XI
Jupiter was beautiful this time of year, Montgomery Scott thought. But then, Jupiter was beautiful any time. Not that it was a suitable spot for a vacation. A bit on the breezy side, and the landscape—well, there was no landscape, only cloudscape, which would tear you and your ship apart if you dropped too close.
Hugging Io’s surface, he soared toward the coordinates Kirk had given him. In an earlier age, its ferocious volcanoes and tormented sulfuric lakes would have drawn the attention of any passerby, but they were old news now. For every astronomical or geological marvel the solar system offered up, something twice as spectacular could be found in another system, circling another sun.
On the other hand, the massive block of blackness that abruptly appeared in the forward port and simultaneously on his shuttle’s sensors was definitely something new.
It was enormous, enigmatic, drifting in an orbit all its own. What was it doing out here, so far from any established station or colony? Where did it come from?
Slowing his speed, Scott skimmed over the top of it. Evidence of long-term heavy construction was amply visible on all the structure’s sides. For a structure it was unabashedly artificial, its construction representing a huge investment in time and resources. What equipment he could discern, he readily recognized. The immense orbiting edifice was terrestrial in origin then, and not some unfathomable alien intrusion.
Why build it way out here, so far from home? Yes, the location offered easier access to the resources of the asteroid belt, but surely those would be offset by placing the facility, whatever its purpose, so distant from Earth? Each question Scott asked himself only led to others, and he had answers for none of them.
As he contemplated making a try for a main entrance as its doors parted beneath him, his ship’s receiver barked a query of its own.
“Shuttle on course 12-4-G. Identify yourself.”
What the ladies from hell? That the insistent query came from the black rectangle was confirmed by his instruments. What was he going to do now? What was he supposed to do? As Scott’s mind raced furiously, he was saved by an interjection from a second equally unfamiliar source.
“This is shuttle Hyperion, inbound. We’ve got six pallets of dilithium cells. Awaiting vector.”
Wait a minute, he told himself. They weren’t talking to me. Whoever they were. In fact, from the gist of what he had overheard, “they” weren’t even aware of his presence. Not surprising. This close in to the gas giant’s powerful magnetosphere, there was all kinds of distortion on the spectrum, and plenty of upper hybrid resonance instability. Communicating inside the Io plasma torus was difficult enough, and scanning more so. Subject to such powerful external influences, instruments didn’t behave the way engineers wanted them to.
And speaking of scanning, Scott was free to do a little of his own.
A check of his instrumentation followed by a glance through an overhead port revealed the presence of a dozen supply shuttles, of varying class and capacity, traveling in a loose formation and heading directly toward the black rectangle. The conversation he had overheard was already being subsumed in a jumble of overlapping exchanges between the shuttle crews and their mysterious destination.
“Shuttle Kirby: rations and personnel . . . This is the Athena; we’ve got storage pods . . . Trimble on approach, restoratives and boosters . . .”
As each of the arriving craft gave their name and detailed their cargo, it occurred to Scott that he might just possibly be able to lose himself in the confusion. Bringing himself down and around, he slipped easily into the cargo fleet’s scattered formation. There was plenty of room for Scott to maneuver among the other shuttlecraft. No one questioned his presence. After all, what would another single, small shuttlecraft be doing in Io’s vicinity? All current scientific work was performed by automated spacecraft and instrumentation.
Then what the haggis, Scott mused wonderingly, was this enormous structure he was entering?
As the supply fleet moved inside, he was able to resolve the finer details of its construction. He did not need much to tell him that what he was entering was a product of Starfleet engineering and design.
Something else drew his attention. His eyes widened and his mouth opened as he stared upward through a viewport.
Whatever that unknown intangible might be, its physical manifestation was mighty impressive. His eyes widened as he caught his first glimpse of it through the shuttle’s forward port. His whispered verbal reaction was as heartfelt as it was involuntary.
“Holy shit . . .”
Dr. McCoy stood by and watched as Carol Marcus used a specialized tool and monitor to open an outer protective panel, and then a second inner one. Carefully examining the interior of the weapon, she instructed him without taking her eyes from her work.
