The Queen kissed her lightly on each cheek. ‘Mida, my darling. How could anything happen to me? I have the Royal Companions, the Seekers are here. I have seldom been better protected!’ She waved the gauntlet at those gathered around the table.
Mida bowed her head. ‘Yes, Mummy,’ she said. Then she spotted the metallic glove. ‘What is that?’
‘A gift from one of the Seekers. The cause of this alarm!’
Mida looked over to the fallen palace guard, now being tended to by the clinician and the two nurses. She watched as they scanned his life signs, and took samples of tissue and fluid, passing them through the mobile infirmary packs. A moment or two later, the clinician stood up to face the Queen once more.
‘I can report that Companion Litarsas seems to be in good health,’ he said. ‘May I ask what happened?’
The Queen told him about the gauntlet and that she had touched his armour with it.
‘I see,’ he said, nodding. ‘That does conform with my findings.’
‘Which are?’ Mida asked.
‘Litarsas’s medical function has been … improved by the most sophisticated nanotechnology I have ever seen. For example, according to Palace medical records his blood pressure was slightly elevated, possibly due we believed to an overindulgence in high-cholesterol foodstuffs.’
‘I do like my pies,’ Litarsas said. Everyone laughed.
‘That is true,’ the clinician said. ‘But, your Majesty, that condition has been corrected. Indeed, any slight medical weaknesses he might have had before – which weren’t too many as a Royal Companion – have vanished.’
‘So, it does heal!’ Lydia gasped, marvelling once more at the gauntlet.
‘There’s more, Highness,’ the clinician added. ‘His body has been fused with his armour around the abdomen.’
The smile faded from everyone’s lips. The Queen turned to her guard.
‘How do you feel, Companion Litarsas?’
‘Fine, your Majesty,’ he replied. ‘Better than that, even.’ He smiled. ‘The armour feels … natural. Part of me. It doesn’t hurt.’
He hit his stomach and chest with his fists to prove his point.
‘But you were in pain?’ the Queen asked.
Litarsas cocked his head. ‘I know I was wriggling about on the floor liked a landed fish,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think you’d call it pain, Majesty.’
The Queen nodded and smiled. Everyone was suddenly talking at once, babbling about what had happened like tournament fans after a team victory. Lydia sought out Sylen.
‘You are to be congratulated, Seeker Sylen,’ she said, almost purring. ‘This is, with little doubt, the best find I have ever been presented with.’
Sylen grinned then and her eyes flicked over to old Gordias. He was speaking with Mida, smiling like everyone else. But only with his mouth. His eyes told a different story. Perhaps it was time for a retirement ceremony. The Queen noticed her staring at the old man.
‘Gordias has served us well,’ Lydia said. ‘And he is a favourite of my daughter’s. It occurs to me he should be rewarded with elevation.’
Sylen turned back to her Liege Lady. So, the Queen was thinking the same thing she was! Promotion from the Seekers meant a seat on the Guiding Council, which everyone knew the Queen took no guidance from. She loved technology above all else and so, if she listened to anyone, it was the Seekers and especially the Seeker-in-Chief.
‘Yes, Majesty,’ Sylen managed to say, a broad grin forming.
‘But let us keep that as a surprise for now.’
The Queen turned and swept the Seekers with her. ‘Come, I want to try this marvel on a datapad! Mida, join us!’
The Queen was delighted with her new toy. She used it on as much technology as she could. When she used it on the datapad, it enhanced the machine beyond recognition, giving it a much wider signal range, faster processing speed and even larger memory. It was truly astounding.
Each new piece of technology she touched with the gauntlet was upgraded beyond her wildest dreams and the society on Catrigan Nova was one that almost saw technology as a religion.
News of the amazing gauntlet spread across the nearby systems, and the planet’s fabulous wealth found a new revenue stream to match its gold panning at the famous gilded whirlpools: tourism. At first it was dignitaries from local governments and first families. They requested audiences with the Queen to see the fabled glove.
