It was an accident, but it was one that could be repeated over and over. It could be repeated as long as there was someone able to travel into what they called Dimension X and return alive and sane. So far that meant Richard Blade, and no other living human being.

Project Dimension X was balanced precariously on the life of one man. Such a vulnerable project would normally have never been allowed to grow to anything like the size of Project Dimension X. In Britain research money did not grow on bushes-as Lord Leighton had to be reminded frequently.

There was nothing normal about Project Dimension X, however. Carried far enough, it just might give Britain the ability to draw on the resources of Dimension X at will. Would the end of this be a new British Empire, stretching across infinity instead of across the earth? It could be. Certainly it was a magnificent dream.

So Project Dimension X would go on, whether it had one man or a hundred ready to send out. Meanwhile, the secret of the discovery would be kept, at whatever cost in lies, money, or human lives. It was easy to imagine what Britain's enemies might do with the secret of Dimension X. It was almost as easy to imagine how some of Britain's friends might suddenly become enemies if the secret got out.

Project Dimension X would go on its way, and Richard Blade would go out time after time, to face one new and nightmarish world after another. He'd gone out twenty-four times, he'd faced twenty-four strange worlds, he'd returned to Britain twenty-four times.

Over the past two months he'd begun to wonder if he could do it again.

Richard Blade had always survived his adventures in Dimension X. Some of the people who'd been caught up in those adventures hadn't been so lucky. There were two in particular who preyed heavily on Blade's mind.

One was Katerina Shumilova, a Russian secret agent who'd made an involuntary trip into Dimension X after being detected trying to sabotage the Project. Lord Leighton decided that making her disappear into Dimension X was the best way of preserving the vital secret.