Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (27 page)

Turing
raised an eyebrow, proud to be so trusted, but also realizing what this must be
about. “I assume it pertains to the envelope you asked me to send?”

Tovey
smiled.

Chapter 24

“It
does indeed,” said Tovey. “I shared those photographs with
the Russians in a very private meeting recently, and I must tell you that they
were as flummoxed as we both were over the matter. Yet that was only half of
it. They pointedly admitted that the photographs were authentic.”

The
interval of silence harbored something quite profound, yet both men now seemed
to know that they were of the same mind. “Mister Turing,” said Tovey. “You made
a telling point when I last left you, suggesting that no one could have
anticipated or predicted the events depicted in those photographs, and that it
would therefore be a complete waste of time for us to consider the documents
you uncovered were part of some deliberate deception. It would be nonsensical.”

“Agreed,
sir.”

“Well,
this is precisely what the Russians believed, and more, their Admiral indicated
that those photographs depicted events that he personally lived through!”

“Yet
those dates are in the future,” said Turing.

“Quite
so, and this was leading to a very alarming conclusion.”

It was
that overwhelming question that he had run through his mind on the verse of
T.S. Eliot….
Oh, do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit.
This
brought him to the tour of the Russian ship.

“At
that point the Russians invited me to visit their ship, and what I will now
tell you must be held at the highest level of secrecy. No one else will know
it, and I mean no one—not the Admiralty, not even the Prime Minister…. The real
thunder comes now, Mister Turing. I was told that the photographs are
authentic, and when I discretely pointed out the obvious misdating on the
labels, I was told those dates were also accurate.” He let that stand,
scratching his nose uncomfortably, but Turing simply nodded.

“You do
not seemed surprised to hear that,” said Tovey.

“Oh, I
find it earthshaking, but I suppose I’ve had a good long while to consider the
matter. This echoes the very same logic I applied to the situation when I first
uncovered those files. If they were all fabrications, that led to one mystery,
as to why anyone would be producing such material. If, however, they were
authentic, dates and all, then we had hold of another cat by the tail, and a
rather ferocious one.”

“Well I
think it may have sunk its claws into the both of us,” said Tovey. “The
question now is how could this be possible? That was, of course, what the
Russians asked. They were very disturbed by those photographs. One, in
particular, was supposedly taken just after this Admiral Volsky and I had
concluded a meeting—the very same meeting referenced in those reports you found
in that box. Yet it was the date and time of the meeting that was truly
astounding. The man claimed it occurred on August 17, 1942.”

“Indeed…”

“Do you
take that with a grain of salt or are you inclined to believe such a
statement?”

This
was the heart of it, and Turing could see that Tovey was obviously leading him
to the front door on something here, so he leapt ahead and rang the bell.

“Admiral,
as impossible as it may sound, I must tell you that I
am
willing to take
this Russian Admiral at his word. Because I have already worked out the only
possible explanation for all of this, and I think you are about to confirm my
own judgment on the matter.”

“Is
that so?”

“Yes
sir. You see, for any of this to be true, the photographs, the reports, the
testimony of these Russian officers, one fact, and one fact only must also be
true, and that is that these men, and their ship, have come from another time—a
future time. It’s the only way this Russian Admiral could claim he met with you
in 1942. Yes?”

Tovey
smiled. “You have it exactly,” and he seemed very relieved, taking a deep
breath and exhaling slowly. “Now then… As to this ship I was invited to tour,
that was the icing on this little cake we’ve had in the oven. You will be amazed
at what I tell you next. I was shown things on that ship that boggle the mind.
I understand that you have designed some unusual equipment here to aid in your
decryption effort.”

“Yes,
we’ve developed what you might call an analog computer of sorts. That is, in
fact, what the German Enigma machine is. I’ve spent some time thinking in that
direction.”

“Your
Universal Turing Machine?” Tovey smiled.

“You
know about it?”

“I read
your paper on it shortly after we met. Very interesting work, Mister Turing.
Well now… and I mean no disrespect here, but it seems the Russians have taken
your work to heart. I was shown devices on that ship that make all our
computing machines look ridiculous. They use electronic machines to control
every aspect of their operations—navigation, radars, fire control for their
weapons, communications—all of it. While I cannot say I am up to speed on all
our latest technologies, I knew enough to realize I was seeing things that were
entirely beyond our present capabilities, things that would take us decades to
develop on our own. Well, these Russians told me flat out they had come from
the year 2021, a statement any man alive today would dismiss as pure malarkey. Stating
the impossible, is one thing. I suppose any man capable of telling a straight
faced lie could do so, and I’ve heard more than my fair share of tall tales
over the years. But seeing these devices, these incredible machines they have
on that ship, well, it was very convincing. In fact, assuming this ship had
come from some unseen future was the only thing that made sense.”

“I can
only imagine,” said Turing. “Perhaps you might arrange a little tour of that
ship for me as well. I would be most interested to see what you are describing
here.”

“I have
no doubt. It was all quite a revelation—truly life changing. Ever since that
ship turned up off Cape Farewell I have been haunted by the feeling that I knew
what it was, and now these men have confirmed that was so. Do you recall what
you said to me at our last meeting, that one of the envelopes in that box
revealed who the culprits were behind those photos and reports?”

“Envelope
nine,” said Turing quietly.

“Yes,
well these men confirmed that as well. It was you and I, Turing. We were the
ones who gathered that material together and stowed it away, and it was all
very hush hush. These men lived through those years, and everything in that box
is a testament to that fact. The only question they had for me was how we
possibly came by that material, here, in 1940, and well before any of those
events happened.”

