The Empire Of Glass Part 16

"Braxiatel, my dear chap!" The Doctor strode forward and shook the man's hand. "Good to see that you followed my example and left them too."

Braxiatel. Shakespeare's confused mind hung on to that name. Kit Marlowe had used it back in Venice. Braxiatel had been the man whose cellar Kit and young Steven had investigated: the man whose name the Doctor had reacted so strongly to. He was obviously a prime mover in this nightmarish conspiracy, and perhaps a link to whatever negotiations were going on with this mysterious empire of which Marlowe had heard.

"Oh, they allowed me to leave," Braxiatel replied, "and I've spent most of my time since trying my best not to follow your example."

"So," the Doctor said, "tell me about these aliens flying around Venice, and the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps you have on the moon."

Braxiatel sighed. "Please, Doctor, not in front of the locals."

"These aren't just any locals," the Doctor snapped. "This is Galileo Galilei -" he indicated the Italian "- and this is William Shakespeare."

Galileo just nodded curtly, so Shakespeare executed a courtly bow. "I am honoured, if puzzled, to meet you," he said in a voice that shook less than he had expected. "My lord and master, King James of England, commends me to convey his best wishes to you, and bids me -"

Braxiatel dismissed him with a glance. "Did you have to bring them with you, Doctor?" he said as Shakespeare subsided. "I have been trying to keep this thing quiet."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Braxiatel. "If you had told me that you were behind all this," he said waspishly, "then I wouldn't have had to involve anybody local at all."

Braxiatel sighed. "I did tell you, Doctor," he replied with the air of a man who has rehea.r.s.ed the matter in his mind for some time, "but our people wiped your memory. You were on a mission for them."

"I was?" The Doctor appeared surprised. "How strange. Tell me more about this mission."

Braxiatel raised a placating hand. "There are rules about this sort of discussion, Doctor, and we are infringing them merely by meeting like this. Suffice it to say that our people gave their blessing to my asking you to chair an arms limitation conference of galactic races here on Earth, and that you agreed. Unfortunately, your memory was wiped and I've ended up with another chairman."

"The invitation, of course," the Doctor mused. "It was programmed to bring me here." He shook his head. "This is all academic. My companion - Vicki - you have her in safe keeping?"

"I did, but she's been kidnapped again by one of our envoys."

Envoys. Shakespeare held on to that word. There was a meeting going on. Representations were being made, and he had to make his contribution. He hadn"t travelled all the way around Europe to be dismissed by someone who had the lean and hungry look of a man who thought too much.

"That envoy would be Albrellian?" the Doctor asked.

Braxiatel nodded. "Well done, Doctor, you're picking the situation up nicely."

"And the boats headed towards this island? What of them?"

"I wouldn't worry." Braxiatel glanced at one of the stick-men, who nodded. "If they are carrying weapons, our security precautions will prevent them from landing. If not, the Jamarians can frighten them off."

The Doctor raised his head and gazed down his nose at Braxiatel.

"You always were over-confident, Braxiatel, even as a child. The people on those boats are all suffering from some sort of radiation sickness. Given that people of this time cannot refine radioactive materials, has it occured to you they might have been supplied with fragments of some material that is inert normally, but when brought together in large quant.i.ties becomes radioactive and, when the quant.i.ty is large enough, will explode? And has it occurred to you that such a device would circ.u.mvent your security procedures, because the weapon would not actually exist until the people all arrived in the same place at the same time?"

Braxiatel, Shakespeare thought, was beginning to look a little pasty.

"No," the Doctor continued grimly, "I don't suppose it has."

"Surely we can't hold a duel in a church!" Steven said, pacing across the room that the Doctor had been given by the Doge. He pa.s.sed a hand across his forehead, hidden beneath the holographic image of Galileo's forehead, and wasn't surprised when it came away moist with sweat. His first instinct when Toma.s.so Nicolotti challenged him had been to steal a boat and head straight for the TARDIS, but caution had prevailed, and he had sought out Marlowe for advice. Not that Marlowe was looking too concerned now, as he lounged against the window frame, paring his fingernails with a slender knife.

