That was no surprise. Blade wondered if the next question from Colonel Morris would be where he'd left his clothes. Blade hoped that question would remain unasked, because it could not be easily answered. At least it could not be answered in any way that would not lead to all sorts of other questions and in the end probably to danger for the secret of Dimension X. Blade was determined to keep that secret, even from his own countrymen and at the cost of his own life. He, would only relax on that point if he found himself face to face with J or Lord Leighton, alive and in the flesh.
Apparently Colonel Morris didn't care about Blade's clothes. He merely motioned to one of the soldiers, who threw a folded poncho down to Blade. Blade unfolded it, pulled it over his head, and scrambled up the side of the gulley. Morris took salutes from the two soldiers and the bobby, then strode briskly off down the path. The bobby led Blade off in the opposite direction, with the two soldiers falling in behind. The bobby had slung his submachine gun, but Blade noticed the two soldiers still held theirs at the ready.
The little procession tramped briskly back through the park, retracing more of Blade's steps, heading directly back toward the main road. Blade found himself becoming steadily more alert and observant out of sheer curiosity. What had happened to his country since he'd stepped into the computer, with the passage of time and the strains of this new war? Who was the enemy? Who was winning? He wanted answers to these and a hundred other questions.
In a few more minutes they reached the main road. It stretched away in either direction, bordered on one side by the park and on the other by a mixture of ordinary suburban villas and small shops. Blade looked at some of the signs in the shop windows. Nothing out of the ordinary there, although he didn't recognize some of the brand names. There also seemed to be fewer advertisements for beer, and more for wine. Well, if there was a war on and France was an ally, why not? Nothing surprising there, although he rather hoped that one could still get Mackeson's Stout. It had always been one of his favorite drinks.
To Blade's right was a police van. It was dark blue, with a large crest and some white lettering that he couldn't recognize on the door facing him. The two soldiers swung away to the left. Blade looked after them and saw four large army trucks and two tank transporters parked by the curb. All six vehicles had ring-mounted machine guns on top of the cabs, with soldiers in black berets manning them. Other soldiers were emerging from the park and climbing into the backs of the four trucks.
On each of the two tank transporters sat two small tanks. Like the Uzi submachine guns, they were a perfectly recognizable type. They were Scorpions, the light reconnaissance tanks the British Army had introduced a few years before. Some of the antennas and other external hardware were different, but the silhouettes seemed virtually identical. Blade felt somewhat relieved. He definitely couldn't have been pushed too far into the future if the RAF still flew C- 130s and the British Army still used Scorpion tanks.
All this time, traffic had been passing back and forth along the road in front of him. He'd noticed a perfectly ordinary mix of cars and trucks and buses, with an occasional motorcycle or scooter. Now his eyes were drawn to a large green truck that pulled up to the curb in front of a newsstand. Several bundles of newspapers were thrown out and the truck started off again. Another policeman climbed out of the police van, darted across the street in the intervals between cars, and bought an armful of newspapers from the boy at the stand.
Blade's own bobby took his arm firmly and led him toward the van. As they approached, the other man laid most of the newspapers down on the hood of the car, then opened the one he held. Blade looked at the newspaper, and suddenly he felt all his internal organs from his throat down to his groin turn into solid ice.
The newspaper had the exact form of the familiar London Tames. But it called itself Imperial Times. Under the newspaper's name was a motto, «For Emperor, For Englor.» Its price was given as «One Imperial Shilling.»
That was bad enough, but it wasn't the worst. The headlines read, bold and black:
RUSSLANDER ULTIMATUM. RED FLAMES SAY:
EVACUATE NORDSBERGEN. FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS HOSTILITIES NOW INEVITABLE.
Worst of all was the date. Somehow, this was the same day as it had been when Blade sat down with the computer. The day, the month, and the year were all identical.
Blade shook his head. Either his eyes were telling him more lies than he could imagine, or else he was not in the future.
Yet this wasn't the England of Home Dimension, either. It was a land-an empire-called Englor, facing war with somebody called the Red Flames who ruled a land called Russland.
Where and when was he?
Chapter 3
There was a long, painful moment for Blade. He felt utterly alone, as alone and isolated as he had ever felt while passing from Home Dimension into Dimension X. Never in all his life had he felt quite so confused, quite so disoriented, or quite so close to the brink of outright fear.
The moment came to an end as Blade's superbly disciplined mind reasserted its control. Now he could once again ask himself a few basic questions, and this time he could also come up with some sort of answers.
Where was he? Undeniably, in spite of all the signs that pointed the other way, he was in Dimension X. The computer had done its work as well or as badly as ever.
However, this was a Dimension unlike any other he'd ever entered. This Dimension looked and sounded and felt so much like the Home Dimension he'd left that it was perfectly possible to mistake the one for the other.
Blade conjured up a mental image of Dimension X as an endless series of different worlds, lined up side by side and stretching out of sight into-call it infinity, for want of a better name. Anyway, in this series a world like Gaikon with its warlords or Brega with its warrior women would be far down the line, far away from Home Dimension. This Dimension where he'd landed, on the other hand, would lie practically next door to Home Dimension.
So far so good. Lord Leighton could undoubtedly find a thousand and one flaws in that image if he had the chance. But Lord Leighton was in the England of Home Dimension and Blade was here in the Englor of Dimension X. The precise accuracy of the image didn't matter. What did matter was that Blade found it useful for settling and arranging his thoughts.
So he was here, in this next-door Dimension that seemed so much like home. «Seemed» was perhaps the most important word in that sentence. The people of this Dimension carried submachine guns and flew airplanes and drove tanks and trucks and cars. They wore the same uniforms and drank the same drinks and probably made love in familiar ways.
Deceptively familiar. That would be the real danger for him in this Dimension-forgetting that it was Dimension X, in spite of everything that positively shouted otherwise. Forgetting that one little fact could lead to embarrassing mistakes.
Or worse than embarrassing. That was another problem this Dimension offered, one which Blade had only rarely encountered before. This was an advanced, civilized, organized society, one that was also on the very edge of war.
In more primitive Dimensions, Blade could escape punishment for mistakes by simply hitting the nearest dozen people over the head and taking to his heels. No one could follow him faster than a horse could gallop, and no one could search him out in the wilderness if he didn't want to be found. No one would think his behavior at all unusual, either.