Nemesis

by John Schettler

  “Not really. Just my habit.”

  “Would it harm the reactors if it happened later, or even not at all?”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would do any harm, unless one of the other rods was deteriorating, which is why we have a look every so often. It takes 288 days to run through all 24 rods if I pull one every twelve days. I used to do it bi-weekly, but I shave two days off when we’re at sea. Again, just a habit. More often than not I can tell if anything is wrong long before we have any real problem.”

  “You listen to it, don’t you Chief.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do exactly that. I can hear every little mutter and twinge of this system, and know it like my own mother’s voice. I know when it’s happy, and when it is upset with me because of something I’ve done, or failed to do. Everything has a sound, Fedorov, a special vibration. You only need to listen.”

  Fedorov smiled. “Have you ever heard something that might be called deep sound? Ultrasound? Something you feel more than hear, or so I’ve been told.”

  “Can’t say as I have, though I’ve heard stories about it. Taiga tales from Siberia.”

  Fedorov nodded. “Chief… If you do hear anything odd, anything at all, would you let me know? I’m a regular bridge officer, and I can get the Admiral’s ear for you if you hear anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Something worrying you now?”

  “Better safe than sorry, Chief. Let’s just say that I believe everything you just said to me here. So if you do hear anything amiss, I’d want to know about it.

  “Good enough, Fedorov. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Thank you, Chief. So, you have no plans to use Rod-25 until the 8th? We should be back in Severomorsk by then. Maybe I will come by and watch this procedure one time—that is if you don’t have any objection.”

  “Not at all, Fedorov. You can watch the whole thing. I start just after morning mess.”

  “Thanks again, Chief. Sorry to take your time. Have a good evening.”

  *

  Karpov sat at the officer’s dining table. Alone as always, until Orlov huffed in, still in his leather flight jacket, his nose and cheeks red from the cold. He saw the Captain, and tramped over to his table with a half-hearted salute.

  “The helo is secure on the fantail and I have my report,” he said gruffly.

  “Good. Go ahead and fill your plate, the roast is very good tonight. And try the bread—fresh baked by Lenkov.”

  Orlov was only too eager to comply, and was soon at the table, a big spoon in hand, and a fist full of dark rye bread. He had a good portion of potatoes, beets and carrots alongside his meat, and a satisfied grin on his face.

  “Well?” said Karpov, sopping up some gravy with his bread and reaching for his wine, a pleasure reserved only for command level officers. “Was I right? The facility is destroyed, correct?”

  “Orlov took a breath, scratching his chin. “It was very unusual, Captain. We overflew the entire Island, and yet I could see nothing much there at all.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “That’s just it, sir. Very odd. When we got on the ground, right where the meteorological station should have been, there was absolutely nothing there. Yet no sign of any attack—no wreckage, no debris, no radiation count. The rocks were sitting there undisturbed, and while there isn’t much flora on that island, what was there looked normal and healthy. Lots of sea birds about too. But no buildings. Damn, there wasn’t even an airstrip, and I’ve landed on that island more than once, but the airstrip was gone.”

  “Destroyed?”

  “No…. It just wasn’t there. It’s as if nothing was ever built there. Then, on the way out, we spotted a dog and got down to have a look. There was an old lean-to structure, made of charred wood beams, and a couple Norwegians. They did have some equipment there for measuring atmospheric pressure, and a rain meter. There was a very old radio set too.”

  “What about the big Loran-C antenna?”

  “No sign of it, and we couldn’t make any sense of what these Norwegians were saying to us. Troyak searched them, and we found this.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and produced an identity card, old and frayed, plain paper stock, with no lamination, bar coding, hologram or embedded chip. It looked like it had simply been prepared with an old typewriter, and then stamped in red ink at one corner for validation. Karpov squinted at it, noting the name, his face registering a mix of surprise and suspicion. Now Fedorov’s plaintive appeal returned to him, clear in his mind.