"We can and we must," Marlowe replied. "The Church of San Trovaso lies at the boundary of the territories controlled by the Nicolottis and the Castellanis. It's the only neutral place to hold a duel. On the rare occasions in which a Nicolotti boy has married a Castellani girl, or vice versa, the two families enter and leave by doors on opposite sides of the church. Will Shakespeare used the story of one such marriage in his little entertainment Romeo and Juliet, and I believe that mountebank Francis Pearson did the same in his triviality John and Jill"

"But what about the sanct.i.ty of the place? What does the priest have to say about it all?"

Marlowe shrugged. "Perhaps the priest is being paid by both sides to keep his eyes shut when he prays. Clerics have never been averse to more money. Or perhaps he is tied up elsewhere. I neither know nor care, and neither should you. The Castellanis have refused to turn up, on the basis that they disown your actions, but we can't disappoint our Nicolotti hosts."

"Look," protested Steven, indicating the hologuise generator strapped to his hip, "can't we just turn off this device and pretend that Galileo has slipped out of Venice?"

Marlowe shook his head. "They'll have guards stationed at all the landing posts. They'll know that he couldn't have "slipped out", and they'll torture us until we tell them where he is. Not that they would believe the truth, of course, so we would probably die. No, there is only one way out of this. I will have to fight the duel for you."

For a moment, Steven thought that his ears had deceived him.

"You? But it's me me they challenged." they challenged."

"No, it's the Paduan Galileo Galilei that they challenged," Marlowe corrected gently. "You merely happened to be borrowing his form. I could just as easily fill it - he is corpulent enough." Marlowe reached out to ruffle Steven's hair. "And which one of us would last the longest against the head of the family, eh? Take it from me, Toma.s.so Nicolotti has done this sort of thing before. Fortunately, so have I, and I cannot - will not - see you skewered upon his sword." He held up the knife with which he had been cutting his fingernails. "And I have this small stiletto. If Toma.s.so gets too close, he'll feel my sting." Steven opened his mouth to protest, but shook his head instead. Marlowe was right - he would have no chance against any swordsman, expert or not. Marlowe at least might survive. Reluctantly he switched the device on his belt off and handed it across to Marlowe.

"If I believed in G.o.d I would call that the work of the Devil,"

Marlowe murmured as he slipped the device into his jerkin and switched it on. He s.h.i.+mmered, and suddenly Galileo Galilei was standing in his place, bearded and arrogant. "Does it work?" he said, his voice jarring with his new form.

Steven glanced up and down the image. Apart from the tips of Marlowe's grey mane sticking up from Galileo's hair, the camouflage was perfect. "You look wonderful," he said, his mouth dry.

Marlowe smiled. "You say the sweetest things."

Vicki awoke to find the pins-and-needles feeling was ebbing away.

She could move her limbs again. Albrellian's toxin seemed to be wearing off. Not that there was anywhere to go. On the viewscreen she could see the sterile lunar plains rising up towards the skiff.

They seemed to be heading towards one particular s.h.i.+p with an iridescent red hull that was all curves, like a venomous beetle.

Yellow insignia on its back looked almost like the outline of a huge pair of wings.

"Light-years away within a few minutes can be we," the arthropod muttered, its attention divided between Vicki and the controls. "And have to be will we. If the meta-cobalt device on schedule explodes, to be a long way away want do I. Braxiatel's people knowing that I had anything to do with it want do not I. Stories about what they do when they're angry have heard I." His claws fiddled with the controls of the skiff, and they drifted gently down towards a hatch that was opening like a flower in the hull of the Greld s.h.i.+p.

"What about the other Greld?" she said. Her voice was slurred, and speaking was an effort, but at least she could make herself understood easily.

Albrellian's eyestalks dipped. "The suspicions of Braxiatel or his Jamarian cronies cannot afford to rouse we. Until the bomb goes off will stay my friends."

"And you're running for it?" Vicki sniffed and turned ostentatiously away. "I don't know why you ever thought you had a chance with me. You"re just a coward."

"You little fool," Albrellian laughed. "With you in love was never I - just to get you to the island wanted I so that, when the time came, easier to kidnap you it would be. With my friends, dying gloriously at the culmination of twenty-year plan our, would rather be I, but the chance to bring one of the fabled Doctor's companions back to the Greld Commonwealth is too good to miss!"

"Even if your companions think you're scared?" Vicki asked.

Albrellian did not reply. As the skiff settled to rest in the dark curves of the Greld s.h.i.+p"s bay, Vicki thought over what Albrellian had said. "Does this mean you don't like me?" she said in a plaintive voice.

