The Empire Of Glass Part 20

The Doctor smiled at her, and Vicki felt a little glow of triumph ignite deep inside. She certainly hadn't used Shakespeare's words, but the Doctor seemed to think that she had got his sense across.

"A great perturbation in nature," the Doctor proclaimed, "to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and her other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say, hmm?"

Vicki looked for a cue. The Doctor turned his head away from the audience and mimed holding his lips closed. "Why, nothing that I can report," Vicki said quickly.

"You may to me," the Doctor snapped, winking at her in rea.s.surance, "and 'tis most meet you should."

"No," Vicki said firmly, stamping her foot, "I cannot."

Hurried footsteps behind her made Vicki whirl around. William Shakespeare had arrived on stage, still wearing Lady Macbeth's robes and wig but now holding a lit candle, apparently thrust through the curtain by his fellow actors. He glared at the Doctor.

"Look, here he - er, she comes!" Vicki cried in surprise.

"How came she by that light?" the Doctor responded quickly as Shakespeare glanced out at the audience.

"Search me," Vicki muttered when she received no cue from the Doctor.

The Doctor stepped nearer to Shakespeare, who shied away like a frightened horse. "You see, her eyes are open," he said, reaching into his pocket for something.

"Yes," Vicki said, and then when the Doctor mimed waggling a finger at his forehead, added, "but there's n.o.body home."

Vicki heard someone behind the curtain urgently whispering to Shakespeare. With barely concealed ill-grace, the actor began to rub his hands together as if he were washing them.

"What is it she does now?" Taking Irving Braxiatel's amnesia pill from his pocket, the Doctor took another step towards Shakespeare. "Look how she rubs her hands." Catching Shakespeare's eye, he whispered, "Mr Shakespeare, it is very important that you swallow this pill."

"Yet here's a spot," Shakespeare cried, glancing down at his hand and reacting as if he'd seen a spider. Casting a sideways glance at the Doctor, he hissed, "Throw your physic to the dogs, Doctor, I'll have none of it! I have filled my mind with wonders - wonders I shall share with my monarch ere the end of this play."

"Hark, she speaks," the Doctor said, turning to the audience and raising his hands high. "I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly." Turning again to Shakespeare, he whispered, "I implore you, please take this pill.

You cannot understand the damage that will be done if you keep the knowledge that you have stolen. Wisdom must be earned.

Advances in science must be worked for."

"There is no darkness but ignorance!" Shakespeare hissed.

Flicking his hand towards the Doctor, he shouted, "Out, d.a.m.ned spot, I say!" Vicki flinched, waiting for the impact, but none came.

"h.e.l.l is murky! What need we fear who knows it, when one can call our power to account?"

The Doctor interrupted in a low tone. "I must warn you that if you do not cooperate, I may be forced to employ violence!"

"Who'd have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?" Shakespeare shouted, and Vicki wasn"t sure whether he was talking to the audience or warning the Doctor.

Clenching his fists, Steven forced himself to calm down. How could he jam the door open? What could he use? Slowly, painstakingly, he gazed around the cabin again. Everything was fixed down, or moulded into place. Everything was seamless. Except...

Except Marlowe's body. Steven leaped across to him and quickly ran his hands across Marlowe's b.l.o.o.d.y clothing. It only took moments to locate the stiletto that Marlowe had mentioned, strapped to his ankle in a sheath. With a constant countdown running in his mind, Steven leaped back to the control console and jammed the stiletto blade into the thin crack between the hatch control b.u.t.ton and the rest of the console. Sparks fountained and, caught by the air rushing through the open hatch, whirled madly around the cabin.

It would have to do. The skiff was starting to slow down, ready to settle on the landing pad. Without thinking, Steven rushed for the open hatch and jumped. The world outside was a confused blur of green vegetation, grey stone and blue sky. His legs were already scissoring in mid-air, and he hit the ground running. Two of the thin aliens tried to intercept him but, head down, he charged them and knocked them out of the way like skittles. His legs pumped away at the hard ground.

