by Greg Cox
Greenish radiation flashed briefly and a high-density compact disk materialized in the replicator tray next to the controls. Khan plucked the CD from the tray and held it up to the light, beaming triumphantly. “Excellent,” he pronounced, giving the Beta 5's control panel an affectionate pat. For a moment, Roberta thought he was done ransacking the computer's confidential files, but then Khan returned to the keyboard on the control shelf.
“One more thing,” he added, almost as an afterthought, while manually overriding the computer's better judgment and inhibitions. “ Access all files regarding ozone manipulation technology, developed by Dr. Wilson Evergreen, circa 1984. Include all relevant technical specifications and diagrams.”
Roberta groaned inwardly. This just keeps getting worse and worse, she lamented. Not content to loot the Beta 5 for the current addresses of all his genetically souped-up siblings, he now wanted the know-how to control Earth's ozone layer if he felt like it. And there's nothing I can do to stop him!
The brainwashed computer beeped obediently, and another CD was conjured up in a bright green flash. Khan tucked the two bootleg disks into the interior of his jacket and nodded in satisfaction. “That will do . . . for now,” he declared, peeling the adhesive patch off his throat, and drawing out his Glock once more.
Realizing what he intended, Roberta attempted to leap from her seat, but the huge Arab henchman shoved her back down forcibly. “No! Wait!” she cried out, but her terrified pleas were muffled by the thug's immovable palm. She could only look on in horror as Khan fired the automatic weapon at the Beta 5. The blank viewscreen exploded into white Plexiglas shards, the prismatic radiation gauge above the monitor was shot to pieces, and acrid gray fumes rose from the perforated black screen against which the vibrant colored lights had previously flickered in time with every pulse of the Beta 5's cybernetic synapses. Roberta felt as though an old friend, albeit a somewhat cranky one, were being murdered right before her eyes.
Khan emptied his pistol into the computer, then coldly walked away from the butchered machine. He gestured at the Arab, who responded by finally lifting his huge hand off Roberta's lips. “You monster!” she raged at Khan, tears of anger leaking from her eyes. “Whatever happened to the precocious little boy I met in India so many years ago?”
Khan accepted her fury calmly. “He is fulfilling his destiny, Ms. Lincoln. That is all.”
On an end table by the couch, the fax machine clattered noisily. Curious, Khan strolled over to the brand new appliance and tore the newly printed message from the machine. His dark eyes quickly scanned the communiqué and he chuckled softly to himself before striding back toward Roberta with the curled fax paper in his fist.
“This appears to be the text of a resignation speech to be delivered by President Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria. Written by Gary Seven, of course. He wishes your editorial input, Ms. Lincoln, before delivering the final text of the speech to his contacts in the Bulgarian government.” Khan shook his head and sighed theatrically. “Seven was always good at making speeches, I'll give him that. A shame he can be so fainthearted when the sword is required.”
Khan tossed the crumpled fax onto the floor. “I have a message as well, Ms. Lincoln, which you may deliver to your employer when he returns to America. Tell him I have no objections if he continues to perform good works here and there about the world, scribbling insignificantly in the margins of history.” Roberta couldn't tell if he meant to be conciliatory or just condescending. Probably the latter, she supposed. “After all, our ultimate goals are largely the same.”
“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Roberta said acidly. Khan ignored her barb. “Nevertheless,” he said, his voice taking on a more menacing tone, “warn the indefatigable Mr. Seven that he must in no way interfere with my operations and activities in the months and years to come. I shall be stepping out onto a larger stage, Ms. Lincoln, and I will not tolerate either you or your employer getting in the way of my inevitable ascent.”
A bright green glow suddenly emanated from within the stationary cube upon the desk, which also beeped insistently. Seven's doing, Roberta guessed, no doubt in response to his discovery that the transporter would not respond to his signal. He must be trying to activate the transporter via the remote interface, not realizing that Khan has pretty much wrecked the primary controls. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to help Seven out at the moment. Khan had even taken her servo.