"Vicki," Albrellian said, "how to break this to you know do not I, but a naive and rather stupid brat are you. To mate with you would not I if the last sentient creature left in the fourth galaxy were you."

"Oh." It took a moment for that to sink in, and it hurt. "So - so why are are you kidnapping me? You said you were under orders." you kidnapping me? You said you were under orders."

A clang from outside and a flas.h.i.+ng pink light presumably indicated that the hatch had sealed shut again, and that the atmosphere was breathable. Albrellian released the safety catches, and the skiff's door rose up revealing the bay outside. Vicki could smell a strange, alien smell, like a cross between cinnamon and tar.

Albrellian scuttled for the doorway. "Just think," he said, "what for our business could do you. With knowledge of which wars will be fought when, and between whom, possessed by you, expand our market share immensely could we. Suppliers of quality weapons to people who be needing them realize do not we could be."

"That's sick," Vicki snapped.

"That's business," Albrellian said. "Come on, or the toxin again use I will."

Vicki exited the skiff and looked around the bay. Like Albrellian, it was a combination of bowed surfaces and sudden spiky bits.

Various bits of high-tech equipment ranging in size from a hand-held multi-quantiscope to a zeus plug five times the size of the TARDIS. Other small s.h.i.+ps - Greld shuttles and one-arthropod fighters, she a.s.sumed - were lined up along the sides, and three more of Braxiatel's discus-like skiffs were sitting in a cl.u.s.ter in the centre. Albrellian gave them a curious glance as he pa.s.sed by.

"I won't cooperate," Vicki said.

"Will you," Albrellian replied, heading towards a hatch in one wall.

"Promise I." He stopped beside a large multi-tubed device that was lying on the gently sloping floor. It was about fifteen metres long and three metres high, and one end looked like it had been wrenched from a socket of some sort, complete with trailing wires and pipes. The other end terminated in a series of parabolic dishes. "That is not right," Albrellian muttered. "This thing was not here when left we, swear would I."

"What is it?"

"A terrawatt beam generator - one of products our." Albrellian ran a claw along the device's surface. "It is used for short range s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p battles. Fitted to the s.h.i.+p's exterior them have we."

"So it's a weapon?" Vicki said.

"Yes," he hooted, "it's a weapon. And still fitted in the weapon bays it should be, not here in bits where just walk off with it could anybody."

"Not anybody," said a thin, vicious voice from the doorway. The open doorway, Vicki realized with some dismay. Five thin figures were standing in it, their horns almost brus.h.i.+ng the ceiling. The look in their eyes was one of unalloyed triumph. "This s.h.i.+p, and all its weapon systems - especially its weapon systems - have been appropriated by the Jamarian Empire."

"The what what?" Albrellian growled, rising up on his front walking claws. "An Empire have not got the Jamarians."

"We have now," the leading Jamarian said.

The long narthex of the Church of St Trovaso stretched away from the group of men towards the altar. Sunlight streaming in through the stained gla.s.s windows cast a mult.i.tude of colourful but insubstantial diagonal b.u.t.tresses across the aisle. Motes of dust drifted lazily into them, sparkled briefly like fireflies, and then were gone. It was a timeless, beautiful place.

"Ho, Paduan!" a voice called, "are you ready to die?"

Marlowe stuck out his hand. Steven shook it firmly. Marlowe held on longer than Steven expected, turning the handshake into something like a caress. "If I had words enough, and time," he murmured, and Steven could have sworn that he caught sight of the man's intense grey stare through Galileo's dark brown eyes for a moment. Marlowe turned to where Toma.s.so Nicolotti was essaying some practice thrusts and parries, his blade hissing through the air, and said loudly, "Ho yourself, you Italian fop. You have come to the right place to meet your Maker."

The two men advanced to the centre of the church, and the Nicolotti family made a rough semicircle around them. Steven stayed where he was, near the font.

Toma.s.so flicked his sword towards Marlowe's face. Marlowe parried and brought his blade whistling back to cut through the s.p.a.ce where Toma.s.so's head had been moments before. His opponent had stepped back and Marlowe took a step forward, lunging at the man's chest. Toma.s.so intercepted the tip of Marlowe's sword with his own and, while taking two more paces back, guided Marlowe's sword in a quick circle in the air. Deftly he pushed it out to one side and slashed back at Marlowe's neck.

