Chapter Ten

"It appears to be heading towards Venice again," Galileo said, the brass of the telescope's eyepiece cold against his skin. He looked away from the spinning disc and refocused his eyes on the Venetian skyline: darker roofs and spires against the darkness of the sky. There was the beginning of a dull headache behind his forehead, and creaking pains in the small of his back. He'd spent too long bending over, looking through the telescope, straining too hard to make out details, and he was going to pay the price later. No amount of philosophy, no amount of science, could hold old age at bay.

When he turned back, the Doctor was at the telescope. "Hmm, you're right, my boy," he said, "it does seem that the object in question is getting larger, and not diverging significantly from its flight path. Venice would appear to be its final destination." He straightened up and frowned for a moment. "I wonder," he muttered, "whether it is actually within sight yet." He gazed upwards, along the line of the telescope, his eyes flicking back and forth as he scanned the heavens. Galileo joined him, and together the two men stood in silence, staring upward.

It was Galileo who saw it first - a tiny point of light moving on a steady course. For a moment he thought it was a falling star, but it was travelling too slowly for that. "Look, Doctor," he said, pointing. "There it is!"

"My eyes are perfectly sharp and I can't make out a thing," the Doctor snapped. "Are you sure that your own eyes aren't deceiving you?"

Galileo glanced sideways at the Doctor and smiled slightly. The old man didn't like to be upstaged. Too bad: neither did Galileo. "Yes," he said, "I'm sure. Obviously your own gaze is too rheumy with age to make it out."

"Nonsense." The Doctor huffed and spluttered to himself. "I can see it now. Yes, I can see it dearly." He pointed to where it had been. Galileo pointed to where it was now, and the Doctor quickly shifted his arm downwards.

"It appears to be coming down in the lagoon somewhere," Galileo said.

The Doctor reached into his pocket and brought out a compass. Galileo watched as he fussed around, taking a reading. "We need a second reading," he said finally. "All we can tell from this is that its destination lies somewhere along this bearing. If we could only move half a mile or so and check again then we could determine at what point the two bearings cross, but by the time we get downstairs and across the city it will have landed."

"Give the compass to me," Galileo said. The Doctor frowned and made as if to argue, so Galileo snatched it from his hand and, without stopping to think through what he was doing, ran towards the edge of the roof platform and jumped into space. A sudden dizzying vision of the canyon between the houses flashed past; and then his feet were stumbling heavily upon the roof platform of the widow Carpaccio, who lived opposite. A short scramble up the eaves and down the other side left Galileo perched on a length of gutter. He launched himself across the gap to the next house, and laughed as he landed, feeling like a youth again. He had forgotten how exhilarating it was to jump, to run and not to care about dignity, decorum and pride.

For the next few minutes he forgot what he was doing and why: all he felt was fingers scrabbling at tiles, feet thumping against wood and the coldness of the air whipping past as he sprang from roof to roof. He lost count of the number of times he had jumped, the number of houses that he had crossed. Once or twice he had to go sideways to avoid particularly tall or short buildings, or to detour round churches or empty squares, but he did his best to keep going in the same general direction. Sometimes he could see upturned pink faces gawping from alleys as he crossed, like a thief in the night, and he wondered what the people actually saw. Was it a mysterious shape flying across the sky, or just a portly, middle-aged scholar acting the fool? A few times he heard the rattle of trapdoors or windows behind him as occupiers checked for nocturnal invasions. Once a cat squalled and shot out from beneath his feet, almost pitching him into an alley.

Every so often he glanced up to check the moving star. It was descending slowly but surely towards the horizon, and when it was a mere hand's breadth away from the rooftops he stopped and pulled the compass from his pocket. His body shook as he tried to draw enough air into his lungs to assuage the burning void within him, and he could hardly focus on the compass, but it only took him a few moments to make a reading. As the star vanished behind the rooftops, Galileo felt a wave of elation sweep over him. He could draw a line on a map from where he was to where he had seen the star vanish, and the Doctor could do the same from Galileo's house. Where the lines crossed, that was where they had to go.

