"Up!" snapped one guard. Blade rose swiftly. He wanted to appear frightened and submissive, to make the guards less alert.

Another guard bent over the dying woman and shook his head. "She won't last the day." He drew his revolver and shot the woman in the head. At least it was a more merciful death than being left alone in her last delirium.

The four guards made a square around Blade and marched into the corridor. Blade realized they were probably taking him somewhere else to experiment on him. Down the whitewashed corridor to an elevator, up what seemed like three or four floors, then out into another corridor. This one was brightly lit and hummed with activity behind closed doors of polished metal. It reminded Blade rather of the main corridor in the Project's Complex One.

At the end of the corridor a door led out onto a metal-railed balcony. Beyond the railing a cliff dropped off more than three hundred feet, to the plain where the missile station lay. Blade recognized the gantry, saw a.s.sembly buildings, radar stations, and warehouses, as well as humped shapes which might be blockhouses or fuel tanks. He also saw brightly polished construction robots at work on a number of what looked like missile silos.

In daylight, it was easy to see this wasn't just a research facility. It was also Doimar's main missile base. When the "Day" came, the germ warheads would be launched from those silos. And a fat lot of good this knowledge was likely to do Richard Blade!

The guards hustled Blade along the terrace toward the door at the far end. As they did, he thought he heard someone calling his name, so faint and far off he couldn't be sure he'd even heard anything aloud. Who would be calling him here? n.o.body. He decided he was imagining things. Then as they reached the door the call came again.

This time Blade was sure he'd heard it, but not aloud. He'd heard it in his mind.

Who in this Dimension would be calling him mentally, even if they knew his name?

Cheeky?

Blade nearly said it out loud. Then he nearly said "Impossible," normally an obscene word in his vocabulary. Instead he thought his name as strongly as he could, while also holding a mental image of himself as he'd been in Home Dimension.

The reply came. It was a reply, no mistake about it. But it still might, just might, be a Doimari telepath.

Cheeky.

He thought the feather-monkey's name just as hard as his own, and projected Cheeky's image as clearly as he'd projected his own. Two of the guards looked at him suspiciously while the other two fumbled with the door.

Then suddenly pandemonium broke loose. An explosion roared above. Blade heard gla.s.s smash and saw smoke gush out of a window carved in the cliff two stories above the terrace. Then a small shape sailed out the window.

Even at a distance Blade recognized Cheeky. He held his breath as the feather-monkey slid a good way down the cliff. Even Cheeky might not be able to find a firm grip, and it would be just too much to lose him now!

But Cheeky's fingers and toes were as sure as ever. He stopped his slide and began to crawl like a fly along the face of the cliff toward the terrace.

One of the guards followed Blade's eyes and saw Cheeky. He raised his pistol and sighted on the feather-monkey. To do this he had to turn his back on Blade. He seemed confident that the other three guards were enough to keep Blade out of trouble.

That was his last mistake. As his finger tightened on the trigger, Blade caught him by the hair with one hand and chopped him across the throat with the other. The guard died choking and Blade caught his pistol as it dropped from limp fingers. Blade put his back against the wall and covered the other three guards.

A moment later Cheeky reached the railing, balanced on it, then made a flying leap clear across the terrace onto Blade's shoulder. He was yeeping hysterically with joy and excitement. His thoughts were so jumbled that Blade didn't even try to follow them.

He also didn't try to understand how this miracle of Cheeky's return had come about. For now, it was enough that Cheeky was back.

Chapter 15.

The three surviving guards weren't going to drop their guns, not with a comrade to avenge. On the other hand, they weren't quite crazy enough to draw as long as Blade had the drop on them.

They could go for their pistols the minute he blinked, though. How long could he keep from blinking?

Then a thought struck Blade. He filled his mind with a picture of Cheeky going around to the three guards and taking their pistols. He held the picture until he sensed that Cheeky was getting it, thinking it over, and beginning to calm down.

At last Cheeky gave a small yeeep, and threw his arms around Blade's head. For a moment Blade was afraid his vision would be blocked and the guards would take advantage of that fact. Then Cheeky jumped down from Blade's shoulder and trotted over to the first guard.

"Give him your pistol," said Blade. The guard stared at Blade, then at Cheeky, obviously wondering who was crazy. "You've got until I count four," said Blade. "One, two-"

At "three" the guard decided that obeying Blade was his only chance of staying alive until he could figure out what was happening. He dropped his pistol onto the terrace, and Cheeky picked it up. The other two guards did the same, and Cheeky returned to Blade with one pistol in each hand and dragging the third with his tail.

For the moment, the immediate danger from the three guards was past. Blade suspected the next move was up to someone else.

