by Greg Cox
“You!” he accused, pointing at the former assassin. Khan had not forgotten Zuleika’s unprovoked attack on Marla on their very first night on the planet. “What have you to do with this?”
The startled woman blanched at Khan’s irate tone. “Nothing, Your Excellency!” she protested fearfully. “I swear it!”
Vishwa Patil spoke up. “She may be lying, Your Excellency. I am told that she quarreled with Lieutenant McGivers right before the fire.” He glared scornfully at Zuleika and fingered the bump at the back of his skull. “She spit at McGivers and called her names.”
“Who says this?” Khan demanded.
Patil pointed at Paul Austin, whom Khan recognized as one of Ericsson’s cohorts. “Is this true?” Khan asked.
Austin muttered something under his breath, too low to be heard. He gave Marla a dirty look, as though blaming her for this tense encounter.
“Speak up!” Khan insisted. “Did you see Zuleika Walker accost Marla?”
“Maybe,” the tattooed man conceded grudgingly.
Zuleika tried to back away into the crowd, but Patil and his fellow security officers blocked her exit. Khan turned his forbidding gaze upon the nervous ex-supermodel. “Do you deny these reports?” he asked her harshly.
“N-no, Your Excellency,” Zuleika stammered. “I mean, it’s true we had words—but I never tried to kill her!” She gulped out loud. “Not tonight, that is. Not this time!”
Khan had heard enough. “Seize her,” he ordered.
“Wait,” Marla started to object, but a sudden coughing jag rendered her incapable of speech. Her fragile body was racked by the ragged coughs.
“This is too much for her,” Hawkins insisted. “She needs rest.”
Khan saw Marla struggle to regain her breath. Perhaps the doctor had a point after all. He turned back to Zuleika, who was now flanked by Patil and a full security team. “Imprison her,” he instructed, confident that the assassin was safely in custody. “I will administer my justice in due course.”
He watched with satisfaction as Zuleika was dragged away, still frantically proclaiming her innocence. Her failure to take responsibility for her actions further condemned her in his eyes.
She could expect no mercy.
10
“Khan, you can’t! It’s inhuman!”
Marla had regained her voice, no thanks to Zuleika Walker’s perfidious efforts, but Khan was surprised to hear that voice raised against his intention to banish Zuleika from New Chandigarh upon the morrow.
“It is no more than she deserves,” he told Marla in the privacy of their hut. Outside, the sun had fallen, bringing an end to a day of both triumph and treachery. Thunder boomed overhead and a sprinkling of rain fell upon the thatched roof, giving them just a taste of the coming monsoon. “Indeed, she should be thankful that I chose banishment rather than a public execution.”
The latter had been tempting, but Khan had feared its effect on the camp’s morale. Besides, he did not wish to sully the belated cremations of Gorinsky and Blasko by holding them in conjunction with a far less heroic death. Better that Zuleika simply disappear into the wilderness, where her eventual demise would go unwitnessed and unmourned. Let the beasts of the field devour her ignoble bones, he thought coldly.
“But it’s still a death sentence!” Marla protested. She rose from the humble bed upon which she had been kneeling. A pair of rectangular storage lockers—one from the Botany Bay, one from the Enterprise—completed the hut’s spartan furnishings, aside from a few of Marla’s paintings and smaller sculptures, salvaged from her quarters aboard the Enterprise. A portrait of Khan, regal in an elegant white turban, occupied a position of honor upon the western wall. A library of data disks rested upon a roughhewn shelf. “She won’t stand a chance on her own.”
“What of it?” Khan shrugged his shoulders as he removed his shirt, preparing for bed. Fresh bandages covered the claw marks on his back, which had required multiple stitches. “I find it puzzling that this disturbs you so. The woman tried to burn you alive.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Marla insisted. “There’s no proof.” She crossed the hut to join Khan by the door. A carpet of woven grass protected her feet from the crude dirt floor. “I told you, I didn’t see who locked me in the shed.”
