No Control
Chapter One: Forgotten Dangers
Several million miles above, a small personized planet hopper drifted through the blackness of space. Aboard were three members of the cream of the aristocracy – the young, the privileged, the bone-idle. The next generation of the richest families and most powerful clans. Three of them had come here, to the outskirts of civilization, simply for want of something to do.
The unofficial leader was Antola, a classically-elegant teenage girl with long dark hair and emerald-green eyes. She had been the one to suggest the jaunt, and provided the ship to do it in. But she had chosen only two of her fellow celebrities to accompany her. And why not? Exclusivity made it all the more exciting, especially as Antola knew more about their destination and purpose than anyone else. It was information she was unwilling to share until the time was right.
Used to instant and unthinking obedience, such behavior was thrilling and unusual, and the brother and sister Phen and Julreth had indulged their companion. No one knew they were coming here, of course. And had any aboard the ship given much thought, they would have realized this was not a good thing. But anything to divert the boredom of endless social functions and public appearances put such thoughts out of their mind. They were going on an adventure, and the fact they didn't know what sort of adventure it was made it all the more exciting.
"Behold the last world of the Cyberons, undisputed masters of galaxy!" crowed Antola in her most impressive and theatrical of tone, flinging out a hand to point at the forward plexi-glass windows, through to what she was referring: a rather unimpressive pale, purple-brown planetoid. There was no moon to be seen and any neighboring planets were not visible this close to planet fall.
"Perfect," Antola muttered to herself. "Absolutely perfect."
Her companions did not share her intensity. The large, curly-haired Phen and the slighter, tanned Julreth looked at the approaching world with expressions of apathy and faint worry respectively. Their destination looked completely unremarkable, to the point it seemed almost to be mocking Antola's vivid description. "We're not actually going down there, are we?" Julreth asked, far from eager at the thought. And it wasn't simply because they would be illegally trespassing on restricted area.
"I don't see any Cyberons," Phen announced, thoroughly unimpressed.
"The tombs are all underground," Antola explained, eyes still fixed on the planet. "We'll be landing next to main access shaft."
The grubby sphere grew larger as the ship began to enter the atmosphere. The piloting was all carried out by the incredibly advanced (and even more incredibly expensive) navigational computer that was far faster and safer than an unreliable human pilot.
"It's an artificial planet," Antola told the others, as always giving them chapter and verse for no real reason other than to show off how knowledgeable she was. "A hibernation complex with room for twenty billion Cyberons, all switched off and cryogenically frozen indefinitely – all ready to be revived at a moment's notice and once more wage war upon the cosmos."
The hours of secretive travel had got Phen's imagination working overtime at what their destination would be, and this did not live up to his hopes in any way. "All that for a glorified fridge," he sneered.
"Nothing so limited, my friend," Antola reproached him. "Each capsule doubles as a cybotization chamber. The whole planet is a factory creating countless armies of Cyberons, and keeping them in cold storage until the moment they are required. Put flesh in one end, take metal out of the other!" she concluded with a chuckle at the elegant simplicity of it all. "Repeat twenty billion times."
"And they didn't destroy this place at the end of the war?" Julreth boggled. "I don't buy it."
"A logical question," Antola beamed, giving the impression that she would have been annoyed if no one had asked. "For which there is a logical answer. The Cyberons were all but wiped out. The ones down there are the only ones left in the entirety of creation," brooded Antola. "To destroy the planet wouldn't just be costly, but genocide. And of course, there's the fact they were people once. Moral issues, you know how it is?" she added, with an expression like there was something foul-tasting in her mouth. Antola had no time for people who let the opinions of the great unwashed control their actions.
A faint tremor ran through the hopper as it slipped through the atmosphere of the planet.
"So why have we come here?" complained Julreth, drumming her fingers on a flight seat.
"Why, children!" Antola laughed. She liked referring to people as 'children', no matter what their age. It almost always made those she spoke to feel small, ignorant and helpless. But with Julreth and Phen, this was not one of those time. "We're here to make history... end."
The Doctor emerged from the TARDIS and drew his coat around him against the chill. The sun was setting, turning the sky the colour of a fresh bruise. He scanned the horizon, but there were no signs of towns, cities, or even hills. All was uniform and flat.
It was only when he turned around and looking behind the TARDIS that he saw the building. It was a blockhouse made seemingly out of rough grey stone. There were no markings, just a gaping dark doorway in one sloping side. The Doctor walked over to it, feeling the continued gentle gust of freezing air from the entrance to the building. Condensation was forming on the walls, rapidly turning into frost the further you went into the tunnel.
