Chapter Eleven

The curious noises of the various envoys eating reverberated through the marble hall, making thought difficult and conversation nearly impossible. Near where Vicki was sitting waiting for Braxiatel, an eight-foot tall ferret was pulling live rodents from small plastic boxes and letting them run, squealing, across the table before snatching them up and swallowing them whole. Compared to them, Albrellian and his group of Greld at the next table were the models of decorum, although the slurping sound of their extendible mouthparts as they sucked the juices from small, anemone-like objects was a trifle obtrusive.

"And when did you die, my child?"

Vicki looked up from her food to find an elderly man smiling down at her. For a moment she thought it was the Doctor come to rescue her, and she smiled in relief. It took her a few seconds to realize that, apart from the long white hair and the angular features, the man looked nothing like her mentor and protector.

"You must be Cardinal Bellarmine," she ventured, the smile fading from her face. Glancing around, she spotted numerous empty places at the tables in the refectory. Of all the places he could have chosen to sit... and there was no sign of Irving Braxiatel with their food.

"Indeed I am," Bellarmine confirmed, carefully placing his tray on the table and sitting down opposite her. "And I am relieved to find another person here who isn't an angel." His gaze nickered across to the group of Greld, whose voices were beginning to raise in argument. He frowned slightly. "You're not an angel, are you?"

Vicki shook her head. "I'm as human as you are."

He pursed his lips. "No my dear, we were human. Now our souls are with God. When did you die?"

"I'm not -" Gazing into Bellarmine's eyes, Vicki suddenly noticed the wild gleam of barely suppressed hysteria. The Cardinal had built himself an entire edifice of fantasy and was doing his best to cram the facts into it. He must have known by now that he wasn't in Heaven, but any other explanation would have driven him mad. "I'm not sure," she continued. "It's all very hazy."

"Indeed." He picked up an implement that looked something like a half-melted fork. "As it is with me. Heaven is so -" he shrugged helplessly "- confusing. I confess, some of the discussions I have been mediating today have been completely beyond my understanding."

"You seem to be doing okay," Vicki said. "I hear the talks are going well."

Bellarmine took a mouthful of food, and chewed it cautiously. "It had never occurred to me," he said, "that we would eat food in Heaven."

Vicki was about to make some anodyne reply when she suddenly caught a snatch of the conversation from the table of Greld nearby. "- All promised to die, have we Albrellian," one of the Greld was saying, "all of us. And now trying out of your word to wriggle are you -" The rest of the arthropod's words were obscured by a particularly loud squeal from the eight-foot ferret-like envoy nearby. Albrellian was replying, but all Vicki could hear was, "- have changed! About the Doctor and his companions did not know we -" The rest of the group obviously disagreed with him, because they were shaking their bamboo-like limbs violently. "For the sacrifice should be prepared you!" one of them shouted, its voice cutting through the din. "To die with the rest of us should be prepared you, but too scared are you. Cannot now run out on us, just when together are coming carriers!"

Albrellian tried to quieten down the argument while two of his eyestalks rotated to see whether anybody was listening. Vicki quickly stared down at her plate, but she was sure that Albrellian had seen her. After a few moments, she looked up. Albrellian was still staring at her. She smiled hesitantly, and he finally looked away.

"Is something wrong, my child?" Bellarmine asked, concerned.

"I don't know," she replied. "I really don't know."

"Let's go through this one more time," Sperone Speroni said wearily. "Starting from when the coach stopped."

The flickering torchlight emphasized the haggard face of the soldier sitting opposite him. The man's eyes were wide, as if he had been drugged, and a muscle in his cheek was twitching. He was gazing at a point somewhere over Speroni's shoulder. "angels of the Lord descended from on high and took Cardinal Bellarmine from us," he whispered. "They were beautiful, and the sound of their voices was like honey in my ears."

Speroni ran a hand across the stubble of his scalp, wishing he was back in the Arsenale, hammering planks of wood together and watching a ship's hull take form in front of him. Not sitting in a stuffy, torch-lit room, listening to the ravings of a madman. "Now how many of these angels did you say there were?"

The soldier's eyes flickered suspiciously toward him. "You don't believe me," he said. "You think I'm touched by the sun, or drunk!"

