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"But what about the sanctity of the place? What does the priest have to say
about it all?"
Marlowe shrugged. "Perhaps the priest is being paid by both sides to keep
his eyes shut when he prays. Clerics have never been averse to more money.
Or perhaps he is tied up elsewhere. I neither know nor care, and neither
should you. The Castellanis have refused to turn up, on the basis that they
disown your actions, but we can't disappoint our Nicolotti hosts."
"Look," protested Steven, indicating the hologuise generator strapped to
his hip, "can't we just turn off this device and pretend that Galileo has
slipped out of Venice?"
Marlowe shook his head. "They'll have guards stationed at all the landing
posts. They'll know that he couldn't have "slipped out", and they'll
torture us until we tell them where he is. Not that they would believe the
truth, of course, so we would probably die. No, there is only one way out
of this. I will have to fight the duel for you."
For a moment, Steven thought that his ears had deceived him. "You? But it's
me they challenged."
"No, it's the Paduan Galileo Galilei that they challenged," Marlowe
corrected gently. "You merely happened to be borrowing his form. I could
just as easily fill it - he is corpulent enough." Marlowe reached out to
ruffle Steven's hair. "And which one of us would last the longest against
the head of the family, eh? Take it from me, Tomasso Nicolotti has done
this sort of thing before. Fortunately, so have I, and I cannot - will not
- see you skewered upon his sword." He held up the knife with which he had
been cutting his fingernails. "And I have this small stiletto. If Tomasso
gets too close, he'll feel my sting." Steven opened his mouth to protest,
but shook his head instead. Marlowe was right - he would have no chance
against any swordsman, expert or not. Marlowe at least might survive.
Reluctantly he switched the device on his belt off and handed it across to
Marlowe.
"If I believed in God I would call that the work of the Devil," Marlowe
murmured as he slipped the device into his jerkin and switched it on. He
shimmered, and suddenly Galileo Galilei was standing in his place, bearded
and arrogant. "Does it work?" he said, his voice jarring with his new form.
Steven glanced up and down the image. Apart from the tips of Marlowe's grey
mane sticking up from Galileo's hair, the camouflage was perfect. "You look
wonderful," he said, his mouth dry.
Marlowe smiled. "You say the sweetest things."
Vicki awoke to find the pins-and-needles feeling was ebbing away. She could
move her limbs again. Albrellian's toxin seemed to be wearing off. Not that
there was anywhere to go. On the viewscreen she could see the sterile lunar
plains rising up towards the skiff. They seemed to be heading towards one
particular ship with an iridescent red hull that was all curves, like a
venomous beetle. Yellow insignia on its back looked almost like the outline
of a huge pair of wings.
"Light-years away within a few minutes can be we," the arthropod muttered,
its attention divided between Vicki and the controls. "And have to be will
we. If the meta-cobalt device on schedule explodes, to be a long way away
want do I. Braxiatel's people knowing that I had anything to do with it
want do not I. Stories about what they do when they're angry have heard I."
His claws fiddled with the controls of the skiff, and they drifted gently
down towards a hatch that was opening like a flower in the hull of the
Greld ship.
"What about the other Greld?" she said. Her voice was slurred, and speaking
was an effort, but at least she could make herself understood easily.
Albrellian's eyestalks dipped. "The suspicions of Braxiatel or his Jamarian
cronies cannot afford to rouse we. Until the bomb goes off will stay my
friends."
"And you're running for it?" Vicki sniffed and turned ostentatiously away.
"I don't know why you ever thought you had a chance with me. You"re just a
coward."
"You little fool," Albrellian laughed. "With you in love was never I -just
to get you to the island wanted I so that, when the time came, easier to
kidnap you it would be. With my friends, dying gloriously at the
culmination of twenty-year plan our, would rather be I, but the chance to
bring one of the fabled Doctor's companions back to the Greld Commonwealth
is too good to miss!"
"Even if your companions think you're scared?" Vicki asked. Albrellian did
not reply. As the skiff settled to rest in the dark curves of the Greld
ship"s bay, Vicki thought over what Albrellian had said. "Does this mean
you don't like me?" she said in a plaintive voice.
"Vicki," Albrellian said, "how to break this to you know do not I, but a
naive and rather stupid brat are you. To mate with you would not I if the
last sentient creature left in the fourth galaxy were you."
"Oh." It took a moment for that to sink in, and it hurt. "So - so why are
you kidnapping me? You said you were under orders."
A clang from outside and a flashing pink light presumably indicated that
the hatch had sealed shut again, and that the atmosphere was breathable.
Albrellian released the safety catches, and the skiff's door rose up
revealing the bay outside. Vicki could smell a strange, alien smell, like a
cross between cinnamon and tar.
Albrellian scuttled for the doorway. "Just think," he said, "what for our
business could do you. With knowledge of which wars will be fought when,
and between whom, possessed by you, expand our market share immensely could
we. Suppliers of quality weapons to people who be needing them realize do
not we could be."
"That's sick," Vicki snapped.
"That's business," Albrellian said. "Come on, or the toxin again use I
will."
Vicki exited the skiff and looked around the bay. Like Albrellian, it was a
combination of bowed surfaces and sudden spiky bits. Various bits of high-
tech equipment ranging in size from a hand-held multi-quantiscope to a zeus
plug five times the size of the TARDIS. Other small ships - Greld shuttles
and one-arthropod fighters, she assumed - were lined up along the sides,
and three more of Braxiatel's discus-like skiffs were sitting in a cluster
in the centre. Albrellian gave them a curious glance as he passed by.
"I won't cooperate," Vicki said.
"Will you," Albrellian replied, heading towards a hatch in one wall.
"Promise I." He stopped beside a large multi-tubed device that was lying on
the gently sloping floor. It was about fifteen metres long and three metres
high, and one end looked like it had been wrenched from a socket of some
sort, complete with trailing wires and pipes. The other end terminated in a
series of parabolic dishes. "That is not right," Albrellian muttered. "This
thing was not here when left we, swear would I."
"What is it?"
"A terrawatt beam generator - one of products our." Albrellian ran a claw
along the device's surface. "It is used for short range ship to ship
battles. Fitted to the ship's exterior them have we."
"So it's a weapon?" Vicki said.
"Yes," he hooted, "it's a weapon. And still fitted in the weapon bays it
should be, not here in bits where just walk off with it could anybody."
"Not anybody," said a thin, vicious voice from the doorway. The open
doorway, Vicki realized with some dismay. Five thin figures were standing
in it, their horns almost brushing the ceiling. The look in their eyes was
one of unalloyed triumph. "This ship, and all its weapon systems -
especially its weapon systems - have been appropriated by the Jamarian
Empire."
"The what?" Albrellian growled, rising up on his front walking claws. "An [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
