Guardians of the Coral Throne

Blade

By Jeffrey Lord

Chapter 1

The light plane came out of its turn on to a straight and level course.

«Drop point coming up, gentlemen,» said the RAF sergeant at the door.

Richard Blade ran his hands expertly over his parachute harness and gear, completing the final check by touch alone. Then he stepped forward to the door, getting a clearer view of the gray and green hills of Yorkshire crawling past a few thousand feet below. Behind him he heard the other two jumpers getting to their feet.

All three were experienced parachutists, here on the Parachute Brigade's jump range for a five-jump refresher course. One was a Royal Marine Commando, a major or senior captain, Blade suspected. One civilian, with an old face and a young body, probably Secret Service. And Richard Blade. He had been a crack agent for the ultrasecret intelligence agency M16 for some years. Now he was-

The drop light above the door flashed on. The sergeant gave Blade a thumbs-up signal. Blade stepped forward, bracing himself for a moment in the doorway while the air rushed around him at a hundred miles an hour. Then he spread out his arms and sprawled forward into thin air, in the apparently ungainly posture of the experienced skyjumper.

The roar of the plane's engine died away. Now Blade heard only the whisper of the air around him as his speed built up. He stayed spread-eagled and kept his eyes on the green hills below. They were coming up at him fast.

Blade's hand closed on his D-ring. At one thousand feet he pulled hard on the ripcord. He heard a rushing sound as his parachute streamed out. Then he felt the familiar bone-jarring jerk as it deployed above him and his free fall came to an end.

The ground was still coming up to meet him faster than he liked to see it. But the light ground wind was just enough to send him over the crest of one hill and on down the far slope. His feet struck short thick grass, still slick with dew, and went out from under him. He went down onto the seat of his pants, twisting and rolling as he did to spill air from the parachute. He rolled a good way down the slope, picking up bruises even through his padded jumpsuit, before the big nylon canopy flopped down on some bushes.

Blade rose to his feet, gathered in the parachute, and scrambled up to the top of the hill to look for the other two jumpers. He could see both of them, both obviously down safely. The Royal Marine had landed on the edge of a small grove of trees. The Secret Service man was climbing out of a pond, his khaki jumpsuit now dark and sodden with water.

The light plane was coming back now, flying low over the three jumpers, waggling its wings in answer to their waves. Close behind it was the helicopter that would pick them up and take them back to the airstrip for their next flight and jump. It reached Blade first and circled around him twice, the rotorwash kicking up a spray of pebbles, twigs, and dead leaves. Then it drifted down to hang in the air over him. Blade threw in his parachute, gripped the handholds on either side of the door, and swung himself into the cabin.

The crew chief leaned over and shouted in Blade's ear as he stood up inside the vibrating, rattling cabin. «Message just arrived at base for you, Mister Blade. You're to report to your London office at ten A.M. tomorrow. File Acorn.»

«Thanks.»

Blade sat down on the metal bench at the rear of the cabin and began unlacing his jump boots. In his mind the message was echoing so loudly that for the time being it drowned out the noise of the helicopter.

Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, in London, and File Acorn. That meant starting back tonight, as soon as the day's program of five jumps was over. Too bad. He'd planned to stay overnight at a little country inn about, six miles down the road from the jump range. He'd stopped there on the way up and had good memories of the food. He'd also noticed a particularly elegant young brunette staying there, apparently unattached. He'd had notions of finding out if she was still there, actually unattached, and possibly receptive and congenial. One more opportunity stamped out by his duties!

They were very special duties. The Royal Marine might serve England by leading fighting men ashore on hostile coasts. The Secret Service man might serve England by ferreting out her enemies' secrets or quietly eliminating her enemies' spies.

Richard Blade served England by traveling into unknown Dimensions.

Four men alone knew the whole secret of what he did. There was Blade. As far as anyone knew, he was the only human being who had ever traveled into Dimension X and come back alive and sane.