Meanwhile, thick and greasy smoke kept pouring out the broken window. Blade wondered what Cheeky had done to escape. He got a reply in the form of a mental picture-Cheeky dashing around a laboratory, upsetting everything in sight until some chemicals finally spilled on a live wire. The feather-monkey also projected a picture of people in laboratory smocks running around screaming, their hair and clothing on fire. He seemed rather happy about their fate.

For the first time Blade noticed that Cheeky was so gaunt his ribs were showing. Some of his feathers had been singed off, and bare skin showed where others had been deliberately plucked out. He'd been treated as an experimental animal, and not too well-treated at that! If so, then it seemed to Blade that the Doimari Seekers were getting just about what they deserved.

The guards became more nervous as the uproar from the laboratory grew. They looked about ready to jump Blade, when suddenly the door flew open. A man in a smoke-grimed laboratory coat ran out, followed by a young woman. The man took one look at Cheeky on Blade's shoulder, then cursed.

"What are you doing with that little monster?" he snarled. "Give him back or-"

Blade showed the scientist the muzzle of his pistol. "First, you tell me where you found him and what you've been-"

"Who are you to ask me?" the scientist bl.u.s.tered, ignoring the pistol.

"Erhon, don't be foolish," said the woman. "Blue Boy might have been that man's pet. He could tell-"

The scientist ignored his a.s.sistant just as thoroughly as he had ignored the pistol, and he plunged a hand into his pocket. Blade couldn't wait to find what might be in there. He put a bullet into the scientist's chest, then another as the man seemed slow to go down. The second shot slammed him up against the railing. He slid down into a sitting position as his coat turned red. A small laser fell out of his pocket as he rolled over on his side.

Blade picked up a second pistol, since there was no way to reload the one he had. The young woman was staring wildly at everything without focusing on anything.

"I'm sorry I had to shoot him," said Blade quietly. "But he shouldn't have tried to draw on me. Now, will you calm down and go tell whoever's in charge here that I want to talk to him? Blue Boy was mine. I lost him a long time ago, and thought I'd never find him again. If you'll let both of us go free, you may learn something useful." The girl hesitated, her mouth quivering. "Go on," said Blade sharply. "You can have hysterics later!"

The girl ran back into the laboratory complex without closing the door behind her. Blade settled down to wait. He hoped she would get word to somebody sensible before somebody stupid decided to snipe Blade with a laser rifle. He shifted so that he could cover the guards and look around at the same time, but knew that precaution wouldn't help much. A laser rifle or even a gunpowder one would far outrange his pistols.

Instead of a laser's whipcrack, the next thing Blade heard was the whine of a lifter's propellers. Then a shadow pa.s.sed overhead, and a disembodied voice boomed over the terrace.

"Commander Voros! You asked for whoever's in charge, I am he. Put down your pistols; and I give you my word of honor as a Seeker that no harm will come to you."

"Tell those guards to move to the end of the terrace first," shouted Blade. "I don't trust them." He didn't trust the voice coming from the lifters either, but there was nothing he could do about that. And Blue Boy doesn't get hurt, either." Cheeky yeeeped in agreement.

"All right. Move, you idiots!"

The guards jumped at the voice as if Blade had finally shot them. Then they scurried to the far end of the terrace, as the small lifter swept in. A laser jutted from its nose, and a pilot and a pa.s.senger sat in the c.o.c.kpit. Ten feet above the terrace the pa.s.senger opened the door, and five feet up he jumped out without waiting for the machine to land.

He came down on his feet with catlike grace, not even going to his knees. He'd called himself a Seeker but to Blade he looked more like a rather sinister sort of soldier. He wore a black coverall, black boots, and a close-fitting black helmet. The only color on him anywhere was the dark red plastic b.u.t.t of a heavy laser pistol in a black leather shoulder holster. His hair and eyes were also black.

He stepped up to Blade. He was about the same height but slimmer. "I am Detcharn, First Seeker and Du-Shro of Doimar." That meant he was not only chief of scientific research but something like chief of staff of the armed forces. A man in charge indeed, thought Blade.

"I am honored," he said.

"That remains to be seen," replied Detcharn. "Tell me your story."

Blade did so, emphasizing the bond between him and Cheeky/Blue Boy and how all efforts to learn anything about the feather-monkey would now be useless without his cooperation. He did not try to find out how Cheeky had wound up in Doimar. He badly wanted to know, but there would be better times to ask . . . if he lived long enough!

When Blade was finished, Detcharn raised his bushy black eyebrows. "What makes you think we want to learn anything about this little beast worth letting you go free?"

"Don't try bluffing me, Detcharn. You know he's a telepath. Otherwise why would you have spent all this time and effort studying him?" Blade remembered how the scientist's a.s.sistant had started to say that Blade could tell them something. What it was exactly they needed to know was unclear, but Blade decided against quoting the girl. She would be in enough trouble without her slip being pa.s.sed on to Detcharn, who did not look like a forgiving man.