Intrigued, Khan picked up the glowing cube and inspected it quizzically, turning it over in his hand. “Another of Seven's amazing toys?” he asked. When Roberta declined to answer, he merely shrugged and held the cube up before him. “No matter,” he declared. “My message remains the same.” He squeezed the crystal cube tightly within his fist, until the alien device imploded under the pressure. Releasing his grip slowly, he let the powdered remains of the cube rain softly onto the carpet. “I trust I make myself absolutely clear?”
Crystal, Roberta thought, nodding unhappily. Or what's left of it. “Then my business here is concluded.” Khan clapped his hands together and his bullying minions marched out of the office. “Farewell, Ms. Lincoln,” he said, bowing courteously as he lingered in the doorway. “Let us hope we need not meet again.”
She waited until she heard the outer door slam shut before rising shakily from Seven's chair. Pale and wobbly, she swept her shellshocked gaze over the devastated office, which seemed everywhere to display the aftereffects of Khan's destructive wrath: the broken door lying flat upon the floor, the smoking shell of the bullet-ridden Beta 5, the mangled transporter controls, and the pulverized residue of what had once been the chirpy little green cube.
And to think that, less than an hour ago, I thought the whole world was hunky-dory. A chill that had nothing to do with temperature swept over her and she hugged herself as though she were standing outside in a bitter wind blowing straight from an underground cavern buried deep beneath the deserts of western India. The Cold War might have ended, but somehow, standing in the ruins of the violated office that had been her home away from home for over twenty years, Roberta Lincoln knew that the worst was yet to come. . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE PARAGON COLONY
SYCORAX
STARDATE 7004.1
“GOOD LORD, JIM, IT'S A PLANET OF SPOCKS.”
McCoy joined Kirk at the table, arriving a few minutes late at a banquet being held in honor of the Paragon Colony's distinguished guests. The feast was taking place at a roomy outdoor plaza beneath the great green dome protecting the colony from the planet's unforgiving environment. Strategically planted redwoods rose like Doric columns around the perimeter of a rectangular courtyard, mimicking the look of some ancient Grecian temple. Polished basalt tiles, doubtless mined from the volcanic plains outside the dome, gave the floor a glossy black sheen, while Regent Clarke and her honored guests, including Kirk and McCoy, dined at an elevated pine table surrounded by easily a dozen smaller satellite tables. McCoy sat down at the vacant seat to Kirk's right, his medical tricorder still hanging from a strap over his shoulder. “I mean it, Jim! I just spent the last several hours reviewing the colony's medical records, and you've never seen such a terrifying glut of physical and mental fitness. Muscular density, cardiac strength, respiration, you name it . . . everyone here would be in the upper percentile, health-wise, on any other planet in the Federation. They have superior recall and cognitive functions, too. You should see what sort of enormous calculations these people can effortlessly perform in their heads.” McCoy's expression soured. “Like I said, Spock would feel very at home here.”
“Hello, Bones. Good of you to make it,” Kirk replied wryly. He knew the doctor well enough to realize that “a planet of Spocks” wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement where McCoy was concerned. Better a world of Spocks than a planet of Khans, the captain reflected, making a mental note to take a closer look at McCoy's medical findings later. He was curious to get the doctor's impressions of the colonists' overall psy
chological stability, although he could hardly grill Bones on that subject right in front of their hosts.
McCoy nodded deferentially at the regent as he settled in at the table. “My apologies for my tardiness, ma'am,” he drawled. Like Kirk, he was decked out in his full dress uniform, metallic gold piping sprucing up his blue medical tunic. “An occupational hazard, I'm afraid.”
“So I understand, Doctor,” Masako Clarke said graciously, “ although, thankfully, we have little need for physicians here, having largely eradicated disease and disability, except in the extremely aged. We've made considerable strides in geriatric medicine as well, which I'm sure our medical researchers will be happy to discuss with you later.”
“Thank you, Madame Regent,” Kirk said, seated between Clarke and McCoy. Gleaming bone plates and utensils rested atop the pristine silk tablecloth. “That's very generous of you.”
“Masako, please,” the regent insisted once more. “And my motives aren't entirely altruistic, I fear. I have a favor to ask of you as well. Our scientists would dearly like to obtain DNA samples from you and your crew, Captain, just in case any interesting mutations have developed in the human species since our ancestors left the Federation.”