Blade didn't get puffed up over this. In fact, both he and the others who knew what Project Dimension X was all about and how dangerous it was would have cheerfully used a dozen different people if they had that many. They looked for them, too. They had looked long and hard. They were still looking. But so far all they had was Blade. He was a natural adventurer, who personally didn't mind at all living dangerously. But for England's sake it would be far better to have a dozen people than just one. One man's luck would sooner or later run out, and his death would bring Project Dimension X to a screeching halt.

Worrying about that was the job of the other three men. There was Lord Leighton. The computer that hurled Blade into the unknown was his creation. His hunchbacked, polio-twisted body held one of the finest scientific minds and one of the worst tempers in England.

There was J. He had been and still was the head of MI6. He had seen Blade's perfect blend of physical and mental qualities while the younger man was still at Oxford. Over the years he had seen Blade go off on one dangerous mission after another, first all over the world and then all over other worlds as well. It was never easy for him, and never would be. As a professional spymaster, J was a lonely man, and Blade filled the place of the son he had never had.

Finally, there was the Prime Minister. He sat very much in the background, accepting the miracle that was Project Dimension X, protecting it, financing it, helping it in a thousand and one absolutely essential ways without making any pretense of really understanding it. The Prime Minister was a politician, but he was also an honest man, and he was just as devoted to England as Blade, Lord Leighton, or J.

So they made a good team. They were an unlikely quartet of miracle workers. But they were also a successful one, in a deadly business where success was all that mattered.

«File Acorn» was this month's code word for another trip into Dimension X. Tomorrow at ten o'clock in the morning Blade would be far below the Tower of London, wired into Lord Leighton's mammoth computer, ready to be fired off into the unknown.

Blade's mind was so occupied with what would be happening next morning that he hardly noticed the helicopter's landing. He only came fully alert again when the sergeant tapped him on the shoulder.

«Mister Blade, sir-time for the next go-round.»

«Thanks, sergeant.»

Blade stood up and started shoving his equipment into its carrying bag. As the helicopter's rotors whined and whispered down into silence he jumped down onto the grass of the landing pad. At the far end of the runway the little high-winged jump plane was banking in for a landing. Sunlight sparked and glinted off its wings. The sun was fully up now, and the last traces of mist and dew were rapidly vanishing. It was going to be a beautiful day for jumping.

It was also going to be a day for keeping his mind on the job at hand, and not on what was going to happen tomorrow. It would be bloody silly for him to rack himself up doing something he had done sixty or seventy times!

Chapter 2

As always, the underground corridor seemed to stretch out for an empty, echoing, gleaming mile ahead. Blade quickened his stride, wanting to cover the distance as fast as possible. As always, he found himself getting more and more keyed-up as the place and time of his trip into Dimension X approached.

Beside him strode J, keeping pace with Blade in spite of his sixty-odd years. J had not always been a deskbound spymaster. He had put in his years in the field, and done his field work with deadly efficiency. Even today he never seemed entirely comfortable with sitting and watching younger men set out under his orders to risk and sometimes lose their lives.

«You're sure you're feeling altogether fit?» he asked Blade.

«Perfectly, sir. Not an ache, not a twinge. I spent an hour in the sauna last night, and I honestly couldn't be feeling better.»

«That's good. Not that it would be easy to persuade Leighton to hold things off, unless you showed up in a wheelchair.»

«Oh, I doubt if the old boffin's that tough,» said Blade with a grin. «I imagine a pair of crutches would be enough to convince him.»

«Quite possibly. But he'd probably ask for a doctor's certificate in that case.»

«Three certificates, you mean, sir. And from different doctors.»

«No doubt.»

The two men's caustic wit at Lord Leighton's expense was only partly sincere. Much of the time the scientist lived up to his reputation of having a computer where other people had a heart. At other times it was obvious that he really cared about Blade as more than a prize guinea pig for his grandest experiment.

«It's very good to hear you're feeling fit,» J repeated. «I would feel rather bad of you had taken a tumble carrying out one of my ideas.»