“A problem in the engines?”
“I’m not sure yet, though I have Mister Garin running the second diagnostic this week.”
“Have there been any unusual readings.”
“Not lately. Not even with this Lenkov incident. I went over the charts very carefully, but I could not see anything in the data that would lead me to believe that the ship had any kind of problem.”
“That is some relief, I suppose.”
“Perhaps,” said Dobrynin. “But if the ship did lose its integrity in this time, even for a brief moment, I should have noticed it. There should have been some readings in the reactor flux.”
“But why, Chief? We are not using Rod-25, so the reactors were not exposed to anything it may have contained. Why would we begin to pulse again? Have you given that any thought?”
“I don’t know sir, but remember we do have those other control rods aboard, and that thing Orlov found in Siberia.”
“Yes, the Devil’s Teardrop. Is it still in a secure location?”
“As far from the reactors as I can get it,” said Dobrynin. “I have it down in the empty weapons storage bay for special warheads. That area has extra radiation shielding, which should be some protection, assuming this thing emits that kind of energy.”
“Explain.”
“Well sir, this whole business of the ship moving in time… It must be happening on a quantum level. I can’t say that I can give you any real explanation, but whatever is in that thing may be in a concentration great enough to have an effect, even far from the reactors. It certainly sent us right into a flux event any time it came within ten feet of the reactor room.”
“I see… Then what have you been hearing, Chief?”
“A sound of some kind. A vibration. Both.”
“A vibration in the propulsion system?” asked Fedorov.
“I don’t think so, Captain. In fact, I have listened very carefully of late, and I don’t think its mechanical at all. But I can sense it.”
“Yet it is coming from somewhere on the ship? Have you localized it?”
“Not exactly, sir. That was the first thing that came to my mind as well. So I walked the ship from stem to stern, thinking I would hear it more in one place, less in another, but that was not the case. It seems to be resonating from all directions. I could not get any sense that it was emanating from a specific place on the ship.”
“What does it sound like?”
“Very deep, sir. A very low sound, so low that it becomes something felt as much as anything heard. It may be well below the threshold of human hearing. But I can pick it up with these dog’s ears of mine.”
Now Fedorov remembered a report that Rodenko had given him concerning Tasarov. He had reported hearing something, first in his quarters, then at his post while listening on sonar. Rodenko had him prosecuting it up on the bridge as if it were an undersea contact, yet there was no data trace in the electronics, not on radar or sonar. Now Dobrynin was hearing something odd, and it was clear that it was bothering him, if only because he could not isolate it and determine the cause.
“Now here is the strange thing,” said Dobrynin. “I have tried for some time to locate the source of this sound, but with no results. In fact, I have come to think I might get out in a launch, away from the ship, and then see if I can still hear it.”
“I’m afraid we haven’t time to stop for a boat launch operation, Chief. There’s trouble ahead.”
“I understand, sir. And that is a good way of describing this sound—trouble ahead. It’s what it feels like, Captain—trouble.”
Fedorov looked at him for a moment, then scratched his ear. “Keep listening, Chief. Let me know if you think this is having any effect on the engines or reactors. I’ll go down to the missile bays, and see if any of the men there report this, and I’ll make sure Admiral Volsky is informed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
A sound that could not be heard, but it could be clearly felt. Every good ghost story has seen the dogs and cats become aware of something long before it came on the scene. Dobrynin’s comment about his dog’s ears was very telling. Tasarov hears it too. In fact, didn’t Orlov report something like this on that mission to Siberia? Perhaps Sergeant Troyak can shed some light on this. I’m told he heard what Orlov reported, along with several of the Marines.
Now he found himself heading for the Helo Bay and the Marines. He thought he would find them involved with routine operations, cleaning rifles, tending to the KA-40, but when he got there he could see that Troyak had a problem on his hands. There was some commotion, swearing, and the sound of obvious alarm. He could hear Troyak’s deep voice interrogating a Marine as he came on the scene.
“Then nobody knows about this? No one saw a thing?”
“No Sergeant. It was just there! I was stowing this equipment from the desert mission, and when I opened that locker—”
“Captain on deck!”
The Sergeant turned, saluting as Fedorov came up. The other Marines were at attention, and Fedorov could see they were in some distress.
“I’d like to say as you were, but is there a problem, Sergeant?”
“You had better have a look in that storage locker, sir.”
Fedorov was surprised for a moment, wondering what this was about. He stepped over to the half closed locker, and eased the metal door open, his eyes widening as he did so. Several of the other Marines leaned in to peer into the shadows of the locker once again, as if to convince themselves they were actually seeing what they had reported to Troyak.
“My god…”
“Litchko found it a moment ago,” said Troyak.
“Yes sir,” said Litchko. “Like I was telling the Sergeant. I was just going to stow away those mortars after cleaning and inspection. When I opened the locker…”
“I had a closer look,” said Troyak. “I found this.”
He handed Fedorov a piece of crumpled paper. It was a list of supplies, cooking oil, flour, potatoes, starch, salt, and then below a line at the bottom of the note that read: “One pack of cigarettes for one extra serving. No exceptions.”
