...Weird was probably Khan's business, too. When he wakes up, he's not slow on the uptake, but his first and only question certainly tickles the imagination. Why ask "How long?", is the key question here. Why would Khan care?
- We can't tell if he's surprised at having been asleep as a thing. Perhaps an enemy or an ally put him there while he was already down for the count? But perhaps he went to the cryochamber aware of what was happening, even if forced to do so at gunpoint.
- We can't tell if he's surprised at finding himself in the middle of fellow humans. He "admits" to being unsure on whether he really heard English spoken; if this is not a deliberate lie, perhaps he actually expected to be surrounded by his allies or enemies who would not be speaking English. But perhaps he expected to wake up in the middle of space aliens, having aimed his ship (or having it aimed by his enemies) at empty space, or even at a known alien asset he was in secret communications with.
- We can't tell if he expected to sleep for 200 years, or less, or more. Perhaps he was only sailing for Ganymede, to storm the outpost there and turn it into his fortress for retaking Earth. Or perhaps he intended to make it to a nearby star system where there was a known Class M planet he could pitch his tent on (ENT would have us think that the closest one found acceptable at the time was more than 20 ly away, but that may refer to planets free for human colonization; Khan might have aimed at a Tellarite mining world closer to Earth, being either aware or unaware of the ownership issues). Probably he wasn't counting on much more than 200 years, considering his equipment was failing him (unless he had sabotaged key chambers in order to kill his competitors).
Really, Khan remains a man of mystery to us, and so does his exodus. "How long?" would be pertinent if there was no destination - if Khan's only aim was to put distance between himself and Earth. But that aim could serve greater plans, too: if enough distance and time passed, Khan could count on people forgetting him, and thus perhaps falling prey to his damsel-in-distress act.
Other devious plots can be postulated, too. And we sorta need to postulate here, because the writers already fumbled on a few key issues within the inaugural episode. How can Khan go unaccounted for so that only Spock's personal tin-hat research suggests he might be missing, when he's revealed in the history books to be the boss of the bosses, and the last superman standing, and all? This is a genuine plot hole, although not one in much need of filling as long as we accept that Khan is an enigma to everybody in-universe. Quite possibly there is an explanation, one intimately related to the exact way Khan made good his escape. And it's not the business of our heroes here to worry about such things, nor the business of Khan to explain himself.
It's just for the better that no definite explanation has been offered yet... But if one ever emerges, it can involve elements out of the left field. And should, since our TOS heroes researched what was known of Khan: any new revelations should be mysteries to the 23rd century mankind. Such as those made in ST:ID, where Khan is said to have been created for peacekeeping and condemned as a war criminal, and having genocidal leanings. Those things weren't in the history books for the heroes to check, but it's a reasonable assumption that history books would be in error (indeed, "Space Seed" already rides on that premise, with only Spock believing that eighty Augments might have gone missing).
Timo Saloniemi
