STAR TREK - TOS (17 page)

“They shall all pay, and dearly.”

“As you wish, my lord.” She lingered in the doorway, as if reluctant to leave Khan alone in the control room, lest he revert to his original intention.

[143]
Fear not,
he thought wearily. With a heavy sigh, he rose from the plastic chair to follow his sagacious, if sometimes inconvenient, advisor out of the control room. Ling and Patil did not look up from their monitors, curbing whatever curiosity they might have felt about what had just transpired in the inner chamber. Khan did not consider informing them.

Hunyadi will pay,he vowed once again.

But not today.

OFF THE COAST OF SCOTLAND

SEPTEMBER 10, 1993

PRIMITIVE AS IT WAS, Gary Seven had to admit that Earth was a beautiful planet.

He stood upon a winding hillside trail, looking out over the rolling farmland below. His elevation offered him a panoramic view of the quiet Scottish island, with its verdant glens, clear running streams, and fathomless lochs. Purple heather was ankle-deep in the brush beside the dirt path, competing with the brown and green mountain grasses. Many yards below, at the bottom of the trail, a barking dog herded a flock of recalcitrant sheep, while, in the distance, Seven glimpsed the rooftops of the nearest village, a tiny fishing community bearing the unlikely name of Blackwaterfoot, which he had always thought sounded like something badly translated from Andorian.

[145]He rested his weight upon a gnarled hazelwood walking stick, contemplating the exotic locale where he had so improbably ended up. The isle, along with the rest of Earth, bore little resemblance to the distant world where he had been born and reared: a highly advanced, cosmopolitan planet, populated by representatives of every known (and unknown) intelligent species. Now he could barely remember the last time he saw a Horta, and he still occasionally missed the tangy taste of hot plomeek soup, despite Roberta’s best efforts to replicate the recipe from his description.

Have I truly lived on Earth for over a quarter of a century?he pondered. The thought boggled his mind, yet he had few regrets. Earth—and humanity—were well worth the years he had spent striving to assure their survival. At times he had been tempted to head back to more civilized quarters of the galaxy, delegating affairs on Earth to able lieutenants such as Roberta, but the situation here had always been too precarious, too fraught with potential catastrophe, to risk trying to supervise things from hundreds of light-years away. How could he leave Earth, the planet of his ancestors, with the likes of Khan still running amok.

“Tuppence for your thoughts?”

Seven pivoted slowly upon his cane to see Roberta trudging up the hill toward him. Several paces behind her, a wisp of white smoke rose from the chimney of the refurbished stone farmhouse that now served as their new headquarters; following the London fiasco, he and Roberta had decided to stay away from major population centers, thereby endangering fewer[146]civilians by their presence. After all, they had reasoned, when you have a transporter, you can set up shop almost anywhere.

“Simply enjoying the afternoon, and the view,” he replied, not entirely honestly. Why spoil Roberta’s mood with his own dour ruminations? He leaned upon his cane as she joined him at the crest of the hill, puffing slightly from the climb.

“It is gorgeous here,” she agreed, smiling as her gaze swept over the scenery below. Not for nothing had the Isle of Arran been described as “Scotland in miniature,” with all manner of picturesque terrain, including marshes and mountains, rocky cliffs and cozy beaches, crammed onto one small island, only twenty-five miles long and ten miles across. Looking north, one could see a ring of standing stones rising like petrified fingers from the boggy, peat-covered surface of a lonely moor. The ancient megaliths, which dated back to the Neolithic period, reminded Seven of how far Homo sapiens had come in the last few millennia—and how far they still had to go.

“Remember the first time we visited these islands?” Roberta watched a kestrel circle beneath the cloudy blue sky, on the lookout for an unsuspecting hare. “Back in seventy-three?”

Seven nodded, letting his memory drift forward to a time considerably more recent than the Stone Age.

They had been investigating, on behalf of an old friend, the mysterious disappearance of a Scottish policeman on a nearby island, which had proved to be home to a bloodthirsty pagan cult. “A rather unsettling excursion, as I recall.”

