Blade did. It was beginning to come through. It seemed eons ago since he had been reading The Times at breakfast.
Direct interaction between the computer and human brain.
Blade had spoken the words aloud. Lord Leighton did not appear surprised, but rather pleased. The little man clapped his crippled hands together. "Exactly, Mr. Blade! Exactly. I see that you have been reading the newspapers. I must take the blame, I am afraid, for misleading them a bit about dates. I stated 1990, I think, as the earliest possible date for such direct interaction? Yes, I did. I am a liar, Mr. Blade, but I am sure you will understand. They are working along the same lines, and the more we can get them to underestimate our progress the better it is."
Blade knew all about that. It was in his line of work. "So if this experiment works," he said, "I'll be carrying around a lot of high powered knowledge that I haven't had to sweat to get? That I haven't had to learn? It will just be there?"
"Precisely." The little eyes glittered at Blade. "It will just be there without any effort on your part. You will know, and be able to use, what it has taken me, and hundreds of my colleagues, all our lives to accumulate. The machine will impart it all to you in a few minutes. The machine is only a machine, after all, and can give you only what has been programmed into it, but nevertheless it will mean instant genius for you, Mr. Blade. Instant genius! And now, with your permission, we will get on with it."
"But," said Blade, seeing the catch, the trap, "I won't be the same man afterward. I won't be me. And I don't think I want to be a genius. I'm quite satisfied with things the way they are."
Lord Leighton raised a hand. "Think, Mr. Blade. Think hard and long before you say no think of your country and the relatively low estate to which we have fallen. I am a genius, Mr. Blade, but I am only one and can do only so much. But if this works, we can turn out geniuses by the dozens, by the hundreds, then England can find her place in the sun again. Without armies and navies. Without economic superiority. We can lead the whole world in scientific genius. Can you refuse, Mr. Blade? Can you?"
Blade was suddenly aware that he couldn't. Leighton had reached behind him and pressed a button. Blade was aware of a low humming sound, of gentle electrical charges surging through his body and making little waves in his blood.
Blade could not move now. He willed his legs to move and they did not respond. Nor did his hands and arms. There was no pain, yet the current held him in the chair like a giant repressing hand, a hand that had solidity but no weight. He was rigid, immobile, bound to the chair by invisible chains of electricity.
His vision began to blur. His head began to swell like a balloon. Lord Leighton's twisted body changed into a ball of color, a flame, a whorl of spinning haze that faded away and away and then was gone. The glass around Blade changed to water and began to run over him, yet he did not feel wet. The wires were tiny snakes now, biting at him with shiny jaws, yet their bites drew no blood, brought no pain.
The roaring began in Blade's ears. He was free now, no longer in the chair, soaring through the sky and rolling and dipping in an absolute freedom he had never known before. He was a spirit without body. He lived, and yet he was no thing; he was huge and he was tiny; he was an ant and he was a planet.
Storm now. A mingled wrath of darkness and light. Blade went curving into it at a trillion miles an hour, into an awesome boil of clouds. Lightning stabbed at him. Again. Closer. Blade knew cold and fear and he screamed as the lightning came again.
The massive lightning bolt was a crooked golden dagger slashing at Blade, skewering his head. His brain exploded. The pain was beyond bearing. There had never been pain like this before, never would be again. All the pain since the world began was being poured into his skull.
The pain vanished. Blade, a seared leaf, a crumple of dust, a trace of moisture, trembled upward into void.
Chapter Two
Richard Blade regained consciousness in a strange crepuscular world; he did not, for the moment, open his eyes, but lay quiescent and let a myriad of stimuli impinge on his brain.
He was lying in thick grass. There was a hum of insects and, from a distance, the baying of hounds. Nearby a brook burbled. Even with his eyes closed he was aware of the florid wheel, the burning oriflamme, of a setting sun. Then an intertwine of moving shadow, an intrusion and then
Cold water was dashed into his face. Blade, stung and shocked by the icy blast, sat up with a muffled curse. What in hell?
"There," said the girl. "That is better. I was sure you were not dead. Now you must help me. At once. I, Princess Taleen, command it!"
Blade sat up, squeegeed water from his eyes with his fingers, and stared at her. It was typical of Blade a facet of his character which had saved his life many times over that he accepted, immediately and without question, the realities of a situation. Not for a moment did he believe himself mad. Something had gone wrong with Lord Leighton's experiment. As simple as that. He would sort it out later.
"Do hurry," said the girl impatiently. Her voice rose imperiously. "And stop staring like an oaf and a peasant. They are getting very close. If they find us they will kill us. I will make them kill us. I will not go back to be a captive of Queen Beata. I will not. I will die first!"
Blade got to his feet, conscious for the first time that he was entirely naked. The linen loincloth had disappeared. For a moment the girl ran her eyes over his body and he saw approval, then she shrugged and handed him a short sword. It was bloodstained at the point.
"Here. You take it. I had to kill one of my guards to escape. It is the first time I have killed a man and I did not enjoy it. But you look like a warrior and will know how to use it. Listen they are coming this way and getting closer."
She spoke truth. Blade, swinging the heavy sword in his right hand, could hear the hounds baying closer now and men called to each other from somewhere toward the setting sun that was now only half a golden orb sinking behind green hills. They were in a small open glade through which the brook scampered, and ringing them was a dark and high reaching wood of oak and yew lightened here and there by stripling birch.
Blade had much experience in hunting, and being hunted, and he knew there was yet a little time. The voices were still a quarter mile off. He looked at the girl, again conscious of his nakedness which did not appear to bother her in the least and said: "You say you are the Princess Taleen?"
Her eyes were a soft luminous brown. In another mood, he thought, they would be as limpid as a doe's, but there was a hard glitter in them now. Her small chin firmed at him, and her straight little nose was haughty as she said, "You doubt it?"
Blade, without knowing exactly why he did it, made a little bow and raised the sword in salute. "It is not that I doubt. It is simply that I do not understand. I am a stranger in all things."
She studied him, her eyes narrowing. "Yes, I believe that. You are like no man I have ever seen in Alb. But still you must obey me I am indeed the Princess Taleen, daughter of King Voth of the North. I am in great danger. If you help me I will see that you are well rewarded. My father will pay many scills to have his daughter back. Now will you stop staring like a fool and do something!"