by Greg Cox
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Are you still there, Lady Marla?” he asked. A pitiless smirk showed through his beard. “Nod if you can hear me.”
Never! Marla thought defiantly, determined not to cooperate with her killer. To her horror, however, she felt her head nod as instructed. No! Stop it!
Ericsson grinned. “Very good, Lieutenant McGivers.” His fingers toyed with Starfleet medallion around her neck. “Now then, Marla, I want you to listen to me very carefully. We’re going to remove your gag, but you are not going to scream or call for help. Do you understand me?”
Marla nodded again, like a puppet on a string. Don’t! she thought in dismay, unable to stop herself from obeying Ericsson’s commands, no matter how hard she tried. It was like a bad dream she had no hope of waking from. This can’t be happening!
“Do it,” Ericsson told his wife, who undid the gag and removed the rubber sole from Marla’s mouth. Austin kept a tight grip on the prisoner’s arms, just in case Marla had not entirely succumbed to the eel’s effects.
He needn’t have bothered. Marla tried desperately to scream, but her treacherous throat refused to cooperate. Her frantic cries echoed inside her skull, but nothing emerged from her paralyzed lips.
“So far, so good,” Ericsson observed. He shared a triumphant look with his two conspirators before returning his attention to their captive. “Are you still listening to me, Marla?”
“Yes,” she heard herself say. She couldn’t believe it was her own voice.
“Very good,” Ericsson said, as though praising a well-behaved child. “Now stay right where you are until I say you can go.” He nodded at Austin. “Release her.”
Marla felt her arms drop limply to her side. She wanted to lash out at Ericsson and the others, kick and punch and bite until they were all broken and bleeding on the floor. Barring that, she wanted to run from this place as fast as humanly possible, all the way to Khan and anyone else who might be able to help her. Get moving! she shouted silently at her recalcitrant legs. Run away—now!
Instead, she just stood there, waiting helplessly for further instructions. Like one of those androids on Exo III, she thought bleakly.
Ericsson chortled at her unwilling obedience. “This just gets better and better.” He put down the tongs and reached for the polished obsidian knife tucked into her belt. He stepped closer to her, until his face was only a couple of centimeters away from hers. Marla was unable to look away from his cold blue eyes.
“Listen to me, Marla,” he said. Any trace of amusement evaporated from his voice and expression, as his tone became deadly serious. “I want you to find your husband. Do not tell him or anyone else what has happened here. You must act as though everything is normal and nothing is wrong with you. Can you do that, Marla?”
“Yes,” she answered, against her will.
Ericsson thrust the blade into her hand and wrapped her fingers around its hilt. “Take your knife,” he told her. “Use it to kill your husband. Get him alone first, then cut his throat, stab him in the heart, and keep on stabbing him until he is dead.”
The part of Marla’s mind that still belonged to her reacted in utter horror. Kill Khan? The very thought scared her more than dying. She tried to hurl the knife away, but it remained securely with her grip. I can’t … I’d never…!
“Repeat after me,” Ericsson insisted. “Khan must die.”
“Khan must die,” Marla said hollowly.
“Precisely.” Ericsson stepped back and gestured toward the door. “Go now,” he commanded. “Your husband is waiting for you.”
21
Marla walked through Fatalis, caught in a waking nightmare. Although she was free at last from her captors, Ericsson’s words still echoed irresistibly in her mind.
Khan must die.
Assorted colonists, including Zuleika, greeted her in the tunnels and Marla responded calmly to each, unable to warn her friends and comrades of the danger to Khan. Meaningless pleasantries spilled from her lips as, moment by moment, she drew steadily nearer to the quarters she shared with their leader. The obsidian blade rested securely against her hip.
The trip seemed to last forever—and was over far too soon. Fear and anguish gripped her heart as she spotted Joaquin standing guard outside the arched doorway to Khan’s private apartments. The zealous bodyguard took no chances; when he wasn’t watching over Khan personally, one of Suzette Ling’s handpicked security officers stood guard in his place.