Realising there was interest not only from outsiders, but from the population of Catrigan Nova itself, Lydia ordered that a permanent display be built in the Palace Museum. Once that had been created, it was itself enhanced when the Queen opened the exhibit and touched all the interactive displays.
Meanwhile, the Queen had instigated a voluntary upgrade programme for the Royal Companions. The changes to Litarsas had continued. He had become faster: capable of running at almost twice the speed of Catrigan Nova’s fastest athlete. He could go without food and water for prolonged periods, stay awake for days and he could lift three times his own bodyweight. He had become a superhuman in less than a week. He now bore what had become known as the Lamp of the Royal Companions – a circular blue light on his chest unit – that everyone saw very much as a badge of honour.
By the time the first tourists arrived, Queen Lydia had used the gauntlet to upgrade every mechanical, electronic and computerised machine, instrument and device in the Nova Palace. The ranks of the Royal Companions had swollen from the elite 48-strong force to over 100 and of those, nearly 30 had joined the august ranks of what the Queen had dubbed the Royal Champions – those who had been touched by the gauntlet.
At the suggestion of Litarsas, new armour for the Companions was constructed that was not made of gold. He had become the first Champion Commander and now held the most senior military position Catrigan Nova had ever had. The planet had long based its economy and culture on the fabulous wealth afforded it by the whirlpools. No monarch had ever had military pretensions or even ambitions. Until now.
One night as she sat in her bedchamber, a servant combing her hair, Mida came in to see her.
‘Why are you expanding the Companions?’ she demanded.
‘Because this is our time, my darling,’ Lydia replied. She turned to face her daughter and the maid moved round with her, gingerly keeping her distance from the gloved hand that rested in her Queen’s lap. ‘Don’t you see?’
‘No, I don’t!’ Mida said and flopped on the bed. She was not long out of childhood and could still behave with some petulance if she did not get her own way. Which, the Queen reflected, was no bad thing for a future monarch.
‘Mida, we have been given this technological marvel. So far it has given a small number of the palace guard great speed, strength and health. Should that really be the limit of our ambition?’
‘Ambition?’ Mida stared at her. ‘What “ambition”?’
‘You know there are jealous powers out there,’ Lydia said. ‘Aliens who would snatch our wealth from us if we permitted it.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps you don’t understand because you are still so close to your schooldays.’
‘It’s because I’m close to my schooldays that I totally understand,’ Mida said, standing up. ‘I learnt my lessons very well. Top grades. Especially in Politics and History. That’s why I know that our wealth would never be “snatched from us” because while some might want to, others would prevent it. We’ve kept that balance of power for centuries because we’ve always been neutral and fair.’
‘That is the trouble with status quos,’ Lydia snapped. ‘They often become broken by those we least expect at times we are least prepared for them.’
‘Nonsense.’ Mida turned on her heel and stalked from the room, leaving the door ajar.
‘Your daughter is right,’ said a voice. It was hard, yet softened by a pleasing lilt.
The maid gave a little shriek and dropped the hairbrush. The owner of the voice was across the room and picking it up before either woman could react. He was
skinny with a lined face and hair the colour of pewter, swept up away from his forehead. He smiled and handed the brush back to the servant.
‘Who are you?’ the Queen demanded, a slight nervousness showing in her voice.
‘No need for alarm. Or guards for that matter, I don’t really like guards. They’re always locking me up. And I’m always escaping. Perhaps we could bypass that, eh? It’s a bit boring in the long run. And I’ve had a very long run.’
‘We are sure you’ll agree we would be a foolish Queen if we did not summon security when a strange man breaks into our bedroom.’
Lydia indicated the maid should do so, and the mousey woman bobbed her head before scurrying across to a communicator on the bedside table.
‘Well, I’m no Michael Fagan, but perhaps you should. They’re the reason I’m here. Well, them and that gauntlet of yours.’ The man thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, whipping out the wings of his jacket in a flash of scarlet lining.
‘Who …’ the Queen tried to ask again.
‘A friend. Indeed. And you’re in need.’
