To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (25 page)

Where are you, Khan?
she wondered anxiously. She switched off the tricorder, just in case it was running out of juice, too.
I can’t keep doing this without you
. Ling’s implication, that they might never see Khan again, had shaken Marla more than she had let on. She drew the kirpan from her belt and stared at it with melancholy yearning. The metal dagger felt very heavy in her hand.

Come back to me, Khan. Please.

Khan rose before dawn, then roused the others. His bones and muscles ached from a long night spent sleeping upon the rough earth, with only his desert robes to cushion him. “It is time,” he croaked tersely, his mouth too dry to say more. Thirst and hunger consumed his thoughts.

Groaning, Ericsson and the rest climbed to their feet. They shook their burnooses thoroughly, just in case a Ceti eel had slithered into their cloaks sometime during the night. Thick wads of recycled insulation were extracted from their ears and carefully inspected for signs of larvae. Khan did the same, before staggering down into the empty riverbed; he had insisted that they always sleep above the former banks of the Kaur, so as to be prepared in the (highly) unlikely event that a flash flood came rushing down the bone-dry arroyo.

The Kaur itself was no more. Rather than stretching all the way to the sea, the once-mighty river had gradually dwindled away to nothingness, finally disappearing entirely into the rocky floor of a desiccated gully. Khan and
the rest of the expedition had left the last pathetic trickle behind days ago, but Khan knew that there might still be some moisture lurking beneath the arroyo—if he and the others moved quickly enough.

His gloved fingers dug into the parched earth, taking hold of a large stone and turning it over. As expected, a thin layer of moisture clung to the underside of the rock. Khan pulled open his headcloth beneath his visor and gratefully licked the pre-morning dew from the stone.

It was an old Bedouin trick, one that had kept him alive since the Kaur expired and their canteens went dry. Khan savored every drop, knowing that it might well be the only water he drank all day. He licked the stone dry, then looked around for another rock.

Nearby, the other explorers emulated Khan. They dug in the dirt silently, needing neither conversation nor instruction. At this point, they all knew the routine by heart. Khan watched as Debra VonLinden sucked the dew off the scraggly branches of a leafless bush. Joaquin let out a grunt of satisfaction, and Khan saw that the bodyguard had managed to capture a small lizard by the tail.
Excellent,
Khan thought approvingly. The lizard’s meat and blood were worth its weight in gold; upon such scavenging did the expedition depend for their very existence. Khan shuddered, imagining their situation years hence, when and if the rats and lizards died out completely.

They had been traveling for weeks, and their original provisions had long since been consumed. Insects, reptiles, and small rodents provided their only meals, while dew, blood, and the occasional small waterhole served to slake their thirst—at least enough to survive. Khan was glad,
however, that he had left Marla behind; no ordinary mortal could have endured such extreme deprivation.

What is Kirk eating now?
he wondered enviously.
The
Enterprise
’s convenient food slots had offered all manner of tempting dishes and libations, from fine wine and cuisine to cups of ice-cold
chai….

Joaquin snapped the lizard’s neck, then dutifully offered it to his commander. Khan’s mouth watered at the sight of the uncooked reptile, but he waved it aside. There was meat enough for only one person upon the lizard’s frame, and Joaquin deserved it as much as he. “It is yours, my friend,” Khan insisted. “Enjoy it. I can find my own meals.”

Easier said than done,
he added privately. His stomach felt as empty as that of a Calcutta beggar.
But perhaps luck will be with me today
. Through the visor, his dark eyes searched the arid gully for any hint of wildlife. Patches of scrub sprouted from the floor of the arroyo, while bright yellow streaks hinted at sulfur deposits, yet Khan detected not a flicker of movement, not even the furtive stirring of an (inedible) eel. Fresh meat, it seemed, was not on the menu this morning.

“Khan!” Ericsson called out abruptly. Khan was startled by the obvious excitement in the man’s voice. Ericsson was practically hopping where he stood, pointing eagerly to the west. “Look … rain!”

Rain?
Khan could not believe his ears; he had almost forgotten such a phenomenon existed. Rising to his feet, he looked intently to the west, expecting to see nothing more than an obvious mirage. He felt another surge of anger toward the Norseman.
How dare he raise our hopes in this manner!

