by Greg Cox
Kirk glanced upward at the thick limestone roof of the cavern. A thought occurred to him and he activated the communicator in his helmet. “Kirk to Yakima,” he said. “Can you read me, Sulu?”
Static alone greeted his hails.
Just what I was afraid of, Kirk thought. Between the storm, the duritanium crates, and some five hundred meters of solid rock, they were effectively cut off from their ship. Just the way Chekov and Terrell were, when Khan ambushed them.
“Looks like we’re on our own,” he said with shrug, knowing that Spock and McCoy had heard his futile attempt to contact Sulu.
“Well, that’s a comforting turn of events,” McCoy drawled.
Now what? Kirk thought, contemplating the profusion of tunnels leading away from the cavern. If Spock was right, it could take hours—if not days—to fully explore this underground labyrinth. This was a job for full-fledged archeological survey, not a trio of vacationing Starfleet officers.
Once again, he asked himself just what he expected to find here. A sworn affidavit from Khan, exempting me from all responsibility for the castaways’ fate?
That hardly seemed likely.
“Captain,” Spock called out. “I believe you should come here.”
The science officer had wandered partway down one of the murky corridors, his searchlight probing the darkness ahead. A hint of excitement in his voice, discernible only to those who knew him well, galvanized Kirk, sending him running as fast as his weighted gravity boots would allow.
The tunnel was a short one, leading to a dead end about fifty paces away. Kirk found Spock facing the calciteencrusted wall at the end of the corridor, scanning the obstruction with his tricorder. “What is it?” he asked. As far as Kirk could tell, the wall ahead appeared indistinguishable from the crumbling limestone all around them.
“This barrier is not what it appears to be,” Spock reported. “I was searching for a section of cavern that was low in kelbonite when I discovered that this particular wall is, in fact, composed of reconstituted thermoconcrete, fashioned to mimic the look and texture of natural limestone.”
Kirk’s eyes widened. Thermoconcrete was a silicon-based building material used by Starfleet to construct emergency shelters and, on at least one occasion, to patch the wounds of an injured Horta. Kirk remembered leaving Khan with a quantity of thermoconcrete when he dropped off the colonists on Ceti Alpha V years ago.
“Well, I’ll be!” McCoy blurted, joining them before the ersatz cave wall. “Sure would have fooled me.”
“Not always the most difficult of accomplishments,” Spock observed dryly. “Nonetheless, it is a highly effective exercise in camouflage.”
But to what purpose? Kirk wondered. Why would Khan go to such effort to disguise an artificial wall? He stared at the rugged-looking barrier with suspicion. What was he hiding, and who was he hiding it from?
“Can you tell what’s beyond this wall?” Kirk asked Spock.
“Affirmative, Captain.” The Vulcan scanned the wall with his tricorder. “Sensors indicate another chamber, approximately fifty-nine-point-eight-seven-two cubic meters in size.” His right eyebrow arched. “I am also detecting traces of organic matter.”
“Organic?” McCoy echoed in surprise. “You mean there’s something alive in there?”
Spock shook his head. “Life signs are negative. More likely, these readings indicate the presence of something that was once alive.”
Curiouser and curiouser, Kirk thought. He swiftly made up his mind. “We need to find out what Khan’s hiding in there.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Mr. Spock, would you say that this wall is essential to the structural integrity of this tunnel?”
“No, Captain,” Spock replied. “I would estimate that the odds of a cave-in are less than one-point-zero-four percent.”
“Good enough for me,” Kirk said. Drawing his phaser, he set it for maximum power and aimed it at the camouflaged wall. “You gentlemen might want to step back.”
Spock and McCoy duly obliged, and Kirk squeezed the trigger. A beam of crimson energy struck the disguised thermoconcrete, causing it to glow brightly at the far end of the tunnel. The solid wall shimmered briefly, then dissolved into empty space, revealing an open archway into the chamber beyond. McCoy cast a nervous look at the ceiling, despite Spock’s reassuring prediction, but the narrow passage showed no sign of collapsing. Only a sprinkling of charred powder fell upon the floor around the newly exposed entrance.
