The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One (18 page)

Ugh.

“Perhaps some other time,” Lozinak chuckled, leaning heavily on his cane. “At my age, I find I prefer a jeep.” He looked to the horizon, where Roberta saw a cloud of airborne sand approaching over the crown of a dune. “Ah, here it comes now. Right on schedule.”

She felt an undeniable surge of relief as the four-wheeled vehicle emerged from the desert, churning up a flurry of agitated dust and sand. The jeep came to a halt in front of the limo, and its driver—a bearded Indian man who looked like he could have been a cousin to the disappointed camel-owner—set about transferring the travelers’ carry-on luggage from the limousine to the jeep. He also offered Roberta sunglasses and a straw hat to protect her from the sun, which she accepted gratefully.
Okay, it’s official,
she thought, contemplating the desert from which the jeep had come.
We’re definitely heading for the middle of nowhere.

She just hoped Seven was keeping up.

SOUTHWEST OF DELHI

INDIA

MAY 17, 1974

IRONICALLY, GARY SEVEN
found himself traveling
to Chrysalis’s
secret base much as he would have had he not been discovered by Williams and his thugs: hidden beneath a canvas in the back of the pickup truck.
All things considered,
he thought wryly,
I
think I prefer transporters.

Bound and gagged and covered by the all-concealing tarp, he had been on the road for several hours now, time enough for the blazing afternoon sun to turn the back of the truck into a veritable oven. Through sheer bad luck, Seven’s mission had coincided with the peak of India’s hot season, when daytime temperatures could easily exceed one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Even with his own superlative physical conditioning and mental discipline, the trip had still become a torturous ordeal. His shirt and slacks were soaked with sweat and he felt more than a little dehydrated. His dry mouth and throat pined for something to drink, preferably with ice. He could only hope that he would not be too debilitated by the time the truck reached its ultimate destination.

Lying on his side, with his hands tied behind his back with thick strips of duct tape, he could see only the base of the wooden crate directly in front of him. Despite this inadequate vantage point, however,
[109]
he had nonetheless managed to derive some significant conclusions based on what he’d heard from the floor of the pickup.

First, and perhaps most intriguingly, he couldn’t help noticing that the truck had cruised from the airfield onto a highway without any official delays or inspections. From this Seven could only assume that, as an organization, Chrysalis possessed considerable wealth and/or influence; the ease with which Williams’s contraband had circumvented customs implied extensive, systemic bribery, as well as possibly friends in high places.

This was extremely worrisome news. Such resources vastly increased Chrysalis’s potential for dangerous scientific mischief.
They’re playing with fire,
Seven thought gloomily, remembering the strife and devastation that unchecked genetic manipulation had wreaked on so many other civilizations throughout the galaxy.
The Minjo are still trying to rebuild their society after that last round of gene wars
. ...

Never mind all that uranium and bacterial growth medium.

As best he could, while simultaneously analyzing what he had already learned about Chrysalis, Seven also attempted to orient himself regarding the truck’s journey and surroundings. Over the last few hours, the vehicle had migrated from Delhi’s noisy, traffic-clotted streets to the only slightly less crowded highways beyond the busy, clamorous environment of the city and its outlying slums. The air, although no less hot and humid, had become mercifully less polluted, smelling more of eucalyptus trees and burning dung than of industrial effluent, leading him to conclude that they had placed Delhi’s urban sprawl far behind. Over the course of hours, the traffic thinned as well, judging by the gradual decrease in honking horns Seven could hear from his uncomfortable berth in the back of the pickup.

Possessed of an excellent sense of direction, he estimated that they were traveling southwest.
Through Harayana state and onto Rajasthan,
he calculated. They had been on the road for at least six hours; by now the truck must be nearing the vast, inhospitable desert lying between India and Pakistan. A fairly remote location, to be sure. Chrysalis clearly made privacy a top priority.
What are they hiding?
he wondered.
And how far have they progressed?

