Blade laughed. «Yes. Under those circumstances we might wind up with more money than we could spend.»

J fixed the younger man with a look of mock severity. «Richard, that shows how little you know of administration. There is no such sum at the moment. Nor do I expect that either of us will live long enough to see the day when there is.»

«No doubt,» said Blade. «What is the second thing I could bring back to help the Project out of its hole?»

«A new process or product-something we could sell to private industry for at least-well, for whatever the market would bear. I wish I could be more optimistic about the chances of that.»

Blade nodded. He'd brought back a good many products and processes decades or centuries beyond anything known in Home Dimension. Unfortunately no one had yet been able to duplicate any of them on any useful scale. What the devil! The scientists were still struggling to duplicate teksin, and he'd brought the sample of that superplastic back from his first trip to Tharn, longer ago than he cared to think about.

Now they were at the entrance to the computer rooms. The door slid open in front of them. They moved on, through the familiar sequence of rooms crammed to the ceiling with supporting equipment and the technicians to handle it. They came to the door of the main computer room, waited while electronic monitoring systems scanned them and opened the door, then entered.

Lord Leighton's voice floated down to them from high above. «Richard, you can go ahead and change. Everything's in order. I'm just taking the chance to make a routine inspection.» The sound of metal tapping on metal followed before Blade could say a word in reply. The scientist was back at work, and he quite thoroughly detested making polite conversation at such times.

Blade didn't blame him. In fact, it was surprising that Leighton had bothered to speak at all.