Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [34]
The pilot of the shuttle was the queen herself. Her hands moved expertly over the instruments which controlled the craft. After she punched the course information, the automatics took over and the queen tugged the release of the seat’s harness and slipped down on to the deck.
She was going to get into trouble for this. Her schedule had been carefully arranged for the next two years. Glancing at the time she realized that she had already missed two engagements – one of which was with the Thordon ambassador itself. There would be an uproar. Particularly when her husband found out.
Well that was just too bad. This time she’d had enough. Queen Gilliam dressed in her cabin, exchanging her silk robes for a pair of rough canvas trousers and one of her husband’s old shirts. She tied her shoulder length blonde hair back into a ponytail, and pulled on the heavy boots she had shamelessly stolen from one of her bodyguards.
One of the many problems with being queen was that no one would let you wear anything remotely practical. On more formal occasions, her clothing was so intricate and unwieldy that two handmaidens were required just to allow her to be seated. The suffocating constraints of royal clothing was only a reflection of the tight organization of a queen’s life. Gilham’s day began shortly before sunrise and royal business was rarely finished before the sun had set. In addition to being the nominal Queen of Kr’on Tep and its Seven Systems, she was personally the Governor of seven worlds, as well as the director of several health and education initiatives on the planet below. The concept of a ‘holiday’ was unknown to the royal courts of Kr’on Tep.
Until now.
Queen Gilliam tossed the last of her equipment into a holdall, threw some underwear on top of the assorted instruments and headed for the airlock.
She arrived just as the shuttle’s engines were powering down. The craft had 57
brought her to its programmed destination. After a few short moments, she was standing on the hot surface of the planet of which she was queen. It was the first time she had been alone in the open air in more than twenty years. A wicked grin snuck across her face; they would be going crazy up on the barge.
The shuttle had whipped up the dust on the mountainside where it had landed.
Gilliam waited until stinging clouds settled before jamming her favourite brown suede hat on to her head and moving off.
The Palace of the First Queen of Kr’on Tep had been one of the grandest structures on the planet in its day. But its day was long gone and now it was only a series of cracked and broken slabs of granite-like rock littered across the hillside. Only the centre of the palace remained standing, a cluster of buildings which had once been the royal apartments. It was for this that Gilliam had abandoned her royal duties. As she slipped out of the heat of the day and into the cool shadows of the ancient palace, she prayed that what she hoped to discover was going to be worth it.
Gilliam set up camp in the Chamber of the First Queen. The room was large, and still almost completely intact. The desert sun forced itself into the room through long cracks in the ceiling, casting streaks of light across the jagged and uneven floor. It took a few minutes to erect her thermo-tent in one of the corners of the room. Gilliam unfolded the heavy canvas sheets with care; maintaining the tent’s integrity was vital. The palace was close to the planet’s equator, and the temperature fluctuated wildly between day and night. The hot desert outside would cool quickly once night came – she would need the protection of the tent’s regulated environment if she were going to survive the night. Only when she was certain that the tent was functioning did she allow herself to begin her investigation in earnest.
According to her research, the palace had been a wedding gift to the