The Empire Of Glass Part 10

There was no change in the att.i.tudes of the angels but somehow Bellarmine knew that he had said the right thing.

The ca.n.a.l was narrow, and the single bridge was empty. The walls of the houses rose like sheer cliff faces on either side, their paint faded and peeling and their windows shuttered blankly. The sun caught the tips of the roofs, glinting here and there off a gilded ridge or weather vane. A rat ran along a ledge just above the ca.n.a.l on secret business of its own. A cat lay sunning itself on a projecting windowsill.

Steven braced himself between a striped gondola post and a crumbling brick wall and pulled himself out of the ca.n.a.l. A ledge running beneath a wooden door provided a convenient seat, and he rested for a moment, trying to ignore the smell that was rising from his sodden clothes. Algae crusted his hair, and he daren't even think about some of the things that had brushed against him in the water. Didn't these people have any sort of sewage system apart from the ca.n.a.l itself?

Still, at least the Nicolottis had left. If he was lucky then they would a.s.sume he had drowned, and they would stop bothering him. If he was unlucky then they had merely a.s.sumed that he had surfaced somewhere out of their sight, and they would be waiting for him to turn up elsewhere in Venice. Either way, he had more important things to do. Vicki was his first priority now, and that s.p.a.cecraft, or whatever it was, that had dragged him along the ca.n.a.l and around the corner was almost certainly connected with her disappearance.

Either that or it was the biggest coincidence since he couldn't remember when.

He was fairly sure that the house he was sitting beside was the nearest one to the large opening from which the ship had emerged, and as he couldn't follow the ship, there was only one course left to pursue. Taking a deep breath, he slid back into the noisome water, letting it close above his head as his fingers explored the brickwork of its foundations. Little pieces broke off in his hands and drifted towards the bottom. He widened the area of his search, pulling himself along and quickly running his hands over the rough facade. Weed was slick beneath his fingers, and twined around them as if they were alive. His lungs were burning, and the cold water was numbing his skin, making it difficult to feel anything. Perhaps it was deeper. He laboriously pulled himself down further into the depths of the ca.n.a.l, jamming the toes of his boots into gaps in the brickwork to anchor himself, like mountain-climbing in reverse. His fingers scuttled across the building's hidden face, finding nothing but ever-more ancient layers of artifice.

And a hole.

Disbelievingly he ran his hands along the rim of what appeared to be a large, rectangular opening framed with metal. No time to think: his lungs were demanding air but he couldn't guarantee ever finding the right stretch of wall again. Pushing up against the metal rim he forced his legs down further into the water and then swung them into the opening. His body floated back up, buoyed by the air in his lungs, and he found himself flat against the smooth metal ceiling of a tunnel. Using his numbed hands, just lumps of dead flesh now, he pushed himself along the tunnel, scuttling crab-fashion until suddenly there was no metal above him and he bobbed back up to the surface.

When he had got his breath back, he looked around. He was floating in a pool of water in the middle of a white metal room.

There was a ledge running around the edge of the room, on which a few small machines rested, and a door in one wall. Apart from that, and a control panel set into one wall, the room was featureless.

Paddling to stay afloat, Steven turned in the water to check the wall behind him: the wall above the entrance to the short tunnel.

"Swim no further, pretty sweeting," said Giovanni Zarattino Chigi from his position crouching on the ledge, "for journeys end in lovers meeting." He wore the same scuffed leather jerkin that he had worn in the tavern when he saved Steven's life, and he was holding one of the knives that he had been juggling in that encounter loosely by the point. And the chances were, Steven thought sourly, that he could throw it just as well as he could juggle it.

CHAPTER NINE.

Galileo and the Doctor trudged up the stairs to Galileo's door, trailing water behind them as they went. Galileo was still carrying the buckled remains of the Doctor's spygla.s.s, while the Doctor had his amazing boat beneath his arm, folded into a bundle of fabric.

"When I was twenty-nine," Galileo muttered, "I went for a ride in the country with some friends. We ended up at Costozza which, if you've never been there, is well worth avoiding. Its only saving grace is the wine they make. Strong? It's enough to strip the varnish off a violin." He glanced across at the Doctor, who was plodding on, weary and bedraggled, but there was no sign that the Doctor was listening.

