The veche are delighted. But I am far from happy. For none of this fills the void in me that is caused by the loss of my daughter Martha. Important as such changes are, I cannot settle until I have tracked Kolya down and found out my daughter’s fate.
I have been putting this off, but now I have to face it. I have delayed too long. Krasnogorsk beckons me – that one place where I know for certain Kolya is – even if it is at the risk of being trapped for ever in that timeline.
Yes, and I must go alone.
449
And so to Krasnogorsk, on that dreary afternoon in the winter of 1239.
I hide in the wood, well away from the treelined riverbank and wait for events to unfold, witnessing Nevsky arrive with Katerina and I, tied up like slaves and led on ropes, staggering, exhausted from the long journey, the four Russian agents who were posing as Nevsky’s druzhina – his bodyguard – following on horseback.
I watch the exchange between Nevsky and myself, then follow at a distance as they go to make their arranged meeting.
And there, in the flesh, is Kolya, waiting beside one of the huts, his two assistants and the cart nearby, on which there are two corpses.
And so the wheel turns once more and I see Kolya purchase Katerina and I from that cunt, Prince fucking Nevsky. I hear Kolya’s triumphant laughter peal out, and as he turns, witness the sheer malice in his eyes, and then the shock in mine as – for the first time – I see my own body on the cart, Katerina dead beside me.
It is an awful, awful feeling. Yet even as Nevsky hands the ends of the ropes to Kolya, I can see how the Russian agents look to each other, as if ashamed. And sudden understanding comes to me. They know. They know I am their Master now. So this …
This is betrayal.
Only even as I work this out, my other self has gone down on his knees before Katerina. ‘This is it,’ he says, his voice breaking. ‘Do you understand? This is the end, my love. They’ve won.’
And he vanishes, pulled back to Four-Oh by Zarah and Hecht.
And Kolya …? Kolya lets out an angry bellow and rushes towards Katerina.
But before he can travel half the distance to her, Zasyekin and Rakitin, two of the Russian agents, step out in front of her, swords drawn.
Kolya hesitates, uncertain suddenly just what is going on, and as he does, so another of the Russians, Pavlusha, turns and, taking a gun from his belt – a staritskii, I note – orders Nevsky to get down from his horse.
There is a sudden flicker in the sky, like lightning, only the sky is clear and blue. A moment later there is a great crackling noise, like over-amplified static. It seems almost natural, but the hairs on my neck bristle, knowing what it is. The timeline is drawing to its close. It is, in a very real sense, beginning to break up.
Nevsky, not recognising what Pavlusha is pointing at him, asks angrily what the fuck they think they are doing.
‘Get off your horse!’ Pavlusha repeats threateningly, and to let Nevsky know what the power of the weapon in his hand is, lets off a bolt past his ear, setting the pines behind him on fire.
Nevsky yelps with fear, his face changing almost comically at this demonstration. Panicked, he scrambles down off his horse.
But Kolya isn’t done. ‘Give me the woman!’ he orders, making to push past Zasyekin, but Zasyekin isn’t having any of it. He pushes Kolya away, then places the point of his sword against his chest.
‘Back off, old man!’
Thus far I have held back, waiting to see what happens, but now I step out, drawing my own laser – a spica – as I come into view.
‘You took your time,’ Zasyekin says, with a weary familiarity. ‘Put the pendant on her and let’s get out of here. Can’t you see what’s happening?’
And as he says this, so, suddenly, there are two of me, our words just slightly out of phase. In fact, there seems to be two of everyone at that moment with just the slightest differences in their movements and their positions, showing how this timeline is splitting into two very distinct possible alternatives.
I glance to my side and see myself looking back at me. But in the very next instant I am singular again, the whole scene back to normal.
Nevsky looks petrified. Even Kolya looks worried.
‘Come on!’ Zasyekin yells, only there is a distinct echo to his words, and, at the same time there are whispers of other words, sudden ghostly images of other movements – of Kolya attacking Zasyekin and being skewered, of Nevsky running from the clearing, and of Katerina turning toward me. And yet no one has moved.
