The Empire Of Glass Part 19

Galileo gazed at the strange mirror that hung in mid-air, reflecting a view of a river, some green fields and a distant, mist-shrouded red brick house of impressive mien. "And this is England?" he asked. "We were moving for barely long enough to get from one side of Padua to the other by horse, and that at full gallop. He turned to the rest of the group and shrugged.

"This science of yours is marvellous. Not beyond my mental capabilities, of course, but to lesser mortals it must seem like magic"

Irving Braxiatel didn't even spare Galileo a glance. He was standing slightly apart from the rest of the group, quietly fretting.

Vicki smiled warmly at Galileo, and the crab with the red wings just c.o.c.ked an eyestalk at him. That crab fascinated Galileo. Judging by the talk he had overheard it was a denizen of another inhabited sphere, and if so, Galileo had some questions to put to it.

"Yes, this is England," the Doctor confirmed, "and that building is Hampton Court, where we should find both Shakespeare and King James the Sixth of Scotland and the First of England."

"How do you know we're in the right place?" Vicki asked.

"Look," the Doctor commanded, pointing at the mirror. Galileo followed the direction of his finger, and saw a maze of hedges set amid a carefully landscaped garden. "The maze and the Tudor knot garden," he continued. "Did you really think that I would make such a foolish mistake as to take us to the wrong palace? Where is your faith, my child?"

"No, Doctor," Vicki said placatingly, "what I meant was, how do you know that this is where Shakespeare was heading?"

The Doctor gestured towards the mirror with Braxiatel's controlling box. The view s.h.i.+fted in the same manner that Galileo had observed when he moved a lens in a spygla.s.s while still looking through it. So, he mused, this mirror was was just a sophisticated spygla.s.s, tricked up in finery to be sure, but a spygla.s.s for all that. just a sophisticated spygla.s.s, tricked up in finery to be sure, but a spygla.s.s for all that.

The mirror now displayed a stretch of field with a haystack. The Doctor manipulated the image until they were looking straight down on the haystack from above. There was a glint of metal inside.

"The skiff that Mr Shakespeare stole," the Doctor said. "It contains a transponder. We merely followed its signal." He handed the controlling box back to Braxiatel. "Thank you, my boy," he murmured. Galileo strained to overhear. "A wise move, making this Island and all its systems telepathically controlled."

Braxiatel indicated the blue marble hall with a flick of his head. "I didn't want to leave temptation in the Jamarians' path," he said, equally quietly, "but I didn't realize quite how far away from the path they would stray." He hefted the box in his hand. "I should check on the Convention. It's been suspiciously quiet in there."

"Indeed," the Doctor said, nodding, "and Vicki and I will head for the Palace and intercept Mr Shakespeare. May we borrow a skiff?"

"Of course you may. As soon as you leave, I'll send the others away to stop the Jamarians from leaving. We can deal with them later: their plans are scotched anyway, but they're vicious creatures."

The Doctor took a few steps away, then turned back. "Keep a careful eye on those people on the beach," he said. "If the fuse for the bomb turns up, the Jamarians and Mr Shakespeare will be the least of your problems. The death of so many dignitaries from so many opposing races could ignite the galaxy."

"This is odd," Steven muttered, glancing across the skiff's controls, "the automatic pilot is taking us away from Venice. Wherever this island is, it's not where it was, if you see what I mean." He glanced up at the viewscreen, but all it showed was a sky more blue than black at the alt.i.tude they were flying at, and a bright star that must have been Venus.

The skiff rocked slightly as it pa.s.sed through some sort of atmospheric turbulence. The feeling was so familiar that Steven found himself having to choke back a sudden surge of recognition.

He let his hands move across the controls: not adjusting or pressing anything, but just happy to know that he could if he wanted to. It had been so long since he had flown a s.h.i.+p of any sort that he had almost forgotten how it felt. The years seemed to slough away from him, and he was eighteen again, piloting his fighter into combat with the Krayt. His fingers twitched as he fired imaginary missiles and avoided non-existent laser blasts.