Air whipped at his face and brought tears to his eyes. Marlowe's finely chiselled features and mane of grey hair seemed to float before him as he ran, one eye closed in a knowing wink. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the group of humans appeared before him. Their faces were burned raw and each one had smoke rising from a glowing ma.s.s in his or her chest. They weren't concerned with Steven: he just pushed them out of the way and turned, panting with exertion, to watch as they stumbled towards the skiff.

Steven wiped the tears from his streaming eyes and tried to focus on what was going on. The Jamarians had crowded themselves into the skiff, and had presumably regained control from the autopilot. He saw that the hatch was still open; that was a blessing, at least. One of the Jamarians was tugging vainly at the door when it saw the oncoming humans. It yelled something to its colleagues inside, but too late. The humans reached the skiff. Some of them tried to force their way in through the hatch, and Steven saw the Jamarians' horns plunging into the ma.s.s of flesh to discourage them, but the majority were clambering up the skiff's sides and congregating on its gently sloping top.

A glint of red light in the sky caught Steven's attention. The arthropod was hovering a few hundred feet above the ground, its slowly beating wings illuminated from below by the light of the device it was holding. The device was glowing red as the rest of the pieces of the meta-cobalt device approached.

The skiff began to rise unsteadily from the ground, its hatch still open and the humans all somehow crammed inside and on top.

The Jamarians must have made a decision to evacuate the island and worry about the humans later. Perhaps they didn't know about the bomb.

The skiff began to accelerate. Within moments it would be out of sight, heading for the moon perhaps, or a waiting ship.

The arthropod folded its wings and dived towards the skiff like a hawk, still clutching the device. Within moments it was descending so fast that all Steven could see was an arrow of scarlet light, aimed straight at the heart of the skiff.

The arthropod was still ten feet away from the skiff when the meta-cobalt formed a critical ma.s.s. Suddenly there was no skiff, no winged arthropod, no stick-creatures and no humans - just an expanding ball of light that was so intense that Steven could still see it expanding through his closed eyes...

...And suddenly night was turned into day, Dunsinane Castle was turned into bare boards and a curtain by the pitiless light, and Lady Macbeth's robes were once again just a length of threadbare velvet. The audience rose to their feet and let out a collective gasp of astonishment, as if for a moment they believed this was some effect in the play, some theatrical trick, and not a freak of nature.

The Company of King's Men emerged from behind the curtained entrance - Richard Burbage's mouth was hanging open, while Richard Cowley, John Heminge and the rest were white with shock. At the back of the hall, King James raised his hands and shrank back frightened of a.s.sa.s.sination by witchcraft, while his guards just stood nearby, entranced by the spectacle.

William Shakespeare forgot his lines, forgot the Doctor, forgot even the audience and turned to where the new sun was shining in through the windows of the Great Hall. From the comer of his eye he saw the Doctor step forward. Before he could react, the Doctor had reached around his head and thrown something smooth and rounded into his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but the old man clamped his hand beneath Shakespeare's jaw, holding his mouth closed, then reached up with his thumb and forefinger and pinched Shakespeare's nose. Shakespeare lashed backward with his elbow, catching the old man in the ribs, but those gnarled fingers held on with amazing strength. He reached back to grab the Doctor's ear, but the old man squirmed out of the way. Fire burned in his lungs as he tried to draw breath but couldn't. The pill was a hard, chalky lump in his mouth. Desperately he tried to struggle against the wiry arms that pinioned him, but he might have been encased in iron chains for all the good it did. His lungs laboured so hard that his throat closed up and he could feel the pill being drawn back in his mouth. Flailing with his arms, he did his best to fight his way free of the Doctor's grasp, swinging his body to and fro to dislodge the old man, but it was to no avail. Blackness encroached around the edges of his vision and the hubbub of the audience grew distant, as if heard through several doors.

