The Empire Of Glass Part 6

"Which of us can?" Chigi murmured, still looking across the square. He seemed almost to be talking to himself.

"That was a bit of a fiasco, wasn't it?" Irving Braxiatel said mildly.

He was sitting in his study, idly flicking through a book selected at random from the shelves. Gazing over the top of his bifocal gla.s.ses at the two stick-thin Jamarians standing in front of him, he said, "You and Tzorogol were supposed to escort the Doctor and his young a.s.sistant here so I could take them to the Island. Instead you end up chasing him all over the Doge's Palace, frightening him and drawing attention to yourselves from the locals." Without raising his voice, he made it clear from his tone that he was furious. "I put you in charge of collecting him, Szaratak, because I wanted to ensure that the Doctor was treated properly. I trusted you to do this with no fuss. Do you have an explanation for this seemingly bizarre behaviour, or shall I just put it down to the inherent stupidity of your race?"

"It's not our fault," Szaratak snapped. Its thin hands clenched and unclenched by its side.

"He didn't want to come," agreed Tzorogol.

"Don't be so stupid," Braxiatel snapped. He took off his gla.s.ses and began to polish them furiously. "He got the invitation, didn't he? He must have done, otherwise he wouldn't be here. And if he got the invitation, he must have known that we would come and collect him. It's really very simple, even for a race like yours."

Szaratak shot a quick sideways glance at Tzorogol, but not so quick that Braxiatel didn't catch it. "It's not our fault," it said with barely suppressed fury. "The Doctor was expecting to be taken to the Doge. He was pretending to be someone called Cardinal Bellarmine. He and his companion ran from us. They didn't know who we were. They weren't expecting us."

"You were using your hologuises?"

"Of course!" Szaratak growled. "We're not stupid. We tried to catch up with them to explain. They were running too fast. The Doctor's companion realized I wasn't human. She screamed. The scream alerted the Night watch. As soon as we heard them coming, we left."

"That's the smartest thing you've done all day," Braxiatel muttered.

"The last thing we need is for one of you to get caught by the Venetians." He slipped his gla.s.ses back on. "The thing I don't understand is why the Doctor is staying at the Doge's Palace in the first place. The invitation was supposed to ensure that he was delivered straight into our hands. I had suitable accommodation already prepared."

"Perhaps it's not the Doctor at all," Tzorogol muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"You keep telling us how necessary it is that you have tight security," it explained, glaring at the floor. "You keep telling us about the races who would do anything to disrupt what we're attempting here. Perhaps there's some plot to subst.i.tute a false Doctor. Perhaps he's a shape s.h.i.+fter, or someone in a holographic disguise, or a robot copy."

Braxiatel was about to make a scathing comment when he caught himself. "It's... possible," he agreed finally, "although I can't see how the security of the Island could possibly be compromised by anyone whose biomorphic profile hasn't already been programmed into its defensive systems." He sighed. Organising anything of this scale was bound to present problems. If only they had been the problems he was antic.i.p.ating, he would have been happier. "All I can suggest is that you pa.s.s word around the other Jamarians to keep an eye out for anyone anyone meeting the description of the Doctor. meeting the description of the Doctor.

In the meantime, we must try to establish whether the one we have is the real one."

The sun was high in the sky when the path split in two ahead of the carriage and the riders that surrounded it. One fork led straight ahead of them, the other curved gradually off to the right. Both had been raised a few feet above the marshy Italian landscape by piled earth, and both had been swept clear of gra.s.s by the feet of the hundreds of horses and the wheels of the hundreds of carts that made the same journey every month.

Cardinal Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine leaned out of the carriage window, and winced as a pang of pain shot through his shoulder. The salt in the air and the chill of the wind was causing his arthritis to play up. He offered a quick prayer, not for relief from the pain but for the strength to withstand it. It was, after all, G.o.d's way of reminding him that he was not indispensable to the Church, no matter what the Pope might think.