Khan tried to remember that Marla came from a rather overcivilized culture, where war and capital punishment had been all but abolished. “I am confident of her guilt,” he said firmly. “Do you doubt that this woman means you ill?”
“She’s hardly the only one,” Marla replied. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m about as popular as Typhoid Mary.”
Her sarcasm irked Khan, who was beginning to find this entire discussion tiresome. He had dealt with sabertooths and a murderous arsonist today; the last thing he needed was an overwrought woman, who lacked the understanding to see what needed to be done.
“I am aware of everything that transpires in this camp,” he informed her brusquely. His palms, which had received a few minor burns when he tried to dig Marla free from the smoldering ruins, stung like the devil, while his back felt as though it had been flayed alive. The various pains added to his worsening mood. “You must trust my judgment in this.”
Marla refused to let the matter rest. “But she hasn’t even had a fair trial! I don’t want an innocent woman to die just because you suspect she tried to hurt me.”
“Due process is a luxury we cannot afford,” Khan said bluntly. He spoke to her as he would to a naive child. “This is not one of your pampered Federation outposts, enjoying the security of Starfleet’s protection. We are on our own here, and I cannot risk harboring a viper within our midst.”
If Marla caught the warning tone in his voice, she paid it no heed. “But what if the viper is someone else? I told you, I saw Paul Austin not far from the shed, smoking a cigarette no less!” She shook her finger at the air, like a defense attorney playing to the jury. “Maybe he did it. He’s one of Ericsson’s cronies, and they’re always trying to stir up trouble.”
Khan’s patience was nearing its end. “Do you think that I have not already considered every possibility?” he asked, grabbing on to her wrist ungently. “Ericsson and his followers have no reason to eliminate you; frankly, you are more of a political liability to me alive.”
A hurt expression came over Marla’s face, and Khan regretted the harshness of his words. “I’m sorry,” she said in an acid tone, as he released his grip on her wrist. She tried and failed to keep the tears from streaking down her face. “I didn’t realize I was such an impediment to your plans.” She retreated to their bed, where she collapsed onto a grass-stuffed mattress. “Maybe Zuleika—if she really did set that fire—was just trying to do you a favor.”
Khan briefly considered apologizing. Marla had endured much today, after all. But then she might feel encouraged to reopen the debate regarding Zuleika’s fate, and that would not do. She must learn not to question my authority, he resolved. The future of New Chandigarh depended on his superior will and judgment, and no one, not even Marla, could be allowed to challenge that.
Doing his best to ignore the muffled sobs coming from the bed, he lay down beside her. Rain dripped from the ceiling, despite the protective tarp underlying the outer thatchwork. Khan made a mental note to have the roof reinforced before the heavy rains arrived. Marla kept her back to him, her face turned to the wall, but he could sense her unhappiness, and he blamed Marla’s would-be assassin for causing this rift between them. The sooner he concluded this wretched business, the better. In time, he felt certain, Marla will see the wisdom of my decision.
Perhaps in the morning.
The prisoner stood before him, bound in the very chains that had trapped Marla within the burning shed. Khan appreciated the poetic irony of the situation.
He gazed down at Zuleika from atop a temporary dais constructed of the camp’s last surviving antigrav lift, which had thankfully been employed elsewhere when the shed was torched. Aside fro
m the guards manning the watchtowers, practically the entire colony had gathered to witness Khan pronounce judgment on the accused arsonist. Marla, the intended victim of Zuleika’s crime, waited off to one side, her face downcast. Khan suppressed a frown; Marla had clearly not moved beyond last night’s quarrel.
No matter, he thought. Zuleika needed to be dealt with, even if Marla lacked the strength to see this. “One man with courage makes a majority,” as the American president Andrew Jackson once said, and a true leader, such as myself, must always be prepared to rule on matters of life and death.
Ominous gray clouds hung over the camp, adding to the somber atmosphere. “Zuleika Walker,” he began, “you have endangered the safety of New Chandigarh, and defied my own incontrovertible edict, by attempting to take the life of one of your fellow colonists. For this unforgivable offense, I hereby sentence you to eternal banishment from this settlement and the surrounding lands.”
