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and glanced at her. He was tall, with finely chiselled features and straight brown hair that fell in a slight curl over his eyes, and he wore a pair of half-moon spectacles that struck Vicki as curiously anachronistic in the midst of this futuristic island city, and yet which wouldn"t have attracted a second glance in Venice itself. He looked back at Albrellian. "Envoy, you were made perfectly aware of the rules concerning the natives when you arrived. Fraternization is completely forbidden. They must not know that we are here. The only thing that is keeping this girl sane now is the fact that she doesn't understand what is going on."
"Now wait a second -" Vicki began, but Braxiatel was still talking.
"The minute she does realize, she'll go mad. Thishas to stop now. We'll give her an amnesia pill and return her to Venice before anybody realizes she's gone. In the meantime, you have a convention to attend. The Doctor has arrived."
"The Doctor?" Vicki and Albrellian chorused.
Braxiatel looked from one to the other. "You know of the Doctor?" he said to Vicki eventually.
"I travel with him," she said. "Andyou know him?"
"We are... acquainted," Braxiatel said, frowning slightly. "I invited him to come here to Laputa, in fact. He was here last night."
"No he wasn't. The Doctor was withme last night."
Braxiatel shook his head. "Impossible. I was told that he was brought here. My people said that he was so tired he fell asleep when they picked him up, and slept all the way through to this morning."
Albrellian clicked a claw to attract their attention. "Story can confirm Vicki's I," he said. "In Venice in the early hours of this morning indeed was the Doctor. Saw him I. Talked to him I."
"Oh no." Braxiatel rubbed a hand across his forehead. "The stupid... They've only gone and picked up thereal Cardinal Bellarmine. It goes to show you should never employ Jamarians."
Something occurred to Vicki. "You said you invited the Doctor here," she said. "