“There’s a bundle of cables against the inner near casing.” She studied the monitor. “You’ll need to cut the twenty-third one down to eliminate contact between the internal controls and the detonator. I’ll direct, you cut.” She smiled. “Can’t search-scan and cut at the same time; it’s far too tricky and the internal instrumentation much too densely packed. Which is why I needed your help. Twenty-third wire,” she repeated. “I’ll guide you. Whatever you do, don’t touch anything else. Do you understand?”
“Thought never crossed my mind,” he replied tensely.
Since leaving the Enterprise, Carol Marcus had been all business. If anything, she now grew more serious than ever.
“Dr. McCoy, this is no joke. Touch nothing else. Nothing. The last thing we want is an automatic signal rerouting via accidental physical contact while you’re interdicting the original linkage. Wait for my word.”
Selecting a small precision cutter from the box of tools he had brought with him, McCoy sidled up close to the torpedo and peered down into the rectangular opening that had been created by the removal of the two panels. The interior was a daunting jumble of solid cables and optical state links. None of the links were glowing: They would not spring to life until and unless the torpedo’s more mundane but nonetheless critical components were activated. Gripping the cutter as firmly as any surgical instrument, he gently pushed his hand and arm into the opening and slid it into position.
“Cut nothing until I say,” she reminded him as her fingers danced over the monitor’s contacts. “I’m rerouting as much of the internal programming as I’m able to access in the absence of the relevant coding.”
With his arm plunged deep into the weapon, he looked over at her. “I don’t entirely understand what that signifies, but I’m ready.”
Her eyes never left the monitor she was now holding. “Okay, good luck. Here we go. On ‘one.’ You ready?”
“And rarin’.” He sighed. The sooner this was over with and they had learned what they needed to about the weapon, the sooner he would be back on the ship.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . .” A forefinger flicked across a contact on the face of the monitor.
There was a curt metallic sound as the outer panel unexpectedly snapped shut, sliding sharply backward to pin McCoy’s arm in place. He let out a yelp and tried to pull free. While the pressure on his upper arm was not cutting, it was plenty uncomfortable. Everything in the immediate area of contact began to throb as the main blood supply to his trapped limb was impaired. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a soft, steady, and not at all reassuring beeping had commenced somewhere deep within the torpedo.
To Carol’s horror, a sequence of numbers had now appeared on her monitor. All in red and linked to another section of the weapon, they had begun a steady countdown from sixty.
“What the hell just happened!?” McCoy grimaced in pain as he continued the futile struggle to free his arm.
“I—I don’t . . .” Carol was staring at her monitor. She began to nudge contact points, to try and redirect specific links. What her sensors could tell her about what was happening inside the torpedo was alarming.
Since Carol’s handheld was linked to its equivalent on the Enterprise, everyone on the bridge could see what was happening below in real time. It was a startled Sulu whose instrumentation confirmed what everyone feared.
“Sir, the torpedo just armed itself.”
“Warhead is set to detonate in sixty seconds, sir,” declared another crewmember tersely.
“Why would it do that?” Sulu wondered aloud. “Why wouldn’t it wait for appropriate final instructions? Torpedoes aren’t equipped with self-destruct programming.”
Without bothering to say This one is, Kirk addressed the Science station. “Lock onto their positions. Beam them back aboard. Right now.”
Spock’s response came even faster than usual. “With his arm trapped inside it, the transporter is unable to differentiate between Dr. McCoy and the torpedo. We cannot beam one back without the other. Furthermore, there are additional concerns if using a transporter to beam a heavy weapon, which, of course, is why it was taken to the surface below by shuttlecraft in the first place. By the time I could get to the transporter room . . .”
Kirk was sure Spock had detailed explanations for many other matters related to the present situation. Unfortunately, there was no time to listen to them. He addressed himself to the images visible on the forward screen.
“Dr. Marcus, can you reverse the action that just took place within the torpedo? Can you disarm it?”
“I—I’m trying!”
On the planetoid below, Carol Marcus’s fingers were flying over the monitor’s front panel—to no apparent effect. Individual sections continued to appear in red, as did the numbers that maintained their inexorable countdown.
Wincing in pain, McCoy prodded her through clenched teeth. “I can’t get my arm out!”
