To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh (12 page)

Khan took a second to process the sabertooth’s demise, then hurriedly checked on Joaquin. To his relief, he saw that the first smilodon was finally dead, lying flat upon the
bone-strewn floor less than ten paces away from Joaquin. Smoke issued from the muzzle of the bodyguard’s weapon, which remained raised and ready. “Your Excellency,” he said in alarm. “Your back!”

Blood streamed from five deep cuts in his jumpsuit; a few centimeters deeper and the sabertooth’s claws might have severed Khan’s spine. “It is nothing,” Khan insisted, dismissing the sharp-edged pain with a wave of his hand. “The animal drew first blood, but mine was the killing blow.”

Joaquin did not question Khan’s assessment of his injuries. “We should leave,” the bodyguard stated bluntly. “There might be more animals.”

Rising to his feet, Khan nodded in agreement. The tigers of his native India tended to hunt alone, but who knew how alien sabertooths behaved? Bandaging his wounds could wait until they were safely clear of the predators’ lair. In any event, Khan was satisfied with the outcome of the hunt. He had achieved two kills, one for both Blasko and Gorinsky. That was enough for today.

He turned toward Ericsson. “My thanks,” he said, “for your timely warning and intervention.” The man’s axe had been disintegrated along with the second smilodon, so Khan presented Ericsson with his own knife.
Perhaps,
he thought,
I have misjudged the man
.

Or perhaps not. It occurred to Khan that Ericsson might have saved him simply because the Norseman doubted his ability to escape both sabertooths on his own. Still, Ericsson had performed bravely in battle, and that, too, was all that Khan required today.
His courage has bought him a chance to regain my favor,
Khan decided.
We shall see whether he wastes that opportunity or not
.

They exited the caves with no further incident, dragging the carcass of the original smilodon behind them. From its multiple gunshot wounds, many more than Joaquin could have inflicted during the attack in the grotto, Khan deduced that this was the very beast whose bloody trail had led them to the cavern’s entrance. They brought Gorinsky’s and Blasko’s bones as well, mixed together in a single canvas bag. Perhaps, back at the camp, they could take the time to separate the two victims’ remains.

Emerging from the chilly gloom of the cave into the searing heat of the sun, they rejoined Bradley upon the exterior of the rocky bluff. Her eyes widened at the side of the dead smilodon and she started to ask about the kill … when an unexpected noise suddenly rang out across the savanna, coming from the direction of New Chandigarh.

Gunshots.

Alarmed, Khan peered toward the distant camp, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. Despite the height of the ridge, and his own superior vision, he could not quite make out the origin of the gunfire. “Binoculars!” he demanded tersely, and Bradley thrust a pair of field glasses into his hand.

He pressed the binoculars against his eyes, quickly locating the outer walls of the colony, as well as the crimson flag above them. To his dismay, he saw large quantities of black smoke rising from somewhere within the settlement.

A fire? Gunshots? Obviously, there was trouble back at the camp, but he could only guess how serious the crisis was.
Marla,
he thought anxiously. Was she safe, or had the unknown calamity already claimed her life, along with the lives of perhaps many others?
I must know what has transpired, as fast as humanly possible
.

All thought of skinning and gutting the dead sabertooth, not to mention tending to the bleeding claw marks on his back, vanished from his mind. “Hurry!” he told the others, lowering the binoculars. “We must return to camp at once!”

Let Marla be safe,
he commanded the fates, all too aware that an uncaring universe did not always bend to his decrees.
Let her still live…
.

The mysterious gunshots had long since fallen silent by the time the hunting party reached the gates of New Chandigarh. Coal-black plumes of smoke continued to rise toward the sky, but Khan was relieved to see that the entire colony had not apparently burned to the ground. He raced through the open gate, ignoring the hails of the guards, and headed straight for the source of the smoke, which, he noted with alarm, appeared to be very near the location of his own hut. His concern for Marla’s safety grew at a geometric rate as he rushed across the camp.

He broke through a crowd of onlookers to discover a smoldering pile of cinders and burning timbers where once a storage shed had stood, only a few meters away from the hut he shared with Marla. The fire itself was dying now, reduced to a smoking remnant of its former self. Khan’s anxiety began to lessen, until he failed to spot Marla’s face among the colonists circling the ruins.

