To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (24 page)

In the commotion, however, Talbot’s kaffiyeh came loose, giving the homicidal storm the opportunity it needed. The wind stripped the protective headcloth from Talbot’s face, and he let out a horrendous scream as the razor-sharp sand abraded his exposed flesh. Instinctively, he let go of Khan’s wrist in order to throw his hands in front of his face.

“No!” Khan shouted, receiving a mouthful of grit. He reached frantically for the endangered colonist, but the storm drove them apart in a matter of heartbeats. At once, Talbot was completely lost to sight.

Grief, and an excruciating sense of failure, jabbed Khan’s heart. He knew better than to chase after Talbot. There could be no hope of finding him in the middle of a sand-storm; Khan would only be risking the rest of the expedition by doing so. Reluctantly, he returned to climbing the slope before him, using his now-free hand to help assist his ascent. He could feel Joaquin’s weight pulling on his other
arm, and he hoped with all his heart that Ericsson and Von-Linden were still linked to Joaquin and each other in turn.

Slowly, fighting the storm with every step, they reached the top of the bluff, which, if not entirely free of the battering wind and sand, at least seemed to be above the worst of the tumult. The wind was still just as ferocious, but the churning sand was a few degrees thinner, making it a little easier to breathe. The surviving explorers huddled together atop the rise, turning their backs to the storm as they leaned on each other to anchor themselves against the gale.

We may survive this yet,
Khan realized.
And all it cost was the life of a loyal follower
.

In the end, the storm vanished as swiftly as it had arrived. Squinting through his visor, Khan watched the deadly black cloud roll northward, shrinking in the distance as it left them behind. With luck, the storm would dissipate long before it reached the vicinity of Marla and the others, who, in any event, were hopefully safe beneath the earth in their underground sanctuary.

Such sandstorms, he suspected, would soon become a way of life upon these dying plains.
All the more reason to seek out a less inhospitable environment elsewhere
.

A dusty haze still swirled in the air, but Khan judged it safe to move on. After all, this was about as a clear as the weather ever got these days. Gesturing for the others to follow him, he cautiously descended back toward what remained of the River Kaur. The heels of his boots caused avalanches of freshly deposited sand to flow in rivulets toward the floor of the riverbed. Reddish brown dust coated everything in sight, from jutting stones to patches of scraggly brush. Even the silty stream seemed muddier than before.

Khan felt the effects of the storm as well. Beneath his robes, his skin felt sandpapered. Irritating granules of grit infiltrated every crack and wrinkle in his body. His mouth tasted of dirt, and he would have killed for a glass of clear, cool water.

They found Talbot about seven meters from the bottom of the incline. His body lay sprawled upon the ground, half-buried in fresh sand. His face was raw and bleeding and caked with dust. More sand poured from the dead man’s mouth and nostrils; Khan did not need to perform an autopsy to deduce that Talbot’s windpipe, and perhaps even his lungs, were clogged with sand.

Forgive me, Zuleika. Your husband shall not be returning to you.

I wonder if any of us shall
.

Only days away from Fatalis, and they were already one man down. The expedition was off to a bad start….

“Perhaps we should turn back?” Ericsson suggested. His Scandinavian accent was muffled by the folds of his kaffiyeh. The blackened lens of his visor concealed his scheming blue eyes.

Khan bristled at the suggestion, but resisted the temptation to lash out at the other man. He had, as was his custom, brought Ericsson along to keep him from stirring up trouble in Khan’s absence. He was willing to squash Ericsson once and for all, if necessary, but so far the Norseman had managed to steer clear of any outright insubordination. Perhaps because only Khan and Joaquin were equipped with rifles.

“Go back to what?” VonLinden answered harshly. The mapmaker had lost both her spouse and her child to the Ceti eels. “I have nothing to return to.”

Khan made the decision for them all. “No,” he said firmly. To return to the caverns now, without discovering a new home for their people, was to condemn the entire colony to a hopeless existence beneath an expanding wasteland. “We will continue onward as planned.”

His hope was that his people could build a new life upon the shore of the unnamed sea to the south, where they might be able to survive by fishing or whaling. Certainly, the history of their homeworld was full of peoples and cultures who had thrived in proximity to the sea. Even if the surface of Ceti Alpha V had been laid waste, Khan dared to dream that the planet’s oceans still held enough life to sustain a growing colony.

