“Karpov wanted the KA-40s up all night, but they could find nothing so they pulled them back in. Tasarov heard nothing on sonar, and you know how good he is. I was with him for evening mess and he said he’s never heard the sea this quiet before. It’s very strange, Fedorov. But what happened to you?”
“It was nothing. I think I had a reaction to some medicine the Doctor gave me for that dizziness. I’m fine now.” Fedorov hesitated briefly, then decided to risk one more question. “Look Nikolin,” he began cautiously. “Do you remember anything else that seems odd to you. Anything about that old war?”
“You mean the documentaries? I was never good at history, Fedorov. That’s your hobby. Me? I like riddles and good music. I have some Beatles on my iPod if you want some tunes. The Admiral gave it back to me after Orlov took the damn thing today.”
Fedorov smiled. “Then you don’t remember anything about battles at sea, airplanes attacking?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing I suppose. You’re right. I’m the history buff here. When do you go back on duty?”
“Morning shift as usual. You coming on duty? Karpov has been bullying your replacement. When he couldn’t get GPS coordinates and had to manually plot, he was taking too much time. He called Petrov back for the last shift, but that’s three shifts he pulled yesterday.”
“I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Well be careful. Karpov isn’t too happy. He stayed up on the bridge real late, and then ate by himself like he always does. That man is spooky.”
Fedorov nodded. “I’ll be careful. Say Nikolin, tomorrow morning do me a favor. Try our ship-to-ship one more time. Maybe Severomorsk has sent out a salvage task force.”
“We haven’t heard anything. I’ve received no messages from home at all.”
“Well just send out an ‘all ships respond’ signal—but use our coded ship-to-ship, use 272, and put it on long range transmission. Can you do that?”
“I suppose so. The Admiral has had me monitoring Fleet command link channels, but I haven’t used the coded ship-to-ship, except that one time.”
“Good. Do it first thing when we come on duty. Maybe we’ll get through to another ship close by, and that will be a nice feather in your cap.”
I can’t tell him what I’m really looking for here, that the only ship he might get through to on that channel would be Kirov—our ship, the one I was Captain of just a few days ago. That was our designated channel. This is going to be very scary if he does get through. What will they think? What will he think when he hears his own voice talking back to him? How will I handle that on the bridge?
“Make sure you wait until I come on duty before you try,” said Fedorov. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
No thought Fedorov, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Part IX
Backwash
“I believe that life is chaotic, a jumble of accidents, ambitions, misconceptions, bold intentions, lazy happenstances, and unintended consequences, yet I also believe that there are connections that illuminate our world, revealing its endless mystery and wonder.”
- David Moranis
Chapter 25
“Astounding. That single Russian ship caused all this?” Maeve shook her head, unable to admit the consequences that were now threatening to destroy the entire course of modern history.
“That’s the odd thing,” said Nordhausen. “I can see no direct link as to how the ship could have caused all these events, particularly the demise of Stalin and the rise of these other figures in Russia. It’s as if something else is operating here. Are we certain that future generations are not still meddling? Are we certain they still don’t have agents in place, or working Arch complexes? They must have seen these variations, even as we have. Wouldn’t they operate to try and take advantage of this situation?”
“All we have is their word not to do so,” said Paul. “And the considerable threats Maeve made should we discover any further tampering.”
“Well no offense, my dear lady,” said Robert. “But it appears your steely regard was not sufficient. Someone is clearly operating to effect these changes. It can’t simply be this single Russian ship. Something else is going on here, and I just can’t nail it down. ”
“That’s where these damn keys come in,” said Paul. “Look, whatever does happen here, our friends and enemies in the future will have a better perspective on it, assuming they have survived. I think these keys were part of their solution. It’s clear they were engineered in the future, and now we also have a firm connection to these natural time fissures the Fairchild woman was talking about.”
“I still think it odd that we would not have known about that,” said Maeve.
“The world holds many secrets,” said Paul. “Our knowledge is limited at this point on the continuum. It could also be that these fissures have been well secured since they were discovered, and only now come into play.”
“Yet we got no alert warnings,” said Maeve. “Wouldn’t the existence of these time rifts have caused some effects that were significant enough for us to detect a variation?”
“Possibly.”
“Fairchild knew about these rifts?”
“I think she was told about them. She said she received instructions on how to utilize one, and that is apparently how they managed to get that corporate ship to also move in time. If there are other keys, then there are other rifts. That could be the reason for some of these other variations we’ve detected.”
“You suspect someone else is using a natural time rift to effect these changes?”
“How else can we explain this altered Russian history?”
“Alright,” said Maeve. “Let’s assume that is the case. Wouldn’t we see other variation flags?”
“Well, we’ve got red flags all the way back to 1908,” said Nordhausen.”
“Nothing earlier?”
“Not much of anything. There was a yellow flag in 1815, but it didn’t have any corroboration, and no consequences I could determine.”
“What was it?”
“Just a Golem report indicating there had been an assassination attempt on the life of Marshall Ney.”
“Marshall Ney?” said Paul, his eyes widening. “Le brave des braves?”
“That’s the man.”
