To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (27 page)

Although too geologically unstable to settle upon, the Azar Gorge had become one of the colony’s primary water sources, supplemented by a network of solar stills installed in the desert above Fatalis.
What a shame,
Khan reflected,
that the gorge is located over a day away from the colony itself. Life would be slightly less challenging were the precious springs closer at hand.

Content to let his people drink before him, Khan sat
down upon a flat-topped boulder safely clear of the nearest geyser. His tired legs were grateful for the break, yet Khan resisted the temptation to sigh audibly, lest it be taken for a sign of weakness. As the canyon walls provided shelter from the fierce winds and UV rays, he loosened the folds of his kaffiyeh and breathed deeply of the comparatively dust-free air. He saw that many of his followers were shedding the outer layers of their desert garb as well.

Joaquin stepped forward and extended an open hand. “Your canteen, Your Excellency. Let me refill it for you.”

“Thank you, my old friend,” Khan replied, handing Joaquin the canteen as requested. At least he could always count on Joaquin’s loyalty, despite the discontent brewing in other quarters. “Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated.” He was surprised at how hoarse his voice was. “My mouth feels as dry as the Kalahari.”

Joaquin nodded gravely. “I shall return shortly.”

The bodyguard’s heavy tread receded as Khan closed his eyes, permitting himself a rare moment of repose. The steamy, humid atmosphere reminded him of the imperial sauna back at his old palace in Chandigarh. It saddened him to recall that the magnificent fortress no longer existed, having been bombed out of existence centuries ago, in the closing days of the Eugenics Wars. According to Marla, a thermoconcrete landing pad now occupied the site; no plaque or monument commemorated his reign.

“I don’t know if you’re going to like living in our time,”
she had cautioned him years ago, in his temporary quarters aboard the
Enterprise
. How tragically prophetic those words had proven!

He turned his thoughts toward Marla in an effort to rescue his spirits from the melancholy overtaking them. Her
steadfast love had been the only bright spot over all these long years of exile and suffering. Without her, even for all his superior will and intellect, he might well have gone mad. She was Eve to his Adam, exiled from Paradise together:

“I feel the link of nature draw me: flesh of my flesh,

“Bone of my bone, thou art, and from thy state

“Mine shall never be parted, bliss or woe…”

Joaquin’s returning footsteps disturbed his reverie. Khan kept his eyes closed, prolonging for a few more moments his escape from this hellish world, only to hear Joaquin freeze in his tracks. The bodyguard gasped out loud.

What the devil?
Khan’s eyes snapped open in irritation. “Lord Khan!” Joaquin exclaimed, over a sudden rumbling noise overhead. Sand and gravel rained down on Khan’s head and shoulders. The rumbling grew louder, all but drowning out Joaquin’s frantic shout: “Beware!”

Avalanche!
Khan realized at once. He leaped to his feet, but Joaquin was faster still. The bodyguard charged forward, knocking Khan to one side, then throwing his massive frame over Khan to shield him from danger. Khan’s face smacked against the floor of the canyon. He tasted blood and dirt upon his lips.

Boulders crashed to earth less than a meter away. The deafening roar of the landslide filled Khan’s ears and the ground beneath him shook as though the cataclysm itself had returned. Sprawled upon the rocky floor, beneath Joaquin’s protective weight, Khan braced himself for the crushing impact of some colossal fragment of stone. It seemed he was destined to be buried alive, no matter how many times he narrowly escaped that particular doom….

Farewell, Marla, my love. May you keep my memory alive.

But, to his surprise, the thunderous roar gradually diminished in volume, until all that remained was the faint skittering of a few last rivulets of dirt. Joaquin stirred above him, and Khan felt the bodyguard rise to his feet, apparently unharmed. A cloud of dust, stirred up by the avalanche, enveloped the air around the two men. Khan coughed on the dust, spitting out blood from a torn lip.

“Your Excellency!” Joaquin called out in alarm. “Are you well?”

Khan took a quick inventory of his vital organs and bones. “Do not distress yourself,” he assured the bodyguard. “It seems I have come through this trial more or less unscathed, thanks to your timely intervention.”

