The dream-like falling sensation went on until Blade got used to it. It began to remind him of the days he'd been weightless in Riyannah's spaceship on the way to Kanan, during perhaps the strangest and certainly the most far-traveling of his adventures. That time, he'd traveled not only some unmeasurable distance across the Dimensions, but at least a hundred light-years across interstellar space as well.

Blade was just beginning to recall pleasant memories of making love to Riyannah in weightlessness, when suddenly the fall came to an end. Something solid slammed up under his feet so hard that his knees buckled, and he fought for balance as the normal world started to take shape around him.

At first, all he could see were blurred forms, which might have been anything, and he could hear only a muffled whispering like wind or waves. He was clearly aware of his own body, and was relieved to discover that it seemed to be in working condition. He had no trace of a headache, no pains in his joints or muscles, only a slight shortness of breath. It began to look as if Lord Leighton was right about the KALI capsule. It did drastically reduce the stresses of a transition into Dimension X.

Then the world around Blade took shape. He saw that the reduced stress of the KALI capsule was probably going to save his life. He'd joked many times about how one day he might have to fight the moment he landed in a new Dimension. This time it was no joke.

He stood on the foc'sle of a fairly large sailing ship well out to sea. He could see an endless blue horizon all around him, and other ships close on either side. Then matters and people even closer at hand brought themselves forcibly to his attention.

Two men were standing even farther forward than Blade. Apparently he'd taken solid shape before them as they did the same before him. One man turned the color of a dirty bedsheet, and his eyes seemed about to pop out of their sockets. Then his brain pushed his body into motion. With a wild yell he leaped into the air, clearing the railing like a high-jumper and vanishing over the side.