Some of the surviving soldiers were gathering up the undamaged weapons and ammunition from the bodies. Others, including the officer with the pistol, surrounded the enemy survivors. Blade saw the officer bend over the man.

«Your name?» As usual, the passage into Dimension X had altered Blade's brain so that the officer's language came to him as English.

A groan from the man.

The officer kicked the man in the ribs. He screamed.

«Your name?»

A wordless muttering. This time the officer kicked the man in the groin. He doubled up gasping, without the breath to scream.

«Your name, you filthy wild swine!»

This time the man said something Blade couldn't catch, but was obviously insulting: The officer's face twisted and turned dark. He gripped his pistol and squeezed the trigger. It was a laser, and the beam seared across the man's cheek, leaving a charred mark and destroying one eye. The officer fired several more times, until the man's face was a ruin of charred flesh and blackened bone. Then the officer signaled to one of the soldiers, who finished the man with a bayonet thrust in the ribs.

Blade found himself itching to have a gun in his hand and its sights on the officer. He'd seldom met people in any Dimension who'd so quickly convinced him he wasn't going to be on their side. He wasn't sure what side the soldiers' victims belonged to, but it had to be a better starting point for this Dimension than the soldiers!

He was considering what to do next when the problem was solved for him. One of the soldiers bent over the woman, opened his canteen, and emptied it onto her face. She twitched, gasped, choked, and tried feebly to sit up. Four other soldiers grabbed her arms and legs and began ripping off her clothes. Blade watched, disgusted but also noting strange details revealed as the woman was stripped.

Her skin was reddish-brown where it wasn't dark with smoke, dirt, and bruises. It was totally unlike the soldiers, who were mostly about Blade's complexion. Both the long hair on the woman's head and the tight triangle between her legs were white with a faint, barely visible silvery sheen.