1943 (Kirov Series Book 27)

by John Schettler

  “Yet you and I have gone over this time and again. I thought we had agreed that our only course was to win here—set things right with force of arms, not some arcane magic worked out on that back stairway at Ilanskiy. Now Volsky rises from the dead with another of these trumped-up crusades, this time spawned by Kamenski.”

  “Well,” said Fedorov, “what if our theory is correct? What if Kamenski is from a time beyond our own? From that perspective, he could have seen the outcome of all these events.”

  “Then why the cloak and dagger?” Karpov waved his hand. “Why all the melodrama? Why doesn’t the man just come out and make things plain?”

  “Who knows? Maybe that would even make things worse. After all, we faced the same dilemma ourselves when we appeared here. Once the locals came to believe who we really were, they naturally wanted to learn what we know.”

  “Yes,” said Karpov. “Who could resist looking into a magic mirror that would show him the future?”

  “Correct,” said Fedorov. “We held a piece of that mirror, though our vision was far from complete. In many ways, Ilanskiy was also a way to see that future, and Sergei Kirov acted as he did because he went up those stairs to see Stalin’s world.”

  “So which one would you prefer to live in, Fedorov? What do you think will happen here if we all take a bow and remove ourselves from this time? Is this world going to transform itself back into the one that led to the building of this ship?”

  “Who could know that?”

  “You seem to think Kamenski does. He’s so insistent that we do this, and your little theory on his true point of origins cements your belief in the man. Now you want to use that like a whip to compel me to do as the Director suggests, and if I don’t agree, Volsky is out there on Kazan. Well, we saw how that went down before in 1908. Do you honestly think I’ll let that goddamned sub get anywhere near this ship now?”

  “But sir… How can you dismiss Kamenski’s warning? How can we dismiss the warning Fairchild reported—from our own future?”

  “Yes, yes, very cryptic. Beware a ship… beware Kirov. Well, Mister Fedorov, the first part of that warning might obviously be aimed at us, but the second part might refer to Sergei Kirov himself—the man, not this ship. We came to that same conclusion ourselves, didn’t we, only we both lost our nerve and could not bring ourselves to kill the man in 1908. That would have certainly reset the pieces on the board. Yes?”

  “Didn’t you do that for selfish reasons?” Fedorov accused. “You want to carve out your own little empire here, and all those ambitions are thinly masked by a veil you’ve taken from Mother Rodina—all this talk of defending the homeland and taking back what is rightfully ours. That’s why you’ve been hounding the Japanese, correct?”

  “And why not? God cast Satan into hell, and so he decided to get as comfortable there as he could. What do you think will happen if we do as Volsky wants? Let’s assume I kiss the two of you on the cheek and we form a nice little alliance here. We have no way of knowing whether these control rods will take us forward, but for the sake of discussion, let’s assume they do. We get Kirov and Kazan back to 2021. How does Argos Fire get there?”

  “They have the means,” said Fedorov without disclosing anything more.

  “Very well, what about all your friends in the desert that have been Rommel’s bane these last few years?”

  That got Fedorov, as he did not know all the details of what had happened at Tobruk. Karpov saw him hesitate, and went on. He already knew about the strange event at Tobruk. Tyrenkov’s network was very good, but he continued.

  “Assume all those toy soldiers get put back in the box. As for Takami, I’ll find that damn ship and simply blow it to hell. Then all we have to do is find the replenishment convoy ships and wire them up for a shift to 2021. Yes?”

  “It would probably be better to simply destroy them all,” Fedorov put in. “and take the crews aboard our ships.”

  “Alright, now comes the clincher. How in God’s name do we get Ivan Volkov to go along with our little plan? Oh, excuse me, Mister General Secretary, but we’ve a ticket for you on the next plane to 2021? You see how thorny this rose is?” Karpov smiled. “Don’t you see how fruitless and futile Kamenski’s plan is?”

  Fedorov was silent. When it was only Kirov and Kazan, the task they had before them seemed a doable thing. Now Karpov had laid out the cold logic of it all. Even if they could remove Takami and Kinlan and all the other ships, there was still Ivan Volkov to deal with. Karpov pressed his advantage.

  “We leave, and then Volkov rules the roost. You’re already worried that the Allies could still lose this war. Well, if they do, it won’t be here in the Pacific. Japan loses here whether or not I beat them senseless. The American Navy will not be defeated, not unless the Axis finds a way to shut down US production sites. No, if the Allies lose, it will be because Russia is defeated, and right now, this very minute, Ivan Volkov is doing everything in his power to see that that happens. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our little club, you, me, and Volsky, are the only real counterfoil to Volkov’s tampering here. If we leave, let me tell you what is likely to happen. Sergei Kirov has managed to hold on this long, but Volgograd will fall soon, and the Soviet Winter Offensive of 1942-43 has already run out of steam. This year the Germans go for Leningrad.”

  “I’ll admit I hadn’t thought about all of this,” said Fedorov. “But Kamenski might be able to sort it through—once we get home.”