"We stayed with a well-known member of the legal profession who had a villa there. It was the height of summer: the ground was baked harder than a biscuit and the air shimmered wherever you looked. Even the gra.s.s had turned brown. We drank enough wine to float a warship, and I pa.s.sed out near to a crack in the ground."

He shook his head at the memory of his youthful foolishness. "Not that I realized at the time, but there was a breeze coming out of that crack that had been cooled by an underwater spring. When I woke up, I'd contracted a chill. They had to carry me back to Padua in a litter. Soon after that I found I couldn't move my arm without it feeling like there was ground gla.s.s in the joint."

Raising his hand, he looked at the swollen knuckles, turning the hand over and back as they climbed.

"'Arthritis', said Girolamo Fabricio. He was my doctor. One of my doctors, anyway. I could have told him him I had arthritis. In fact, I I had arthritis. In fact, I did did tell him. What I wanted to know was what I should do about it but, like all doctors, he knew all the answers except for the ones I wanted." Galileo suddenly realized that they were standing in front of his door. He fumbled at the lock for a few moments, and they staggered into his rooms. "If that one moment of stupidity cost me years of ill health," he continued. "I wonder what today will do." tell him. What I wanted to know was what I should do about it but, like all doctors, he knew all the answers except for the ones I wanted." Galileo suddenly realized that they were standing in front of his door. He fumbled at the lock for a few moments, and they staggered into his rooms. "If that one moment of stupidity cost me years of ill health," he continued. "I wonder what today will do."

Without replying, the Doctor fell instantly into a chair. Galileo flung himself onto a couch, the Doctor's spygla.s.s falling from his hand and bouncing on the floor. Reaching down blindly with his hand for it he found instead a bottle of wine standing where it had been left after the dinner party the night before. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and took a long swallow. Air and time had roughened the wine, but it was as sweet on his tongue as the most expensive liqueur.

The Doctor sighed. "Not the most productive day I have ever had,"

he murmured. "I only hope that Steven has got closer to finding Vicki than we have. Poor child: she must be terrified." He hit the table with his clenched fist. "If only only we hadn't had to destroy my telescope to drive that creature off! It might take days to get another one fabricated by the Venetian artisans, and that could be too late! Far too late! We need to know where those ships are heading for when they leave the moon, and to do that we need that telescope!" we hadn't had to destroy my telescope to drive that creature off! It might take days to get another one fabricated by the Venetian artisans, and that could be too late! Far too late! We need to know where those ships are heading for when they leave the moon, and to do that we need that telescope!"

"Telescope?" Galileo held the bottle out towards the Doctor. "Telescope, from the Greek, a device for seeing far distances. Hmm, I like that. It has a ring to it."

"Indeed," the Doctor murmured, "perhaps it will catch on."

Galileo took another swig of wine and put the bottle down beside him. It clinked against something metallic. He rolled over to look, and saw the Doctor's spygla.s.s -telescope - where he had dropped it. He picked it up and looked it over. The tube was bent and buckled, and in two places there were tears in the metal. It sloshed as he shook it, but it began to dawn on him through his tiredness that the lenses looked as if they had survived unbroken. "Perhaps all is not lost," he said thoughtfully. "The lenses of my - telescope - were broken, but the tube survived unscathed. The tube of your your telescope is useless, but the lenses are perfectly all right." telescope is useless, but the lenses are perfectly all right."

The Doctor frowned slightly, and turned to gaze at Galileo. "Do you mean that we could construct a working telescope from the remnants of the two we have?"

"The lenses may be too large or too small," Galileo mused, "but with judicious amounts of stuffing we should be able to make them fit."

"Then you had better not make yourself too comfortable," the Doctor said, standing from the chair. "We have work to do!"

"You what?" Vicki exclaimed.

"Love you I," Albrellian stammered. His wings furled and unfurled against the hard red sh.e.l.l of his body, and his eyestalks were retracted so far that they were just glints in the darkness.

Vicki wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. "But... but you hardly know me," she said finally. "I mean, we only talked twice. You can't suddenly decide you love me on the basis of two short conversations.

"Why not?" Albrellian's eyes poked slightly out from their hideaways.

"Because there could be all sorts of things you don't like about me but haven't had a chance to find out yet. I mean, I might hate arthropods, for all you know. Or I might have a fearsome temper.

Or -"

Albrellian held out a clawed hand to stop her. "Kind and friendly are you," he said, "and so few friendly faces here on Laputa are there. Drawn to you found myself when first rowing towards Venice saw you I. Since then following you have been I."

