Blade took off his toupee and flung it into a corner. His naked skull glistened blue in the fluorescent light. The toupee looked like some small dead animal; it would serve, Blade thought, as a reminder to take care of his hair when he returned from the mission. If he did.

It came hard for Lord Leighton to beg, but he was near it now.

«I wanted this word alone with you, Richard, away from J. He is against me in everything these days. And he treats you like a child, you know. He is like a mother hen with a chick. That's all wrong, Richard. You're the dominant one, the hero, the adventurer. It is you who must go into DX and suffer whatever comes. So all final decisions should be yours.»

Blade smeared tar salve on his bottom. «Exactly, Sir. I agree. I do. I am-making the final decisions.»

Was there ever such an obdurate old boffin?

«If you would only wait for a month, Richard? Surely that isn't asking too much and I, er, have so much to do yet.»

Blade shook his head. «No. I also have things to do, sir. I want to get into Dimension X and get it over with. Now.»

«You don't understand,» said Lord L. «None of you really understands what I am trying to do.» There was real despair in his voice. «The computer-cortex link, my boy, is only the first step in what I am trying to do, what I can do. Even Dimension X is of secondary importance compared to what I am really after. I want to change the world, Richard! I want to change people and so the world. But I need time and I haven't much. I am an old man and my sands are running out.»

Blade rubbed tar salve between his toes. The old boy was never so dangerous as when he waxed dramatic and turned to florid usage. In self-defense Blade was flip.