  The Met station is gone. The entire facility is missing, even the airstrip. Yet it was not attacked. There will be no evidence of blast damage whatsoever, and all you will find there will be a couple Norwegians at an old, makeshift weather outpost. One will be named Ernst Ullring. If Troyak searches the Norwegians he will discover an identity card. They will also have a dog…

  How in the world could Fedorov know this? It was just as he had predicted, yet Karpov’s reaction soon shifted quickly from this initial surprise to increasing suspicion.

  “I’ll tell you what’s odd here, Orlov—Fedorov. He gets that knock on the head and it’s as if he’s not even the same man any longer. He had the temerity to speak out of place like that, and even question me on the bridge in front of the Admiral. This strange radio call we supposedly got from the British reining in those two ships… well the man asked for Fedorov. Can you believe that? Fedorov even claimed he knew who it was. Then, when I indulged his request for a briefing conference with me, he suggested this little excursion to Jan Mayen, and lo and behold, you find exactly what he predicts, right down to those two Norwegians and their dog. He even named this man.”

  The Captain tapped the identity card, as much annoyed as he was surprised. “So whatever is going on here, Fedorov is mixed up in it somehow—a nice little mole on the ship, scurrying about below decks and hiding behind those history books of his. That’s what I’m coming to believe. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what he told you, but the little prick has certainly had too much to eat lately. I would have taken care of him on the bridge if it weren’t for Volsky. The Admiral doesn’t like my way with the men, so I waited. But yes, I think I’ll go have a little chat with Fedorov about all this.” He took another chunk of meat, with plenty of gravy, and chewed for a long time.

  “What does Volsky think?” he said at last.

  “He’s still down in sick bay with Zolkin. No doubt the two of them have been rattling the vodka glasses. Frankly, I’m glad he’s out of the way for the moment. You know damn well that, when we get home, there will be one hell of an investigation. Suchkov will go ballistic! I’m amazed we haven’t heard from him by now. This radio silence from command is very irregular.”

  “Maybe he sent that coded message,” Orlov suggested.

  “Most likely.” Karpov took another sip, finishing his glass of red wine. “The Admiral will have a lot of explaining to do at Severomorsk, and we have very few answers. Everything we do only seems to deepen the mystery, and this Fedorov business is most disturbing. Could he be an undercover Zampolit?”

  “Zampolit? We haven’t had those little rats aboard since it all fell apart in 1991. Commissars… I’d like to choke the breath out of every last one of them.” He wasn’t sure why he said that, but it was something he felt very strongly at that moment. A Zampolit was a special officer that would sail with every ship during the Soviet era, the modern day equivalent of the political Commissar, but they had gone the way of the old Soviet Union, fading away after 1991.

  “Well he knows too damn much, Orlov. He told me this man’s name—Ernst Ullring! And he’s the one who suggested the Admiral send out that radio signal. What was it he said? Geronimo, that was it. What in god’s name was that all about? It was some kind of code word. Yes… It’s Fedorov, I tell you. He’s a mole! He’s got something in his pocket in regards to all this. And to catch a little mouse, you need a good cat. That’s where you come in Orlov. Get hold of
Fedorov’s tail and see what you can find out. And tell him to mind his mouth while you’re at it. Keep a close eye on him, Chief. Something smells here, and I want to find out what he’s really up to.”

  Part III

  Conspiracy

  “Better for real things to be uncontrollable, better for one's life to be undecipherable and intellectually impenetrable than to attempt to make casual sense of what is unknown with a fantasy that is mad. Better, I thought, that the events of these past three days should remain incomprehensible to me forever…”

  ― Philip Roth: Operation Shylock

  Chapter 7

  Karpov was back aboard Tunguska, excited about the prospects before him now. He had come to Moscow to seek a deal that would secure his place in Russian history, secure the nation itself in this time of grave crisis, and he got everything he desired. He looked out his stateroom viewport, taking in the sprawl of Moscow below, the gleam of the river running through the city, the tall palaces, cathedrals, and the golden dome of the Kremlin. There was the beating heart of the Soviet Union, he thought, the center of power here for decades to come. Yet, as he looked down on the city, he had the sense that he was bigger than it all, a demigod drifting here in the skies in his airship, above it all, superior.

