The Empire Of Glass Part 18

Marlowe must have realized that Steven was looking at him, for he turned back and winked. He coughed, and a small trickle of blood escaped his lips. Dabbing at it with a handkerchief, he smiled apologetically.

Someone had told Steven that there were twenty-eight miles of ca.n.a.l in Venice. Was he going to have to heave the gondola along all of them before he found what he was looking for?

They were coming up to a large church. The ca.n.a.l split in two, each branch hugging the church's walls, and Steven realized with a shock that its roof was lined with distorted winged figures. They were leaning forward, watching the gondola approach. Desperately he pulled on the oar, trying to turn the boat around before the aliens could do anything, but the figures weren't reacting. As momentum took the gondola closer, Steven saw their grey skin and their smooth, weathered features, and noticed with surprise that some of them were pointing their tongues out at him.

Gargoyles. He relaxed, feeling angry and ashamed at his panic.

They were just gargoyles.

"Saint Stephen's church," Marlowe muttered.

"What?"

"Saint Stephen's church. I thought you might like the irony."

"Yeah, thanks," Steven snapped, "but I've got more things to worry about than a coincidence in names."

Marlowe half turned to stare at Steven, the strain of moving evident on his face. His shirt was a patchwork of maroon and scarlet.

"There's a channel beneath the church," he muttered. "It's navigable at low tide. I think the house we want is on the other side. I remember noticing the church when we left."

Gazing ahead, Steven could just make out an arched entrance in the wall of the church, black against the dark brick. "Is this low tide?" he said. "I can't tell."

Marlowe chuckled. "What have we got to lose?" he said.

Under the disapproving gaze of the gargoyles Steven heaved at the oar, and the gondola sloshed from side to side as they approached the arch.

William Shakespeare leaned back against the blue marble ( a a synthetic polymer lighter than balsa wood but possessing a higher synthetic polymer lighter than balsa wood but possessing a higher tensile strength than steel tensile strength than steel) and took a deep breath. His lungs felt as if they were on fire, and his heart was beating so rapidly that he could hear nothing apart from its hammering. Acid surged into his mouth from his churning stomach and he swallowed convulsively, trying not to throw up. He bent double, hands on knees, the air catching in the back of his throat as he tried to recover. Sweat trickled warmly down his bald forehead and dripped to the marble floor. What a weary reckoning this was. He could hardly move another step, let alone make it to the landing area for the skiffs ( small atmospheric and exo-atmospheric craft powered by small atmospheric and exo-atmospheric craft powered by quantum field fluctuations and capable of flying from England to far quantum field fluctuations and capable of flying from England to far Afriq in a matter of minutes Afriq in a matter of minutes). He needed rest, and no matter that he might be caught by the stick-men before he could move again.

After a few deep breaths the giddy feeling and the sickness in the pit of his stomach pa.s.sed away, and he found that he could straighten up again. A breeze cooled his brow and, gazing around for its source, he caught sight of a nearby window. He staggered closer, braced his hands against the wall to either side of the opening and gulping the pure, salt-tanged air. Barely a few feet below him were the tops of Laputa's trees, and in the distance he could just make out the circle of grey material that he knew must be the landing area for the skiffs. Beyond that, the light blue sky and the turquoise water met at a line directly ahead of him and impossibly distant. Glancing downward he could see the circular shadow of the floating island ( held up by a repulsive force acting held up by a repulsive force acting against gravity and produced by anti-neutrons circling in a distronic against gravity and produced by anti-neutrons circling in a distronic field field) against the white-capped waves. A seagull floated close to the window on steady wings, eyed him for a moment, then glided away. Oh for a horse with wings, that he could fly home to England in safety with his prize.

Still weak, he leaned back against the wall and glanced both left and right. The airy corridor along which he had been running was empty. There was no sign of any pursuers. Now that the rush of blood in his ears had subsided he strained to hear any sound behind him, but there was nothing. Perhaps he had thrown them off the scent with his constant twisting and turning down side corridors and through empty halls.

