by Greg Cox
“H-h-herr Khan,” he greeted Khan through cracked and bleeding lips. He tried to sit up, but could barely lift his head from the cold stone floor. “F-forgive my weakness.”
“Do not trouble yourself,” Khan told the man, gesturing for Steiber to lie back down. “Save your strength for your recovery.”
Hawkins drew back a sheet, exposing Steiber’s left leg, which had been severely burned when a lava bomb set fire to the high grass through which he had been running. Gangrene had set in, despite the doctor’s best efforts, turning the limb black and spongy. Khan could smell the rotting flesh even through the handkerchief covering the bottom half of his face.
“I tried to halt the infection,” Hawkins insisted, “but it resisted even the strongest Starfleet antibiotics.” He placed the flashlight onto a rocky ledge, positioning it so that the incandescent beam added to the illumination provided by the sputtering torch. “Some damn local bug, I guess, that nobody’s ever run into before.”
Another unanticipated blessing of Ceti Alpha V, Khan thought mordantly. Not for the first time, he cursed the day Kirk first told him of this planet. It’s been six months since we were left here. Surely, the Enterprise will be back to check on the colony soon, especially after Kirk learns what happened to this solar system….
Opening his medkit, Hawkins took out a hypospray and surgical laser. Steiber’s bloodshot eyes widened in fear at the sight of the latter instrument, but Khan placed a steadying hand upon the German’s shoulder. “Courage,” he said softly. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
Hawkin’s pressed the hypospray against Steiber’s neck, and the patient’s eyelids drooped mercifully. “That’s the last of the anesthetic,” the doctor announced with a scowl. “Should be enough to take care of the worst of the pain, but I’m going to need you to hold him still, just in case.”
Khan took hold of Steiber, being careful to keep his bare hands away from the gangrenous flesh. “Proceed,” he instructed the doctor.
He did not avert his eyes as the doctor’s trilaser neatly severed the rotting limb from the rest of Steiber’s body, cauterizing the wound as it did so. A shudder went through the German as the scalpel did its work, but Steiber remained unconscious. When he was finished, Hawkins tugged on the sheet beneath the amputated limb, pulling the leg away from his patient. “That needs to be disposed off,” the doctor said. He cast a meaningful glance at the phaser on Khan’s belt. “If that is agreeable to you.”
“Of course.” Khan did not wish to waste the phaser’s energy frivolously, but recognized the importance of eliminating every last trace of the infectious mass. A quick burst from the phaser disintegrated the foul-smelling leg before it could spread its contamination elsewhere. The stomach-turning odor lingered in the musty air of the cramped isolation chamber.
Khan looked down at the unfortunate Steiber, who was now minus a limb, but looking even more pallid than before. “Will he recover?” Khan asked the doctor.
“Perhaps,” Hawkins answered. “If shock, starvation, and dehydration don’t kill him first.” He looked Khan in the eyes, an intense expression on his face. “I’m not just talking about Steiber. My patients need fresh air and sunlight, not to mention decent amounts of food and water, if they’re going to survive. They need to get out of these godforsaken caves,” he said forcefully. “We all do.”
Khan remembered Marla’s sunken eyes, and the pathetic sight of superior men and women digging in the muck for beetles and grubs. Thirst and hunger ate away at his own iron will and endurance. He glanced upward at the uncounted meters of solid rock cutting them off from the surface.
“Your point is well taken, Doctor.”
Despite Hawkins’ concerns, Khan waited until another forty-eight hours passed without any aftershocks before deciding that the time had come to lead his people back into the light. Leaving the doctor and his partner to care for those who remained too weak for the climb, Khan told Marla and the others to gather up their things and follow him.
Let us hope, he thought solemnly, that the disaster has left us something to rebuild upon.
With Khan in the lead, the threadbare procession wended its way toward the surface. Collapsed tunnels and piled rubble forced frequent detours, so that the route seemed much longer than Khan remembered. Hours passed, many of them spent digging through great heaps of limestone with their bare hands, an exhausting task at the best of times, let alone after several days of hardship and privation. By the time they reached the former lair of the smilodons, Joaquin and Ericsson and Zuleika and the other workers were practically dead on their feet.