Ahead, he saw the leader of the party of soldiers that had been detailed to accompany him conferring with one of his troops. "What causes this wait?" the man shouted with some asperity. He was hoping to have arrived by now, by G.o.d's grace, and the delay was making him irritable.

The commander of the party of soldiers pulled on the reins of his horse and trotted back to the coach. "Your Eminence," he said, bowing as best he could on horseback, "we are attempting to determine which of the paths is the safest method by which to convey you to your destination. There are pirates and Turks to consider, and -"

"Fie on the safest," Bellarmine muttered, "just choose the fastest."

He dismissed the soldier with a curt nod, and gazed across the patchy landscape of partial dunes and salt sea gra.s.ses. Above him gulls wheeled, calling to each other in a harsh tongue. He could smell the sea. If he was where he thought he was then the town of Chioggia lay somewhere to his right, out on the edge of a promontory of land. The path that continued onwards must skirt the edge of the lagoon and then curve northwards, towards Mestre and Venice. Somewhere along the coast he would be able to charter a boat to take them all to the city. A day or two to complete his work, and then he could return to Rome, and civilization.

Venice. He laughed aloud, making two of the soldiers turn to see what the noise was. Would it be too much to regard Venice as the sanctuary of Satan? Friar Sarpi's writings could certainly tear the Church apart, if he were allowed to continue, and if everything he had heard about Galileo's spygla.s.s was true then the ghost of Giordano Bruno might haunt them still. Such danger, concentrated in one place. Were they really the tools of the Devil, or just foolish men who were ignorant of the forces they meddled with?

Was there a difference?

His thoughts preoccupied by theological speculation, Cardinal Bellarmine didn't even notice when the coach started to move again, taking him foot by laborious foot closer to Venice.

CHAPTER SIX.

Galileo Galilei reached across the vegetable stall and rooted amongst the yellow peppers. "This!" he said, pulling one out and waving it at the stall's proprietor, "is a ripe pepper. This," and he waved the one that he had been given moments before, "is over over- ripe. Even a dolt such as yourself must be able to tell the difference."

The stall's proprietor sighed. "Venetian peppers always look like that," she said. "And they taste better that way. Everyone knows that."

"Then everyone is foolish," Galileo snapped. "I will take five more like this." He waved the ripe pepper at her, just in case she decided to miss the point. "And I will risk the taste."

The proprietor shrugged, and raised her eyebrows at her other customers. As he watched her select more peppers that matched the one he had, he shook his head. Thieves! Venice was populated with thieves! Back home in Padua he would have left his cook to choose the food for a meal such as the one he had invited Steven and his friends to that night, but he didn't trust the cook he had hired that morning. All Venetians were in collusion to defraud the rest of the world: everyone knew that. He would choose the food, and present it to the cook as an accomplished fact.

He shuddered, remembering that the cleaners he had hired would be cleaning and airing the rented house even as he wasted his time wandering around the market. He just hoped that they wouldn't disturb any of his ma.n.u.scripts. Or his spygla.s.s. He had given them full instructions, but Venetians heard what they wanted to hear. They were a race apart.

"Have you heard about Galileo Galilei?" a voice said beside him.

The speaker was a woman: a maid perhaps, or a cook's helper. He froze, his attention distracted from the peppers.

"No," her companion said: a common strumpet by her look. "What has he done this time?"

"Poisoned a man in the Tavern of St Theodore and of the Crocodile, so they say. Tommaso Nicolotti is furious. Apparently Galileo was attacked in the Tavern of the Angel by Toma.s.so's other son, but escaped with his life intact, if not his dignity."

The women laughed as Galileo pondered. Poison a man in a tavern he may have done, if only by accident, but he was sure that he would have remembered being attacked by another Nicolotti, no matter how drunk he might have been. And he'd never been in the Tavern of the Angel, he was sure of it.

He smiled. Of course: Steven Taylor had left his house wearing his clothes! The poor man...

