Liberator Of Jedd Part 1

Liberator of Jedd.

by Jeffrey Lord.

Chapter One.

Lord Leighton was, at best, an indifferent speaker. For some reason which J was unable to fathom the old man had agreed to make the tiresome journey to Reading and address a seminar of Britain's leading brain surgeons gathered at the University. Later, when the confusion and danger was over, J was to guess that the old man had hoped to learn something about the human brain that he did not already know. What this could possibly be J could not surmise; the old fellow had already far surpa.s.sed the mortal brain by building a seventh generation computer, now waiting for Richard Blade in its guarded vault beneath the Tower of London, and so J put the rare expedition down to vanity, boredom and a desire to exchange chitchat with other scientific minds.

Lord L, J thought now, must get very weary of talking to J. For J was most definitely not a scientific brain. He was a prosaic and pragmatic man, a spy master when he had time to work at it. Which was not often these days. The truth was that J, caught up as he was in the computer experiments and Blade's dangerous forays into Dimension X, at times nearly forgot that he was head of MI6A.

Just now, as he squirmed on the hard seat and watched Lord L hem and haw and clear his throat, J was a little bored himself. Also tired and hungry. And worried about Richard Blade.

Lord Leighton clung to the lectern for support, rather like a frail old lion propping himself against a tree, and peered at his audience with hooded yellow eyes. His mane of white hair, thin and silky, haloed his pink scalp as though defying gravity.

"In such an electromechanism as the modern computer," he was saying, "we have at least succeeded in eliminating the danger of schizophrenia. We build computers to a complex schema, most complex, but when they are built they function exactly as intended. This certainly cannot be said of the human brain."

Lord L moved a bit, s.h.i.+fting his hold on the lectern to ease the omnipresent pain in his hump, and J felt a surge of pity and admiration for the old scientist. How did he ever manage to keep going?

For that matter how did Richard Blade manage to keep going? The boy had made four harrowing and desperate trips into Dimension X. In the morning he would go through the great computer again. His fifth time out J sighed and shook his head, causing the man in the next seat to regard him curiously, and decided to reserve all his sympathy for Blade. The boy was tense. Nervous. Drinking a little too much and chasing far too many women. All symptoms of strain and fatigue, J thought, though Lord L did not agree.

"The chief difference," his Lords.h.i.+p was saying, "is that a computer, a cybernetic machine, is a unit, a single component, so to speak, and so it has the advantages and the integrity of such a unit. Man, on the other hand, really has three brains. The pity, and the source of most of our troubles, is that those three brains must function as one brain. This they find hard to do at times. And sometimes impossible. The three brains fight each other. And I think, though I admit to a great oversimplification here, that this is one of the reasons why man continues to war against man. In a world run by computers there would be no wars. Because to computers war would just not make sense."

J fidgeted and sneaked a glance at his watch. Some twenty minutes to go. Then, with any luck, they could catch the 10:47 back to London. J wondered what d.i.c.k Blade was doing at the moment Probably something much more sensible than listening to a crowd of elderly pundits discuss something that one didn't understand, in a jargon that was all but incomprehensible. J sighed again and s.h.i.+fted his lean nates on the hard chair. Yes. Blade was probably, in the parlance of youth today, making out.

"The oldest of our brains," said Lord L, "is reptilian. We have had it for billions of years. The second brain, engrafted onto the first is, of course, lower mammalian. The third brain, the latest to be melded to the first two, is also mammalian. But late mammalian. It is what makes man, man. Usually we call it the neo-cortex."

Lord L paused a moment, leered at the audience and added: "And that, gentlemen, is why we are always in so d.a.m.ned much trouble! That b.l.o.o.d.y neo-cortex of ours."

t.i.tters. Then laughter. His Lords.h.i.+p, when the mood was on him, could sound more like a c.o.c.kney than a man born near Bow Bells, and his language could put a coster-monger to shame.

J did not laugh. That b.l.o.o.d.y neo-cortex. Blade's neo-cortex that Lord L had been tinkering with for months now. Taking it apart and putting it together again. Scrambling the molecules and atoms and rea.s.sembling them in a manner that allowed Blade to wander into Dimension X. A dimension that no other man on this earth might see or know. Only Richard Blade.