Fatigue washed across him then, and his legs almost gave way beneath him. Carefully he picked his way across the roof, looking for a way down that didn't lead through someone's bedroom. His breath rasped in his throat, and he suddenly realized that his back was locked in a solid mass of pain. He was getting too old for this.

They were sitting in loungers out on a balcony, high up on the main central tower of the island of Laputa. Vicki was sipping at a drink that tasted of strawberries and had started off chilled but was now comfortably hot in her hands; Braxiatel was leaning back with his eyes closed, humming to himself. Below, Vicki could just hear the cries of birds and animals in the vibrant jungle.

"That jungle isn't natural, is it?" she asked sleepily.

"That depends on what you mean by natural," Braxiatel said. "If you mean "is it artificial?" then the answer is no. If, however, you mean "is it native to this area of the Earth?" then the answer is also no."

Vicki frowned. "Sorry?"

"I had it transplanted from South America. The vegetation around Venice consists primarily of small shrubs and scrubby olive trees. I felt that the envoys deserved something more picturesque." He shook his head. "No, that's not true. I felt that I deserved something a little more picturesque. That's why I have my living accommodation in Venice - it's much more attractive than here."

Vicki nodded. "It's very pretty."

"Thank you."

After taking a sip of her drink, Vicki said, "Can I ask you another question?"

"Of course."

"What are the envoys doing here? What are you doing here? And what are we doing here?"

Braxiatel opened his eyes and glanced towards her. "That's three questions," he said. "Let me answer them by turning them back on you: what do you think is going on?"

Vicki considered for a moment. "I think there's some sort of conference going on in Venice," she said finally, "and I think you're organizing it. I think you wanted the Doctor to go to it, and I think that Albrellian is supposed to be attending the conference but doesn't want to."

"More or less spot on," Braxiatel said, sliding upright in his lounger. "It's called the Armageddon Convention, and I've spent the past twenty years trying to set it up."

"The Armageddon Convention?" Vicki said, frowning. "That sounds rather... warlike. You don't strike me as the sort of man who would go around arranging armageddons."

"It's a peace conference." Braxiatel placed his hands behind his head and shifted slightly in his lounger. "It struck me some time ago that wherever I went in the universe, there were races who had spent millennia trying to kill each other for reasons that they had probably all forgotten. I thought that if I could get representatives from all of the major races in a room together then -"

"- then you could stop them fighting!" Vicki slapped her hands together. "That's wonderful."

Braxiatel looked downcast. "I'm afraid that's not quite the case. I'm hoping for something much more pragmatic than that. I knew that if I told them it was a peace conference the only races who would turn up were the ones that were losing. There's no incentive for the winners to negotiate."

"So what are you doing then?"

"Limiting the damage." He stood up suddenly and walked over to the edge of the balcony. "The one thing that most races could agree on was that some weapons were just too terrible to consider using - the doomsday devices, we tend to call them. Temporal disruptors, for instance, can rip apart the structure of the universe and set off a chain reaction that might unravel reality, while cobalt bombs are so unpredictable that nobody can tell what the resulting damage might be. The only races prepared to use doomsday devices are the losers - the races who will be completely wiped out otherwise and just don't care about long term effects."

"So this is ... what, an arms limitation conference?"

"That's right. The envoys all have the power to agree that their respective races will stop using certain weapons. The losers give up their doomsday devices in exchange for the winners giving up some of the dirtier weapons that don't discriminate between military and civilian targets. My hope is that by the time they've finished, there won't be very much left for them to fight with." He sighed as he gazed down at the jungle. "I sent out robot messengers twenty years ago with the invitations. The Daleks and the Cybermen refused even to respond, of course, and destroyed the messengers out of spite, but a lot of the other, second-rank races were interested. That was all I got for a while - interest. Nobody could agree on a location or a chairman that they trusted."

"Until you chose the Earth for the location and the Doctor for the chairman," Vicki prompted.

"Exactly," Braxiatel nodded. "The Earth is a developing world with a bright future ahead of it. Within a thousand years or so it will become a dominant force in this part of the galaxy, partly because of its unique strategic position but mostly because of the unique ability of its inhabitants."