Not New Chandigarh,
he mused,
but perhaps New Mumbai or Goa
.

“But—” Ericsson began to protest. He looked to VonLinden for support, but the shrouded widow shrugged fatalistically. Joaquin remained mute, his obedience to Khan’s will beyond question. Realizing he was outnumbered, Ericsson wisely curtailed his objections. “Very well, Your Excellency,” he surrendered, with only a hint of rancor in his voice.

That left only Talbot to be dealt with.

“Strip him,” Khan ordered, nodding toward the corpse. They could not afford to sacrifice a single item of food, equipment, or clothing, even if that meant that Talbot must go to his eternal reward as naked as a newborn babe. Still, Khan resolved to see the man’s body decently cremated before they moved on.

It was the least he could do for one who died under his command.
Rest in peace, my servant. Your part in our long ordeal is over
.

Ericsson knelt to claim Talbot’s possessions and supplies. A gloved hand touched the dead man’s sand-flayed countenance and a drop of blood attached itself to his fingertip. He lifted the finger before him and paused, contemplating the glistening crimson bead for several long seconds. “Lord Khan,” he said at last, “I hesitate to even suggest this, but, with food and drink in such dangerously short supply, I feel compelled to point out that, just perhaps, our departed comrade can provide one last, life-sustaining service for us all.”

Khan realized at once what Ericsson was suggesting. Anger flared within him and he savagely kicked the kneeling man in the ribs. “Never speak of such things again!” Khan snarled. Beneath his visor and kaffiyeh, Khan’s face recoiled in disgust. “Castaways we may be, desperate and forlorn, but cannibals? Never!”

In truth, the awful possibility Ericsson alluded to had haunted Khan’s mind for months, ever since the cataclysm first threatened them all with famine. But he had resolved, firmly and irrevocably, that some things were worse than starvation. He and his people were a superior breed, the next stage in human evolution, and they would not debase themselves by sinking to such primitive depravity.

I have been called ruthless,
Khan reflected,
and with good reason. But there are some lines I will not cross!

Clutching his side, Ericsson scrambled away from Khan’s wrath. “Forgive me,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean to offend. The sand … the wind … I wasn’t myself, believe me!”

Khan stared at the backpedaling Norseman with contempt. It was one thing to entertain such a hideous notion in the dark night of one’s own soul, but to actually suggest such a thing…

If only Ericsson had died in the storm instead!

*   *   *

“I can’t believe you’re trying to steal vital resources from sick people!”

Gideon Hawkins’ indignant voice rang out across the nursery, threatening naptime for any number of infants. Marla winced at the noise.

“Dying people, you mean!” Suzette Ling retorted. “My security teams are too thirsty and hungry to do their jobs properly, yet we’re still wasting precious food and water on invalids who already have one foot in the grave!”

High-pitched squeals erupted from the nearby cradles, much to Marla’s annoyance. “That’s enough!” she told the quarreling colonists. She clicked off her tricorder. “Let’s take this elsewhere before you wake up the entire nursery.”

Leaving the crying babies in the charge of her staff, Marla led the doctor and the security chief into an adjacent grotto, about the size of a turbolift. With any luck, the thick limestone walls would keep the argument from spreading out into the rest of Fatalis. “All right,” she said, reactivating the tricorder in order to record the debate; Khan would want to know what took place in his absence.
Good thing I just recharged the power cell,
she thought. “What’s all this about dying people?”

This wasn’t the first dispute she’d had to arbitrate since Khan left her in charge of the colony weeks ago. Marla was starting to feel like a substitute teacher, constantly being tested by a classroom of unruly students.
Ah, for the good old days, when nobody ever wanted to speak to me…!

She never thought she’d miss being persona non grata.

“Not all my patients are terminal,” Hawkins insisted. “Most are merely suffering from infection or malnutrition, but they certainly won’t recover without adequate rations
of food and water.” He glared at Ling, who had started this fracas by asking Marla to divert extra rations to her security patrol instead. “This is just like you military types, always placing ‘security’ above health care.” He laughed derisively. “Security! Who the hell are we at war with on this godforsaken planet?”