The stall-keeper handed over his peppers, and Galileo was so amused by the fact that Steven had been attacked in error that he completely forgot to check them until it was too late to return them.

And they were overripe: every single one of them.

"Doctor, isn't this wonderful?"

Vicki held the dress up against herself and pirouetted. The hem flared out as she spun, and the gold thread glittered in the candlelight, casting little points of light across the tapestries of their rooms.

"Hmm?" The Doctor looked over from where he was adjusting his cravat in the mirror. "Oh, yes my dear, I dare say it's very pretty.

Very pretty indeed."

"You're not going to Galileo"s house as you are?" she asked.

"Yes, of course. I see no need to change." He ran his thumb behind the lapel of his jacket. "I find that these clothes suffice for most occasions, planets and time periods."

Vicki was about to press the issue when the door to their room opened and Steven walked in. "Almost ready?" he asked. "We don't want to keep Galileo waiting."

"You seem to have recovered somewhat since this morning," the Doctor observed.

Steven flushed slightly. "I've been walking it off," he said.

"There are some fresh clothes in your bedroom," Vicki said. "If they're anything like the ones that were laid out for me, then you'll look almost human."

Steven sneered at her for a moment, then crossed over to the door that led to his bedroom. "I hope there's some hot water too," he said.

As he vanished, Vicki crossed over to the window and gazed out across St Mark's Square. "It's beautiful here," she said wistfully, gazing at the wavering reflection of the moon in the lagoon.

The Doctor murmured something noncommittal from the far side of the room.

Vicki's gaze moved across the crowds of the square to the brick bell tower that the Doctor had called the campanile. It seemed to be reaching up into the star-strewn sky, aiming for the heart of the moon. The air smelled of seawater and spice. Somewhere in the distance, someone was singing a pure, simple song.

Something moved on top of the campanile. Vicki glanced up, and caught a momentary glimpse of a pair of leathery wings stretching out from a hard, s.h.i.+ny body. She rubbed a hand across her eyes and looked again, but the campanile was empty.

"Sir?"

Irving Braxiatel looked up from the book he had been reading.

Outside the window the sun was setting in bands of crimson and gold. The light from the candelabra flickered over the bland face Cremonini, his manservant, in the doorway. "Yes?" Braxiatel said calmly. "What is it?"

"A visitor, sir."

Braxiatel closed the book. "Don't tell me: a special special visitor." visitor."

"Indeed, sir."

Braxiatel nodded. "I'll be straight down." He sighed as he levered himself up out of the chair. The organization of this business was proving to be more problematic than he had expected when he had started out. It had seemed like such a simple idea, but putting it into practice had taken almost twenty human years. To his race that was a mere blink of an eye, of course, but he had found that his time on Earth had influenced him in strange ways. He had come to think like them, even to act like them at times. He hadn't been as polluted by their influence as the Doctor, of course, but if he ever went home he would have to make some changes in his manner.

Twenty years. As he walked down the stairs towards the salon, he remembered the problems, the setbacks and the unmitigated disasters that had befallen him in that time. The whole thing had been on the verge of falling apart at one stage, until he had suggested, albeit reluctantly, involving the Doctor. That had turned the tide. The Doctor was integral to his plans now, and he would not, could could not stop. Not when he was so close to success. It was a shame that the Doctor's name was so symboloc, but Braxiatel was enough of a realist to accept it, and work with it. He didn't have to like it, though. not stop. Not when he was so close to success. It was a shame that the Doctor's name was so symboloc, but Braxiatel was enough of a realist to accept it, and work with it. He didn't have to like it, though.

Szaratak and Tzorogol, his two Jamarian aides, were standing in the salon waiting for him. As soon as he entered, they turned off their hologuise generators and returned to their thin, horned Jamarian forms.

"What has happened?" Braxiatel asked immediately. "I wasn't expecting a report until tomorrow morning."