"I didn't know that we had any unique abilities," Vicki said.

"You don't," Braxiatel replied, "that's your unique ability. Other races specialize in trade, or warmongering, or shapeshifting. You humans are generalists, and for that reason you can do everything reasonably well, rather than one thing very well and everything else badly. I thought that holding the conference on Earth would remind the various envoys that they were all young and powerless once." He turned to face Vicki. "It's also conveniently placed for everyone, of course, and at this point in its history it's on the verge of mass-producing cheap but effective weapons using a powder that was originally developed for fireworks - a reminder to all the envoys that even the most innocent of research programmes can be perverted to a military end."

"And the spaceships of all the envoys are parked on the moon?"

He nodded. "Less conspicuous that way. We shuttle them down here in spaceworthy skiffs. And, of course, all of the envoys' ships are heavily armed. Most of them brought examples of the weapons that they'll be discussing. It's safer to have them all out of temptation's way. The ships are all empty - the envoys and their crews have all been quartered down on Earth in whatever locations are most comfortable and, by and large, uninhabited. The Ice Warriors have a base near the North Pole, the Krargs are in the Sahara, the Vilp are deep underground and so on. The Greld have been here longest. They agreed on the location almost straight away, twenty years ago, and I had them quartered out in what you would probably know as North America. They've used the time to teach themselves standard Galactispeak, but they can't quite come to grips with the fact that verbs and personal pronouns don't come at the end of sentences. That, incidentally, is why Albrellian is a little... flighty. He's been waiting so long for this convention to start that he's on edge all the time. I think they call it "stir crazy". We've had more problems with the Greld delegation going out formation flying than with anyone else."

Vicki felt herself blushing slightly, and looked away. "Is that why he said... that he loved me?"

Braxiatel was equally embarrassed, judging by his tone of voice. "The Greld are a very... sensuous... race. They take their physical pleasures very seriously, and they're enlightened enough not to restrict themselves to members of their own race." Vicki glanced over to find Braxiatel furiously polishing his bifocals. "There are no female Greld in the delegation, and I've been trying to discourage Albrellian from... from accosting... women of this era, because the women would see it as a visitation from their devil. He's tried it on with several of the other envoys, but they all turned him down. I think having an attractive human female nearby who is intelligent enough not to be scared by him is... er..."

"A turn on."

"Indeed." He looked away. "Not that I'm trying to denigrate your own unique physical attributes, of course. Don't take Albrellian seriously - apart from the way he mangles grammar, he's harmless."

"Thanks for reassuring me," Vicki said. "Can I ask where the Doctor fits into all this?"

"The Doctor was the only person that the major races could agree on as the chairman of the conference."

"You mean they all respect him as a fair and wise person?"

"No, they all hate him equally." Braxiatel smiled. "Actually, that's not quite fair. The Doctor has a growing reputation, but it was what he did with the miniscopes that impressed everyone."

"What did he do to the miniscopes?"

"He persuaded our people to ban their use across the nine galaxies. Miniscopes were a barbaric invention - zoos of intelligent creatures, miniaturized and kept in time loops for the pleasure of other, more "developed" races. The Doctor petitioned for their abolition and our people - for once in their long lives - acted." Braxiatel shrugged. "The Doctor always was one for causing trouble. I, for my part, preferred to keep a lower profile."

"Great." Vicki cocked her head to one side and gazed at Braxiatel. "So you're one of the Doctor's people, then?"

He nodded. "You don't seem surprised."

"There seem to be a lot of you about," she said. "We met another one recently. He was pretending to be a monk in the time of the Vikings. He was planning to give atomic bazookas to some king named Harold. The Doctor stopped him."

Braxiatel nodded. "Mortimus. I heard he headed this way when he left... when he left our planet. What happened to him?"

"The Doctor sabotaged his TARDIS. Do you all meddle this much?"

"Far from it." Braxiatel laughed. "We're the exceptions that prove the rule."