“I don’t understand,” said Fedorov. “Who is that?” He pointed to the shadows of the locker.”
“I think it is Lenkov, sir… or at least a part of him. That note was in the trouser pocket. He had a game going taking cigarettes in trade for extra servings at the mess.”
“Lenkov? But we found him dead in the galley?”
“We found a part of him there,” said Troyak. “Those are Lenkov’s legs. Just that, nothing more. They’re stuck right in the back side of that locker at the waist. The rest of him was left in the galley.”
Trouble ahead, thought Fedorov. Too many questions, and not enough answers. Here were Lenkov’s missing legs! They did not simply wink out of existence as Kamenski suggested, like Turing’s watch, because the damn watch never winked out of existence either—it simply moved!
And so did Lenkov’s legs.
Chapter 23
Fedorov gave orders that this latest incident should be kept quiet, as far as possible. “No need to let this get out among the crew,” he said. “The first incident was bad enough.”
He wondered if this had happened at the same moment that the other half of poor Lenkov had turned up in the galley, and why his body would have been split in two like that. But with no answers, all he could do was try to minimize the psychological damage, and carry on. He pulled Troyak aside, asking him about that sound he had been discussing with Chief Dobrynin.
“Yes,” said Troyak. “I heard it when we found that cauldron in the clearing. Devil’s Cauldron, Devil’s Teardrop, glubokiy zvuk. It is not the first time I have heard it. Very deep sound. Bone deep.”
“Tell me more.”
“I come from the Chukchi Peninsula, and as a boy I would often hike the highlands and taiga. Yes, I have heard such a sound before. But you do not hear it, unless you have very good ears. You feel it, sense it, and it is very strange
.”
“You say you heard or felt this on that mission to Ilanskiy… Have you heard anything lately, here on the ship?”
“No sir, just my men complaining more than they should.”
“Complaining? About what?”
“Little things. Nothing in particular. They’re just edgy.”
“Give them some rest, Sergeant. They were away on combat tour for several months. Getting back into the routines of the ship may take a while. Give them some rest.”
“I will sir, but it would be better if we don’t find any more body parts in the lockers.” Troyak smiled. “Sir… There was one other time when I heard this sound. It was in the desert, just before that incident—the lights in the sky.”
“I see… And did it continue?”
“No sir. It settled down when the sky did the same.”
And that was when Kinlan’s Brigade came right through a breach in time at the Sultan Apache facility, thought Fedorov. Orlov had that object with him, and he reported it changed temperatures at that same time. The dots were slowly connecting in Fedorov’s mind, and he was slowly convincing himself that this sound being reported by Tasarov and Dobrynin had something to do with the Devil’s Teardrop.
“Very well, Sergeant. If you hear this sound again—any sign of it at all—please report it to me at once. Keep that locker sealed off for the moment. I’ll have Doctor Zolkin and the Engineers take care of everything.”
“Good enough, sir.”
Fedorov was off, returning Troyak’s salute and heading forward and up, bound for the bridge. He stopped several times along the way, and made a point of visiting Doctor Zolkin, where there were several men waiting in a line outside his sick bay. Zolkin saw the Captain and stuck his head out.
“Privilege of rank, gentlemen,” he said with a smile. “Let me have a moment to see what the Captain needs.”
“I hope you are alright sir,” a man said, as Fedorov stepped in through the hatch.
“I am fine, Mister Yakov. I just need to see to the doctor’s supply needs.”
The men smiled, somewhat relieved to know that Fedorov might not be coming here for the same reasons they were. Once inside, with the hatch closed, Fedorov folded his arms.
“We found the other half of Lenkov,” he said starkly, getting right to the point.
Zolkin raised his cinder grey brows. “Where?”
“In a locker near the Helo Bay. Can you summon those same Engineers and see to it?”
“Of course, Mister Fedorov.” Zolkin shook his head. “Now I have the whole body, and we can arrange a proper burial at sea. Should it be a ceremony with the men standing by?”
Fedorov thought for a moment. He wanted to keep the discovery of Lenkov’s legs quiet, to still the rumor mill that was already troubling the ship. But the thought of just summarily dumping Lenkov overboard like so much trash was distasteful. The man deserved more than that.
“Yes, Doctor,” he said. “Arrange it and inform the bridge ten minutes before you begin. Either I or the Admiral will have some words for the crew over the P.A. system. Lenkov sailed with us, fought with us, and endured everything we have been through. He will be given his due respect.”
“Agreed,” said Zolkin. “And let us hope we have no further incidents like this. What could have caused it?”
“I’m still not certain, but it may have something to do with that thing Orlov found. We have it stowed in a radiation safe area, but its effects may not work that way.”
“Quite a little bag of wizards tools we’re collecting here, Fedorov. First the control rods, now this!”
Fedorov nodded. “That line out there is a little troubling,” he said, thumbing the hatch. “What’s going on with the men?”
“Nothing serious. Oh, there were a few bruised shins from the engineering section, a cut thumb, and the rest just seem to be complaining they can’t sleep well. And several have complained about hearing something. I asked what it was, but they had no real answer for me.”
