The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Chekov did not try to protest their capture. He knew the attempt would be futile.

  He and Terrell still wore their suits, though their helmets and phasers had been taken. Escape seemed impossible. Besides the four people holding them, twelve or fifteen others stood in silence around them.

  As if they were waiting.

  Chekov felt more frightened of what—whom—they were waiting for than of all of them together. Without actually looking at his phaser, Chekov set himself to get to it. He forced himself to relax; he pretended to give up. When in response one of his captors just slightly relaxed the hold, Chekov lunged forward.

  He was not fast enough. His hands were jammed up under his shoulder blades, twisting his arms painfully. He cried out. Terrell's captors jerked him upright, too, though he was still half-stunned.

  Chekov had no other chance to resist. The pressure on his arms did not ease: it intensified. Through a haze of pain, he sought desperately through old memories to recall everything he could about Botany Bay. So much had happened in so short a time that while he remembered the incident itself with terrible clarity, some of the details had blurred. It was a long time ago, too, fifteen years …

  The airlock hummed into a cycle. The guards forced Chekov to attention, pulled Terrell upright, and turned them both to face the doorway. The bruise on Terrell's face was deep red against his black skin. Sweat ran down Chekov's sides.

  A tall figure, silhouetted by the light, paused, stepped out of the chamber, and slowly, deliberately, removed its helmet.

  Chekov's breath sighed out in a soft, desperate moan.

  "Khan. . . ."

  The man had changed: he appeared far more than fifteen years older. His long hair was now white, streaked with iron gray. But the aura of power and self-assurance was undiminished; the changes meant nothing. Chekov recognized him instantly.

  Khan Singh glanced toward him; only then did Chekov realize he had spoken the name aloud. Khan's dark, direct gaze made the blood drain from Chekov's face.

  Khan approached and looked them over. The unrelenting inspection shocked Terrell fully back to consciousness, but Khan dismissed him with a shrug.

  "I don't know you," he said. He turned toward Chekov, who shrank away.

  "But you," he said softly, gently, "I remember you, Mr. Chekov. I never hoped to see you again."

  Chekov closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Khan's terrifying expression, which was very near a smile.

  "Chekov, who is this man?" Terrell tried vainly to reassert some authority.

  "He was … experiment, Captain. And criminal." Though he feared angering Khan, he could think of no other way, and no satisfactory way at all, to describe him. "He's from … twentieth century." He was an experiment, a noble dream gone wrong. Genetic engineering had enhanced his vast intelligence; nature had conveyed upon him great presence and charisma. What had caused his overwhelming need for power, Pavel Chekov did not know.

  Khan Singh's only reaction to Chekov's statement was a slow smile.

  "What's the meaning of this treatment?" Terrell said angrily. "I demand—"

  "You, sir, are in a position to demand nothing." Khan's voice was very mild. He could be charming—Chekov recalled that all too well. "I, on the other hand, am in a position to grant nothing." He gestured to the people, to the surroundings. "You see here all that remains of the crew of my ship, Botany Bay, indeed all that remains of the ship itself, marooned here fifteen years ago by Captain James T. Kirk."

  The words were simply explanatory, but the tone was chilling.

  "I can grant nothing, for we have nothing," Khan said.

  Terrell appealed to Khan's ragtag group of men and women.

  "Listen to me, you people—"

  "Save your strength, Captain," Khan said. "They have been sworn to me, and I to them, since two hundred years before you were born. We owe each other our lives." He glanced kindly at Chekov. "My dear Mr. Chekov, do you mean you never told him the tale?" He returned his attention to Terrell. "Do you mean James Kirk never amused you by telling the story of how he 'rescued' my ship and its company from the cryogenic prison of deep space? He never made sport of us in public? Captain, I'm touched."

  His words were filled with quiet, deadly venom.

  "I don't even know Admiral Kirk!"

  "Admiral Kirk? Ah, so he gained a reward for his brave deeds and his acts of chivalry—for exiling seventy people to a barren heap of sand!"