Shakespeare let the breath whistle softly from his mouth and closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment, and then he would head for the landing area. The marble was cool against the hot, moist skin of his palms, and he could feel the raised golden veins ( quasi-organic structures responsible for maintaining the condition quasi-organic structures responsible for maintaining the condition of the marble substrate and replacing damaged sections of the marble substrate and replacing damaged sections) pulsing slightly beneath his fingers.

Quasi-organic structures? Quantum field fluctuations? Synthetic polymers? What was happening to him?

After the echo of Shakespeare's hurried footsteps and the frantic rustle of the Jamarians' limbs died away, there was silence in the great marble hall for a while. Vicki gazed from Braxiatel to the Doctor and back again, waiting to see which one of them would be the first to speak. Braxiatel was gazing along the corridor, down which Shakespeare and the Jamarians had vanished, with the faintly disturbed expression of a man who had just found a fish in his coffee percolator: The Doctor was smiling superciliously and staring up into the dizzying arches of the hall, and it struck her for the first time how similar the two men looked. Both of them had aristocratic features, and both of them found it easier to look superior than sympathetic.

"Well?" she said when she couldn't bear the silence any more.

"What do we do now?"

Braxiatel's face didn't alter, as if he hadn't heard her, and the Doctor just glanced pityingly over at her, then at Braxiatel, then away again.

Angry now, Vicki turned to where the others were standing in a small group, wondering if one of them was going to suggest something. Galileo was busy gazing around as if he was trying to memorize everything in sight. Catching her enquiring glance he looked over at her and shrugged slightly. He seemed content to take his lead from someone else. It was, after all, not a world that he was used to. Albrellian looked the picture of misery: his leathery wings were folded around his sh.e.l.l, and his stalked eyes had retracted until they were almost invisible. Vicki didn't blame him: his plans to escape had been turned on their head within a few minutes and he had been forced to return to an island that might blow up at any second.

Feeling the anger simmer within her, she turned back to the Doctor and Braxiatel and opened her mouth.

"Well," the Doctor said before she could erupt, "here's a pretty kettle of worms to come to pa.s.s, hmm?"

"Shut up." There was no emotion at all in Braxiatels voice. "Just - just shut up."

"Don't worry, my boy." Vicki could tell from the expression on the Doctor's face that he was enjoying himself immensely. "I've made mistakes of my own, you know. Not of this magnitude, I have to confess, but mistakes none the less."

"I had such hopes for the Armageddon Convention," Braxiatel said quietly, almost to himself. "I actually thought that it might do some good in the cosmos. I see now that I was just being naive. In future I'll just stick to collecting. It's safer and much less trouble."

"Never try to do anybody a favour," the Doctor said. "They won't thank you, and it usually goes horribly wrong." He clapped his hands together suddenly. Albrellian flinched. "We should clear this mess up now, before things slide any further. Mr Shakespeare will be heading for England in one of your vessels to fulfil the mission that he talked about earlier - spying for the King. We must stop him."

"Of course," Braxiatel said sarcastically. "And do we save the meta-cobalt bomb for later? Oh, and what about the rogue Jamarians who are running loose around the island?"

"The meta-cobalt bomb appears to be awaiting a final component,"

the Doctor snapped, "so I would suggest that you disperse the carriers before it arrives. And if you use your control box to send all the skiffs away to the moon then the Jamarians will be stranded here for the time being. Now stop shilly-shallying, and get to work!"

As he slumped down to the floor, Shakespeare's mind was filled with the terrible consequences of what he had done. When he had stood there, listening to the fine speeches of Braxiatel and the Doctor, and Braxiatel's demons, he had grasped one thing: the metal box contained information that King James would want, if he knew it existed. s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his courage to the sticking-place, he told himself that strong reasons made for strong actions, and that things done well and with a care exempted themselves from fear, but his hands still shook uncontrollably when he reached out to s.n.a.t.c.h the box. And now his mind was filled with a whirling ma.s.s of facts, each fighting for his attention, as if some little demon were inhabiting his skull and naming everything he looked at. The worst thing was that he understood it all. It wasn't as if the names and the descriptions made no sense. He knew that a quantum field fluctuation was a process by which an intense gravitational field disturbed the energy levels of a vacuum, causing matched pairs of particles and anti-particles to appear spontaneously. He knew that a laser pistol used light as a weapon by causing the individual photons to march in step, like soldiers around the walls of Jericho.