Kirk released the trigger, then set his phaser back on Kill. Barely waiting for the edges of the archway to cool, he rushed into the second cavern, then stopped in his tracks. His jaw dropped.
The chapel-sized grotto had been transformed into a tomb of breathtaking beauty and elegance, dominated by a pair of massive stone sarcophagi. The right-hand sarcophagus was starkly unadorned, but the lid of the left-hand sarcophagus had been sculpted in the image of an attractive woman in an old-fashioned Starfleet uniform. The woman’s ample hair cascaded down onto her shoulders, while her classical features bore a wistful expression, touched by a profound sadness.
The figure lay gazing up at the ceiling. Kirk read the inscription engraved at the foot of the sarcophagus:
Marla McGivers Singh
Beloved Wife
2242-2273 Anno Domini
“A Superior Woman”
McCoy entered the crypt after Kirk. He looked about the grotto with a look of wonder on his careworn features. “Jim, take a look at this,” he said, pointing to a small niche above the entrance. A much smaller sculpture, of a knight in shining armor and a woman in a medieval gown, was embedded in the niche. “That’s from McGivers’ quarters back on the old Enterprise.”
Kirk dimly remembered the sculpture. McGivers’ own work, as he recalled. Her quarters had been a veritable gallery of paintings and sculptures, all paying tribute to the great heroes and champions of the past. Small wonder she succumbed so quickly to Khan’s charisma.
His gaze was drawn back to the chiseled lid of the sarcophagus. Although he had not laid eyes on the real McGivers for almost nineteen years, he could see that the likeness was remarkable. The exquisite craftsmanship of the sculpture, as well as the graceful lines of the sarcophagus below, testified to hours of painstaking labor and commitment. He had no doubt that this was Khan’s own handiwork, and that the second sarcophagus had been intended for Khan himself.
“He must have loved her very much,” McCoy murmured.
Kirk had to agree. In truth, he had long suspected Khan of simply using McGivers, of taking advantage of her hopeless infatuation in order to secure her cooperation in his failed attempt to capture the Enterprise. But this remarkable memorial belied such a cynical interpretation, as had the intensity of Khan’s fervent desire for revenge. Kirk could no longer deny that some sort of deep and lasting love had blossomed between Khan and the smitten young Starfleet officer.
Had McGivers made the right decision, going with Khan? Was the love she found worth the price she ultimately paid? Kirk didn’t know how to answer those questions. He looked again at the inscription on her bier, taking note of the dates engraved there. Marla McGivers had been only thirty-one years old when she died….
Should I return her remains to Earth? Kirk wondered momentarily. As he recalled, she had possessed no close family ties back home, something which had made her semimysterious disappearance a bit easier to pull off. Officially, Lieutenant Marla McGivers was listed as “Missing” in Starfleet’s public records.
“Impressive,” Spock observed, joining them within the tomb. “A burial site transformed into an artistic expression of love. Not unlike the Taj Mahal in Khan’s native India.”
“Why, Spock,” McCoy said. “I never knew you were such a romantic!”
“I assure you, Doctor, my appreciation is purely aesthetic.” Spock scanned the streaked marble coffins with his tricorder. “Curious,” he remarked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “Although Lieutenant McGivers’ coffin contains merely her physical rema
ins, I am detecting a variety of artifacts within the second sarcophagus, including a quantity of data-storage disks.”
Data disks? Kirk’s mind seized on the possibilities. McGivers was a historian, he remembered; she surely would have wanted to document the colonists’ experiences on the planet. Had she kept a careful log of everything that happened to Khan and the others?
“I want those disks,” he decided. Stepping forward, he gripped the massive stone lid of the right-hand sarcophagus. “Gentlemen, your assistance, please.”
Spock responded promptly to Kirk’s request, but McCoy hesitated. “I don’t know, Jim,” he said. “Doesn’t this strike you as a bit, well, ghoulish?”
Kirk shook his head. “Khan’s atoms were scattered all over the Mutara Sector,” he reminded the doctor. “There’s no body here to disturb.” He glanced at the adjacent tomb. “Besides, I don’t think McGivers would mind. As a historian, she knew that sometimes you have to unearth the past in order to learn more about it. If these are her records, she would have wanted them read.”
