To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh Read Free Page A

finally swung open.
    Taking a deep breath, Kirk stepped inside the abandoned lair of Khan Noonien Singh.
    The ramshackle interior of the shelter resembled a cross between an army barracks and a junkyard. The sturdy cargo carriers had been laid end to end, like old-fashioned boxcars, creating a chain of rectangular compartments. A phaser had clearly been used to cut doorways in the interior walls, connecting the chambers; the charred edges of the open portals were rough and uneven. Dark red paint still clung to the riveted steel sheets composing the walls,floor, and ceiling. A stamped white notice listing a compartment’s loading capacity betrayed its origins.
    In silence, the three men toured the linked compartments. Evidence of habitation, if only of a marginal nature, could be seen all around them: benches, cots, a charcoal stove. Pots and pans hung on the walls, along with coils of recycled cable and wiring. Food and fuel canisters littered the floor, which was only infrequently carpeted with ragged pieces of canvas. A run-down protein resequencer, which looked as though it was being held together by baling wire and tape, rested on a dusty countertop.
    Kirk spotted a makeshift chess set, the pieces composed of leftover nuts and bolts. Like most everything else in this improvised habitat, including the very walls, the game had been constructed from cannibalized pieces of scrap. Kirk wasn’t sure whether to admire Khan’s ingenuity or to be appalled at the desperate straits that had obviously driven Khan and his people to make use of every stray fragment of material they possessed.
    The men’s heavy bootsteps echoed in the silence of the deserted shelter. Kirk felt as though he were exploring a tomb.
No doubt,
he thought wryly,
Khan would appreciate being compared to an ancient pharaoh
.
    McCoy finally broke the funereal hush. “According to my tricorder, the air is definitely breathable.” He peered at the lighted display panel on his instrument. “Slight traces of craylon gas, but nothing our lungs can’t handle.”
    Kirk took the doctor’s word for it and unfastened the airtight seal of his helmet. Lifting the headgear from his shoulders, he took an experimental breath. To his relief, he did not fall over, gasping.
    The air was hot and dry, but just as breathable as McCoyhad promised. Although uninhabited since Khan’s escape from Ceti Alpha V a year ago, the shelter still smelled of unwashed human bodies crammed into close quarters for far too long.
    I left more than seventy colonists here nineteen years ago,
Kirk recalled.
How many of them survived in this miserable hovel?
Chekov had reported seeing only a couple of dozen followers with Khan, all of them noticeably younger than their hate-crazed leader. The explosive demise of
Reliant
, however, had made a final body count impossible.
Besides McGivers, how many men and women perished in this godforsaken place?
    “Shades of
Robinson Crusoe,
” McCoy murmured, having removed his own helmet. He ran a gloved finger over the casing of a jury-rigged air purifier mounted to one wall, leaving a trail in the yellow dust covering the inactive mechanism. He shook his head at the meager living conditions implied by the ill-equipped shelter.
    “Perhaps,” Spock agreed, “if Robinson Crusoe was a genetically engineered superman.” He rested his matte-black helmet onto one of the empty cots. “One can only speculate whether ordinary humans could have survived so long under such adverse conditions.”
    McGivers didn’t,
Kirk thought. The face of the lovely redheaded historian rose from his memory like a restless spirit. He had not known her well, but she had been one of his crew, before he left her behind with Khan and the others.
She chose to stay with Khan,
he reminded himself,
but did I leave her any choice? It was that or a court-martial…
.
    Remembering what Khan had told Chekov about McGivers’ death, Kirk looked about cautiously for the sealed terrarium in