  "You lie!" Chekov shouted. "I saw the world we left you on! It was beautiful; it was like a garden—flowers, fruit trees, streams … and its moon!" Chekov remembered the moon most clearly, an enormous silver globe hanging over the land, ten times the size of the moon on Earth, for Captain Kirk had left Khan and his followers on one of a pair of worlds, a twin system in which planet and satellite were of a size. But one was living, the other lifeless.

  "Yes," Khan said, in a rough whisper. "Alpha Ceti V was that, for a while."

  Chekov gasped. "Alpha Ceti V!" The name came back, and all the pieces fell into place: no official records, for fear Khan Singh would free himself again; the discrepancies between the probe records and the data Reliant collected. Now, too late, Chekov understood why he had lived the last few days under an increasing pall of dread.

  "My child," Khan said, his tone hurt, "did you forget? Did you forget where you left me? You did, I see … ah, you ordinaries with your pitiful memories."

  If the twin worlds had still existed, Chekov would have seen them on approach and remembered, and warned Terrell away.

  "Why did you leave Alpha Ceti V for its twin?" Chekov asked. "What happened to it?"

  "This is Alpha Ceti V!" Khan cried.

  Chekov stared at him, confused.

  Khan lowered his voice again, but his deep black eyes retained their dangerous glitter.

  "Alpha Ceti VI, our beautiful moon—you did not survey that, did you, Mr. Chekov? You never bothered to note its tectonic instability. It exploded, Mr. Chekov. It exploded! It laid waste to our planet. I enabled us to survive, I, with nothing to work with but the trivial contents of these cargo holds."

  "Captain Kirk was your host—" Chekov said.

  "And he never appreciated the honor fate offered him. I was a prince on Earth; I stood before millions and led them. He could not bear the thought that I might return to power. He could only conquer me by playing at being a god. His Zeus to my Prometheus: he put me here, in adamantine chains, to guard a barren rock!"

  "You tried to steal his ship—"

  Ignoring his words, Khan bent down and looked straight into Pavel Chekov's eyes. "Are you his eagle, Mr. Chekov? Did you come to tear out my entrails?"

  "—and you tried to murder him!"

  Khan turned away, and gazed at Clark Terrell. "What of you, Captain? Perhaps you are my Chiron. Did you come to take my place in purgatory?"

  "I … I don't know what you mean," Terrell said.

  "No, you do not! You know nothing of sacrifice. Not you, not James T. Kirk—" he snarled the name, "—no one but the courageous Lieutenant McGiver, who defied your precious admiral, who gave up everything to join me in exile."

  Khan's voice broke, and he fell silent. He turned away.

  "A plague upon you all."

  He swung around on them again. His eyes were bright with tears, but his self-control had returned. The horrifying gentleness of his voice warned of anger under so much pressure it must, inevitably, erupt.

  "You did not come seeking me," he said. "You believed this was Alpha Ceti VI. Why would you choose to visit a barren world? Why are you here?"

  Chekov said nothing.

  "Foolish child." As carefully as a father caressing a baby, Khan touched his cheek. His fingers stroked down to Pavel's chin. Then he grabbed his jaw and brutally forced up his head.

  Just as suddenly he spun away, grabbed Terrell by the throat, and jerked him off his feet.

  "Why?"

  Terrell shook his head. Khan gripped harder.


  Choking, Terrell clawed at Khan's gloved hand. Khan watched, a smile on his face, while the captain slowly and painfully lost consciousness.

  "It does not please him to answer me," Khan said. His lips curled in a cruelly simple smile. "Well, no matter." He opened his fist, and Terrell's limp body collapsed on the floor.

  Chekov twisted, trying to free himself. The two men holding him nearly broke his arms. Chekov gasped. Terrell curled around himself, coughing. But at least he was alive.

  "You'll tell me willingly soon enough," Khan said. He made a quick motion with his head. His people dragged Chekov and Terrell into the laboratory and dumped them next to the sand tank.

  Khan strode past them, picked up a small strainer, and dipped it into the tank. He lifted it and sand showered out, sliding down through the mesh and flung up by the struggling of the creatures he had snared.