"You've been following me?" Vicki felt a surge of anger within her.

"Nothing sinister!" Albrellian protested. "Face to see and voice to hear your wanted I. Stop thinking about you cannot I."

Vicki folded her arms across her chest. This would have been disturbing if it hadn't been so funny. "Albrellian, this is going to have to stop. I want you to take me back to Venice now now."

"A species thing it is?" he muttered, his sh.e.l.l dipping towards the floor.

"It is not not a species thing. Some of my best friends were aliens, before I left Earth for Astra." a species thing. Some of my best friends were aliens, before I left Earth for Astra."

Albrellian's eyestalks suddenly extended upwards. "Someone else there is? That human male - Steven. Him it is?"

"No, no it's not him."

"Then is it who?"

Vicki sighed deeply. "Albrellian, this isn't funny. Stop it at once."

Albrellian moved forward and reached out a claw. Vicki"s first thought was to step backwards, but if Albrellian was doing something innocent then he might take offence. On the other hand -.

Before he could touch her, the door to his room slid open. A man was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the corridor. "Envoy Albrellian!" he snapped. "I presume that you have some explanation for your actions?"

Albrellian whirled around to face the newcomer. "Braxiatel, I -"

"He was just being friendly," Vicki said, surprising herself. "He hasn't hurt me."

Braxiatel stepped into the room and glanced at her. He was tall, with finely chiselled features and straight brown hair that fell in a slight curl over his eyes, and he wore a pair of half-moon spectacles that struck Vicki as curiously anachronistic in the midst of this futuristic island city, and yet which wouldn"t have attracted a second glance in Venice itself. He looked back at Albrellian.

"Envoy, you were made perfectly aware of the rules concerning the natives when you arrived. Fraternization is completely forbidden.

They must not know that we are here. The only thing that is keeping this girl sane now is the fact that she doesn't understand what is going on."

"Now wait a second -" Vicki began, but Braxiatel was still talking.

"The minute she does realize, she'll go mad. This has has to stop now. to stop now.

We'll give her an amnesia pill and return her to Venice before anybody realizes she's gone. In the meantime, you have a convention to attend. The Doctor has arrived."

"The Doctor?" Vicki and Albrellian chorused.

Braxiatel looked from one to the other. "You know of the Doctor?"

he said to Vicki eventually.

"I travel with him," she said. "And you you know him?" know him?"

"We are... acquainted," Braxiatel said, frowning slightly. "I invited him to come here to Laputa, in fact. He was here last night."

"No he wasn't. The Doctor was with me me last night." last night."

Braxiatel shook his head. "Impossible. I was told that he was brought here. My people said that he was so tired he fell asleep when they picked him up, and slept all the way through to this morning."

Albrellian clicked a claw to attract their attention. "Story can confirm Vicki's I," he said. "In Venice in the early hours of this morning indeed was the Doctor. Saw him I. Talked to him I."

"Oh no." Braxiatel rubbed a hand across his forehead. "The stupid... They've only gone and picked up the real real Cardinal Bellarmine. It goes to show you should never employ Jamarians." Cardinal Bellarmine. It goes to show you should never employ Jamarians."

Something occurred to Vicki. "You said you invited the Doctor here," she said. "Was it a real invitation - a piece of card, about this big?" She held her fingers a few inches apart.

"Yes. Yes, it was."

"But it didn't say anything apart from "Invitation". We only got here because the TARDIS brought us."

"The card itself contained full flight details, compatible with the navigational equipment of any vessel up to and including a TARDIS," Braxiatel explained, "but it was really only a formality.

When I gave the Doctor the card, I did explain what it was for."

"But he forgot!" Vicki exclaimed. "He suddenly appeared in the TARDIS holding the card, and he couldn't remember where he got it from."

"They wiped his memory." Braxiatel shook his head in exasperation."They didn't bother telling me, of course. No, that would have been too simple. They just let me witter on about how important it was that he come here, and then they wiped his memory of everything that had happened since they took him out of time."

"Since who took him out of time?" Vicki asked.

"Our own people," Braxiatel said simply.

There was an ugly feeling in Heaven. Cardinal Bellarmine could feel the tension in the chamber of angels. It must have felt like that before Lucifer and his minions rose up against the Lord and were exiled from His sight.

