The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [37]
"Don't worry," she said. "I'm as sure footed as a - Oh!" He caught her arm as she stumbled. She pulled her arm free. "I can look after myself, thank you," she said.
"You couldn't get much wetter if you did fall in," he whispered to himself as she moved closer to the Doctor.
Galileo and the Doctor were standing beside a shrouded shape.
Galileo pulled the covering sheet off with a flourish. Steven couldn't see what the fuss was about: all that was underneath was a crude, low power telescope on a tripod. It looked as if it was made out of brass covered in red leather.
"With this spyglass," Galileo said proudly, "I can bring objects sixty times closer. The principle is complex and difficult to explain, and I laboured mightily to produce it. The Doge will pay heavily to obtain it."
"The principle of refraction is simple enough," the Doctor said.
"The power is limited, of course, by the distance between your lenses. If you can reflect the light from a concave mirror at the end here -" he indicated the eyepiece, "- and then reflect it out of the side of the spyglass using an inclined plane mirror halfway up, then you could almost double the length and greatly increase the magnifying power. I could suggest other -"
Galileo's face was thunderous. "There are no improvements to make to this spyglass," he interrupted. "I have perfected it."
"If you say so." The Doctor smiled at Steven.
"Is this piece of glass meant to be broken?" Vicki said. She was peering into the far end of the telescope.
"What?" Galileo pushed her out of the way. "What have you done, girl?" He peered at the end of the telescope. "The lens has been smashed! It took days to produce one to the right specifications, and now it's ruined!"
"I didn't do anything!" Vicki protested. "It was like that when I found it!"
Galileo whirled around as if he expected to find the saboteur on the platform with them. "Whoever did this will rue the day that their paths ever crossed that of Galileo Galilei," he shouted.
"Yes, yes, that's all very well," the Doctor fussed, "but I presume that you wanted to show me something through this simple device.
Can you not at least tell me what it was that you saw?"
Galileo sighed, and turned back to the Doctor. "I can do better than that," he said, still angry, "I can show you a sketch I made." From beneath his coat he brought out a roll of parchment and handed it to the Doctor. As Steven watched, the Doctor unrolled it and glanced at whatever illustration it contained.
"I saw it last night," Galileo said. "It was travelling between the moon and the Earth. I swear so."
"I believe you," the Doctor said. He turned the parchment toward Steven, who drew in his breath sharply. The sketch on the parchment was rough, done in charcoal, but showed a disc like a flattened egg with circular holes along the side.
"Do you recognize it?" the Doctor asked quietly.
Steven met his worried gaze. "It's a spaceship," he said tersely.
CHAPTER SEVEN
William Shakespeare licked the salt from his lips and gazed forlornly at the distant horizon. There was still no sign of Venice, no blemish upon the junction of sea and sky that might indicate the presence of land. The translucent blue sea stretched all around them, as if they were mired in glass. For all Shakespeare knew, they might not have moved for days. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. He wasn't a good traveller at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Not by any reckoning.
The deck beneath his feet rocked with a predictable rhythm as the ship fell forward into each wave and rode up again upon the wave's back, dragging its bulk forward, yard by precious yard. A gust of wind blew spume into his eyes. The salt stung, and he wiped his sleeve angrily across his face. Damn Walsingham!
Damn both the Walsinghams. Damn both the Walsinghams and thrice damn the King!
Rope creaked alarmingly against wood in the rigging, and the cries of the sailors were almost indistinguishable from the cries of