“Ah, Mister Fedorov, it seems that the two of us have more in common than we thought. Here I am on the same medication the Doctor prescribed for you.”
“It was nothing serious,” said Zolkin. “Just a little case of BPV, Benign Positional Vertigo. Yes, I’ve given the good Admiral a little dose of that anti-nausea medicine, and he should be fine soon.”
“I hope you are well again soon,” said Fedorov. “But Admiral… May I discuss something with you?”
“Certainly,” said Volsky. “I hope things are well on the bridge. Is Karpov riding you again? He was very curt during that incident. The man has a short fuse.”
“I’ll be fine, sir, but I was wondering about that message we received. I know it is not my place to know, but was it authentic? Have we been summoned home to Severomorsk?”
“Curious, Fedorov? I suppose the other officers are as well. Yes, the message was authenticated. But what was this other radio call we received? What was this business about an Admiral Tovey? Karpov was in here earlier saying you seemed quite irrational. Suppose you tell me about it.”
Fedorov hesitated briefly, unsure of the ice he was walking on, but he proceeded on good faith, knowing Volsky to be a reasonable man. “I asked Nikolin to put out an all ships respond signal on command channel 272,” he began. “He did that this morning, and we got the response I expected.”
“From a British Admiral?”
“Yes sir.”
“Karpov says there is no such person in the active officer registry for the Royal Navy. That ship that was mentioned was also non-existent.”
“That is correct, in one respect, sir, in our day.”
“In our day? What other day are we at liberty to be in, Mister Fedorov? That aside, I find this radio message very unusual. Nikolin says it came in on 272, but that is an encrypted channel. The caller would have to possess the proper equipment, so this is a bit of a frog in the borscht. Who really made that call? The Captain believes it was the British, possibly with a radio set filched by their MI-6 agents. He’s a bit worked up about this, and very suspicious, particularly of you. What did you say to put him in such a mood?”
“I simply asked him to consider all the evidence, sir. Things are very strange here. I was certain of what I saw when we got the video feed on those two ships—County Class cruisers, yet they should not be at sea.”
“Yes, we were going through that on the bridge when I had my little vertigo spell. Karpov tells me this radio call asked to speak with you. Is that so? I find that very odd, wouldn’t you say?”
“I told the Captain I was familiar with the British officer when he identified himself, but he did not believe me.”
“Yes, he says you told him you met this man personally? Frankly, Mister Fedorov, that seemed odd. The Captain has even questioned your loyalty. He seems convinced some kind of deliberate deception is underway here, and even suggested you might be involved in this. Anything to say on that?”
“As I told the Captain, sir. No, I am not involved in any kind of espionage here. I can explain everything, though it will sound somewhat fantastic.”
“Yes… Karpov also tells me you were trying to convince him the time had changed.” He gave Fedorov a quizzical look. “Something about the moon? Well go ahead then, tell me.”
Fedorov saw how Zolkin eased into his chair, arms folded, quietly observing. I must be very careful here, he thought. Karpov has obviously tilled the ground and told the Admiral I was spouting nonsense. From the look on Zolkin’s face, I can see he’s watching me, probably trying to assess my mental condition. I can’t be dismissed here as crazy. I need to find a way through this. But how? Stay with incontrovertible facts. It’s the only play I have now. I came here at this time for a reason.
“Admiral sir,” he began. “I find the evidence we have uncovered thus far in our investigation most disturbing. The presence of those ships, that radio call, the lack of any wreckage or flotsam from either Orel or Slava—this is most unusual, sir.”
“Agreed,” said Volsky. “It is somewhat of a mystery, and I have been discussing it with the Doctor here as well. Those were obviously British ships. Who knows, perhaps Karpov was right, and they still had a few old cruisers mothballed. I know you say all the ships in that class were scrapped, but let us admit the possibility that they reactivated something… or that your identification of those ships may have been in error.”
“I was very certain of what I saw, Admiral.”
“Yes, and I thought they were a good match to the images you showed me in your book, but let us admit this possibility. As to that radio call, the good thing there is that those ships turned about. It appears the British have no hostile intentions here, though Karpov isn’t quite convinced of that yet. As to the lack of wreckage, I got the report from the submersible. Nothing was found.”
“And nothing will be found sir. I told the Captain as much.”
“Well nothing was found yet, Mister Fedorov, but the water here can be very deep, and the submersible was not down there long. This is still an unanswered question in my mind.”
“But sir… What about the sun and moon data?” Fedorov shared his objection, stating the exact moon conditions they should expect now. “That data is not open to speculation, sir. It is fixed, and can be accurately predicted for any date, time, or location on earth. Believe me, I’m the ship’s navigator. If anyone has his head on the position of the sun and moon, it would be me, sir. This was why Karpov was so upset with the shift replacements at navigation when I fell ill. They were using the expected sun and moon positions to try and plot manually, but the moon wasn’t there! It wasn’t rising at the correct time, and the phase was wrong as well. We should have moonrise at 21:00 this evening for August 1, 2021. I can show you the data right from the computer. Yet look sir—look out there this very moment!”
