To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (20 page)

“Lies!” Astrid accused them, her Valkyrie-like features contorted in fury. “The Tyrant cannot be dead, not at the hands of mere ordinary humans. And a stolen spaceship … do you expect me to believe such nonsense?” She regarded Kirk with open suspicion. “If Khan died so long ago, what were you doing here now, in the tomb of his inferior wife, no less? Don’t tell me that your return to this world is a mere coincidence.”

Kirk was startled by the vehemence of Astrid’s reaction.
But perhaps it’s not so surprising,
he reflected. Khan’s departure several months ago must have thrown these so-called Exiles into a state of crisis. If their entire community had always been dedicated to overthrowing the “Tyrant,” his
sudden disappearance had no doubt left them adrift.
No wonder she’s so resistant to the idea; without a Khan to oppose, Astrid has no purpose in life
.

“We came … to pay our respects to the dead.” Even as he spoke, Kirk was conscious of just how flimsy that pretext sounded, even if it happened to be true. “And to learn more about what transpired here after the disaster.”

A scornful laugh escaped Astrid’s lips. “You never cared what happened here before, so why now?” She clearly wasn’t buying Kirk’s explanation. “Let me get this straight. You came all this way, after all these years, just to mourn an old enemy.” She sneered contemptuously. “Do not insult my intelligence!”

The woman’s accusations stabbed Kirk in the heart.
Why didn’t I ever check on Khan and the other colonists?
he asked himself, for maybe the millionth time since Khan’s return. There were reasons, of course: his responsibilities to Starfleet, the ongoing cold war with the Klingons and the Romulans, dozens of other Federation colonies to look out for, a galaxy of new worlds and civilizations to discover.
I always just assumed that Khan and his people were capable of fending for themselves. Plus, given Khan’s ambitions, and the danger posed by the superhumans, it had seemed wiser to leave Ceti Alpha V alone
.

Good reasons all, but were they enough to excuse him of responsibility for the tragedy that resulted?

“You’re right,” he confessed to Astrid. “I should have paid more attention to what happened here.” It
had
been his decision, after all. “But that doesn’t change the fact that your war is over. Khan is dead.”

“So you say now,” she responded. Kirk could tell from her voice and belligerent expression that she still refused to
believe him. “But perhaps you and your companions will tell a different story after I’ve introduced you to a few of Khan’s favorite pets.” She turned to one of her nameless subordinates. “Get the eels.”

Kirk remembered the missing terrarium. Apparently, Khan hadn’t taken the loathsome, brain-warping parasites aboard the
Reliant
after all. “Wait!” he urged Astrid and the others. “You don’t have to do that. We’re telling you the truth!”

Before he could say more, another castaway came running up to the Exile leader. “Astrid! You must hurry! Tamsin is going into labor … and she doesn’t look good! I think there’s something wrong with the baby.”

That was all McCoy needed to hear. “I’m a doctor. Let me help!” He nodded toward a nearby Exile, who was currently fiddling with the contents of McCoy’s medkit. “That’s my equipment there. Just give me a chance to see the patient!”

Astrid glanced at the medical hardware, as if confirming McCoy’s description of the instruments. The hyposprays and trilasers, along with McCoy’s passionate entreaties, seemed to convince her. “Very well,” she finally agreed. “Get your things and come with me.” She gave McCoy a warning look. “If this is a trick, I’ll kill you myself—slowly.”

“I’ve heard that before,” McCoy muttered under his breath as he quickly gathered up his supplies under the watchful gaze of the scowling Exiles.

Astrid headed for an exit, then paused to look back at Kirk. “This is only a reprieve,” she coldly informed him. “Use it to think better of your deceptions. We shall speak again, later.”

Armed castaways escorted McCoy after Astrid, who issued a parting command to the Exiles standing guard over Kirk and Spock.

“Take them to the Pit.”

Kirk barely had time to glance back at Khan’s journal before the guards took them away.

A.D. 2268

They spent nearly a week underground, hiding from the cataclysm. Violent aftershocks rocked the caverns, resulting in frequent rockfalls and tunnel collapses. The shell-shocked survivors were forced to constantly relocate in order to keep one step ahead of the cave-ins, while their escape route back to the surface was soon sealed off by tons of collapsed granite and limestone.