  “No, Fedorov, he won’t, because home may not even be there from what I’ve already seen. Yes, I’ll let you in on a little secret. As you know, that stairway at Ilanskiy goes both ways. Well I took a little stroll one day—and I went up instead of down. In fact, I got back to 2021 just in time to see the show, like a man slipping into the theater after the movie has already started. You know what I saw from the upper landing of that stairway—a mushroom cloud over Kansk.”

  Karpov let that sit there, and neither man spoke for a good long while. Then he inclined his head and continued. “Let me tell you a little joke from that American comedian: ‘A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs.’ Well Fedorov, we can get all our chickens lined up here, but you’ve forgotten one of the eggs. You see, Kamenski aside, you and Volsky haven’t really thought any of this through—but I have. I ran all this through the mill long ago, before I made my decision to stay here and fight. But giving you the benefit of every doubt, suppose we even hatch a mission to kidnap Ivan Volkov and get him home with us, or kill him instead. There’s still one egg that’s fallen from the nest, and you have no idea where it is—Orlov.”

  Part XII

  As You Like It

  “All the world’s a stage,

  And all the men and women merely players;

  They have their exits and their entrances,

  And one man in his time plays many parts...”

  — William Shakespeare: As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII

  Chapter 34

  Orlov… Where the hell was Orlov, thought Fedorov? One moment he’s right in front of me on that staircase, the next moment he’s gone. Why? Where did he go? I just haven’t had time to try and sleuth that all out in the history. It was only sheer luck that I stumbled upon that journal entry he wrote that so clearly gave me a time and place for him. To do that again, I would at least need a better vantage point on the history. I won’t be likely to turn up anything here in the 1940s—unless he reappears here and makes his presence known somehow. I’m relying on Tyrenkov for that.

  Think!

  “If Orlov did appear somewhere, it would have to be beyond the year 1908, because we were going up the stairway when he vanished.”

  “Logical enough,” said Karpov.

  “Alright… We also know that there seems to be linkage to your point of origin when shifting through a fissure like that. I don
’t know how it works, but perhaps you still harbor some residue, or even a vibration on the quantum level that associates you with a given period in time. All I know is that every time I traveled that stairway, I was returned to the time and place I was before. That’s how I got back here safe and sound, along with Troyak and all the Marines I had with me.”

  “But not Orlov,” said Karpov. “Why is he an exception to the rule? I suppose it doesn’t surprise me on one level. Orlov was a loose cannon.”

  “Yet he would get somewhere,” said Fedorov. “In fact, he should have reached the top of that stairway—the upper landing on the 2nd floor, but perhaps at a different time.”

  “He hasn’t shown up since you arrived,” said Karpov. “I’ve had men posted there round the clock, and my brother has ringed that inn with three concentric circles of security. Speaking of him, there’s another little fly in your ointment. How could both my brother and I shift forward together? I’m willing to bet that was never considered by this Kamenski either.”

  “I’m beginning to see your point,” said Fedorov, still thinking about Orlov. “What if he went much farther forward. We already know he can’t reach a time where he already exists, and he’s been here since the ship arrived in late July of 1941—the Second Coming.”

  He remembered trying to explain that to Tyrenkov when he asked him to keep his ear to the ground for any sign of Orlov… this particular fissure through time has been very consistent. The connection it makes to 1908 has persisted over decades. Orlov was going up the stairs, and any movement in that direction has always produced a movement forward in time. Who knows where he may end up, but I think it will have to be a time after the arrival of our ship, and after the time we vanished over the hypocenter of Tunguska...

  “And as I told you, Orlov remembers the first arrival as well. I asked Tyrenkov to use his intelligence network to look for him. Any luck with that?”

  “Not yet,” said Karpov. “This argues that he’s ahead of us in the chronology, correct?”

  “That would be my best guess,” said Fedorov. “But where? We won’t be able to discover anything about his whereabouts from here if that is the case. Everybody leaves an impression on history—everybody. The record glorifies some, deprecates others, but we all leave a mark somewhere. To search for evidence of his existence and whereabouts, we would have to reach a time beyond the one where he arrives. That is, at least, one more argument for moving forward now, and not remaining here.”

  “Perhaps,” said Karpov. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Orlov just yet. As you say, he’ll blunder in sometime, and probably fall right into my security on that upper landing one of these days. Forget about him. We’ll eventually apprehend him, but that still won’t solve all our other problems, getting everyone else forward with us, including Ivan Volkov.”

  “No… I suppose it won’t.”

  “So you see, trying to run off on another wild bear hunt for Orlov is yesterday’s news, Fedorov. We’ve already done that, and trying to do it again won’t bag us Volkov. Frankly, the only way we’ll get to him will be in the here and now. He’s the real threat. Mark my words. Tyrenkov has already discovered that he is passing plans for advanced aircraft designs to the Japanese, including assistance for their Okha Rocket program. He knows the entire future, at least as it was once written. So he knows how and why Japan loses. What if he starts assisting other weapons programs? What if he tries to give Tojo, or God forbid, Adolph Hitler, the bomb?”

  “I see your point,” said Fedorov. “We could still try to get to him by other means.”

