They were In a large square room in the palace of El Kal. Thick walls of sun-baked mud - the entire city was built of dried mud brick with ingenious gutters to prevent the infrequent flash storms from washing it away - made the room shadowy and cool. There were handsome rugs on the floor and as wall hangings. The only furniture was a long low couch and several ottomans and a taboret supporting an earthen jug of cool water.
Blade, as did his double, wore skin boots and baggy breeches and a handsome vest-like garment that left the chest bare. Blade could see a raw seamed cicatrix on the other man's belly, placed there by a surgeon's knife. His own identical scar had been attained in Hong Kong the year before. These Russians kept up to date.
'The name Gemma,' said his likeness, 'was pure coincidence. Natural enough, I suppose. When I got my wits about me after the trip through the computer I realized at once that you would come looking for me. You people know of TWIN, of course? So I called you Gemma and began searching for you as my twin brother. You obviously did the same thing.'
The double was lounging on the couch, his legs carelessly crossed, a picture of coolness. Blade was slowly moving about the room, pausing now and then to gaze out across a small balcony at the mud. towers of the city. Blade was highly nervous and alert. He knew the other man must be the same, despite his appearance of calm. Blade did not deceive himself. This was a formidable adversary - was he not in a sense fighting himself - and this meeting was as deadly, as dangerous, as though they had been facing each other with weapons.
Blade turned away from the window. There could be no violence now. This was not the time for it and there was El Kal to consider, and the Princess Canda. Especially Canda.
His doppelganger took a pipe from his breeches and stuffed it with a finely ground root called hebac. He lit it with a taper from a fire bowl beneath the taboret and puffed smoke that was white in color and had a tang of incense in it.
'I step out of character,' said the Russian. He waved the pipe at Blade. 'Something I would not dare do in Russia, except on leave. I have always regretted, Blade, that you do not smoke a pipe. Most inconvenient for a fellow who loves a pipe as I do.'
The voice was Blade's own, the English impeccable.
Blade had not really had time to put his own thoughts in order. The meeting had been sudden and unexpected. On their arrival in the city the Princess left him. He was separated from Pelops and the former mine slave Chephron and Zeena. Canda, after promising they would not be harmed, gave Blade a strange smile and vanished into another part of the palace. Blade was taken to the baths and given into the charge of a dozen doe-eyed maidens who wore hardly anything at all. After being bathed and barbered he was taken to the room and left alone. Moments later the Russian entered. And now?
The Russian recrossed his legs and puffed more fragrant smoke. He smiled - his dental work identical with Blade's - and said, 'Come off it, old chap. Relax. Sit down and we'll have a long chat. I have a great many questions and, for that matter, I suppose you have a few, too. So relax and we can make a pleasant time of it. There is no danger, you know. No threat to you. Quite to the contrary - we are more or less allies, you know.'
Blade grinned. 'I didn't know. Just how did you arrive at that conclusion? I have been operating on the theory that we are deadly enemies.'
The Russian used the Blade charm on Blade. His smile was a masterpiece.
'I know. I was afraid of this. But you must see how wrong you are! Back in our old lives, yes. Our two countries are more or less at war. But here? Wherever the hell here is! In a mud city surrounded by Moghs. And you coming from someplace called Sarma! I'll admit, old chap, that I have been damned confused and frightened. I haven't been searching for you to kill you. Far from it. I need you! I need information. I want to know what happened to me. And I want to get back to Russia someday. You are my only hope.'
Blade straddled one of the ottomans. He shook his head. 'I can't help you there. Have you had any pains in your head?'
The double touched his temple. 'Yes. Terrible splitting headaches. Why? Does that mean anything in particular?'
Blade held an advantage. He had been in on the computer experiments from the beginning. This was his fourth venture into Dimension X. How best to use that advantage? He could not trust this man, or believe anything he said - yet there was a chance he was telling the truth. The issue might have to be decided back in Home Dimension.
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.
