STAR TREK - TOS (43 page)

“So, the ship still needs a name,” Roberta Lincoln pointed out. Khan had been less than surprised to find the American woman already aboard the DY-100 when he and Seven had first teleported aboard.

Ironically, she was clad in the same imitation NASA flight suit she’d been wearing on that Halloween night in 1984, when Khan first visited Seven’s original office in New York. “Any thoughts?” she asked Khan.

A name,
Khan pondered. It should be something[391]appropriate, conveying both the gravity of his exile from Earth as well as his grand aspirations for the future.
The Phoenix? The Ark?
No, those were too obvious.
The Mayflower?

He wandered over to the primary computer station, a bulky transistorized console built into the bulkhead not far from the empty sepulcher Khan had chosen for himself. According to the navigational scanner, the unchristened ship was currently orbiting the Earth over one thousand kilometers above the continent of Australia. A landing monitor showed him the magnified contours of the Gold Coast and Botany Bay.

The latter, he recalled, was the site of Australia’s first European settlement: a British penal colony, peopled by transported convicts, that eventually led to the conquest of the entire continent.
An omen of
sorts?
Khan wondered, impulsively arriving at a decision.

“The
S.S. Botany Bay
,”he informed Roberta, who promptly entered the name into the ship’s computer.

Almost immediately, liquid-crystal display panels flaunted the DY-100’s new designation throughout the ship and upon its outer hull. “A fitting name,” Khan observed, pleased with his choice, “foretelling both struggle and triumph.”

“Indeed,” Seven agreed, as he escorted MacPherson over to his designated niche and prepared him for cold storage. The aged American was busily supervising the disposition of the ship’s passengers, saving Khan and (at the bodyguard’s insistence) Joaquin for last. The crowded hibernation deck gradually thinned out as his people took their places in the[392]niches, so that the chamber soon resembled a space-age catacomb, packed with living corpses. Lighted indicators, positioned above the upper left-hand corner of each niche, revealed which cavities were now occupied. One by one, each light came on.

Khan found himself deeply moved by the faith in his leadership that these courageous men and women had so unequivocally demonstrated, accepting this outlandish new enterprise with nary a complaint or qualm. Their loyalty alone convinced him that he had made the correct decision in accepting Seven’s offer,
Such superior beings should not be wasted in a Pyrrhic orgy of revenge,
he resolved.
I shall
see to it that their faith is rewarded one-thousandfold in my empire to come.

After seeing to MacPherson, Gary Seven joined Khan by the computer station. “I have programmed the ship to carry you and your people to an uninhabited solar system roughly 100 light-years from Earth. At full impulse power, just below lightspeed, the journey should take a little over a century, while all of you remain in a state of suspended animation.”

Khan did not bother asking Seven how he knew this solar system to be uninhabited; what was one more mystery amidst the constellation of enigmas surrounding the shadowy older man and his secrets? He could not help being daunted, however, at the prospect of so protracted a voyage. “Over one hundred years,” he repeated in awe, “more than a lifetime, spent in frozen slumber!”

“I must warn you, Khan,” Seven added, his somber expression growing graver still, “that this trip is not without dangers. The DY-100—excuse me, the
Botany Bay
—is an experimental spacecraft after all, so

[393]I cannot guarantee that it will not malfunction in some way. In addition, space itself is. full of hazards: asteroids, radiation, space-time anomalies, and so on. There is a very real chance that this journey could end in disaster.”

Khan waved away Seven’s warnings. “It has been said that to conquer without risk is to triumph without glory.” He shrugged nonchalantly; with his course now set, he saw little point in dwelling on worst-case scenarios. “I do not fear the unknown. I welcome it.”

“An attitude that may serve you well,” Seven granted, no doubt relieved that Khan took his warnings as philosophically as he did. “In any event, I have also programmed the computer to wake you first should there be any manner of emergency.”

“That is as it should be,” Khan approved. He inspected once more the intricate garment, constructed of fine golden mesh, that Seven had provided Khan and his fellow emigrants; according to Seven, the delicate fibers were designed to monitor the passengers’ vital functions as they slept. The gilded raiment clung tightly to his body, feeling cold and metallic against his skin.

