The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [107]
He raised the goblet to his lips again but missed. The lip of the goblet hit his cheekbone, sending the sweet liquid cascading down his beard. Vicki, in conversation nearby with Irving Braxiatel, saw the mishap and smiled at him. He smiled back. Perhaps he was drunk, but he wasn't sure whether it was on the wine or on the company. To think that he was celebrating the successful end of a conference of star-people. His life would never be the same again.
The things he had seen - the things he had heard! - would lead him on to greater inventions than any man could imagine.
Shakespeare had stolen such information, and it had been taken away from him again somehow, but Galileo didn't need to do anything so clumsy. Having seen these marvels, he knew that they were possible, and knowing that something was possible was half the battle. It might take him years, but he would recreate them and call them his own. His name would go down in history.
Two elderly men clad in scarlet robes staggered past. Blinking, Galileo realized that there was only one man. Perhaps the wine was stronger than he thought. A thin woman whose silver skin seemed to undulate of its own accord was following the man, who turned as if to kiss her. She skipped away, giggling. For a moment Galileo thought that the man was the Doctor, until he realized that it was actually Cardinal Bellarmine, behaving in a most unCatholic way. How could the Church suppress this knowledge, when one of its own most senior Cardinals had seen it all? They had tortured and burned Giordano Bruno to get him to recant the truth, but they couldn't do the same to Galileo. Not now. Not with Bellarmine on his side.
He swigged back the dregs of his glass, and couldn't help smiling at the taste. If only he could get hold of a case of that wine, he could die happy.
"You like our rakeshla?" a voice hissed. He turned, and found a squat figure in leather armour behind him. The creature's potato-like head, which grew straight from its massive shoulders, would not have been out of place projecting from the roof of a church.
" Rakeshla - is that what you call it?" Galileo burped, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "It is excellent! Truly excellent!
Where can I buy some?"
"We do not sell rakeshla," the gargoyle hissed, its lipless mouth stretched into a wide smile. "It is a drink of victory, a drink of celebration with which we of Sontara toast our returning warriors."
"And this -" Galileo waved a hand at the various creatures from the stars that surrounded them. "Do you consider this a victory?"
The gargoyle's entire upper body jerked forward. Galileo reflected that it was probably the only way the creature could nod. "Indeed!"
it said. "The bargaining was hard, but the Doctor was more reasonable than we had expected. A true warrior prefers to gaze into his victim's dying eyes, rather than wipe out a star-system from orbit, and the agreements we have made here reflect that. A good result, for us all." Its piggish eyes glinted at Galileo out of deep-set sockets. "I am Tayre." The creature slapped a hand across its broad chest in salute. "I am Colonel in Chief of the Strategic Arm of the Ninth Sontaran Army. What is your rank and designation?"
"I am Galileo Galilei." He bowed. "I am an astronomer."
Tayre nodded. "Ah, a stellar cartographer. That is good. Accurate maps are a prerequisite for a successful military campaign."
Galileo nodded fervently. "If only more military commanders thought the same way you do." He glanced over at Cardinal Bellarmine, who was entwined with the silver-skinned woman, and said, "Tell me about your world, Tayre. Which sun does it revolve around?"
"None," Tayre replied, "our sun revolves around our home planet."
Galileo felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. "You are mistaken!" he snapped. "That is not possible. Worlds must revolve around suns. I know it to be