«Blast,» said J, and dropped the sheaf of papers down on the desk in front of him. It took an effort for him not to throw them, down, or even throw them across the room.

From behind the broad, polished desk, Lord Leighton stared at J. The scientist was bent forward in the pose that made his hunchback and his polio-twisted frame most comfortable for him. His gnarled, knob-jointed hands were splayed out on the varnished desk top. It seemed to J that for a moment there was a fleeting look of sympathy on Lord Leighton's gnomelike face. But it vanished quickly, and was replaced by the man's usual professional detachment.

The scientist shrugged his humped shoulders and said quietly, «It's not my fault, old chap. Really it isn't.»

J sighed: «I know, damn it!» His dignified civil servant's face broke into a wry grin. «I suppose the one we could blame is Richard himself, if we wanted to.» That made even Lord Leighton smile, at the incongruity of the idea.

J leaned back in his chair and considered. Here in this office two hundred feet below the Tower of London sat two of the key men in Project Dimension X, the most important and most secret research project in England. Sometimes J wondered if they needed all the secrecy. Would the average man or even the average member of Parliament really believe in the project if he heard of it, let alone understand it? J wondered. He was a well-educated man and had been in secret intelligence work since World War I. He had often dealt in his work with things too fantastic to believe. But never with anything like Project Dimension X. Every so often, when his mind confronted some new part of the project, it more or less tried to go on strike. What would the man in the street say?

Project Dimension X involved, very simply, putting a man into alternate dimensions.