Seated to Clarke's left, Koloth chuckled disparagingly. “You may be disappointed with what you find,” the sardonic Klingon commander remarked. For this formal occasion, he wore a silver sash, adorned with glittering medals, across the chest of his military uniform. “It is the indisputable opinion of the finest Klingon minds that the human genome has actually degraded under the decadent regime of the Federation. Survival of the fittest, the fundamental principle of evolution, has, alas, been supplanted by a debilitating doctrine of ‘survival of the mediocre,’ in which the weak and infirm are coddled by a system unwilling to cull even the most unworthy specimens from its collective gene pool. Unlike the Klingon Empire, of course, whose bloodlines are kept strong and vigorous by the bracing demands of honorable combat.”
McCoy bristled at Koloth's snide attack on humanity's genetic health. “Indisputable, my aunt Fanny. That's pure Klingon propaganda, and bad science to boot! The evolutionary progress of a sentient species is measured by a heck of a lot more than the ability to swing a bat'leth or fire a disruptor. Some of the greatest advances in human thought and civilization have been brought about by individuals who would have been dismissed as genetically unfit by less discerning minds. Stephen Hawking, for instance, or, more recently, Dr. Miranda Jones, a blind woman who became the first human being to achieve a telepathic link with a Medusan.”
“A few freak instances,” Koloth insisted, dismissing McCoy's arguments with an airy wave of his hand. “The exceptions that prove the rule.” A self-amused smirk displayed the pleasure the wily Klingon took in baiting the cantankerous MD. “A human expression, I believe.”
Kirk couldn't resist joining the fray. “If Klingon evolution is on such a fast track already, then you obviously have no need for the Paragon Colony's advanced genetic engineering techniques.” He quickly changed the subject in an attempt to get the last word. “By and by, I can't help noticing that your second-in-command, the ever-charming Lieutenant Korax, is not gracing us with his presence this evening.”
In fact, an empty seat gaped next to Koloth, creating a gap between the Klingon captain and the local dignitary at his left. “Ah, yes,” Koloth acknowledged, “I regret to say that Korax is indisposed at the moment.” Not far away, Koloth's bodyguard—the bald warrior with the scarred face—shared a separate table with Lieutenant Lerner and a couple of members of the colony's own security forces. The human and Klingon soldiers glowered at each other in silence as they gnawed on the appetizers provided. Must be a tense table to dine at, Kirk suspected, feeling sorry for Lerner as well as for the unlucky colonists trapped in the middle of that miniature cold war.
“What a shame,” Kirk commented sarcastically about Korax's absence. “But, of course, we understand, given how delicate his health must be. I do hope that his fragile system recovers from his unfortunate ‘indisposition’ eventually.”
Koloth scowled, annoyed by Kirk's tweaking. “I never said anything about his health,” he began indignantly, only to be interrupted by the arrival, on several ivory trays, of the first course of the banquet. A parade of servers, in smart white uniforms, delivered the colony's bounty to the table, while Koloth fumed silently.
The appetizers consisted of soup and salad, for the humans, and a skewer of nearly raw meat slices for the Klingons. Having worked up an appetite researching the Eugenics Wars, Kirk gladly sampled the fare, only to find both the onion soup and the Uranian salad dressing surprisingly bland. Almost tasteless, to be honest. The soup was thin and watery, while the vegetables and greens making up the salad tasted as though they had been deliberately leached of flavor. They may be whizzes at genetic engineering, Kirk thought, doing his best to conceal his lack of enthusiasm for the pallid gruel, but Sycorax's culinary arts leave something to be desired .
“I do hope your meal isn't too rich or spicy for you,” Masako Clarke asked solicitously, not to mention surreally. “I expressly instructed our chefs not to prepare anything that might overtax your unrefined palates and less efficient metabolisms, but please let me know if you'd prefer simpler, less exciting fare.”
Less exciting than this? Kirk thought, his mind boggling at the notion. The colony's chefs had clearly overcompensated, just as it was becoming quite obvious that the regent, and perhaps all of her genetically enhanced constituents, had an exaggerated sense of their human forebears' intrinsic deficiencies. Just like Khan, he thought ominously. He ultimately underestimated us, too.
