The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [57]
No amount of philosophy, no amount of science, could hold old age at bay.
When he turned back, the Doctor was at the telescope. "Hmm, you're right, my boy," he said, "it does seem that the object in question is getting larger, and not diverging significantly from its flight path. Venice would appear to be its final destination." He straightened up and frowned for a moment. "I wonder," he muttered, "whether it is actually within sight yet." He gazed upwards, along the line of the telescope, his eyes flicking back and forth as he scanned the heavens. Galileo joined him, and together the two men stood in silence, staring upward.
It was Galileo who saw it first - a tiny point of light moving on a steady course. For a moment he thought it was a falling star, but it was travelling too slowly for that. "Look, Doctor," he said, pointing.
"There it is!"
"My eyes are perfectly sharp and I can't make out a thing," the Doctor snapped. "Are you sure that your own eyes aren't deceiving you?"
Galileo glanced sideways at the Doctor and smiled slightly. The old man didn't like to be upstaged. Too bad: neither did Galileo. "Yes,"
he said, "I'm sure. Obviously your own gaze is too rheumy with age to make it out."
"Nonsense." The Doctor huffed and spluttered to himself. "I can see it now. Yes, I can see it dearly." He pointed to where it had been. Galileo pointed to where it was now, and the Doctor quickly shifted his arm downwards.
"It appears to be coming down in the lagoon somewhere," Galileo said.
The Doctor reached into his pocket and brought out a compass.
Galileo watched as he fussed around, taking a reading. "We need a second reading," he said finally. "All we can tell from this is that its destination lies somewhere along this bearing. If we could only move half a mile or so and check again then we could determine at what point the two bearings cross, but by the time we get downstairs and across the city it will have landed."
"Give the compass to me," Galileo said. The Doctor frowned and made as if to argue, so Galileo snatched it from his hand and, without stopping to think through what he was doing, ran towards the edge of the roof platform and jumped into space. A sudden dizzying vision of the canyon between the houses flashed past; and then his feet were stumbling heavily upon the roof platform of the widow Carpaccio, who lived opposite. A short scramble up the eaves and down the other side left Galileo perched on a length of gutter. He launched himself across the gap to the next house, and laughed as he landed, feeling like a youth again. He had forgotten how exhilarating it was to jump, to run and not to care about dignity, decorum and pride.
For the next few minutes he forgot what he was doing and why: all he felt was fingers scrabbling at tiles, feet thumping against wood and the coldness of the air whipping past as he sprang from roof to roof. He lost count of the number of times he had jumped, the number of houses that he had crossed. Once or twice he had to go sideways to avoid particularly tall or short buildings, or to detour round churches or empty squares, but he did his best to keep going in the same general direction. Sometimes he could see upturned pink faces gawping from alleys as he crossed, like a thief in the night, and he wondered what the people actually saw. Was it a mysterious shape flying across the sky, or just a portly, middle-aged scholar acting the fool? A few times he heard the rattle of trapdoors or windows behind him as occupiers checked for nocturnal invasions. Once a cat squalled and shot out from beneath his feet, almost pitching him into an alley.
Every so often he glanced up to check the moving star. It was descending slowly but surely towards the horizon, and when it was a mere hand's breadth away from the rooftops he stopped and pulled the compass from his pocket. His body