But Ericsson was not mistaken. On the horizon, roughly
two kilometers away, a pendulous gray cloud hovered over the withered landscape. Khan could see dark sheets of rain pouring down beneath the cloud. Compared to the scant moisture provided by the dew-coated rocks, the distant deluge looked like salvation itself.

Khan was not willing to wait to see if the rain would come their way. Instead he ran up the western bank of the arroyo, clutching his empty canteen as he did so. “After me!” he exhorted the others, who required little prodding to race toward the beckoning rain. Four pairs of dusty boots smacked against the crumbling earth as the party sprinted frantically across the desert as fast as their depleted bodies would allow. Khan could not tear his gaze away from the miraculous rainfall, terrified that the downpour would cease before they got there. His heart pounded, his lungs burned, and his legs ached from the punishing pace, but he never once thought about slowing down. The skeleton of a gigantic sabertooth appeared in his path, but Khan leaped over the sun-bleached bones in a single bound. Reaching the rain was all that mattered.

At last, after an exhausting run through the wind and the dust, the weeping cloud filled the sky only a few meters away. Summoning up one last burst of speed, he dashed beneath the cloud, then skidded to a stop. He turned his face and open hands upward to greet the falling rain. He licked his chapped lips in anticipation of the cool, refreshing water striking his face.

But not a drop did he feel.

He blinked in confusion.
What cruel joke is this?
Peering upward through the obsidian lenses of his visor, he could see the rain issuing from the bottom of the billowing cloud, but the ground and air around him remained as dry as the
barren plains they had crossed to get here. Khan glanced about him at his equally confounded followers. Although the upper halves of their faces were concealed by their visors, Khan could see confused frustration twist their mouths into grotesque expressions. “I don’t understand!” VonLinden cried out, with an edge of hysteria. “What’s happening? Why can’t I feel the rain?”

Khan grasped the truth. “Phantom rain,” he said bleakly, familiar with the concept even if he had never witnessed the phenomenon in person. “The rain is falling, yes, but it is evaporating before it hits the ground.”

He could not think of a more sadistic twist of fate.

“
Helvete!
” Ericsson swore vehemently. Bent over, gasping for breath, he still managed to spew an impressive stream of obscenities in his native tongue. He angrily hurled his canteen at the uncaring cloud, but his throw fell far short of its target and the hollow canteen clattered to earth several meters away.

A few paces away, Joaquin said nothing, but his meaty fists were clenched tightly at his side.

They stood for several minutes in the shadow of the cloud, watching the phantom rain streak the sky many kilometers above them, maddeningly out of reach. Khan raged silently at whatever malignant gods or spirits governed Ceti Alpha V.
Better to see no rain at all,
he brooded,
than to be tormented so!

He forced himself to look away from tantalizing cloudburst overhead, turning to look back the way they had come. Exhausted by their headlong, and ultimately fruitless, stampede across the desert, he dreaded hiking back to the faraway arroyo.

They had no other choice, though. Although the Kaur no
longer stretched all the way to the sea, Khan still intended to follow its former path to the end, no matter how long it took and how many rocks he had to lick to stay alive.

“Come,” he informed the others. Retying the loose ends of his kaffiyeh beneath his visor, he set out for the dried-out riverbed—and whatever lay at the end of its meandering path. “We have a long way to go.”

“We should have stayed on Earth,” VonLinden said gloomily. She trudged like a zombie through a narrow defile at the bottom of a deep canyon. Towering granite cliffs hemmed her in on two sides as the expedition trekked single-file through the gorge, still following the path of the extinct river. “We don’t belong here.”

“Such defeatism is beneath you,” Khan reprimanded her. He paused to look back over his shoulder at the three explorers behind him. In their all-concealing robes, the party resembled a procession of hooded specters. His stern voice echoed off the canyon walls. “It is beneath us all.”

His words appeared to strike home. “My apologies, Lord Khan,” VonLinden replied. “It is just that I am so hot … and tired … and hungry.”