  “Ilanskiy? We’ve been over that. If we eliminate Volkov in 1908, assuming we could even find him there, then who knows what happens to this time line? With him gone, there’s no Orenburg Federation, and time would then have to reset everything here, millions of individual fate lines. It would bring everything down like the twin towers.”

  “We visualize that as utter chaos and catastrophe,” said Fedorov, “but it might not happen that way. If Mother Time was kind enough to allow us to keep our heads full of the things we’ve done here, we might simply wake up one morning and find ourselves in a completely different world, a different meridian of time, a different war.”

  “But not the one from your history books,” said Karpov. “We’re too far off course to ever get that back, particularly with Sergei Kirov doing what he did to Josef Stalin. You see, none of this matters. We can shuffle the deck any way we please here, have it any way you like it, and it will simply be a new arrangement of things, a different set of cards to play out—but play them out we must. You were so dead set on restoring things to accord with your history in the beginning, but that was just another poker hand, the same as this one.”

  “But it was the original time line,” said Fedorov.

  “Was it?” Karpov smiled. “A moment ago you told me that this Elena Fairchild was a member of the Watch, the group Admiral Tovey founded to look for us. Well now, that ship was right there in 2021, the same year and time line where we were when Kirov first sortied. In fact, it was headed for the Black Sea while I was in the Pacific fighting with Captain Tanner and the American 7th Fleet. So how could she be a member of the Watch, and getting predictions about 9/11? That group wasn’t founded until we shifted back.”

  Fedorov raised both eyebrows this time. “Well by that time we had already shifted back, and then returned to Vladivostok. So our history was already influenced by the things we did in the past on that first loop. Yes, Tovey did establish the Watch, and that had to be one of the effects that migrated forward.”

  “You’re saying that this Miss Fairchild was just minding her own business, herding her little oil tankers around for love and profit, and then one day she wakes up and realizes she is now a member of this nefarious group? She realizes that she is privy to everything we did in the past? That may be so, but I think otherwise. I’ll bet that if you asked her whether she was in this group on the day we sortied, she would affirm that. If so, that can mean only one thing: that meridian was already altered.”

  “What? But how? Who could have caused it?”

  “I don’t think our disappearance may have been the first instance of travel through time, it may be that we did all this before; perhaps many times before. Who can say?”

  “Then why don’t we remember those instances. You and I remember the first loop, and here we are in the second. If there was anything prior, why wouldn’t we remember it?”

  “Who knows, Fedorov? I could come up with many reasons. Perhaps the ship went back earlier, but did not survive. Dead men don’t have memories. It may be that someone else is responsible—someone else moving in time.”

  “That’s a rather ominous assumption.”

  “Possibly. All I’m saying is this. If the Watch existed before we first left Severomorsk, then it did so because that sortie was not the first. You can say that Fairchild just suddenly realizes she’s a Watchstander, but I think otherwise. So you see? If I’m correct, then the world we were living in wasn’t even the original history. All your books were already altered, even though you believed them to be the gospel truth. The deck had already been shuffled. That’s a little humbling, isn’t it? There we were, thinking we were the founding fathers for all these changes, and all the effort to set things right was for naught. What if that world was just one of many? What if this loop business has been going on for some time, and our recollection can only go back so far, perhaps one or two loops? After all, there’s only so much room in your head.”

  Fedorov did not quite know what to make of that. His theory may have been correct, but Karpov made a good point. Taking his view, it really didn’t matter what they did here. Things would resolve one way or another. Yet something in him still resisted the very presence of the ship and crew here, displaced in time, aliens, weeds blown in to infest the Devil’s Garden. Seeing things the way Karpov did seemed to resolve one of any responsibility for that. Karpov simply saw himself as one more agent of cha
nge, just like the Demon Volcano, or Krakatoa, or any of the other key players on this stage.

  Yes, all the world was a stage, and from Karpov’s view, you could do anything here. You could remake this world to fit any guise, just as you like it. Oh, he had his ambitions, like that soldier Shakespeare wrote of… “Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation, Even in the cannon’s mouth…” And I have taken many a strange oath myself, thought Fedorov.

  “So what will it be here?” he said at last. “What will we do? Volsky is out there, with Gromyko and Kazan. What do we tell them?”

  “That should be obvious,” said Karpov. “I have already shown you the futility of trying to gather up all our chess pieces, quit the game, and simply go home. What will we find there but yet another war? Here I keep this strange unspoken tryst with the Americans, only because they are the enemy of my enemy. Yet one day I must face them too. One day…”

  “You’ve already done that,” said Fedorov, “in 1945, and again in 2021. Yet you know if you use Kirov to help crush Japan, you will eventually face them again. You’ll get a wink and a nod after the war, but little thanks. MacArthur will want to set up shop in Japan and establish himself as the new Pacific Emperor here, and by the time all this gets around to that, another two long years, how many missiles will you have left?”

  “A very good point,” said Karpov. “But I have another little mission in mind myself, now that you mention it.”

  “A mission? What kind of scheme could you possibly be hatching now, Karpov?”

  “Nothing all that dangerous to these little people here—until the mission succeeds. In fact, now that Admiral Volsky is here, he could help out a good deal.”