An angel leaped to its feet and waved a gloved fist at Bellarmine. It looked like a man wearing green armour, and its head was almost completely encased in a metal helmet, but what little could be seen of its lower mouth looked rough and scaly. One of the other angels had referred to it earlier as Ssarl during a heated exchange of threats. It and its larger, rougher, companion were aggressive and forceful angels, and were apparently reviled by most of the other angels present. The same applied to the gargoyle-faced angels in shiny black costumes, but there was particularly bad blood between them and the blobs of jelly that always referred to themselves in the plural. Bellarmine had also identified various other factions and alliances around the steeply rising walls of the chamber. Truly he was present at the time that St John the Divine had written of. The words rose up unbidden in his mind: "And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels."

"You have a question, Ssarl?" Bellarmine said mildly.

"If this Convention is to have any validity at all," the armoured angel hissed, "then it must address the issue of chemical and biological warfare. We all know," and it gazed meaningfully around the a.s.sembled ranks of its brethren, "that the Rutans have used plague bombs during their endless war with the Sontarans. The Daleks too have used disease to ma.s.sacre entire populations.

What remedy do you..." and it paused rhetorically, "suggest? Can mere talking prevent the use of such devastating weapons?"

Bellarmine waited before answering. He'd been standing there for hours, listening to the angels discuss matters of theology that were so far beyond him as to prove almost impossible to grasp, and in that time he had come to realize what his task was. He was a peacemaker. The discussion, as far as he could tell, centred around war in Heaven, and what weapons would be allowed. It was his task to calm the angels down when violence threatened to erupt in the chamber, and to move the discussion on when it was deadlocked. For some reason, they deferred to him. They seemed to respect his words, although he couldn't see why. They listened.

Every so often they would pose him a question - as Ssarl had just done - and he would do his best to answer. Perhaps they were just testing him. Surely they must already know the answers to their questions better than he did.All he could do was try.

Plague, Ssarl had said. Was it right to use plague as a weapon?

His mind raced across the various books of the Bible, trying to recall whether the Lord had ever p.r.o.nounced on the matter. Yes!

Yes, he had! In the Revelation of St John the Divine it clearly said, "And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways and pour out the wrath of G.o.d upon the Earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." That meant that plague was a suitable weapon for angels.

There was no question about it.

"Plague is a suitable weapon," he said. "So it is written."

Ssarl looked as if he was about to argue, but sat down rather heavily in his chair. An angel across the chamber from Ssarl stood up straight away. It had the head of a fish, and was wearing a gla.s.s bubble filled with water. "And poison?" it asked. "What about weapons that poison the seas? The Chelonians have used these against my people. Are these acceptable?"

Bellarmine sighed with relief. That one was easy. The verse from Revelations went on: "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea."

"Yes," he said, "poison too is allowed."

The fish angel sat down again. A thick-set angel whose skin was covered in spikes stood in its place. "Sun-blasters," it yelled.

"Surely blowing up someone else's sun can't be allowed."

Chapter sixteen, verse eight: "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire." "Yes," he replied, looking the angel in the eye, "yes, it is right and proper."

Instead of sitting down again, the angel began to argue. Five other angels sprang to their feet and began to debate the point with it.

Bellarmine closed his eyes for a moment to gather his strength. He had a feeling he was going to be there for some time to come.

Eternity, perhaps.

The moon was almost full, and its pearly light illuminated the spires, domes, minarets and rooftops of Venice, making them all seem like paintings on a backcloth, close enough to touch.

Galileo stood, hands on hips, gazing out across the sea of architecture. The errant breeze caught a distant s.n.a.t.c.h of song and brought it to his ears. He turned, letting his glance rove across the entire city from Cannaregio to La Giudecca, from Dorsudo to Castello. He smiled as he realized something at once obvious and paradoxical: from where he stood he could see all of Venice, and yet there wasn't a single ca.n.a.l visible. How odd. How very odd.

"If you've quite finished sightseeing," the Doctor said from the room below, "then perhaps you could help me with this telescope."

Galileo bent down and reached a hand through the trapdoor. The Doctor held the telescope up above his head and Galileo took its weight, pulling it through the hatch. He quickly checked it over. The Doctor had done an excellent job of work: his lenses were slightly smaller than Galileo's tube, and so he had packed the surrounding gaps with lead foil from Galileo's wine bottles and then melted wax over them to seal any gaps. The resulting conglomerate telescope wasn't pretty, but it would work.