Khan barely slept, relying on his superhuman stamina to sustain him while he tended to what remained of his followers. He moved restlessly from chamber to torchlit chamber, checking on the wounded and offering whatever encouragement he could to the beleaguered refugees. “Take heart!” he urged a cluster of huddled colonists, including Harulf Ericsson and his pregnant wife, Karyn. “We shall come through this trial, this I promise.”

Ericsson stared back at Khan with malice in his icy blue eyes. He held his tongue, however, so Khan left the Norseman
behind to comfort Karyn as best he could in these dismal circumstances.

Conditions were brutal, not to mention claustrophobic. The forced evacuation of New Chandigarh had been rushed and disorganized, with no time available for planning or provisions. The fleeing colonists had brought only whatever weapons, implements, and articles of clothing they had managed to grab on to while running madly from the tremors and falling lava. Blankets were in short supply, a serious problem given the coolness of the lower caverns, where the temperature seldom climbed above twelve degrees Celsius. Even with their genetically enhanced immune systems, many of the survivors found themselves succumbing to disease; fevers and hacking coughs were soon common.

Food and water had become an issue, too. With their rations left behind, doubtless lost in the blaze that had consumed the camp, the starving colonists were forced to scour the crumbling catacombs in search of cave-dwelling beetles, millipedes, spiders, salamanders, and even the occasional Ceti eel. Khan watched in dismay as a handful of bedraggled men and women dug through piles of accumulated bat guano looking for the pale, colorless worms and insects living in the dung. (The bats themselves were long gone, having presumably fled the cavern the night Ceti Alpha VI exploded.)

How the mighty have fallen,
he thought,
where once we lived like princes of the earth
. He found himself pining for a raw bison steak, dripping with blood, or the barbecued haunch of a freshly bagged sabertooth. Even the processed blandness of Starfleet rations sounded like caviar compared to the squirming vermin they were forced to subsist on.

Their water supply was limited to the paltry moisture that trickled down the cavern walls or dripped from stalactites, which was not nearly enough to slake the thirst of so many trapped men and women. Khan’s own mouth felt as dry as the Great Thar Desert where he was conceived. His skin felt like sandpaper.

We cannot stay down here much longer,
he realized. Soon enough they would have to brave whatever awaited them on the surface of the planet.
I can only pray that the worst of the disaster has passed
.

A flashlight beam lit up the former bat cave, heralding the approach of Gideon Hawkins. The haggard physician had been entrusted with one of the refugees’ few flashlights, owing to the paramount importance of his duties. Khan was thankful that Hawkins, at least, had survived the catastrophe … so far.

“Greetings, Doctor,” Khan addressed him. Both men’s coveralls were torn and caked with grunge. “How fare your patients?” Inwardly, he braced himself for Hawkin’s answer. Every time he saw the doctor, Khan half-expected to hear of yet another fatality among his people.

So far, the death count stood at nine. Five men and four women, not counting the unborn children extinguished along with their unfortunate mothers, or lost to miscarriages in the aftermath of the disaster. The total human population of Ceti Alpha V had been reduced to a mere sixty men and women, many of them ill and/or wounded. Counting those superhumans who had perished in hibernation aboard the
Botany Bay
, Khan calculated that he had already lost nearly thirty percent of his original entourage.

It was a sobering, and deeply disheartening, figure.

“No new fatalities,” Hawkins assured him quickly. The
doctor’s knuckles were wrapped around the handle of a medkit, which he had been shrewd enough to hang on to when he fled New Chandigarh. “But Hans Steiber’s leg has gone gangrenous. I’m afraid I’m going to have to amputate … with your permission, of course.”

Khan nodded grimly. “I trust your judgment, Doctor. Can I be of assistance?”

“Actually, I could use a hand,” Hawkins admitted. “Saraj and your wife are swamped tending to the other patients.”

Bidding farewell to the worm-hunters, Khan followed the doctor back to the shadowy grotto that now served as their makeshift infirmary. Roughly a dozen colonists, suffering from everything from broken limbs to third-degree burns, were stretched out on the dank floor of the cavern, atop whatever blankets or padding the nurses had managed to scrounge up. Khan spotted Marla, along with Saraj Panjabi, circulating among the patients. Marla was wringing a damp rag above the parched lips of Paul Austin, trying to squeeze a few more drops of water out of the wet cloth. Khan’s mouth watered at the sight of the precious moisture.

