That was by no means all of the story, if one wanted to tell it completely. There was more money, some of it spent to good purpose, much of it spent on Lord Leighton's whims. There were men and women dead all over Dimension X, killed by Blade in the process of surviving to return to Britain alive and sane.

There were men and women dead or in prison in a good many places in Home Dimension, killed or confined to protect the secret of Dimension X.

There were unexpected and totally lunatic moments, such as the time Blade saved a dozen lives in a train wreck outside London. He had to flee in order to escape publicity that might have endangered the security of the Project. Because he fled, Scotland Yard decided that he may have been a wanted criminal. For several months Britain's own police were hard at work, making it impossible for Richard Blade to live a normal life even when he was in Home Dimension. J had finally tidied up that mess, but there would inevitably be others, probably even worse.

Simple? No, the word made no sense at all here. The only way Richard Blade would ever face anything «simple» was when his luck finally ran out.

Death was simple enough, at least when it was all over.

Chapter 2

For now, Blade was alive, safely in Dimension X, unhurt except for the usual headache, and in no danger of anything except sunburn. The sun and the hot wind blowing across his skin made him suspect he'd landed in a desert.

He opened his eyes and sat up. Sunlight flamed and his head started throbbing again. He saw gray mountains to his left, red-brown desert to his right. With the dazzling sunlight and his throbbing head, he had a moment's sensation that both the mountains and the desert were alive and watching him.