Doctor Who and the Empire of Glass | Page 7

indicates that this liquid is safe. You may go paddling if you wish." He turned to find Vicki already standing ankle-deep in the water. She smiled apologetically. He frowned and wagged a finger at her. "Foolish child," he chided. "You might have got yourself into all sorts of trouble, and then where would you be, hmm?"
"Sorry, Doctor." Vicki looked genuinely crestfallen. The Doctor turned to Steven. "Salt water but no tides. What does that suggest to you, my boy?"
"No moon?"
The Doctor nodded judiciously. "Yes, or... ?"
Steven shrugged. "Or a lagoon. Is it important?"
"Most instructive, hmm? A lagoon. Yes." A breeze ruffled the Doctor's long, white hair. Steven stared at him, wondering what the old man was getting at. Sometimes, just sometimes, it occurred to him that the Doctor possessed a laser-sharp intelligence that he chose to hide in vague mutterings and abrupt changes in mood and conversation, but most of the time he just thought that the Doctor was a senile old fool.
"Doctor! Steven!" Vicki's voice cut through his thoughts. He turned, crouching, ready to protect her from whatever threat had sprung from hiding, fight any monster that was lurking in the vicinity, but the beach was empty apart from the three of them and the TARDIS. Vicki was pointing out to sea, into the mist. Or, rather, into where the mist had been. The breeze had thinned it out and shredded it, revealing sketchy details of the waterscape beyond. Near at hand there were islands, some barely more than sandbanks with sparse vegetation, some rocky and covered with bushes. Beyond them, scarcely more than a darker grey shadow against the grey mist, there was a city: a fabulous city of towers and minarets, steeples and domes, all seeming to float upon the water like a mirage.
"Ah," the Doctor said, "just as I thought - we've arrived at Venice."
"Venice?" Steven and Vicki chorused together.
"A city built on sandbanks and wooden pilings, just off the Italian coast. It sank beneath the waves centuries before either of you were born. Well, I rather think I know where we're meant to go, hmm? Vicki, my dear, why don't you go back inside the TARDIS and retrieve the dinghy from the store cupboard by the food machine?"
Vicki nodded and, taking the key which the Doctor proffered, vanished inside the time and space machine. As soon as she was out of earshot, Steven turned to the Doctor. "I don't like this. It smells like a trap to me."
"And to me, dear boy." The Doctor nodded. "A trap, indeed. I am in complete agreement."
"And you're just going to walk into it?" Steven said, aghast.
"Whoever gave me that invitation had me in their power, and let me go," the Doctor mused. "If thisis a trap, and it has all of the classic signs, then perhaps we aren't the intended victims."
"No?" Steven frowned. "But if we're not the victims, then what are we?"
The Doctor's bright blue eyes twinkled. "Perhaps we're the bait!"
Galileo Galilei, ex-tutor to Prince Cosimo of Tuscany, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Padua, equal of scholars and natural philosophers and heir to the mantle of Bruno and Brahe, burped and took another swig of wine from the bottle.
Light trickled between the curtains, casting a bruised purple illumination across the strewn clothes, piles of manuscripts and half-eaten plates of food that filled the space in the room. Nearly sunset, then. Nearly time to start work.
That damned landlord had irritated him to the point where he had almost struck the man down. Venice should be paying him to be there, not the other way around. Things would change soon. Oh yes, things would change. All he needed was five minutes with the Doge on top of the bell tower in St Mark's Square, and his fortune would be made. All of Italy - no, all of Europe - would defer to him. The name of Galileo Galilei would resound through the ages.
He staggered across the rotting, creaking floorboards towards the tiny stairway that led upwards, towards the platform on the roof. This place was a death-trap, what with the galloping rot and the rats both competing to see who could gnaw their way through the timbers fastest. One good sneeze could bring the place down around his ears.
Things had been different on his previous visits. He was used to whoring and drinking with Gianfrancesco Sagredo in his palace on the Grand Canal, or debating natural philosophy with Friar Paulo Sarpi in the Doge's Palace. Sagredo was in Syria now, drawing a diplomat's salary and, no doubt, raking commissions off crooked merchants and rapacious pirates. Sarpi, by contrast, was still recovering from the fifteen stab wounds he had suffered during the attempt on his life by agents of the Pope. Galileo had seen the wounds, and was