Speroni shrugged. "You say this happened last night? On your way to Venice?" The soldier nodded, and Speroni continued: "Well, I don't know who you had in the coach, but Cardinal Bellarmine has been a guest of the Doge here in Venice for the past few days, and the only incident that he has been involved in to my knowledge has been an attempted abduction by Turkish spies."

The soldier's gaze had strayed to a point above Speroni's head, but from the vacant look in his eye Speroni guessed that he wasn't seeing the wall, but something else entirely.

"They were beautiful," the soldier said.

"Then they can't have been Turkish spies," Speroni said. "And, as far as I am aware, no heathen Turk has ever been described as having a voice like honey." He shook his head, and wished to God that he might wake up and find that, the past ten years had been a dream, and he was making warships in the Arsenale again. Anything but this. Anything but this.

As the knife plunged toward Galileo's eyes, everything seemed to be happening slowly, as if he, the assassin, the Doctor and everybody else in the Tavern of Fists were moving through water, caught in weeds. He could see the way the light gleamed off the blade - the curiously pristine blade - and reflected on to the wine bottle, casting a red glow across the Doctor's face. He could see the way the assassin's face remained calm, and the way the shadows on his face didn't seem to match with the way the sunlight was streaming through the windows. Motes of dust spun slowly through the beams of sunlight, which themselves seemed almost solid enough to support the weight of the wall. Nothing mattered - time was as massive and as immobile as a cathedral.

And then time speeded up, and the knife was hurtling towards him, and there was nothing he could do but die.

The Doctor's arm suddenly lashed out. His cane thudded home into the assassin's stomach - deep into the assassin's stomach - and the man bent double with a curiously high-pitched retching noise. Without conscious thought Galileo leaped to his feet, grabbed the wine bottle and brought it crashing down on the man's head. Shards of glass exploded across the table and surrounding floor and the assassin fell heavily along with them. The impact shook the boards of the floor. The patrons of the tavern moved back a few feet and, for a moment, the normal hubbub was stilled. But only for a moment.

"Let's get out," Galileo said, "lest the Nicolottis send another of their paid men after me. They will never believe that I didn't poison that young cur. My life in Venice is not worth a holed florin now. The Doge will never -"

"I think," the Doctor said, kneeling down beside the figure, "that this... man... was not sent by any human agency."

"What do you mean?" Galileo gazed wildly around. "Of course he was. The Nicolottis want revenge. It's as plain as the nose on your face."

The Doctor reached out to touch the stunned assassin's back, and Galileo gaped as the Doctor's hand seemed to plunge through the man's clothes and skin up to the wrist.

"I... I don't..."

"No," murmured the Doctor, "you probably don't." He twisted his invisible hand, and with a sound that reminded Galileo of the cheep of a bird, the assassin's body shimmered and vanished. In its place was a figure so thin that it could have been built out of the branches of a tree. Its skin was blue and glossy, covered in wart-like bumps, and from its head there sprouted a horn fully a foot long that had been broken in two by the wine bottle. It moved weakly, trying to rise, but its twig-like fingers kept slipping on the wine-soaked floor.

The Doctor's hand was resting on a small device of bright metal that was attached to the creature's belt. "As I suspected," he said, "a hologram generator. Did you notice the way the shadows on its face didn't accord with the direction of the sunlight? I do believe that this attempt upon your life was something to do with Envoy Albrellian, and the island of Laputa. And there, of course, we will find all the answers we seek." His nimble fingers undid the buckles that held the metal device. Pocketing it, he stood up. "I think we should follow your most excellent advice, and make ourselves scarce."

"But what about...?" Galileo pointed to the creature, unable to finish his sentence.

"Oh, there will no doubt be some consternation when it is noticed, hmm?" the Doctor said, "but I'm sure it will manage to make its escape." He walked quickly towards the tavern door. Galileo followed, pausing only to take a half-empty bottle of wine from a table as he passed. A commotion arose behind him as he emerged from the tavern into the bright sunlight by the side of a canal, but he couldn't tell whether it was because the creature had been noticed or because he had taken the wine. As he stood squinting beside the canal, a man in fine velvet clothes walked up to him. "Galileo Galilei?" he said.

Galileo tensed. The Doctor turned, his cane half-raised.

"Doge Leonardo Donà sends his apologies for the delay. He will see the most excellent device of which you spoke tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

The man turned on his heel and was gone. Galileo turned to gaze at the Doctor.

"It never rains," he said, "but it pours."