Khan sympathized with her distress. The temperature had been steadily rising over the last several days, making a hard journey even more torturous. Despite the shade provided by the canyon walls, Khan felt as though he were marching through an oven. Sweat soaked through his dusty garments, wasting moisture he could ill afford to lose. His skin felt dry as parchment, while his sunken eyes were dry and scratchy. A throbbing headache, no doubt induced by fatigue and dehydration, pounded beneath his brow.

“I understand,” Khan told the despairing cartographer. Knowing how much she had already lost, he was reluctant to upbraid her further. “But we cannot allow our iron resolve to falter. This planet is our home now, and we must bend it to our will.”

Or die trying,
he thought to himself.

The uneven ground beneath his boots was studded with jagged boulders; Khan guessed that not long ago, back when the Kaur still flowed freely, foaming rapids had carpeted the floor of the canyon. Now, alas, those turbulent whitecaps were gone, leaving only a rocky obstacle course behind, sloping gradually downward toward the far end of the gorge. A hot wind blew up the canyon, and it required all Khan’s discipline not to shrink before the torrid blast. The rustle of the explorers’ robes joined the vicious pulse-beat in his ears.

The heat was oppressive enough that Khan had seriously considered traveling by night and sleeping by day. But with the stars still obscured by airborne dust, nights on Ceti Alpha V were perilously dark. It was safer, if infernally more uncomfortable, to cross the blighted land while the sun still shone through the constant haze.

Even in daylight, the rough terrain made hiking difficult. It was necessary to watch one’s step carefully, lest one slip and sprain an ankle or worse. Even still, loose rocks often shifted beneath Khan’s feet, threatening his balance.

His eyes carefully scanned the canyon floor. A vein of exposed coal reminded Khan of Kirk’s encounter with the Gorn on Cestus III. Marla had told Khan of the incident, which had taken place not long before the
Enterprise
discovered the
Botany Bay
floating derelict in space. Khan had to admit that Kirk had shown considerable ingenuity in
manufacturing a weapon to defeat the Gorn from the raw materials he found upon the planetoid.

Impressive—for a mere human.

The thought of Kirk brought a scowl to Khan’s lips. More and more these days, he found himself blaming the captain for the tragedies that had befallen the colonists. Surely Starfleet’s vaunted technology should have warned Kirk that this star system was unstable! Had Kirk merely been criminally negligent, or had he deliberately stranded Khan and the others on a planet faced with imminent disaster? And why had he not returned to rescue the imperiled colony?

Ordinary humans have always feared their superiors,
Khan thought darkly.
Perhaps Ceti Alpha V was simply Kirk’s way of eliminating me and mine without getting his hands dirty?

His dire suspicions were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of waves crashing against breakers. His heart leaped upward. They had reached the sea at last!

“Listen!” he shouted to his fellow explorers. “Can you hear that? Our destination calls to us!”

The joyous news galvanized Joaquin and the others. Forgetting their fatigue, they came running down the gorge faster than Khan would have imagined possible. Their breakneck descent through the rugged pass defied caution, but Khan could not condemn them for their impatience. He shared their eagerness to look upon the fabled shore after so many days of weary journeying. Khan’s only regret was that poor Talbot was not there to join in the celebration.
Perhaps I shall name the harbor after him,
Khan thought,
so that his sacrifice will not be forgotten
.

A short run brought Khan to the end of the canyon. He emerged from the defile to find himself at the foot of a monumental cliff, facing a craggy beach upon which
pounding green waves crested and ebbed. Beyond the shore, the unnamed ocean stretched for as far as the eye could see, perhaps all the way to the other side of the world.

We made it!
Khan exulted. He felt the way Lewis and Clark must have felt when they first viewed the Pacific Ocean. Or perhaps Moses, gazing upon the Promised Land to which he would lead his suffering people.

Behind him, Joaquin, Ericsson, and VonLinden came racing out of the gorge, only to come to a sudden halt at the sight of the ever-rolling waves. “I can’t believe it!” VonLinden exclaimed tearfully. “Look at all that water! It goes on forever!”

“
Milde Makter!
” Ericsson exclaimed. For once, his words seemed to hold no subversive undercurrent. “I thought I’d never see waves again.”

Joaquin joined Khan upon the beach. “Your will has triumphed once more,” the giant bodyguard said. He dipped his head in respect. “I never doubted you.”