As a physician, he should have been analyzing the pain in his arm and speculating as to possible permanent damage. If they had a phaser between them, he would have considered having Carol cut off his arm so they could be beamed back to the ship. A missing limb he could deal with, later. He was healthy, and the prospects for full regeneration down to the neural level were acceptable. But, expecting no confrontation on the surface of the uninhabited planetoid, they had not brought any weapons with them. Except the torpedo, of course. In contrast, it might take as much as half a minute to amputate his arm with the use of a precision cutter. And, wonder of wonders, they had a precision cutter.
Unfortunately, McCoy was holding on to it with the hand that was trapped inside the torpedo.
Reaching a decision, Marcus abruptly moved to the side of the weapon. Using the same tool that she had employed to detach the first two outer panels, she began to remove the protective transparency that covered the torpedo’s main visible readout. As she worked she kept muttering to herself, “I can do this . . . I can do this.”
Watching her, McCoy came to a decision of his own.
Quietly, and without fanfare, he addressed his comm unit. “Jim, I’m . . . boned. No reason for both of us to be. Get her out of here. You can beam her back aboard without any problem.”
Overhearing, Marcus snapped a response in his direction even as she continued to work on the weapon’s innards. “No! You beam me back, he dies! I can do this, dammit! Trust me!”
“Standing by to transport Dr. Marcus on your command, sir.” Sulu was not as emotionless as Spock, but in doing his job he was trying his best not to influence his captain’s decision one way or the other.
Carol Marcus removed the outer panel and then the LCD readout within, exposing a mass of cabling and optical connections that now pulsed with intensity. Without hesitation, she began digging through them. As her arms interrupted the opticals, there were flashes of light and a few sparks. But she didn’t retreat or remove her probing fingers.
“Twenty seconds,” McCoy mumbled as he stared in horrified fascination at the remorseless readout. “Eighteen . . .” Full awareness of what she was doing interrupted his morbid count. “Hey, what are you doing over there? I thought we weren’t supposed to touch anything?! ”
“Like I’m going to make things worse by trying?” she responded. “Please be quiet.”
Four . . . three . . .
So many cables, so many connections, so many unknowns.
“Shit!”
Grabbing a double handful of cables, Marcus leaned back and yanked as hard as she could.
From somewhere deep within the bowels of the torpedo there came a puff of vapor, neither toxic nor explosive. The steady beeping that had emanated from the weapon’s depths since it had been armed gave way to a falling whine. The panel pinning McCoy’s arm retracted, releasing him. As he fell to the ground, he clutched at his freed arm—it was deeply bruised, but it was still attached to his shoulder and, as near as he could tell, fully functional. Gritting his teeth against the painful tingling sensation as full blood flow resumed to his hand, he flung the now-unneeded cutter aside. Nearby, a relieved Carol Marcus slumped onto the gravel, still clutching both handfuls of cable.
On the bridge Spock turned and reported, calm as ever. “Deactivation successful, Captain.”
Letting out a relieved breath, Kirk leaned forward and shut his eyes. Remembering McCoy’s distress, he then half straightened and addressed the comm. “Dr. McCoy, are you all right? Report. Bones?”
McCoy wasn’t listening, nor did Carol Marcus step in on the doctor’s behalf to acknowledge the captain’s query. Her action had done more than deactivate a supposed live warhead. It had also resulted in the protective paneling that shielded the special drive compartment opening, sliding backward, revealing . . .
McCoy stared downward. “Jim, you’re gonna want to see this. Spock is gonna want to see this.” He paused. “Everyone is going to want to see this, but I’m not sure everyone should. Not until we know more about what I’m looking at right now. A lot more.”
Located between the supposedly secret advanced new drive and the control compartment that had threatened to cut off McCoy’s arm, there was something else. A sizeable additional compartment. What it contained wasn’t part of a drive system at all.
It was a human being—a man, to be exact. His skin was terribly pale. Which was not inappropriate, as he was as frozen solid as ice.
Though portions of the Enterprise’s sickbay were designed to, if need be, accommodate alien life-forms who bulked considerably larger than human, it still proved a difficult and awkward task to wrestle the disarmed torpedo all the way into one of the examination rooms. That was where Kirk and Spock found Carol Marcus hovering over the deactivated weapon, gazing down at the restful, pale-white face of the man lying within. His age was indeterminate. His physical age, Kirk reminded himself. There was no telling how long this man had lain in his present state. Seated on a nearby bed, McCoy acknowledged their arrival with a nod. Shirtless, he sat patiently while one of his nurses tended to his injured arm.
