“Be quiet, Dr. Madison,” Khan said easily. “My people and I do what we must; as for young Pavel here, and his captain—I own them. I intend to own you.” He idly picked up a large tripod.
“My lord Khan, yes!” Joachim said. “Control them completely! There are eels on Reliant. I’ll return to the ship and get them—”
“That will not be necessary, Joachim,” Khan said. “Thank you for your suggestion.”
“Sir—”
“Tie them up.” He fiddled with the tripod.
Khan’s people dragged them to a smaller room down the corridor. There they bound Zinaida and Vance to chairs. Del watched as if from a great distance. He could feel himself slipping down into shock. The whole side of his shirt and his left hip and thigh were soaked with blood. He could not believe what was happening. His reality had suddenly turned far more fantastic than any game he had ever invented.
Del focused on the thought: At least Carol got Genesis away. She must have.
Khan’s followers flung a rope over the ceiling strut, then dragged Del beneath it and tied his hands. The rope jerked him upright, and he cried out. When his feet barely touched the floor, they tied the other end of the rope to a built-in lab table.
[122] “Khan Singh, my lord,” Joachim pleaded, “this effort is unnecessary. It would only take a moment—”
“No. Our dear friend the admiral must know what I plan for him when he is in my grasp.”
“But, my lord—”
Khan stopped in front of Del.
“Leave us, Joachim.”
He had taken the tripod apart; now he held one of its legs, a steel rod half a meter long and a centimeter through.
“Leave us!” He touched Del’s face with his long, fine hand. Del tried to turn away, and Khan chuckled.
His people left.
Jan and Yoshi were dead.
Khan Singh smiled.
Vance struggled furiously against the ropes, cursing. Zinaida sat quietly with her eyes closed.
Del met Khan’s gaze. His expression was kind, almost pitying.
“Tell me about Genesis, Dr. March.”
Del tried to take a breath. The knife wound radiated pain.
“No. ...” he said.
Khan hardly moved. The steel rod flicked out and struck Del’s side.
It hurt so much Del could not even cry out. He gasped.
“Don’t!” Vance yelled. “For gods’ sake, stop it!”
Khan Singh did not even bother to ask another question. Slowly, methodically, with the precision of obsession, he beat Del unconscious.
Joachim waited.
Khan opened the door. He gripped Joachim by the shoulder.
“We are close to the prize, Joachim. Dr. March will speak to me when he regains consciousness,” he said. “Let it be soon, my friend.”
Joachim watched him stride away.
[123] He did not want to enter the lab. He had heard what was happening. He did not want to see it. But he obeyed.
Dark streaks soaked through March’s shirt where the steel rod, striking, had broken his skin. He had lost a great deal of blood, and the stab wound still bled slowly.
Vance Madison raised his head.
“If there’s anything human left in you,” he whispered, “untie me. Let me help him.” His voice was hoarse.
“I have no wish to die as your hostage.” Joachim searched for March’s pulse and found it only with difficulty. He was deep in shock. Left alone, he would soon die.
Joachim found an injector in Reliant’s portable medical kit. He chose the strongest stimulant it offered, pressed the instrument to the side of March’s throat, and introduced the drug directly into the carotid artery.
Del March shuddered and opened his eyes.
Joachim had never seen such an expression before, so much pain and fear and bewilderment. He ran water onto a cloth and reached toward him. The young man flinched back.
“I’m sorry,” Joachim said. “I’ll try not to hurt you.” He gently wiped the sweat from March’s face. He need not speak to him at all. But he said, again, “I’m sorry.”
Joachim had no excuse to delay Khan any longer. Nevertheless, he stopped before Madison and Chitirih-Ra-Payjh. Madison looked at him with the awful intensity of a gentle man driven to hatred.
“Do you want some water?”
“It’s blood I want,” Madison said. “Your leader’s. Or yours.”
Joachim ignored the empty threat. He glanced at Chitirih-Ra-Payjh, who had not moved or spoken or opened her eyes.
