«Oh, quite. But if politicians had any scientific training, they'd logically realize one can't really install new equipment without providing for all the consequences. And the PM is a politician, for better or for worse.» He, turned his hunched back on J and Blade, as if the term politician were a hitherto unutterable curse consigning the prime minister to the nether regions. Then he began the visual check of the master control panel, which he would never delegate to any subordinate.

«Well, Richard,» said J with resignation in his voice, «I suppose his Lordship's right. Time to go.» With a precise motion he thrust out a hand and strongly shook Blade's. Then he stepped back to the small recess beside the main control panel. There was a stool in it, which Lord Leighton had provided so he could sit and watch Blade flicker out of his Home Dimensional existence. Such a gesture from Lord Leighton assured Blade that the scientist possessed an actual, genuine, real heart, lurking somewhere behind that searingly brilliant intellect and the brusque, cynical, eccentric manner.

For himself, however, there was no softening or modification of the familiar routine. He went into the dressing room, stripped off his street clothes, and reappeared naked except for a loincloth and a head-to-toe covering of blackish cream intended to prevent electrical burns. Whether smearing himself with that foul-smelling gunk was really necessary he didn't know. But considering the amount of current that flashed through his body each time he was shifted into Dimension X, it was probably a reasonable precaution. He had no desire to wind up barbecued to a turn in the chair; that chair in its glass cubicle already looked rather too much like an electric chair.

He sat down in the chair, and Lord Leighton went to work, darting about the chair with his once white laboratory smock flapping and making him look like some energetic and untidy bird, attaching the gleaming cobra-headed electrodes all over Blade's body.