"Doctor?" Steven pushed the doors wide open and glanced around the rooms in the Doge's palace that had been assigned to the three travellers. "Doctor, are you there?"

Nobody answered. A stray breeze from the window fluttered the corners of the tapestries and, outside the window, the voices of the crowd melded together into an incessant buzz. There was no sound from anywhere in the suite of rooms. The Doctor wasn't there.

Steven hadn't been with the Doctor long, but he knew that his mysterious companion was very rarely silent. Whatever he did was accompanied by a constant stream of "hmm?"s, "hah!"s and subvocalized murmurs. The Doctor seemed incapable of doing anything in silence.

Behind Steven, Marlowe and Shakespeare entered the room.

"Very impressive," Marlowe said appreciatively. "I would swear that even the palace of Good King James himself could not rival this for splendour, eh Will?"

Steven glanced back to see Shakespeare looking around the room. "Indeed not," the playwright said morosely. "Mostly the palace's walls are bare, these days, and we perform in draughty halls to an audience so muffled in robes and coats that they can barely make out what we are saying."

"Times are harsh then?" Marlowe clapped a hand on Shakespeare's shoulder. "Word reached me that purse strings were being tightened and bellies were rumbling, but I put it down to jealousy and the tendency of all foreigners to malign our fair country."

Shakespeare shrugged. "The web of our life is of mingled yarn: good and ill together. I shall not complain. Good King James is a fair patron and a bonny monarch, but his largesse might lead one to believe that he had access to a dragon's hoard. In his first year as monarch he made nine hundred knights of his friends and would-be friends. He gives them money, and favours, and all manner of privileges. A while ago one of his advisers, distressed at the flow of money from the King's coffers to the pockets of his favourites, ordered the latest round of 'gifts' to be counted out before the throne, coin by golden coin. It took three hours." As Marlowe chuckled, Shakespeare continued: "It helped, but not for long. Money is flowing from the Treasury as blood flows from a man with a cut throat."

"Can we cut the reminiscences?" Steven snarled. "I know you two guys have got a lot to catch up on, but we need to find the Doctor. He has to know what you've both told me."

"And what is that, hmm?" a voice said from behind them all. Steven blinked, surprised, as the Doctor swept into the room. Reaching the centre of the room he turned to face the group. His face was imperious, and the light from the window back-lit his head, turning his long white hair into a glowing halo. "Now, before you say anything, I have something to tell you all, and it concerns -" He paused, and glanced from Marlowe to Shakespeare and back again. "Steven, who are these companions of yours? I hope you haven't been wasting time while Vicki is undergoing heaven knows what ordeals in drinking and carousing with disreputable companions?"

"Sorry?" Steven asked.

"I asked you -" He stopped and glanced to Steven's side. "Surely you are William Shakespeare, are you not?" he enquired.

Shakespeare bowed low. "Honoured to make your acquaintance, sir," he murmured. "And doubly honoured that you know my face, when I do not recall ever having met you. Although -"

"Yes?" the Doctor said.

Shakespeare frowned slightly. "You do not have a younger brother, do you? Tall, with curled brown hair and as strange a taste in clothes as your own?"

"I do not," the Doctor replied. "Why do you ask?"

"You put me in mind of him. I never knew his name, but he gave me some small assistance with writing out Hamlet when my wrist was sprained. I thought perchance he had described me to you."

"No, no," the Doctor said. "I saw your face on the Space-Time Vis - ah -" he caught himself "- drawn in a pamphlet which came my way describing the great playwrights of London." As Shakespeare bowed again, the Doctor quickly turned to Steven's other companion. "And you, sir? Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

"This is Giovanni Zarattino -" Steven closed his eyes and sighed. "No, it isn't. This is actually Christopher Marlowe, who apparently should be dead but isn't, and used to write plays but is now a spy."

"Well," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together, "thank you for making it all perfectly clear. I am the Doctor, of course, and this," he gestured towards the door, "is Galileo Galilei."

Steven turned again towards the door, and couldn't help smiling as he saw Galileo standing there, a half-empty bottle of wine in his hand. Galileo waved it at Shakespeare and Marlowe, and nodded at Steven.

"Now, Steven," the Doctor snapped before anybody could interrupt, "Galileo and I have traced the spacecraft from the moon to a point out in the lagoon. We intend rowing out there tonight to determine precisely what is at that point. I anticipate that we will find this Laputa of which Albrellian spoke, and I believe that Vicki will be held prisoner there. We fully intend to rescue her."