Just then, the doors burst open and Litarsas burst in with two other Champions and a four-man squad of her regular Companions behind them. They fanned out, surrounding the new arrival.
‘See?’ said the man. ‘What did I say about guards? They just get in the way!’
‘Majesty?’ Litarsas said.
‘This man has entered our bedchamber. Is this the level of competence we can expect from our Companions? Our Champions, even?’
‘Hold him,’ Litarsas said. He sounded totally unfazed by either the strange nature of the interloper or the harsh words of his monarch.
Two of the Companions marched forward and grabbed the man, pinning his arms behind his back.
‘My apologies, Highness,’ Litarsas said. Again his voice sounded as if had been drugged. Not slurred, just a monotone.
The new arrival pulled his arms away from the Companions and strode across the room to stare at Litarsas, face to face. He even tapped the blue lamp in his chest.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Primitive. But undeniable.’ He spun quickly and approached the Queen. ‘You’re in terrible danger!’
Lydia looked at him. He seemed in earnest, but he was clearly deranged.
Litarsas flung out a silvery arm and now the two Champions moved forward. They took the stranger’s arms and he winced.
‘All right! All right!’ he growled. ‘Just mind the tailoring. I’m fond of this red lining.’
‘To the dungeon level,’ Litarsas said.
‘Perfect,’ the pewter-haired man said. ‘Take me away from your leader.’
Lydia remained troubled by the intruder’s words, but she thought it was probably the fact that news of her super-soldiers was spreading across the quadrant. It was natural such information would rouse fears in some people – especially those of an unhinged nature.
Mida didn’t see it that way at all. She thought the man had been speaking sense. She still failed to see why Catrigan Nova had to put itself on what amounted to a war footing.
Then came that morning, a few days later. It was that period of the year when the chill of winter creeps up to play at the edges of the still-summery day. The Queen was at the Making Ceremony for a squad of new Champions.
By now, the implants and upgrades on those she had already touched with the gauntlet were very widespread. Few of the Champions slept any more. They drew up plans for ships and weapons that Litarsas assured her would be necessary in ensuring their wealth was not taken from them. And yet he was also advocating the sale of their gold at an unprecedented rate. He claimed it was to finance the building of these new marvels. But it was lowering the price on the markets in three quadrants.
Lydia stood on a raised dais, her breath forming in the cool morning air. The suns were creeping over the pointed apex of the Companion barracks, slowly diminishing the shadows. Before her stood six of her subjects wearing the new, burnished steel armour of the Companions. She herself wore a steel scarf that hung from her neck and was decorated with a stylised circuit board.
The gauntlet was on her left hand – as it always was these days. Lydia did not want to admit to anyone, but she had been unable to remove the glove since before the intruder in the bedchamber arrived. She looked at it now and frowned. Had it grown? Her hand and forearm seemed much larger: like a powerful man’s – or, indeed, one of the Champions.
As the Anthem of Catrigan Nova began to play, the Queen stepped down from her platform and approached the line of Companions. She was pleased to see that one was a woman. Lydia moved to the first man and, as was now the custom, he took one smart step forward. She placed the palm of the gauntlet on his chest plate – where the Champion’s lamp would form.
It took a few seconds, but then the man gasped. He managed to step back before he bowed his head in what seemed like pain – even though after the event everyone claimed that the process did not hurt them. The process of upgrading seemed to take more time now. The Queen had no idea why. Perhaps the gauntlet was running out of power. Still, by the time she reached the only woman on parade, the first man’s chest armour had all but changed.
When fully converted, the armour resembled the muscles and ligaments of the body cast in metal. Each limb was striated with lines and some form of ex-skeletal tube ran very closely down each leg and arm from shoulder to elbow and from thigh to knee. Standing to one side was Litarsas. Lydia had noted that his neck was now covered in a metal brace and the metallic spine of his armour extended up over the back of his head, almost to the crown.
Under his arm he held a helmet. Lydia raised an eyebrow. That was new. Like the armour, it was a dull silver in tone with a slot for a mouthpiece and round holes for eyes. Oddly, there seemed to be a second, much smaller circle at the bottom of each one, facing to the side of the helmet. At the apex, was a wedge-shaped attachment for which the Queen could not see a use.