“Now then,” Seven reminded Khan, “it is time to complete your side of the bargain.” He rested his fingers upon a keyboard attached to the communications terminal. Isis, apparently content to remain in feline form after her lengthy undercover assignment, curled atop a heat-conduction pipe running along a nearby bulkhead. “The self-destruct codes for Morning Star?”

Khan nodded in assent. “It is a two-step process,” he began, resolved to honor his pact with Seven.

[394]“First, I must deactivate the force field protecting the satellite, then I can transmit the self-destruct directive.” He gestured for Seven to step aside from the keyboard. “If you will permit me?”

Seven turned over the terminal to Khan. After contacting Morning Star via the correct frequency, Khan commenced to key in the encrypted command to shut down the force field, which, ironically, was based on technology he had pilfered from none other than Seven and Roberta.
Strange are the twists of fate,
Khan thought.

“No, Your Excellency!’’ Aghast, Joaquin cried out to Khan before he could input the final self-destruct code. “Do not cooperate with these saboteurs and traitors!” Clenching his fists, he glowered murderously at Seven. “We should seize control of this vessel and return to Earth!”

The bodyguard’s outburst did not surprise Khan. Joaquin had been in a sullen mood ever since he had recovered from Seven’s tranquilizer beam. That the older man had managed to surprise him back in the sub-basements of the palace understandably disturbed Joaquin, who was also openly suspicious of everything connected with the
Botany Bay
and its proposed voyage; unlike Khan and the rest of the passengers, he had not yet donned his own gold-mesh outfit, currently lying rejected and ignored within an empty hibernation niche. The ferocious bear’s head upon the bodyguard’s customized brass belt buckle seemed to match Joaquin’s belligerent attitude.

“Return?” Khan echoed, mere seconds away from ordering Morning Star to self-destruct. “To a planet that fervently wishes us dead and buried?” This, he[395]knew, was no longer an option; news reports from the planet below, monitored from the
Botany Bay,
confirmed that his fortress in Chandigarh had already been reduced to rubble by the American bombers.
Does the world already think me dead?
he wondered.
Doubtless, the world’s leaders will claim that their bombs ended my life, rather than
admit that I escaped their wrath.

“Do not trouble yourself, my old friend,” he said gently, sparing a moment to reassure Joaquin. With the press of a button, he sent the coded transmission that ended the threat of Morning Star forever. “Accept my wisdom in this.”

“‘Yeah, Lenny,” Roberta Lincoln added mockingly. “Go find yourself some rabbits to play with.” She snatched up Joaquin’s discarded golden outfit and thrust the wad of glittering fabric at the bodyguard’s brawny chest. “Better yet, hurry up and get dressed for beddie-bye.”

Foolishly, the insolent blonde turned her back on Joaquin as she walked beneath a metal archway toward Seven. Khan watched with interest, his adamantine face betraying nothing, as Joaquin drew forth the serrated throwing knife concealed in his ursine belt buckle. Gary Seven, preoccupied with monitoring Morning Star’s disintegration via the scanners at the computer station, did not notice Joaquin raising his knife to throw it straight at the unsuspecting woman’s back. Khan held his tongue, remembering the many times the Lincoln woman had been a particularly irritating thorn in his side. After all, he could always disavow any knowledge of Joaquin’s intentions later on. ...

The outraged bodyguard drew back his blade.

[396]“Roberta! Beware!”

One moment, an alert black cat sat curled atop a comfortably heated conduit. The next, a glamorous dark-haired woman threw herself between Roberta and her would-be assassin.

Snarling, Joaquin hurled his knife anyway. The blade flashed across the deck of the starship, lodging between the catwoman’s breasts. Roberta spun and stunned Joaquin with her servo, but it was too late for Isis/Ament, who crumpled to the floor.

Seven and Roberta both rushed to their companion’s side. Seven, his aged bones moving with remarkable speed, knelt beside the wounded woman, while Roberta scanned her raven-haired counterpart with the tip of her servo. The older woman shook her head sadly, even as Ament looked up at them both and purred her last words: “What? Not curiosity after all?”

A heartbeat later, the still form of a small black cat lay lifelessly upon the floor of the hibernation deck, the brass hilt of a knife protruding from its velvety chest.