“Who were these men?”
“Tomilov for one…. And Sorokin.”
“They’re both assigned to the missile bays, yes?”
“Ask Orlov. I just pass out the aspirin and sedatives, and take care of men who end up in two places at once when the world can’t decide where they belong. This is very strange, Fedorov. I hope you get to the bottom of it. But do be careful.”
“I will, Doctor, carry on, and thank you. I know this must be hard on you as well.”
“I can’t say it’s all in a day’s work, but I’ll manage.” Zolkin smiled.
Fedorov was out past the line of waiting crewmen, talking briefly with the men there, and then on the way to the bridge to report to Volsky.
“Things are adding up now, sir,” he said. “But I haven’t decided what we should do about it. If this sound is associated with a time breach, as Troyak’s report seems to suggest, then its emergence here is most alarming. I’m beginning to suspect that object may be responsible for destabilizing the ship’s position in time. The fact that several men are now reporting they hear or feel this deep sound, as Troyak calls it, is not something we can ignore.”
“What do you suggest we do, Fedorov?”
“We’re well out to sea,” he started, thinking. “I once considered dropping that thing from the KA-40 into the Qatarra Depression, but held on to it to see what we could learn. Dobrynin gave it a good inspection. He does not think it is a natural object. He thinks it was machined, which made me all the more curious about it.”
“Machined? By who?”
“We don’t know, but the level of technology required to achieve the properties he observed was very high. It could not be from this era.”
“Then you believe this thing came from the future? Our Future?”
“Dobrynin says we might create something like this in 2021, so it must be from some future time, possibly even beyond those years. Remember, time goes both directions. We arrogantly believe there is nothing after our own time until we live it, but the future is as real as this past, or at least I think it is.”
“You don’t sound all that convinced,” said Volsky. “And what we may have seen of the time beyond our own was not very pleasant.”
“Miss Fairchild strongly indicated they believed that future time was attempting to contact them.”
“Yes,” said Volsky, “and sending them warnings about this ship! What do they know that we don’t know, Fedorov. This is what I wonder now. I think you were going to suggest that we throw that object Orlov found over the side. Yes?”
“Well, these strange effects associated with it are putting us all in grave danger,” said Fedorov. “Lenkov got the worst of it, and I must think now to the safety of this ship and crew. If that object is affecting our stability in time, then we might continue to phase, and that could happen on a quiet night at sea, or right in the middle of a battle. Suppose it gets worse? Suppose the entire ship moves again?”
“We’d be leaving Tovey high and dry here,” said Volsky, “and then this history would take its course as it might have without our meddling. Didn’t you say yourself that it may be something we do here that causes this great doom the Fairchild lady was speaking of?”
“Or something we fail to do…” Fedorov was deep in thought. “That’s the dilemma, sir. We could throw that thing overboard, and it would most likely sink to the bottom of the sea. Unless we get to an abyssal trench, it might be discovered again one day, and who knows how long it would still remain active, and cause these strange time aberrations?”
“A little like contemplating throwing radioactive waste into the ocean,” said Volsky. “Well, the Japanese didn’t worry much about that after the Fukushima disaster. Out of sight, out of mind, Fedorov. Nobody knows what that contamination really did to the sea, or the coastlines all around it.”
“This is why I hesitate to simply throw it over the side, but then I think that decision may be wrong as well. It’s maddening.”
&nbs
p; “But yet we must choose,” said Volsky. “Few men have the privilege of knowing what the consequences of their actions may be when they must make a choice. We at least had a peek at that when we shifted to the future, and the world we see here now is also the result of our choices in the past. I do not think we can sit on the fence here. We must decide. I could make this decision now on my own, but I ask your opinion. What should we do?”
Fedorov hesitated, but he knew there was nothing to do but choose one course or another. He could think of no reason to keep that object aboard the ship. What good would it do them? He already suspected it had caused grievous harm here… then he remembered what Dobrynin had said about his attempt to localize the sound.
“One more thing, Admiral. Chief Dobrynin said he tried to find the source of this sound, but could not localize it. He wanted to get out into a boat and listen—away from the ship. I wonder if we could try that?”
“You mean put that thing in a launch and tow it—get it off the ship while still keeping it under our control? I see what you are thinking now.”
“That may not work, Admiral. Its effects could have a very wide radius. Remember, it may have helped open that breach that brought Brigadier Kinlan’s troops here to this time, and that force was spread over many kilometers.”
“So what then? You propose to just send someone out in a launch with it?”
Fedorov shook his head, realizing he was being foolish. “No sir, you are correct. I’ve been stubbornly holding on to that thing, though I don’t really know why. Now I think we must put the ship and crew first. Let us dispose of it, in the deepest water we can find out here, and soon. We should be approaching the Peake Deep. That is a small trough or depression on our present heading. The water there is the deepest in this region, over 4000 fathoms.”
“Deep enough,” said Volsky. “Very well. Then it is decided. I will rely on you to take care of this matter. Please let me know when it is done. Then, once the ship has sailed on, we will see if Tasarov and Dobrynin can still hear this thing.”
Paradox Hour Page 20