THE TWIN PLANETS of Dinasis and Bagoss were infamous. Dinasis, the smaller of the two, orbited its larger sister at such velocity it created gravity wells lethal to starships decelerating from hyper-light speeds.

This would not have mattered quite so much if Bagoss was not celebrated across the quadrant as the best place to get your hands on anything your heart desired. While its sister was renowned for the danger it posed, Bagoss earned its infamy by asking no questions about where the goods it traded came from or for what purpose they would be used.

The sleek dartship belonging to Seeker Sylen had come of out hyper-light some distance from these terrible twins. It had taken four days for the ship to reach orbit, but Sylen had not wasted her time. She had pored over maps of the fabulous market that spread across one-fifth of the planet’s landmass. She had read scout reports of the best traders with the most exotic technology. She had amassed a wealth of information about local customs liable to offend the market vendors or fellow buyers.

Now, after three weeks living and breathing the amazing, shocking and sometimes dangerous market life, her search was at an end. A VR chip dealer had told her – after many bottles of horudo – that he had seen the gauntlet in the possession of a merchant named Ki.

She’d first heard of a mythical glove on Pyro Shika, a fascinating planet in the Claudian cluster. The gauntlet was said to possess magical powers: to heal, to give eternal life, to repair sailing ships or ancient weapons. It was the glove of a god, they said. Following a sizeable donation to the religious order’s coffers, Sylen had been allowed to read holy texts in which it appeared.

Mythic it may have been, but Sylen was almost certain the gauntlet was real. That had been confirmed when she’d found the desecrated tomb of priest-king Xanthos in the ruined city of Sagli-Ghent. It was here that the gauntlet had once been buried. But along with a lot of other religious artefacts from the time, it was no longer there. The trail – albeit temporarily – had gone cold.

Then, several months later, on the trail of an ancient soldier supposedly driven by malfunctioning tech she met a women in a bar who offered some new information. She was an archaeologist – feisty and unconventional – who, over a sumptuous dinner Sylen bought her, mentioned that one of her more impoverished associates had been persuaded to join a shady tomb-robbing expedition to Pyro Shika.

Sylen had immediately asked the Professor what had happened to the team and its findings. She had laughed and given a sarcastic reply. Last she’d heard, the impoverished colleague – a rogue by the name of Cedo – was a rich playboy on some space station with a lurid name.

It hadn’t taken Sylen long to track down the station; not with a name like The Pink Monoid. It catered to the most imaginative appetites when it came to matters of the flesh. Sylen had travelled extensively, but even she had been shocked by what she witnessed there before she found the ex-archaeologist.

Cedo was a shadow of a human, haggard and sunken-eyed. He had all but spent his fortune on indulgencies of every fashion. So, for a price that would last him until the remainder of his life was done, he told the Seeker that the expedition leader had handled the sale of the artefacts. Sylen, seeing he was into his last days, risked asking specifically about the gauntlet. He’d grinned. ‘That gauntlet made me an even richer man.’

It was only after she’d found the expedition leader’s widow that she learned what he meant by that. A metal virus had killed many of the crew on the return journey from Pyro Shika. It was this that had increased Cedo’s cut.

Of course, now the treasure was cursed, and if anything drives the price up on stolen archaeological items it’s a good horror story. However, hardened thieves do not listen to such nonsense, and after the Solarium Panatica acquired the gauntlet it was stolen in a raid less than a year later.

From planet to planet Sylen had followed the trail; from private collector to thief and back again until the gauntlet had ended up on a freighter that had been lost. No insurance claim was made for the vessel as it hadn’t exactly been space-legal and its owner was keen to avoid the investigation. Only the owner’s assistant, a pathetic member of the Tovolian race, knew that the ship had crashed on Dinasis; he was only too happy to tell Seeker Sylen, once she had given him safe passage back to his occupied home world.

Knowing that the ship carrying the gauntlet had crashed on Dinasis, Sylen guessed that the planet’s native scavengers would have stripped it bare. They would have then sold the contents to a trader on Bagoss who would put it up for sale in the market.

If the drunken VR chip dealer was to be believed, that trader was called Ki and she was standing before his emporium now.

The sky overhead was a crisp light blue, criss-crossed with jet plumes from the trade skimmers and taxis that braved the chilly atmosphere. Here, beneath the dome, the temperature was kept constant and the sometimes overpowering odours were extracted by hovering fan-drones.

