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meta-cobalt critical mass achieves and a huge explosion there will be - big
enough the island to destroy and kill all the envoys. The Armageddon
Convention a byword for disastrous meddling in other people's wars will
become, and in profit again will be the Greld."
"What... If... Some... Of... Them... Die... Too... Early?" Vicki struggled
to force the words past her numb lips, but she knew that she might never
get the chance to question Albrellian like this again.
"The ability to regenerate flesh and control pain have the
hypnocontrollers. Few injuries would actually prove fatal, and if died a
carrier then the hypnocontrollers to what had happened would alert us. To
wherever the body was would travel one of us, the meta-cobalt and
hypnocontroller would remove and reimplant in another human," Albrellian
said off-handedly. "Everything thought of we."
Vicki opened her mouth to say something, but a wave of darkness suddenly
swept over her. This time she did not dream.
Shakespeare's head was in a whirl as the three of them were hustled along a
path through the jungle by the stick-men. What brave new world could have
such... such creatures in it - more devils than vast Hell itself could
hold? Truly this was all some phantasma, or a hideous dream. A fever-dream,
perhaps, caught from some old salt who had passed him by in the street.
Soon he would wake up and find himself under a table in a tavern in
Cripplegate, or lying on a lawn in Richmond. These things could not be
happening - not in a sane, rational world. There is something in this more
than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
A bony finger poked him in the centre of his back. He turned, and found
himself staring into the mad red eye of one of the stick-men. If it was a
dream, t'were one done well.
The path opened out onto a flat plain of grey stone at the base of one of
the lofty towers. Ferns and trees rose up all around, giving the area a
secluded, claustrophobic feel. A man was waiting for them. He had a lean
and hungry look - although compared to his minions he was positively
Falstaffian - and he wore spectacles. His hair was straight and mouse-
brown, and it fell in a slight curl over his eyes.
"Doctor," he said as the party halted in front of him, "I'm sorry that this
little reunion has to take place in such a manner, but needs must when the
devil drives."
"Braxiatel, my dear chap!" The Doctor strode forward and shook the man's
hand. "Good to see that you followed my example and left them too."
Braxiatel. Shakespeare's confused mind hung on to that name. Kit Marlowe
had used it back in Venice. Braxiatel had been the man whose cellar Kit and
young Steven had investigated: the man whose name the Doctor had reacted so
strongly to. He was obviously a prime mover in this nightmarish conspiracy,
and perhaps a link to whatever negotiations were going on with this
mysterious empire of which Marlowe had heard.
"Oh, they allowed me to leave," Braxiatel replied, "and I've spent most of
my time since trying my best not to follow your example."
"So," the Doctor said, "tell me about these aliens flying around Venice,
and the spaceships you have on the moon."
Braxiatel sighed. "Please, Doctor, not in front of the locals."
"These aren't just any locals," the Doctor snapped. "This is Galileo
Galilei -" he indicated the Italian "- and this is William Shakespeare."
Galileo just nodded curtly, so Shakespeare executed a courtly bow. "I am
honoured, if puzzled, to meet you," he said in a voice that shook less than
he had expected. "My lord and master, King James of England, commends me to
convey his best wishes to you, and bids me -"
Braxiatel dismissed him with a glance. "Did you have to bring them with
you, Doctor?" he said as Shakespeare subsided. "I have been trying to keep
this thing quiet."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Braxiatel. "If you had told me that you
were behind all this," he said waspishly, "then I wouldn't have had to
involve anybody local at all."
Braxiatel sighed. "I did tell you, Doctor," he replied with the air of a
man who has rehearsed the matter in his mind for some time, "but our people
wiped your memory. You were on a mission for them."
"I was?" The Doctor appeared surprised. "How strange. Tell me more about
this mission."
Braxiatel raised a placating hand. "There are rules about this sort of
discussion, Doctor, and we are infringing them merely by meeting like this.
Suffice it to say that our people gave their blessing to my asking you to
chair an arms limitation conference of galactic races here on Earth, and
that you agreed. Unfortunately, your memory was wiped and I've ended up
with another chairman."
"The invitation, of course," the Doctor mused. "It was programmed to bring
me here." He shook his head. "This is all academic. My companion - Vicki -
you have her in safe keeping?"
"I did, but she's been kidnapped again by one of our envoys."
Envoys. Shakespeare held on to that word. There was a meeting going on.
Representations were being made, and he had to make his contribution. He
hadn"t travelled all the way around Europe to be dismissed by someone who
had the lean and hungry look of a man who thought too much.
"That envoy would be Albrellian?" the Doctor asked.
Braxiatel nodded. "Well done, Doctor, you're picking the situation up
nicely."
"And the boats headed towards this island? What of them?"
"I wouldn't worry." Braxiatel glanced at one of the stick-men, who nodded.
"If they are carrying weapons, our security precautions will prevent them
from landing. If not, the Jamarians can frighten them off."
The Doctor raised his head and gazed down his nose at Braxiatel. "You
always were over-confident, Braxiatel, even as a child. The people on those
boats are all suffering from some sort of radiation sickness. Given that
people of this time cannot refine radioactive materials, has it occured to
you they might have been supplied with fragments of some material that is
inert normally, but when brought together in large quantities becomes
radioactive and, when the quantity is large enough, will explode? And has
it occurred to you that such a device would circumvent your security
procedures, because the weapon would not actually exist until the people
all arrived in the same place at the same time?"
Braxiatel, Shakespeare thought, was beginning to look a little pasty.
"No," the Doctor continued grimly, "I don't suppose it has."
"Surely we can't hold a duel in a church!" Steven said, pacing across the
room that the Doctor had been given by the Doge. He passed a hand across
his forehead, hidden beneath the holographic image of Galileo's forehead,
and wasn't surprised when it came away moist with sweat. His first instinct
when Tomasso Nicolotti challenged him had been to steal a boat and head
straight for the TARDIS, but caution had prevailed, and he had sought out
Marlowe for advice. Not that Marlowe was looking too concerned now, as he
lounged against the window frame, paring his fingernails with a slender
knife.
"We can and we must," Marlowe replied. "The Church of San Trovaso lies at
the boundary of the territories controlled by the Nicolottis and the
Castellanis. It's the only neutral place to hold a duel. On the rare
occasions in which a Nicolotti boy has married a Castellani girl, or vice
versa, the two families enter and leave by doors on opposite sides of the
church. Will Shakespeare used the story of one such marriage in his little
entertainment Romeo and Juliet, and I believe that mountebank Francis [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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