Dropping down from the abstract to the concrete details (all ten thousand of them or so), Project Dimension X was a little less simple. It had begun by accident the day Lord Leighton connected Richard Blade's mind to a computer. Lord Leighton had been and still was England's most brilliant scientist-not to mention the most maddening one to work with. He had conceived the idea of creating a combination of human and electronic intelligences, superior to either man or computer alone. Well and good.

For the experiment he had needed the most nearly perfect physical and mental specimen he could find. That specimen had been Richard Blade. With nearly twenty years as a top MI6 agent already under his belt, Blade had forgotten more about survival than most men could ever learn. Leighton plugged his specimen into the computer-and Blade wound up in what came to be called Dimension X. He arrived as naked as the day he was born, but his superb mind and body kept him alive. Eventually Lord Leighton was able to reverse the process that had sent Blade winging off into Dimension X. Blade came back to England, back to the computer complex under the Tower of London. It had been very simple, the first time.

But Project Dimension X promptly started shooting out complications in all directions, like the tentacles of an octopus. England's best scientists were unable to duplicate any of the samples of advanced materials or technology that Blade brought home from Dimension X. Sooner or later they would make a breakthrough, of course. But in the meantime the Prime Minister was not particularly happy. He had to justify the millions of pounds the Project had swallowed to inquisitive members of Parliament, so his unhappiness was hardly surprising.

It might have helped if they had been able to send Blade back to the same dimension again and again. But so far that was impossible. They had to fire him off in the general direction of Dimension X and hope he would land somewhere he could survive. This «shooting into the blind» improved neither the efficiency of the Project nor the tempers of Lord Leighton, J, the Prime Minister, or Richard Blade.