“The eels!” Ling shot back. “As you should know better than anyone else.” The severed pincers of over a dozen dead eels adorned Ling’s ragtag garments, like medals won in combat. “I have teams of searchers combing the tunnels for eels night and day, but they need to be sharp, alert—not groggy from hunger and dehydration.”

The Asian security chief looked to Marla for support, a smugly confident look upon her face. Marla sometimes suspected that Ling had married Joaquin primarily because of the bodyguard’s close ties to Khan. She probably expected that connection to give her an edge.

Forget it,
Marla thought. Khan had entrusted her with leadership of Fatalis in his absence and she intended to be scrupulously fair and evenhanded, much as Captain Kirk had been back on the
Enterprise
. “Perhaps we can work out a compromise here.”

“A compromise?” Ling echoed incredulously. Both she and Hawkins looked extremely dubious.

No surprise there. Marla had already discovered that the hardest part of governing a colony of genetically engineered supermen and superwomen was managing their conflicting egos; these were not people accustomed to accommodating the opinions of others.
Small wonder the Eugenics Wars broke out so quickly back in the 1990s,
she reflected; it took a personality as large as Khan’s to get any amount of superior humans to work together without conflict.

Despite her supposed “inferiority,” Marla suspected that she had better people skills than most of the imperious Children of Chrysalis.
I wonder if that’s why Khan left me in charge
.

“I refuse to compromise where my patients’ care is concerned,” Hawkins blustered, crossing his arms atop his chest. His bloodstained labcoat was stitched together from pieces of a mutilated sleeping bag. A rusty stethoscope dangled around his neck like a tribal talisman.

“You may have to, Doctor,” Marla said thoughtfully. Khan’s silver dagger, his kirpan, was thrust into Marla’s belt as a symbol of Khan’s authority; at times like this Marla would have preferred a working phaser pistol. “Every unit in Fatalis is strapped for resources, not just Medical and Security. Farming, childcare, construction, water-gathering … these are all essential functions, too.” She shook her head sadly. “We have to make hard choices every day.”

“On Khan’s orders, I’m already euthanizing the eel victims as soon as they’re diagnosed,” Hawkins pointed out unhappily. “Don’t ask me to starve my other patients, too.”

Marla felt a pang of sympathy for the besieged doctor, who reminded her somewhat of Dr. McCoy. Ceti Alpha V would be hell for any conscientious healer. So many patients lost, so little that could be done to help them.

Still, Ling, despite her irritating sense of entitlement, had a point. It was important to keep the most productive members of the colony safe, and every eel Ling and her people caught might mean one less hopeless case in the infirmary.

“Here’s what I suggest,” Marla declared, looking the doctor in the eye. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to
perform triage even more strictly. Cut the rations of the patients least likely to recover by thirty percent.”

“Thirty percent!” Hawkins exclaimed. “That’s barbaric.”

We’re living in caves, haven’t you noticed?
A humorless smile lifted the corners of Marla’s lips.
Barbaric is standard operating procedure…
.

She held up her hand to forestall further discussion, then turned her gaze on Ling. “But you have to give up something, too,” Marla told the other woman. “In exchange for the extra rations, you’re going to give the infirmary increased priority. I want the main grotto and all side chambers swept for eels every forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours?” Ling stared at Marla as though she had lost her mind. “You’ve got to be joking!”

“Take it or leave it,” Marla said bluntly. She knew that if she didn’t extract some sort of concessions from Ling, she’d have every team leader in Fatalis demanding extra rations before nightfall. “Or, if you prefer, you can take this matter up with Khan when he returns.”

“If he returns,” Ling muttered.

“
When
he returns,” Marla insisted. She rested her sweaty palm on the hilt of Khan’s dagger. At the back of her mind was the unsettling awareness that the other woman could break her in two if she wanted. “If that’s all for now, I still have work to do in the nursery—including looking after Joachim,” she added pointedly.

Neither Ling nor the doctor appeared entirely happy with the compromise, but, to Marla’s relief, neither seemed inclined to push their luck further. She waited until both parties exited the small grotto, then slumped limply against the cold stone wall. Pent-up tension leaked away, leaving her feeling completely drained.