“You’re late,” he grumbled as Marla approached. Over the years, their mutual dislike had evolved into, at best, a grudging tolerance for each other. They still weren’t friends, but Joaquin no longer distrusted her as he once had … unfortunately. At the moment, Marla would have given anything for the Israeli giant to eye her with suspicion once more, perhaps even take her into custody.
Please, Joaquin, she pleaded inwardly. See what’s happening to me. Don’t let me near Khan!
“I was busy,” she told him. “One of the children was having trouble with his homework.” Guilt stabbed at her soul as she heard herself lie effortlessly to her husband’s guardian.
“Joachim?” his father asked.
“Of course not,” Marla assured him. “Another child.”
Joaquin grunted, having exhausted his interest in the conversation. He stepped aside to let Marla pass, much to her dismay. No! she thought hysterically. You can’t let me get to Khan. You have to stop me!
“He’s waiting,” the bodyguard said.
Screaming inside, Marla passed through the doorway.
The chambers beyond consisted of two interconnected grottoes, both larger than the Ericssons’ single cavern, along with a natural sinkhole to serve as a private latrine. The furnishings were rudimentary—a chair, a desk, a handmade wooden bed bearing a mattress stuffed with moss—yet Marla had done her best over the years to add a few personal touches to their spartan accommodations. Dried flowers, procured before the desert swallowed up the savanna above, adorned limestone shelves and awnings. Her data disks and recharger occupied a carved marble bedstand. A miniature sculpture of a medieval knight and his lady, salvaged from the ruins of New Chandigarh, occupied a niche above the bed. Khan’s old flag, now badly singed around the edges, served as a bedspread. A disintegrating grass carpet covered the floor.
She found Khan seated at his desk, updating his journal. The desk was actually an inoperative antigrav lift propped up by matching stalagmites. Khan’s back was turned to the door, presenting an all-too-ready target. His gunbelt was draped carelessly over the back of the chair. Marla’s hand drifted inexorably toward the knife at her own belt. She drew the blade and stepped toward her husband.
Khan must die.
He turned at her approach, however, and she hastily hid the knife behind her back.
“Ah, there you are!” he said warmly. His dark eyes lit up at her return, seeing only his wife, not the assassin who had taken possession of her body. “I feared you had been detained indefinitely.”
Even with the eel nesting in her brain, Marla could not help noting, as she always did, how these long years of exile had taken their toll on him. His once-black hair was now liberally streaked with gray, while the constant strain of leadership had etched deep lines into his regal countenance. Like Ceti Alpha V, he was growing old before his time.
But even diminished, he still had five times the strength and determination of any normal man. He can’t die, Marla agonized, not like this! He’s too magnificent, too larger than life. An ocean of tears hid behind her clear brown eyes. I love him too much.
“It was nothing,” she lied, hating herself but hating Ericsson more. “A conference with a parent.” She prayed for Khan to notice the knife hidden suspiciously behind her back, but knew that she enjoyed his absolute trust. With her alone, he did not feel a need to be on guard, just as Ericsson and his fellow conspirators had counted on.
“I am pleased to hear it,” Khan said. He sighed wearily, massaging his b
row with his free hand. “This year’s rice crop, alas, appears to be failing. I fear I shall have to cut rations once more.” A scowl deepened the lines on his face. “The people will not be pleased.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, although the rice crop was the last thing on her mind. Her fevered brain fought a losing battle against the command consuming her being.
Khan must die.
“But I should not burden you with my own troubles,” Khan said expansively, making an obvious effort to lighten the mood. He slammed his journal shut and placed his bone pen back in its inkwell. “Entertain me,” he exhorted Marla, leaning back against his chair. “Tell me again about that singular production of Hamlet you attended upon the Enterprise. I find this Kodos individual intriguing….”
“Certainly,” Marla agreed, appalled at how easy Khan was making her mission of murder. She walked over to the chair and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Close your eyes.”
Don’t! she begged him in vain. Stop me, please, before I hurt you!