"We have located the Doctor," Szaratak grunted. "The real real Doctor," Doctor,"

it added, flicking its head back so that its horn whistled through the air. "He's making his way by coach around the coastline. He'll be in Venice within a few hours."

"By coach?" Braxiatel frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Of course we are sure," Tzorogol snapped. "He's exactly the way you described him: an old man with sharp features and white hair."

"This is the only other person for miles around who fits the description," Szaratak added. "We did a full scan. How many people do you want around here who look like the Doctor before you decide which one you want?"

"All right," Braxiatel said, irritated by Szaratak's near insolence, "send a welcoming committee of as many envoys as you can round up. Explain the situation to them first. Is the Doctor alone?"

Szaratak and Tzorogorol both shook their small heads. "He has company with him," Szaratak growled.

"Hmm," Braxiatel mused, "he does travel with companions, we know that, and his companions are used to dealing with aliens. Tell the envoys there's no point in using their hologuises. I don't want any misunderstandings on the Doctor's part, and besides, those things drain energy like n.o.body's business." He stared at the two Jamarians. "Was that it, or is there something else?"

They glanced at each other. "That's it," Szaratak growled.

"Then get going," Braxiatel snapped. The two Jamarians glared at him for a moment, then turned to leave. "And don't forget to turn on your hologuises before you leave the house," he shouted after them.

Jamarians. He shook his head sadly. To think that he was using a race too paranoid to develop anything more than a rudimentary civilisation. He'd have been better off using Ogrons.

"This is excellent," the Doctor said, waving his hand across the table. "A repast fit for a king."

Vicki smiled enthusiastically as Gallileo nodded his acknowledgement. "It's wonderful," she said. "What is is everything?" everything?"

Galileo took a swig of his wine, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "Red and yellow peppers in olive oil," he said, indicating a gaily coloured dish, "Tomatoes stuffed with anchovies, squid and a salad of mozzarella, aubergine and olives. A simple first course. There will be soup and potato dumplings to follow, then calves' brains and tongue."

Vicki looked over to where Steven was gazing morosely at the plate in front of him. Behind him, Galileo's dining room was in semi-darkness, with only the light from the candelabras illuminating the table and the food. In the shadows beyond, Vicki gained the impression of faded velvets and threadbare tapestries.

"Isn't it nice, Steven?" she said brightly, just to see his reaction.

She wasn't disappointed: he flinched, startled, then looked around the table.

"Er... that's right," he said, and slumped down again.

"You seem distracted, my boy," the Doctor said, spearing an olive with his knife. "Is there something you want to tell us?"

Steven glanced up and flushed guiltily. His eyes flickered towards Galileo. "No, I... What I mean is... "

The Doctor's steely gaze fastened on Steven. "We have all had strange experiences since we arrived here in Venice," he chided.

"Vicki and I were almost abducted by..." He paused, and coughed.

"By persons in disguise, and Vicki has had a dream that turns out to have been more than a dream. When this is added to the invitation we received, well, it makes one think, does it not?" He leaned forward. "If you have anything to add, and I would be surprised if you didn't, then I suggest you add it now. The more we know about whatever is happening here, the better off we will be!"

Steven opened his mouth to answer, but Galileo beat him to it.

"Don't blame your friend, Doctor," he said. "I am the one he is protecting." He looked from the Doctor to Vicki and back again.

"But before I begin, I a.s.sure you that I am blameless in every way."

The Doctor nodded. "I will accept that a.s.surance - for the moment."

"Very well." Galileo took a deep breath. "The first 'occurrence' as you put it was... No, let me tell you about the second one. I will demonstrate the first after dessert. The second was when my wine was poisoned in a nearby tavern."

"How do you know it was poisoned?" the Doctor queried sharply.

"Because when I threw it into the face of some oaf who insulted me, he died of poisoning," Galileo replied.

"Seems fairly convincing to me," Steven murmured to Vicki.

"The third occurrence," Galileo continued, "was when your friend Steven and I discovered a dead body not far from here."

"Poisoned?" Vicki asked.