“I’ll say,” Roberta shuddered, no doubt recalling[147]how close she had come to being burned alive inside a gigantic wicker effigy. Seven himself had been severely disillusioned to discover human sacrifice still being practiced in the late twentieth century. “Who would have ever guessed,” she added, “that we’d wind up living only a few islands away?”

Seven noticed a sheaf of papers caught beneath Roberta’s arm, in the crook of her bushy fleece sweater. “What do you have there?” he asked.

She handed the documents over to Seven. “Today’s
New York Times,
hot off the Beta 6,” she explained, “plus the usual updates on various global hot spots.”

He glanced at the front page of the
Times.
“PLO and Israel Accept Each Other After 3 Decades of Relentless Strife,” read the banner headline across the top of the page, reporting on substantial progress in the ongoing Mideast peace talks. Seven was encouraged by the news, but feared that achieving true peace in that troubled region would prove easier said than done. Lower on the page, a less hopeful headline informed him that “U.S. Troops Fire on Somalis; Death Toll May Reach 100.”

A long way to go, indeed,he thought, acutely aware that the situation in Somalia was being exacerbated by the megalomaniacal ambitions of one of Khan’s supersiblings.
With luck,
he thought,
Amin will be
taken out of the picture by either the Americans or one of his fellow warlords.

“Any other highlights?” he asked, flipping through the newspaper. The bulk of the coverage seemed to concern the peace talks in Washington, but he knew that Roberta had other, equally reliable sources of information.

[148]She shrugged. “Yeltsin is threatening to dissolve the Russian Parliament. Saddam is playing games with the U.N. inspectors again.” She paused, searching her memory for any other relevant tidbits. “Oh, NASA is on schedule to fix the Hubble space telescope in December. That’s okay now, right?”

“I believe so,” he stated. Back in 1990, he and Roberta had sabotaged the ambitious astronomical project by covertly shaving seven hundred thousands of an inch off the Hubble’s primary mirror, rendering the $1.5 million dollar space eye effectively nearsighted. Such tampering had been necessary to prevent unprepared human astronomers from observing the passage of a Vulcan trading fleet through the Lambda Sector; in Seven’s judgment, Earth was not yet ready for that sort of first contact. Fortunately, the Vulcan caravan had since warped beyond the range of the Hubble, so he saw no harm in allowing NASA to correct the telescope’s vision.

“What about Khan?” he asked.

Roberta’s face grew more somber. “Ominously quiet, at the moment.” The red-winged falcon continued to circle above their heads, awaiting prey. “Our spies suggest that he’s regrouping after the total failure of his big superman summit in June. He’s had some dealings with Morrison’s militia in the States, exchanging info and technology, but mostly he seems to be gearing up to defend himself from all the other would-be Napoleons out there. Things are particularly frosty between Khan and Hunyadi, who are wrangling over Turkestan. Hunyadi’s people assassinated a couple of Khan’s most highly placed pawns in the local government earlier this week; this morning,[149]Khan retaliated by taking out an entire Serbian intelligence cell.” Lines of worry deepened around her eyes and mouth. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that particular cold war gets real hot real soon.”

Sadly, Seven had no reason to doubt Roberta’s dire reading of events. Almost twenty years after he destroyed Sarina Kaur’s underground laboratory in Rajasthan, it seemed that her Chrysalis Project was still casting a long shadow over world affairs.
Like Landru on his world,
Seven thought. There were times, in his darker moments, when he almost wished that he had let the budding children of Chrysalis be incinerated along with their creator. But, no, that had never truly been an option; he could not have condemned blameless innocents to death for crimes they might someday commit, even if that meant dealing with Khan and his ilk two decades later.

I
mustn’t lose hope,
he thought. Perhaps Earth could still escape the sort of eugenic madness that had corrupted so many other civilizations. Thankfully, many of Khan’s more unstable peers had already self-destructed, like that would-be messiah in Texas. Others, such as Alberto Gomez, were being neutralized in a reasonably discreet manner; thanks to some undercover assistance by Roberta, the Peruvian government had finally captured the brilliant revolutionary leader less than a month ago, promising the return of something resembling normalcy to that war-torn nation. Seven had been relieved to see Gomez behind bars at last, unable to turn his superlative mind to future acts of violent insurrection.

