.
Richard Blade remained in the nursing home three weeks. J came every day to see him, after the first week during which he was permitted no visitors, and Lord Leighton came twice. At no time was either man permitted to talk shop-no mention was made of the computer or of Dimension X. The brain specialist in charge of Blade was England"s best, and so famous that he took no guff from his Lordship.
The first week in hospital was vague to Blade. By the beginning of the second week he had recovered sufficiently for the specialist to clap him on the back and say, "We"ll have you out of here soon. You"re hard as carbon steel and twice as strong. I don"t know what brought you here-though I do have some pretty weird things on my tapes-and I judge that I am not going to be told. So be it. But whatever it was, Mr. Blade, you would be wise to stay away from it for a time."
When he left the nursing home J was waiting in a taxi. "How do you feel, dear boy? You look marvelous."
It was true. Blade did look marvelous. His hair had grown out thick and healthy, he was down to his best weight, and he ignored J to a point of rudeness to watch a pretty girl wriggle past. His eyes followed the tidy little rump under the mini.
"Richard?"
"Sorry, sir."
J laughed and sucked on his pipe. He went so far as to pat Blade"s shoulder, and J was not a toucher.
"Don"t be sorry. It"s a good sign. I gather that Sir Rathburne was right. He tells me that you have made a complete recovery and now all that is required is rest and relaxation."
Another pretty girl pa.s.sed and smiled at Blade.
"I"ll get the relaxation," he told J. "I am not so sure about the rest."
As they moved into traffic J said, "I told the driver to go to the Tower. That all right? Lord L would like a word with you-and I did think that you might like to see the statue. You were the one who brought it back."
"Sure, sir. No sweat."
J nearly dropped his pipe. Blade grinned. "Just another of my Americanisms, sir. Expressive, though. I"m in the pink and ready for-"
J said "Bear? I believe that is the expression."
"Wrong. Girls."
J positively beamed. "Good. Fine. I prescribe it, even though you do tend to overdo."
They rode for a block or so in silence. J said, "Do you feel any different, Richard? Now that the crystal has been removed?"
"No, sir. I didn"t even know they had taken it out until Sir Rathburne told me. I don"t remember much of anything about my first week in hospital. But I feel fine now."
"It was Lord L"s idea that the crystal come out," said J. "Mine too, of course, but he mentioned it first. He feels badly, Richard. Really shaken. He blames himself because we came so near to losing you."
Blade nodded. "It was a pretty bad trip, sir."
"I know. But at least the pressure is off now. For a time, at least. The statue you brought back is worth billions of pounds. And, of course, there are new problems."
Blade listened politely and with half an ear. He did not really care about the diamond statue or DX at the moment. He had an enormous yen for food and wine and, to quote the Yanks again, dames.
He knew there would be future incursions into Dimension X. No use kidding himself. Someone would go again through the computer. Blade? He did not know at the moment. Time and fading memories changed things. If he must, if his country really needed him and no one else could do the job, he would go. Leave it at that.
They reached the Tower and went through the complex security checks. Lord L, in a soiled white smock and as fragile as ever, greeted Blade and J and bade them come with him. They followed him to his quarters.
"I cleared out a closet and put her in it," he explained. "As good as the Bank of England. Better. We can"t let them see her yet. There are problems, my boy, problems."
Blade said that J had so informed him.
Lord J grunted. "Yes. Many problems. But they will be solved in time. She will be broken up and sold off in a way that will not ruin the market. Billions, Richard. Billions! She is going to pay for all our experiments. All of them. As of this moment Project DX is in the black. The Prime Minister is very happy with us."
They entered His Lordship"s suite and went straight to his bedroom. He pointed to a large closet. "I keep her in there. Sometimes at night when I can"t sleep I open the door and put a light on her and just look. I have a very odd sensation at times-as though she were real, flesh and blood, and I in love with her. Did you experience any of those sensations, Richard?"
"I don"t remember, sir."
It might return in time, as his memories of other ventures into Dimension X did, but at the moment she was just a life-size statue of diamond. She glittered and threw back the light and extended her arms. Her naked body was without flaw or blemish.
"She is absolutely lovely," said J. "It is a pity we must break her up."
Lord L rubbed his hump and scowled. "Don"t be a fool, J. England needs the money. We need the money. In a few days I would like to get together and have a talk. I have some ideas that will astound you."
"I would rather not hear them at the moment," J said tartly.
Blade left them mildly squabbling and approached the diamond statue. Regal and incredibly beautiful, she transformed the closet into a palace.
Palace?
Something stirred in his brain, moved and stirred and slithered to the threshold of consciousness and stopped dead. Blade took a last look at her and turned away. There for a moment he had known her name, for she had had a name and he had known it. He had known her and she had not been a statue. Or had she?