Marlowe was forced to take two stumbling steps back to avoid injury, and Toma.s.so pressed him hard with a series of short jabs which Marlowe had to deflect with his hilt, they were so close.

The clash of metal echoed from the roof and the stone walls, making it sound to Steven as if the church were filled with invisible fighters. He clenched his fists, wis.h.i.+ng there was something he could do, but he had no choice but to play the hand he had been dealt, however catastrophic it was for him, or for Marlowe.

The balance of power had s.h.i.+fted again, and Marlowe was on the offensive, taking short steps towards Toma.s.so and flicking his sword up towards the man's eyes from underneath, trying to make him nervous. Toma.s.so was deflecting Marlowe's blade with the minimum force necessary, and twice Steven thought that the edge caught his ear, nicking it. Seeing the trickle of blood, Marlowe again took a step forward, lunging at Toma.s.so's chest, and again the Italian intercepted the tip of Marlowe's sword with his own and manoeuvred it in a quick circle in the air, while retreating at the same speed with which Marlowe was advancing. As before, when the swords had almost completed their circle, he used their momentum to push Marlowe's blade out to one side while slas.h.i.+ng back at his neck. Marlowe, antic.i.p.ating the trick, stepped to one side and let the razor-sharp edge whistle harmlessly through empty air while he jabbed at Toma.s.so's thigh. The Italian stumbled back to avoid the crippling blow, and almost lost his footing.

Marlowe followed up with an inelegant but powerful overhand hack at the crown of Toma.s.so's head which the man could avoid only by throwing himself to one side and rolling. The spectators quickly cleared a s.p.a.ce for him while Marlowe's blade sent sparks flying from the granite flagstones.

Steven realized that he had been holding his breath, and released it in a long exhalation. He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs. He knew that he would have been dead by now, but there was a smile on Marlowe's borrowed face as if he was enjoying himself.

Marlowe waited until Toma.s.so had regained his balance, then reached out to the full extent of his sword and batted the tip of Toma.s.so's blade a few times, taunting him to advance. Toma.s.so snarled and stepped forward, knocking the sword aside with his hilt and then bringing his elbow right back, giving him just enough room to jab into Marlowe's stomach. The Englishman stepped forward as well, colliding with Toma.s.so and trapping the man's blade between his arm and his body. Toma.s.so brought his knee up as Marlowe released his pressure on the blade and stepped back. While Toma.s.so was off balance he again executed what Steven a.s.sumed was his favourite manoeuvre - lunging at the centre of Toma.s.so's chest. Again Toma.s.so parried in the same way - deflecting the tip of Marlowe's blade in a complete circle while backing away. Marlowe, knowing that Toma.s.so would push the blade out of the circle and slash at his neck, tried to pull his blade back, but this time Toma.s.so continued to push the blades around the circle while reversing his direction. As he stepped forward, Marlowe automatically stepped back. The blades cut through the air and Toma.s.so, in what must have been a move that he had been planning since the beginning of the duel, pushed Marlowe's blade down down and out of the circle as Marlowe's foot pa.s.sed underneath. The tip pierced Marlowe's boot and his flesh, and the sound of it grinding against the flagstone was almost covered by his involuntary cry. and out of the circle as Marlowe's foot pa.s.sed underneath. The tip pierced Marlowe's boot and his flesh, and the sound of it grinding against the flagstone was almost covered by his involuntary cry.

Before Marlowe could pull his blade from his foot, Toma.s.so Nicolotti's own sword was emerging, streaked with gore, from Marlowe's back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Galileo gazed around with something approaching awe. The hall that the group were standing in was made entirely of something that looked and felt very much like blue marble, and yet its arches soared so high over their heads that clouds hid the apex. That shouldn't be possible: not without some form of flying b.u.t.tress or other load-bearing structure. Galileo had seen the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and he had seen the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice, and he had studied the art of structure until he sometimes dreamed about columns and domes, and he knew - knew knew - that there was no way under G.o.d's heaven that a marble arch so high could support its own weight. - that there was no way under G.o.d's heaven that a marble arch so high could support its own weight.

He swallowed. It was beginning to look as if this Braxiatel fellow could teach Galileo Galilei a thing or two, and that wasn't a comfortable feeling for Christendom's foremost natural philosopher. Not a comfortable feeling at all.

