by Greg Cox
Looks like Spock was right about the survivors growing their food underground, Kirk thought. With a working protein resequencer, they might even be able to convert the raw organic crops into a viable diet.
Other chambers appeared to have been converted into barracks, storerooms, and even an armory stocked with primitive weapons: swords, spears, and crossbow bolts. For defense against wild animals, he speculated, or some other threat? In theory, all of the planet’s larger predators were now extinct.
Finally, after a long and exhausting hike, they arrived at some sort of meeting hall. Stone benches, carved from preexisting limestone formations, surrounded a firepit stacked with lumpy fragments of coal. Kirk guessed that, since the cataclysm, timber had become too precious to use for fuel. A wispy gray tendril of smoke rose from the burning embers, disappearing into a jagged shaft in the ceiling. Overlapping sheets of flowstone curtained the walls.
“Up against the wall,” Astrid ordered, and her cohorts lined the three men up against a hardened tapestry of rock, as though preparing them to face a firing squad. “Remove your armor.”
Damn, Kirk thought, as he reluctantly began to shed his environmental suit. Without the protective outfits, there was no way they could escape back to the planet’s surface. He wondered if Sulu was already searching for them. If so, his efforts were doubtless in vain; they were clearly too far underground to be detected by the Yakima’s sensors.
Summoned by the exciting shouts of their captors, more men and women came running into the torchlit hall. The new arrivals were obviously of the same breed and generation as Astrid and the others; in their patchwork attire, they reminded Kirk of J. M. Barrie’s Lost Boys, not to mention the feral “onlies” of Miri’s planet. He estimated that there were at least twenty adults, along with a smattering of children and toddlers.
Kirk had to set down Khan’s journal in order to remove the outer layer of his environmental suit. Beneath the protective shells, each man wore a tight-fitting black bodysuit equipped with microprocessors to monitor his life signs. Kirk could not help noticing how much cooler the cavern felt now that he had lost a layer of insulation.
To his dismay, the exiles confiscated Khan’s journal, along with Spock’s tricorder and data disks. He was tempted to protest, but thought better of it. Uncovering Khan’s past was no longer his top priority. If I’m not careful, he realized, we could end up history ourselves.
Astrid waited until her people snatched away the discarded segments of the environmental suits, then strode up to confront Kirk and his fellow prisoners. “My name is Astrid Ericsson,” she identified herself proudly. One of the captured phasers now resided in her hand. “I am in command here.”
“Ericsson?” Kirk’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Daughter of Harulf?”
Azure eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How do you know my father?”
Kirk hesitated. He didn’t want to call further attention to Khan’s journal, which currently rested at the feet of one of Astrid’s lieutenants; so far, the youthful castaways had been more interested in their captives’ high-tech artifacts—the suits, tricorders, and phasers—than in a musty old book. “I’m James T. Kirk, remember? I met all of the original colonists years ago.”
In truth, Kirk barely remembered Ericsson. Khan had commanded more than seventy superhumans, all of whom had spent most their time in the Enterprise’s brig before arriving at Ceti Alpha V. Only Khan had made any sort of an impression on Kirk.
Astrid appeared to accept his explanation, though. “Perhaps you are he,” she said cautiously. Turning her attention to Spock, she scrutinized the Vulcan’s exotic features. “The stories say that the Abandoner had an alien henchman, a humanoid with pointed ears, who looked like Satan.”
Without warning, she grabbed Spock’s arm and savagely bit down on his hand, tearing the skin. Green blood welled up, filling the indentations left behind by her teeth. She spit more emerald droplets onto the ground.
“Good God!” McCoy exclaimed, as shocked as Kirk at the young woman’s savagery. “Are you out of your mind?”
Spock, however, took the incident in stride. “There are less invasive ways to confirm my ancestry,” he observed coolly. “The tricorder, for instance.”
Regardless, the sight of the inhuman green blood appeared to satisfy Astrid. Turning back toward Kirk, she got straight to the point. “Where is Khan?” she demanded.
Kirk was taken aback by the question. “You don’t know?”
“All we know,” she said heatedly, “is that the Tyrant, along with all his minions, vanished sometime in the last year.” She gestured toward the surrounding caverns. “This was his stronghold … at least until our scouts reported it abandoned many weeks ago.”
The Tyrant? Khan?
Kirk struggled to keep up with these unexpected twists. “I’m confused,” he admitted. “If you’re not with Khan, who are you?”
“We are the Exiles,” she declared, raising her chin imperiously. “Sworn foes of the despot, Khan Noonien Singh, and all who serve him. For over a decade, we have lived only to bring his diabolical reign to an end.”
The last of the dissidents, Kirk realized, led by the daughter of Khan’s old nemesis. Kirk recalled from Khan’s journal how divisions within the colony had headed toward a breaking point in the years after the cataclysm. I guess Khan chose to leave these rebels behind when he made his escape from the planet.
“Fascinating,” Spock remarked. “It appears that the Eugenics Wars repeated themselves three hundred years later, pitting superhuman against superhuman once more.”
That explains that armory I glimpsed earlier, Kirk thought. Khan and the Exiles were fighting a civil war here, right up to the point that Khan hijacked the Reliant. Khan probably sealed up Marla’s crypt right before he left the planet, in order to keep the Exiles from desecrating his loving memorial—just as Astrid did, the first chance she got.
Furthermore, he reasoned, Astrid and the rest of the Exiles must not have realized that Khan was missing until well after Reliant’s crew was rescued from the planet. Not too surprising, given the hostile relations between the two tribes; the Exiles probably kept pretty clear of Khan’s territory until just recently.
“Enough!” Astrid snapped. “You cannot deceive us with such transparent playacting.” She fondled the phaser in her grip and glared venomously at Kirk. “As leader of our tribe, I have sworn a blood oath to bring down the Tyrant. Do not attempt to shield him from our vengeance!”
“But Khan is dead!” McCoy blurted out. “He was blown to atoms nearly a year ago!”
Astrid reeled backward, looking as though she had just been struck by lightning. But she quickly regained her composure—and hostile attitude. “That’s impossible! Do you take me for a fool?”
“He’s telling the truth,” Kirk insisted. “Khan and his people escaped Ceti Alpha V in a stolen starship, but the ship was soon destroyed in battle.” He omitted mentioning the Genesis Device, which would only raise more questions in the woman’s mind. “There were no survivors.”
“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.
PART THREE
Khan Agonistes
14
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.
