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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 shook as he tried to draw enough air into his lungs to assuage the burning void within him, and he could hardly focus on the compass, but it only took him a few moments to make a reading. As the star vanished behind the rooftops, Galileo felt a wave of elation sweep over him. He could draw a line on a map from where he was to where he had seen the star vanish, and the Doctor could do the same from Galileo's house. Where the lines crossed, that was where they had to go.
Fatigue washed across him then, and his legs almost gave way beneath him. Carefully he picked his way across the roof, looking for a way down