Finally, able to resist no longer, he swallowed the pill. Instantly the Doctor's hands released their pressure, and Shakespeare sank to his knees, drawing in breath after breath of precious, sweet air. He couldn't breathe in deep enough, and he imagined his lungs swelling, like leather sacks full of water, fit to burst.

The light outside began to fade. Whatever had caused that brief, false dawn had also caused it to withdraw. With it, Shakespeare's false memories began to vanish softly and suddenly from his mind, one by one, like potato peelings washing down a drain. The ores that could be dug from the ground to provide heat and light, if they were treated with care - gone. The weapons that threw spears of light - gone. The devices that could carry messages through the very air itself - gone.

Tiredness drew its cloak across him, and grief for all the things he had lost, and all the things that England could have been but could be no longer. Like a dull actor, he had forgotten his part. The insubstantial pageant faded; he slumped to the bare boards and slept, and did not dream.

The clamour of voices echoed through the Great Hall of Laputa, and Galileo gazed around with something approaching awe at the a.s.sembled envoys. The party was going well, and the wine was the best that he had ever tasted. It was as sweet as honey, but not as cloying, and it had a long, complex aftertaste that put him in mind of nutmeg and vanilla. And even better than the taste was the fact that, no matter how much of it he drank, he wasn't getting drunk.

He raised the goblet to his lips again but missed. The lip of the goblet hit his cheekbone, sending the sweet liquid cascading down his beard. Vicki, in conversation nearby with Irving Braxiatel, saw the mishap and smiled at him. He smiled back. Perhaps he was was drunk, but he wasn't sure whether it was on the wine or on the company. To think that he was celebrating the successful end of a conference of star-people. His life would never be the same again. drunk, but he wasn't sure whether it was on the wine or on the company. To think that he was celebrating the successful end of a conference of star-people. His life would never be the same again.

The things he had seen - the things he had heard! - would lead him on to greater inventions than any man could imagine.

Shakespeare had stolen such information, and it had been taken away from him again somehow, but Galileo didn't need to do anything so clumsy. Having seen these marvels, he knew that they were possible, and knowing that something was possible was half the battle. It might take him years, but he would recreate them and call them his own. His name would go down in history.

Two elderly men clad in scarlet robes staggered past. Blinking, Galileo realized that there was only one man. Perhaps the wine was stronger than he thought. A thin woman whose silver skin seemed to undulate of its own accord was following the man, who turned as if to kiss her. She skipped away, giggling. For a moment Galileo thought that the man was the Doctor, until he realized that it was actually Cardinal Bellarmine, behaving in a most unCatholic way. How could the Church suppress this knowledge, when one of its own most senior Cardinals had seen it all? They had tortured and burned Giordano Bruno to get him to recant the truth, but they couldn't do the same to Galileo. Not now. Not with Bellarmine on his side.

He swigged back the dregs of his gla.s.s, and couldn't help smiling at the taste. If only he could get hold of a case of that wine, he could die happy.

"You like our rakeshla rakeshla?" a voice hissed. He turned, and found a squat figure in leather armour behind him. The creature's potato-like head, which grew straight from its ma.s.sive shoulders, would not have been out of place projecting from the roof of a church.

" Rakeshla Rakeshla - is that what you call it?" Galileo burped, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "It is excellent! Truly excellent! - is that what you call it?" Galileo burped, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "It is excellent! Truly excellent!

Where can I buy some?"

"We do not sell rakeshla," the gargoyle hissed, its lipless mouth stretched into a wide smile. "It is a drink of victory, a drink of celebration with which we of Sontara toast our returning warriors."

"And this -" Galileo waved a hand at the various creatures from the stars that surrounded them. "Do you consider this a victory?"