He and Spock took up positions at opposite ends of the sarcophagus. He dug his fingers into the seam beneath the marble lid, securing his grip. The heavily insulated gloves of his environmental suit made holding onto the lid a bit tricky, but Kirk thought he could manage. “On my count,” he instructed Spock. “One … two…three!”
The immense slab was difficult to lift. Kirk grunted inside his helmet, straining to budge the stubborn immovable object. Spock’s Vulcan strength came to his rescue, and the lid came loose at last. Conscious of the intricate stonework, the two men carefully laid the marble slab on the floor, leaning it up against one side of the sarcophagus.
That was rough, Kirk thought. He suspected he’d be feeling the ache in his muscles for some time to come. Let’s hope it was worth the effort.
He took a second to catch his breath, then peered into the shadowy recesses of the sarcophagus. As expected, no mummified remains greeted his gaze, only a packet of compact data-storage disks, of the sort used in old-style tricorders, plus one more thing: a large leather-bound book about the size of a computer display panel.
What’s this? Kirk felt a tremor of excitement as he gingerly lifted the mysterious volume from its hiding place within Khan’s coffin. While the other two men looked on, he flipped over the front cover of the book. He eagerly scanned the first page, on which was handwritten, in bold cursive letters, “The Personal Journal of Khan Noonien Singh.”
Kirk could not believe his luck. Khan’s own memoirs! Along with, most likely, Marla McGivers’ account of the colony’s history on Ceti Alpha V. Perhaps, he thought, I should not be too surprised to find these waiting; given Khan’s enormous ego, it’s only natural that he would want to set down his life and times for posterity.
“It seems Khan left us his journal,” he told Spock and McCoy, showing them the inscription on the book.
“Indeed,” Spock said. He sounded impressed, albeit in a cool Vulcan manner. “This could be a significant historical document, Captain.”
McCoy, of course, had to question their good fortune. “I don’t get it. Why would he leave this behind? Why not take it with him aboard the Reliant?”
Kirk thought he knew the answer. “Khan probably had a premonition that he might not survive his quest for revenge. He was basically taking on all of Starfleet, after all. I’m guessing he left his journal behind, along with McGivers’ disks, because he wanted some record of his struggles to endure just in case he ended up going out in a blaze of glory.” Kirk shook his head. “Khan had a weakness for grand suicidal gestures. Remember how he tried to blow up the Enterprise’s engines after his takeover failed? And how he activated the Genesis Device when Reliant was defeated?”
In truth, Kirk suspected, I don’t think Khan really cared what happened to him as long as he took me with him. The idea of dying in battle against his archfoe probably appealed to his warped sense of grandeur. Like Holmes and Moriarity, or Ahab and the whale….
“Sounds like Khan all right,” McCoy agreed. “Hell, as I recall, he almost destroyed Earth back in the 1990s, when it looked like he was losing the Eugenics Wars.”
“Precisely,” Spock stated. “With his Morning Star satellite weapon. Thankfully, he was convinced to choose exile in the Botany Bay instead.”
Kirk contemplated the volume in his hands. Perhaps these records would tell them more about Khan’s state of mind? He handed the data disks over to Spock. “Take a look at these,” he instructed. “Let’s see what we have here.”
Spock loaded the first of the disks into his tricorder. The glow from the instrument’s viewscreen highlighted the stark planes of Spock’s face as his Vulcan mind swiftly absorbed the information scrolling across the screen. “As you surmised, Captain,” he confirmed, “the disks appear to contain a record of the colony’s experiences as chronicled by Lieutenant McGivers.” He continued to scan the viewscreen with interest. “It is quite compelling.”
For himself, Kirk could not resist the temptation to open the dusty journal and start reading immediately. As the words leaped out at him, perfectly preserved by the arid atmosphere of the underground tomb, Kirk could almost hear Khan’s deep, resonant voice speaking to him….
