Dimension Of Horror Part 1

Dimension of Horror.

by Jeffrey Lord.

Chapter 1.

Ponderously Big Ben tolled midnight. The lean balding man on the couch awoke and sat up in the semidarkness, tossing off his blanket. He swung his bare feet to the carpeted floor and sat a moment in his rumpled undershirt and drawers, stretching and gathering strength, trying to shake off a paralyzing dread that clung to him from a nightmare he only dimly remembered. He had had many such nightmares in recent weeks.

"d.a.m.n," he grumbled. "b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance."

The only reply was the m.u.f.fled murmur of the city.

He stood up and groped toward the shadowy ma.s.s of his desk. The telephone rang as he knew it would. He picked up the receiver.

"Twenty-four hundred hours, sir," came a bored masculine voice. "You wanted to be called . . . "

"Thank you, Peters. Could you have the car brought 'round?"

"Right away, sir. Main entrance or side?"

"Main. No, wait. Make that the side, on Lothbury."

"As you wish, sir."

He hung up and lit his desk lamp.

His craggy face, illuminated from below, was for a moment a ghastly mask of black and white patterns, a face of unguessable age, the face of a man whose demanding profession had never allowed him the luxury of growing old. Blinking, sighing and shivering in the muggy cold, he peered moodily around his barren office cubicle, leaning against his heavy teakwood desk. There were three chairs: two uncomfortable wooden ones in front of the desk and one comfortable leather-upholstered one behind the desk, his only self-indulgence. No pictures hung on the wall, not even a calendar. The tall black filing cabinets were, as-always, locked. The black metal wastebasket was stuffed with paper that would, as usual, be carefully shredded and burned before leaving the building.

The two tall arched windows that ordinarily provided a view of Lothbury's congested traffic now had been transformed by the fog into irregular mirrors that distorted his reflection into a mocking caricature. Looking at this face that was his, yet not his, he felt the dread returning. He wondered, Is this a hunch? Should I call the whole thing off? He paid attention to hunches. Because of hunches, he had outlived nearly all the men he had known in his youth, though his was not a profession noted for longevity.

"Not this time," he rea.s.sured himself out loud. "My deuced imagination is acting up again. Mustn't let it bowl me over."

He strode to his closet, opened the door, and peered within. There hung his white shirt, his blue-striped Cambridge school tie, his waistcoat, his dark-gray suitcoat, his pinstriped gray and white trousers. His rolled umbrella leaned against the wall, gray suede gloves draped over the handle, next to his dark brown attache case. All in all, the uniform of a successful stockbroker, if you added the black bowler that rested on the shelf above eye level; but he was not a stockbroker.

A stockbroker would not have had in his closet, hanging casually from a peg, a shoulder holster containing an old Webley service revolver. He kept the weapon cleaned, oiled and loaded at all times, though he had not worn it, except at the practice range, for over twenty years. He did not wear it now.

Instead he shaved, then dressed quickly.

The stockbroker image was almost too perfect. Surely this was one of Britain's captains of industry: vigorous, aggressive, yet imperturbable and urbane! He not only looked his part, he felt it too. Setting his derby on his head at a jaunty angle, he grinned defiance at his reflection. Nothing to worry about. What are a few bad dreams, eh?

As he left his office he locked the door behind him, then, as always, tried it to make sure it was locked.

Outside the Lothbury Street exit a black four-door Rolls Royce awaited him at the curb, polished chrome gleaming. A gray-uniformed chauffeur sprang to attention and, opening the car's rear door, said crisply, "Your car, sir."

"Not so military, Watkins."

"Sorry, sir."

The seeming stockbroker glanced at the building behind him, a towering Victorian monstrosity that had survived two world wars. It had never been damaged or, it would appear, cleaned. On the grimy brick wall a well-burnished plaque identified the New East India Copra and Processing Co. Ltd. There was indeed such a company within, but there was also the headquarters of MI6A, a very special branch of the Special Branch of the SIS, or Secret Intelligence Services.

Once this seeming stockbroker had had a name, but he had all but forgotten it. Now he was known only as "J," head of MI6A, answerable only to the Prime Minister. To even be informed that J existed, it was necessary to demonstrate what the intelligence community called a "need to know," yet J had more than once bent the course of history in Britain's favor, always working quietly, behind the scenes.