“Who tried to kill him? Did the data reveal that?”
“No. It was just an incident during the Waterloo Campaign, where the Marshall was fired on by a sniper. But the attack wasn’t successful. He wasn’t even hit. His horse had reared up at that very moment, and the assassin missed. There was nothing else about it, just a few lines in a report written by an adjutant in the campaign.”
“Interesting,” said Paul. “Ney was certainly a Prime in that campaign. It looks like time did its best to prevent that attack.”
“And it also sounds suspiciously like something the Assassin cult would do,” Maeve warned.
“Kill Marshall Ney? Whatever for?” Then Paul considered the matter, thinking. “Wait a second… let’s consider this a moment. Ney’s errors were a big reason Napoleon lost that last battle. He failed to promptly secure the vital junction at Quatre Bras, and then was late counter-marching to the engagement Napoleon was fighting with Blucher at Ligny. He recalled D’Elon’s Corps at a vital moment, and it was never committed to battle, and then, in the main battle at Waterloo, he committed the whole of the French Cavalry in a fruitless charge, mistaking Wellington’s “backward step” as a retreat. That had a lot to do with the outcome of that battle. Yet why would the Assassins want to eliminate him? Suppose they did so, and Bonaparte wins the battle of Waterloo? That helps France, for a while. Were there any other outcomes in the resonance?”
“Nothing,” said Nordhausen, “just this one little blip in 1815, and nothing more. The attack failed, and that seems to be the end of the matter. It could have just been a little aberration.”
“Little things have a way of becoming big things,�
�� said Maeve. “This could be evidence that someone else is still operating in the continuum. That affair in 1908 can be attributed to the Russian ship, but we have no evidence it ever went any farther back in time.”
“Nothing that I could see,” said Nordhausen.
“Then who tried to kill Marshall Ney?” asked Maeve.
“Well we can’t immediately assume it was a time traveler,” said Paul.
“Then why was it flagged by the Golems?” Like an ill placed crumb on her table, Maeve was immediately suspicious. “They don’t just report history—they report variations on the history. This incident was not in our touchstone database, it’s something new.”
“Yet it seems to indicate no unusual consequences,” said Paul. “Look, we’ve enough on our hands now with this damn Russian battlecruiser. Let’s leave Marshall Ney alone for the time being.”
Maeve took a deep breath. “Agreed,” she said. These other variations with people and ships popping into World War Two are the immediate concern.”
“That’s an understatement,” said Nordhausen. “Everyone starts crashing the party. I’ve got major variation data on the North African campaign now, and reports indicating a Russian submarine was also operating in the past. Just ten minutes ago I got a further variation flag that showed other modern British vessels discovered in the past. I even got a photograph—a ship called Ulysses. It was from a file buried deep in the Royal Navy archives, but the Golems managed to dig it up. The Brits use it as a troop carrier in our day.”
“The same ship sunk yesterday in that ballistic missile strike?”
“Not sunk, my friend. It’s turning up in the data stream now for 1941, along with all the other ships in that convoy that went missing. Christ! Things happen in this damn war, they hit CNN, and ten minutes later we get them in the Golem history variation data.”
“It’s all still in play,” said Paul. “We have a nexus open here now, and that Russian ship is creating one as well. The longer Argos Fire remains in the past, the greater the likelihood that a nexus will form around that ship as well. In fact, that has probably already happened.”
“I still don’t see how this single Russian warship can wreak such havoc,” said Maeve. “How in the world will we operate to cure this? It’s catastrophic damage to the continuum. And now we learn of these physical rifts in time, yet we have no idea what caused them.”
“Fairchild knew more than she was telling me,” said Paul. “Once Kelly runs his numbers, I’ll get back there and find out all I can. They clearly have information that we’ve been unable to turn up.”
“Alright,” said Maeve. “The keys are at the heart of this. You seem to think that ship was there to look for the very same key you were after. This Fairchild woman knew about it, and she also had yet another key in her possession. That makes her a very suspicious character in my book. I’d go so far as to suspect she might even be an operative from the future.”
“She said nothing of that,” said Paul. “But I’ll take the matter up with her when I get to the meeting in the Azores. Yet one thing struck me. She used terminology right out of my own lexicon on time travel—Grand Finality.”
“She used that exact terminology?” asked Maeve.
“Yes! I even told her I was the one who first coined the phrase. Now look—no one in the past would know of that, and only we know of that in our time. Correct? So if this woman used that term, then she had to hear it from someone—”
“In the future,” said Maeve with equal finality. “Alright. You’ve convinced me we have work to do here, particularly after what you said about these natural time fissures. What would happen if they continue to develop?”
