There was a brief exchange of greetings and pleasantries as Blade and J entered. But Lord Leighton was obviously impatient to get things moving. From the pattern of lights on the master console of the central computer, Blade realized that the main sequence was already underway. Within a few minutes the computer would be ready to hurl him into Dimension X.

With no survival kit to worry about, his own preparations were no different from what he had gone through a dozen times before. In fact, the preparations had become a drill, like field-stripping a machine gun or making a parachute jump. He had learned both during his commando training. But it was easier to be careful with the gun or the parachute. With them, how much care one took could make a big difference, even the difference between life and death. With the trips into Dimension X, nothing in the preparations seemed to make any difference. He always arrived naked as a baby, his head throbbing.

But why take chances? With as much care as ever, he stripped off his own clothing. Then he smeared every inch of his skin with the foul-smelling black gunk that was supposed to prevent electrical burns. Perhaps it actually did. Then he knotted a loincloth around his middle, no doubt as futilely as all the times before.

He stepped out and walked to the chair in the center of the room. The seat was cold against his bare thighs as he sat down. His head almost brushed the glass roof of the cubicle that held the chair, while his feet rested on the rubber mat where it stood. Around him the huge consoles of the main computer rose to the rock ceiling of the chamber. In their gray-crackled finish the consoles seemed almost as ancient and solid as the rock of the walls and roof.