J climbed into the Rolls and settled himself into the seat with a grunt of satisfaction.

Watkins slammed the door, then bent over to ask, "Where to, sir?"

"The London Tower, Watkins."

J closed his eyes as the powerful vehicle nosed out into the stream of traffic. He thought, Everything seems fine, but something's wrong. I can feel it!

The fog thickened as they neared the Thames, slowing their progress considerably as they threaded their way down Great Tower Street. J made an unsuccessful attempt to read his pocket-watch, then snapped it shut with a muttered curse and jammed it into his waistcoat pocket.

At last the vast angular bulk of the Tower of London complex hove into view, almost invisible in spite of the floodlights that shone on the central "White Tower." That there were eleven other lesser towers cl.u.s.tered around it was something that had to be taken on faith.

At the curb Watkins held the door while J stepped to the sidewalk.

"Shall I wait for you, sir?"

"No. Come back in an hour and a half."

"As you wish, sir."

J watched the red-haloed taillights of the Rolls dwindle and fade, then started toward the rear of the Tower grounds, using his rolled umbrella as a blind man uses a white cane.

Out of the blackness an amused light baritone voice asked, "Nice evening for a stroll along the Thames, eh what?"

"Is that you, Richard?"

"Of course." Richard's familiar heavy platinum cigarette lighter flamed, revealing an ironic half-smile on the younger man's rugged features. This was indeed Richard Blade, calmly lighting a Benson hen cutting off the flame with a click.

The men shook hands with a warmth that would have surprised some of J's a.s.sociates. J had a reputation, for the most part deserved, for being a man without human feelings, able to order other men to their deaths without hesitation. Though he knew it was unprofessional, J had been unable to avoid caring about Blade. Was it because they had worked together so long? J had personally recruited Richard at Oxford, been Richard's superior officer through twenty years of espionage that included some rather sticky capers and more than their share of what the Russians call mokrye dela, "wet stuff," executive actions involving bloodshed.

Or was it because J, a lifelong bachelor, had made of Richard a kind of unofficial adopted son? J had pondered the question often but had never discussed it with anyone: a gentleman does not express his feelings.

The two men walked slowly in silence.

At last J said, "I understand it won't take very long."

Blade laughed.

"And what," J demanded, "do you find so amusing?"

"'Won't take very long.'. Those are, if memory serves, the exact words you used to summon me by phone for the first one of these little experiments. 'A few hours at the most,' you told me. Those few hours have become years, sir."

"That's true. I'd forgotten. Your memory never ceases to amaze me." And not only your memory, J reflected. According to the doctors' reports from Blade's last physical, Blade continued to be the most nearly perfect physical and mental specimen in MI6. A lesser man would not have survived the incredible punishment Blade had suffered in mission after mission. A lesser man would long ago have demanded a transfer to less hazardous duty.

J added, "You're free to refuse the a.s.signment."

Again the mildly amused voice. "I know that. I'm always free to refuse, but I never have."

J thought, How many times have I sent you out into G.o.d knows where? Twenty-five? Thirty? I've stopped counting. Someday you'll pa.s.s through that b.l.o.o.d.y machine and you won't come back.

J's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness . . . or had the fog lifted a little? He could make out the outlines of Richard Blade's ma.s.sive six-foot-one-inch frame, clad, it appeared, in the usual light wool Burberry coat with no hat. As Blade inhaled, the tip of his cigarette glowed brightly, faintly illuminating his clean-shaven, square-cut features. Blade was smiling, but it was an odd little smile, a smile that reminded J of the ancient Roman gladiator's motto, "We who are about to die salute you."

Two other overcoated men materialized out of the fog. A flashlight snapped on, blazing in J's eyes. An emotionless voice said, "Good evening, sir. Identification please."

While the Special Services men examined his papers, J shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, angry at the cold, angry at the dampness, angry at the delay. Blade, by contrast, appeared abnormally calm and impa.s.sive. Feverishly J glanced around, seeking something in the real world that would justify the uneasiness that had followed him out of the world of sleep.