Zuleika’s eyes widened in horror. “No, Lord Khan! Not that!” The chains about her wrists rattled as she lifted her arms in a desperate appeal for mercy. “I have always served you well. Remember the Indian cabinet member? The UN ambassador?”
Khan was unmoved by the woman’s pleas. True, Zuleika had been a useful assassin back on Earth, but that was before she turned her homicidal talent against one whom he had declared under his protection.
“My decision is final,” he stated.
All the strength seemed to evaporate from Zuleika’s athletic frame, and she sagged against the stone-faced guards flanking her. Khan carefully scanned the faces of the other colonists, looking to see how Zuleika’s well-deserved punishment was playing with the rest of his followers. Did the disgraced assassin retain any sympathy among her fellow castaways? He was not about to change his decree, but it was best to know whether Zuleika’s dire fate would provoke division and controversy within the camp.
But the expressions of the onlookers, which ranged from grim to carefully neutral, offered little clue as to what subversive undercurrents might be roiling beneath the surface. There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face, Khan reflected, after Macbeth. Yet at least no one seemed inclined to voice any objections to his decision.
Until Marla spoke up.
“No, Khan,” she said decisively, stepping forward to stand between him and the prisoner. “I can’t let you do this. I’m the supposed victim here. I should have some say in the matter.”
Khan’s jaw dropped, caught off guard by Marla’s unexpected rebellion. She dares to challenge me here, in front of the entire colony? Dismay warred with anger, with the latter quickly claiming victory. Questioning him in the privacy of their hut was bad enough, but to undermine his authority in public?
No. This cannot be allowed.
“Silence,” he rebuked her. “You forget yourself.”
Marla refused to back down. “I mean it, Khan.” She took a deep breath, as though readying herself for a plunge. “If you banish Zuleika, you banish me as well.”
“Huh?” the prisoner reacted in surprise. She stared at Marla in disbelief. “What the hell?”
Under less grave circumstances, Zuleika’s nonplussed reaction might have bordered on comical, but Khan saw nothing humorous in the situation, which was rapidly escalating beyond his control. He wished he could erase Marla’s rash ultimatum from existence, turn back the clock just a few precious moments, but, no. Her fatal promise hung before them all, demanding a response.
“You are overwrought,” he suggested, giving her a chance to take back her words, “no doubt traumatized by your terrible ordeal.” He looked down at her with a show of pity and understanding. “Perhaps you should return to your hut.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said decisively, “except maybe into exile.” She squeezed between the stupefied guards to stand beside Zuleika. It was impossible to say who look more dumbfounded, the guards or the prisoner. “You heard what I said. If Zuleika goes, I go.”
The stunned crowd held its breath, waiting for Khan’s reaction. Joaquin glared murderously at Marla, a look of spiteful vindication upon his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Khan thought he spied Ericsson smirking at his predicament. The sight added to his mounting ire.
Very well, Khan decided, hardening his heart. As much as he cherished her, Marla had given him no choice. I cannot tolerate such flagrant insubordination, not even from her.
“So be it,” he announced. “You will each be given water and a weapon and escorted from boundaries of the colony. You have until nightfall to leave this territory. If either of you is seen in New Chandigarh again, your lives are forfeit.”
He stepped down from the dais, knowing that he had lost Marla for the second time in as many days, this time forever. He took one last look at her lovely face, saddened by the grief and disappointment he saw there. Alas, he also discerned no weakening in her resolve.
“Good-bye, Khan,” she said, unable to entirely quell the tremor in her voice. Her large chestnut eyes shimmered wetly.
“Take them away,” he commanded.
11
“I don’t know what you think you’re proving,” Zuleika snarled as she hacked her way through the damp grass. Her machete decapitated the tall, yellowish brown blades as though they were prisoners of war enduring a mass execution. “You’re just going to end up dead anyway.”
Marla hiked behind Zuleika, using a stone-tipped spear as a walking stick. Trying to keep up with the powerful superwoman had her breathing hard, and her legs were aching already from the fast-paced trek through the savanna. Clearly, Zuleika was taking Khan’s sunset deadline very seriously.