J found himself s.h.i.+vering. He was sweating and it was almost cold in the hall. How long could Blade keep it up? How many times could he go into Dimension X and come back? Come back sane and whole?

Of a sudden J found that he was badly frightened. The terror of the thing, of what they were doing with Blade and the computer, descended on him like black dead weight for the first time.

He could only hope that Richard Blade did not feel the same. A frightened man would stand no chance whatever out in Dimension X.

Lord L hobbled around to the other side of the lectern and clung to it, sipping from a gla.s.s of water. "As you all know," he continued, "it was an Englishman, Charles Babbage, who designed the first 'a.n.a.lytical engine' in 1820. He thought it out rather fully, as a matter of fact, though of course the technology of the time was not up to building it. And I might add that since 1820 a great many of us have not known whether to d.a.m.n or praise Mr. Babbage."

More t.i.tters and laughter.

Lord L went into his peroration. He wound it up quickly, for which J was grateful. Only a quarter of an hour had been granted for questions. They might catch their train yet.

A tall balding man, young for this a.s.sembly, was asking a question.

"Do you think it possible, Lord Leighton, that we will ever learn to control human behavior by changing the pattern of the brain cells? Will the time come when we can restructure the cellular molecules, rearrange the const.i.tuent atoms? Completely change the electrochemistry of the brain?"

It seemed to J that Lord L, tottering by the lectern, looked directly at him. There was a wisp of smile on his Lords.h.i.+p's thin lips as he answered.

"I think that is very possible. I believe it is being done now, to a certain extent, on monkeys, by planting electrodes in the brain and controlling the subject by remote radio stimulation."

J felt an overwhelming desire to go to the men's room and vomit. He now understood why Lord L had made the trip to Reading. The sly old b.a.s.t.a.r.d was looking for a brain surgeon. He had plans, new plans, for Richard Blade. Just scrambling his brain cells and sending him into Dimension X was no longer enough. The scientist in Lord Leighton was taking over from the human being.

He was not normally a profane man, but now J let a string of obscenities race through his mind. It wasn't going to happen! Not while he was b.l.o.o.d.y well alive. d.i.c.k Blade was like a son to him and they were not going to butcher him. Rage overwhelmed J. He would see to it. He would blow the whole d.a.m.ned Project DX first.

Going back to London they had a first-cla.s.s compartment to themselves. J wasted no time in voicing his suspicions. Lord L made no attempt at denial. The old man was arrogant and crusty and very much aware of his eminence as Britain's first scientist. As such he never stooped to lying.

"My dear J," the old man said, "there is no need to get all in a lather. It was a thought I had, a stray and tentative thought, nothing more. And of course we should have to have Blade's permission for any, er, any such brain surgery."

"I'll see that you don't get it," said J angrily. "I G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.l.o.o.d.y well will see to it. The boy has done enough. Maybe too much. There are already personality changes in him that I don't like."

Lord L gave him a bland look, hooding his yellow eyes in the way he had. "I suppose so," he murmured. "Bound to be a few changes, my dear fellow, when your cortex has been restructured as many times as Blade's has. No help for it. But you overlook a point, such changes are not necessarily for the worse. I am quite as fond of Blade as you are, and I study him most carefully, though I admit I lack the emotional overload you carry, and so far I have seen nothing harmful, no cause for alarm."

J knew he was no match for this aging little hunchback. Lord L had a mind like a razor and he could slash you to bits with it. J set his jaw and retreated into stubbornness.

"I remind you, Leighton, that I am head of MI6A and that Blade is under my direct command. There will be no such operations as I am sure you have in mind. If necessary I will go directly to the Prime Minister. He was in the infantry. He will understand about combat fatigue."

His Lords.h.i.+p, when he found the going unpleasant, was given to non sequiturs. "In my war," he said mildly, "they called it sh.e.l.l shock."

J was shocked at his own reply. "I don't give a good tinker's f.u.c.k what you called it in your war. That boy has been into Dimension X four times and tomorrow he goes out again. All right So be it. But when he comes back this time, if he comes back, I am going to pull him out of Project DX. Blade has done his bit. You had better start looking around for a new boy."