PART TWO
Paradise Lost
3
A.D. 2267
DAY ONE
The buzzing of the transporter beam faded away and Khan found himself standing for the first time on the soil of Ceti Alpha V. His eyes, accustomed to the unobtrusive lighting aboard the Enterprise, blinked against the harsh glare of the midday sun, which blazed brightly in the sapphire sky of this brave new world. He felt like Columbus or Armstrong, bolding setting foot on the brink of a vast and unexplored frontier.
Here I will build an empire, he vowed, even greater than the one I left behind.
A stark red jumpsuit clothed his muscular frame, and his chin was held high despite the blinding sunlight. His sleek black hair was knotted at the back of his neck. Dark brown eyes gazed out at the world with confidence and keen anticipation. He started to raise his hands, to shield his eyes, then remembered the sturdy steel bonds locking his wrists together.
Captain Kirk was taking no chances, not that Khan blamed him. He had, after all, briefly captured the Enterprise and tortured Kirk nearly to death, so the captain’s precautions were only logical. I would have done the same, Khan admitted.
A full contingent of Starfleet security officers were also on hand to ensure Khan’s cooperation. They stood, phasers at the ready, all around the unrepentant superman, while more of their number kept watch over the mass of Khan’s followers, who waited silently for their leader a few meters away.
At Kirk’s insistence, Khan—and one other—were the last of the exiles to be transported to the planet’s surface, the better to keep the ruthless Sikh dictator under wraps until the very last minute. There would no replay of Khan’s previous escape from custody.
A gentle hand grasped his, and he glanced down at the woman who had beamed down alongside him: Lieutenant Marla McGivers, late of Starfleet. His accomplice in his short-lived takeover of the Enterprise, and his eventual undoing as well.
A woman of the twenty-third century, born some three hundred years after Khan and his fellow expatriates, she was a willowy beauty whose graceful figure was well displayed by her crimson Starfleet uniform. A short skirt and polished black boots displayed a pair of slender legs, while her auburn hair flowed freely over her shoulders, just the way he liked it.
“So this is our new home,” she whispered, a trace of apprehension in her voice. Chestnut eyes, tastefully highlighted by pale blue eyeshadow, took in the untamed river valley before them. Thorny shrubs and scattered palm trees dotted the grassy savanna stretching beyond the shores of a mighty river. To the northeast, a range of snowcapped mountains rose in the distance, no doubt many days’ journey north. Over the roar of the coursing river, the caws and squawks of the native wildlife could be heard. Avian life
-forms, boasting impressive wingspans, circled slowly above the grassy plains, although whether they were predators or scavengers Khan could not tell.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly, taking care not to damage her fragile, merely human bones. Unlike Khan and his other followers, Marla was not a genetically engineered superhuman; small wonder she faced their new life with some trepidation. Khan was deeply aware of just how much she had sacrificed to be with him. Like Eve with Adam, he mused, she has turned her back on the paradise of the twenty-third century to dwell with me in the wilderness.
A young Russian ensign—Chekov, by name—stepped forward from the ring of security officers. Khan recalled that the youth had shown courage during his short-lived takeover of the Enterprise, leading a failed charge to retake engineering from the superhumans; that the Russian’s charge had failed did not diminish his valor in Khan’s eyes.
“Excuse me, Mr. Khan,” he said, a trifle nervously, “but I’m to inform you that Enterprise will be departing shortly. As arranged by Captain Kirk, the provisions for your colony have already been delivered to the planet’s surface.” The youth gestured toward an assortment of bulky metal cargo containers, resting safely distant from the muddy banks of the river. “Besides your supplies from the Botany Bay, Captain Kirk has also provided you with some essential technology from our ship’s stores.”
“I see.” Khan nodded in approval. “I am certain that all is in order, per your captain’s instructions.” Kirk himself had chosen to take his leave of Khan in the transporter room of the Enterprise; their farewells had been terse and unsmiling, as befitted two recent adversaries. “Just as I am certain that my people and I shall thrive and prosper far beyond James T. Kirk’s expectations.”
“Of course,” Chekov agreed diplomatically. He glanced at Khan’s wrist restraints and removed a small electronic device from his belt. “If you’ll just raise your hands, sir, I’ll remove your manacles now.”