"Indeed, you may be right. To be sure, we might need a telepath to examine you."

Blade didn't hesitate. "Then get one. I don't have anywhere to go for a while, and neither do you."

"It's hardly tactful to hold me hostage," said Detcharn. Then he smiled, which gave him a sort of wolfish charm. "But in your position I wouldn't be tactful either. Very well." He spoke briefly into a small radio on his wrist, and the lifter darted away.

Again Blade settled down to wait. It was a gamble, that a Doimari telepath could prove the link between him and Cheeky without revealing his ident.i.ty. But he hardly had anything to lose. The alternative was tamely accepting certain and probably unpleasant death; this way he could at least hope to take one of Doimar's most valuable leaders with him.

The telepath couldn't have been far away. The lifter was back in less than twenty minutes, although they were a long twenty minutes for Blade. The guards were too far away to be dangerous, even if they'd wanted to defy their leader. Detcharn himself was another matter. From the way he moved, Blade knew he was in perfect condition and might be an unarmed-combat expert.

This time the lifter landed on the terrace. The new pa.s.senger was a slim brown-haired woman, with enormous gray eyes in a pale face, dressed in a long flowing blue gown. There was something virginal and even slightly otherworldly about her.

"Read him," ordered Detcharn. The lifter took off, and the blast from its propeller made the woman's hair fly out behind her like a flag. She patted it into position, came up to Blade, put one hand on his chest and another on his forehead, and screwed her own face up into a look of total concentration.

Blade' had just time to form a mental picture of himself and Cheeky in Kaldak and hold it. He didn't have time to make a convincing picture of him and the feather-monkey doing anything. It was a static image, and he was more than slightly worried that the telepathic woman would be able to detect the image for what it was-an effort to deceive her and block her from learning the truth.

Blade suppressed the worry vigorously. Any unusual emotion might give the woman a clue. Cheeky was at least that sensitive to Blade's emotions; why shouldn't a human telepath be even more so?

At least he wouldn't have to warn Cheeky not to cooperate with anyone in Doimar. After the treatment he'd received and the vengeance he'd taken, Cheeky would let himself be plucked naked rather than help the Doimari or betray the friend he'd found again after so long.

The mental pulses Blade felt were so faint and fumbling that at times he wasn't sure if they were there at all. They lasted for quite a while, though, and he saw sweat on the woman's forehead. He hoped she wouldn't collapse. Detcharn would simply bring in another telepath, who might be more powerful or at least forewarned. He also might try other, more physical methods of interrogation.

At last the woman started to vibrate all over like a plucked harpstring. She closed her eyes and stepped away from Blade, then caught at the railing with both hands. Blade gripped her shoulders to make sure she didn't lose balance and fall. She twisted out of his grasp, went to her knees, and vomited.

At last she rose, wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her robe, and turned back to Detcharn. "He is telling the truth about himself and the-he calls it Cheeky. To Voros, Cheeky is not an animal. And they do speak mind to mind, in a way I have never met before."

"A way worth studying?"

"Certainly, if any form of mind-to-mind speech is worth studying. I thought we had decided that long ago." She met Detcharn's sharp look fearlessly. "Also, we will study it much better when Cheeky recovers from what he has suffered in there." If her eyes had been lasers, the look she threw at the laboratory door would have melted it.

Detcharn shrugged. "Well, Eshorn has paid already." The telepath shuddered and Cheeky yeeeped as they both seemed to pick up ugly thoughts from Detcharn. "As for these fools ..." He turned toward the three guards, drew his laser, and shot one in the belly. The other two stood as if paralyzed until their comrade started to scream.

One of them backed away, as if he wanted to melt into the cliff and get away. The other charged Detcharn. The black-clad man put his laser down and waited for the guard in unarmed-combat stance. His face showed something horribly like l.u.s.t. Blade found his own hands itching to pick up Detcharn and pitch him over the balcony.

It wasn't a fight, any more than it's a fight when a cat kills a mouse. Detcharn toyed with the man for a couple of minutes, even letting him land one or two harmless blows. Then swiftly he broke the man's left arm, chopping him across the throat, and levered him over the railing. The man screamed all the way down the cliff to his landing in a puff of dust.

The last guard didn't wait to find out what Detcharn had in mind for him. He went over the railing by himself, and fell silently down the three hundred feet to the plain.

Detcharn wiped his hands on the clothing of the still-living first guard. Blade, the telepath, and Cheeky watched in silence. Cheeky's tail was curled tightly under his body. Blade scratched his head to relax the feather-monkey, although he himself felt anything but relaxed.

The telepath went over to the dying guard and laid her hands on his forehead. After a moment his eyes closed and he stopped moaning. Had she simply blocked the pain, or actually willed him to death?

"Even for you, Detcharn, was this not more than what was needed?" asked the telepath. Her face was a mask and her voice toneless.

