“Indeed? How very strange. You realize what this means? If that is the case, then the British must have known…. Why, they must have known that Kirov would go missing in the Norwegian Sea—but how?”
“Now we get to the interesting part,” said Fedorov. “Fairchild claims they received messages while at sea. They were cryptic at first, and they came in over a series of time—intended to establish credibility on the part of the sender. One predicted the events of 9/11 for example. Another was data from the stock market received well before the given day, and the numbers tumbled into position when that day arrived—exactly.”
“Interesting. I suppose that’s just a bit like our telling these people here what they were about to do next.”
“Yes,” said Fedorov. “At least in the beginning. Now this war is so skewed that I can’t easily predict anything that might happen next.”
“Alright, Fairchild is a member of the Watch, and she gets messages from the future.”
“Correct—about us. In fact, they were warnings—beware a ship, beware Kirov. Then those future voices go silent.”
“Very dramatic,” said Karpov. “So now you think Kamenski may have been sent back somehow to reinforce that point. That’s the essence of his beef—beware Kirov.” He waved his hands in a mocking way. “And what I think this comes down to in the end is quite something else—beware Karpov. Isn’t that what Kamenski is really saying? After all, the ship is just a hunk of steel and other exotic materials. Without me, or someone else at the helm, it just sits there.”
“I suppose you have a point with that.”
“Of course I do. If you or Volsky were in command here, would Kamenski be all in a tither about it? No.”
“I would not be so sure about that,” said Fedorov. “After all, Volsky was in command all through the operations in the Med, and I was Captain as well. You were not in charge the first time we hit the Pacific. It wasn’t until you displaced after the Demon volcano that things got really warped.”
“Yes, and you and Volsky had to come chasing after me and spoil things. Did Kamenski put you up to that?”
“It was my doing—I’ll admit it. I convinced the Admiral that we had to intervene. But I did consult Kamenski, and he came with us on Kazan the first time.”
“Riding shotgun,” said Karpov. “Alright, what is this great doom Kamenski is worried about? Are we going to hatch another plan here to try and save the world? You saw how that worked out at Ilanskiy.”
“You heard the Admiral. Kamenski is convinced our contamination of the timeline here will be fatal if we remain. He wants all of us to return to our own time—you, me, the ship, Volsky on Kazan, Fairchild on Argos Fire, that Japanese destroyer, and all the rest. We must remove any contaminate from this meridian, or face the consequences.”
“What consequences? What did Kamenski say would happen?”
“I’m not certain. Volsky said he could feel it, almost like a man who senses the impending edge of an event that has not yet come to pass. But we should already know the danger we pose here. We both faced it once already—Paradox.”
“Yes,” said Karpov. “That was somewhat harrowing, but as you can see, the world did not end. Here we sit, Fedorov.”
“True, this world did not end, but it has been horribly twisted—Stalin dead, our homeland fragmented into three warring states, Ivan Volkov and Orenburg allied with Germany, Moscow burned. God only knows what else will happen before this war ends.”
“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?”