Something suddenly occurred to Vicki. "But if the Doctor's back in Venice and this Cardinal Bellarmine is chairing the Armageddon Convention, shouldn't you be doing something? I mean, like finding the Doctor, or stopping the Cardinal?"

"What's the point? I can't suddenly push another Doctor in there and pretend nothing's changed. Even if I give the real Doctor a hologuise and make him look like the Cardinal, the envoys will realize that something about him has changed - his body language, or the way he phrases things. And besides, when I popped into the conference hall earlier on the Cardinal was handling himself very well. The envoys seem to be listening to him. I don't know what he thinks has happened but the envoys' automatic translators seem to be ironing out anything strange he says, and interpreting his religious pronouncements as best they can. I think..." and he paused cautiously, "that it's working as well as can be expected. The last thing I want to do is to start changing things now" He shrugged. "Of course, this is all their fault. If they had told me that I was talking to a Doctor from a different time stream and that they were going to wipe his mind of everything that had happened during the Omega crisis then I would have chosen a later incarnation."

"A later what?"

"Don't worry about it. The convention is progressing nicely, everyone is happy, and I'm not going to rock the boat. My job finished when the convention started. So, perhaps I can buy you lunch in the refectory, and then I'll take you on a quick tour."

Vicki laughed. "Buy me lunch? I thought you built and ran this entire place?"

He shrugged. "No privileges for the boss. The Jamarians would never forgive me."

"I meant to ask," Vicki said, "who are the Jamarians?"

"I couldn't organize all this without help," Braxiatel said, nodding toward the buildings and jungle of Laputa on the viewscreen. "I needed assistance, and my own race wouldn't cooperate. They gave me their blessing, of course, and they helped me find the Doctor - not that they did any more than they had to on that front of course, like telling me that they were going to wipe his memory just after I handed him the invitation. Oh yes, and they declared this area of space and time closed for the duration of the convention, but apart from that, I was on my own. It was obvious that if I asked any of the galactic powers for help, the rest of them would accuse me of favouritism, so I chose a minor race with no power base, no weapons to speak of and no strategic position in the galaxy. Apart from a tendency towards paranoia and stupidity, the Jamarians are a perfect workforce. Great organizers. They'll make someone a lovely civil service one day." He smiled. "Come on, let's get some food."

William Shakespeare reached out a trembling hand and touched Christopher Marlowe"s shoulder. "I can't believe it," he said for the fifth time that night. "You were stabbed by Ingram Frizer in the house of Eleanor Bull: Walsingham himself told me that Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley were there and saw the whole thing. It was an argument over a bill of reckoning for the fare that you all had consumed. For sixteen years I've believed you dead."

"Marlowe?" The man with Marlowe looked puzzled. "I thought your name was Chigi?"

Christopher Marlowe swigged back a draught of wine and wiped his hand across his mouth. "It is," he said. "A man can have many names during his life, as he has many natures. Once, long ago, I was known as Kit Marlowe to my friends, and as a fiend in human form to my enemies, of which there were many." He glanced at Shakespeare. "Will, this is Steven Taylor, a beautiful lad who has as able a facility at making enemies as I do. Steven, this is William Shakespeare, a playwright of some small repute in London."

"Pleased to meet you," Steven said, shaking hands with Shakespeare.

"We were at Eleanor's house, true, 'tis true," Marlowe said to Shakespeare, "but it was a meeting, not a meal. You know that Skeres and Poley were in the pay of Walsingham?"

Shakespeare nodded. They had all been working for Walsingham: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Skeres, Poley, Frizer and others. Sometimes he had felt that it was difficult to move in London without tripping over an agent of the Government on the lookout for seditious activity or evidence of blasphemy.

"You remember when Thomas Kyd was arrested in April of the same year," Marlowe continued, "he was brought before the Privy Council and accused of writing atheistic and seditious literature?"

"I remember." Indeed he did. Once one playwright was arrested for sedition, the rest immediately reread everything they had ever written, wondering if they would be next to hear the knock on the door.

"Kyd told them that I had written those papers, not he. The Privy Council sought other witnesses: aye, and found them."

