J stepped back and sat down in the observer's chair, while Lord Leighton went busily to work. If there was anything slow or aged about his hands, one would never know it to watch him putting the electrodes on Blade. There were scores of them, in the shape of gleaming metal cobra's heads, leading into scores of wires in a dozen different colors, the wires linking Blade to the computer.

Now Blade was fully wired in place, with electrodes hanging from every part of his body that they could grip. Lord Leighton finished his visual inspection of all the readouts. He never omitted this, no matter how many automatic controls and monitoring devices he installed in the computers. «The human mind is still the best monitoring device when you can't be sure in advance of what you're going to find,» he often said. Then he turned to Blade, ran one hand through his scanty white hair, and poised the other over the red master switch.

«Are you comfortable, Richard?»

Blade would have shrugged if the straps and electrodes on him had permitted. «I'd have to say I'm as comfortable as I could expect, under the circumstances.» Not that his discomfort or comfort would make any difference in another few seconds, when he was whirled off to Dimension X. But Lord Leighton obviously wanted to hear that his guinea pig was comfortable. So why not humor the man?

Lord Leighton smiled thinly. Blade fixed his gaze on the gnarled hand as it drifted down to close over the switch. He kept it fixed as the switch slowly moved down in its slot, toward the red line-and over it.

Sudden, terrible, total disorientation struck Blade, all his senses blacking out at once. There was an instant when he was not even aware of his own body, and barely aware of the workings of his own mind. There was just enough self-awareness left for him to feel a stabbing, numbing fear.