Slipping a hand into his jacket pocket, the Doctor took out a pen torch and switched on, illuminating the inside of the blockhouse. It framed a sloping tunnel, reminiscent of a subway – cut perfectly straight with no rocks or underground streams to get in the way.
He was startled when the silence was broken by a screaming, roaring sound from high above. The Doctor swung around in time to see a fierce light streak through the early evening sky – a blunt, arrow-head shaped space craft coming into land, anti-grav drives pressing the reedy grass flat as the hull descended to finally touch the ground. The Doctor's keen eyes picked out the details of the craft right away. It was hard to gauge the distance given the lack of any landmark, but it couldn't be too far. And it would be ungracious not to go and say hello. Popping his torch back in his pocket, the Doctor began to trek towards the newly-landed ship.
The moment he was gone, something moved in the shadows of the entrance.
Something whose shiny metallic skin gleamed dully in the dying sunlight. Its strange, flat, almost square head with two jug-like side projections slowly turned to watch the Doctor as he strolled off towards the landed planet hopper.
The silver creature emerged from the mouth of the tunnel soundlessly and moved out of the blockhouse, heading for the shadows where it could observe further developments.
Antola shut down the engines and punched the wall control beside the airlock. The hatch slid back to reveal the gloomy moors and darkening purple sky that could be seen out the forward windows. Chill, stale air blew into the main section of the craft.
Phen and Julreth had been silent since Antola's ominous announcement, and the sight of her standing in the open airlock, staring out into the murky landscape, unnerved them further. "If the theocracy know about this planet," Phen said at last, "surely they'll have some security."
"Why bother?" Antola asked. "You didn't even know this planet existed before now. Do you really think the common rabble know about it, let alone have the ability to get here?"
"So it it's just us, then?" asked Julreth, glancing out the windows at the darkening landscape.
"No one else for two star systems," promised Antola with a slight smile on her painted lips.
"Well, you might be wrong there, I'm afraid," said a gentle, precise voice from the doorway.
The Doctor's sudden arrival startled all the occupants, even Antola. "Good evening, everyone," he said. "So sorry to scare you like that. My ship made a random landing not far from here, I was talking a walk to stretch my legs, I saw your ship land and to cut a long story short, abracadabra, here I am."
Antola ignored the proffered paper band. "Who are you who dares trespass on this planet?" she demanded.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm the Doctor. And as for trespassing, well, I could ask you the same question – especially as you knew about it being trespass when I at least only got here by accident."
"Accident?" asked Julreth meekly, her heart still hammering with fright.
"I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque," the Doctor confided to her with a grin. He was pleased when she managed a smile back. "Happens surprisingly often," he added to Phen.
"I am Antola Jaloosku," announced Antola, annoyed at not being the centre of attention.
"Pleased to meet you, Antola Jaloosku," the Doctor replied, offering a hand to her.
Antola ignored it. "Night is drawing in," she said to her companions. "We should get going now if we want to be in the hive before it's completely dark."
"Hive?" echoed the Doctor. "There's a small blockhouse over there, is that what you mean?"
"Precisely," Antola hissed, then scowled when she realized she'd unintentionally paid attention to the time traveler. "You can come with us if you wish, and we shall descend into the heart of this mechanical world."
The silver figure was now hiding in the shadows behind the TARDIS, watching as the four figures emerged from the planet hopper. They left the airlock wide open and the entry ramp extended. After all, who was there on this world they thought could possibly steal it?
The figure's respirator rasped slightly more frequently as the quartet began to head towards its hiding place on their way to the entrance to the tombs, unaware of what was waiting in the shadows.
With the only source of light the interior of her space craft, Antola had handed out powerful torches to Julreth and Phen before they set out towards the blockhouse. The Doctor was still trying to understand what Antola meant about the world being mechanical when a distant, sharp noise rose above the sigh of the breeze. "Did you hear that?" Julreth asked nervously.
"I think I did," replied Phen cautiously, glancing around them and shining his torch about.
"I know I did," the Doctor added, his attention focussed on Antola. She hadn't reacted to the noise at all, other than to stop her forward march.
"There's no one else on this planet," Antola said with supreme confidence. "Unless of course our medical friend has compatriots he hasn't told us about?"
"Which I haven't," the Doctor replied, irritated at the reminder he was alone again.
"So who is it?" Julreth demanded, now thoroughly unnerved.
Antola shrugged. "Someone else. Someone who came here by accident like the Doctor or deliberately like us. Of course, who is to say this thing is human? We are on the edge of the theocracy, way out here. Perhaps some other civilization, some alien race considers this planet in their territory?" She twirled around, an expansive gesture encompassing the endless moors. "And what a perfect place for a first contact ending in mass murder!"