  Then thoughts of the matter at hand returned to him, and he turned to Tyrenkov, his voice level and serious.

  “The message was sent,” he said. “And I am willing to bet that the ship will now be heading for Murmansk—Severomorsk, to be precise, though the harbor there was not developed at this time.”

  “My people there tell me that has changed,” said Tyrenkov. “They’ve built a new quay, and storage facilities for provisions. A small workers settlement has been cleared out and converted to crews quarters, and the whole area has been cordoned off with security. I have a man inside, reporting weekly.”

  “Good, but we will soon have a close look at this new harbor ourselves. I’ve given Bogrov instructions to plot our course to Murmansk.”

  “I see…” Tyrenkov considered that. “Then you mean to take the ship?”

  “Take it back,” said Karpov quickly. “It was rightfully mine. Volsky was just a mother hen assigned to this mission, yet all he wanted to do was sit on the eggs. Well, I had to break a few to make the omelet I had in mind, but there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen. Now… We must consider how to go about this. We have a full security company aboard, do we not?”

  “Yes sir, 120 good men of the Siberian Guard.”

  “That should be sufficient.”

  Tyrenkov raised an eyebrow at that. “You intend to board by force? That could get very… uncomfortable.”

  “Perhaps, but we must plan this very carefully. First off, we need to ascertain who is in command there.”

  “I don’t understand, sir. You believe something may have happened to Admiral Volsky?”

  “Listen carefully, Tyrenkov. What I tell you now may sound very… confusing, but consider it well. This may not be the same ship that was here earlier.”

  “Not the same ship? What do you mean, Admiral?”

  “We’ve discussed this before—the first arrival of the ship on July 28th. I was facing a most unusual circumstance at that time, and a very dangerous one. You see, I was aboard that ship, as its rightful Captain when it first came here. Yet there I was in Siberia as well. That’s quite a thorny problem, yes? I was wondering what might happen to me, and quite frankly, not without a good measure of dread. Time was going to have to make a choice, or so I came to believe. Which man would remain here on July 28th—the man I was when the ship first arrived, or the man before you now. Well, that time has passed, and the choice has apparently been made. I cannot tell you what happened a few days earlier, but I wasn’t sleeping comfortably in my stateroom. It was a very harrowing experience, but I survived.”

  “I am glad for that, sir,” said Tyrenkov. “Then you believe the other man is dead? The other Karpov?”

  “Of course. How could there be two of us alive here at the same time. I have no way of knowing yet, but something must have happened to him. He may have simply vanished. After our first little jaunt through time, we returned to our own era and sailed to Vladivostok. It was there that we discovered men were missing—crew members gone. Some were men we had lost in combat, yet, when that bastard Volkov stuck his nose in it, he determined that there was no record any of those men were ever born—no service records, birth certificates, personal history—nothing. It was as if they simply vanished. This is what I believe has happened to my earlier self. I’m a good ripe apple now, why would Time want a green one in her barrel? She chose me, Tyrenkov, and in doing so she chose very wisely. That other man was headstrong, untempered steel. He was all potential, yet I was tried by the fire of battle many times, and always prevailed. I was in a position to really matter here, while he stood in Volsky’s shadow. So when you think about it, it is no surprise that I survived. Yes, I mourn the loss of my younger self, but I remain, and that is all that matters.”

  “So that leaves Volsky and Fedorov in command there.”

  “Volsky,” said Karpov. “Fedorov was just a Navigator when we arrived. Oh, he is very clever. His knowledge of the history we found ourselves in proved very useful, along with a little library of books he kept, but he knew nothing of real war. When the fighting started, Volsky had no choice but to come to me.”