Each word in each sentence in each description led him into deeper and deeper definitions, until he felt that the world was just a thin tissue of facts, and that there was nothing tangible at all for him to hold on to.

No. There was one thing to hold on to. He had to get this knowledge, this vista of philosophical discovery, back to England.

Shakespeare knew - an intuitive knowledge, not one engendered in him by the control device - that he could change the world. King James' fleets could reign supreme on the ocean with these weapons that he could build, not skulk in fear of Spanish ships.

King James' good Protestant armies could march across Europe, subjugating those in thrall to the Pope. King James' benign, enlightened policies could hold sway across Christendom. If only Shakespeare could get to England and to safety. And the only way to get to England was to steal a skiff.

He knew how to pilot one - the knowledge was there, in his mind, ready to be summoned, like the knowledge of how to bake a cake or build a barn. He didn't even have to think about it - just do it.

The stick-men would be combing the building looking for him, and he was unlikely to be able to evade capture by staying inside the building, so...

Before he could change his mind, Shakespeare clambered half out of the window and twisted around so that his hands were clinging on to the inside of the sill and his feet were projecting out into the void. Sliding his knees backward until he could feel the lip of the outside sill beneath them, he offered a quick prayer to G.o.d, then leaned backward until his knees slipped over the edge and skidded down the outside of the building. His chest thudded against the wall, knocking the breath from his body, and his hands jerked against the inside of the sill. Hanging by his fingertips, he risked a glance downward. His feet were dangling an inch or two from the topmost branches.

Taking a deep breath, he released his grip on the win-dow, and plummeted into the heart of the trees.

"His mission?" Braxiatel was at a loss. "What mission? I thought he was here by accident."

"Mr Shakespeare was sent to Venice because rumours of this Convention of yours had got out. It seems that King James had heard that secret talks were being held concerning military treaties, and had commanded Mr Shakespeare to find out all he could. I suspect that Mr Shakespeare has succeeded beyond his Monarch's wildest dreams, and is taking the information so painstakingly collected by the Jamarians back to England even as we speak. We should intercept him before that information can change history."

"But it won't, will it?" Vicki interrupted. "The people of this time would never be able to build the weapons or the stardrives. They haven't got the resources or the technical ability."

The Doctor glanced over at her. "You forget, my dear," he said, "that Mr Shakespeare will be taking with him one of the vessels that Braxiatel here has been foolish enough to use on a primitive inhabited planet. I sincerely doubt that anybody on this planet could duplicate the technology, even given Mr Shakespeare's newly acquired knowledge, but they can use it. Protestant England is the most religiously rigid country in the world at this point in its history, and they will treat this information as the gift of G.o.d. I would predict that within ten years England will have subjugated most of the world with one flying vessel. Within twenty years Mr Shakespeare's knowledge will be fully written down and widely distributed as being the new Word of G.o.d. Within fifty years there will be an industrial revolution which will place the human race in s.p.a.ce before it has the maturity to know what it is doing. Humanity will be destructive enough when it gets to the stars under its own steam: if it leapfrogs normal progress by three hundred years then it will carry religious intolerance from planet to planet. We cannot allow that to happen."

"Look on the bright side," Braxiatel said, "they might just a.s.sume that he has been possessed by a demon and kill him."

"Given the positive effect that Mr Shakespeare's plays will have on the thinking of humanity," the Doctor mused, "I'm not sure if that wouldn't be worse."

"So how do we stop him?" Vicki asked. "I mean, according to you we can't kill him, so how do we make him forget?"

Braxiatel waved his little control unit at her. "I can use this to move Laputa to England. At full speed we're as fast as a skiff." He reached into his pocket with his other hand and took out a box that rattled when he shook it. "I had these pills ready in case any locals got wind of the Convention. They'll wipe twenty-four hours from the memory of any human being. If you can get one of them down Shakespeare's throat, then we're safe. If not -" he gazed soberly at the Doctor "- then you and I had better change our names and get as far away from here as possible, and pray that our people never ever find us."

The Doctor looked longingly at Braxiatel's control box. "Can I drive?" he asked.