What am I trying to prove? Marla wasn’t sure she could explain it to herself, let alone the other woman. Am I crazy, abandoning Khan and the safety of the camp to brave the wilderness with a woman who probably tried to kill me? When you put it that way, it sounded positively insane.
But this isn’t really about Zuleika, she realized. It’s about what kind of a woman I can live with being. She loved Khan, but she had to stand up to him, too, for the sake of what was left of her self-respect. She had let her passion for Khan overcome her conscience aboard the Enterprise, and, as a result, Captain Kirk had been tortured nearly to death. Never again, she vowed. I have to stand by my principles, even if it costs me my life.
“I’m doing this because I’m a Starfleet officer,” she told Zuleika, not expecting the other woman to understand. “And a civilized human being.”
Zuleika snorted in derision. “Not much to brag about, if you ask me.” For once, she had clothed herself in one of the Botany Bay’s standard-issue red coveralls, practicality apparently winning out over exhibitionism. “Ordinary humanity has been obsolete since the seventies, and I mean the nineteen seventies.”
We’ve done all right over the past few centuries, Marla thought. Warp travel. World peace. The Federation. And all without starting down the slippery slope of human genetic engineering.
She didn’t have the inclination, or the energy, to debate the matter, however. Besides her spear, she was also carrying a full canteen, a pistol on her hip, and a torch she had snatched from a campfire on her way out of New Chandigarh. She didn’t need the latter to see by—twilight was still hours away—but she hoped that the torch would help scare away any lurking predators, and make it easier to light a fire of their own come nightfall.
The grass was still wet from last night’s showers, so Marla didn’t have to worry about accidentally starting a brushfire. Pendulous gray clouds blotted out the sky, promising more rain to come. Marla prayed that the bleak, overcast day would discourage any remaining sabertooths from venturing out into the veldt.
The women were heading north, toward the equator. If they lived long enough, they might actually reach the vast, uncharted rain forests beyond the savanna, where they figured food and game would be more abundant. For now, however, Marla just aimed to find a convenient stand of trees around sunset, where they could take shelter for the night
. Sleeping in the branches, high above the prowling wildlife, sounded marginally safer than camping out on the ground.
Or so she hoped.
Marla fought the temptation to glance behind her. Chances were, she would still be able to see smoke from the colony’s many campfires rising up to meet the clouds. Part of her hoped that Khan would come to his senses, look past his immense pride, and start searching for her, but she knew that this was only a foolish dream; for better or for worse, Khan was not the kind of man who changed his course once he made a decision.
I will never see him again.
Her throat ached, not just from thirst, and she took a gulp of purified water from her canteen. “We should stick close to the river,” she suggested to Zuleika. They would need to refill their canteens soon enough.
“No kidding,” the other woman replied sarcastically. She didn’t bother turning her head to look back at Marla. “But not too close. You seen some of the scaly monsters they’ve got swimming down there?”
“Just a glimpse or two,” Marla admitted, but she knew what Zuleika was referring to. Although she had never been invited to help fetch fresh water from the Kaur, she had heard stories from the colonists who had ventured down to the riverbanks, always in the company of an armed security team. Apparently Ceti Alpha V’s tendency toward gigantism where its fauna was concerned was not confined to dry land; there had been many sightings—and narrow escapes—regarding crocodiles and turtles of prehistoric proportions. Marla herself had once spied from the watchtower, via Khan’s binoculars, the head of an enormous crocodile rising from beneath the flowing surface of the Kaur. Although much of the creature’s armored body had remained submerged, the supercroc’s jaws alone appeared to be as long as Marla was tall, which would make them nearly two meters in length.
Not unlike Earth’s own primitive Sarchosuchas, she reflected, which was believed to have weighed almost eighty kilograms and been about the length of a small shuttle-craft. Marla shuddered at the thought; a monster like that could drag down a bison or sabertooth with just one snap of its jaws. She didn’t want to think about what it could do to mere homo sapiens, genetically engineered or otherwise.