"Wait, Doctor," Galileo cried, and took another swig of wine. Tiny rills of red-hued liquid ran down either side of his mouth. Judging by the matted state of his beard, a lot of what he had already drunk had gone the same way. "I have an appointment with the Doge. I have a ... a spyglass to demonstrate. Can't afford to miss it. Doesn't do to make the Doge angry, you know."

"I need you with me, Mr Galileo," the Doctor said in a tone that brooked no argument. "Your incisive mind could prove to be invaluable. Steven can use the hologuise generator and pretend to be you while we are -"

"Doctor," Steven interrupted, "Marlowe and I saw a space shuttle come out of a house here in Venice. There's a sort of basement thing beneath the water level, and there's a gate that leads out into the canal."

The Doctor's bird-like gaze fastened on Steven. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"He speaks the truth," Marlowe agreed, stepping forward. "I saw it too. The house is owned by a man named Irving Braxiatel."

The expression on the Doctor's face didn't flicker, but the atmosphere of the room suddenly changed. The shadows were deeper all of a sudden, the breeze cooler, the silence more intense. "Braxiatel, you say?" He half-turned towards the window. "Braxiatel, here?"

"You know this man?" Marlowe said, stepping forward.

"Yes, yes," the Doctor fussed, waving his hand at the man. "Yes, Braxiatel is my... Well, well, well. Things are suddenly becoming a little clearer." He smiled, and it was not an expression that Steven liked. "Perhaps you should tell me everything."

Steven sighed. "That's what we were trying to - oh never mind."

As Braxiatel's skiff rose steadily into the air, Vicki watched the emerald foliage of Laputa fall away on the viewscreen with a shiver of recognition. The last time she had seen a sight like that, her father had been with her. They had been leaving Earth together, hoping to make a new life on one of the Outer Rim colony worlds after her mother died. He had joked about her eagerness as she pressed her nose against the viewing window. She could remember his laugh and the warmth of his hand on her shoulder. All gone now.

They had taught her in school that matter and energy were neither created nor destroyed, but they were wrong. Mothers died. Fathers died.

Hope died.

Around the edge of Laputa a fringe of golden beach appeared and, around that, a line of pellucid blue water. The skiff rose farther and faster, and she could see layers of structure within the lagoon that sailors never saw: the sandbanks that came within inches of the surface but were invisible if you were floating on it, the blackened ribs of wrecked ships and the small specks of fish swimming between them, the gently waving strands of weed that bent over like a forest in a high wind. And then they were too high to make out the detail, and the sea was as it appeared from a few feet away: opaque and mysterious. Other islands crept in around the edge of the screen, but then they passed through the first layer of cloud and the glorious sight of the unspoiled Earth was hidden.

"How long does the journey take?" she asked Braxiatel.

"A few minutes," he answered without taking his eyes off the controls. "We don't normally travel through the atmosphere very fast because we don't want to cause any sonic booms - might alert the natives, you see. Once we're above the troposphere we can speed up a bit. Are you enjoying the flight?"

"I am. Thanks for offering to take me out."

He smiled. "I was afraid that you might be feeling a little cooped up. I'll show you where the spaceships are all parked, then we'll head back to Earth and tell the Doctor you're all right. I assume that he'll be worried."

"I hope so," Vicki said. "I'll be annoyed if he's not."

Outside the viewscreen the sky had turned the purple of a fresh bruise, and the line of the horizon was visible right at the edge.

"Mind if I reorient the sensors?" Braxiatel asked. "You might want to see where we're going."

"Go ahead."

Braxiatel caressed a control, and the screen blurred and re-formed to show the battered surface of the moon ahead of them, sailing quietly through the black void. Vicki jumped as a sudden ping echoed through the cabin and a red light flashed on the control panel.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Not to worry - we're just being scanned," Braxiatel said reassuringly.

"Scanned by what?"

He pointed to a small speck, dark against the brightness of the moon's surface. It looked to Vicki like the fish that had been swimming in and out of the wrecks in the lagoon. "Scanned by that. It's one of my automatic sentry satellites. Everywhere within a light year of Earth has been declared a no-go area by my people for the duration of the Armageddon Convention. With anything this big, there's always the risk that a race like the Daleks or the Cybermen will attempt to disrupt it. Intelligence reports have already indicated an increase in activity around the Seventh Galaxy. Any ship coming within range of one of these satellites - and I have them scattered around the entire solar system - will be destroyed if it isn't expected or recognized."