Under Shakespeare's expert guidance, the skiff emerged from the watery depths and hovered a few feet above the surface of the Thames. As the water cascaded from the viewscreen, Shakespeare rotated the skiff. Green fields and hedgerows lay all around, and he felt his heart lift to see the familiar sights of home.

To think that such a journey could be accomplished in so short a time! It had been a bare half hour after leaving Laputa that he had seen England appear on the viewscreen like a precious stone set in a silver sea.

Quickly, he ran his hands across the controls, scanning for signs of life. No boats were within sight, and the proximity detectors could locate nothing more intelligent than voles and foxes within half a mile.

The sunset was the same purple-red colour as it was in Venice, but somehow it was an English English sunset, unlike any other. The water was the same consistency as the rigid, regimented ca.n.a.ls, but somehow it was sunset, unlike any other. The water was the same consistency as the rigid, regimented ca.n.a.ls, but somehow it was English English water: purer and sweeter. He opened the hatch and let the English air drift in, replacing the stink of Venice - water: purer and sweeter. He opened the hatch and let the English air drift in, replacing the stink of Venice - rotting vegetables and ordure - with the familiar tang of woodsmoke and flowers. Shakespeare vowed then and there never to leave again, not for any reason. He would die in England, happy and safe, a playwright and man of commerce, not a spy.

The lights of Hampton Court Palace flickered on the horizon. King James was most likely there with his retinue at this time of year, but if he wasn't then it would only take Shakespeare a few hours to locate him in the skiff. How pleased the King would be. How grateful. A man could retire on the King's grat.i.tude and never go hungry.

Shakespeare was about to steer the skiff across the fields and park it in front of the Palace when a thought stopped him. It would be all too easy for some of the more frightened members of the Court to accuse him of witchcraft. King James's opinions on the subject were well known Shakespeare would be burning at the stake before he could explain that these... these machines machines came from G.o.d, not the Devil. came from G.o.d, not the Devil.

He would be better off appearing on foot and explaining cautiously, with all the skill that his years as an actor had provided him with.

He guided the skiff across the fields to a nearby haystack and left it there, buried in the dry stalks. Before he left, he keyed the security systems to respond only to his voice. Everything about the skiff came naturally to him, just as naturally as writing. He struck out across the fields, taking in the silence, the smells and the sights of home. As he walked, he realized that he was hungry - starving in fact - and he hoped that the King's hospitality would be up to its usual standards. Within twenty minutes Shakespeare was walking past the tall hedgerows that he remembered so well and up to the great double doors. The setting sun cast his huge shadow across the guards as they lowered their pikes towards him.

"I am William Shakespeare," he said, "and I have important news for the King."

The house was in the alley of St John the Beheaded.

"Is this where Irving Braxiatel lives?" Steven said to the servant who opened the door.

"Are you expected?" the servant said calmly. He was dressed in velvet breeches and a white silk shirt with an embroidered waistcoat. His eyes moved from Steven to the blood-soaked Christopher Marlowe, who was slumped with an arm across Steven's shoulders. "I don't - look, just announce us will you?"

Steven snapped.

The servant was imperturbable. "May I ask what the nature of your business is?"

Various possibilities flashed through Steven's mind. He could lie, he could bluff, he could force his way in, or ...

Tiredness washed over him and receded, leaving him shaking. He couldn't be bothered. Marlowe had to be healed, and healed fast.

There was no time for lies. "My friend has been injured in a duel,"

he said finally. "We need help."

"Ah, you're looking for the Doctor," the servant said calmly, opening the door wider. "Please come in."

"Yes, a doctor would be ... What did you say?"

The servant glanced at Steven. "You must be Signor Taylor. I have been waiting for you. My master alerted me to your presence in Venice."

As Steven carried the almost unconscious Marlowe into the richly appointed house, he said, "How did you know that we would turn up here?"

"Where else was there for you to go?" the servant murmured, leading them down a book-lined corridor. "After my master discovered that you had been in the hidden underground room, he suspected that you might return." He turned a corner and stopped by a particularly ornate tapestry between two bookshelves.