Lord L smiled sweetly and leaned to tap J's knee. "I think we shall have to leave that up to Blade himself, J. And I also think that you know what his answer will be if it comes down to a question of country and duty. In any case it is all very much in the future. Now please do be quiet and let me think, I've a nasty little problem in quadruple feedback circuitry to solve."

His Lords.h.i.+p slumped in his seat, eased his hump, and began to scribble on the back of an old envelope.

J's first anger had faded. He now regarded the old man with his usual mixture of admiration and loathing. The cold-blooded old b.a.s.t.a.r.d was right, of course. d.i.c.k Blade would do anything that was asked of him. Meet any test, volunteer in the face of any danger, keep going out into Dimension X as long as he was needed. It was just the way Richard Blade was made.

J leaned back and tried to relax. The train was racing through a small village where a few lights still gleamed here and there. A crowd was spilling out of the local, laughing and shouting cheerful good nights.

J thought that he would call Blade as soon as he got back to his office. He would not be sleeping tonight anyway and there was work piled on his desk. He would just call and check to make sure that Blade was ready for the ordeal tomorrow. His fifth time through the computer into G.o.d only knew what.

Again he wondered what Blade was doing at the moment. He hoped it was something pleasant. Something very pleasant.

Chapter Two Richard Blade was at the moment enjoying himself. Not many men, even fine swimmers and top-flight athletes, as Blade was, would have shared his enjoyment. He was half a mile from sh.o.r.e in the icy Channel. A raw mid-March wind was slicing off whitecaps and whipping up waves. The water was, as Viki complained, fit only for polar bears. But Blade found himself reveling in it.

Blade was naked but for a jockstrap. He floated and stared at the sullen dark sky, overcast and with no hint of stars or moon. A cold wave slapped at him viciously. Blade rolled through it and slid down into the trough. He was feeling better. The muzzy feeling from too many brandy and sodas had gone. He ran his teeth over his tongue and felt the thick coating. It had become a regular morning thing, the coated tongue. He was putting away too much booze. Far too much. He did not seem able to stop the drinking and he never got drunk. Weary at times, utterly weary, and with moments of desolation and despair that he had never known before, but never drunk. In a way it was a cheat.

And there was the little matter of satyriasis. Blade's smile was grim. His s.e.xual appet.i.te these days was excessive, to say the least. Not at all like the old Blade. Then he had been satisfied with one woman and very little booze. But that had been the old Blade. Before Dimension X. Before he had gone four times through the computer. He had had Zoe then and they had planned to be married. All this before Lord Leighton and the monstrous computer and Dimension X. And the Official Secrets Act which precluded Blade from so much as hinting at his real job or the reasons for his long absences.

Zoe had left him and married another man.

Blade let a wave carry him toward the cove where Viki waited, a slim forlorn figure s.h.i.+vering in a British warm. She thought he was a little crazy. Blade went deep and swam powerfully beneath the turbulence, thinking that perhaps his latest girl was not too far off the mark.

Not that he had any real doubts about his sanity. He didn't. And he had never been in better physical shape. It was just that he knew, and admitted, and so must J and Lord L, that the brain-scrambling trips through the computer were affecting him. Looking at it dispa.s.sionately, Blade mused as his lungs began to pain, it would have been extremely odd if his brain had not suffered a few changes. It was to be expected. The important thing was not to panic, don't push the panic b.u.t.ton. It was nothing he could not handle. He felt sure of that.

Viki, p.r.o.nounced as though spelled with a C, Randolph was at the moment dancing in a West End musical. She had a speaking part, two lines, and considered her career well launched. She was a tall girl with an elfin face and gypsy eyes, slim legs and arms and a tiny waist, and surprisingly large cone-shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her real name was Poldalski and her father was a dustman in Putney. This latter Blade had ascertained more out of idle curiosity and boredom than anything else; he was not a sn.o.b and could not have cared less about the antecedents of his bed partners. It had been something to do, finding out all about Viki, and between trips into Dimension X he badly needed something to do. For with the advent of Project DX he was no longer permitted to work at his profession of secret agent. J might have allowed it, but Lord L was adamant. His Lords.h.i.+p had no intention of losing Blade to a bullet, knife, rope or poison.

He surfaced, blowing hard, and struck out for the cove in a fast racing crawl. Viki waved, and desire surged in him and despite the shockingly cold water he began to achieve tumescence. The hard bind of the jockstrap caused him a slight discomfort. Nothing, he thought, to what Viki would presently feel. She had complained of soreness only that morning, after half an hour of his compulsive lovemaking.