"Very reassuring," Vicki said quietly. "I presume it recognizes us?"

"I hope so," Braxiatel said, smiling quietly. "I'll be annoyed if it doesn't."

As they grew closer to the satellite, Vicki could make out more of its shape, and the more she saw the more she was reminded of a fish. The satellite was long and sleek, optimized for pursuit in space or in an atmosphere, with a viciously pointed front end and a tail that fanned out into a broad, flat warp blade. Fins along its length held a variety of missiles and gun turrets.

"Nasty," she murmured.

"Very," Braxiatel agreed. "I couldn't use sentry satellites manufactured by any races at the conference or with a vested interest in seeing it disrupted, just in case they had been programmed with other instructions. Trojan horses, if you like. So I went back in time and obtained these from a race known as the Aaev. They were glad to sell the satellites to me - apparently the things had been sitting around for ages and never been used."

"And the Aaev aren't around any longer?" Vicki asked.

"No," Braxiatel replied, and coughed slightly. "I later found out that they were invaded and destroyed shortly after I left. No defences, you see."

Vicki glanced at his face, which was studiously directed towards the controls. "You're very much like the Doctor, you know?" she said.

"I should hope so," Braxiatel said, affronted, "after all, we are -" He suddenly pointed toward the screen. "Ah, here we are - close enough to make out the landing field now."

Vicki gazed towards the crater that Braxiatel was indicating. What initially looked like a collection of large rocks suddenly resolved itself into a group of spacecraft of wildly different design parked haphazardly together in a crater. Some were rectangles, some cubes, some spheres, some tetrahedrons, some just collections of geometric shapes stuck together. All of them bristled with short-range weapons, and none of them looked as if they were designed to enter an atmosphere. Scattered around the perimeter of the crater were a number of small skiffs like the one that Vicki and Braxiatel were travelling in. As Vicki watched, one of the skiffs rose from the ground, sending great clouds of lunar dust puffing out in slow-motion around it.

"Aren't you worried that these ships might be seen from the Earth?" Vicki asked.

"Not particularly," Braxiatel replied. "One of the reasons that I wanted to hold the Armageddon Convention here on Earth at this precise moment in its history was that the human race is on the brink of great scientific discoveries which can be, or will be, perverted to military ends. The telescope is one of them. Galileo will persuade the Doge of its worth by stressing the advantage it will give Venice over its Turkish enemies - any invasion fleet can be seen much further away than before. That gave me a problem of course - anybody with a telescope was a potential threat because the ships on the moon are too far away to be seen by the naked eye. Fortunately there are only a handful of people on Earth with a telescope, and only one of those is interested in what's happening on the moon rather than the Earth."

"Galileo, of course," Vicki exclaimed. "So it was you that broke his lenses!"

Braxiatel nodded. "That's right - or rather, it was one of the Jamarians that work for me. I had to ensure that, for the duration of the conference, he posed no threat either to our security or to the blithe disregard that humans have for the existence of other races."

The edges of the crater had expanded beyond the confines of the viewscreen now, and Vicki could make out markings on the sides of the ships: ornate crests, thorn-like writing, portraits of the envoys being carried, lists of battles won and lost. The ships themselves were looking less and less like simple geometric shapes as their details became clearer, and Vicki could make out the fine traceries of pipes and spars that connected their various parts.

"And does that include killing him?" she murmured.

Braxiatel glanced across to where Vicki was sitting, and frowned. "Killing him?"

"Someone tried to poison Galileo in a tavern. He told us.

"I didn't leave any orders that he be killed." His voice rose. "That would have meant a completely unwarranted interference in the affairs of this planet. My people tend to frown on that sort of thing."

"Well if you didn't try to kill him," Vicki mused as the crater walls rose above them, hiding the horizon, and clouds of lunar dust rose in their turn to hide the walls of the crater, "then who did?"

"A boat?" The old fisherman smiled and shook his head. "What do you want a boat for?"

