To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (33 page)

“I have lived long enough: my way of life

“Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf;

“And that which should accompany old age,

“As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

“I must not look to have….”

Khan lifted the gun. In his mind’s eye, he saw Marla once more, as fair and enchanting as ever.
She is waiting for me,
he thought longingly.
Perhaps it is time to join her
.

But another face intruded upon his consciousness, staying his hand with a memory of flaxen hair and intense blue eyes.

The boy. Joachim.

Who will care for him once I am gone?

Khan’s hand came away from the gun. “No,” he whispered reluctantly. He must keep on living, if only for the sake of his people, who looked to him to keep them alive on a world infinitely harsher than the Earth they abandoned centuries ago.
I led them here, so I cannot abandon them now, even if it means ruling in Hell itself for many decades to come.

He imagined Joaquin’s spirit hovering nearby, standing guard over Khan in death just as he always had in life. “Do not fear for your son, old friend,” Khan promised him. “I swear upon my life, I shall raise Joachim as though he were my very own.”

The solemn oath reminded Khan of another vow he had once made years ago, and another, equally compelling, reason to stay alive. His hand went to his chest, feeling, beneath his blood-stained robes, the imprint of a silver medallion.

The face of James T. Kirk, captain of the
Enterprise
, appeared behind Khan’s brooding eyes.

Kirk’s hated visage stoked the embers of the all-consuming
hatred burning in Khan’s heart.
How could I have forgotten?
he chastised himself, ashamed to have even contemplated suicide while the true architect of his people’s suffering traveled the cosmos with impunity.

I cannot die,
he recalled,
until, someday, James T. Kirk has felt my wrath…
.

FIVE PLANETARY YEARS LATER

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven….

Khan’s mood was dark as he led a procession of shrouded figures across the endless sands toward home. Today’s expedition had been a discouraging one; the solar stills west of Fatalis had yielded less than seventy percent of the water supplies they had anticipated. There would be many thirsty days ahead.

The familiar wasteland stretched before him. The wind howled in his ears. Khan trudged wearily, feeling the weight of fifteen years of exile resting heavily on his aged shoulders. Swirling dust devils dogged his steps.

Just behind him, Joachim marched at his right hand, just
as Joaquin had before him. In truth, if Khan was completely honest with himself, he sometimes forgot that the son was not the father, and that the present was not merely the doleful past prolonged unto eternity.

Most of those who followed him now were second-generation superhumans, their parents having long since succumbed to disease, accident, or the unceasing depredations of the eels. Of his original comrades from the twentieth century, only a handful remained. Khan suspected that only the simmering hatred in his own heart had kept him alive so long.

A gnarled stone outcropping loomed out of the murk before him, signifying that they were drawing near to the battered steel cargo bays that guarded the entrance to Fatalis. Khan’s mind leaped ahead to the evening to come, as he pondered how he would spend the empty hours once the caravan returned to the caves.

Write in his journal? Play chess with Joachim? Neither sounded particularly inviting in his present mood. Perhaps he would simply seek out Marla’s tomb and spend the time in quiet seclusion with his wife.

A bizarre flicker of light caught his eye, stopping him in his tracks.
I don’t believe it! Can it be?
he thought in astonishment as his exceptional vision recognized the unearthly sparkle of a transporter beam. Peering through his visor, he watched transfixed as two space-suited figures materialized in the desert, only a short hike away from the refurbished cargo carriers.

Finally!
he exulted, realizing that his superhuman patience had finally been rewarded. A smile lifted his lips for the first time in many years. He had no idea who had
chanced upon their desolate abode, nor did he care. All that mattered was that the strangers must have beamed down from an orbiting starship, and where there was a starship, there was the possibility of escape.

Here at last, after so many years, is my chance for freedom…

And revenge!

“The Pit” proved to be just that, a gigantic sinkhole whose smooth flowstone walls stretched at least three meters above Kirk’s head. Human bones littered the bottom of the Pit, suggesting that he and Spock were not the first prisoners to be confined here. Squatting on the floor, his back against the cold calcite wall, Kirk hoped they weren’t in for quite so long a stay.