She made a mental note to ask Litarsas about it at their next audience and then, with the ceremony completed, the Queen left the chilly square and made her way back through the Palace. As she reached the familial apartments, Mida was waiting for her dressed in a simple, short-sleeved dress. Lydia could tell by the way she was standing that her daughter was upset.
‘How many does that make?’ Mida asked gruffly.
‘The Champions are now at Company strength,’ Lydia replied and swept past her daughter into the hallway. ‘Just over 70 or so.’ She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked pale, drawn even. ‘But I’m tired, darling,’ she added, watching her daughter in the reflection. ‘Can we have this fight another time?’
‘No,’ Mida said. She had her hands on her hips. ‘You’ve changed, Mother. That gauntlet thing. That’s what’s done it.’
‘Darling, I just need to rest.’ Lydia went to move to the next room to sit down, but Mida blocked her.
‘That man was right,’ she said. ‘I think that thing’s dangerous. When did you last take it off?’
Lydia balked at answering the question. How could she tell her daughter she hadn’t been able to? This made her realise that there might be some truth to her words.
‘I haven’t,’ she said, finally.
‘What?’ Mida shook her head. ‘Unbelievable. And you don’t think it’s dangerous. And you don’t want to talk about it. And you’re always tired!’
She turned to leave but Lydia went after her, stretching out a hand to stop her, pacify her. ‘Please wait, darling.’ But then it happened. Her hand gripped Mida’s arm. But it was her gloved hand.
Her daughter screamed as her shoulder seemed to break out in a rash of silver that covered her upper arm in seconds. Mida snatched her hand away from Lydia’s grip and looked in fear and loathing at her mother.
‘What have you done?’ she breathed.
‘No!’ Lydia moved forward to help her daughter, but Mida cowered. ‘No, please. Mida, darling.’
She didn’t know what to do. For
the first time in many months – years even – there was nothing she could do.
Lydia watched, unable to move, as the silver spread down Mida’s arm and across her hand. Her eyes wide in horror, the Queen watched as her daughter’s arm quickly became a copy of her own. Another gauntlet.
Her daughter looked at her, tears in her eyes, a hatred in her voice that had never been there before. ‘I told you!’ she shrieked. ‘I told you it was dangerous!’
She looked at the floor as Lydia stood, her own cyborg hand to her mouth.
‘Dungeons,’ the man said. He looked as if he had been staying in one of the Palace’s luxury bedrooms, not a cell two metres square and furnished only with a bed, wash basin and toilet. ‘Wooden doors.’
Lydia was standing before him, the other side of the heavily barred cell door.
‘Bit of a miscalculation on my part, otherwise I’d have been there to help.’
‘Can you help now?’ the Queen asked quietly.
‘I can try,’ the man said. He came up to the cell door and peered through, trying to see what was beyond the outer door. ‘Let me guess. No “Champions” down here. Prison guard duty is far too lowly for your new super-soldiers. And besides they’re probably off building space ships and ray guns and planners and controllers.’
Lydia nodded. ‘We are planning a new fleet with new weapons,’ she said. She was looking at the ground and then she choked, starting to cry. ‘I feel so ashamed.’
‘So you should,’ the man said. ‘But it’s no good crying over spilt Cyber-technology.’
The Queen looked up at him, wiping away the tears with her right hand – her normal hand. ‘You know the origins of this gauntlet?’
‘I do. A nasty species of cyborgs. You might have heard of them.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘Cybermen.’
The word did sound familiar. Lydia pulled a face as she tried to dredge the memory to the surface. ‘Cybermen,’ she repeated.
‘That’s it. You can do it! Your schooling was a long time ago, wasn’t it?’ He smiled, this time with genuine warmth. ‘No offence.’
‘But …’ The Queen could remember it now. ‘They died out. The … hibernation galaxy blew up. Or something. No, it can’t have been a galaxy.’
Doctor Who: Myths and Legends Page 2