Doppelganger (18 page)

Maeve rolled her eyes. “And just how do you propose to commandeer their ship, then move it in time to the desired point for this little salvage operation?”

“Alright, forget the submersible. Perhaps we could just borrow their divers.”

“And how do you get them there? When did this happen, Robert?”

“17th September, 1802. I did a good bit of research on this since Paul told us how he found that key. But she has a good point there, Paul. We can move you about easily enough, but divers?”

“Never mind that for now,” said Paul. “First I have to keep my appointment in the Azores. I’ll meet with them, propose these operations, and see what they say. That ship moved in time, and we still don’t really know how for sure. If they had some other means of pulling that off, I’d like to know about it, wouldn’t you, Maeve? After all, here we are trying to salvage this operation, and we’ve got these ships shifting into WWII! We need to get to the bottom of this, and if need be, to find a way to get to the bottom of San Nikolo Bay on a quiet night in 1802. It’s perfect! No one will see us, because it will all happen underwater. We find the Marbles using hand held radar gizmos, or night optics. Then we locate the Selene Horse and get that damn key. If it does secure another time rift, then I think I can tell you where it is. I copied those numbers I found on the shaft of the key, and I’ve done some checking. They’re map coordinates!” He smiled, a mischievous light in his eye.

* * *

The
longer they looked at the readings the more precarious the situation became. The Golem Module had clearly identified the initial Point of Divergence as emanating from the accident on July 28th, 2021, and involving both the Russian submarine
Orel
and the battlecruiser
Kirov
. While
Orel
was destroyed,
Kirov
was displaced in time by almost exactly 80 years. Yet the data stream now showed the ship’s position in time did not remain stable, and the damage it was causing to the integrity of the continuum was considerable every time it moved.

“I don’t understand how the ship is moving in each case,” said Paul. “A few of the displacements seem to be the obvious result of these massive explosive events, but there are others where that is not the case. Their second shift was also catalyzed by the use of nuclear weapons, and they end up moving slightly forward in time, into 1942. That’s when they wreak havoc with the British Operation Pedestal.”

“Some real oddities crop up there,” said Nordhausen, his eyes running over the Golem reports. “This one didn’t end with a bang, but a whisper. You’ll want to read these reports I’ve managed to pull out of the data stream. It seems they cut a deal with the British and were ready to accept internment at St. Helena, but they vanished.”

“That had to be another time shift,” said Paul. ‘This is what I mean. What catalyzed that shift? There was no reported explosion, not natural or manmade. Yet they turn up in the Timor Sea a day later, and there is no way they could have sailed from St. Helena to the Australian coast in that time.”

“Alright,” said Nordhausen, “they raise hell with the Japanese, yet the data shows a marked difference from the history when they arrive.”

“Yes, Yamamoto forsake the Midway operation in favor of a plan aimed at isolating Australia. The Japanese operation in the data was to strike at Darwin, and push further south from the Solomons. But the actions of this ship end up causing so much disruption to the Japanese plan that they fail to coordinate. The Americans produce another miracle victory north of the Solomons, and the Japanese carriers are busted up almost as badly as they would have been at Midway.”

“At least they did something right,” said Maeve, cringing at all these deviations in the history.

‘Well it seemed to set the war back on a normal course in the Pacific,” said Paul. “Then the ship moved forward again, and without any explosive event. Correct Robert?”

“Correct. I find nothing indicating they used nukes on the Japanese, and no natural event of any consequence near the action.”

“Goddammit,” Paul swore. “How are they moving?”

“The Russians clearly have something up their sleeve Paul,” said Maeve, “Robert did some digging and it looks like they were playing with time effects in the nuclear testing program.”

Paul stroked his chin, thinking. “It must have something to do with their reactors. That’s a nuclear propulsion system on
Kirov
—dual naval reactors. The energy driving these unassisted shifts has to be coming from that propulsion system. Robert, are you sure you haven’t missed anything?”