Blade felt bottom and began walking in to sh.o.r.e. Yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, twice last night and then that long bout this morning. Yes, my boy. Definitely you are afflicted with satyriasis. The Oxford Dictionary called it "insatiable venereal appet.i.te in the male."

Ask Viki. For that matter, ask Hester or Stella or Babs or Pam or Evelyn or Doris.

Do you see, Lord Leighton, what your G.o.dd.a.m.ned machine has done to a onetime English gentleman by name of Richard Blade?

Blade grinned and laughed aloud into the mad March wind that was tearing across the little beach. Why blame it on poor old Lord L and his computer? Maybe it was just his true nature emerging at last.

He left the water and stalked toward the waiting girl, droplets of salt water beading on his ma.s.sive tanned body. To a sculptor's eye Blade would have seemed fas.h.i.+oned of brown concrete, with every muscle and tendon defined with the precision of a Praxiteles. So perfectly formed and proportioned was he that at first glance the eye was fooled. He appeared much taller than his six-foot-one and much heavier than his two hundred-ten pounds, and he had taken blues in all major sports at Oxford with an ease that suggested games for babies. Which, to Blade, they were. His physical prowess had been, quite often, a source of actual embarra.s.sment to him. He did so easily what other well-endowed men could not do at all.

Viki Randolph had a whiney voice when she chose to use it, and she chose now.

"You were long enough," she accused. "I don't much like it, you know, being left to freeze on this b.l.o.o.d.y beach while you go pretending you're a seal or something."

Blade smiled and slapped her behind. He knew how to handle this type. He let his hand linger for a moment and squeezed a b.u.t.tock. Viki gave him a look and pulled away.

"You're pouting," he said, "and it does not become you, ducks. Come on, then. Back to the cottage and I'll see to it that you are well warmed up."

Viki watched him warily. Blade gave her a leer and a wink. She groaned. "Oh, no! Not again. Don't you ever think of anything except s.e.x? Or do anything else?"

Just then Blade wanted a brandy and soda more than he wanted her. He watched as she gathered her belongings from a blanket, using a small flashlight to find cigarettes and purse and various oddments. The wind took on a shriller note and though he began to goose pimple he was not cold.

They started toward the path that led up the cliff to the cottage, Viki carrying the things in a pouch made of the blanket.

"I am a reasonable man," Blade said. "If you will tell me anything else that is as important, as interesting and as much fun as s.e.x, I will give it due consideration and let you know if I agree. Now what could be fairer than that?"

She surprised him then. The whine left her voice as she said, "The trouble is, darling, that you treat me like any stupid totsy. Just another dumb showgirl. You don't really talk to me. You talk at me. And you're never serious, not even for a moment. You act as if it would be a waste of time to be serious with me, as though I wouldn't understand you. You're arrogant, d.i.c.k. Very arrogant. And you don't even know it."

Blade stalked on ahead. The path was difficult here, steep and switchbacking back and forth, with a fallaway of some 200 yards. It was the highest cliff on the Dorset coast and among the locals was known as Suicide Leap.

Viki was right, of course. He was on the arrogant side. Nature, birth, background and training had all conspired to make it so. Blade was aware of this venial sin and fought against it, not always with success. At the moment, just now, he was piqued and irritated. First because he seemed to have misjudged Viki, or to have been badly fooled by her dumb showgirl mask, and second because he had no desire, need or intention of forsaking s.e.x for philosophy and the finer aspects of life. He'd brought her down from London for one thing and one thing only, bed. And it was, by G.o.d, going to be bed, when and as often as he chose, and nothing else.

"d.i.c.k! Wait for me. I'm a girl, remember, not a great monster like you."

She was lagging far behind. He went back and picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder and began to climb again.

Viki panted in his ear. "You had a phone call while you were practicing to swim the Channel. I forgot cigarettes and had to go back and someone rang up while I was there."

Blade trotted easily up the steep incline. "Who?"

"Very mysterious. It was a man, but he wouldn't leave a name. He left a message for you."

"What?"

"To call J as soon as you got back to the cottage. That was all. Just to call J."