He made eye contact with his wife, who smiled wanly at him in return. It pained him to see how thin and debilitated she looked. Dark shadows gathered beneath her sunken brown eyes, while her once-lustrous red hair now looked dry and lifeless. Her durable red jumpsuit was streaked with dirt and coming apart at the seams. The tricorder hanging from her shoulder looked in better shape than she was.
And yet she keeps on working,
he noted proudly,
as befits the wife of a Khan
.

Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the matter at hand. “Over here,” Hawkins said, guiding Khan toward a
dimly lit side chamber off just the main cavern. He tied a soiled rag over his mouth and nostrils and gestured for Khan to do the same. “I moved Steiber in here to isolate him from the other patients.”

The entrance to the crypt was narrow enough that Khan and the doctor had to squeeze through one at a time. Inside they found the former financier and money launderer trembling beneath the flickering light of a single torch, which was jammed securely into a crack in the cave wall. Steiber’s face was ashen and his entire body trembled uncontrollably. Beads of sweat, which he could ill afford to shed, dotted his febrile brow.

“H-h-herr Khan,” he greeted Khan through cracked and bleeding lips. He tried to sit up, but could barely lift his head from the cold stone floor. “F-forgive my weakness.”

“Do not trouble yourself,” Khan told the man, gesturing for Steiber to lie back down. “Save your strength for your recovery.”

Hawkins drew back a sheet, exposing Steiber’s left leg, which had been severely burned when a lava bomb set fire to the high grass through which he had been running. Gangrene had set in, despite the doctor’s best efforts, turning the limb black and spongy. Khan could smell the rotting flesh even through the handkerchief covering the bottom half of his face.

“I tried to halt the infection,” Hawkins insisted, “but it resisted even the strongest Starfleet antibiotics.” He placed the flashlight onto a rocky ledge, positioning it so that the incandescent beam added to the illumination provided by the sputtering torch. “Some damn local bug, I guess, that nobody’s ever run into before.”

Another unanticipated blessing of Ceti Alpha V,
Khan
thought mordantly. Not for the first time, he cursed the day Kirk first told him of this planet.
It’s been six months since we were left here. Surely, the
Enterprise
will be back to check on the colony soon, especially after Kirk learns what happened to this solar system…
.

Opening his medkit, Hawkins took out a hypospray and surgical laser. Steiber’s bloodshot eyes widened in fear at the sight of the latter instrument, but Khan placed a steadying hand upon the German’s shoulder. “Courage,” he said softly. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

Hawkin’s pressed the hypospray against Steiber’s neck, and the patient’s eyelids drooped mercifully. “That’s the last of the anesthetic,” the doctor announced with a scowl. “Should be enough to take care of the worst of the pain, but I’m going to need you to hold him still, just in case.”

Khan took hold of Steiber, being careful to keep his bare hands away from the gangrenous flesh. “Proceed,” he instructed the doctor.

He did not avert his eyes as the doctor’s trilaser neatly severed the rotting limb from the rest of Steiber’s body, cauterizing the wound as it did so. A shudder went through the German as the scalpel did its work, but Steiber remained unconscious. When he was finished, Hawkins tugged on the sheet beneath the amputated limb, pulling the leg away from his patient. “That needs to be disposed off,” the doctor said. He cast a meaningful glance at the phaser on Khan’s belt. “If that is agreeable to you.”

“Of course.” Khan did not wish to waste the phaser’s energy frivolously, but recognized the importance of eliminating every last trace of the infectious mass. A quick burst from the phaser disintegrated the foul-smelling leg before it could spread its contamination elsewhere. The stomach-turning
odor lingered in the musty air of the cramped isolation chamber.

Khan looked down at the unfortunate Steiber, who was now minus a limb, but looking even more pallid than before. “Will he recover?” Khan asked the doctor.

“Perhaps,” Hawkins answered. “If shock, starvation, and dehydration don’t kill him first.” He looked Khan in the eyes, an intense expression on his face. “I’m not just talking about Steiber. My patients need fresh air and sunlight, not to mention decent amounts of food and water, if they’re going to survive. They need to get out of these godforsaken caves,” he said forcefully. “We all do.”