The emporium itself was the standard three-storey building, a little more battered than most. This didn’t surprise Sylen. She’d heard that Ki was down on his luck. That would make the deal all the easier. Sylen had located the gauntlet and her Queen would be very happy.

‘What an exciting tale!’

The woman who spoke was seated at the head of the table. She was poised and elegant, a slender neck leading to a noble, chiselled face; long, lustrous black hair fell below her shoulder, kept in place at the top by an angular crown that looked like both a sunburst and a mechanical cog.

Halfway down the metal table sat Sylen. She was surrounded by the other Seekers, all of whom had returned for the Ceremony of Giving. She was now wearing an emerald green cloak that marked her as an elite member of the Seekers of Catrigan Nova. The woman at the head of the table was her Queen, Lydia.

‘You have the gauntlet with you?’ the Queen asked. She was excited and nervous, like a child on its nameday.

‘Of course, Majesty.’

Sylen stood and tapped the touchscreen surface of the table. Immediately the doors that gave onto the Hall of Seeking opened with a slight hydraulic hiss. Two members of the Royal Companions – the palace guard – entered, resplendent in their bronze armour and helmets. Between them they carried a green velvet cushion. On this sat the gauntlet.

It did not look like much when seen in such surroundings. It appeared to be what it was: a piece of scrap, purchased from a dubious shopkeeper in a faraway place. But Sylen knew it was also so much more.

Queen Lydia regarded the gift with a fixed smile. Sylen could see she was trying not to hide the fact she was a little nonplussed.

‘Do not be unduly disappointed, Majesty. The gauntlet is ancient. But its powers are legendary.’

‘Legendary?’ Lydia asked, with a slight laugh.

‘Being legendary does not make them untrue,’ Sylen said. ‘I assure you. You need only don the mitt to discover its power.’

Lydia reached out her favoured left hand and ran it down the length of the glove. It was constructed from a grey metal that had long since ceased to shine; it was almost matte now. But, as the Queen’s fingers caressed the gauntlet, it seemed to shine where they passed, turning silvery.

Everyone saw and a collective gasp of approval came from around the table. The Queen seemed captivated. She picked it up and held the gauntlet to the glittering chandelier above to better see its construction.

It seemed almost like a perfect facsimile of a humanoid hand. Metal knuckles and fingertips, sinews and muscles that stretched from the back of the hand almost to the elbow. Queen Lydia hesitated but then with the encouragement of all the Seekers around the table, she slipped her slender hand and forearm into the metal glove.

She gasped as the metal inside the gauntlet felt almost alive. A pleasant tingling sensation spread from her fingertips all the way up her arm, way past the end of the mitt.

Lydia held up her arm before her, marvelling at the feeling she was receiving from it and the fact that it now looked almost new.

‘Can it be true?’ she asked, almost to herself. ‘The glove of a god?’

‘I think that unlikely, Majesty,’ Sylen said. ‘But I thought the one element of truth might be its ability to repair mechanical devices.’

The Queen smiled. ‘I would like to try out that theory,’ she said. Her eyes lit on the two Companions, now standing to either side of the Hall of Seeking’s main door. She beckoned one forward. ‘You!’

The armoured man stopped before Lydia, standing to attention. ‘Yes, my Queen?’

‘I just want to try something,’ she said. ‘Stay still …’

The Queen slowly reached out her gloved hand, the silvery mitt contrasting with the bronze of the Royal Companion’s armour. As the two metals made contact, there was a sizzling sound and the smell of soldering ozone filled the air.

At first the guard did nothing, but then he arched his back and stumbled away from the Queen, roaring in pain. The Seekers leapt to their feet as he doubled over and fell to the floor.

The Royal Companions had long been equipped with the best, bleeding-edge technology. Their body-armour could usually withstand all manner of projectiles and even some energy weapons, they could activate personal protection shields and had built-in communications devices and secondary weapons systems such as smart-darts and flash-bang stun pellets.

The other Royal Companion was reacting to his comrade’s situation now, speaking into the communicator housed in his right forearm armour. ‘Medical Emergency! Hall of Seeking!’

The Queen watched wide-eyed. A handful of the Seekers had drawn their weapons in case the man now posed a threat to Lydia. Sylen was one of them. She needed to appear most loyal – especially as she was thinking that perhaps her gift had not been the success she had hoped for. She could see a few other Seekers giving her sideways glances that confirmed they were thinking along similar lines. Especially old Gordias, the Seeker-in-Chief.