“This is more than acceptable, thank you,” Kirk said diplomatically, while McCoy grinned in amusement. Farther down the table, Kirk caught Koloth toying unenthusiastically with his shish-kebob. Judging from the dubious look on the Klingon's face, Koloth found his own meal no more appetizing than Kirk's. That's probably the one thing we can both agree on, the human captain thought, dutifully downing another tepid spoonful of soup.
“Yes, an excellent repast,” Koloth lied shamelessly, “fit for a gourmet. Your chefs are to be commended.” He clapped his hands together imperiously, and his bodyguard rose from the adjacent table, bearing a package wrapped in a protective black leather sheath. Immediately on guard, Lieutenant Lerner moved to block the swarthy Klingon soldier, but, at Kirk's signal, backed off and let the bald warrior approach the elevated table. Kirk couldn't imagine that Koloth would attempt anything overtly threatening at such a formal occasion, yet he nonetheless watched warily as Koloth accepted the parcel from his subordinate and proceeded to remove a tapered glass bottle from the sheath. “If you have no objection, Madame Regent, I've taken the liberty of securing a libation worthy of such an exquisite feast.” A clear blue fluid sloshed within the bottle. “The finest Romulan ale, with my compliments.”
Kirk frowned. Apparently the recent alliance between the Klingons and the Romulan Star Empire had yielded more than just an exchange of military technology. He kicked himself mentally for letting Koloth gain a momentary advantage on him. Too bad there's no way Scotty can beam me a bottle of his best whisky, what with the force field surrounding the dome.
“Thank you, Captain,” Clarke said, accepting the proffered vintage. The bottle was passed around the table so that everyone could fill their wineglasses with the sparkling blue ale. Lifting a cup to his lips, Kirk had to admit that the potent nectar was a good deal more satisfying than anything yet served at the banquet.
The piquant ale also met with McCoy's approval. “Now, that's what I call a drink,” he admitted, smacking his lips. “Hard to believe that such an intoxicating brew was actually concocted by some distant cousins of the Vulcans.”
“The Romulans, for all their faults, can hardly be compared to their cold-blooded, overly ascetic ancestors, Doctor,” Koloth observed, and Kirk wondered if, back on the Enterprise, Spock's ears were burning. “Like my own people, they appreciate that exi
stence is a never-ending battle for supremacy and survival. To the victor go the spoils—including this delightful vintage.” He raised his cup in a toast. “To our hosts, and their own laudable pursuit of superior strength and cunning.”
Feeling outmaneuvered once more, Kirk had no choice but to join the calculating Klingon in raising his cup to Regent Clarke and her people. He countered, however, with a toast of his own. “To a new future of better understanding and cooperation between our respective peoples.”
And to avoid the mistakes of the past, he added silently to himself. The insights he'd absorbed from his ongoing immersion in the history of the twentieth century haunted his thoughts, casting a sinister light on even the regent's questionable pride in her staff's cuisine. It was clear from his studies that supermen such as Khan and Gary Seven had been capable of enormous good in the distant past, and yet the seeds of Khan Singh's ruthless ambition had blossomed early on, despite the deliberate efforts of Gary Seven to channel the young Khan's remarkable talents toward the greater good of humanity. What was it Spock once said about Khan and his fellow supermen? Kirk tried to recall. The heady Romulan ale wasn't helping his memory any, but he soon remembered Spock's prophetic assertion that “superior ability breeds superior ambition.”
As history knew too well, Earth had paid a terrible price for that ambition. Would the same apply to the Paragon Colony, or any future superhumans created via their genengineering techniques? How long would Khan's spiritual descendants be content to exist merely as part of the Federation, before aspiring to take control of the many worlds and cultures under Starfleet's protection? Masako Clarke and her people seemed amiable enough, but how could he be sure that, allowed to spread beyond Sycorax's planetary boundaries, the Paragon Colony's philosophy and influence would not pose a greater threat to galactic peace than the Klingons and the Romulans combined?