«Wake up there, chum, and climb in, It's time we got moving.»

Blade shook himself back into some sort of alertness and climbed into the front seat of the van. He was promptly handcuffed to a bar on the dashboard. Then the other policeman climbed into the back seat, his Uzi still aimed in Blade's general direction. Doors slammed shut, the motor purred to life, and the driver swung the van out into traffic.

Apparently, a simple indecent-exposure case was nothing to cause a great fuss. From the conversation of the two policemen, Blade realized that he'd been a victim of bad luck as much as anything else. The military convoy had been passing by the park when Colonel Morris called the police.

The convoy commander had volunteered his men to help search the park for the naked man, with the idea of giving them a little practical fieldwork. Without the soldiers' help, the police could hardly have covered the park thoroughly enough to catch Blade, Uzis or no Uzis.

The van rolled smoothly through traffic, without the siren wailing or the roof light flashing. Blade had plenty of opportunities to watch London passing-this London that was the capital of the Empire of Englor.

Most of the wines advertised seemed to come from a country called Gallia-no doubt this Dimension's version of France. Blade saw no other countries mentioned anywhere-above all, nothing that might possibly be an equivalent of the United States of America.

This Dimension held the Empire of Englor, where he was now. It held Russland, whose Red Flames were for some reason or other Englor's archenemies. It held Gallia, which made wine, and it held Nordsbergen, which the Red Flames were asking somebody, presumably Englor, to evacuate under threat of war.