The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [30]
"Which of us can?" Chigi murmured, still looking across the square. He seemed almost to be talking to himself.
"That was a bit of a fiasco, wasn't it?" Irving Braxiatel said mildly.
He was sitting in his study, idly flicking through a book selected at random from the shelves. Gazing over the top of his bifocal glasses at the two stick-thin Jamarians standing in front of him, he said, "You and Tzorogol were supposed to escort the Doctor and his young assistant here so I could take them to the Island. Instead you end up chasing him all over the Doge's Palace, frightening him and drawing attention to yourselves from the locals." Without raising his voice, he made it clear from his tone that he was furious. "I put you in charge of collecting him, Szaratak, because I wanted to ensure that the Doctor was treated properly. I trusted you to do this with no fuss. Do you have an explanation for this seemingly bizarre behaviour, or shall I just put it down to the inherent stupidity of your race?"
"It's not our fault," Szaratak snapped. Its thin hands clenched and unclenched by its side.
"He didn't want to come," agreed Tzorogol.
"Don't be so stupid," Braxiatel snapped. He took off his glasses and began to polish them furiously. "He got the invitation, didn't he? He must have done, otherwise he wouldn't be here. And if he got the invitation, he must have known that we would come and collect him. It's really very simple, even for a race like yours."
Szaratak shot a quick sideways glance at Tzorogol, but not so quick that Braxiatel didn't catch it. "It's not our fault," it said with barely suppressed fury. "The Doctor was expecting to be taken to the Doge. He was pretending to be someone called Cardinal Bellarmine. He and his companion ran from us. They didn't know who we were. They weren't expecting us."
"You were using your hologuises?"
"Of course!" Szaratak growled. "We're not stupid. We tried to catch up with them to explain. They were running too fast. The Doctor's companion realized I wasn't human. She screamed. The scream alerted the Night watch. As soon as we heard them coming, we left."
"That's the smartest thing you've done all day," Braxiatel muttered.
"The last thing we need is for one of you to get caught by the Venetians." He slipped his glasses back on. "The thing I don't understand is why the Doctor is staying at the Doge's Palace in the first place. The invitation was supposed to ensure that he was delivered straight into our hands. I had suitable accommodation already prepared."
"Perhaps it's not the Doctor at all," Tzorogol muttered.
"What do you mean?"
"You keep telling us how necessary it is that you have tight security," it explained, glaring at the floor. "You keep telling us about the races who would do anything to disrupt what we're attempting here. Perhaps there's some plot to substitute a false Doctor. Perhaps he's a shape shifter, or someone in a holographic disguise, or a robot copy."
Braxiatel was about to make a scathing comment when he caught himself. "It's... possible," he agreed finally, "although I can't see how the security of the Island could possibly be compromised by anyone whose biomorphic profile hasn't already been programmed into its defensive systems." He sighed. Organising anything of this scale was bound to present problems. If only they had been the problems he was anticipating, he would have been happier. "All I can suggest is that you pass word around the other Jamarians to keep an eye out for anyone meeting the description of the Doctor.
In the meantime, we must try to establish whether the one we have is the real one."
The sun was high in the sky when the path split in two ahead of the carriage and the riders that surrounded it. One fork led straight ahead of them, the other curved gradually off to the right. Both had been raised a few feet above the marshy Italian landscape by piled earth, and both had been swept clear of grass by the feet of