“Soon,” Khan promised his weary followers. He felt like Orpheus ascending from the underworld; he was half afraid to look back at Marla for fear that she would disappear back into the depths if he did so. “Our long confinement is almost over.”
So near the surface, however, they discovered that an enormous cave-in had placed several tons of broken granite between them and the sunlight. Despairing groans erupted from the marchers behind Khan as the beam of his flashlight exposed the monumental boulders blocking their path.
“What now, glorious Khan?” Ericsson mocked, fatigue and disappointment overcoming his better judgment. He sneered at Khan through his yellow beard. “Thanks to you, we’re all buried alive!”
Khan’s own temper was at its limits. Handing the flashlight over to Ling, he angrily drew his phaser, then reconsidered at the sight of the Norseman’s pregnant bride, now leaning on Ericsson for support after the long and arduous climb. Karyn Bradley’s swollen abdomen carried the hope of the colony, Khan realized.
He lowered the phaser. “I will pardon your insubordination one last time,” he informed Ericsson, “for the sake of your wife and unborn child, who will need your strength in the days to come. But do not tempt me further.”
He turned to contemplate the collapsed exit. There was no way Joaquin and the others could be expected to tunnel through so much packed rock, not depleted as they were, but perhaps there was another use to which he could put his phaser?
“Stay back,” he instructed, raising the weapon once more. He set the phaser at its highest setting, then unleashed a coruscating beam of crimson energy against the stubborn obstruction. He smiled tightly as, millimeter by millimeter, the phaser beam slowly ate away at the heaps of granite. We have not come this far to turn back now, he vowed.
A warning light on the phaser flashed, indicating that the weapon was not intended to run at maximum power for such a continuous length of time. But Khan was determined to free his people. Ignoring the warning, he switched off the safety override. A high-pitched squeal soon emerged from the phaser, the shrill noise jabbing through Khan’s skull like a drill.
“Khan, stop!” Marla cried out in alarm. “It’s overloading!”
He felt the phaser heating up within his grip, but he refused to let go of the weapon. Instead he kept blasting away at the cursed rockfall, squeezing every last erg of blazing energy out of the overtaxed weapon. He peered intently past the glowing aura of the phaser beam. Was it just his imagination, or could he see a sliver of open air beyond the closed-off exit of the tunnel?
“Back!” he warned the wide-eyed throng behind him. “Keep your distance!”
The phaser’s wail grew louder and shriller. Its metal grip grew hot to the touch, burning his naked palm. Khan gritted his teeth and kept on squeezing the trigger, as another snatch of Milton raced through his brain: “Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.”
“Khan!” Marla called urgently. He heard her struggling against some restraint and guessed that Joaquin or one of the others was holding her back. “It’s going to explode!”
That is precisely what I intend, he thought, ignoring the searing heat against his hand. Wisps of white smoke rose from his clenched fist. The sickening aroma of burning flesh filled his nostrils, just as it had the night of the cataclysm. Destructive energy flowed like lava from the phaser’s emitter, even as the whi
ne of the weapon climbed toward an ear-piercing crescendo. Solid stone melted and crumbled before the incalescent beam.
Just a few more moments, Khan resolved, enduring unimaginable pain. He waited until what he judged the absolute last second, then hurled the smoking phaser at the rubble with all his strength, while simultaneously throwing himself in the opposite direction. “Take cover!” he shouted to Marla and the others.
A blinding flash ignited behind him, and he squeezed his eyelids shut as he flew through the air, feeling a blast of intense heat at his heels. He expected to crash onto the floor of the tunnel, but Joaquin appeared to break his fall and he slammed into the bodyguard’s meaty chest instead. Joaquin grabbed on to Khan, holding him upright. “I am here, Your Excellency,” he assured Khan. His stolid face was as red as a boiled lobster, his once-brown eyebrows singed into near nonexistence. “You shall not fall.”