One terrorist mastermind down,
he thought, gratefully striking “Pachacutec” from his mental to-do list.

[150]But that still left Khan and Hunyadi and the rest, along with their respective throngs of superhuman followers. Seven stared at the pastoral peace and beauty of Arran, and wondered how long such serenity could survive in a world overrun by indomitable conquerors whose grandiose ambitions were encoded in their very genes. Sometimes he feared that, despite his best efforts to protect mankind’s infinite potential, the human race would ultimately destroy themselves anyway, spurred on by the perilous feuding of Khan and his kin.

Good thing I have a backup plan,he thought.
Just in case.

MAHARASHTRA STATE

CENTRAL INDIA

SEPTEMBER 30, 1993

CHISELED OUT OF THE GRANITE HILLSIDEby generations of ancient monks and artisans, the enormous cave-temple took Khan’s breath away. Larger even than the Parthenon in Greece, the towering edifice rose toward the night sky, its venerable exterior generously adorned with intricately carved friezes depicting picturesque scenes from Hindu folklore and mythology. Epic battles, royal weddings, and acrobatically amorous couples, all lovingly sculpted in elaborate detail, proliferated upon the walls of the temple, being all the more impressive when one realized that the entire structure, including its rampant decoration, had all been hewn from the same solid piece of rock, carved from the top down rather than built up from the bottom.

[152]“Magnificent!” Khan pronounced. Even in nocturnal darkness, its myriad surfaces illuminated only by the flashlights of Khan and his entourage, the temple presented almost too much visual detail to take in all at once.
Hard to imagine,
he thought,
that such an astounding work of art and engineering was
created by ordinary, primitive humans.

Unsurprisingly, Joaquin was too concerned with Khan’s personal safety to appreciate the splendor before his eyes. “I don’t like this,” he muttered gruffly, the cool white beam of his flashlight searching for hidden snipers. “It’s too quiet.”

By day, and during the peak season, the temple was a major tourist attraction. It was now nearly 3:45 in the morning, at the tail end of the annual monsoon, however, and Khan and his party appeared to have the place to themselves. They were gathered on the rocky plain outside the temple’s main gate, with a clear view of the spacious courtyard beyond. The helicopter that had brought them here rested several paces behind them on a blacktop parking lot usually reserved for tour buses. Although the rain had mercifully abated for a time, swollen clouds promised another downpour before morning.

“That was the intention,” Khan reminded Joaquin, referring to the silent and deserted setting. “Our contact desired privacy, as you recall.”

“This is too private,” the bodyguard insisted. He was always unhappy when Khan ventured beyond the safety of his fortress in Chandigarh. “It could be a trap.”

Khan did not share his protector’s fears. “We have taken the necessary precautions,” he observed, gesturing toward the team of armed Exon warriors[153]accompanying them. He, too, was prepared for combat, his P226 automatic resting securely Against his hip. “Besides, I have always meant to visit this site.” He swept the beam of his flashlight over the intricate carvings climbing the walls of the temple gate or gopuram. “Spectacular, is it not? A tribute to human achievement and artistry.”

Someday,
he reflected,
after I have won my wars of conquest, I shall be a great patron of the arts
and sciences. Under my benevolent sponsorship and protection, there shall be an intellectual
renaissance unrivaled since the Medicis ruled Italy.

He looked forward to that day.

Joaquin remained unmoved by the temple’s grandeur. “We should not have come here,” he argued once more. “Now is a bad time. There is too much trouble in the air.”

This much is true,Khan conceded regretfully. Nineteen ninety-three had been a bloody year on the Indian subcontinent, marked by months of religious strife and rioting. Thousands of Muslims had been killed by militant Hindu mobs, sparking retaliation both in India and abroad. Indeed, there had been almost a dozen bombings in nearby Bombay alone.
All the more reason,
he thought,
for me to cement
my control over the entire region.
Panic-tinged memories, of being chased through the streets of Delhi by an anti-Sikh mob, in the harrowing days following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, flashed unwillingly before his mind’s eye. It saddened him that senseless sectarian violence still tore at the delicate social fabric of his homeland.
Iwill put a stop to such madness,
he vowed,
even if I must conquer the
entire world to do so.