He spotted Vishwa Patil standing nearby and immediately stepped in front of him. “Report,” he demanded. “What happened here? Were there any injuries?”

Where is Marla?
he added silently. His flesh still screamed where the sabertooth had slashed him, and the back of his jumpsuit was soaked with blood, but Khan was barely aware of his own injuries. An ominous feeling cast its pall over his soul.

“There was a fire,” Patil explained, his face blackened with soot. “It’s … unclear … how it began. I was standing guard by the door, when something struck me from behind.” He reached back to massage the back of his skull, wincing as he did so. “When I came to, the shed was already on fire. Arson … lightning … I don’t know.” He glanced upward at the sky, where inky clouds drifted toward the camp from the south, adding to the foreboding atmosphere. “We used CO2 and water to put the blaze out.”

Khan nodded impatiently. “What of casualties? Was anyone harmed?”

Patil hesitated before answering. “Lieutenant McGivers,” he said finally, “entered the shed right before the fire broke out. I was watching her from the doorway, in fact, when I was knocked cold.” He shook his head ruefully. “I believe she … did not escape.”

The security officer flinched in anticipation of Khan’s wrath, but Khan’s first reaction was one of profound grief—and guilt.
My beautiful Marla,
he mourned,
the fairest flower of this brave new era. You might have been happier, and lived far longer, had I never awoken in your time
. Only his iron self-control kept even a single tear from welling in the corner of his eye.
I would have wished for you a more joyous fate
.

The depth of his sorrow caught him by surprise. Back on Earth, when he had ruled as prince over millions, there had been paramours aplenty—“A bevy of fair women,” in Milton’s phrase—but none that stood out from the others.
War and conquest had been his priorities then; he had always assumed that there would be time enough later, after he achieved dominion over the Earth, to select a queen, sire a dynasty. In the meantime, he had amused himself with the world’s most beautiful courtesans and superwomen.

So how was it,
he pondered,
that I lost my heart to a hero-worshipping historian from another century? Was it because, unlike those who came to me at the height of my power, Marla stayed by my side even as I faced eternal exile from the world she knew?

He stared at the fiery wreckage, where Marla’s charred remains were doubtless buried beneath the embers. His mother, Khan recalled, had also died in flames, consumed by a nuclear explosion beneath the sands of the Great Thar Desert in northwestern India, nearly three hundred years ago.
What cruel fate,
he lamented,
decrees that the women closest to me be immolated upon the flames of destiny?

He stepped closer to the dying fire, drawn by an irresistible compulsion to come nearer to Marla’s buried ashes, and his gaze fell upon a scorched metal padlock, connected to an unbroken length of chain. The padlock, he noted at once, was still closed, confirming his worst suspicions. A large metal storage locker was sunk into the earth right where the shed’s doorway had once stood. If Marla had indeed been within the shed when the fire began, why would the door be locked from the outside, plus blocked by the heavy locker? And why else would Patil have been rendered unconscious first?

Only one answer presented itself, and a fearsome rage stirred inside Khan. Vengeful eyes scanned the faces of the crowd, seeing there apprehension and concern, but no trace of sorrow for the woman whose bones were now baking
beneath the ashes. “Who?” he whispered hoarsely, softly first, but then in a booming voice that hushed all others.
“Who is responsible for this?”

A chorus of denials and protestations of innocence greeted his implied accusation:

“Lightning?”

“A stray spark?”

“An accident!”

Khan did not believe a word of it. He was fully aware of just how unpopular Marla had been among the citizens of New Chandigarh. He knew that many still blamed her for their banishment to this primitive world. He had hoped that, in time, his people would come to value Marla as he did, but clearly he had underestimated the murderous enmity directed against her, and this fatal misjudgment had cost Marla her life.

But if he was too late to save her, he could still avenge her death.
Murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ…
.

“Hear my words!” he warned his people, speaking loudly enough to be heard by all. “I will uncover the truth, and those who are responsible for this heinous crime will pay with their unworthy lives. This I swear upon the pyre before us, and—”

A miracle, of sorts, cut short his oath. Gasps arose from the chastened onlookers as, without warning, something stirred beneath the wreckage. Carbonized saplings shifted and crumbled, falling away as though something—or someone—was struggling to rise up through the charred debris.

