“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 change, 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.”
“In what way?”
“His authority is good for nothing here, but in 2021, he still has considerable clout. I thought about trying to use the stairway at Ilanskiy for this, but it’s of limited use. Even though the Naval Armory is right there at Kansk, and just south of Ilanskiy, a Moskit II weighs over six tons. There would be no way to use that old stairway.”
“You’re keeping me in suspense. What is this all about?”
“You said it yourself, just a minute ago. How many missiles will I have left by the time I conclude these affairs? I’ll need power if I am to enforce my will in the post war world, and yes, I’ll probably have to face down the Americans.”
“That did not go so well in 1945,” said Fedorov. “And you even had the Admiral Golovko and Orlan with you.”
“True, but now I have Kazan. That boat is worth more than both those other ships.”
“That’s a pretty bold conclusion to jump to. We haven’t reached any decision here yet, and Volsky and Gromyko will both have to weigh in on anything we present to them.”