“What have you learned?” Kirk immediately asked Marcus.
“A little. Not nearly enough.” She indicated the torpedo and its unlikely, unreasonable, and utterly inexplicable contents. “It’s brilliant, actually. Somebody managed to shrink the drive unit to the point where they had room for an additional compartment and retrofitted the space that had been freed up to accommodate a cryogenic capsule. A portion of the onboard stored energy meant to maintain the weapon’s electronics and related systems was redirected to sustain the capsule’s functionality.” Marcus shook her head at the wonder of it all. “A capsule like this requires only minimal power to sustain cold stasis for a considerable period of time.”
Kirk’s gaze shifted from her to the figure in the torpedo. There was no movement, of course, not even a rising and falling of the chest or a flexing of the nostrils. The man lying within was not breathing. Which, given his current frozen state, was not conclusive of anything.
“Is he alive?”
Standing on the other side of the torpedo, McCoy spoke up. “Yeah, he’s alive. His vitals are minimal, barely detectable, but they’re there. Slowed waaayyy down. To levels you’d want if you chose to take a long nap on the floor of the Antarctic Ocean.”
Kirk pressed his chief physician. “Can he be revived?”
McCoy was plainly dubious. “Not without the proper equipment. You can’t improvise this sort of thing. The same science that was used to put him in this state has to be used to bring him out of it. If we try to bring him back without the proper instrumentation, the attempt could kill him as soon as revive him. . . . This technology’s beyond me.”
“How advanced, Doctor?” an obviously intrigued Spock inquired.
“It’s not advanced,” Carol explained. “That cryotube is ancient.”
“We haven’t had to freeze anyone since the earliest days of deep space exploration,” McCoy added. “The discovery and development of warp capability made this particular branch of biotech obsolete. An instant antique. And speaking of antiques, that’s the most interesting thing about our friend here.” He winced as pain flared in his injured arm.
“I did a quick scraping off his right shoulder. Less than a flea would take, nothing he’d notice even if he was awake. But enough to run some tests.” McCoy nodded at the torpedo and its frozen occupant. “He’s three hundred years old.”
Kirk exchanged a meaningful glance with his science officer. Though neither man spoke a word, their thoughts were aligned.
The two armed security officers on duty at the entrance to the brig had to move swiftly to open it. As fast as Kirk was moving and as angry as he was, he might have gone right through the door. He wasted no time confronting the room’s single prisoner.
“Who are you? Why is there a man in the torpedo we examined?”
Gazing back through the barrier at the intent Kirk, the prisoner sighed tiredly.
“There are men and women in all the torpedoes, Captain. And I put them there.”
Once again captain and first officer exchanged looks. Kirk repeated himself.
“Who the hell are you?”
It was a question the prisoner had been asked too many times before; one which he had been forced to answer far more often than he wished. But no one had asked him in some time, he reminded himself. So despite how much it bored him to do so yet again, he deigned to explain himself.
“I am a remnant of a time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war.” He looked away. “But I and my companions were condemned as criminals. Forced into exile. For centuries we slept, hoping that when we awoke, things would be . . . different. Always these vain hopes.”
Spock interrupted. “You imply that you too were in cryostasis?”
The prisoner gifted Spock with a nod of approval and smiled at Kirk. “He’s smart.” Looking away from the captain, Harrison turned his attention to the science officer. “If your planet had not been annihilated, I would still be asleep. But as a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Starfleet began to search distant quadrants of space more aggressively than before. They found my ship adrift. I alone was revived, after which I was able to learn about the destruction of Vulcan and . . . many other things.”
Kirk listened to it all, the look on his face indicating that everything he was hearing might very well be the elaborate invention of a disturbed mind. Or a sheer fabrication being dispensed by a clear mind. Either way . . .
“I looked up John Harrison,” Kirk told him. “Up until a year ago, he didn’t exist.”
It was the prisoner’s turn to move close to the barrier. All that separated the two men now was a laminated layer of malleable corundum-silicate glass.
