There was a slight change. When the Project began, one could have taken him for a senior civil servant. Now one could take him for that same civil servant, recently retired. Appearances weren't entirely deceiving. As the Dimension X Project grew and stretched out tentacles into more and more areas that needed security precautions, J had less and less to do with the day-to-day activities of MI6A. Except for major decisions, his three Deputy Directors virtually ran the store now. No one objected to this arrangement, either. Even the most obtuse Prime Minister or Minister of Defense knew that J working half-time was worth any other two men working full-time. There are great names-the equivalent of Rembrandt or Einstein-in the shadowy world of intelligence and espionage. J was one of these.

After the usual greetings, J and Leighton sat down to talk, while Blade went off to the changing room. He threaded his way among the gray crackle-finished consoles of the main computer. There weren't any loose wires dangling, and everything had been largely cleaned up. Just as well-it would be years before anyone let Leighton play with the sleek, squat consoles of the KALI system again.

Inside the changing room the routine was nearly the same as always. Blade stripped down and pulled on a brief loincloth. The loincloth was more like the fig-leaf in a painting than anything useful. Blade hardly ever arrived in Dimension X other than naked as a newborn babe. When he did, it seemed to be more a matter of luck than anything else. At least he no longer had to smear himself with that foul-smelling black grease to prevent electrical burns.

When he returned to Leighton and J, they'd just finished discussing his proposal for an above-ground laboratory complex. «Sound enough, in theory,» said J. «I much appreciate your suggestion, Richard. Unfortunately we still can't be sure how much about the affair of the Ngaa reached the opposition. We did our best, but that may not have been good enough. If it wasn't, the KGB may know enough about the Project to recognize anything associated with it. Then they'd give any new laboratory a high priority and give us a first-class headache. Frankly, I'd rather devote our resources to getting that second capsule operational.»