Joaquin offered his hand, but Khan chose to rise under his own power. He stood up slowly, brushing the powdery debris from his robes. The other colonists, attracted by the clamor, came running to investigate. Khan raised his hand to indicate that was quite unharmed, to the disappointment, perhaps, of Ericsson and his fellow malcontents.
You shall not be rid of me quite so easily,
Khan gloated.

The thought sparked an immediate suspicion in his mind. What had triggered the landslide in the first place? He peered upward at the rugged cliff face. A telltale trickle of loose scree marked the path of the avalanche. Khan instantly spotted a narrow ledge not far from where the rock-fall appeared to have originated. A skilled rock climber could have easily attained the ledge and set off the landslide from there, retreating back to the bed of the gorge amid the confusion and clouds of dust. Khan imagined Ericsson or one of the others using a walking stick as a lever to start an avalanche directly above Khan’s head.

Traitor! Assassin!

Suspicion turned to certainty within Khan’s mind; it could be no coincidence that the rockface chose that particular moment to rain down upon him. “Who?” he demanded furiously. “Who among you is responsible?”

“Lord Khan?” Ericsson blurted, feigning ignorance. Khan was not surprised to see the rebellious Norseman in the forefront of the crowd. He had removed his kaffiyeh and visor, revealing a golden beard now streaked with gray. His blue eyes mocked Khan with their ill-disguised malice. “I don’t understand.”

“Do not dissemble!” Khan raged, his temper pushed to its limit by this brazen attempt on his life. The dusty haze began to settle at last, clearing the air between him and other colonists. He searched their faces, determined to find the guilty party. “I know an assassination attempt when I survive one.” He grabbed on to Ericsson’s collar and all but yanked him off his feet. “Where were you mere minutes ago? Up there on the cliff above me?”

Ericsson refused to flinch before Khan’s fury. “Of course not, Lord Khan,” he insisted. “I was refilling my canteen with the others.” He tipped his head toward his fellow colonists. “Ask anyone.”

Khan turned his volcanic gaze upon the assembled bearers. “Is this true?” he barked, still holding on to the collar of Ericsson’s dusty burnoose. “Answer me at once!”

Murmured assents and nodding heads replied, but Khan’s anger was not assuaged. “Then who was it?” His suspicious gaze alighted on Paul Austin; he could well see the impertinent American serving as Ericsson’s cat’s-paw once again. “One of you
must
have seen something!” Khan accused the others. “Tell me the name of the assassin now, or I will hold you all responsible!”

Silence, and sullen looks, were all that the members of the caravan offered up in response. Their mute complicity further infuriated Khan, who felt betrayed beyond measure by their galling ingratitude.
For five and a half years, I have devoted my every waking hour to keeping my people alive—and this is how they repay me!
“Vipers!” he cursed them. “Conspirators, all!”

“Your Excellency!” Ericsson protested, his voice all wounded innocence. He smoothly extricated his collar from Khan’s grasp and stepped back from Khan. “It was a freak accident, no more. You know how unstable this gorge is!”

“No one is such a liar as the indignant man,”
Khan thought; so said Nietzsche, who knew well the ambitious heart of the Superman. Khan’s lips curled in disdain. “Very well,” he snarled. “If none among you will come forward with the truth, then you will all pay the price for your reticence.” He paused for emphasis. “There shall be no more food rations until we return to Fatalis!”

A collective wail erupted from the throng. “You can’t!” Amy Katzel cried out, a look of utter disbelief upon her face. Other voices took up her anguished cry. “It’s not fair!”

Khan braced himself for whatever was to come. If the caravan was going to rise up in open mutiny, now would likely be the moment. His hand dropped to the knife upon his belt. He heard Joaquin take up an aggressive stance behind him.
Let us see,
he mused,
how deep this insurrection runs
.

“You have brought this on yourself by refusing to name the would-be assassin among you,” he said decreed. His stony face betrayed not a flicker of trepidation. “My decision is final.”

He saw anger and resentment in the faces and postures of the people before him. Fists were clenched and several
eyes looked to Ericsson for a signal. Several meters away, an awakening geyser bubbled ominously, threatening to spill over at any minute—like the tensions simmering between Khan and the other colonists. Khan waited to see if either geyser would erupt.