The Special Services men returned the doc.u.ments. "Everything seems to be in order, sir. May I trouble you for this week's pa.s.sword?"

"Raven," answered Richard Blade, pocketing his own doc.u.ments matter-of-factly.

"Countersign nevermore," said the man.

"Very good," said Blade.

"Follow me, please."

The man gestured with his flashlight beam.

The Special Services men led and J and Richard Blade followed. They trudged along an ancient causeway, past a gra.s.sy sward that had been, before it was filled in, a moat. They pa.s.sed through a grove of leafless skeletal trees interspersed with hulking cannons from some bygone era. On their left arose the outer walls of the Tower complex, the top lost in whiteness overhead. On their right, beyond a stout retaining wall, flowed the River Thames.

A ship was out there, heard but not seen, its diesel engines rumbling softly as it went by. A moment later the waves from its wake broke against the sh.o.r.e with a rhythmic hiss.

This was not, J reflected, a site he would have selected for England's most secret project, had he been given the choice. In the afternoons, when the tide was out, that narrow sandy sh.o.r.e became a beach on which antlike hordes of children from Stepney and most of the East End swarmed, laughing and shouting and wading and feeding the ill-tempered swans. Above the beach, in the narrow strip of park between river and wall, tourists from every country in the world strolled and gossiped and took pictures. G.o.d, how they took pictures! Once J had seen two Russian sailors taking snapshots of each other in the very shadow of the entrance to the secret project.

"One moment, sir," said the taller of the two agents. They halted before a heavy grillwork gate beneath the broad archway at the base of Saint Thomas's Tower. The gate was secured by a chain and combination padlock at the center, and the taller Special Services man now busied himself with the tumblers while his partner held the flashlight. Richard leaned forward to watch; J knew Blade could memorize the combination of a lock by watching someone open it just once, and that he practiced this skill whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Richard said softly, "The Tower of London frowned dreadful over Jerusalem."

"What's that supposed to mean?" J demanded.

"It's poetry," Blade explained. "William Blake wrote those lines way back in the eighteenth century. He rather caught the spirit of this place, don't you think?" Richard had memorized an astonishing amount of cla.s.sic verse at Oxford, and had a habit of quoting it at the most unlikely times. "Blood! Horror! Doom! That's what we think of when we hear about the Tower of London, and small wonder. Some of the grandest rascals in English history pa.s.sed through this old Watergate on their way to torture, imprisonment or beheading. That's why it's called the Traitor's Gate."

J thought, The Traitor's Gate! How apt. Two Russian spies have pa.s.sed through here in very recent history and penetrated to the heart of the secret project, in spite of all our fanatic security precautions. Neither had returned alive to reveal what went on there, but next time . . .

J shuddered.

"There you are, sir," the tall man said. The gate opened with a creak. J and Richard Blade stepped inside.

The Special Services men locked them in and vanished into the fog, returning to their posts. In the yellow light from a bare electric bulb in the ceiling, Blade and J proceeded onward, locating the almost invisible secret door that led into a long, dim, damp tunnel, into a maze of sub bas.e.m.e.nts, and finally to the familiar door of the elevator.

J pressed the elevator b.u.t.ton, aware that the b.u.t.ton was photographing his thumbprint as he did so. Far below a computer would compare his print with that of everyone who had a security clearance for the project and, deciding that J was "all right," would, in a few seconds, send up the elevator.

The elevator arrived with a rush.

The door slid open. J and Blade entered. The elevator dropped through two hundred feet of solid bedrock with a speed J had never quite gotten used to, then slowed to a stop. They stood in silence until the heavy bronze door hissed open.

They stepped out into a brilliantly lighted foyer, bare except for a desk and two chairs freshly painted an uninspiring olive drab.

"Where's Lord Leighton?" Blade wondered aloud.

"I fancy he's waiting for us in the computer area," said J.

Blade moved through the foyer with a catlike lightness that belied his powerful two-hundred-and-ten-pound ma.s.s of rock-hard muscle and bone.

