“Four votes? That won’t do,” said Karpov. “Who would break the tie, my brother?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself—but first, tell me what you’re scheming on.”
“Missiles, Fedorov, missiles. I’ll be needing refills soon. That little scrap I had with the Takami forced me to expend thirteen SSMs, and a good many SAMs. I may have to use more to sink that damn ship, and I want to replenish.”
“But that’s impossible,” said Fedorov. “This is a come as you are party, Karpov…. Unless… Are you thinking to get more missiles from Kazan?”
“You and Volsky did that before, yes?”
“I don’t think Gromyko will be so generous this time. He’s been given a mission here as well, and one you may not like if we can’t reach an agreement.”
“Then I have another idea,” said Karpov. “First we’ll come to some accord here. Surely Volsky and Gromyko will understand what we’ve just determined. Trying to purge the contamination now is simply impossible. We have no other choice but to remain here, work our will upon this war, and bend it to an outcome that we can all agree upon as favorable.”
“Favorable for who? Right now, we may see Tojo, Hitler and Volkov as the enemies we must defeat, but something tells me that if we do accomplish that, then you’ll be lining up new enemies.”
“Only if they make an enemy of me,” said Karpov. “As to my idea, let me run it by you and see what you think.”
Chapter 35
“I want to see if I can retrieve more missiles from our own future.”
“What? With Kirov? You were planning a shift?”
“No, not with Kirov. I can’t take a risk like that. You yourself know that. Isn’t this what Kamenski is so worried about? He’s afraid the ship will shift again, not forward, but backwards to a time before its first arrival. He’s afraid it will start this whole paradox hour thing again and create this insoluble time loop. I suppose he has a point, but I’ve already told you that I could care less about that. The future can be damned as long as I have the present, and the thought that I could live it over and over again, indefinitely, remembering the events that transpire in each loop, is very appealing. What was that American movie where that happened? Ah—Groundhog Day.”
“Do you realize how incredibly selfish that attitude is?”
“Let’s not start leveling fingers, Fedorov. There’s plenty of blame to go around for all of us. In any case, I was thinking to try and get some men to 2021, load a replenishment ship, and then try and move it back here. I like what you said earlier about this affinity to one’s point of origin during these shifts. That gives me hope that this ship might get back here safe and sound, and laden with munitions and supplies, spare equipment, the works.”
“I see…. So you can continue ripping up the history here.”
“You mean continue rewriting that history. Remember, we’ll never put this puzzle back together again as it was. I thought you understood that. You yourself pointed out my dilemma. I’ll need power after this war ends—power to prevent the Americans from throwing their weight around as we both know they will. I’ve seen fit to be their ally here, but I want to be in a position where they cannot simply discard me and impose their will on the world.”
“Which is to say that you want to be sure we get the Cold War after this one ends.”
“If need be. I won’t be marginalized, Fedorov. Nor will I let them patronize me. When I’m finished here, I intend to reunite the Free Siberian State with Soviet Russia—yes, the Soviet Union will live again. Isn’t that the inherent imperative surrounding this ship? Kirov was born of that union. The Soviet State must arise to give birth to this ship. Can’t you see that my aims are very much aligned with yours? Only then might we see the wounds on the face of this history heal and reach a point where we might recognize it again. You see, we both really have similar goals. I just go about it by taking action, here and now. You want to sit there and think about it until your head spins. The world is still turning, Fedorov. It hasn’t come to an end. Each second that passes takes us to a future that we build, moment by moment. It may not be the one Kamenski might prefer, but it will arise. I can guarantee you that, because I intend to build it myself, just the way I like it. Let’s stop all this speculation and get out there and do something about it.”
The world was certainly still spinning, thought Fedorov. But which world were they really trying to mend now? One thing Karpov said earlier kept sticking in Fedorov’s head…. “I don’t think our disappearance may have been the first instance of travel through time.”
He thought about that, feeling deep down that it was true. No, it was more than a feeling. The more he thought about it, the more he came to believe it had to be the case. The evidence was right there before him, all along. First off, there was this strange Commander Wellings who appeared on HMS Rodney, and who later turned out to be an American physics professor, Paul Dorland. He knew that man had developed a detailed theory of time travel, chapter and verse, complete with a lexicon of terminology to explain it.
Then there was Kamenski…. Fedorov was already beginning to think he may not be native to the timeline in 2021, that he might even be a man from some future time. He was a Keyholder, that much is certain, and he claimed to have the Master Key, the one he left on the nightstand before he unaccountably vanished aboard Kirov.
The keys were the deepest part of this whole mystery—seven keys. Professor Dorland claimed that some had carefully machined serial numbers that corresponded to coordinates. That was why they had sought to save the Rodney, for that key had once been in the possession of Dorland himself. In fact, he claimed to find in on some odyssey involving the German battleship Bismarck.
So yes, there were other travelers in time. Kirov was not the first. And considering that these keys were all hidden away as they were, the question of who put them there leapt to the forefront. Who made them?
He had come to the conclusion that they were made in the future, yet the key they sought on the Rodney had been first found embedded in the base of the Selene Horse, an artifact of ancient Greek sculpture. Kamenski never really stated exactly how he came by the key he possessed. Fairchild told him the key that led her to Delphi had simply been delivered to her, and that she knew of at least one other key, though she could not say who possessed it.
Now he came to feel that all of Karpov’s assertions and suspicions were somehow wrapped up in the mystery of these keys, and connecting the dots in his mind, he suspected they all had something to do with the Tunguska Event. That impact was largely ignored around the time it occurred. It produced quivering lines on some seismic equipment, painted the night skies with eerie light as far away as London, and generated a few headlines in world newspapers, but little more was ever known of it until Leonid Kulik’s expedition in 1927, more than two decades later. There was much speculation and research done after that, yet none of it discovered that vortex they had run into aboard the Novosibirsk, at least not on the meridian I first came from, he thought.
It is very clear that this meridian is quite different, perhaps irretrievably different. He sighed, thinking that everyone seemed to be working at cross purposes. Fairchild seemed to be intent on ferreting out those other missing keys. In fact, the box she found at Delphi had clearly been engineered to hold all seven. Why? Was it meant that they should all be gathered there?