Jewel of Tharn

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The lights were burning late at Number 10 Downing Street Big Ben had just struck three and still the three men sat around the long, green-topped table in the Privy Council room. Blue smoke from J's pipe wreathed upward to form baroque curlicues in the white light of a high chandelier.

The Prime Minister took a sip from the small brandy snifter before him. He said: "It is a sort of death, I suppose. A death in life. Which this man Blade is willing to undergo again and again. You say he accepts these risks gladly?"

Lord Leighton, England's greatest scientist, a shrunken little man with a grotesque hump and glittering yellow eyes, nodded and said: "He does. Gladly."

J, who was Richard Blade's friend, and superior in MI6A, made a grumpy sound in his throat. "I don't think 'gladly' is precisely the word, sir. Blade is no fool. He couldn't have been my top man for twenty years if he were. He is a handsome fellow, right now in the prime of life, and he has a great deal to live for. The world, as the saying goes, is his oyster. Yet he has volunteered. He does accept the risks willingly. That's the better word, sir. Willingly. It is simply a matter of duty, of serving England, and that is something that Blade understands better than most". J's pipe went out and he fumbled for matches.

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