  "Did you, perhaps, come exploring? Then let me introduce you to the only remaining species native to Alpha Ceti V." He thrust the strainer in front of Chekov. "Ceti eels," Khan said. The last of the sand spilled away. The two long, thin eels writhed together, lashing their tails and snapping their narrow pointed jaws. They were the sickly yellow of the sand. They had no eyes. "When our world became desert, only a desert creature could survive." Khan took Chekov's helmet from one of his people, an intense blond young man.

  "Thank you, Joachim." He tilted the strainer so one of the eels flopped into the helmet.

  Joachim spilled the second eel into Terrell's helmet.

  "They killed, they slowly and horribly killed, twenty of my people," Khan said. "One of them … was my wife."

  "Oh, no. . . ." Chekov whispered. He remembered Lieutenant McGiver. She had been tall and beautiful and classically elegant, but, more important, kind and sweet and wise. He had only ever had one conversation with her, and that by chance—he was an ensign, assigned to the night watch, when she was on the Enterprise, and ensigns and officers did not mix much. But once, she had talked with him. For days afterward, he had wished he were older, more experienced, of a more equivalent rank … He had wished many things.

  When she left the Enterprise to go with Khan, Ensign Pavel Chekov had locked himself in his cabin and cried. How could she go with Khan? He had never understood. He did not understand now.

  "You let her die," he said.

  Khan's venomous glance transfixed him.

  "You may blame her death on your Admiral Kirk," he said. "Do you want to know how she died?" He swirled Chekov's helmet in circles. Pavel could hear the eel sliding around inside. "The young eel enters its victim's body, seeks out the brain, and entwines itself around the cerebral cortex. As a side effect, the prey becomes extremely susceptible to suggestion." He came toward Chekov. "The eel grows, my dear Pavel Chekov, within the captive's brain. First it causes madness. Then the host becomes paralyzed—unable to move, unable to feel anything but the twisting of the creature within the skull. I learned the progression well. I watched it happen … to my wife."

  He lingered over the description, articulating every word with care and precision, as if he were torturing himself, embracing the agony as a fitting punishment.

  "Khan!" Pavel cried. "Captain Kirk was only doing his duty! Listen to me, please—"

  "Indeed I will, Pavel Chekov: in a few moments you will speak to me as I wish."

  Pavel felt himself being pushed forward in a travesty of a bow. He fought, but the guards forced him down. Khan let him look into his helmet, where the eel squirmed furiously.

  "Now you must meet my pet, Mr. Chekov. You will find that it is not … quite … domesticated. . . ."

  Khan slammed the helmet over Pavel's head and locked it into its fastenings.

  The eel tumbled against Pavel's face, lashing his cheek with its tail. In a panic, he clawed at his faceplate. Khan stood before him, watching, smiling. Pavel grabbed the helmet latches, but Khan's people pulled his hands away and held him still.

  The eel, sensing the heat of a living body, ceased its frantic thrashing and began to crawl, probing purposefully with its sharp little snout. Pavel shook his head violently. The eel curled its body through his hair, anchoring itself, and continued its relentless search.

  It curved down behind his ear, slid beneath the lobe, and glided up again.

  It touched his eardrum.

  He heard the rush of blood, and its flowing warmth caressed his cheek.

  Then he felt the pain.

  He screamed.

  On board Reliant, Mr. Kyle tried again and again to reach Terrell and Chekov. His voice was tight and strained.

  "Reliant to Terrell, Reliant to Terrell, come in, Captain. Captain Terrell, please respond."

  "For gods' sake, Kyle, stop it," Beach said.

  Kyle swung around on him. "Stoney, I can't find them," he said. "There's no signal at all!" Several minutes had passed since the cry from Pavel Chekov. The sensor dials trembled in overload.

  "I know. Muster a landing party. Full arms. Alert the transporter room. I'm beaming down right now." He headed for the turbo-lift.

  "Terrell to Reliant, Terrell to Reliant, come in, Reliant."

  Beach rushed back to the console.

  "Reliant, Beach here. For gods' sake, Clark, are you all right?"

  The pause seemed slightly longer than the signal lag required, but Beach dismissed it as his own concern and relief.

  "Everything's fine, Commander. I'll explain when I see you. We're bringing several guests aboard. Prepare to beam up on my next signal."

