The moment came to an end as Blade's superbly disciplined mind reasserted its control. Now he could once again ask himself a few basic questions, and this time he could also come up with some sort of answers.

Where was he? Undeniably, in spite of all the signs that pointed the other way, he was in Dimension X. The computer had done its work as well or as badly as ever.

However, this was a Dimension unlike any other he'd ever entered. This Dimension looked and sounded and felt so much like the Home Dimension he'd left that it was perfectly possible to mistake the one for the other.

Blade conjured up a mental image of Dimension X as an endless series of different worlds, lined up side by side and stretching out of sight into-call it infinity, for want of a better name. Anyway, in this series a world like Gaikon with its warlords or Brega with its warrior women would be far down the line, far away from Home Dimension. This Dimension where he'd landed, on the other hand, would lie practically next door to Home Dimension.

So far so good. Lord Leighton could undoubtedly find a thousand and one flaws in that image if he had the chance. But Lord Leighton was in the England of Home Dimension and Blade was here in the Englor of Dimension X. The precise accuracy of the image didn't matter. What did matter was that Blade found it useful for settling and arranging his thoughts.

So he was here, in this next-door Dimension that seemed so much like home. «Seemed» was perhaps the most important word in that sentence. The people of this Dimension carried submachine guns and flew airplanes and drove tanks and trucks and cars. They wore the same uniforms and drank the same drinks and probably made love in familiar ways.

Deceptively familiar. That would be the real danger for him in this Dimension-forgetting that it was Dimension X, in spite of everything that positively shouted otherwise. Forgetting that one little fact could lead to embarrassing mistakes.