“As you command,” he said indulgently. Shutting his eyes, he tilted his head backward, leaving his throat fatally exposed. “You have my full attention.”
Marla sobbed inside as she drew forth her knife. Khan’s jugular called out to the blade. She could already imagine its sharpened edge slicing through her husband’s flesh as cleanly as a phaser beam….
Khan must die.
She kneaded Khan’s shoulder with one hand while raising the knife with the other. This is it, she realized abjectly. I’m really going to do this. I’m going to kill the man I love.
“NO!”
To her surprise, the word exploded from her lips. Marla yanked her arm away from Khan and staggered backward across the floor. Her entire body trembled.
Her outburst jolted Khan, who leaped from his chair. “Marla?” He stared at her, confusion written on his face. His dark eyes widened at the sight of the bared knife. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He stepped toward her.
“Stay back!” she warned him, slicing wildly at the empty air between them. It was taking all her strength not to lunge at him with the knife. “K-Keep away from me!”
Khan must die!
Marla knew she couldn’t resist the ceaseless command much longer. She could feel herself weakening, despite her last-minute burst of defiance. The pressure at the back of her skull increased, as though the insidious larva was tightening its grip on her cerebral cortex. Asingle tear dripped from the corner of her eye. My life doesn’t matter, she thought. I’m dead already.
“Marla!” Khan called to her, his face contorted with anxiety. “Please, beloved, let me help you!”
She knew what she had to do. It was the only way to save the man she had devoted her life to.
Good-bye, Khan. I love you.
Marla plunged the blade into her own heart.
Khan watched in shock and disbelief as Marla stabbed herself before his eyes. Blood gushed from her chest as she crumpled to the floor of the grotto.
“Marla! My wife!”
He sprang to her side, kneeling beside her as her life’s blood spread beneath them, soaking the grass carpet. Gently he removed the knife from her heart and swiftly exerted pressure on the wound, desperate to save her.
Attracted by the commotion, Joaquin barged into the grotto, only to be struck dumb by the stunning tableau before him. Khan ignored the bodyguard’s arrival, intent only on Marla’s bleeding form. The doctor, he thought. I must summon the doctor!
But he knew it was already too late. He had seen too much of death and violence not to recognize a mortal wound when he saw one, especially on a planet lacking adequate medical facilities.
Marla was dying before his eyes.
Marla.
“Why?” he moaned in agony. He lifted her partly from the floor, cradling her body in his arms. She felt surprisingly light, as though the better part of her was already missing. “What madness possessed you?”
Her eyes flickered open, and a trickle of bright arterial blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. “Ericsson…” she whispered. “He … an eel…”
Joaquin growled nearby.
Her trembling hand found his. Large brown eyes gazed up at him for the last time. “No regrets,” she murmured, trying to smile.
Gentle fingers went limp within his grasp.
Empty eyes stared blankly into oblivion.
She was gone.
Howling in torment, Khan clutched Marla’s lifeless body to his chest. Blood pooled beneath him as he rocked back and forth upon the floor of their home. A sudden insanity tore at what remained of his reason as he realized that he had lost his wife—his Eve—forever.
“O’ fairest of creation!” he ranted furiously, feeling the grief of Adam after the Fall. “How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost … Defaced, deflowered, and now to Death devote?” He bent to kiss Marla’s tender lips, tasting her spilled blood before lifting his own lips at last from hers. “O’ a kiss … Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!”
A burning desire for retribution reminded him of Joaquin’s presence. He glared up at the other man. “You heard her,” he snarled. “Find Ericsson and his lackeys, everyone who has ever associated with him, and bring them to me now.” Something moved beneath Marla’s hair, and Khan watched, aghast, as a blood-slick eel larva escaped his wife’s body. He lashed out angrily and crushed the creature beneath his fist, wishing it were Ericsson’s skull he was smashing instead. “I will make them pay dearly for this atrocity! They will all pay, every last one of them!”
“Yes, Your Excellency!” Joaquin affirmed. He sounded grateful to have a duty to perform, especially one that took him away from this dreadful scene. “They will not escape!”