A groan from behind him broke the spell of memory, and he was once again sitting at the controls of an automated skiff, heading G.o.d knew where. He turned to where Christopher Marlowe was laid out across a couch at the rear of the cabin. Marlowe's grey, ironic eyes were fixed on Steven's face.

"Not much longer now," Steven said. "Just... just hang on. The Doctor will be able to help."

Marlowe shook his head. "No, young Steven," he murmured. A great cough racked his body, and sent fresh blood spilling down his chin. "And now doth ghastly death, with greedy talons, grip my bleeding heart. My soul begins to take her flight to h.e.l.l, and summons all my senses to depart."

"Can't you just shut up and rest?" Steven yelled. Marlowe didn't reply. He just kept on staring at Steven, a slight smile on his face.

Another slight atmospheric buffeting tilted the skiff to one side, and Steven leaned the other way to compensate. Marlowe's eyes didn't move: staring now at an empty bulkhead.

"Marlowe?" Steven could hear the rising panic in his voice, but he couldn't quell it. "Marlowe, talk to me!"

But Marlowe was dead.

As the Doctor and Vicki vanished through a nearby arch, Braxiatel pointed the box at the mirror. The view s.h.i.+fted again to show a conference chamber that looked to Galileo remarkably like the one he usually lectured in at the University of Padua. Creatures of different aspects and visages lined the seats around the steep walls. Rather than nausea or shock, Galileo felt a sudden and completely unexpected wave of nostalgia wash over him. It took a few moments to work out why, and then he smiled as he realized that the creatures reminded him of nothing so much as the masks and costumes that the Venetians wore during Carnival time.

A man who, at a pa.s.sing glance, resembled the Doctor stood at a lectern in the centre of the chamber. He appeared to be moderating an argument: several of the creatures were on their feet - or other appendages - and shouting at him. He was smiling.

"Is that Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine?" Galileo asked.

"Yes," Braxiatel replied. "Why, do you know him?"

"Our paths have crossed."

"He thinks he is dead," Braxiatel said.

Galileo smiled slightly. "If only he would stay that way," he muttered.

Braxiatel adjusted the virtual screen to show the beach on Laputa where the humans with the - what had the Doctor called them? - the meta-cobalt fragments had gathered. The sun had set, but the moon was casting its sterile light across the sand. The humans were all huddled together now in one huge ma.s.s of flesh and clothing from which limbs stuck out in odd directions and the occasional blistered face peered blindly at nothing.

Braxiatel sighed and turned to where Envoy Albrellian was slumped on the floor. Galileo was astonished to see him kick Albrellian's sh.e.l.l as hard as he could. The envoy rocked backwards onto his rear set of legs. "Envoy Albrellian! Will you please pull yourself together!"

The arthropod stirred, and extruded an eyestalk. "The point what is?" he said. "As soon as the fuse arrives, all doomed are we."

"Well," Braxiatel said grimly, "it's possible that the fuse is going to turn up late, rather than not turn up at all. We need to get these people off this island and separated as soon as possible. With the Jamarians gone after Shakespeare we haven't got enough muscle to accomplish it ourselves. Can we use the device you called them all together with to split them up again and move them off the island?"

Something moving in the depths of the mirror attracted Galileo's attention. "Forgive me for interrupting this fascinating, if incomprehensible, discussion," he said, "but it would appear that one of your celestial chariots is on its way back to the island."

Shakespeare stepped from the curtained booth onto the stage. His legs shook with strain, and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. The hand holding the letter -just a sheet of blank parchment, but the audience wouldn't be able to tell from that distance - shook so hard that, had anything actually been written on it, he would have been hard pressed to read it. The flickering torches illuminated the audience of a.s.sorted n.o.bility and courtiers who sat on the hard benches out in the Great Hall. On a raised dais at the other end were two rows of padded seats, and in them sat King James and his Danish wife, Queen Anne, along with a few favoured friends such as his astrologer, Doctor John Dee.