A snort from the Doctor brought Galileo's attention back to the little group. Braxiatel was shaking his head, and the Doctor had his thumbs hooked behind his lapels and was looking down his nose at the tall man. Behind them and slightly to one side, William Shakespeare was eyeing the horned stick-men as if he couldn't decide what was worse - the possibility that they might be the product of some insane delirium or the possibility that they might be real.

"It's impossible," Braxiatel said. "Building a weapon like that would require years of planning. Who would attempt such a thing?"

"Who has just left this island of yours in some haste, hmm?" the Doctor snapped. "Your friend Albrellian would appear to be the prime suspect."

"But - but the Greld are -" Braxiatel paused, and considered. "- Are just desperate enough and clever enough to try it," he said, sighing. "Why did I ever bother arranging this Convention? I should have known that an envoy would try to sabotage the whole thing. I mean, there's always one, isn't there?"

The Doctor smiled slightly, and shook his head. "This isn't helping, Braxiatel. No, it isn't helping at all. We should be evacuating the island. Yes, we should be evacuating." He wagged an admonis.h.i.+ng finger at Braxiatel, who just shrugged and reached into his pocket.

"You should know me by now, Doctor," Braxiatel said calmly. "I prepare for any eventuality." His hand reappeared with a rounded object that appeared to be made of a dull metal. Small objects like gemstones were set into its surface. He pressed one, and a circle of air in front of the group seemed to solidify, like ice, and suddenly Galileo found himself gazing out across the choppy lagoon at the oncoming boats. It was as if the air itself had become a window.

As Braxiatel and the Doctor moved closer to the view, Galileo took a few steps to one side. A stick-guard moved to intercept him and he waved it away irritably. The circle was almost invisible when seen from the side: all that Galileo could see was a slight haze, like the air above a stone that had been left out in the sun. Truly a wonder. It was almost as if... Almost as if the view from a spygla.s.s had been projected across a distance and made visible to many.

Yes! A feeling of elation spread through him, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling. These things were wonders, but they were not beyond human comprehension. Once it was known that they were possible then they could be duplicated, just as Galileo had duplicated Lippershey's spygla.s.s based upon nothing more than a garbled description in a letter from Paolo Sarpi. Duplicated and improved.

He moved back to a position behind the Doctor, rubbing his hands gleefully. Oh what wonders he would perform as soon as he got back to his workshop in Padua.

Through the round window, Galileo could see at least twenty vessels ranging from gondolas to fis.h.i.+ng boats heading towards the island. The sky was grey and stormy above them, and the wind was whipping the waves up. The sails of the fis.h.i.+ng boats alternately billowed and sagged as the wind gusted against them, and the lines whipped so violently around that Galileo could almost hear the whipcrack noise as they pulled taut. Three of the smaller, faster vessels were already drawn up on the sand of the beach, and a group of drab Englishmen were milling around as if unsure of their purpose now that they had arrived on the island.

The wounds on their faces were red and raw. Bile rose in Galileo's stomach as he realized that two of them had no eyes left -just curdled white lumps in their sockets.

"Whatever it is that you have prepared, dear boy," the Doctor murmured to Braxiatel, "I would be grateful if you would reveal it now, yes I would. The radiation levels are rising, and if the remainder of those people arrive on the beach and join their companions then you might find your Convention ending with somewhat more of a bang than you had antic.i.p.ated."

Braxiatel smirked, and pressed another of the dull gemstones on his metal box. Nothing happened for a moment, and then a shudder ran through the room. The stick-men rocked on their feet and glanced around suspiciously. Galileo gazed upward, hoping that the marble arches weren't about to prove his conjecture about their strength right, but they were as stable as the Dolomite mountains.

When Galileo glanced back at the circular window, he noticed immediately that the view had changed. It seemed as though they were looking down upon the ocean and the boats from a distance of some twenty feet or so, or the ocean had receded from the beach. And that was the odd thing - the beach was unchanged, with its three small hulls and confused group of people. The window still showed them as if they were only a step away, but the ocean was definitely lower.

Or, Galileo realized with a sublime insight, the island was higher.

That was the logical corollary. The island was rising into the air, quitting the ocean for the sky. Well, why not? Was it any more impossible than the things he had already seen? "Tolerably impressive," the Doctor murmured. "It will probably suffice to put enough distance between us and the components of the bomb. I had wondered why the island was called Laputa."

"My little joke," Braxiatel smiled.