“Who can say,” said Paul, “but it will not be pleasant. Think of it like cracks spreading slowly through glass, or a mirror, and here we are peering into that looking glass, seeing a reflection of the history in all this data we collect. In the beginning the glass holds, the mirror still reflects properly with only mild distortion. But, as they progress, things get worse. The glass weakens, and at any moment it could completely fail. The mirror becomes so riddled with fissures that everything it reflects is now badly distorted. See what I mean? Grand Finality. We’ve seen that time has the ability to smooth over some minor alterations—like that variation Robert turned up concerning Marshall Ney. There were no consequences—no cracks forming from that event. Yet time can only take so much punishment. Operations in the past create circumstances that may be very stressful. Perhaps even the annihilating power of Paradox cannot account for these things, or prevent permanent damage to the continuum. Once that happens, it can spread, progress, become fatal. Then, all at once, like the sudden triggering of an earthquake, the glass shatters, the mirror breaks, and then when we look, we see nothing at all. That’s a Grand Finality. Time simply ceases to function as we have known it.”
“The ambassadors from the future reported odd things happening,” said Maeve. “They wouldn’t say much, but it was clear to me that it was causing them great distress, and they did not know how to handle it. If something as powerful as Paradox cannot cure this, then what chance do we have?” She gave him a frustrated look, the anguish obvious on her face.
“I know how you feel, Maeve,” he said, “But we have to try. We might be able to do some good here. Perhaps these keys were an attempt by future generations to try and stem the damage, and halt the progression of these natural time rifts. We have no idea how long it might take them to spread to a fatal failure state. In fact, we have no idea how far off their future is.”
Maeve nodded, realizing there was nothing more they could do but try. They had a functioning Arch complex, and fuel to operate. A nexus point was open here and they were all standing in the center of that maelstrom. So her steely logic pressed forward, girded for battle.
“You said these keys had information machined on the shaft? Geographical coordinates?”
“I didn’t realize that at first, but given what I learned from Fairchild, I looked at the numbers I copied from the shaft of that key when I had it. Entering the number as a geographic coordinate produced a location. Not any number will do that—this one did. Have a look.”
He reached in his pocket, and produced a folded paper, opening it to show a long number: 36126225-05345633. “Two sets of numbers, separated by a dash” he said pointing at the note. “Eight characters each, or a total of sixteen numbers. That got me thinking it had something to do with computers, as everything is a permutation of eight bits to the byte. I went round and round with that, and could not make any sense of the numbers. It could have been anything. In fact, it might have just been a code of some kind. Then, when Fairchild said these keys were associated with a rift, I took another look at my number. I fooled around, and just for yucks I looked into the possibility that they were geographic coordinates. Look here… If I put a decimal point after the first two digits of each eight number set, I get a valid coordinate. Make that dash a minus sign, and place a comma at the end of the first set of eight digits, and look what comes up!”
He went over to a computer, called up Google, and simply entered the number for a search: 36.126225, -05.345633. Maeve leaned in, seeing the results clearly returned a map at the very top of the page, and an arrow indicating the geographic location.
“Well I’ll be… A map!” she breathed.
“Interesting, isn’t it,” said Paul. “Those folks mentioned that the shipment on Rodney had something to do with the Kings business, and look where the number on that key takes us. We have a major variation associated with this location, correct?”
“You mean to say that there may be a physical rift in time there?”
“Or the entrance to one,” said Paul. “That place has been a British haunt for ages, and I also find it very curious that the key was sitting right there in the British Museum for decades, before it took that ill-fated journey on Rodney. Now… throw in a CEO from a British corporation on what was once a Type-45 destroyer. There she was, wi
th yet another key that looked identical to the one I found. I thought it was actually the same one until she said otherwise. Think about it… Physical rifts in time that no one ever knew about, each one secured by a key engineered in the future. And the British had at least two of these keys.”
“Where is that location,” said Nordhausen, leaning in and squinting at the map on the screen. “Zoom out, Paul. Let me see where it is.”
Chapter 26
He planned to shift back again in his old guise, Lieutenant Commander Wellings, USN. Maeve and Robert conspired to draft authentic looking new orders for him, in the event he would have to jump any security hurtles. Kelly Ramer had come in with his numbers on a laptop, fresh from the Arion supercomputer at U.C. Berkeley. He had already run the data in internal systems, but wanted a solid second opinion from the most powerful computer he could get to.
Targeting the Azores spatially was no challenge, but they needed to get the temporal coordinates perfect for August 1st, 1941. Paul knew he was taking a great risk by shifting again so soon, particularly to a meridian that had already been profoundly affected by a Heisenberg Wave.
“This is going to be dangerous,” he told Maeve privately, not wanting to bother the others.
“You worried about phasing incorrectly again? You got back OK this last time.”
“True, but this is different. I huddled with Nordhausen and Kelly for an hour and we had a good long look at the chronology line to assess variations. We’re seeing evidence that a Heisenberg Wave is already in play, and it originated in 1908.”
“Something the ship did?”
“That’s what is so confounding. We just can’t make any connection. Nordhausen’s premise is that the data we found concerning that rogue Russian cruiser engaging Admiral Togo’s fleet must be the lever. He suggests that it prompted the Japanese to renege on the treaty with Russia and reinitiate hostilities. He’s dug up variation data indicating they occupied all of Sakhalin Island, and then invaded Vladivostok in reprisal. They eventually pushed into Primorskiy province, and he thinks the loss of that port, and Russia’s entire position as a Pacific power, must have led to the early collapse of the Czar.”
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