Where the river was is suddenly a dry earth gulley. The trees are suddenly bare of leaves and blackened. Ash covers the floor of the forest. And then that vision is gone and four of each of them stand there, faintly overlapping, that slight difference in words and movements more exaggerated this time. It’s like four separate realities are running at one time, and then, as before, it snaps back to normal … or almost so, because now there are small, black, three-dimensional patches floating in the air, like parts of it have been erased. And at the edges of those small black holes, reality is fraying, turning slowly to mist and darkness.
Seeing me, Kolya shrieks and, moving back a pace, draws a big, snub-nosed state-of-the-art stun gun. It’s clear he means business. He knocks Zasyekin aside with a blow that fells the agent, then aims the gun at me, but even as the charge leaps from the mouth of the gun towards me, so I sense someone flicker briefly into existence just at the corner of my eye. I can’t make out who it is, but their warning cry comes a moment too late as the charge strikes me full in the chest.
There’s an instant of excruciating pain, and then Time seems to jump backwards, so that, unharmed, I see Kolya draw the big snub-nosed gun from his belt. But this time, even as Kolya knocks Zasyekin aside with his free hand, another person jumps into the clearing. It’s young Saratov, and while all the rest of us are hesitating, he takes action, firing his handgun three times, blowing Kolya clean off his feet!
I’m horrified. I wanted to capture Kolya alive, but now, it seems, he’s dead.
I turn to Saratov. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Getting you out of there. All of you.’
He throws Zasyekin a time pendant for Katerina, then turns back to me and throws two more to me. ‘Come on!’ he yells. ‘We’ve got less than two minutes …’
And, even as he says it, so the whole scene seems to twist weirdly, like it’s all been pulled inside-out through a huge, three-dimensional lens. The very air shudders, like it’s the skin of a drum that’s been struck. Our images duplicate briefly, eight faint overlapping images this time, including one of Kolya hauling himself up off the ground, stun gun in hand. There are endless whispers now – words said not here but in other timelines – but when it all comes together again, Kolya is lying there, perfectly still, his steaming blood pooling beneath him.
I hold the pendants up to Saratov, seeking an explanation. ‘I don’t understand …’
‘No time,’ he answers. ‘Just get to the cart and put the damn things on the corpses!’
I don’t hesitate. I just do what I’m told. Yet as I make to lift Katerina’s head, I gasp. She’s warm, despite the ugly grey pallor of her flesh, the small, dark circle of the chest-wound. So too is my other self. I put the pendants on and turn, but as I do so the scene appears to split, parts of it beginning to fragment.
The dark patches have spread, forming long ribbons of black emptiness. Three separate Nevskys can be seen, crawling away in different directions, their eyes staring madly, as if they’ve fallen into hell.
The air crackles with static and there are jumps, like reality has been cut into individual frames and edited back together badly. I know we have only seconds to go now, and as I look about me frantically, I see first Zasyekin and then Pavlusha vanish. Katerina, a look of utter surprise on her face, is next to go, and then Rakitin and the other Russian agent, Tyutchev. He looks to Saratov, who tells him to jump.
‘Jump now!’
Only he can
’t jump and leave the two on the cart.
‘Jump!’ Saratov pleads. ‘Please, Otto. You’ve done all you can for them. You’ve put the pendants on. There’s nothing else you can do. But if we lose you …’
Saratov’s words are overlaid with slight variations in how he said it. Moment by moment the scene is getting darker and stranger, with echoes and doubled images and strange ghostly variants, and everywhere those streaks of absolute blackness, like three-dimensional tears in the canvas of reality. And all the while it flickers and crackles like some very poor-quality copy, growing grainier instant by instant.
‘Now-now-now-now-now-now …’ echoes from Saratov’s throat, and then suddenly he splits and breaks and … shatters like a glass decoration dropped onto a hard stone floor.
I stand there, staring, the shock of it finally getting to me. And, putting my hand to my chest, I jump.
450
Into silence.