But Ericsson merely shrugged. “Too bad we no longer have a phaser,” he remarked as though to remind the others of how Khan had inadvertently destroyed the weapon years ago. “It would have made cleaning up this debris so much easier.”

Turning his back on Khan, he headed back toward the hot springs with his canteen in his hand. The moment passed, and the crowd began to disperse, muttering darkly among themselves. Khan and Joaquin soon found themselves alone amid the newly fallen rubble. The confrontation appeared to be over … for now.

Intriguing,
Khan thought. He could only assume that if Ericsson was not yet ready to force the issue then the Norseman must not have been certain that he enjoyed the support of the entire caravan, not to mention a majority of the colonists back at Fatalis.
Not every heart has turned against me, it seems
.

Still, today’s brush with death had been a close one.
I can take no chances,
Khan realized.
I must be on my guard at all times
.

Joaquin retrieved Khan’s walking stick from the scree and brought it over to his leader. The axebreaker staff would be a formidable weapon, if need be. “You must be careful, Your Excellency,” the bodyguard grunted. “Your enemies plot against you.”

“I know, my friend. I know.”
Thank the heavens,
Khan thought,
that I can always depend on Joaquin
.

And Marla, of course.

“Have you got it?” Ericsson asked.

He held a rag over his mouth and nostrils as he spoke, due to the nauseating stench coming from the compost pit a few meters away. The rotting waste matter turned his stomach, but that was exactly why he had chosen this spot for the meeting; with luck, the fetid atmosphere would guarantee their privacy. Ericsson couldn’t imagine anyone visiting the pit unless they absolutely had to.

“Well?” he repeated impatiently. “Do you have it or not?”

Saraj Panjabi looked about furtively before answering. Beads of sweat dotted his brow. Fear showed in his darting eyes. “Are you sure it’s safe?” he whispered.

“No one is listening,” Ericsson assured him. “Austin is standing lookout in the corridor, just in case.”

Panjabi nodded, looking only slightly less nervous. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Reaching under the edge of a ragged vest, he drew out a transparent plastic vial and handed it to Ericsson. Inside the vial, a slimy black
eel larva wriggled against the sides of the container, searching for a way out of the vial—and into the nearest convenient ear canal.

Ericsson could not repress a shudder at the sight of the dreaded creature. He double-checked the seal on the container, making sure it was intact. Only then did he smile in anticipation of what was to come. “Perfect,” he declared. He eyed Panjabi cautiously. “The doctor won’t miss this specimen?”

Panjabi shook his head, revealing a mutilated profile. Khan had sliced the man’s left ear off after Panjabi had been caught stealing from one of the colony’s underground gardens.
Bloody tyrant!
Ericsson thought angrily. Khan’s punishments were growing increasingly severe as the embattled dictator struggled to maintain control of Fatalis.

“The larvae are hidden beneath the dorsal ridges of the adult eels,” Panjabi reminded Ericsson. As the doctor’s husband and number one orderly, the Indian superman had easy access to Hawkins’ medical laboratory. “No one will ever notice that one small larva is missing.”

Ericsson chuckled. “Just so long as no one blows the whistle in the next few hours.” He tucked the vial into the pocket of his tattered jacket. “If all goes as planned, we won’t have to worry about Khan’s so-called justice much longer.”

“But what if something goes wrong?” Panjabi fretted. He wrung his hands together apprehensively. “Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea….”

“It’s the only way,” Ericsson said sharply. He couldn’t allow the other man to back out now. It was too late for second thoughts. “Khan is guarded night and day. If we want to get rid of him for good, this is our best shot.”

Just be ready to head for the hills,
he added silently,
if the
plan goes awry.
They were playing a dangerous game here, and the consequences of failure were almost too ghastly to contemplate.
But we’re not going to fail,
Ericsson thought.
This time tomorrow we’ll be running Fatalis
.

“Trust me,” he promised Panjabi. He patted the pocket containing the stolen larva. He visualized the obscene parasite squirming within the vial, eager to find an unwilling host. “Khan will never see this one coming!”

“Lady Marla?”

Marla was heading back to her quarters, after a long day looking after the colony’s children, when a voice called out to her from behind. She turned to see Karyn Ericsson hurrying down the torchlit corridor toward her.