The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [51]
There was a ledge running around the edge of the room, on which a few small machines rested, and a door in one wall. Apart from that, and a control panel set into one wall, the room was featureless.
Paddling to stay afloat, Steven turned in the water to check the wall behind him: the wall above the entrance to the short tunnel.
"Swim no further, pretty sweeting," said Giovanni Zarattino Chigi from his position crouching on the ledge, "for journeys end in lovers meeting." He wore the same scuffed leather jerkin that he had worn in the tavern when he saved Steven's life, and he was holding one of the knives that he had been juggling in that encounter loosely by the point. And the chances were, Steven thought sourly, that he could throw it just as well as he could juggle it.
CHAPTER NINE
Galileo and the Doctor trudged up the stairs to Galileo's door, trailing water behind them as they went. Galileo was still carrying the buckled remains of the Doctor's spyglass, while the Doctor had his amazing boat beneath his arm, folded into a bundle of fabric.
"When I was twenty-nine," Galileo muttered, "I went for a ride in the country with some friends. We ended up at Costozza which, if you've never been there, is well worth avoiding. Its only saving grace is the wine they make. Strong? It's enough to strip the varnish off a violin." He glanced across at the Doctor, who was plodding on, weary and bedraggled, but there was no sign that the Doctor was listening.
"We stayed with a well-known member of the legal profession who had a villa there. It was the height of summer: the ground was baked harder than a biscuit and the air shimmered wherever you looked. Even the grass had turned brown. We drank enough wine to float a warship, and I passed out near to a crack in the ground."
He shook his head at the memory of his youthful foolishness. "Not that I realized at the time, but there was a breeze coming out of that crack that had been cooled by an underwater spring. When I woke up, I'd contracted a chill. They had to carry me back to Padua in a litter. Soon after that I found I couldn't move my arm without it feeling like there was ground glass in the joint."
Raising his hand, he looked at the swollen knuckles, turning the hand over and back as they climbed.
"'Arthritis', said Girolamo Fabricio. He was my doctor. One of my doctors, anyway. I could have told him I had arthritis. In fact, I did tell him. What I wanted to know was what I should do about it but, like all doctors, he knew all the answers except for the ones I wanted." Galileo suddenly realized that they were standing in front of his door. He fumbled at the lock for a few moments, and they staggered into his rooms. "If that one moment of stupidity cost me years of ill health," he continued. "I wonder what today will do."
Without replying, the Doctor fell instantly into a chair. Galileo flung himself onto a couch, the Doctor's spyglass falling from his hand and bouncing on the floor. Reaching down blindly with his hand for it he found instead a bottle of wine standing where it had been left after the dinner party the night before. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and took a long swallow. Air and time had roughened the wine, but it was as sweet on his tongue as the most expensive liqueur.
The Doctor sighed. "Not the most productive day I have ever had,"
he murmured. "I only hope that Steven has got closer to finding Vicki than we have. Poor child: she must be terrified." He hit the table with his clenched fist. "If only we hadn't had to destroy my telescope to drive that creature off! It might take days to get another one fabricated by the Venetian artisans, and that could be too late! Far too late! We need to know where those ships are heading for when they leave the moon, and to do that we need that telescope!"
"Telescope?" Galileo held the bottle out towards the Doctor. "Telescope, from the Greek, a device for seeing far distances. Hmm, I like that. It has a ring to it."
"Indeed," the Doctor murmured, "perhaps it will catch on."