Galileo glanced across at Shakespeare. The Englishman was gazing morosely along the broad quayside of the Riva Degli Schiavoni towards where a crowd of his fellow countrymen were standing beside another small fishing boat - one of the many that lined the quayside at this time in the afternoon. Galileo watched them too for a few minutes but, in their heavy black clothes, they looked too much like dowdy birds for his liking. He found his gaze wandering away from them and towards the golden domes of the Church of St Mary of Health that lay in the Dorsoduro district, just across the mouth of the Grand Canal. Beyond the corner of the island of La Giudecca the lagoon stretched away, and he winced at the bright shards of sunlight that were glancing off the water and into his eyes. His head ached with old wine, and he was beginning to bitterly regret being talked into letting Steven represent him to the Doge. He should have been there himself! His golden tongue would have charmed the Doge's purse into disgorging a huge amount of gold for the secret of the spyglass.

Then again, he had to admit to a burning curiosity over what lay on this fabled island. If its inhabitants could construct devices that could carry them through the air as a coach could carry men along a road, then Galileo wished very much to talk to them. Perhaps it was for the best after all. Steven was an adequate pupil - Galileo had tutored him in exactly what to say. It was no different from a master painter - Titian, for instance - employing an assistant to fill in the colours while the master concentrated on the details.

"I do not intend entering into a debate with you about my requirement for transport," the Doctor snapped. "I merely wish to hire a boat. Are you in the market for such services or not?"

"Well," the fisherman replied, "that would depend upon what terms." His face was as creased and worn as an old leather jerkin, and his eyes were screwed up against the sunlight. He reached down and picked up a small squid from the pile at his feet.

"On what terms?" the Doctor repeated. "My good man, we will pay whatever the current market price is for the hire of a boat, and not a penny more."

Galileo caught Shakespeare's eye and shrugged. The Doctor was forceful, that much was undeniable, but the Venetians couldn't be hurried or badgered or argued with. They did things in their own time and in their own way, and their way was always the best way.

"Ah," the fisherman sighed, turning the squid over in his hands and examining it, "but the market price depends on so many factors - what you want to do, where you are going, what religious festivals are occurring... "

"What do religious festivals have to do with it?" the Doctor snapped.

The fisherman smiled, revealing a mouth devoid of all but a single tooth. "For instance, today is the festival of St Martin the Lame, and by time-honoured custom the prices for the hire of a boat are doubled after noon on this day."

The Doctor seemed about to explode with indignation, so Galileo caught hold of his elbow and moved him a few steps away. "Doctor, let me negotiate - I am used to dealing with Venetians."

"Nonsense," the Doctor expostulated, "I am quite able to fix an adequate price, and I'll have you know that I am used to dealing with Venusians. I'm not senile, you know."

"Indeed, Doctor, but..." Galileo paused and took a deep breath. "Can I ask why we are not using the boat in which you and I sailed to fetch your telescope?"

"Oh, completely unsuitable," the Doctor said. "You remember how unstable it was when we were attacked. Why, one good heave and the whole thing might turn over. No, if the three of us are going in search of Laputa then we need something a lot safer than my dinghy."

"Your what?" "My never mind, young man. If you're going to fix a price with this ruffian, hadn't you better get on with it, hmm?"

Galileo opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again. He'd argued with some of the greatest debaters in Europe in his time, but there was something about the Doctor's peremptory manner that brooked no argument.

He was about to turn back to the fisherman when he noticed that Shakespeare was staring rather fixedly at the group of Englishmen who were now moving towards them.

"Friends of yours?" he asked.

"I travelled with them on the boat that brought us here," Shakespeare said quietly. "They seemed healthy enough then, although they kept themselves to themselves. But look at them now."

The fear in Shakespeare's voice brought Galileo up short, as if he had just been caught in a sudden shower of cold rain. The Doctor too picked up on Shakespeare's tone and peered at the dowdy Englishmen as they passed by, talking animatedly amongst themselves. For a moment Galileo saw nothing untoward - their clothes were unfashionable and much patched, true, and their faces were pale and lined, but apart from -

No. Those faces. Pale they might be, but there were patches of red on them. He had thought for a moment that they were wearing rouge on their cheeks, but the patches were too irregular for that, and some of them had blisters in their centres. One of the women raised a hand to scratch at one of the blisters, and a shiver ran through Galileo as he saw a weeping red sore upon the back of her hand.

"God's truth!" he whispered, aghast, as the Englishmen passed by. "They have the plague!"

"No," the Doctor said quietly, but with firm authority. "Those wounds have nothing to do with the plague. Those are radiation sores."