Detcharn started. "No! Never! Such will always be needed, with fools who stand between me and what I must do! Has your wish to cleanse our blood and avenge the great defeat weakened so much? If it has, you should fear me, Moshra."

"I am past fearing you, Detcharn," said Moshra. "And my desire to prove the worth of our blood is as strong as yours. Does that mean I can have no opinion of my own, as to the best way of proving it? If you think so, you are the only man in Doimar who does?"

After a moment, Detcharn shrugged. "Very well, sister. I will be less quick with the guards and other weapons-bearers. I cannot guard my back against all of them, and with the Day so close . . ." His fingers writhed like snakes. "Then everyone will know that the blood of the Sky Master Blade has finally given the victory to Doimar."

Blade looked quickly from one face to another. There was a family resemblance. And now that he looked more closely, both of them had something else in common ....

"The Sky Master Blade?" Blade chose his words and controlled his voice carefully. He also hoped Moshra could only read his mind while touching him!

"Yes. He was father to both of us," snapped Detcharn. "Us and four others. The Kaldakans think they got the best from Blade, because he betrayed us. But they will learn otherwise, when a son of their precious Sky Master brings them down. Oh, yes, they will learn, and soon." The l.u.s.tful look was back on his face. Moshra turned away and looked firmly out over the plain.

After a moment, Blade joined her. This Dimension seemed to be producing weird family reunions! First Baliza with her attempted seduction, and now Moshra with her telepathy and Detcharn with his mad drive to prove that her father's blood did not taint him.

Blade gripped the railing hard, until his knuckles turned white. The urge to kill Detcharn was back again, even stronger than before. So was sheer nausea, that this homicidal maniac-there was no other word for it-was his son.

My son, thought Blade. What have I unleashed on this Dimension, by playing stud with the women of Doimar the first time I was here?

And another thought: What can I do to get it back on the leash?

Stating the problem he had to solve calmed him and got his mind working again. The next time Detcharn spoke to him, Blade was even able to reply normally. At least Detcharn didn't notice anything wrong, and Moshra still stood with her back to the two men.

Chapter 16.

Blade quickly realized the missile base was the key to defeating Detcharn's plans and ending any immediate threat to Kaldak. Detcharn was so proud of the missiles that he hadn't bothered to develop any other way of spreading the fever germs. If the missile silos were wrecked and Kaldak warned of what they might be facing, there would be no quick war ending in an easy victory for Doimar. Blade could hope that Detcharn wouldn't persuade the Doimari to follow him in a long war. He seemed the type to make enemies who would take advantage of his first defeat to get rid of him for good.

Blade wished he could be sure of this, but quickly learned he wasn't going to know this or a lot of other things about the new Doimar. He was no longer a prisoner, but he was still something less than a guest. He was seldom allowed outside the research complex, and neither the guards nor the Seekers would answer his questions.

Detcharn talked freely, but Blade didn't learn much from him. Most of what Detcharn said was boasting about his past achievements or his future plans. He seemed to have vague notions about ruling not only Doimar but the whole Dimension as a dictator, after the fall of Kaldak. It didn't seem to bother him that he might be ruling over an empire of corpses.

Once he disappeared for several days, then came back to invite Blade to a private showing of some films. They showed a raid on a Tribal village. Blade watched with disgust at the ruthless butchery, and also with interest at the close-ups of the Tribesmen. Many of them had the long, hairy, pointed ears of the young chief he'd let escape from the Doimari tracking station. Was this the same Tribe, or was the mutation just a coincidence?

Detcharn was so proud of the raid and the number of Tribesmen he'd killed personally that Blade was able to draw him out. "I hate to sound like Moshra, but was the raid necessary? You got off lightly this time, but what if they're waiting for you the next time?"

Detcharn shrugged. "Our soldiers know getting killed is part of their job. But I'm not planning another such raid any time soon. Perhaps not at all, if the Day comes soon enough. This was the Tribe that ran off from our ranging and tracking station and let it fall to Kaldak. They had to be punished."

So this Tribe might indeed be the young chiefs. Interesting-and maybe useful, since they now had no cause to love Doimar. If Detcharn just hadn't killed off so many of their warriors that they might now be helpless . . .

"Killing them won't bring back your old station," said Blade reprovingly. "It might even provoke other Tribes to attack your new one, whenever you set it up."

"Oh, it's been in operation for some time now," said Detcharn. "I will send you out there to see it yourself in a few days. And you're right, we should patrol the area around it more closely. But the Tribes spend too much time fighting each other to ever unite against us or Kaldak. Also, the new station is a good hundred miles from the nearest Tribe with Newtec weapons. Long before they can find it and send warriors that far, the Day will fall on them as it will on Kaldak." He dismissed adding the Tribesmen to his planned genocide with an airy wave of his hand and poured more drinks.