Armed Exiles, young and feral in appearance, patrolled the top of the Pit, discouraging any attempt at rock climbing.
Not much danger of that,
Kirk thought.
Even if we managed to get out of here and past the guards, how far could we get without our environmental suits?

Lacking any better option, at least for the time being, Kirk and Spock had compared notes on what they had read in, respectively, Khan’s journal and Marla’s data disks. The latter account seemed to jibe with Khan’s versions of events, at least up to the point where Marla sacrificed herself to save Khan’s life.
Just like Clark Terrell phasered himself to save me,
Kirk realized,
back on Regula
. He had been proud
to read that, in the end, Marla had possessed the tenacity to overcome the coercive influence of the eel in her brain.
Was that a testament to her Starfleet training,
he wondered,
or to the extent of her unconditional love for Khan?

“An intriguing, if tragic, narrative,” Spock concluded. He maintained a meditative pose upon the floor of the Pit, conserving his mental and physical faculties as much as possible. “It is a pity that our investigation has encountered such an unexpected interruption. I would have prefered to have perused Lieutenant McGivers’ data disks at greater length.”

This trip is certainly proving more eventful than expected,
Kirk conceded wryly.
Wonder how long Sulu will wait for us to check in before contacting Starfleet?
In any event, it would be some time before a search party could arrive to rescue them.
We’re on our own, just like Khan was
.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching the Pit from above. Spock arched an eyebrow and exchanged a silent look with Kirk. The two men rose quickly to their feet, the better to face whatever transpired next.
So much for discussing history,
Kirk thought.
At the moment, to paraphrase Spock, the needs of the present outweigh the demands of the past.

Seconds later, he heard McCoy’s familiar drawl echo through the caverns overhead. “All right, all right, I’m coming,” the doctor groused. “There’s no need to poke me with those damn pig-stickers.”

A rope ladder, woven from flaxen human hair, tumbled down from the top of the pit. Prodded by the unfriendly guards, McCoy slowly clambered down the ladder to join his friends at the bottom of the pit. Kirk couldn’t help thinking of the story of Rapunzel, even though the irascible physician made an unlikely Prince Charming.

“Good of you to drop in, Bones,” Kirk said, glad to see
that McCoy appeared unharmed. “What’s the status of your patient?”

“The mother or the baby?” McCoy replied. He wiped bloody hands on his black bodysuit; apparently the Exiles couldn’t spare water for washing up. “Both should be fine, although I’ve certainly performed deliveries in more sterile settings.” He shook his head, obviously disturbed by the primitive conditions he’d witnessed. “It says something about these kids’ enhanced immune systems that they don’t lose more tribe members to infection. Good God, Jim, the mother herself was no more than fifteen, though she looked a bit older.”

Kirk recalled that Khan had mentioned the children’s accelerated maturation. He found it hard to accept that this whole new tribe of Exiles had grown up since he stranded Khan and the others here years ago.

“That’s enough, Doctor,” an icy voice interrupted from above. Kirk looked up to see Astrid Ericsson standing at the edge of the pit. The sabertooth tusk around her neck gleamed in the torchlight. “You can converse with your associates later, if you’re still able.”

Kirk didn’t like the sound of that.
I have to convince her that we mean her people no harm.

Eschewing the ladder, the youthful superwoman leaped into the Pit on her own, effortlessly landing on the uneven stone floor. Three more Exiles joined her, just in case the captives were tempted to try overpowering Astrid. Blades drawn, they glared at the unarmed Starfleet officers while a fifth young superhuman descended the ladder, a transparent aluminum container tucked under his arm.

A layer of rocky soil covered the bottom of the tank, which Kirk assumed to be Khan’s missing terrarium. He
had no doubt what lurked beneath the rust-colored dirt and gravel.

The Ceti eels.

Astrid smiled coldly, acknowledging the arrival of the terrarium. She fixed a menacing gaze on Kirk. “I trust you’ve had time to reconsider your situation.” She gestured pointedly toward the eel tank, now resting in the arms of her subordinate. “Are you ready to reveal Khan’s whereabouts, or shall I be forced to resort to more drastic measures?”