He nodded and stepped up his pace. What could J want? Everything was worked out, all plans made. Blade was due at Lord L's house in Prince's Gate for his final briefing at eight the next morning. Then on to the Tower of London and the trip through the computer into some new Dimension X. So? Some last-minute hitch? Blade shrugged. He would call J, of course, but in his own good time. Vila, warm and vibrant and bouncing on his big shoulders, had first claim.

Viki bit his ear. Then she thrust her tongue into it. Blade, who was lugging her along in the fireman's carry, moved a brawny hand up the inside of her pants-clad leg and gripped her firmly where she joined. She squirmed.

"Leave off that, d.i.c.k. For G.o.d's sake. Do you want to drive me crazy?"

"You started it, ducks. When a girl kisses a man's ear like that it's like a green light flas.h.i.+ng. And anyway, why play games, you know you love it. You want it as much as I do."

Silence. Blade trotted, easily. Viki joggled up and down on his shoulder, her spectacular b.r.e.a.s.t.s crushed against the back of his neck. He could feel them even through the thick coat.

She bit his ear again. "You're right, of course, you big b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I guess I am a bad lot. But only where you are concerned! That I will have you understand, d.i.c.k Blade. I don't act like this with, with every man I go out with. But with you I just don't know, I don't seem to have any willpower. All you have to do is touch me and I do anything you want. And I don't like it. I hate it. And I think I hate you."

"Good," said Blade. "Keep it that way and we'll get along very well." He squeezed again, manipulating her expertly, and she moaned and caught at his hand and tried to pull it away. Blade laughed.

When they reached the cottage he piled logs on a smoldering fire and took a fast shower to get the salt off him. He had a brandy and soda and debated whether to call J now or later. He decided on later.

Viki, sitting primly in a big leather chair near the fire, was reading an old copy of Punch as Blade moved restlessly about in his robe. She kept glancing at him over the magazine. She sat with her long legs tightly crossed. When he offered her a drink she refused it. Blade shrugged and made another for himself. It must, he told himself, be the last. He was due in London at eight and that meant an early start It would be nice if he could sleep tonight, sleep as he had once slept, without the hideous nightmares that brought him awake screaming and covered with cold sweat. Sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care.

Sleep? Macbeth hath murdered sleep.

Macbeth h.e.l.l! Lord L hath murdered sleep with his d.a.m.ned computer. Dimension X hath murdered sleep.

Logs were roaring in the fireplace now. Blade stood in front of it, drink in hand, and stared into the blue-yellow flames. Viki had put down her magazine and was watching him intently. He ignored her. Outside the snug little cottage the wind hooted in derision.

In that moment Richard Blade knew what ailed him. Or rather he admitted it to himself, for the first time. He was afraid. There was nothing wrong with his brain and certainly not with his body. It was fear. Fear was the canker-worm eating away in his guts. And it was incredible. This sort of fear was beyond understanding. He had known fear before, as what man in his dangerous profession had not, but it was the healthy and necessary fear that kept a man alive. This present fear, the thing he now endured, was a slimy loathsome presence in his entrails.

Blade did not want to go up to London tomorrow. Blade did not want to go through the computer again. Blade did not again want to make the awesome and appalling journey into Dimension X.

Blade would do all those things. He would force himself to do them. It was unthinkable that he should not. Otherwise he would not have been Richard Blade.

Viki, back to her small, whiney voice again, said, "I'm hungry, d.i.c.k.".

He was across the room in three strides and picked her up. He held her high over his head, as easily as a child holds a doll, and brushed her dark head against the timbered ceiling. His laugh filled the cottage and boomed over the March wind off the Channel.

"As my American friends say, ducks, I have got news for you. You are not hungry. Not for food. You are hungry for love. For s.e.x. For a long and unstinted bout of s.e.x that will never end. Never."

Viki struggled. She kicked him in the chest. "I am not," she moaned. "I'm not, d.i.c.k. Really. Please. I am terribly sore there. I don't want, "

He dropped her. She fell into his arms and he crushed her with one big arm and kissed her fiercely. "You do want," he told her.

Abruptly she stopped struggling and slid her sharp little tongue into his mouth. She nodded and pulled away for a moment to say, "Yes, you awful beast. You make me want. G.o.d, I must be as crazy as you are."