He said: "The pains are a sign that they are probing for us. Trying to get us back."
Get him, Blade, back. He should have killed the Russian by now.
The double nodded. "I thought it might be something like that. I worked in cybernetics, on an elementary plane, before I was recruited by TWIN and became your double. A strange life, Blade, and not entirely a pleasant one. One tends to lose his own identity. I am more British than I am Russian, though I was born in Minsk and my name is Gregor Petroshansky. Who would believe that to see me now!" And he laughed.
Blade watched him. The man could not know about the uranium in Sarma. No sweat there. What to do, how to handle it? For a moment Blade toyed, barely toyed, with the idea of taking the man by surprise and strangling him. If he could. The double was probably as strong as Blade himself. And there remained the Moghs. He was in a Mogh city, in a Mogh palace, and he had seen the bodies of murderers hanging from hooks on the walls as he came into the city.
And there was Canda. The Princess. Blade could not know how she felt about this Russian. She had admitted sleeping with the man. She could not decide who pleasured her most.
No, thought Blade. Not yet. Play it cozy. Cunning. Use guile. Match the man facing him - trick for trick, cunning for cunning, lie for lie and guile for guile. It was the only way. The safest way. Wait. Watch for his chance. See which way the cat jumped.
As if following Blade's thoughts, as though they were telepathic twins as well as physical, the Russian said: "We must work out some sort of accommodation, Blade. Pledge a truce, old man! To tell the truth I daren't harm you just now. I, well, I sort of overdid the lost twin bit, I'm afraid. It would look damned odd, you know, if after all my wailing and lamentation I stuck a shiv in you the moment you turned up. No. That won't do. This El Kal is an absolute monarch and not a chap to fool about with. I've seen him in action and it gave me the bloody chills. He has a sign he makes when he is talking to a man - if he touches his throat, draws his finger across it, that man has had it. All you ever see of him after that is his bloody head, and I do mean bloody."
Blade could act with the best of them. If the man wanted it that way! Very well. They would play a little cat and mouse.
Blade walked to the couch and thrust out his hand. "I think you may be right. I need you as much as you need me. You know the ropes around here. I don't. We have to trust each other for the time being. And I have a proposition that I think might interest you."
They shook hands. Their eyes met, steady and penetrating, and Blade had the sensation of peering into his own soul. The feeling was uncanny, nearly frightening, and Blade sensed that his double felt it also.
The Russian slapped his knee. "There! That's done, then, and a good thing. And now, since I do know the ropes a bit better, I'll get us something to celebrate on."
He went to a thick leather door studded with brass. He opened it and clapped his hands three times. A moment later a young girl came into the room carrying a large jug on a tray. There were two mugs. The Russian signed for the girl to place the tray on the floor before the couch. As she turned to leave he placed a hand on her bare arm. She wore only a pair of filmy pantaloons.
The Russian winked at Blade. "Now, my friend, observe closely. There are many things to be said for life among the Moghs - and this is one of them."
As Blade watched from the couch the Russian kissed the girl on the lips. She stood unmoving, her arms limp at her side. When the man had finished kissing her she smiled and said, "Thank you, master."
The Russian winked at Blade again and chuckled. "You see. They all act like this."
He stepped behind the girl, then reached around her to caress her bare breasts. She stared ahead with a fixed smile. The Russian manipulated her breasts - Blade could almost feel the flesh on his own fingers - squeezing and pushing first to one side, then the other, his fingers twiddling at her nipples.
The hands went lower along the tiny waist and slid over buttocks and reached around and explored her front. The girl trembled and moaned a bit, and Blade felt himself reacting.
The Russian gave her a little push and stepped away. "That is all. You may go."
The girl bowed. "Thank you, master."
The double came back to sprawl on the couch beside Blade. "How about that, old man! They're all like that, all happy to oblige, and there must be a thousand of them around the palace. Nothing like that back in Russia, I assure you. I doubt if there is in England, from what I've seen."
Blade sampled his wine just as the Russian did. Blade had poured and waited. The double raised his mug and his white teeth flashed. "No monkey business, chap. No drugged wine. Not bad, is it?"
The wine was tart and dry. Blade guessed it had figs or dates as a base. He nodded. "Very good. Now - are you interested in hearing my proposition?"
The Russian filled his glass again. Blade nurtured a faint hope, vain as it turned out, that the man was a drunk. It would make things easier.
"I'm listening," said the double. For the first time there was a hard glint in his eyes that Blade recognized. He had seen it in his own.
Blade explained, briefly and without giving away any secrets, that the agent could regain Home Dimension only through Lord L's computer. There was no other way.
"This is not a time-space thing," Blade said. "Nor is it an all a dream, a reversal of reality. Nothing like that at all. There is no time slippage that can be corrected. I can't really explain it, and wouldn't if I could, but take my word for it. You are not going to suddenly wake up. Your brain was altered, molecularly restructured, by the computer. What has happened, in the simplest of terms, is that you have become aware of a new dimension that has been there all the time. You may very well have been walking through it, without perception, every time you entered the Kremlin. And the computer is the only way back."
"Wizard," said the Russian. "Absolutely wizard. You chaps are far ahead of us. Our boffins haven't a clue to anything like this."
Blade smiled. "We hope to keep it that way. And I may as well tell you, by the way, that you overdo the 'British' bit a little. You sound like a stage Englishman."
"Do I now? Strange, that I've only been copying you, Blade."
Blade had to grin. "Then I had better look to myself. Funny. I thought I was beginning to sound like a bloody Yank."
"The proposition, old man?"
"Just that you defect to us."
The Russian's amazement was genuine. "Defect? Me? My very dear fellow, I - "
Blade watched him closely. "Why not? In time, after all your security stuff is out of the way, you would have a better life. England is a better place to live, you know."
The other man nodded slowly. He stared at Blade over the wine mug. "That is opinion, not fact. But granting it - how could this be arranged?"
"Not difficult at all. You arrived naked, did you not?"
Another nod. A wry smile. "Did I! Naked in a raging sea. Thinking I had lost my mind. If I hadn't found some floating wreckage I would have drowned."
"You will be naked when you go back," Blade said. "You will be stunned and helpless and you will be arrested immediately. As a spy, an enemy agent, a man who threatened to blow up half of London. You will be put away for a very long time. You might want to defect then, but coming after the fact it won't carry much plausibility. But if you defect now, if you arrange it now with me, I can vouch for you when we get back. If we get back."
The man leaned toward Blade. "If, old man?"
Blade wanted to ruffle him, to worry him a bit. The man was too cool and sure of himself and Blade didn't like it. Psyche him a little, as the Americans said.