“I was very thorough,” said Nordhausen. “If the Russians did come up with a technology they could use in tandem with their nuclear propulsion system, then they’ve kept the secret well.”

“Alright…” Paul spread out a chart he had been drawing, with lines indicating the known movements in time they had postulated for the Russian ship. “The war starts revving up in the Pacific, and
Kirov
puts to sea,” he said. “It is involved in that big incident with the US 7th Fleet, and then vanishes again. This time we have an assist—the Demon Volcano. Where did they go?”

“1945,” said Nordhausen. “I’ve got variation data in the Kuriles very near the ship’s last reported position in 2021. They supported Russian operations there, then moved south and ran into the American Pacific Fleet. Then all hell breaks loose. First off, there is evidence that the ship did not move alone this time. I have data on at least two other vessels.”

“Most likely part of the battlegroup
Kirov
was operating with in 2021,” said Paul.

“My God,” said Maeve, clearly bothered. “Three ships now? What did they do?”

“Oh nothing much, they sunk an American aircraft carrier, and a battleship, and with a nuke. It pissed off Halsey and the Americans so bad that they bombed Vladivostok.”

Maeve looked at the ceiling, agonizing over the damage to the history. “That’s in the data stream?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Nordhausen.

“Then why don’t I know about it? That would be one of the most significant events in modern history.”

“Because they weren’t finished,” said Paul grimly. “Maybe you did know about it at one time, but then they continued to operate, and things changed again. Unless we were safe in a Nexus Point, we would have changed right along with that history.”

“You’re saying that as long as they remain a free radical in time, that the history cannot solidify?”

“Correct. Their actions in 1945 may have generated a Heisenberg Wave to migrate changes forward to our time, but it could have been swamped by a larger wave generated later. That nuke they used in 1945 moved them in time again.”

“All three ships?”

“No,” said Robert. “Two were reported sunk. Only
Kirov
moved.”

“Where?”

“To 1908.”

Maeve’s initial silence underscored the gravity of that development. “They went further back in time?”

“Apparently so,” said Robert. “And this is where we really get red lines all through the history module. The whole course of events begins to spin off in wild directions. There’s a big battle in the Tushima Strait near Oki Island that was reported as an engagement with a rogue Russian armored cruiser, but it re-starts the Russo-Japanese war, and this time the Japanese don’t settle so easily. They occupy all of the Kuriles, Sakhalin Island, and even invade and occupy Vladivostok. It’s a major variation in the history of the Pacific.”

“Of which I know nothing whatsoever,” said Maeve again.

“Because the Heisenberg Wave hasn’t reached us and finalized those events,” said Paul.

It was something right out of his Time Theory, but a principle they had seen in very real terms after their missions. Changes made in a past meridian would begin to migrate forward in time, but they could not finalize until the Nexus Point occupied by the initiator of those changes was terminated, eliminating any further possibility of revision. “This whole thing is still in play,” he explained. “The ship is still in the past, and has not returned to our time, as far as we know. So things are still riding the whirlwind they’ve created.”

“Then there’s a chance that none of this crap will ever happen?” said Nordhausen. “The Golem stream is picking this stuff up as if it were history.”

 “Because that is what the meridian will look like if the Heisenberg Wave
does
complete its work,” said Paul. “Remember, what happened during the
Bismarck
operation? We got all sorts of conflicting possible outcomes in the data stream. One version showed the British sinking
Bismarck
, another showed the ship making a safe return to Saint Nazaire in France. One showed
Bismarck
docked at Brest, and a fourth showed it turning out into the Atlantic to link up with a German oiler and raising hell for two months. The Golems were just indicating the most probable outcomes as a weight of opinion, yet they could reach no conclusion, because our operation was still underway, and we were in a safe Nexus Point here, still capable of changing things. That Russian ship is still out there somewhere, operating in time, and so these events cannot yet solidify to a certain outcome. ”

“Then the Heisenberg wave isn’t moving?”