"You made enemies, Kit," Shakespeare said. "You had that way about you. After all, you committed -"

"Fornication? Aye, but that was in another country, and besides, the lad is dead." Marlowe smiled. "Not that it mattered. The Queen herself was sent a document part entitled The Most Horrible Blasphemies Uttered By Christopher Marlowe, in which people were prepared to swear that I had called Christ a bastard, Mary Magdalene dishonest and all Protestants hypocritical asses. They also imputed to me the words 'if there be a God or any religion it is the papists.' Now you know me, Will." He spread his hands imploringly. "I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance. Would I, who believed in no God at all, claim that the Pope was God's only messenger?" As Shakespeare shook his head, Marlowe continued: "They were to call me before them to answer for my sins. I would have been tortured and killed. Walsingham was my... my friend, as well as a generous employer. He knew what fate lay ahead of me."

"A fate he might have shared," Shakespeare said, "if he also fell under suspicion."

"Indeed." Marlowe frowned. "He contacted Skeres, Poley and Frizer, and together they concocted the tale of my death. The Coroner of the Household of our Lady the Queen was bribed to pass a verdict of death in self defence. Frizer was not punished in any way - indeed, the Privy Council were very pleased with him for removing me."

Shakespeare's head was awhirl with fragments of thought. He could hardly reconcile sixteen years of belief with what he had just been told. The two contradictory stories sat together in his mind, indigestible and uncomfortable. "I tried to find your grave at Deptford," he said finally, "but it was not marked."

"As befits a man who has no truck with God or with churches," Marlowe laughed. "I am alive, Will. Believe the evidence of your own senses."

"I'm confused," Steven Taylor sighed from the other side of the table.

"But... sixteen years!" Shakespeare breathed. "Where did you go? What did you do? Why didn't you communicate with any of us?"

Marlowe looked away from Shakespeare's accusing, wounded gaze. "Do you remember," he said, "three years before my purported death, I disappeared from London for a year. Nobody could find me."

Shakespeare nodded. It had been a minor scandal of the time. There were many who had believed that Marlowe was on the run from his debtors, or from justice, or both.

"During that time," Marlowe continued, "I travelled to the New World, to the Roanoake colony that had been set up in the land of Virginia by Walter Ralegh."

"Ralegh?" Shakespeare cried. Heads turned around the tavern.

Marlowe smiled at Shakespeare's expression. "Her Majesty was suspicious of Ralegh, believing that he was not loyal to her. You must have known that Ralegh too was an atheist, Will. A group of us used to meet at his house and debate theology. The School of Night, we called ourselves. Not knowing then that I shared his beliefs, Her Majesty instructed me through Walsingham to obtain statements from the Roanoake colonists as to Ralegh's demeanour, and his statements about Her Majesty to them. I had to be seen to go, otherwise I would have been tarred with the same brush as Ralegh. I shall not dwell on the journey, which was long and tedious, but while I was there, the colony was wiped out - attacked by animals the like of which I pray that I will never see again." Marlowe winced, and raised a hand to his head. "Strange creatures of this New World with hard skin, wings and many arms. I was knocked unconscious, and the animals left me for dead. When I awoke the next day, the bodies had gone: eaten, I presumed, or taken for strange, unnatural rites. The colony was deserted. I returned to England on the next supply ship, having survived until then on the dead colonists' supplies and local food, and I reported the matter directly back to the Queen, and to John Dee."

"Who's Dee?" Steven Taylor asked.

"Doctor John Dee," Marlowe replied, "the Queen's personal astrologer. Some of us believed that he had more influence upon her than was entirely healthy. Shortly after that, while wandering around London, I saw one of the colonists from Roanoake! I recognized her, as clear as day, but when I approached her she ran! I swear she fell beneath a brewer's dray and was greviously injured, and yet she climbed to her feet and ran off as if her leg were not bent almost in half."

"Are you -?" Shakespeare began.

"Sure?" Marlowe nodded. "As sure as I am that you are sitting here before me. I told Walsingham the news, and he suggested that I should investigate what had happened to the colony. Shortly after that, I "died"." He laughed. "But I hear you took on my mantle, Will, and discovered Ralegh to be a traitor."