James's sallow, bearded face was enraptured by the action on stage, and Shakespeare felt a little tingle of pride run through him.

The King was wearing a doublet that was padded so heavily against knife thrusts that his head and arms looked ridiculously small sticking out of it. His tongue - too large for his mouth, or so the gossip ran -protruded slightly from between his wet lips.

A slight ripple of eager interest ran through the audience as they recognized Shakespeare standing there in the robes of a lady. The noise roused Shakespeare from his trance, and he raised the parchment as if to read from it. Desperately he tried to recall the words that he had so carelessly dashed off all those months ago.

What was he supposed to be doing? Macbeth had met with the three witches who had told him that he would be King, and he had sent a letter to his wife. This was the scene where Lady Macbeth read her husband's letter and realized that, for Macbeth to be King, the present King had to be murdered.

"They met me in the day of success," he said, his voice hesitant, "and I have learned by the perfectest report that they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished..."

James was nodding now, a thin line of saliva glistening on his chin.

The play had been written for him and him alone, pandering to his hatred of witchcraft and his fear of a.s.sa.s.sination.

"While I stood rapt in the wonder of it," Shakespeare continued, "came missives from the King -"

He stopped, for the doors at the rear of the hall, behind the dais, had opened, and two figures had entered. Two familiar figures.

It was the Doctor and his companion, Vicki.

Braxiatel dragged his mind away from thoughts of impending destruction and glanced over at the virtual screen again. A silvery disc was spinning rapidly towards the island. Quickly he manipulated his control box with his fingers and his mind, and the view s.h.i.+fted to the landing area, where he was unsurprised to see a group of slender silhouettes standing and arguing. Two of them were engaged in shoving each other back and forth across the pad, and the whole thing looked as if it might degenerate into a fight. "There's trouble in the ranks," he said.

"Do I take it that your plan was for those creatures to be stuck here?" Galileo asked.

"It was," Braxiatel replied. "That's why I sent the other skiffs away.

One problem at a time, I thought - sort the bomb out first and deal with the Jamarians at my leisure - but if they hijack that skiff from whoever is piloting it, we're finished." His fingers and his mind played across his control box. "And unfortunately whoever is piloting that skiff has set it on automatic homing mode. I can't override it until it arrives."

"And is there any way of determining who that pilot is?" Braxiatel thought for a moment, then touched a stud on his control box and caressed it with a thought. The virtual screen blurred, then cleared to show the padded interior of the skiff. A dark-haired, square-jawed man wearing a brown, embroidered jacket was sitting at the controls with his head in his hands. Braxiatel, unsure whether the man was a native of Venice or a companion of the Doctor, set up a two-way channel directly to the viewscreen in the skiff. Before he could say anything, the man looked up.

"Are you Braxiatel?" the man asked. There was despair in his eyes.

"I am," Braxiatel replied. "And you are?"

"Steven Taylor. Is the Doctor with you?"

"Not quite. He's -" Braxiatel suddenly noticed the body slumped behind Steven. "Who's your friend?"

Steven grimaced. "His name is - was - Christopher Marlowe. Look, there's some kind of metal device in his chest. I don't know what it is, but it's been getting warmer as we've been getting closer to the island."

Braxiatel suddenly felt very old and very tired. "The fuse," he muttered, "it had to be, of course. When things can't get any worse, they always do." He rubbed a hand across his forehead, and was about to say something when Envoy Albrellian pushed him to one side.

"The hatch open, then the meta-cobalt fragment from the man's chest try to remove," he said, the ruff of hair around his eyes fluffed up with some strong emotion. "To join you flying out am I.

One chance to wrap this whole thing up, and one chance only, have we." Turning to Braxiatel, he said, "A lot of your problems caused I, and sorting them out intend I. The hypnocontroller to get the humans with the meta-cobalt fragments to the landing pad will use I. When the skiff lands, Jamarians on board let must you."