“‘John Harrison’ was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smoke screen, a nonexistent reality, an imagined self, all concocted to conceal my true identity. Because it would not have gone well for your admiral had my true name become known at the time of my revival. Some curious ensign might have decided, in a moment of boredom, to run a search on it. Then everything might have become . . . difficult.” He paused, smiled, and went silent.
For a long moment, it was as if he were no longer present. As if his thoughts, if not his physical self, were focused on a time, place, and events long ago and far away. An impatient Kirk was about to comment anew when the prisoner finally came back to where he was, and to himself. He moved to stand directly opposite Kirk on the other side of the glass. For a long moment they regarded one another silently: captor and prisoner. Finally the man in the brig spoke once more.
“My name is . . . Khan.”
“I’ll accept that much as truth,” Kirk replied carefully. “For now. Pardon my cynicism, but why would a Starfleet admiral need a three-hundred-year-old frozen man to help him do anything?”
The individual who had until now called himself Harrison gave an indifferent shrug. “Because I am . . . better. Better for your admiral’s purpose than anything—than anyone—else.”
“Better?” Kirk’s expression contorted. “Better at what?”
“Everything.” This was spoken not as a boast, but as a matter of fact by one who knew it to be so. “Alexander Marcus believed he needed to respond to an uncivilized threat in a civilized time, and for that, he needed someone less civilized. He needed a warrior’s mind. A mind dedicated to combat, to winning, to surviving at all costs. He needed my mind. He needed . . . me.”
The prisoner’s story found Mister Spock at least as unconvinced as Kirk. “You are suggesting that the admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect?”
Khan was not offended by the Vulcan’s skepticism. After all, his was a truly remarkable tale. When presented to others, incredulity was to be expected. He could only hope to counter disbelief with truth. Whether others accepted it or not meant nothing in the end. The truth would remain in spite of their doubt.
“He wanted to exploit my savagery. Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. As a Vulcan, you should know that.”
Spock’s expression did not change, but only Khan noticed the slight tensing of the science officer’s hands. “I was well trained in the military arts, and I assure you that should the need arise, I am fully capable of handling myself in matters of physical combat—as was only recently the case.”
“Mr. Spock, I’m not talking about training. I’m not talking about the application of learned skills. I’m certain if it came out of a book, that you’re an expert on every chapter. I’m sure that if there is an accepted procedure for countering a blow, for firing a weapon, for maneuvering against an enemy in space, that you can both quote and direct every one of them to perfection.” His tone darkened slightly. “I’m talking about what humans generally refer to as ‘gut reaction.’ Fighting without thinking. Battle in the absence of any procedure or rules. If you can’t break a rule, how can you be expected to break bone?”
The science officer did not reply. It was evident their prisoner was, however mildly and in his own peculiar fashion, enjoying taunting him. It appeared that Spock would not give him the satisfaction of participating in such a meaningless exchange.
But his hands tightened just a little more.
Tiring of a game in which only he knew all the rules, Khan turned back to Kirk. “Your admiral used me to help design new weapons. To realize his vision of a heavily militarized Starfleet. That was the purpose of his precious, private Section 31. Starfleet was content to let him supervise one small, unimportant research project: After all, was he not an admiral of the fleet? Some minor improvements, some small advances, he allowed to be passed up along the research chain to show that his project was making progress and that it was deserving of continued funding. Other advances, particularly those in whose development I personally participated, he continued to shroud in ‘necessary’ secrecy until they were sufficiently ‘perfected’ for them to be revealed to Starfleet at large.
“And then? He sent you to use those weapons. To fire my torpedoes at an unsuspecting world. He purposefully saw to it that your ship would become crippled in enemy space, leading to one inevitable outcome.”
He had their full attention now, he saw. It was all so easy.
“The Klingons would come searching for whoever was responsible for the intrusion and assault on their homeworld, and you would have no chance of escape. You would have no choice but to fight back. The Klingon Empire, quite reasonably, would be outraged. Marcus would finally have the war he talked about—the war he always said he wanted—all because of a renegade captain engaged in an unsanctioned mission of personal vengeance. Think now a moment, Captain: Where did your orders come from to sally forth to kill me? Directly from Marcus. Did you ever receive any complementary orders from anywhere else or anyone else in Starfleet? No. It was all Marcus, it was just Marcus, it was only Marcus. You were, you are, not engaged in a mission on behalf of Starfleet. You are engaged in a mission on behalf of Admiral Alexander Marcus.” He paused a moment to let it all sink in.
