The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [95]
Each word in each sentence in each description led him into deeper and deeper definitions, until he felt that the world was just a thin tissue of facts, and that there was nothing tangible at all for him to hold on to.
No. There was one thing to hold on to. He had to get this knowledge, this vista of philosophical discovery, back to England.
Shakespeare knew - an intuitive knowledge, not one engendered in him by the control device - that he could change the world. King James' fleets could reign supreme on the ocean with these weapons that he could build, not skulk in fear of Spanish ships.
King James' good Protestant armies could march across Europe, subjugating those in thrall to the Pope. King James' benign, enlightened policies could hold sway across Christendom. If only Shakespeare could get to England and to safety. And the only way to get to England was to steal a skiff.
He knew how to pilot one - the knowledge was there, in his mind, ready to be summoned, like the knowledge of how to bake a cake or build a barn. He didn't even have to think about it - just do it.
The stick-men would be combing the building looking for him, and he was unlikely to be able to evade capture by staying inside the building, so...
Before he could change his mind, Shakespeare clambered half out of the window and twisted around so that his hands were clinging on to the inside of the sill and his feet were projecting out into the void. Sliding his knees backward until he could feel the lip of the outside sill beneath them, he offered a quick prayer to God, then leaned backward until his knees slipped over the edge and skidded down the outside of the building. His chest thudded against the wall, knocking the breath from his body, and his hands jerked against the inside of the sill. Hanging by his fingertips, he risked a glance downward. His feet were dangling an inch or two from the topmost branches.
Taking a deep breath, he released his grip on the win-dow, and plummeted into the heart of the trees.
"His mission?" Braxiatel was at a loss. "What mission? I thought he was here by accident."
"Mr Shakespeare was sent to Venice because rumours of this Convention of yours had got out. It seems that King James had heard that secret talks were being held concerning military treaties, and had commanded Mr Shakespeare to find out all he could. I suspect that Mr Shakespeare has succeeded beyond his Monarch's wildest dreams, and is taking the information so painstakingly collected by the Jamarians back to England even as we speak. We should intercept him before that information can change history."
"But it won't, will it?" Vicki interrupted. "The people of this time would never be able to build the weapons or the stardrives. They haven't got the resources or the technical ability."
The Doctor glanced over at her. "You forget, my dear," he said,
"that Mr Shakespeare will be taking with him one of the vessels that Braxiatel here has been foolish enough to use on a primitive inhabited planet. I sincerely doubt that anybody on this planet could duplicate the technology, even given Mr Shakespeare's newly acquired knowledge, but they can use it. Protestant England is the most religiously rigid country in the world at this point in its history, and they will treat this information as the gift of God. I would predict that within ten years England will have subjugated most of the world with one flying vessel. Within twenty years Mr Shakespeare's knowledge will be fully written down and widely distributed as being the new Word of God. Within fifty years there will be an industrial revolution which will place the human race in space before it