“Did Khan Singh question her?”
Madison shook his head.
[124] “Tell him what he wants to know,” Joachim said urgently. “He’ll break one of you, eventually, and the pain will be for nothing.”
“You hate this!” Madison said. “You can’t stand what he’s doing! Help us stop him!”
“I cannot.”
“How can you obey somebody like that? He’s crazy, he’s flat out of his mind!”
Joachim came close to striking Madison, who had no idea what he was saying. For fifteen years, Khan Singh had dedicated himself to the survival of his followers, when he himself had nothing left to live for. Nothing but revenge. Bitterness and hatred had overwhelmed him. Joachim held desperately to the conviction that when his vengeance was behind him, Khan could find himself again, that somehow, someday, Joachim would regain the man to whom he had sworn his loyalty and his life.
“I gave my word,” Joachim said.
“When there’s no one left,” Madison said, “it’s you he’ll turn on. You must know that.”
“I will not oppose him!” Joachim bolted from the room.
Del cringed, expecting Khan to return immediately. But the door slid shut and remained so.
Zinaida opened her eyes and stood up. She flung the ropes aside. Her wrists were raw. She untied Vance.
“Del—” Vance lifted him so the strain on his arms eased. Blood rushed back into Del’s hands, stinging hot. The world sparkled. Vance tried not to hurt him, but any touch was like another blow. The stimulant made the pain more intense and prevented his passing out again.
Zinaida loosened the far end of the rope. Vance let him down as gently as he could.
“Oh, God, Vance, what the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know, little brother.” He gave Del some water.
[125] They heard a noise from the hallway outside. Del froze.
“I can’t take any more—” He looked up at Vance, terrified. “If he starts on me again ... I’m scared, Vance.”
“It’s all right,” Vance said desperately, “it’s all right. I won’t let him ...” He stopped. They both knew it was a futile promise.
Zinaida knelt beside them. She touched Del’s forehead. Her hands were wondrously cool and soothing. She had never touched him before.
She bent down and gently kissed his lips. Vance grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away.
“What are you doing?”
“Vance, even a Deltan cannot kill with one kiss,” she said softly. “But I can give him ... Vance, I can give him the strength to die. If he chooses.”
The strength to die. ...
Del felt his best friend shudder.
“I—” Vance’s voice caught.
“Del, can you hear me?” Zinaida said.
He nodded.
“I’ll do whatever you wish.”
“Please ...” he whispered.
She kissed him once more, then placed her fingertips along his temples. His pain increased, but the fear gradually disintegrated.
Zinaida took her hands away. Del felt very weak, very calm. The stimulant had stopped working. Zinaida turned aside, trembling.
They heard Khan outside, his words indistinguishable but his voice unmistakable. Del took a deep breath.
“Damn, Vance,” he whispered, “I would have liked to see your dragons.”
“Me, too, little brother. Me, too.” He eased Del to the floor.
The only times Vance had ever been hurt in a [126] fight—the only times he ever got in fights—was getting his partner out of trouble. Del tried to reach out for him, to stop him from doing anything stupid, to tell him it was too late.
Just try to stall him, brother, Del thought. For yourself. ...
But he could not move.
Vance pressed himself against the wall beside the door. Seeing what he planned, Zinaida did the same on the other side.
The door opened.
Vance got both hands around Khan’s throat before Joachim shot him with a phaser set on stun. Zinaida clawed his eyes, scoring his cheek, before the phaser beam enveloped her, too, and she fell.
Khan’s people lifted Del from the floor. Their hands were like burning coals. Khan gazed straight into his eyes. Del started to understand Joachim’s dedication.
“Dr. March ...” Khan said.
Del wanted to tell him about Genesis. He wanted the hurt to stop, and he wanted Khan Singh to speak a kind word to him—
Del gathered together all the pain and concentrated on it, and gave way to it.
He could see only shadows.
