A visit to scenic Vulcan
Once he decided to make the trip to Vulcan, a half-dozen of Khan readied themselves the best way they knew how: they had dinner.
It took a bit of time to clone the bits of Storvik they needed (from the cell library on the Drunken Bastard...enough sets of eyes, lungs, livers, and kidneys for each of the clones to feast upon. Khan hadn't exercised his abilities in a while, but it would be safer for him to absorb the ability to survive in Vulcan air from Storvik than from Federation drug therapies...no limit on the amount of time he could spend on Vulcan, after all. It was a cunning plan. After he had his superior officer for dinner, he reset the life support systems to gradually move towards Vulcan norms over the course of the trip.
When the Bastard arrived at Vulcan, the six Khan inside were fully adapted to the reddish-tinged light, heat, and low humidity of the desert planet of Vulcan. They had assimilated the physical...a good first step. As an officer of the Federation, on an information-seeking mission, Khan was given permission to land. He found the largest research reference facility (he thought of it privately as 'the big library') and began to work.
And work it was. After he had assessed the volume of Surthra's public life (even greater than what was contained within the database on the Murgatroid, Khan knew that six clones was not enough. After an information-sharing update using their medical tricorders, the six Khans left as one to go rent six medical suites and biomass feed lines. After each had cloned themselves five times, there were now 36 Khans on Vulcan. The 36 Khans then repeated what the 6 Khans had started. It was only a matter of hours before all available medical suites were taken by the clones...which was the rate-limiting step on their growth. The next day, the library received a visit from several thousand Khans...who all got to work, assimilating the written word of Surthra.
After they had learned all they could from public sources, the Khans began to pursue private sources of information. At first they sought out pollsters and worked on finding out the public's opinion of Surthra, but soon they had learned all they were going to learn from that route. It was then they took to the streets, and began to question the individual Vulcans about their politician, Surthra. Conveniently, the cloning suites were still turning out Khans, so this was a manageable task. Yes, it would take some time, as the population of 40 Eridani (as of approximately Stardate 43000) was almost 15 billion, with 3 billion scattered throughout the system's asteroid belt.
When the questioning was over, the millions of Khans looked at the Drunken Bastard. It was a lovely ship, a ship they had enjoyed using (literally) since the beginning of time. And yet it was a ship that was not of impressive size...not fit to hold a dozen people, let alone millions. Six Khans stepped forward, and looked out across the hordes of Khan. They updated their memories one last time, bowed to their fellows, and boarded their ship. The flight back to the Murgatroid would be a long and lonely one.
It took a bit of time to clone the bits of Storvik they needed (from the cell library on the Drunken Bastard...enough sets of eyes, lungs, livers, and kidneys for each of the clones to feast upon. Khan hadn't exercised his abilities in a while, but it would be safer for him to absorb the ability to survive in Vulcan air from Storvik than from Federation drug therapies...no limit on the amount of time he could spend on Vulcan, after all. It was a cunning plan. After he had his superior officer for dinner, he reset the life support systems to gradually move towards Vulcan norms over the course of the trip.
When the Bastard arrived at Vulcan, the six Khan inside were fully adapted to the reddish-tinged light, heat, and low humidity of the desert planet of Vulcan. They had assimilated the physical...a good first step. As an officer of the Federation, on an information-seeking mission, Khan was given permission to land. He found the largest research reference facility (he thought of it privately as 'the big library') and began to work.
And work it was. After he had assessed the volume of Surthra's public life (even greater than what was contained within the database on the Murgatroid, Khan knew that six clones was not enough. After an information-sharing update using their medical tricorders, the six Khans left as one to go rent six medical suites and biomass feed lines. After each had cloned themselves five times, there were now 36 Khans on Vulcan. The 36 Khans then repeated what the 6 Khans had started. It was only a matter of hours before all available medical suites were taken by the clones...which was the rate-limiting step on their growth. The next day, the library received a visit from several thousand Khans...who all got to work, assimilating the written word of Surthra.
After they had learned all they could from public sources, the Khans began to pursue private sources of information. At first they sought out pollsters and worked on finding out the public's opinion of Surthra, but soon they had learned all they were going to learn from that route. It was then they took to the streets, and began to question the individual Vulcans about their politician, Surthra. Conveniently, the cloning suites were still turning out Khans, so this was a manageable task. Yes, it would take some time, as the population of 40 Eridani (as of approximately Stardate 43000) was almost 15 billion, with 3 billion scattered throughout the system's asteroid belt.
When the questioning was over, the millions of Khans looked at the Drunken Bastard. It was a lovely ship, a ship they had enjoyed using (literally) since the beginning of time. And yet it was a ship that was not of impressive size...not fit to hold a dozen people, let alone millions. Six Khans stepped forward, and looked out across the hordes of Khan. They updated their memories one last time, bowed to their fellows, and boarded their ship. The flight back to the Murgatroid would be a long and lonely one.