Shakespeare nodded weakly. "Walsingham put me to spy on him. As William Hall I infiltrated his circles and passed reports back. When Elizabeth died and James was made King, ten years after you... after you vanished... Ralegh plotted with various Catholics to kill the King and enthrone his daughter. His plot was discovered, and-"

"Discovered?" Marlowe clapped Shakespeare on the shoulder. "You do yourself a disservice, Will."

Shakespeare shrugged. "No matter. Ralegh was imprisoned in the Tower, and rots there still. But you - where did you go when I thought your bones were rotting in Deptford, done to death by slanderous tongues?"

"In my strange afterlife, the only kind that I am expecting, I have trailed these vanished colonists around the globe - from England to Spain, from Spain to France, from France to Germany, from Germany to Austria and from Austria to Italy, gaining in numbers all the way - until they have all come together here."

"Here?" Shakespeare repeated.

"Venice," Marlowe confirmed. "I have listened to their conversation in taverns and in alleys, and they talk of a conference which is to occur here, one that will concern great wealth and weapons whose like has not been seen before. I know not what is to happen at that conference, and I know not how these colonists from Roanoake are connected to it, but I like it not." A scowl crossed his face, and his fingers trailed through the puddles of spilled wine on the table, drawing patterns. "And I swear that late at night, I have seen a creature akin to the ones that attacked the Roanoake colonists flying above the spires of this fair city. Walsingham having died during my travels, I sent a message back to his cousin telling him of my discoveries. He knew that I was still alive, and he contacted the King. His Majesty, trusting in you, Will, sent you to investigate my claims."

Shakespeare shook his head. He felt as if he had fallen into a fast-flowing torrent of words, and was being dragged along by the current. "Kit, if your story were played out on a stage now I should condemn it as improbable fiction, but as it is you telling the tale, I must perforce accept it as it is. And now I am in Venice, the more fool I: when I was at home I was in a better place, but I suppose travellers must be content."

"What I still want to know," Steven asked, "is what you were doing in that house: the one with the basement and the pool?"

"The lost colonists have been congregating near it," Marlowe replied. "They drink in taverns around it, they lodge in hostels near it and they stand outside it, watching its doors. It has some connection to their presence, and this conference."

Steven looked from Marlowe to Shakespeare and back again. "There's a man I think you both should meet. He's called the Doctor, and I think that he has some pieces of the puzzle that you need."

"And that," the Doctor proclaimed, pointing at an expanse of ocean on the map where two hand-drawn lines crossed, "is where we will find Laputa." He leaned back in his seat and, hands folded on top of his cane, nodded firmly.

Around Galileo and the Doctor, the hurly-burly of the Tavern of Fists carried on as if nobody had been kidnapped, pieces of the moon had not fallen to the Earth and creatures like demons did not stalk the streets and swim in the oceans.

"Let us not extend logic into areas in which it is not comfortable," Galileo muttered. He took hold of the bottle of wine and poured a generous measure into his tankard: then, for good measure, he swallowed the rest directly from the bottle. "We know," he continued after he had wiped his hand across his wine-sodden beard, "that this astral coach has fallen to Earth. We know -" and he indicated the map, "- as best we can ascertain, where the coach came to rest. We assume that at that point is this island of which you speak. We cannot prove it."

"We can prove it," the Doctor snapped, "by going there with as much haste as we can. You forget, sir - my companion is in danger.

""Galileo smiled despite himself and shook his head. "You have gall, I'll say that for you. Old men should be timid and cautious, but you... By God's breath, I like you, Doctor."

The Doctor smiled. "Thank you, Mr Galilei. I shall take that compliment in the spirit in which it was -"

"Galileo Galilei?" a voice said from beside them.

"Not again," Galileo sighed, and turned to see a man of medium height and build standing next to him. The man was unremarkable both in terms of looks and the expression upon his face. "Yes," Galileo said, "I am he. And you are -"

"Your assassin," the man replied. His hand appeared from behind his back, holding a knife, which he thrust toward Galileo's eyes.