When Dr. March collapsed, Joachim sprang to his side with Reliant’s medical kit, numb with shock, and dread of Khan, at his own failure.
Joachim could not forget what Vance Madison had said. As he tried desperately to revive March, he could feel his leader’s vengeful gaze.
“He’s dead,” Joachim said. And then he lied to Khan for the first time in his life. “I’m sorry, my lord.”
Khan said nothing to him. He turned his back.
Madison started to revive from the phaser blast. Khan dragged him to his feet.
“I do not have time to be gentle with you, Dr. Madison,” Khan said, “as I was with your friend. I [127] have other, more important quarry to hunt down.” He drew his knife. “It takes perhaps ten minutes for a human being to bleed to death. If you say one word or make one gesture of compliance in that time, I will save your life.”
Haunted by grief, Madison stared through him. Joachim knew that he would never speak.
Khan ordered his people to tie Madison’s ankles and suspend him from the ceiling strut. They obeyed.
Khan would make a small, quick cut, just over the jugular vein; the bleeding would be slower than if he slashed the artery, and Madison would remain conscious longer. But he would die all the same.
Joachim could not bear to watch Khan destroy another human being. He fled.
In the main lab, he contacted Reliant and beamed on board. He ran to the captain’s cabin, which Khan Singh had taken over as his own. A sand tank stood on the desk. Joachim dug frantically through it with the strainer until he caught two eels. He dumped them into a box, raced back to the starship’s transporter room, and returned to Spacelab. He ran, gasping for breath, to the small lab Khan had made a prison.
Joachim was too late to save Madison. He stopped, staring horrified at the pool of blood.
Khan stood before Zinaida Chitirih-Ra-Payjh. She met his gaze without flinching; he seemed offended that she did not fear him.
“My lord!” Joachim said when he could speak again. His voice shook. “Khan, they’re all too weak to stand against your force—”
“So it seems. ...” Khan said softly.
“There’s no need for you to ... to ...” Joachim stopped. He thrust the box into Khan Singh’s hands. “She cannot keep Genesis from you now, my lord.” He held his breath, for he could not know how Khan would react.
Khan opened the box, looked inside, and smiled. He set it down and put his arms around Joachim.
[128] “You know my needs better than I myself,” Khan said. “I’m grateful to you, Joachim; I could not love you more if you were my son.”
He will be himself again, Joachim thought, close to tears. As soon as this is over. ...
Khan broke the embrace gently and turned toward Zinaida Chitirih-Ra-Payjh.
Deltans seek out intensity of experience. Zinaida, like most, had concentrated on the limits of pleasure. Some few Deltans preferred pain; Zinaida had always thought them quite mad. But here, now, she knew she had no other choice than to experience whatever came and learn what she could from it. Jedda and Carol and David needed time to get away. She must give it to them. Besides, Carol was convinced rescue was coming. Perhaps, if Zinaida were strong enough, she might even survive until then. She did not want to die. She thought out toward the empathic link between herself and Jedda, and touched it with reassurance. She knew that if she let him know what had happened, he would try to help her rather than escape.
Khan Singh’s hand darted into the box his aide had brought him. He drew it out again. He was holding, pinched between thumb and forefinger, a long, slender, snakelike creature. It probed the air blindly with its sharp snout.
“Mr. Chekov would tell you,” Khan said, “that the pain is brief.”
Zinaida drew back in terror, realizing what they had done to Chekov and Terrell.
This, she could not withstand.
Khan’s people pushed her forward and turned her head to the side. The eel slithered across her smooth scalp and over her ear, still probing, searching,
“Jedda—” she whispered. She thought to him all that had happened, so he would know there was no hope, so he would flee, and then she broke the link between herself and her lover forever.
[129] The eel punctured her eardrum. Zinaida screamed in pure horror and despair.
She gave herself to the shadows.