"You mean, let them escape?" Braxiatel snapped.

"That is exactly what mean I."

"What do we do now?" Vicki hissed.

"A very good question," the Doctor replied. Vicki watched as his gaze flickered around the torch-lit Great Hall, taking in all the pertinent details. On the stage at the end of the room actors were entering, shouting their lines and exiting again as fast as they could. The whole thing seemed to her to be taken at breakneck speed. Vicki was used to more refined entertainment: she knew that Shakespeare was meant to be a great playwright, but she couldn't follow what was going on at all.

The Doctor's gaze seemed to have halted on a figure sitting on a dais nearby; a tall, cadaverous man who wore black robes.

"Is that the King?" she asked.

"No," the Doctor murmured, "the man wearing what looks like a large eiderdown is the King. I don't recognize the man in black, but I have a terrible feeling that I should." He shrugged and glanced towards the stage. "No matter. I am familiar with this play, and they appear to be coming to the end of act four. We have to get that amnesia pill into Mr Shakespeare soon. The longer we leave it, the greater the chance that he will spill the beans, as it were."

"I'm surprised he hasn't already." Vicki looked at the stage, where Shakespeare"s face could just be seen peeking at them through a gap in the curtain at the back. "If I was him, I'd have made a bee-line straight for the King."

The Doctor shook his head. "Interrupting the King's entertainment is as good a way as any to obtain a long-term room in the Tower of London. James was never noted for his tolerance. And, as I recall, there was a story put about by a writer somewhat after Mr Shakespeare's time that Shakespeare was called on stage to replace a dying actor during the first performance of this very play."

He beamed. "A fortuitous coincidence, and a provoking thought. It gives me hope that somebody up there likes me."

Vicki glanced up at the empty gallery above the stage. "Somebody up where?"

The Doctor didn't reply. Vicki turned, and found that she was alone. The Doctor was striding down the aisle along the side of the hall towards the stage, for all the world as if he intended to get up on stage himself.

Steven watched on the skiff's viewscreen as the island of Laputa grew slowly larger. Whoever had piloted it had set it down in the middle of a wide stretch of river, and from above Steven could see the river's currents building up silt around the island as they tried to force their way past its bulk. By the light of the full moon the landing pad was a grey circle in the middle of green trees and bushes, and to one side of it a series of impressive buildings cast pointed shadows across the banks of the river.

A small shape was flying up towards the descending skiff. Its powerful wings beat mercilessly at the air, and Steven could tell that it was tiring. He had never seen a creature like it before, but he recognized Marlowe's description. It was one of the creatures that had attacked the colony in New Albion, although Steven a.s.sumed from Braxiatel's words that it was on their side. There was a lot about this whole situation that he did not understand.

As the creature laboured towards the skiff, close enough now that Steven could see the ruff of hair around its eyestalks flattening in the rush of air, he opened the hatchway. The skiff rocked slightly as the airflow around it changed, but continued on its stately course. There was something terribly preordained about the slowness of that descent. Steven knew that it was probably a preprogrammed speed set for safety reasons, but it seemed to him that the skiff knew about the coming explosion, knew that there was no way of stopping it, and was deliberately prolonging the tension.

He moved back into the central section of the skiff and bent down by Marlowe's side. The playwright's eyes were open, but the devilish gleam had gone. Steven reached out and ruffled his hair.

"Goodbye, friend," he murmured.

The skiff lurched to one side, and Steven turned to the hatchway.

The arthropod was pulling itself in, and having to turn sideways to get its sh.e.l.l through the narrow opening. "The meta-cobalt fragment out yet have not got you?" it asked as its wings furled beneath hinged sections of its sh.e.l.l. "A minute or so before this thing lands have only got we, and then finished are we."

"Look," Steven shouted, suddenly furious, "he was a friend of mine, and you desecrated his body twenty-two years before he died. He gave his life to save me. Haven't you got any decency at all?"

