Leighton made a tut-tutting noise of mock indignation. «The union will get you for that, Richard.»

«What they don't know won't hurt them,» said Blade cheerfully. «Besides, the contractor's foreman is the son of my father's old groom. He's not going to sneak.»

«Good,» said J. «How is the house coming, by the way?» He'd seen it once. It was an eighteenth-century squire's establishment, appallingly run-down when Blade acquired it.

«Well, we can keep partridges and stray pigs out of the ground-floor rooms now. There are four rooms on the upper floor where you don't need an umbrella when it rains. And you can light at least one fireplace without fumigating the whole house.»

At this point Cheeky yeeeped indignantly at being ignored and took a flying leap onto Blade's shoulder. Blade scratched his feathery crest absentmindedly, without taking his eyes off Lord Leighton and J. «Well, from the look on His Lordship's face I should say he's pickled another bright idea for us,» he said. «Do I go through hanging from a trapeze this time?»

J swallowed his laughter. Leighton merely shook his head. «No. It's simply a couple of logical extrapolations from our experience last time.»

The last trip into Dimension X, Leighton used a new technique. Whereas in the past Blade had been greased up and wired all over with electrodes, for the last trip he had stood in the middle of a booth of wire mesh, charged with an electrical field linked to the computer. Since he always came back without being physically linked to the computer, why couldn't he go the same way?

It worked-once. Leighton had a scientist's confidence that what had worked once would work again, under the same conditions. J was less optimistic, but he was willing to go along with the scientist, if Richard agreed.

Leighton explained. «With the new booth, there is a lot more room within the area the electrical field covers. Room for more than a more-or-less naked Blade. We don't have a second person trained and ready to go, but we do have Cheeky.»