Carol and David and Jedda crept up the emergency stairs toward the main lab. Genesis was safe for the moment, but they were afraid for the others. No matter how reassuring Del had sounded over the intercom, Carol was sure she had, a few minutes later, heard the echo of a cry of pain and fear. David had heard something too. But Jedda kept insisting that everything was all right.
“Dammit!” Carol said again. “Something’s happening up there, and we can’t just run away and leave our friends. Not even to save Genesis!”
“Del said—”
“David, Del lives in a fantasy world half the time!” She wished Del were half as steady as Vance; she would be a lot less worried about them both. If Del tried unnecessary heroics, if the Starfleet people overreacted, he could get himself and everybody else up there in more trouble than they could handle.
Carol reached the main level and opened the door at the top of the stairs just a crack.
Zinaida’s terrified cry echoed through the hallway. Carol froze.
Jedda’s knees buckled, and he fell.
“Jedda! What is it?”
Carol knelt beside him. Jedda flung his arms across his face, trying to keep her from touching him. He rolled away from her, pushed himself to hands and knees, and slowly, painfully, got to his feet.
“We must flee,” he said dully. “Zinaida is dead; Vance and Del are dead. We can’t help them.”
“But you said—”
“She was trying to protect us! But she’s gone! If we don’t run, they’ll find us and take Genesis and kill us!”
They ran.
Chapter 6
That evening, Captain Spock and Dr. McCoy dined with Admiral Kirk in his quarters. Their argument about Genesis continued on and off, but not at such a high level of reciprocal abuse that Kirk became sufficiently irritated to tell them again to shut up.
The intercom broke into the conversation.
“Admiral,” Saavik said, “sensors indicate a vessel approaching us, closing fast.”
“What do you make of it, Lieutenant?”
“It’s one of ours, Admiral. Reliant.”
“Why is Reliant here?” Spock said.
Kirk wondered the same thing. Starfleet had said only the Enterprise was free and near enough to Spacelab to investigate Carol’s call.
He hurried out of his cabin. Spock and McCoy followed.
“Isn’t Pavel Chekov on Reliant?”
They entered the turbo-lift. It rose.
&nbs
p; “I believe that is true, Admiral,” Spock said.
The lift doors opened. Kirk stepped out onto the bridge and turned immediately to Uhura.
“Reliant isn’t responding, sir,” she said.
“Even the emergency channels ... ?”
“No, sir,” she said, and tried again. “Enterprise to Reliant, come in, Reliant.”
“Visual, Lieutenant Saavik.”
“It’s just within range, Admiral.”
Saavik turned the forward magnification up full. [131] Reliant showed as a bare speck on the screen, but it was growing larger quickly.
“Attempt visual communication,” Spock said.
“Aye, sir.” Uhura brought the low-power visible light comm-laser on-line and aimed it toward Reliant’s receptors.
“Maybe their comm systems have failed. ...” Kirk said doubtfully.
“It would explain a great many things,” said Spock.
Joachim, still numbed by what had happened back at the Spacelab, blankly watched the Enterprise grow on Reliant’s viewscreen.
Behind him, Khan chuckled softly.
With Terrell and Chekov gone, Khan Singh was surrounded only by his own loyal people. Soon his revenge would be complete. Then—would he finally be free? Joachim feared the answer.
“Reduce acceleration to one-half impulse power,” Khan said; and then, with a crooning, persuasive, ironic tone, “Let’s be friends. ...”
“One-half impulse,” the helm officer said.
The laser receptors registered a signal.
“They’re requesting visual communications, Khan,” Joachim said.
“Let them eat static.”
“And they’re still running with shields down.”
“Of course they are. Didn’t I just say we’re friends? Kirk, old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’?”
Joachim risked a glance at his leader. Khan was leaning forward with his hands clenched together into fists and his hair wild around his head; his eyes were deep with exhaustion and rage.
“It is very cold in space,” Khan whispered.
On the viewscreen of the Enterprise, Reliant’s image grew slowly.
STAR TREK: TOS #7 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Page 12