The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [28]
"What about the guard?" she asked. "He was an alien, not a Turkish spy."
"My dear girl," the Doctor murmured, "Cardinal or no Cardinal, if I start blabbering about being almost abducted by aliens, the Doge would have me locked away faster than you could say 'boiled asparagus'!" He ran a hand through his long, white hair. "Our position here is precarious enough, without bringing our sanity into question. And besides, I'm still uncertain what connection these aliens have with the invitation I received. Until we know that, we had best tread very carefully. Very carefully indeed, hmm?"
Vicki nodded doubtfully. She supposed that the Doctor was right, but the thought that anybody she looked at might really be an alien in disguise made her edgy. "How do you think they disguised themselves?" she asked, hoping that the Doctor could give her some clue enabling her to tell real Venetians from fake Venetians.
Or, if it came to that, a real Doctor from a fake Doctor...
"Probably a holographic image generator of some kind," he said.
"Quite simple technology. If they had been true shape shifters, then their arms would have felt like human arms. The fact that you could tell they were alien by touching them means that they were just covering their true form with a projected human image."
Speroni broke off from his discussion to address the Doctor.
"Cardinal Bellarmine? We have just received word from the Doge.
He apologizes for the delay, hopes that you are rested and will receive you now."
They were led along corridors that closely resembled the ones that they had been led along by the fake policemen. It was difficult to tell: the tapestries all looked the same to Vicki. They went up stairs, down stairs and along corridors panelled in heavy wood.
The floor of one corridor rang hollow, and she glanced out of a heavily barred window to find that they were crossing a stretch of canal with two black gondolas floating on it.
After an indeterminable time, they ascended an impressive marble staircase and passed through an open pair of double doors into a large room. It was lined with tapestries and filled with people who stared at them as they were escorted towards another pair of doors. Speroni gestured the Doctor and Vicki onward. The doors opened as they approached, and Vicki followed the Doctor into a large room panelled in dark wood and floored with marble slabs.
The ceiling was painted with clouds and angels, and enormous canvasses lined the walls, each at least twice as tall as Vicki and many times longer. They all seemed to show groups of robed men staring at the artist with the same expression of wary blankness that Vicki had seen in group holograms from her own time.
And then she realized that one such group of men standing on a raised dais at the end of the room weren't in a painting at all: they were real. As the Doctor walked fearlessly forward to meet them, they moved apart slightly to reveal a tall man seated on a gilded leather chair. He wore white robes embroidered in gold and scarlet, and a hat with earflaps and which rose to a peak at the back.
"Your Eminence, Cardinal Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine,"
he said in a dry, quiet voice, "I am Doge Leonardo Donà. I bid you welcome to the Venetian Republic."
Steven walked away from the Tavern of the Angel as fast as he dared without attracting attention. His head was still pounding with the after-effects of the worst hangover he'd ever had, and his chest felt as if someone were tightening iron bands around it.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, an ever-present flicker of frustration and anger was being fanned into a fire. What was it about the Doctor that meant his companions were always running for their lives? Why couldn't they just have a rest for once? Why couldn't life just pass them by, instead of grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and dragging them along, kicking and screaming, behind it?
Slowing to a halt in a sparsely populated square, he sat at the base of a well. A group of white cats were sunning themselves nearby. They