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His servo, tucked away in one of his jacket’s inner pockets, jabbed him in the side. Seven wished he could access the device, if only to communicate with Roberta or Isis, and inform them of his present location and circumstances. He had barely been able to do more than make eye contact with them back at the Delhi airport, and he couldn’t help wondering how that slightly incompatible duo were faring on their own excursion through India.
With any luck, they’re still getting the red-carpet treatment from Chrysalis,
he thought, hoping that his agents could maintain their aliases for a while longer; as he was learning through personal experience, Chrysalis’s agents were not above kidnapping and threats of violence when crossed.
Then again,
he reminded himself,
Isis is perfectly capable of taking care of herself in hazardous situations, and Roberta, despite appearances, has her own unique talents as well.

The truck paused at an intersection, and Seven thought he heard the bleats of goats or camels.
Must be passing through some remote Rajasthani village,
he surmised. It was unlikely that the truck would stop here for long, since it was hard to imagine what such a place would need with processed uranium and high-speed centrifuges. He hoped, for the sake of his own physical comfort, that it would not be necessary to travel the rest of the trip slung across the swaying back of an ambling camel.
After all, there’s primitive and then there’s
primitive. ...

Fortunately, the pickup soon resumed its journey. The bucolic sounds of the unnamed village faded away as the vehicle logged yet more miles in this seemingly endless trek. The road grew ever rougher, jarring Seven’s body with every bump, until finally the road itself more or less disappeared. Seven heard the truck’s four-wheel drive struggle to maintain traction in the sandy dunes of what he assumed must be the Great Thar Desert. He could no longer hear the horns or engines of other vehicles, only the steady rumble of the jeep’s transmission as it carried him deeper and deeper into the hot and arid solitude of the desert.

He swallowed hard, but his parched throat yielded no saliva. His cramped arms and legs ached from inactivity. Darkness encroached on his limited field of vision, but he employed a series of mental
[111]
exercises, borrowed and modified from ancient Vulcan teachings, to avoid losing consciousness. Concentration required considerable effort, yet he managed to remain focused on his mission. He was anxious to meet Chrysalis’s so-called director, most likely the “scary” Indian woman Ralph Offenhouse had mentioned back in Brooklyn.

Perhaps it’s not too late to reason with these people,
he thought,
to convince them to abandon their reckless experimentation.
Since first returning to the homeworld of his ancestors, Seven had learned enough about ordinary human nature to realize that reason was often not their primary motivating factor. It was worth a try, though, before he was forced to resort to more drastic measures to curtail their operation. Sanity was always preferable to sabotage.

The sun beat down on him, even through the welcome shelter of the canvas tarp. Seven knew that, advanced training or no, he couldn’t last much longer without water.
How much farther is there to go?
he pondered, a question that was growing more urgent with every hour.

Finally, just as he found himself pining nostalgically for the subzero temperatures of the Bajoran icecap, the pickup rolled to a halt somewhere deep within the desert. Car doors swung open loudly, and Seven heard boots stomping through sand just outside the truck. Minutes later, the tarp was pulled back, exposing him to the full glare of the midday sun. Seven squeezed his eyelids shut against the blinding light, even as beefy arms grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him roughly up and out of the enclosed truckbed.

Vertical again, for the first time in probably seven hours, Seven felt his feet hit the desert sand. He tried to stand erect, but the grueling trip had taken too much out of him. His legs felt like uncooked Klingon
gagh
and he had to be held up by captors on either side of him. Someone grudgingly stuck the mouth of a canteen between his lips and he swallowed greedily. The water was lukewarm, but he had seldom tasted anything quite so refreshing. The liquid restored him, somewhat, and he gradually opened his eyes, letting his pupils adjust to the glare before attempting to take stock of his surroundings.

The truck was parked in front of what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient Rajput fort. Reddish-brown sandstone walls, scarred by
[112]
centuries of erosion and decay, guarded partially collapsed watch-towers that looked out over miles of surrounding dunes and sparse desert scrub. The domed spires of sacked temples and palaces peeked out over the crumbling battlements of the silent citadel, which looked as though it had been abandoned for hundreds of years.

