J nodded. 'Wouldn't have done any good to balk, Richard. His Lordship let it drop, not too subtly, that the PM himself is taking an interest in this thing. So there we are, eh? Just be a good chap and go through with it, whatever it is. I was told it wouldn't take very long.'
Just as most native New Yorkers have never been to the top of the Empire State building, Blade, a native Londoner, had never been in the Tower. And he did not, now, really get into the Tower as tourists know it. He and J were met by a uniformed policeman and hustled around to where the old Watergate had once been. There they were turned over to two burly men, obvious Special Branch types, who guided them down a long tunnel, into a maze of sub-basements, and to an elevator shaft that bore signs of recent installation.
One of the men pressed a button. A car began to whine upward. The man who had pressed the button looked at J. 'He's to go down alone, sir.'
'Of course.' J held out a hand. 'Goodbye for a time, Richard. Call me when you can and let me know how it went. I'll confess that I've got a bad case of what killed the kitty. If they'll let you talk about it, of course.'
The car arrived. Blade stepped in. There were no buttons or controls of any sort in the car. A bronze door sighed hydraulically and the car shot rapidly downward, so fast that Blade's stomach felt queasy.
The car fell for a long time. Blade wondered how long they had been secretly mining beneath the Tower. Had it anything to do with atomic blast shelters? Certainly their security was good; he had a finger in a lot of pies, knew pretty much what went on, and this was his first inkling that such a place existed. J hadn't known, either. Blade was impressed.
The car stopped. Blade's stomach returned to its normal place. The door slid open and Blade stepped out into a brilliantly lighted foyer. It was bare except for a desk and two chairs. Behind the desk sat a little gnome of a man who Blade recognized at once as Lord Leighton, top scientist in all Britain. High boffin of all the boffins, as English scientists were called by laymen. In the United States they were called 'brains'. In England they were boffins. Call them what you liked, they were the men on whom Britain was now depending for her very life as a great power and nation.
Lord Leighton was something of a mystery man. His background was shadowy and very few pictures of him appeared in public. Blade had seen a photo of Leighton years before, in the course of his work, and he saw at once that years had ravaged the man.
Leighton stood up. His thin hair was white, and Blade had forgotten that the man was a hunchback. Polio, too, Blade guessed as Leighton came around the desk in a halting, crablike walk. Leighton extended his hand.
'Richard Blade?'
They shook hands. Leighton's was small and dry. 'Fine of you to assist us,' he said. 'I trust it isn't an imposition?'
Blade said that it wasn't. Not at all. He was only too happy to help in, er, whatever it was.
Leighton gave Blade an up and down glance, much the same appraisal that J had made in the taxi. The hunchback's smile was warm and tobacco stained.
'If it is an imposition, a nuisance, you really have only yourself to blame, Mr. Blade. We were looking for as near a perfect physical and mental specimen as we could get, and the computers kicked out your card every time. Just how do you feel about computers, by the way?'
It was an odd question, pointed up by the fact that the little man had just led Blade into a low-ceilinged room where dozens of computers were humming and clicking and clacking. Leighton, his hand on Blade's arm, guided him through the maze of consoles.
Blade was puzzled. All he could honestly say was: 'I don't feel any particular way about them, sir. I just don't know very much about them. We use them in our work, of course, but I personally have very little contact with— '
'Good, good,' said Leighton, who did not appear to be paying much attention to Blade's words. 'Just as long as you don't really feel any hostility for computers. They can sense it, you know, and it makes them most uncooperative at times. Ah! Here we are, Mr. Blade. Just in through that door, Mr. Blade, and strip down. Naked. To the buff. You'll find a sort of loincloth. Please put it on and rejoin me here as soon as possible. Time is slipping away, you know, and I'm sure you want to get this over with and be on your way.'
Blade, who knew when he was out of his depth, nodded and went into the small dressing room. There was a small linen loincloth hanging on a hook in the wall. Blade stripped and twisted the cloth about his waist. It barely covered his genitals. He went back out to where the computers were humming like giant mechanical bees. Lord Leighton, his hump grotesque under a white smock, was bending over one of the machines and peering at the flashing lights. His lips were moving and Blade realized that the man was talking to himself. He began to wonder if the old boy was all there.
But the man's small yellowish eyes had the clear, cold stare of sanity as they regarded Blade's nakedness. He nodded. 'Fine. Marvelous. If your brain is in as fine a shape as your body you're just what we've been looking for. But then it is, of course. Our computers don't lie. Which is more than you can say for most people, eh?'
He took Blade's arm again and led him through another door, into a room that was dominated by a single enormous computer. Most of its inner workings were concealed by gray, crackle-finished shielding, but from the ceiling hung thousands of tiny multi-colored wires, segmented and grouped by clamps, and running through small portholes into the guts of the machine.
Blade followed the hunchback through a twisting labyrinth of narrow aisles until they reached what he guessed must be the center of the machine. Here there was a small square of floor covered with some rubberized fabric. In the center of the square was a glass cage, or box, slightly larger than a telephone booth. Inside the cage was something that, to Blade's by now suspicious eye, very much resembled an electric chair.
Lord Leighton saw the expression on Blade's face and chuckled. 'Don't let it frighten you, Mr. Blade. It really isn't what it seems. It's just that the, er, design is perfect for our purposes. Now— let's get you greased up well. There have been some very slight burns in the past. Millnor, of course, but annoying. But the grease will take care of that.'
He took a small pot from a shelf and began busily applying a viscous dark substance to Blade's naked flesh. Blade sniffed. There was a hint of coal tar in the stuff that Leighton was applying to his temples, the nape of his neck, various spots on his torso and thighs and even to each of his big toes.
'That should do it,' said Leighton at last. He put the pot of grease away. 'Now, Mr. Blade, if you please— into the glass cage and sit in the chair while I attach the electrodes.'
Blade did as he was told. The inside of the glass cage was filled with little wires running in from the sides and