Planting his feet firmly on the ground, Khan stared past Joaquin. The rest of the survivors were all prone upon the rocky floor, where they had dived to avoid the scorching blast. Marla was pinned beneath the heavier form of Zuleika Walker, whom Khan suspected had prevented Marla from running to his side. For which I shall be forever grateful, he thought.
Marla stared up at him in horror. “Khan … your hand!”
A quick glance confirmed what his screaming nerve endings were telling him with every passing second: his right hand was a blackened ruin, charred and oozing. Khan winced at the sight. He had seen enough of combat in his day to know that the hand would be forever scarred no matter what treatment he received. I shall have to wear a glove, he thought without emotion.
The pain was almost unbearable; his hand felt as though it were trapped in the heart of a nuclear reactor, or perhaps the flames of perdition itself. A lesser man would have already succumbed to shock and agony, but Khan gave his injury only a moment’s regard. A more important matter commanded his attention: Had he succeeded, or had it all been for naught?
Were they still trapped beneath the earth?
Clutching his still-smoking hand against his chest, he spun around toward the sealed-off cave entrance. His heart pounded as he saw with relief that the wretched dead end was no more; the explosive detonation of the phaser had blasted through the last of the barrier to the open air outside. A frigid wind blew into the tunnel, bringing some small fraction of relief to his throbbing hand.
Yes! Khan exulted. I have set my people free!
One thing concerned him, though. By his calculations, it should be daylight upon the surface, but the open archway revealed only darkness and shadows. The beam of a flashlight, wielded by Suzette Ling, probed beyond the cavern, revealing a strangely nocturnal sky.
An ominous feeling penetrated the waves of pain crashing against Khan’s tortured consciousness. He did not like the look of this.
Why was it so dark outside?
15
“Nuclear winter,” Marla said. “That’s what they used to call it.”
Khan stared upward at the dim, sunless sky. Although it should have been high noon, it was as black as midnight all around them, thanks to an oppressive cloud of ash and dust hanging over the land, blotting out the sun. No doubt hurled into the atmosphere during the vast volcanic eruptions, the airborne debris seemed to wrap Ceti Alpha V like a shroud, even though at least a week had passed since the cataclysm. “I recall the theory,” he said dourly.
“It’s more than a theory,” Marla insisted, ever the historian. Her somber tone matched his own. “Back on Earth, the Third World War produced dense black clouds that blocked out ninety percent of Earth’s sunlight for over a month. Temperatures dropped dramatically, and the entire food chain almost broke down. Millions of people died from starvation and exposure.”
Her graphic description made the Eugenics Wars suffer by comparison. Khan felt grateful to have missed such a catastrophe—at least until now.
Along with the rest of the colonists, save those left behind in the underground infirmary, Khan and Marla huddled behind a pile of fallen tree trunks, seeking a momentary respite from the fierce winds that now seemed to afflict the surface. Much as Marla recounted, it seemed to be much colder outdoors than it had been in the caves, so the survivors crowded together against the splintered timbers in a pathetic effort to stay warm. Khan guessed that it was below two degrees Celsius at least.
Now swaddled in bandages torn from the sleeve of Marla’s coverall, his hand still throbbed but somewhat less than before, perhaps because the nerve endings had been permanently damaged. Khan briefly regretted leaving Dr. Hawkins back in the caverns, before returning his attention to the ash-clotted sky.
“Could volcanoes alone produce a cloud of such magnitude?” he asked aloud. “Perhaps a meteor strike as well?” He had seen Ceti Alpha VI explode with his own eyes; was it possible that fragments of the demolished planet had struck its sister planet elsewhere, perhaps even on the far side of the world? Such an impact might easily produce a global winter such that which as killed the dinosaurs millions of years ago back on Earth.
“I hope not,” Marla said, easily following the train of his thoughts. He felt her shiver in his arms. “The last thing we need is a full-scale mass extinction.”
