While these thoughts were running through Blade's mind, Lord Leighton was scuttling about, making the final checks. At last he stationed himself at the main console, hand poised over the red master switch. He turned to Blade. He did not ask the question out loud this time, but it was plain on his wrinkled face.

Blade nodded. «Ready and waiting, sir.»

Leighton's gnarled hand seemed to drift down to the switch, then snap it down in a single sharp motion. As the switch came down, so did total darkness. Silent, chilling, stifling, it blotted out the computer room, Lord Leighton, and J in a single instant.

In the next instant the darkness lifted, and Blade was alone in the center of an enormous silver sphere. A translucent silver though-outside he could see flowing and swooping green and blue shapes. Only shapes-nothing he could recognize. Vaguely he felt that he did not want to get a closer look at them.

Then they faded slowly, as the sphere around him gradually became opaque. Not only was it becoming opaque but it was contracting in on him. And it was beginning to spin. The faster it spun, the faster it contracted. The curving surface rushed in on him from all sides, reached him, folded itself around the contours of his body, writhing and jerking as it did so. Its touch was sterile, cold, and dry. It began to tighten, and kept on tightening until Blade felt his vision dimming and his breath coming with difficulty. His vision faded still further, and the silver began to turn dark. Blue, gray, black. It was gone, everything around him was gone. Then a sudden chill, and air rushing past him. A smashing blow that seemed to split his head apart. Then a sudden plunge into a new blackness.

CHAPTER TWO

As consciousness slowly returned, Blade realized that he felt considerably worse than usual. His head felt as if somebody had tried to split it open with an axe, and he felt bruised and scraped and gouged all over. He opened his eyes, but closed them again as sunlight stabbed into his eyes, making him wince and his head throb even more. Finally the pain in his head faded away enough so that he tried opening his eyes again.