The unanswered questions piled up, but they didn't stop the research. The value to Britain of such a whole new world, with unimaginable resources, was obvious. Successive Prime Ministers kept Project Dimension X going, even in the face of the country's economic problems.

They also kept it going under the tightest security blanket in British history. Blade's former chief at MI6A, the near-legendary spymaster known only as J, became the Project's security chief. He did his best to keep the Dimension X secret, and his best was more than good enough, until events put not just the Project but the whole world in deadly danger.

Leighton was using a completely automated technique for sending Blade into Dimension X, based on a new computer, the Kinematic Analog Leighton Integrator. The initials also spelled out the name of KALI, the Hindu goddess of destruction-a grimly appropriate acronym, as it turned out.

Blade went into Dimension X, and when he returned, a being called the Ngaa returned with him. It was the collective mind of the ancient inhabitants of a dying world, seeking a new home on Earth. The Ngaa left a trail of death and destruction behind it, and nearly brought Project Dimension X to a disastrous end. Eventually Blade took his life in his hands, returned to the Ngaa's Dimension, and destroyed it, but as J said, quoting the Duke of Wellington about the Battle of Waterloo: «It was a damned close-run thing.»

In fact, it was much too close for everybody's peace of mind. The automated KALI computer was dismantled, and the only component of the system Leighton still used was the transition case-the seven-foot oval capsule now in front of Blade. In it, electrical current flowed evenly through his whole body in the moment of his transition into Dimension X. With the old technique of electrodes placed by hand, the flow of current varied. Using the capsule seemed to reduce the stress of the transition, perhaps enough so that in time other men and women could survive to travel into Dimension X.