The gargoyle's entire upper body jerked forward. Galileo reflected that it was probably the only way the creature could nod. "Indeed!"

it said. "The bargaining was hard, but the Doctor was more reasonable than we had expected. A true warrior prefers to gaze into his victim's dying eyes, rather than wipe out a star-system from orbit, and the agreements we have made here reflect that. A good result, for us all." Its piggish eyes glinted at Galileo out of deep-set sockets. "I am Tayre." The creature slapped a hand across its broad chest in salute. "I am Colonel in Chief of the Strategic Arm of the Ninth Sontaran Army. What is your rank and designation?"

"I am Galileo Galilei." He bowed. "I am an astronomer."

Tayre nodded. "Ah, a stellar cartographer. That is good. Accurate maps are a prerequisite for a successful military campaign."

Galileo nodded fervently. "If only more military commanders thought the same way you do." He glanced over at Cardinal Bellarmine, who was entwined with the silver-skinned woman, and said, "Tell me about your world, Tayre. Which sun does it revolve around?"

"None," Tayre replied, "our sun revolves around our home planet."

Galileo felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. "You are mistaken!" he snapped. "That is not possible. Worlds must must revolve around suns. I know it to be so." revolve around suns. I know it to be so."

"Sontarans are never mistaken," Tayre hissed ominously. "We have rearranged our solar system more logically. The Sontaran Imperator decreed it."

"No." Galileo shook his head. "Worlds revolve around suns. I say it is so."

"Are you calling me a liar?" the Sontaran snapped.

"If truth is beauty and beauty truth then your ugliness shows you for the liar that you are." Despite the fact that it was the wine talking, Galileo was pleased with the insult. His pleasure lasted only for a moment, until the Sontaran"s gloved fist smashed into his face.

The TARDIS was where they had left it, on one of the small islands in the Venetian lagoon. Sand had drifted against its base, and dew sparkled on its sides in the early morning sunlight. Steven stepped out of Braxiatel's skiff and onto the pebbly beach. Somewhere above his head, a gull cried out in hunger.

Marlowe was dead. He kept having to tell himself that, because he kept forgetting. Every now and then he would turn around, expecting to find those grey eyes staring challengingly back at him.

But they weren't there. They never would be again.

Behind him he heard Vicki jump into the water with a loud splash.

A few moments later he heard the Doctor fussing: 'I'm quite capable of getting off this contraption by myself thank you."

Why did he feel this way? Marlowe had been a decent enough guy, but nothing special. Steven had seen people he had known for years go crashing down in flames beneath the guns of Krayt battlecruisers and felt less about their deaths than he was feeling about a man he had known for a handful of days. Why? What was it about Marlowe that engendered such... such feelings of regret in Steven? He would probably never know, and the terrible thing was that there was n.o.body else on the TARDIS who he felt he could ask.

Vicki was too young to understand, and the Doctor...

Steven turned around to see the Doctor hobbling up the beach. He smiled when he saw the TARDIS - a small, secret smile that vanished when he noticed Steven watching him.

No. The Doctor wouldn't understand either.

"Happy to be leaving, young man?" the Doctor asked as he approached.

"Ecstatic," Steven said levelly.

A slight cough from the direction of the shuttle made them both turn. Irving Braxiatel was standing in the hatchway. Vicki was on the beach, holding a pebble in her hand.

"Farewell Doctor, Vicki, Steven," Braxiatel said. "I wish I could offer some advice, but too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. Take care of yourselves, and try not to get involved in too many adventures." He smiled lop-sidedly at the Doctor. "After all, you"re not as young as you used to be, eh?"

"Don't patronize me," the Doctor snapped.

"Are you going to be okay here?" Vicki asked. "I mean, what's going to happen to the Armageddon Convention and all that?"

Braxiatel shrugged. "Cardinal Bellarmine has done wonders - better than the Doctor himself, I suspect." The Doctor began to splutter, and Braxiatel raised his voice to cover the noise. "When the party ends, I'll ship all the envoys and their staff back to their ships, and they can all leave peacefully. I've already given Cardinal Bellarmine and Galileo Galilei their amnesia pills and dumped them in Venice, although I had to disentangle them from the Ellillian and Sontaran envoys first. Galileo will blame his lapse in memory on the drink, of course. How the Cardinal will explain it away I don't know."