“No!” Seven uttered, his voice hoarse with grief and anger. He yanked the killing blade free from the cat’s remains, then smashed the knife against the steel floor, shattering the bloodstained blade in an impressive display of strength. “I’m sorry, doll,” he murmured. “You deserved so much better than this.”

Roberta looked speculatively at the nearest empty hibernation niche, intended for Joaquin himself. Seven shook his head. “Even if she could somehow be revived,” he explained mournfully, slowly rising to his feet, “she would be waking, wounded and at the mercy of her enemies, into an unknown situation and

[397]environment. We would be doing her no favor by trapping her spirit in expectation of such a dire resurrection.”

His blazing eyes focused on Joaquin, now slumping in a narcotized state against one of the ship’s sturdy bulkheads. Khan was curious to see whether Seven would compromise his vaunted principles long enough to exact bloody vengeance on the insensate bodyguard. “His life, of course, is yours,” Khan volunteered, unwilling to scuttle his pact with Seven, even to save Joaquin from the consequences of his rash attack upon Roberta.

Seven glared at Joaquin for a long moment, while Roberta looked on apprehensively. Then he whirled around and marched toward Khan, his lean and angular face angrier than Khan had ever seen it. “Damn you, Khan!” he raged, venting his frustrated rage. “Does no one’s life mean anything to you?”

Khan looked coldly at the feline corpse on the floor. “Do not expect me to mourn one who betrayed me,” he informed Seven bluntly. “It is perhaps simple justice. Twenty-two years ago, you and your operatives were responsible for the death of my mother; now my servant has cost you your shapechanging familiar.”

“Your mother’s death was her own doing,” Seven shot back. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides as he struggled visibly to rein in the bitter hatred seething in his veins. “But right now, part of me is wishing that I had let you and all of your power-mad siblings be exterminated at Chrysalis years ago.”

Empty words,Khan thought. Now that it was apparent that Seven could not be tempted to murder, no matter what the provocation, Khan found himself[398]growing bored with the encounter. “No matter,”

he declared haughtily, turning his back on Seven and walking away. “Let us conclude this transaction with all deliberate speed.”

If nothing else, Seven and Roberta were now understandably anxious to depart the
Botany Bay,
so the final arrangements were conducted swiftly and with little discussion. Khan himself prepped Joaquin for hibernation and single-handedly installed the massive bodyguard within his niche. A rectangular hatch closed over the recess, sealing Joaquin in for long decades to come. A transparent window afforded a glimpse of the slumbering superman, lying supine like a mummy in its crypt. “Sleep well, my friend,” Khan whispered. “When we wake, we shall have a new world to win.”

Then, without ceremony or trepidation, Khan climbed onto the metal shelf protruding from the bottom of his own niche. He stretched out on his back, feeling the hard, uncushioned surface of the shelf beneath him, with only his unbound dark hair providing any padding for his skull. “You may proceed,” he instructed Gary Seven, not deigning to glance in the aged American’s direction.

Hidden conveyors retracted the shelf, drawing Khan into the waiting cavity His chin held high, he looked straight ahead at the illuminated ceiling of the nook, less than ten centimeters away from his face.

“Farewell, Khan Noonien Singh,” Seven addressed him from just outside the niche. His voice still held a bitter ring. “May you make better use of your second life.”

Khan sneered in reply, unmoved by the old man’s[399]typically self-righteous leave-taking.
I answer to
no judgment but my own,
he thought. The hiss of hidden hydraulics sounded in his ears as the hatch rose, cutting him off from both Seven and his peroxided amanuensis. The two Americans, he knew, planned to transport back to Earth once they were certain that neither Khan nor any of his underlings were capable of turning the
Botany Bay
back toward Earth. They would exit as they arrived, leaving the computerized sleeper ship to begin its epic pilgrimage across the stars.

For himself, Khan had no regrets about abandoning the world that had rejected him. Even with Morning Star destroyed, he doubted that the planet Earth would survive long without him. Inferior humanity would surely destroy themselves of their own accord, without his having to raise a hand.
My curse upon them
all
...
!

Frigid gases filled the niche. Khan took a deep breath, in preparation for the sleep to come. As a chilling numbness spread over him, slowing his thoughts as well as the beat of his magnificent heart, he looked forward to conquering a lush and virgin planet ... someday.