“You are a pawn, Kirk. Advanced across the board to be sacrificed for the aims of your king.”
The captain met Khan’s gaze and did not waver. “No . . . no. Whether true or not, none of that changes the known fact that I watched you open fire on a room full of unarmed Starfleet officers and support personnel. You killed them in cold blood.”
For the first time, Khan allowed a crack to appear in his hitherto-unvarying visage. A hint of pain, or perhaps a suggestion of loss, finally drove him to raise his voice.
“Marcus took my crew from me. While I alone was revived, they were kept in frozen stasis. My pleas to similarly revive them fell on deaf ears. Ears were numb to my need, to my pain. Help design new weapons, I was told, and eventually your crew will be restored to you. ‘Eventually.’” The laugh that escaped his lips was short and bitter. “‘Eventually’ came and went, with no indication that even one of my crew would be revived. No matter how much I pleaded, no matter that I went down on my knees and begged, ‘eventually’ always kept receding into the future. It was plain that in the mind of Alexander Marcus, eventually actually meant never.”
“You,” Kirk countered sharply, “are a murderer! ”
Racked with growing rage and emotion, Khan pretended not to hear him. “He used my own friends to control me. Realizing that he meant to keep me his vassal until I died, I tried to smuggle out my crew to safety by concealing them in the very weapons that I designed. But I was discovered. At that point, I knew Marcus would no longer risk my being alive, lest others in Starfleet discover what he had done. In attempting to save my crew, I had made myself more of a threat than a help. For my friends, as well as for myself, I had no choice but to escape—alone.
“Once that action had been forced upon me, I had every reason to believe Marcus would kill every single one of the people I hold most dear, letting them defrost and shrivel one at a time until or unless I turned myself in—for my own execution.” He had now turned away from the two Starfleet officers, and they could not see the tear that ran down his right cheek. “So I made arrangements to have them moved before Marcus could begin to carry out his program of execution. As a privileged supervisor of Section 31, I had access to resources of my own, you see. The work was done quietly, without Marcus being aware of the move.
“But he found out . . . and had them transferred to your ship. To carry them to Qo’noS so you could fire them at me.” His turned toward them, his expression twisted. “Very neat and tidy, isn’t it? Kill me with my own people. Dispose of all of us in one move. But as I said, I had access to resources of my own.” He leaned forward, so close that his face was almost pressing against the barrier.
“Why do you think I surrendered to you, Kirk? I learned that the ‘special’ torpedoes were on the Enterprise. My intent all along was to be reunited with my crew. I would never have let you fire them at Qo’noS.” He stepped back from the barrier.
“To me, murder premeditated, Captain, is murder committed. I did what I did at Starfleet headquarters because I was responding in kind only to what I perceived to be Marcus’s intentions.” His gaze shifted to focus a moment on Spock before returning to Kirk. “Perhaps my action in attacking your colleagues was not entirely logical, but it arose out of emotion and conviction I could not repress. My crew is my family, Kirk.” Tears now running down his face, he cast an imploring gaze through the barrier.
“Is there anything you would not do for your family?”
Before Kirk could manage a response, Sulu’s voice sounded from the brig speaker.
“Proximity alert, sir. There’s a ship at warp heading right for us. It will intersect our coordinates in—” There was a pause while the helmsman checked readouts. “I don’t have a specific time frame, sir. Soon. A matter of minutes.”
“Klingons?” an anxious Kirk shot back.
It was Khan and not Sulu who responded immediately to the captain’s query. “At warp? Any local ships coming for you would by now have dropped out of warp and would be proceeding on impulse power lest they overshoot your position. No, Kirk.” His tone was almost pitying. “We both know who it is.”
“I don’t think it’s Klingons, sir,” Sulu was saying. “It’s not coming at us from Qo’noS or Praxis or any of the known outlying monitoring stations.”
That clinched it. Turning, Kirk spoke in clipped tones to the brig officer on duty. “Lieutenant, move Khan to sickbay and post six security officers on him. Full time, full rotation, full arms.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Following the captain with his eyes, the first officer of the Enterprise studied Kirk closely as both men exited the brig.
So did the room’s only prisoner.