"Originally my instructions were to kill you, but he recently changed the word "kill" to "help" after he realized that you were an a.s.sociate of the Doctor." Pulling the tapestry to one side to reveal a metal door set into the brick behind it, the servant pressed a set of b.u.t.tons in its centre. "My name, by the way, is Cremonini." The door slid back into the wall and he led the way down a set of white metal steps. Steven followed slowly, with Marlowe almost a dead weight on his shoulder.

Steven recognized the room as soon as they entered: a white metal box with a wide path around the edge of an empty pool of water and a small control panel set into one wall. As he let Marlowe slump to the path, Steven let out a sigh of relief.

"Your friend is close to death," Cremonini said, kneeling down beside Marlowe and lifting a sodden corner of his shirt. "I do not know much about mammalian physiology, but I do know that much."

"I'm hoping that the Doctor can help," Steven said. "Can one of those shuttle things get us to him?"

"The envoys' skiffs are able to home directly on Laputa."

Cremonini straightened and walked over to the control panel. "I will summon one now." His hands drifted over the b.u.t.tons. "What is that device in the gentleman's chest, by the way?"

"I don't know." Steven slid down the wall until he was sitting with his feet dangling in the water. "But it's been there for a good few years, apparently."

Cremonini turned and looked over at him. "I only ask," he said calmly, "because it looks to me like the fusing unit for a meta-cobalt bomb."

Steven turned to look at him, too tired to be amazed. "Aren't you in the least bit surprised?" he asked.

"I'm a robot," said Cremonini, "nothing surprises me."

A contingent of four guards escorted Shakespeare along the torch-lit corridor. The flickering light made the wood-panelled walls seem to shift disconcertingly, like rippling backdrops. Laurence Fletcher, one of the King's minions, had been despatched to the door to check that Shakespeare was who he said he was, and he now led the way towards what Shakespeare recognized as the Great Hall.

There must be a feast going on, or a great entertainment. He hoped that the King would not take his appearance amiss and upbraid him for interrupting the evening's festivities.

A voice echoed along the corridor towards them from the open doorway of the Hall. A great, booming voice that Shakespeare recognized. It was Burbage's voice. Richard Burbage: Shakespeare's princ.i.p.al partner in the company that had started out as the Chamberlain's Men and had, under James's patronage, become the King's Men.

"Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence," Burbage boomed.

The words struck Shakespeare like cold daggers to the heart.

They were his words. The words that he had written months before when he was preparing the story of Macbeth, who had ruled Scotland six hundred years before according to Holinshead's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. It had seemed to Shakespeare like the perfect subject for a play to put before the King -witchcraft decried, a regicide beheaded and James's own ancestor, Banquo, shown in a good light - but he had fully intended to be there himself and guide the action through the final rehearsals. This was Act one, scene three of the play, in which Macbeth confronted the three witches on the blasted heath. How long had he been away? Had that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Burbage decided to put the play on in his absence? Running now, he outpaced the guards and the royal flunky and reached the open doorway as Henry Condell, playing Banquo, proclaimed: "The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, and these are of them. Whither are they vanished?"

Shakespeare found himself looking across the heads of the seated audience at the stage. It was built beneath the minstrels' gallery out of planks laid across barrels. A curtain draped from the gallery hid the other door from the hall and provided an entrance and exit from the stage. The boards were bare of scenery.

"Into the air," Burbage responded magisterially. Shakespeare could see him and Cordell in their borrowed finery gazing around, looking for the vanished witches. Burbage was as bombastic as ever, looming over the slight Cordell.

Shakespeare found himself torn. One part of him wanted to rush forward and interrupt the proceedings, informing the King of his discoveries from the stage, while the other part wanted to remain in the doorway and watch his play unfold for what was probably the first time in front of an audience.

The decision was made for him when a figure standing by the door noticed him. As it rushed towards him, Shakespeare recognized the lugubrious features of William Sly.

"Will, thank the Lord you are arrived. We had not sight nor sound of you for months!" Before Shakespeare could say a word, Sly was pulling him by the sleeve. "Young Hal Berridge, who was to play Lady Macbeth, was taken ill not ten minutes ago and lies even as we speak in a fever. Will, you must go on in his place!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"Hmm," the Doctor mused, "not a bad piece of piloting, even if I do say so myself."