"Mr Shakespeare has forgotten all about the events of the last few days," the Doctor added. "And the last we saw had been confined to bed with brain fever. King James was slightly annoyed at the abrupt curtailment of the play, but the free firework display outside the Palace mollified him somewhat. And what about you, dear boy? Has this little adventure cured you of the desire to do good?"

Braxiatel nodded. "I'll probably stay on Earth for a while, though: I've been building up a little library of suppressed ma.n.u.scripts which I'd like to find a decent home for. I think I'll stay out of politics and stick to collecting." He waved selfconsciously. "Goodbye," he said. The hatch hummed shut in front of him, and then there was silence for a moment before the skiff skipped away from the island, throwing up regular splashes of water like a pebble skimmed across the waves.

"Show off," the Doctor grumbled, and pulled the piece of ribbon that the TARDIS key was attached to from his pocket. As he fumbled it into the lock, he turned and gazed at Steven. There was sympathy in his eyes, and wisdom, and understanding. "Perhaps we should get you a key as well, my boy," he murmured, too soft for Vicki to hear.

"Thanks," Steven said, surprised at the offer. "But... but why now?"

"Because you've grown up."

The Doctor pushed the TARDIS door open and gestured Steven to enter. Steven nodded briefly, then turned to where Vicki was gazing off towards the sketchy lines of Venice on the horizon.

"Come on, slowcoach," he yelled, "or we'll go without you."

"The first thing I'll do when I get in," Vicki said as she trudged across the sand, "is to have one of those wonderful ultrasonic shower things. I've been dreaming about having one all the time I've been here. What about you, Steven?"

Vicki's head blocked his view of the Doctor's eyes for a moment, and when he could see them again the sympathy, the wisdom and the understanding had vanished, and the Doctor was just a senile old man again. Had he ever been anything else?

"I'm going to the TARDIS library," Steven said softly. "There are some plays I want to read." He gazed out to sea, trying to get one final look at the towers and domes of Venice, but the mist had closed in around the island. It was as if Venice had never existed, and Steven's time there had just been a dream.

He shook his head, and walked into the TARDIS. There would be other dreams.

Flambeaux illuminated the wide thoroughfare, and their glare made it difficult to see down the narrow alley that parted from it like a twig from a tree trunk. Sperone Speroni cursed. The lapping of water echoed back and forth between the alley's walls, and he thought that he could hear a man groaning somewhere in the darkness. "Are you sure?" he asked the Night.w.a.tch guard beside him.

The guard was just a youth, and he was sweating with nervousness. "Yes sir," he said, his voice catching in his throat.

"That's where they are all right."

"And one of them is wearing a Cardinal's robes?" Speroni let the scorn in his voice show.

The youngster quailed. "That's what it looked like to me, sir."

"And the other was Galileo Galilei, who was killed by Toma.s.so Nicolotti yesterday?"

"Yes, sir." The youth's voice was almost a squeak by now.

Speroni rubbed his hand across his bald head. These past few days had been odd to say the least: why should tonight be any different? "Well, let's get this over with," he muttered, and followed the guard down the alley. "I don't know about you, but I'm tired, and I'm cold, and I'm hungry, and I want to go home at some stage tonight."

At the far end of the alley a bridge arced over a small ca.n.a.l. A rat sat on the bridge, washing its whiskers. As Speroni and the guard approached it glanced up and looked them over for a moment before walking slowly in the opposite direction.

"d.a.m.n pests." Speroni spat after it. "d.a.m.ned if I know what's worse; rats or Turks. Well, where are they then?"

The guard pointed to a patch of shadows just before the bridge.

Speroni crouched down and waited until his eyes adjusted properly to the darkness.