Khan’s heart skipped a beat. He rushed forward and began tossing the smoking timbers aside, heedless of the
dwindling flames. “Marla?” he shouted over the crackle of burning wood. “Marla!”

A hoarse cough answered his frantic call. A convulsive motion disturbed the pyre and a blackened, shrouded figure suddenly erupted from the cinders, like an unearthly revenant haunting the site of its own cremation.

But this was no ghost. Marla stood before him, wrapped from head to toe in an apparently flameproof blanket. A translucent mouthpiece, which Khan recognized as part of a Starfleet breathing apparatus, masked the lower portion of her face. Soot and ash obscured what he could glimpse of her face; only her unmistakable chestnut eyes made her identity crystal clear.

Khan recalled that the torched shed had housed much of their limited supply of Starfleet paraphernalia. Clearly, Marla had used the futuristic equipment to protect herself from the enveloping smoke and flames.
Ingenious!
he marveled. Marla had once more proven herself worthy of his love.

“Khan,” she whispered through the face mask.

Visibly exhausted by her ordeal, she teetered upon unsteady legs. Khan scooped her up in his arms, blanket and all, and carried her safely clear of the baking ruins. Her weight was a welcome burden, easily borne.

“The doctor,” he demanded. “Without delay!”

Gideon Hawkins hurried to Khan’s side, clutching a Starfleet medkit. As his medical expertise was now some centuries out-of-date, Marla had wisely taken the time to familiarize the doctor with the contents of the medkit.

Khan reluctantly set Marla down so that Hawkins could examine her. As the soot-covered blanket came away, Khan saw that the breathing mask was connected by a length of
tubing to a rectangular silver box belted to Marla’s waist. To his relief, he discerned no serious burns on her person, a diagnosis that the doctor soon verified. “She seems all right,” Hawkins said. The angular planes of his gaunt face had grown even more pronounced on the colonists’ thin rations. He fingered the flame-resistant blanket that had saved Marla’s life. “A remarkable material.”

He helped Marla remove the mask from her face. She coughed loudly a few times, expelling some leftover smoke from her lungs, but then began to breathe more easily. Khan’s worries faded as it became clear that Marla would recover.

Fate has been kind,
he realized.

Relief gave way to renewed anger that anyone would dare to endanger Marla’s life in the first place. “Who did this?” he interrogated Marla, his eyes blazing in fury. Hawkins began to protest, but Khan silenced him with a curt gesture. His justice would be neither denied nor delayed. “Tell me,” he entreated Marla. “Who is to blame?”

Marla shook her head. “I don’t know,” she croaked hoarsely. Where the breathing mask had covered her face, her flesh was unmarked by soot, giving her partially blackened face the look of a carnival disguise. “I’m not sure.”

Her answer did not satisfy his need for vengeance. Scowling, his dark eyes searched the faces of the onlooking crowd, hunting for a likely suspect. His gaze lit on the striking features of Zuleika Walker.

“You!” he accused, pointing at the former assassin. Khan had not forgotten Zuleika’s unprovoked attack on Marla on their very first night on the planet. “What have you to do with this?”

The startled woman blanched at Khan’s irate tone.
“Nothing, Your Excellency!” she protested fearfully. “I swear it!”

Vishwa Patil spoke up. “She may be lying, Your Excellency. I am told that she quarreled with Lieutenant McGivers right before the fire.” He glared scornfully at Zuleika and fingered the bump at the back of his skull. “She spit at McGivers and called her names.”

“Who says this?” Khan demanded.

Patil pointed at Paul Austin, whom Khan recognized as one of Ericsson’s cohorts. “Is this true?” Khan asked.

Austin muttered something under his breath, too low to be heard. He gave Marla a dirty look, as though blaming
her
for this tense encounter.

“Speak up!” Khan insisted. “Did you see Zuleika Walker accost Marla?”

“Maybe,” the tattooed man conceded grudgingly.

Zuleika tried to back away into the crowd, but Patil and his fellow security officers blocked her exit. Khan turned his forbidding gaze upon the nervous ex-supermodel. “Do you deny these reports?” he asked her harshly.