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "And why should these hypothetical aliens kill anyone?"
"A group of jaded young deviants like ourselves," continued Antola, as if the Doctor hadn't said a word, "stumbles across a truly revolting form of alien life, inimical to the whole of creation! They follow us across this deserted world until finally..."
"Until finally they talk to each other, work out what the problem is and live happily ever after," the Doctor announced, cutting across the teenager's spiel. "The end," he added.
"What? I'm just being realistic," said Antola, slightly hurt at the interruption. "They're having trouble all over the galaxy with other power blocs, alien societies, expanding their empires into this part of the universe. Did you see what happened colony on Questor last week? The gill-breather natives of the planet staged a coup and massacred the populace in one night... before eating the evidence." She grinned at the thought, but then sighed. "But then again, I could be completely wrong."
"You sure there's no one on this planet?" Julreth asked, needing reassurance.
"There's not supposed to be anyone here at all," Antola shrugged. "Except the Cyberons."
"The who did you say?" asked the Doctor, arching an eyebrow.
Antola was moving ahead once more. "Such ignorance," she tutted. "Have the schools finally stopped trying to teach the tapestry of history into the young? It is, after all, a wasted effort. The Cyberons, friend Doctor, are a dead race back from the dawn of history. A distant human colony, the surface of their world became uninhabitable. So they went underground. But they knew they would not survive there. The food would run out, the air would become unbreathable, the gravitational anomalies would bend their bones."
"Yes, I'm beginning to..." the Doctor tried to speak, but Antola kept on talking over him.
"And so the people decided that, rather than waste what little time they had adapting the environment to suit their bodies, they would do the opposite! Adapt their bodies to fit the environment. They had little food, they changed themselves not to need it. They removed their lungs so they didn't have to worry about the air, and reinforced their skeletons so as to defeat gravity. They became more machine than man, and thus they became the Cyberons, the ultimate evolutionary survivors."
She turned to glare at the Doctor, as if daring him to be unimpressed with her summary of events.
The Doctor dared. "You mean the Cybermen."
"The what?" Antola blinked, face frozen the instant before fury.
"You got the name wrong. You're talking about the Cybermen. From the twin-planet of Mondas, yes?"
"Yes," admitted Antola, annoyed. "But they are called Cyberons!"
"Nonsense, young lady," the Doctor reproached. "That's just some form of linguistic corruption, an example of consonantal shift. Cybermen, Cybermon, Cyberons, see? Either that or you weren't paying much attention to history to notice what their real name was."
Antola seemed to take a moment to do nothing else but control her breathing. "Cybermen is a prehistoric, backwards slang term of discrimination and gender incorrectness," she began.
"What rot," laughed the Doctor. "The name Cyberman is derived from a categorization of Mondan language. Fleshman organic, Cyberman cybernetic. Gender doesn't come into it, in fact it's one of the things the Cybermen were sworn to stamp out."
"You know a lot about it," said Phen, annoyed at being left out.
"Oh, well," the Doctor shrugged. "You pick up the odd detail if you keep your ear to the ground. Pub quizzes, television documentaries, the occasional article in Cyborg Monthly..."
"Then you know that following the destruction of their entire fleet," said Antola triumphantly, "that the Cyberons retreated..."
"Cybermen," the Doctor corrected.
"They retreated to these artificial planets, factory worlds converting entire species in hours. The theocratic armed forces pressed home the attack, sacrificed all the captive hostages the Cyberons took for cybotization. Until only this world was left, its army of Cyberons kept in permanent suspended animation. I presume you know all that as well?"
"Actually no," the Doctor shrugged. "But thanks for letting me know."
Antola was fuming. She despised people who didn't react to her the way she wanted. "Then you may continue this learning curve by accompanying us, Doctor." She turned and started walking again, only to stop almost immediately. Through the gathering darkness, light could be seen shining behind the window panes and notices of the police box.
The group stood for a moment, looking at the TARDIS. Julreth was the first to speak.
"What is that?" she asked, surprised.
"That," the Doctor replied pleasantly, "is mine."
"Whatever," sniffed Antola and strode across the grass towards the blockhouse. She didn't so much as pause as she strode through the entrance and into the sloping tunnel, the cold air billowing around her in a slipstream straight into the faces of the trio following her.
"Charming young woman," the Doctor lied.
The group had disappeared into the tunnel for a few moments before a shape detached itself from the darkness and moved across, following them. The silver giant loomed over the entranceway to the tombs, staring into the deeper shadows as if the darkness posed no obstacle. The last rays of the sun had vanished from the horizon, leaving almost total blackness. The stars had yet to start shining when the creature moved down the tunnel and out of sight.