“I’ve already told you the truth,” Kirk insisted. “Khan is dead.” He threw up his hands. “Why would we lie to you? Khan was as much our enemy as yours.”

“Then why not leave him to rot on Ceti Alpha V?” Astrid challenged him. Anger flared in her piercing blue eyes. “How else could Khan escape this world without the aid of your starship?” She laughed scornfully. “You expect me to believe the word of the Abandoner?”

“There are many starships,” Spock pointed out calmly, as though he was conducting a seminar at Starfleet Academy. “Your enmity toward Khan is clouding your logic.”

Astrid bristled angrily. “Shut your mouth, alien!” She nodded to two of the guards, who instantly took hold of Spock and McCoy from behind, trapping their arms to their sides. “I am tired of being lied to,” she announced ominously.

Turning away from Kirk, she lifted the lid from the terrarium and impatiently tossed it aside. A pair of matching metal tongs appeared in her hands.

Astrid probed the eel tank with one set of tongs, provoking an immediate response from the creature hiding beneath the soil. Bony pincers grabbed onto the metal implement. An
angry squeal assaulted Kirk’s ears. Astrid pulled on the tongs, exposing a scaly, gray-blue life-form that could only be the infamous Ceti eel.

The monster looked just as ugly as Kirk recalled, and several times larger than the immature version that had crawled out of Chekov’s ear back on Regula. He recoiled instinctively from the sight of the creature. A few steps away, McCoy gulped loudly.

“Fascinating,” Spock observed. Kirk recalled that Spock had never seen an actual specimen of the eel before.

Frankly,
the captain thought,
I could have done without this particular lesson in exobiology
.

Using the tongs, Astrid expertly shifted her grip on the so-called eel, seizing it behind its head so that it couldn’t escape. The enraged mollusk thrashed and hissed furiously, rolling its slitted yellow eyes, but the determined super-woman held it firmly in place.

Next, she used the second pair of tongs to dig between the dorsal ridges of the eel’s rigid carapace, extracting a single black larva. The procedure looked surprisingly delicate, as though Astrid were performing surgery, not preparing to torture an innocent prisoner.

“You don’t have to do this!” Kirk called out to the Exile leader, trying one more time to get through to her. “We’re telling you the truth. We’re not your enemy!” He stepped toward her urgently, only to be driven back at spearpoint by the third guard. “Forget about Khan! Let us do what we can to help your people!”

“Abandon our crusade against the Tyrant?” Astrid reacted vehemently to the very suggestion. “Never!” Releasing the adult eel, she placed the lid back on the terrarium and turned toward the captives with the deadly larva still
trapped within her tongs. Azure eyes swung from Spock to McCoy and back again, considering her options. “I am uncertain whether the larva will accept a host with green blood,” she admitted. “Perhaps the doctor instead?”

Kirk could not contain his anger and frustration. “For God’s sake, this man just helped one of your own people deliver a baby! He may even have saved two lives!”

A flicker of regret showed on Astrid’s features. “A lucky happenstance for us,” she conceded, “but hardly proof of your good intentions. The doctor’s efforts may have simply been a selfish attempt to win out trust, in order to betray us later.” Her gaze drifted to the bloodstains on McCoy’s hands and clothes. “Still, I suppose there is no harm in starting with the alien.”

His name is Spock,
Kirk thought, unsure how to save both his friends, but painfully aware that he was running out of time.
This is just what Chekov and Terrell went through!

I can’t let it happen again.

Astrid approached Spock, who didn’t flinch at all, even though Kirk couldn’t imagine any fate more repellent to a Vulcan than having his brain and reason subverted by a destructive parasite. Could Spock’s powerful mind resist the insidious effects of the eel?

Kirk knew he couldn’t risk it.

“Wait!” he shouted. “You win!”

Astrid paused, keeping the squirming larva caught between her tongs. She eyed Kirk suspiciously.

“Earth is in trouble,” he lied, making his story up as he went. “An alien race—the Corbomites—have attacked the United Federation of Planets, menacing the entire quadrant. They’re a superior species: faster, stronger, smarter than us. We didn’t stand a chance on our own. We needed
Khan—and his genetically engineered intelligence. He was our only hope!”