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

had no doubt that this was Khan’s own handiwork, and that the second sarcophagus had been intended for Khan himself.
    “He must have loved her very much,” McCoy murmured.
    Kirk had to agree. In truth, he had long suspected Khan of simply using McGivers, of taking advantage of her hopeless infatuation in order to secure her cooperation in his failed attempt to capture the
Enterprise
. But this remarkable memorial belied such a cynical interpretation, as had the intensity of Khan’s fervent desire for revenge. Kirk could no longer deny that some sort of deep and lasting love had blossomed between Khan and the smitten young Starfleet officer.
    Had McGivers made the right decision, going with Khan? Was the love she found worth the price she ultimately paid? Kirk didn’t know how to answer those questions. He looked again at the inscription on her bier, taking note of the dates engraved there. Marla McGivers had been only thirty-one years old when she died….
    Should I return her remains to Earth?
Kirk wondered momentarily. As he recalled, she had possessed no close family ties back home, something which had made her semimysterious disappearance a bit easier to pull off. Officially, Lieutenant Marla McGivers was listed as “Missing” in Starfleet’s public records.
    “Impressive,” Spock observed, joining them within the tomb. “A burial site transformed into an artistic expression of love. Not unlike the Taj Mahal in Khan’s native India.”
    “Why, Spock,” McCoy said. “I never knew you were such a romantic!”
    “I assure you, Doctor, my appreciation is purely aesthetic.” Spock scanned the streaked marble coffins with his tricorder. “Curious,” he remarked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “Although Lieutenant McGivers’ coffin contains merely her physical remains, I am detecting a variety of artifacts within the second sarcophagus, including a quantity of data-storage disks.”
    Data disks?
Kirk’s mind seized on the possibilities. McGivers was a historian, he remembered; she surely would have wanted to document the colonists’ experiences on the planet. Had she kept a careful log of everything that happened to Khan and the others?
    “I want those disks,” he decided. Stepping forward, he gripped the massive stone lid of the right-hand sarcophagus. “Gentlemen, your assistance, please.”
    Spock responded promptly to Kirk’s request, but McCoy hesitated. “I don’t know, Jim,” he said. “Doesn’t this strike you as a bit, well, ghoulish?”
    Kirk shook his head. “Khan’s atoms were scattered all over the Mutara Sector,” he reminded the doctor. “There’s no body here to disturb.” He glanced at the adjacent tomb. “Besides, I don’t think McGivers would mind. As a historian, she knew that sometimes you have to unearth the past in order to learn more about it. If these are her records, she would have wanted them read.”
    He and Spock took up positions at opposite ends of the sarcophagus. He dug his fingers into the seam beneath the marble lid, securing his grip. The heavily insulated gloves of his environmental suit made holding onto the lid a bit tricky, but Kirk thought he could manage. “On my count,” he instructed Spock. “One … two…
three!
”
    The immense slab was difficult to lift. Kirk grunted inside his helmet, straining to budge the stubborn immovable object. Spock’s Vulcan strength came to his rescue, and the lid came loose at last. Conscious of the intricate stonework, the two men carefully laid the marble slab on the floor, leaning it up against one side of the sarcophagus.
    That was rough,
Kirk thought. He suspected he’d be feeling the ache in his muscles for some time to come.
Let’s hope it was worth the effort
.
    He took a second to catch his breath, then peered into the shadowy recesses of the sarcophagus. As expected, no mummified remains greeted his gaze, only a packet of compact data-storage disks, of the sort used in old-style tricorders, plus one