Canda writhed impatiently. Blade bent close and peered into her gray eyes. No golden sparks tonight. Her eyes were dulled, lackluster, the pupils enlarged. She put up her arms to caress him and her smile was loose, simpering. Dark juice drooled from her mouth and crusted in the corners of her full lips. She was drugged.
She seized him and pulled him down atop her. She raised her legs and enclosed his body, squeezing. "I want you, Blade. Now - now - "
He hesitated. Pain in his head. Canda opened her eyes again, wondering that he had not entered her, then slapped him across the face.
"Now, Blade! This instant. Else I will call my guards and have you beheaded before my eyes."
She was out of her mind, deeply drugged, and capable of carrying out the threat. Blade plunged. Canda groaned deeply.
He heard the leather hangings rustle too late. The lance point was in his back, just over the heart.
"Just keep on doing what you are doing," said the Russian. "I'll let you have a few minutes, old man. You must admit it's a grand way to go out."
Canda sighed and moaned and tugged at Blade. She did not seem to know the Russian was there. Blade, sweating now, kept working away. Duped. Had. He did not understand it. What could the man gain?
The lance point, razor sharp, dug painfully into his flesh.
The Russian said: "The pains are getting worse, chappie, but I think I have figured out a way to beat the computer. The drug. The ashi. I've been loading myself with it. My brain is practically paralyzed now. Maybe the cells won't react to your damned computer. Anyway it's worth the gamble. Keep plugging away, laddie. Our Canda here is hard to satisfy. As we both damned well know - but with you out of the way things might be a little easier."
Canda moaned and writhed and clutched at Blade with her legs. "More," she sobbed. "Oh, Blade! More - more - more - "
"I had one hell of a time getting the stuff into her," said the double. "But I did and she won't remember much. So much the better for me."
"Why?" panted Blade. "Why? I don't understand you. I made you a promise, man. Defect and - "
The lance jabbed harder. "I have been misleading you a bit, lad. I don't want to go back to Home Dimension! Ever! You would understand if you had ever lived in Russia. Only a fool would go back to that!"
"But you don't have to - "
Again the lance. Blade wondered how much time he had. He had to make a desperation move soon.
"Your bloody England won't be much better," said the Russian. "For that matter, our world won't be any better. Much worse. I've got it made here with the Moghs, and I am staying. I'll be consort to Canda and probably end up on the throne. Now that is something to look forward to, eh? But I can't afford to have you around, chum. You see that? You would only louse things up. Two of us is just one too many I Sorry, old man. You have got to go."
Blade played for time. He was already bleeding from the lance point.
"But the computer, man! Any minute now it will - "
"No good, old boy. You said yourself that you can't trust it. I don't want to go and I can't know when it will take you, if ever. Killing you is the easiest and surest way. Finished yet? No? Well, I'm sorry for that, but no help."
Blade moved sideways, fast as angel's flight, taking the point of the lance in the loose flesh under his left armpit. He felt the tear of flesh and blinding pain as he ripped away. Canda, so drugged that she did not even scream, took the point in her breast. Blood gushed.
Blade, bleeding like a butchered pig, was off the bed with an armful of bed clothes. The Russian cursed and jabbed again with the spear. Blade flung a pillow and took the lance on his flimsy shield, felt the point nick into his leg near his groin. He let out a piteous moan and fell to his knees, hoping the Russian would take the bait.
The man leaped on the bed, straddling the dying Canda, and raised the lance for the death thrust. Blade got both hands under the edge of the bed and heaved. Every muscle in his massive shoulders worked as he threw the bed and man and the woman against the wall with a tremendous crash.
The Russian shouted a curse and tried to disentangle himself. Blade leaped across the room like a great cat and seized the butt of the lance. He and the Russian strove mightily for it, silent now, grim, their bare feet shuffling on the floor as they moved back and forth across the room.
The butt end of the lance broke off in the Russian's hand. He smashed Blade across the face with it. In so doing he loosed one hand from the lance and Blade gave a mighty tug. He had it. Had the weapon.
The Russian turned and ran for the door. Blade leaped after him, remembering that he had put the door on lock. The man would have no time. Blade prepared to jab with the broken lance, to run it through the man from the back. Get it over with.
The Russian screamed and fell. He writhed and tore at his head. Blade, stunned by his own terrible pain, gazed down at the screaming man and then looked dully at the lance. He had not yet touched the man.
New pain seared his skull. He knew. The computer had him. This was it!
The Russian arched his back and screamed again. Blade, already falling into the void, managed by a last effort to point the lance at the man's heart. Slowly - so very slowly - he placed the lance point over the heart.
The chamber spun green and gold. Voices clamored for Blade to come, to come, to come -
A huge hand appeared from nowhere and beckoned. Canda came alive again and smiled at him from a far off mountain and he saw that she was all covered with blood and sweat and long fine hair. She was desirable. The smell of her smashed into his nostrils. He reached for her. She vanished.
Blade spun. Blade whirled. Blade came apart and flew into the universe.
He fell for a last time into nothing and, with the last of his senses, knew that he was holding something and had something to do with what he held, but what - what - what - ?
Blade was strangely leaning on a stick. He fell and the stick gave beneath his weight. The stick made a scrunching sound. The stick broke. Blade fell onto something wet and kept going and kept going toward the music and the stars...
Chapter Twenty One
Lord Leighton said: "Try to calm down a bit, J. It's all right now. The boy is going to come through in fine shape. And please do stop pacing - you interfere with my concentration."
J told His Lordship, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with his concentration. Blade was in surgery, fighting for his life, and His Lordship was worried about his bloody tapes and closed circuit TV and his ruddy concentration.
J was in a bad state of nerves - this whole operation had been demoralizing - and Lord Leighton was prepared to make allowances. J was as a father to Blade, that was it, as though the boy were his own flesh and blood, and that sort of thing was understandable.
They were in the debriefing room beneath the Tower. Banks of tape recorders reeled and clicked. On a square oblong of lighted screen they watched Dr. Kenneth Bates-Denby, Royal College of Surgeons, operating on Blade. Two masked assistants hovered near him.
Until now the small, compact, completely self-sufficient surgery had never been used for anything more than patching minor wounds. It was wired into the debriefing room and J and Lord L could hear as well as see.
Bates-Denby extended a hand and a gleaming tool was slapped into it. "I'm going to trim a few centimeters of flesh from beneath the skin flaps," the surgeon said. "There will be scarring, but not too bad. Have those sutures ready. We're just about ready to finish up."