Such forts were not uncommon in Rajasthan, Seven knew, being the legacy of a martial tradition dating back to the sixth century, but he assumed that these particular ruins were far less desolate than they appeared, or why else transport all of Offenhouse’s expensive equipment to this seemingly barren site? His eyes searched the battered sandstone walls, hunting for some hint of the high-tech lab facility he knew had to be lurking here. All that met his gaze was the ancient fortress, however, and rolling dunes that stretched out in all directions beneath a cloudless, sapphire-blue sky.

A familiar voice called his attention away from the enigmatic ruins. “I trust you had a pleasant trip, Mr. Seven,” Williams taunted him, withdrawing the canteen. His beady eyes glared at Seven; apparently he had not yet forgiven the prying American for complicating his life. “Perhaps you feel more like talking now?”

“You’re fortunate that I can speak at all,” Seven croaked, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and dehydration. “Where I come from, human beings would never dream of subjecting another living creature to a journey like that.”

Williams scowled, visibly annoyed by Seven’s defiance and superior attitude. That angry vein throbbed at the man’s temple. “You’re in no position to scold anyone. I don’t know who you think you are, or whom you’re working for, but you’re in way over your head now, I assure you.”

We’ll see about that,
Seven thought. Despite the physical privations required, he was exactly where he wanted to be—almost. “You brought me here to meet your director,” he reminded Williams. “Let’s get on with it.”

At least a foot shorter than Seven, Williams clenched his fists and stared up at the other man with a mixture of frustration and uncertainty. His flushed, angry face was redder than the sunbaked walls of
[113]
the forgotten fort. Anxious to achieve the upper hand, but evidently unsure how to do so, he stalled momentarily while searching for an appropriately witty and devastating riposte. The blazing sun, however, made any prolonged stay in the open impractical, and Williams soon conceded to the inevitable. “Er, perhaps we should get out of the sun,” he mumbled weakly, swabbing his sweaty dome with a handkerchief while avoiding eye contact with Seven. “Come on,” he said to his hired goons. “Let’s take him inside.”

Although the outer walls of the fort had been breached here and there by long-departed cannonballs, Williams led the party toward the citadel’s open front gate. As he approached the decrepit stone archway, Seven noted several feminine handprints carved into a stone plaque beside the gate. These were memorials, he knew, to bygone generations of women who had performed sati, the ancient and barbaric rite of self-immolation, upon the deaths of their husbands. The sculpted hands had been partially wiped away by wind and time, but Seven could just imagine Roberta’s reaction to the very notion of sati; it was hard to envision that independent young woman setting herself on fire for tradition’s sake, a realization that gave him considerable hope that the human race was, in fact, advancing toward a higher degree of civilization, albeit slowly.

Passing through the main entrance, he saw that the walls had once been over a dozen feet thick, and still were in places. The gate itself opened up onto a vast, stone-paved courtyard strewn with rubble and stubborn patches of weeds. Beyond the courtyard, deserted temples and towers lingered in varying degrees of decrepitude, while a one-story edifice that Seven guessed had once been a foundry had collapsed inward, becoming nothing more than a sloping pile of debris. No tourist guide, Williams did not comment on any of these intriguing historical ruins as he proceeded toward the regal palace opposite the front gate.

The palace looked in slightly better condition than most of the surrounding structures, although Seven still spotted gaping cavities in the palace’s upper dome. Once the residence of some mighty prince or maharajah, the palace ascended in tiers like an ornate wedding cake sculpted
[114]
of marble and sandstone. Intricate lattice screens, that once shielded the women of the palace from view, filled many of the second- and third-story windows. Seven and his captors climbed a steep stairway to a pair of heavy granite doors carved to resemble wood. A single silvered handprint, resembling those embedded in the wall beside the fortress’s outer gate, adorned the juncture where the two doors met. Williams placed his own right hand atop the apparently ancient memorial, his fingers matching the outlines of the sculpted hand, and Seven heard the rumble of concealed machinery coming to life.
Interesting,
he mused. There was clearly more to these ruins than met the eye.