There is a moment’s total disorientation and then I realise I am lying on my back in a cool, white room. Katerina’s voice sounds gently nearby.
‘Are you awake, my love?’
I turn my head slowly, and see her, sat there in the chair beside the bed.
‘Were they … okay?’
Her smile reassures me. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Now rest. You need to rest.’
‘But I …’
She puts her hand gently but firmly on my shoulder, making sure I don’t rise.
‘It was close,’ she says, ‘but we all got back. All except Saratov …’
I swallow, my mouth dry, then ask. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Rest, Otto. Please. There’ll be time for explanations. But not now. Not yet.’
I lie back, trying to relax, only how can I? I keep seeing Saratov splinter into a thousand tiny, jagged pieces. And then I remember. ‘Kolya, he—’
An alarm begins to sound. Katerina is standing over me now, holding me down.
‘He would have killed you,’ she says. ‘In some, variant worlds, he did. It was you or him, you see. It always was. Only Saratov swung the balance. Not that he should ever have been there. He shouldn’t even have existed.’
‘What do you mean?’
But even as she shapes her lips to answer, so others arrive, medical staff from Moscow Central and I hear and feel the hiss of a hypo-dart as they inject it into my arm.
Katerina meets my eyes, a sudden sadness in her own. ‘Later, Otto. When they’ve made you whole again.’
451
They sent them in again, back to Himki, to be caught by him and shot and drugged once more. In a loop, in an awful bloody loop. Them? Katerina and I. Brought back from the ragged, tail-end of Time and ‘cleaned up’ and sent back in again, their memories of it erased. Round and round and round again. For ever. Otherwise it would never have worked, whatever Phil reckoned. Awful. Bloody awful. But here I am, alive. Thanks to Saratov.
He left us a file, explaining it.
‘You had to believe you were dead, Otto, or you would never have gone in that far, never found out what was happening.’
‘Which was?’
Katerina fills in the gaps.
‘Kolya wanted the two of us who were outside the loop. That’s what the exchange with Nevsky was about. Because he knew you’d worked it out. That you’d somehow found a way to survive his original trap. Only he got it wrong. He didn’t understand the sequence of it. He saw it only from his viewpoint. That’s why it surprised him when you were pulled out, because he didn’t believe you would ever leave me there. He wasn’t expecting that. Only you were still there.’
‘Hold on,’ I say, confused. ‘I still don’t understand the need for the exchange.’
‘He meant to kill us and leave us there, time-dead, irrecoverable, while the others – our drugged selves – would become Nevsky’s playthings. He had told Nevsky how to remove the focus from your chest without killing you. Not that Nevsky would have cared if you died or not. It was me he wanted.’
‘Then Nevsky knew?’
‘Who knows? He believed you were a sorcerer, certainly. A rival to Kolya.’
‘I see.’
And I do. Because we’d have been doubly dead, even if we’d both lived in Nevsky’s service for a hundred years. Dead at Krasnogorsk and dead in Moscow, or wherever else Nevsky chose to keep us: Katerina in his bed and I in his cells. In torment. Utter torment. Only Saratov intervened. Swung the balance.
I frown. ‘You said something earlier … about him not even existing.’
Katerina is very quiet, then, softly, she says: ‘He was our son, Otto. The child we lost. The one Kolya took from us. Only …’
‘Only what?’
‘Because it’s impossible,’ she says. ‘That isn’t how Time works. Unless …’ Katerina meets my eyes. ‘It’s changed, Otto. You and I changed it, when we met. That’s part of the main trunk now, Otto. Folded back upon itself. Defying the normal flow of time.’
So all of the branches come off of that, I think. All of the secondary worlds, we’re in them all, now.
Hundreds of Ottos and Katerinas, our love multiplied over a thousand worlds in a thousand variations. No wonder one of him survived. Sergei Ilya Saratov. Our son.
And I shed a tear, for my only son, who sacrificed himself so that I – Otto – might live. Yes, and how different is that from Kolya and his ‘son’ Reichenau?