They walked briskly through long corridors, pa.s.sing closed doors, closed doors and more closed doors. J could hear m.u.f.fled voices behind the doors, the clatter of typewriters, the whir of spinning computer tapes, but within the hallways not a soul was to be seen. No human guards were needed. Electronic sensors followed their every step, checking and rechecking that they were who they were supposed to be, and were going where they were supposed to go. As long as the sensors functioned, no stranger could enter these pa.s.sages without setting off an alarm, no matter how careful he was.

At the end of the final pa.s.sage, a ma.s.sive door slid open automatically for them and they entered the central computer area. J glanced around and frowned.

In these rooms surrounding the heart of the whole project J was accustomed to seeing a crew of technicians hard at work, but now there was n.o.body here. In fact the computers themselves had changed. They had been changing slowly over a period of time, but this was the first time J had really noticed.

The consoles, which had once been so large they filled the rooms, had shrunk and become fearfully silent, though the lights that blinked and glowed and the screens that displayed everchanging patterns, numbers and words seemed to indicate that everything was turned on and running. J understood. Bit by bit diodes and transistors had replaced big bulky tubes, and had been in turn replaced by tiny integrated circuit chips that contained whole libraries of preprogramming in an area the size of a thumbnail. Everything had become smaller, cooler, quieter, yet at the same time more powerful. Now the last step had been taken. Automation had replaced human control, and the last human operator had been banished.

"Lord Leighton?" J called out. The bare rock walls threw back a disquieting echo.

"There he is." Richard pointed.

Lord Leighton, in a rumpled green smock, had blended in so well with his beloved computers he had been almost invisible. The machines were not, as they had been, dull gray with crackled finishes, but, except where a spot of gleaming chrome or spotless red plastic showed its contrast, all were in the same muted matt green as Leighton's smock.

"Ah, welcome, welcome!" Lord Leighton came scuttling forward. "How do you like my new toys?"

Leighton was a monster, a troll, a grotesque Quasimodo lurching along with a halting, crablike gait on legs that had never quite recovered from a near-fatal childhood attack of polio. Yet under his high balding forehead with its spa.r.s.e strands of white silky hair pulsed a brain of terrifying power. In the field of computer technology Leighton might well be the greatest genius England-indeed the world-had ever seen. Every device in this project had begun as a gleam in these dark-pupilled yellow-rimmed bloodshot eyes that now stared up at J through the thick distorting lenses of a pair of steel-framed gla.s.ses.

J replied uncertainly, "Very pretty toys. Very pretty."

Leighton extended a small dry claw and J shook hands with him. Toys? Was it proper for a man of Leighton's advanced age to go on prattling about toys?

Now Leighton was shaking hands with Blade, bubbling over with gargoyle enthusiasm. "I've solved it at last," the little man boasted. "At least I think I have!"

"Solved what?" Blade was grinning, caught up in the scientist's excitement.

"Our most challenging problem of all. Before this we've never been able to send you to the same place twice, except by accident. If I'm right in my theories and calculations, I can now, once I've established the coordinates, send you again and again to the same destination. The replicator is ready!"

J raised a questioning eyebrow. "Really?" J had all but given up on this part of the project. From the beginning the replicator had been top priority, yet it had never come to fruition.

J did not become infected with Leighton's high spirits. Instead he looked around once again at all the new equipment, and his sense of impending disaster returned stronger than ever. New equipment? That meant untested equipment, hazardous experiments made more hazardous. Again and again Lord Leighton's demonic device had hurled Richard into other universes, other dimensions that no one before had dreamed existed. Somehow it had dragged him back each time, sometimes seconds before some particularly unpleasant death. The very names of the places he'd been rung with a shimmering occult sonority. Tharn! Sarma! Jedd! Patmos! Royth! Zunga!

Where were these places? In the distant past or the distant future? On planets that circle other suns in this galaxy or some other? In divergent or parallel time tracks, worlds that might have been? In universes that coexisted with this one, but which we could not see? J had no idea. With each trip the whole b.l.o.o.d.y business had become harder to understand. Even Lord Leighton, full of glib explanations at first, had gradually become as baffled as Blade and J.

Yes, though n.o.body honestly knew what they were doing, the experiments went on. Perhaps the time had come to halt, to stop doing and start thinking.