"None," said the creature, and reached forward with a claw. Before Steven could react it had pushed into Marlowe's chest and taken a firm grip on the metal device. "Not too late we are hope let us," it said, and pulled. The device came free with a sucking sound, like a foot being pulled out of mud, and Steven winced. It was a sphere, about the size of his fist, incised with symbols, and it seemed to be glowing. "Satisfy my curiosity," the creature whistled. "To the hypnocontroller in his head what happened?"

"Removed by a surgeon after a sword fight," Steven replied tersely.

"Because of a series of stupid little incidents, the best laid plans come to nothing of Jamarians and Greld. If that hypnocontroller still had he, at the island with the rest of them turned up would he have, the bomb gone off would have and happy everyone would have been. Or dead. There must have been some influence left, though, because to Venice at the right time did actually get he."

The creature scuttled towards the hatchway, then turned an eyestalk back over its sh.e.l.l to regard Steven. "When this thing lands, as soon as possible get out must you," it said. "Because one large explosion soon afterward will there be. Oh, and make sure the hatch so that it can't be closed before you go fix you. My hypnocontroller to order the humans carrying the meta-cobalt fragments to congregate on this s.p.a.cecraft have used I."

"You want me to what what?" Steven yelled, but he was too late. The creature jumped out into the air, still clutching the device. Steven saw its wings open wide, catching all the air they could, and then it had soared away out of sight. Turning his attention back to the landing pad, he saw that they were only a few hundred feet away and descending slowly. A group of painfully thin aliens with horns were gathered waiting for it, and beyond them a shambling ma.s.s of humans was heading for the touchdown point. Steven quickly ran his hands over the controls, looking for some way of fixing the hatch fully open, but he could see nothing that might help. Turning, he gazed around the cabin, hoping against hope that there might be something lying around that he could use. Again: nothing. He glanced back at the screen. Fifteen seconds perhaps to touchdown. He was close enough to see the mad gleam in the eyes of the thin aliens, and the melted eyes of the oncoming humans. He glanced frantically around, but there was nothing, nothing nothing, that would do any good. Whatever plan of Albrellian's depended on the hatch being open was doomed to failure, and that meant they were all doomed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Vicki raced down the aisle of the Great Hall after the Doctor, aware of the ripple of attention that they were attracting.

A small, broad actor was just saying, "The night is long that never finds the day," as the Doctor reached the stage. He turned towards the curtains, then turned back and cast a puzzled glance towards the Doctor, who was clambering up onto the stage.

Vicki reached the stage herself in time to hear the actor hiss: "You can't come up here! We're in the middle of the play!"

"I am a friend of the King," the Doctor snapped, low enough that n.o.body in the audience could hear him, "and he will be most displeased if I am not allowed to partic.i.p.ate in this little production."

The actor cast a worried glance towards the back of the hall, then exited rapidly through the curtain. Vicki a.s.sumed that he would be discussing the situation with the other actors. From behind, she could hear people in the audience whispering to each other. The Doctor turned magisterially, hooked his thumbs beneath his lapels and gazed down his nose at them. "I have two nights watched with you," he said loudly, his voice echoing around the hall, "but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked, hmm?"

There was silence. Vicki risked a glance at the audience, and saw that they were rapt with attention, all eyes fixed on the Doctor.

"I said I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it that Lady Macbeth last walked in her sleep?"

There was some commotion behind the curtain, but n.o.body was coming out on stage. Impulsively, Vicki scrambled up on stage to join the Doctor. He smiled at her in approval, nodded towards the King and made walking movements with the fingers of his left hand out of sight of the audience.

"When the... the King... er... left," she said haltingly, watching as the Doctor made a rising gesture with his hand, "I saw her...

rise?..." He nodded, and made an unlocking motion. "... Unlock her... her closet..." As she became more practised at interpreting what the Doctor was trying to convey, her voice gained confidence and she started playing to the audience. "She got some... some paper and wrote on it, then she read it, and... and then she got back into the bed, and all the time she was still asleep!"