  "Guests? Clark, what—?"

  "Terrell out."

  Beach looked at Kyle, who was frowning.

  "'Guests'?" Kyle said.

  "Maybe we are transplanting something."

  "Enterprise Shuttle Seven, you're cleared for liftoff."

  "Roger, Seattle, we copy." Captain Hikaru Sulu powered up the gravity fields, and the square little shuttlecraft rose smoothly from the vast expanse of the landing field.

  He glanced around to make sure his passengers were all safely strapped in: Admiral Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Commander Uhura. Almost like the old days. Kirk was reading a book—was that a pair of spectacles he was wearing? It was, indeed—McCoy was making notes in a medical file, and Uhura was bent over a pocket computer, intent on the program she was writing.

  Last night's rain had left today crystal clear and gleaming. The shuttle gave a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of land so beautiful that Hikaru wanted to grab everyone in the shuttle and shake them till they looked: two ranges of mountains, the Cascades to the east and the Olympics to the west, gray and purple and glittering white; the long wide path of Puget Sound, leading north, studded with islands and sliced by the keen-edged wake of a hydrofoil. He rotated the shuttle one hundred eighty degrees to starboard, slowly, facing in turn the solitary volcanic peaks of Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, steaming and smoking again after a two-hundred-year sleep, Mount Hood, and far to the south, rising through towering thunderheads, Mount Shasta.

  The shuttle continued its ascent. Distance blurred the evidence of civilization, even of life, stripping the underlying geology bare, until the lithic history of lava flows, glacial advance, and orogeny lay clear before him. A lightning bolt flashed along Mount Shasta's flank, arcing through the clouds.

  And then the earth curved away beneath him, disappearing into the sun far to one side and into the great shadow of the terminator on the other.

  Uhura reached out and brushed her fingertips against his arm. He glanced around. The computer lay abandoned beside her.

  "Thank you," she said very softly. "That was beautiful."

  Hikaru smiled, glad to have someone to share it with.

  "My pleasure."

  She went back to her computer. He homed in on the Starfleet Space Dock beacon and engaged the autopilot. It would be a while before he had anything else to do. He stretched out in one of the passenger seats, where he could relax but still keep an eye on the control display.

  The admiral close
d his book and pushed his glasses to the top of his head.

  "You look a bit the worse for wear, Mr. Sulu—is that from yesterday?"

  Hikaru touched the bruise above his cheekbone and grinned ruefully. "Yes, sir. I didn't realize I'd got it till too late to do anything about it."

  "There's one thing you can say about Mr. Spock's protégés: They're always thorough."

  Hikaru laughed. "No matter what they're doing. That was quite a show, wasn't it?"

  "It was, indeed. I didn't get much chance to speak to you yesterday. It's good to see you."

  "Thank you, sir. The feeling's mutual."

  "And by the way, congratulations, Captain."

  Hikaru glanced down at the shiny new braid on his uniform. He was not quite used to it yet.

  "Thank you, Admiral. You had a lot to do with it. I appreciate the encouragement you've given me all these years."

  Kirk shrugged. "You earned it, Captain. And I wasn't the only commander you've had who put in a good word. Spock positively gushed. For Spock, anyway. And you got one of the two or three best recommendations I've ever seen from Hunter."

  "I appreciate your letting me know that, Admiral. Both their opinions mean a lot to me."

  Kirk glanced around the shuttle. "Almost like old times, isn't it? Do you still keep in touch with your friend Commander Flynn?"

  "Yes, sir—I saw her off this morning, in fact. She made captain, early last spring."

  "Of course she did, I'd forgotten. When the memory begins to go—" He stopped, then grinned, making it into a joke. But he had sounded terribly serious. "They gave her one of the new ships, didn't they?"

  "Yes, sir, Magellan. It left today." It will be a long time before I see her again, Hikaru thought, with regret.

  A long time. The new Galaxy-class ships were smaller than the Enterprise, but much faster. They were most efficient around warp twelve. Only three as yet existed: Andromeda, M-31, and Magellanic Clouds. Their purpose was very-long-range exploration; commanding such a mission was the career Mandala Flynn, who had been born and raised in space, had aimed for all her life.