Fedorov had chosen this time to make his visit for a very specific reason. He looked at his watch, noting the time was perfect now, and pointed to the porthole window that gave a view off to the east. There, peeking up from the grey horizon, was a fat waxing moon, just as Fedorov had asserted it would be, but for another date and time, and impossible date and time, and now he knew he had his moment.
“You may think I am irrational, as Karpov clearly does, but the sun and moon do not lie, sir, nor do I when I see this evidence with my own eyes. This is moonrise, and it is now only 16:00. In a moment, you will see this is a waxing gibbous moon. It should be a morning crescent. I noted this discrepancy the night before I returned to my station, when I knew I was going to have to plot manually. As soon as that fog lifted I went out to look for the moon, but it was wrong, sir. I check this every day. That moon should not be rising now, Admiral, any more than those two cruisers we saw should have been at sea.”
Volsky was quiet for a moment, slowly scratching his grey eyebrow, and looking briefly at Zolkin. “You are certain of your data on this, Mister Fedorov?”
“Absolutely. And when I saw this anomaly, I decided to check the ship’s chronometer. Then I reverse calculated dates where this moon condition would be valid for our location. Unless the computer is completely wrong sir, it gives a match for this date, August 1, but the year returned was 1941. There was another close match, with a waxing gibbous moonrise at 16:07 in the year 1998, two more minutes from now. Yet August 1, 1941 produces an exact match for our present position. And sir… That is the date time stamped on all those radio broadcasts Nikolin has been monitoring. That is a date and time when two County Class cruisers could be at sea, and also a date and time when a man named Admiral John Tovey was in command of the British home fleet.”
“Karpov said you were going on about the moon being off kilter,” said Zolkin. “He thought it was your head off kilter again. Is this what you told him?”
“Yes Doctor, I shared this same information, but he wouldn’t listen. Then that message came in and he went off to see about it. Yet there it is, sir. The moon is up, plain to see, and yet every almanac
you consult, and my own navigation equipment, will tell you it should not rise until 21:00. Is the earth off kilter? That is one possible explanation, though hardly likely. The other is that something more profound has happened to us when we experienced all those strange effects. The time is wrong, sir—wrong as that moon out there. We are not where we should be, and this is from your ship’s chief navigator, plain and direct.”
Volsky looked from the moon outside to his chief physician. “Dmitri?” he said. “What is going on here?”
“Something is certainly off,” said Zolkin, “but I will not say it is our navigator here. He is correct. The sun and moon do not tell lies. And yet… we just received a properly formatted recall order from Moscow, if Karpov is to be believed. It was authenticated with the proper final code word retrieved from the ship’s command safe. If this is so, it would seem that message could not have been sent in any year but the one we were sailing in, 2021. This is quite a puzzle, Leonid. We have more of a mystery here than the accident with Orel and the fact that Slava is still missing.”
“Slava isn’t missing, sir,” said Fedorov, “It’s probably still out there towing those targeting barges in 2021, but we’ve gone missing sir. That is what all the other evidence points to, we’re not where we belong—not in our own time.”
“Yet that recall order would seem to suggest otherwise, Fedorov. And you must admit that, for us to believe the tale that moon is telling us now…. Well it would be quite a leap, quite fantastic.”
“I just wanted to share all the facts with you sir, for your consideration. This moon is wrong,” he pointed. “I don’t know who is out there on the other end of that recall message, but if the moon is not lying to me now, then we cannot be where we thought we were. Something is very, very wrong. May I ask you to listen very carefully to Chief Orlov’s report when the helo returns from the recon operation on Jan Mayen? That will be another important piece of this puzzle.”
“Yes, Karpov said he was going to have a look. He thinks the facility was destroyed. In fact, the one scenario that might make any sense would be his take on this matter—that this was an attack, in spite of the fact that we have found no wreckage, and that the other anomalies are a deliberate deception. That remained a possibility in my mind… until this moon business. Now I’m wondering if my head is still spinning here!”
“The facility will not be found there sir. It was not destroyed, but I believe Orlov will simply report that nothing was even there.”
“And why would you say this?”
“Because if that moon is correct, it was not even built yet. I told the Captain this as well.”
“I see… And you are seeing this as more evidence the time is wrong. Well, we will get Orlov’s report within the hour. I must say that you do not sound irrational, as Karpov suggested, am I right, Dmitri?”
“Yes Admiral, Mister Fedorov seems to be his old self, very logical, very observant, and yet certainly a man who has long been fascinated with his history books. Sometimes we see things we might wish to see, Mister Fedorov. Motivation defines perception in more ways than people realize. The case you present here is very well considered, except for one thing—that recall message from Moscow, properly formatted, and with the correct authentication code. I don’t think anyone in 1941 would know that code. It was known only to the Admiral here, and to Karpov when he verified it. Yes?”
That set Fedorov’s mind thinking…. Yes indeed. If there was anyone alive in 1941 who might know that code, who would it be? Clearly Volsky would have known it, and yes… only one other man on this earth… If he still was on this earth…
My god, could this be so?