Khan agreed wholeheartedly. His heart ached for his poor, beleaguered people should such a dire calamity befall them, on top of all the other grievous reverses they had already endured. He gazed past Marla at the rest of the party, now crouching in the dirt behind what used to be thriving grove of axebreaker trees. One of the men, a battle-scarred soldier named Huang, lifted his head from the clump of shivering bodies, a perplexed look upon his face. He probed his ear with one finger, as though trying to dislodge something.
Khan opened his mouth to ask Huang what the matter was, only to be interrupted by a sudden clap of thunder overhead. Mud began to rain from the sky, pelting the colonists with heavy, reddish brown droplets. Khan decided that it was time to get the procession moving again. He was anxious to discover what remained of their old encampment. “We have rested enough,” he announced, rising to his feet despite the deluge. He raised his voice to be heard over the wind and rain. “The sooner we reach New Chandigarh, the sooner we may find shelter from the storm.”
Better to raise slim hopes, he reasoned, than no hope at all.
Groaning audibly, the party rose and shambled after him, all except for Huang, who remained sitting on the ground, staring blankly ahead of him. What the devil is wrong with the man? Khan wondered irritably. Has the strain proven too much for him? If so, Khan was surprised; Huang had served with distinction in his forces back on Earth. “You heard me, Huang,” he barked. “Get up and join the rest of us!”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” the soldier said, somewhat mechanically. Khan’s impatience faded as Huang obediently caught up with the other colonists.
Stepping out from behind their improvised windbreak, the survivors were immediately buffeted by a near-cyclonic wind that sent their unbound hair and tattered garments flapping wildly. Crude bandannas, composed of whatever stray fabric presented itself, covered their noses and mouths, providing a degree of protection against the windblown dust and gravel. Swirls of ash spun like dervishes in the ever-shifting gale. Marla kept directly behind Khan, her thin arms wrapped around his waist, while he strove to shield her from the full force of the wind.
An M-16, strapped to Khan’s back, served as a replacement for the destroyed phaser, in the unlikely event that they encountered any dangerous wildlife. Only a handful of firearms had escaped New Chandigarh with the surviving colonists, and Khan had been careful to assign them only to his most trusted lieutenants—Joaquin had another rifle and Ling had a handgun.
Khan hoped to find more guns and ammunition back at the camp. With the phaser gone, the twentieth-century firearms had become the state-of-the-art on Ceti Alpha V.
The party staggered forward, advancing slowly across the murky, blighted landscape. By the light of Ling’s busy flashlight, they caught glimpses o
f the devastation wrought by the earthquakes, volcanoes, and ensuing darkness….
Where the high grass had not been burned to the ground by brushfires, the grass and scrub were shriveled and dying, literally starving for sunlight. Blackened stumps marked the site of once-green thickets, while the surviving trees were skeletal, stripped of their leaves by the wind and cold. Burns and gouges scarred their bark, reminding Khan of his raw, red, right hand. Frost-covered animal carcasses littered the broken plains, many already reduced to naked bone. An entire family of sabertooths lay rotting amid the cremated stubble, their mighty tusks proving no defense against the merciless cataclysm that had ravaged their world.
Khan had witnessed many disasters in his time, including the 1984 chemical accident at Bhopal, but the scale of the destruction he now saw left him speechless. It was as though the entire planet had been laid waste.
A plaintive lowing caught Khan’s ear, and he spied a paltry herd of bison, consisting of less than a dozen members, rooting in the mud for a few last blades of dry brown grass. The hungry beasts were already noticeably emaciated, their ribs showing through their withered hides. Khan made a mental note to return and slaughter the bison later, before the scant meat on their bones was wasted.
Nuclear winter indeed, Khan thought. He shuddered to imagine what was left of their crops. Starvation might be our lot as well.
The falling mud turned the barren earth beneath them into a sucking quagmire that only impeded their progress further. They trudged through the ankle-deep sludge, fighting both the wind and the muck for what felt like hours, before they finally arrived at the outer perimeter of their former home. A disconsolate moan emerged en masse from the throats of the exhausted colonists.
Even though Khan had prepared himself for the sight, the awful reality was almost more than he could bear:
