Well, Lord Leighton certainly looked enough like a mad scientist to be cast for the part. There were probably some people who thought he actually was mad. Certainly he could be eccentric, stubborn, outrageous, and totally impossible to get along with. Blade wondered how many of the white hairs on J's head had been added by having to deal with the scientist. Probably quite a few. But it was worth it. Lord Leighton might hold a large part of the future of the human race in his mind and hand.

Blade saw the room around him appearing with unnatural clarity and felt his head beginning to swim. He knew that he'd done enough deep breathing, stopped, and let himself relax. As he did, Leighton stepped to the main control panel and pulled the red master switch down to the bottom of its slot.

A buzzing started in Blade's head, then swelled to a screaming roar. It sounded like a jet plane winding up for takeoff, and Blade half expected the room to start vibrating savagely. It seemed unnatural that there should be so much noise with no movement.

In the next moment the room tilted up on end, as if a giant hand were gripping it and heaving. Blade saw Leighton and J standing frozen as the floor tilted, until they were standing at such an angle that Blade expected them to fall down out of sight. The floor tilted still more and the whole room turned upside down-Lord Leighton, J, the control panel, the computer consoles, Blade in his chair, everything. Now Lord Leighton and J seemed to be hanging head downward, like bats from the ceiling of a cave. The roaring swelled until Blade wanted to scream at the tearing agony in his eardrums.

Suddenly the noise died, and in the same moment the chair detached itself from the inverted floor and plunged downward, carrying Blade with it. He plunged into a vast windy darkness that suddenly spread beneath him. The darkness swallowed him, the wind howled about him, and a numbing chill began to gnaw at his fingers and toes.