  Karpov was stretching the facts a bit, omitting the story of his failed bid to control the ship, and how he had pleaded with Volsky to let him support Fedorov as his Starpom. “Who knows, there may be another man there that we know nothing of—another Captain standing in my old shoes. We will have to wait and see, but for the moment, Volsky and Fedorov will be more than enough to worry about. Volsky can be a stubborn old ox, but the men love him, and will follow his lead. As for Fedorov, green as he was back then, he can be very resourceful. We should not underestimate him when we take the ship.”

  “As to that, sir, how do you propose we proceed? Surely you don’t want to use the Siberian Guards to storm the quay and make a forced boarding.”

  “I will if I must, but no, we must consider that now. There is another man aboard Kirov, not an officer, but one who weighed heavily in the balance there—a Sergeant Troyak, the man commanding Kirov’s security contingent.”

  “A large force?” Tyrenkov questioned, sizing up the threat.

  “Only twenty Marines, but these are no ordinary fighting men. In our day we called them the Black Death. The force dates back to 1705, and they have a long history of valor in battle, in this war as well. Their motto has been well earned: Where We Are, There is Victory! Well… This man Troyak, he’s a formidable presence, and the men under him are very, very good. They have weapons that will magnify their fighting power many times over. Frankly, I think if we attempted to take the ship by force, we would fail. They are that good.”

  “Then what will we do?” asked Tyrenkov, wanting to know Karpov’s intentions clearly, for he would be the man required to execute the plan, whatever it might be.

  “We will not fight the bear,” said Karpov. “But we will give him honey, yes? I think we must arrange a nice little reception at Severomorsk, which is why I want to get up there as soon as possible. I’ll want a band on the quay, full diplomatic protocols, a grand welcome and a banquet of the best food and wine we can find—and some good vodka.”

  “You intend to simply invite the commanding officers ashore?”

  “How else to get them off that ship, and in a place where we might have more control? Can you arrange everything?”

  “Of course, sir. But yes, we should get there as soon as possible.”

  “Good, because I have some mail to deliver to Admiral Volsky.” Karpov reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small envelope. “Here is a letter from Sergei Kirov himself. It formally asks him to relinquish control of the ship to me.”

  “You believe Volsky will do that?”

  “We shall see…
There are a number of considerations here, which we must now discuss. First off, we do not yet know what their situational awareness is. When we first arrived here, there was a period of considerable disorientation, as you might expect. We began to perceive anomalies, news broadcasts, contact with obsolete ships. Then we mounted a recon operation to Jan Mayen, and the situation got even more mysterious. It took some time, and much haggling, but we eventually began to realize what had really happened to us. Believe me, that was no small hurtle to leap over. The thought the ship had actually moved in time was quite daunting—impossible, yet there we were. We do not yet know whether they have sorted this all out yet, but if I know Fedorov, he will be trying to convince the Admiral that the ship has moved in time, and the evidence will all begin to mount in favor of that argument. Whether they know this already is the key question. The message protocol, and the code words I used in sending it, will serve to reinforce the perception that all is normal, in spite of any anomalies they have uncovered.”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “I was Captain of that ship, Tyrenkov. Whenever we set sail on any mission of importance, there is a secure envelop carried aboard the ship, with a code word generated only moments before it is delivered, so it is completely secret, with no possibility that this word could be known by anyone else. In fact, the senior officers only learn this word when they receive a coded message from naval headquarters. Such a message must follow an exact protocol, and contain words used for that day in our naval code. I have access to all of that information, and so I was able to format a message Sergei Kirov sent to that ship this afternoon.”

  “And that special code sir?”

  “I took the liberty of ascertaining what it was when I was aboard Kirov. Volsky was disabled, and I had to take command. So I naturally used my command key to open the ship’s safe and learn the authentication code. This word must be the final word used in any message.”