At last the man lay still and the second guard knelt by his side. The Queen and her Seekers gathered around, craning to see his face. The Companion’s eyes flickered for a moment and then opened. He started directly at Lydia.

‘Your Majesty,’ he breathed.

Several Seekers helped him up and, as he stood, Sylen could see that the golden armour on his chest had not only turned to a dull silver, but that it had changed shape. Instead of the smooth, beaten gold breastplate there was now a crude facsimile of his musculature: a series of ridged metal plates.

The Companion smiled and the Seekers gave a loud cheer.

Just then, a Court clinician rushed in flanked by two nurses, each with mobile infirmary packs over their shoulders. Behind them came a young woman. She was dressed as a noblewoman of Catrigan Nova: a simple, graceful dress of night-sky blue. You could see in her face that she closely resembled the Queen.

The clinician bowed and rushed past her to examine the Royal Companion.

The young woman ran towards the Queen. ‘Thank Catrigan!’ she said. ‘I thought they were talking about you!’

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.’

‘It was. The Tiberian spiral galaxy. I’ve been hunting that thing for a long time,’ he said pointing at her left arm. ‘And they never die out. They always survive. It’s their prime motivator. No matter what. You could almost admire them if they weren’t so unutterably inhuman. And now you have the Mondas touch!’

The stranger quickly outlined a plan. She needed to speak to her most trusted guards – those Champions who had not yet volunteered for the upgrading process. Any of the original Companions, too. Those totally loyal to her and not in awe of or in debt to Litarsas. He asked her if there were any other force she could call upon and she smiled as it hit her: the Seekers. Sylen, especially.

‘Good,’ the man said. ‘They’re just a precaution. Hopefully we won’t need them, but you never know. Now! Your daughter. Bring her down here. We’ll set up base in the dungeons. They’ll never think to look here for trouble. I can treat her and then I need to kidnap you.’

He smiled again, his eyes wrinkling at the corners. The Queen managed a faint smile in reply.

Thank you,’ she said. ‘What should I call you?’

‘Oh,’ the man laughed. ‘Let’s not give them any clues. Just call me “Mr Clever”.’

Then she turned to go and make the arrangements.

‘One last thing?’ he asked.

Lydia stopped in her tracks. ‘Anything,’ she said.

‘Open the cell door?’

The Queen’s secret recruits quickly moved about the palace, bringing Mr Clever medical supplies and an upgraded infirmary kit, persuading the princess to attend the dungeons and trying to keep out of the Champions’ way.

The Champions themselves were now wearing the new helmets. Lydia came across three of them in the throne room. They were standing in a row, motionless. She walked right up to one of them and tried to peer through the eyeholes. She could see nothing beyond the black mesh that covered them. She asked one of them what they were doing there, but he didn’t answer.

She was about to give them an angry dressing down when she saw that small metal tubes were growing upwards steadily from the sides of the helmet where the ears should be. Similar pipes were protruding from the top of the head where the wedge-shaped crown was. Lydia watched, transfixed as the two ends curved towards each other and finally met, giving the helmets the appearance of having handles. She rushed to the dungeons to tell Mr Clever about them.

He was standing over her daughter who was lying on the cell bunk. The bed had been stripped of its grey blanket and had been replaced by a pristine white medical sheet. He had his sleeves rolled up and was wearing surgical gloves.

‘Handles,’ he said. ‘He was a good companion.’

The Queen had decided not to question him further about it but asked after her daughter instead.

‘She’s in a coma,’ he said. ‘I thought it best. The reversal process is very painful and while the Cybermen don’t care about that sort of thing, I do.’

She watched him working for a few minutes. He was gentle and assured. Every movement and action filled her with confidence that she had done the right thing coming to him.

‘Please,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Save my daughter. I beg you.’

Without looking up and despite being on the other side of the open cell door he said: ‘I will.’

The Queen slept fitfully that night and when she awoke she was greeted by news that the Champions had started rounding up members of the public – even visitors to the planet. They called it conscription. She dressed and hurried to the dungeons.

A miracle greeted her. Mida was sitting up in bed, her arm completely back to normal, save for a few scratches on her shoulder.

‘No permanent damage,’ Mr Clever confirmed. ‘But I recommend a period of rest. I’ll leave you two alone.’