Harulf Ericsson paced around the edge of the compost pit, impatient to hear word of Khan’s death. His kaffiyeh was tied over the bottom half of his face, while his visor was tilted upward so that it rested upon his forehead, above his eyes. The fetid chamber was far too dimly lit to make the visor’s tinted lenses usable in this environment.
“How much longer must we stay here?” his wife asked him, clutching little Astrid to her waist. Like Ericsson himself, Karyn and their daughter were clad in full desert attire, as were the other rebels hiding out in the pit chamber. Ericsson counted fully fifteen adult colonists, along with assorted small children and infants. All of them knew that their very futures depended on the success of tonight’s operation.
“Until Savine returns with confirmation of Khan’s death,” he answered, speaking loudly enough to address the entire assemblage. Handmade spears and axes waited in the sweaty palms of every adult. A “borrowed” resequencer rested in a canvas bag at Ericsson’s feet. “Then we’ll move against Joaquin and Ling and whatever pathetic resistance they manage to muster.” He snorted derisively through his beard. “With Khan safely dead, there will be few willing to fight in his memory.”
Khan was more feared than loved, Ericsson told himself confidently. He doubted if more than a handful of the old guard would oppose tonight’s coup. And who were the loyalists supposed to rally around anyway? Khan’s widow? The woman had an eel in her brain!
“This place stinks!” Astrid protested, wrinkling her nose. Impatience flashed in her striking blue eyes. “I want to go home!”
Ericsson knelt to console his daughter. Someday, when he was long gone, he fully expected Astrid to rule over Fatalis. Lord knew, she was certainly strong-willed enough!
“I know, datter,” he told her. “Just a little while more. Then, maybe, we can move into a larger cavern where you might be able to have a room of your own. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose,” the child conceded grudgingly. “This place still stinks, though.”
She’s not wrong there, Ericsson thought, rising to his feet. If anything the pit smelled even more revolting than it had when he and Panjabi had met there earlier. Just wait until we add Khan’s body to the heap, he anticipated, not to mentio
n Joaquin, Marla, and the rest….
His eyes scanned the faces of his fellow conspirators: Austin, Panjabi, and Amy Katzel, among others. It had taken him years to build this clandestine alliance, but his hour had finally come round at last. Soon Khan would be no more and the people would turn to the leader they should have chosen long ago, the very day they first set foot on the Ceti Alpha V.
“Be patient, my friends,” he told his loyal allies. “Our long wait is almost over.” He raised a gloved fist in triumph. “The tyrant’s reign is done.”
Racing footsteps sounded in the lonely corridor outside. A moment later, Juliette Savine dashed into the chamber. Ericsson had posted the widowed Frenchwoman, whose husband had been lost to the larva of a Ceti eel, in the hallway outside Khan’s quarters, to keep an eye on what transpired there. Her ashen face immediately sent a chill through Ericsson’s heart, even before she said a word.
“It’s all gone wrong!” she gasped, breathless from sprinting all the way here. “Khan is still alive; they say his wife killed herself before his eyes.” She leaned against a glazed flowstone wall, catching her breath. Horrified cries and curses arose from the other conspirators. “Joaquin is hunting for us now! They could be here any minute!”
Ericsson could not believe what he was hearing. Marla had committed suicide? How was that even possible? This is insane! he thought virulently. She was under my control!
Austin and the adults stared at each other, panic-stricken. The children, picking up on their parents’ distress, began to cry loudly. Ericsson winced at the bawling, afraid that the noise would attract Joaquin and his storm troopers. We have to get out of here, he realized.
“Now what are we going to do?” Amy Katzel wailed. She had broken with her brother to support Ericsson’s rebellion. Now she clearly looked like she was regretting that decision.
“We flee Fatalis,” Ericsson said plainly. He had planned for this eventuality, even though he had never expected it to happen; that’s why they were all hiding out in their desert gear. “There’s no other choice. Khan will kill us all if he catches us.”