“It is, but slowly. It moved forward to the 1940s, because the ship did as well. Now it’s stuck there, just like that ship, and only moving with the arrow of time, day by day. It could even dissipate when it strikes Paradox Time on July 28, 1941. This whole series of events could be re-written by the backwash.”

 “Thank god for that,” said Nordhausen, because the outcomes being reported are frightening deviations. Russia’s civil war never ends. The nation fragments into several warring states. Sergei Kirov finally consolidates power in Moscow and leads the Soviet State, and his chief rival jumped from the Reds to the White movement, assassinated Denikin, and founded a state being called the Orenburg Federation.”

“Who?” asked Maeve. “Was it Stalin?”

“Nope. That was one thing that bothered me. I could find no mention of the man of steel. Come to find out, he was killed in 1909—assassinated while in prison.”

“That’s a
huge
variation,” said Maeve.

“No argument there. Then the Orenburg Federation goes on to side with Nazi Germany in 1940, and Russia faces a war on two fronts.”

“Who led that federation?” Maeve looked almost pallid with shock.

“A man named Ivan Volkov—a real mystery figure in the history. He was active as early as 1909, and battled Kirov for control of the Bolshevik party until he was finally ousted. But the data on this man is very nebulous. I could find nothing on his parents or ancestors. And another name keeps popping up—from the Free Siberian State. I have data indicating he joins Sergei Kirov and leads the Siberians in the fight against Volkov.”

“Who?” Maeve sounded like she had caught someone in her library messing up the careful order of her books.

“A man named Karpov—Vladimir Karpov, but the Golem readings on him are somewhat obscure too. I’m focusing my research on the Siberian, but I can’t find any roots on this man either.”

“Show me,” said Maeve, the light of battle in her eyes.

Part VI

The Mirror

“I saw, not with the eyes of the body, but with those of the mind, my own figure coming toward me … As soon as I shook myself out of this dream, the figure had entirely disappeared.”

―
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Chapter 16

Karpov
could sense that something was wrong, even as Tasarov and Dobrynin had heard the impending edge of Paradox in that deep, unaccountable sound, though he knew nothing about that. It was not a sound for him, but something deeper. It was not even a vibration, but more a sense that he was being watched, his every move noted and marked, and the eyes were jealous and vengeful.

He could not shake this uncomfortable feeling. Something was taking account of him, measuring, considering, musing on his fate. Was it Kymchek? He was saved from the meaty fists of Grilikov, and now adorned in his new General’s uniform, but Karpov knew he was still a dangerous and scheming man. Is that what tickled his mind with this odd sensation of alarm? No. Kymchek could be managed, controlled, leashed and ridden. And no single man like that could account for this strange mood that had fallen over him, a feeling that his every move was being watched—not just now, but every step he had ever taken in the past, and every choice he might make in the future as well. It was most disconcerting, and it did nothing to calm his volatile temperament.

Was it his own face in the mirror, the face that seemed to be haunting him every time he looked into that glass? Was it that old, guilt ridden mouse of a man he had once been, his weaker self, returning to plague him in this trying time? It was most unnerving, so much so that he had abandoned his personal headquarters there at Ilanskiy, and moved back aboard the fleet flagship. It was a very fateful decision.

The massive shape of
Tunguska
hovered in the sky, high above the tiny hamlet of Ilanskiy, tethered to a temporary mooring pole augmented by ground anchors. Beyond this, both
Irkutsk
and
Novosibirsk,
a pair of sturdy battleships
,
rode at elevation, and
Abakan
circled on a wide perimeter patrol, along with
Talmenka
. Karpov was taking no chances that he would be surprised by Volkov’s fleet, though he did not think the man would be so foolish as to sortie here again.

Yet our losses were heavy in that last engagement, he thought, damn near half our fleet.
Angara
will be repaired within the week, and that gives me six airships to work with. Kolchak is already making inquiries, and he’ll soon want his two battleships back. The need to cluster the fleet here means I have nothing on the Ob River line watching Volkov’s troops. It will be another month before my second T-Class airship can join
Tunguska
, but when that ship is ready, we will be in a better position. What to call it?