Chapter 6
Volsky sat for some time staring at that moon rising off the port side of the ship, his mind beset with everything that had happened. He looked at Zolkin, a bewildered expression on his face.
“He’s right,” he said at last. “Look at that moon out there. Dmitri, how in the world can we explain that?”
“Is it true what Fedorov says?” asked Zolkin. “Is the position of the moon that predictable?”
“It’s like a finely tuned clock,” said Volsky. “Yes, they can tell you, within milliseconds, when the moon will rise a hundred years from now on this day, and predict it’s exact phase. That young man has a head on his shoulders, but now I am beginning to doubt the one on mine! My friend, that moon out there is cold hard reality. It is not subject to speculation or opinion. It is telling us exactly what day and year this is, and our young Navigator was industrious enough to get the data in the palm of his hand, and intrepid enough to bring it here to my attention. The only question I have now is, whether or not I am still sane. That was a very strange event…. Very strange. And now here we are, out of synch with the sun and moon itself. Can this be so, Dmitri? Can we be in another time?”
“Is there any other way to account for that moon out there?”
“Only what Fedorov suggested, if the entire world were off kilter, some aberration in the spin or orbit of the planet, then we might see the moon rise early like this. But wouldn’t there be many other effects if something that drastic had happened? And why should the phase of the moon change? Fedorov says we should be looking at a morning crescent.”
“Isn’t it more likely that he has made a plotting error for our present position. After all, he was rather disoriented, and I had to see him three times to get that sorted out. And Karpov was riding him rather hard, or so I was told when Nikolin came by earlier. Perhaps he made an error.”
“That is the only thing that might make sense, but he is very good at his job, Doctor. His manual plots were always spot on. No… as much as I would like to hope that this is a simple miscalculation, something is telling me that if I get on the computer and look up the moonrise data for this place and time, I will see that there should be no moon out there at this hour. If Fedorov is correct, then those two old ships we saw on the video feed….” The Admiral lapsed into silence, remembering that radio message Fedorov had urged him to send.
“He’s different.”
“Fedorov?” Zolkin leaned in a little closer.
“Yes…” said Volsky. “He’s the same, yet not the same. I sense a restrained energy in the man, something I have only seen in officers who have served through many hours at sea. There’s a confidence beneath that young face that belies his age. That message he asked me to send was another thing. Something about that word he repeated seemed to strike me when he said it—Geronimo.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s as if I had heard that before, knew it meant something—something very important. I meant to ask him about it, but we got off on this moon business. Dmitri, something is going on here, and Fedorov knows more about it than he has said just yet. I’m an old man, and I can see through a brick wall if I sit calmly and stare at it long enough. Well, I’ve been looking at this one since they brought me in here, and it bothers me. Something has happened to us, yet I do not yet know what it is. Then comes this coded message, authenticated by the special final code word we put into the ship’s vault the day we sailed. That had to be sent in the year 2021, yet Fedorov is telling me that moon cannot be there if that is where we still are. The only problem I have now is understanding how these two contradictory facts can co-exist!”
“Give it time, Leonid. Rest another day here. We are on our way home. In a few days we’ll see the Kola inlet, and slip into the bay. Then you will know where we are well enough, and you may mark your calendar accordingly. Patience is a virtue here, and we need only wait a few more days. It is just a matter of time.”
*
Chief Dobrynin was working late that night, which was not unusual, but he was surprised to get a visit from Fedorov at this hour.
“Excuse me, Chief. May I bother you a moment?”
“Mister Fedorov, certainly, what can I do for you?”
“I was wondering how the reactors have been since that incident the other day. Any problems?”
“What, did the Admiral send you down here to check on things?”
“No, he’s still resting in sick bay—recovering nicely. I hope he’ll be back on his feet soon.”
“Good. Well, there have been no problems here. Oh, there was a little flux in the core during that accident, but things settled down soon after. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“How is reactor maintenance?”
“What about it?”
“Did you need to run any maintenance procedures when you were checking the equipment out after the accident?”
“No, just standard diagnostics. I ran the rod maintenance inspection cycle on the 28th, and won’t schedule another until late next week. Other than that, the system seems in good working order.”
“Rod maintenance,” said Fedorov, getting to the real reason he came here now. “You say you ran that on the 28th?”
“Finished it just a few hours before the accident.”
“How does it work, Chief, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Not very complicated. We’ve a pair of twelve rod reactors here, twenty-four in all. Every twelve days I retract one rod, while using a replacement, so I can inspect for fatigue, cracks or other wear effects. The rods have been in fairly good shape.”
“That replacement rod… is it the only one you use?”
“Well, we have two aboard, but only one is mounted for system maintenance at any given time. I call it Rod-25. The other is stowed, and only used in an emergency.”
“I see… Rod-25. What day will you be scheduling this next inspection. I’ve been curious about this—you know me.”
“Yes, always with your nose in some book or another, Fedorov. But I thought history was your forte, not engineering. Well, if you’re curious, come round on the 8th. That’s the next scheduled inspection cycle.”
“Chief… why every twelve days? Is there a reason for that?”
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