Only I’m not satisfied with those explanations. It might be what had happened, only it doesn’t fit with what I know of Kolya. After all, remember what Schikaneder said about Kolya being ‘the ultimate control freak’? Why then would he allow himself not to be in control at the end, at Krasnogorsk? His surprise – which I think was feigned – is not like him at all.
Alone, I tour all of those places where I know Kolya has been, finding them all abandoned, not a trace of any ‘brothers’ anywhere.
Kolya, it seems, has effectively been erased from Time, a ‘fact’ confirmed by Old Schnorr, who reports that there’s now not a single instance of Kolya’s face in Time.
My last port of call is the underground fortress just outside St Petersburg, back in Catherine’s era.
I go inside and walk about the abandoned spacecraft, and for once it sets me thinking.
So was that it? Was Kolya so easy to destroy? Or did we miss something? After all, he was so skilful elsewhere So careful. So maybe we didn’t get him after all. Maybe the Kolya my non-existent son destroyed at Krasnogorsk was equally non-existent. One of many Kolyas, perhaps, or a clone, or … and I keep thinking this … that there was another spaceship somewhere else. Not any place where we would find it. Not in a million years. And this? A ‘red herring’, as they used to call it. Carefully crafted to throw us off the scent.
Only that’s not satisfactory either, because – as several of my experts have pointed out to me – it would be virtually impossible for Kolya to extricate just his genetic line, because it interacts – and is constantly mixed up with – the genetic material of endless other families through the wives and mothers of his ancestors. To remove himself he would have to take the whole damn human race with him, and he clearly hasn’t done that.
And yet his genetic forebears have all vanished from Time. Have been erased, just as if they’d never been.
Leaves from a tree.
Is it possible, then, that, through chance, we have managed to achieve the eradication of his genetic line? In killing him at Krasnogorsk, have I somehow killed all his ‘brothers’ too?
Perhaps. Only I’m far from happy with that explanation. It doesn’t smell right.
I sniff the air. Where are you, you bastard? Where the fuck are you hiding away?
452
I walk the empty corridors of the craft, stand on its untenanted bridge, and recognise that there are no clues here. Or none that I would recognise as such. And so I return, back to Moscow Central, where news awaits me.
They have located the jump-in point into the world in which I was trapped. The altern
ate 1984 New York. From jumping into it from Moscow Central, we have created a doorway to it from our platform. Which means I can jump back in there, any time I want, knowing that I can jump straight out of there again.
‘Well?’ I ask, looking about me at the others. ‘Do I go in again?’
It seems I shall. But first I warn them to maintain a state of high alert. Just in case my instincts prove correct and Kolya’s tricked us somehow. Because now, more than ever, we need to be vigilant. Now that we’re so close.
453
And so I go back, to New York City in the first days of the presidency of Philip Kindred Dick, to try and unearth the truth of what happened there, and why Kolya chose to strand me there of all places.
Because he must have had a reason. Kolya never acts without a reason.
Only this time I’m prepared. I’ve hired an apartment directly across from the one I was dumped into, from which I can watch myself and witness all the comings and goings.
Only I need to be much closer than that. Which is why I find myself, on that first night of exile, there in the apartment, standing over myself in the half dark, conscious of how vulnerable I was, how broken. I have cried myself to sleep and now I lie there, facing the wall, like one of the dead.
Lost.
For a time I sit there, across from myself, watching him, aware of the great gulf that separates my selves, a distance so immeasurable it makes the stars seem packed within the vacuum they call Space.
To have lost it all. Yes, I remember how that felt. Remember the pain, the sheer desolation, the fear …
I turn, thinking I hear a noise, but it’s only the wind.
I go to the window and look out, the view familiar from the time I spent here before. It makes me think of how much I have experienced since those days. How much has changed. And, thinking that, it makes me think of something else. Turning back, I quickly search the room.
And smile.
There’s no gun here. No box full of money. All of those things that helped me, first time out, are missing. Which means that I’m going to have to bring them in.
The Master of Time Page 31