“That
is certainly something quite frightening when I think about it,” said Turing.
“It is a real anomaly of the first order.”

“The
Russians thought the same thing.”

“And I
suppose they immediately wondered how that material could be in our possession,
sir.”

“They
did indeed. Have you given that any thought?”

“A good
deal of thought,” said Turing. “This may sound odd, but I have a favorite
watch. Why, it’s right here in my pocket, but a month or so ago it vanished. Of
course I simply thought I had misplaced it, and looked everywhere as one might,
but it was nowhere to be found. Then, as I was shuffling through that box to
select the photographs you asked me to deliver, there it was.”

“Your
watch?”

“Precisely!”

“In
that box? Are you sure you didn’t leave it there by chance?”

“I’m
quite certain that was not the case. It was like a missing tooth, and quite
gone, until that very day when you were last here. Yet how could it have hopped
out of my pocket and into that box—a box sealed off with thick masking tape,
and buried under so much dust that it looked like it had sat there undisturbed
for… well, for decades?”

“Quite
strange,” said Tovey.

“Eerily
so! An anomaly. That’s what I have come to call it. I’m a very meticulous man,
Admiral. Some say I can be a bit absent minded at times, but they have no idea
what is actually going on inside this noggin of mine. When I set my mind to
solving a problem, it becomes all consuming for me. So you will please believe
me when I say that I was able to work out the very last day when I could recall
having possession of this watch, as I remember using the stop-watch feature to
time the revolutions on my bicycle and plot out the mean time between incidents
of gear failure—the chain tends to slip after a good ride, and that was the day
I rode into town to do a bit of shopping. I even found the receipt from the
store, and so the date is quite certain.”

“I
see,” said Tovey, not exactly following what Turing was leading up to here.

“Yes, I
worked it all out, then noted the date on the receipt. The 12th of June, sir. That
was the day my watch went missing, and I cannot recall laying eyes on it again until
I found it by complete chance in that file box.”

“The
12th of June?” Tovey found himself searching his recollection for anything
significant that he could hang on that date, but it was all a blur. Thankfully
Turing had more clarity.

“Yes,
sir. That was the very day in June when we first receive the reports from HX-49
regarding that ship.” Turing raised his eyebrows, waiting for a reaction to
register on the Admiral’s face.

“You
mean to say you believe the appearance of that ship had something to do with…
Forgive me, Mister Turing, but I’m not quite sure I follow you.”

“I’m
not certain of it, Admiral, but facts are stubborn things. Isn’t that what the
American statesman John Adams asserted? Yes, stubborn things indeed. All I know
now is that my watch vanished the very same day that ship appeared, and it
ended up in that box—the box named for that very ship—the
Geronimo
file.”

Now
Tovey nodded, suddenly intrigued by Turing’s deduction.

“Very
astute reasoning,” he said. Might it be mere happenstance?”

“Possibly,
but the coincidence is somewhat unnerving.”

“And
what do you conclude from this?”

“A
possible answer as to how that box can now exist here—in 1940, and contain
evidence of things that have not yet transpired.”

“Things
that might never transpire,” Tovey put in. “The Russians were of that mind.
Those photographs clearly depicted our relationship as adversarial, and the
Russian Admiral confirmed that. The report you gave me of a meeting on Las
Palomas Island was supposedly arranged to work out a truce. Yet now, with their
appearance here in our time, they believe that none of those events will
occur.”

“Quite
amazing,” said Turing. “Well I find it very odd that my watch should turn up in
that box… as if I had put it there myself and forgotten about it, but I assure
you, that is not the case, at least not in this year. In fact, I’ve rummaged
about in that archive many times, and I have never stumbled across this file
box before. That in itself proves nothing, but I am beginning to suspect that
box turned up on that very same day, dust, cobwebs, and all.”

“What?
On June 12th?”

Turing
nodded in the affirmative.

“Well
that would be quite a little mystery, wouldn’t it? Yet I suppose no more
astounding than what we have already learned. But why, Turing? Why would your
watch suddenly go missing like that?”

“It’s
really quite simple, Admiral. Assuming the material in that box does indeed
come from a future time, then I must assume that everything I found their did
so as well.” He gave Tovey a knowing look.

“You
mean your watch as well?”

“Exactly.
It is already apparent that I was instrumental in gathering all that material,
so I can only suppose that I must have deliberately placed my watch in that
box. Assuming that, this is my theory. That box, and everything in it, is a
remnant from that future time, the time this Russian Admiral claimed he lived
through. When that ship appeared here, it must have dragged that remnant along
in its wake. Don’t ask me how or why this is so, but it is what I have come to
deduce. Time was making a little delivery, and all was in order except one
item—my watch. You see, nothing in that box existed here at the moment it might
have appeared—
except
my watch! That item could not come to this time
from the future as it already existed here, and that would be quite a little
paradox. And so, to resolve the matter, one of the variables had to be
cancelled out. My watch goes missing in the here and now, and then mysteriously
turns up in that box!” Turing smiled, folding his arms with a satisfied look on
his face, as if he had just completed a perfectly sound mathematical proof.

“Rather
astounding,” said Tovey. “Well… Not to dispute your theory, Turing, but the
Russians suggested something else.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. The
Russian Admiral seemed to rely a great deal on his young Captain to try and
sort things out. The man seemed very sharp. The two of you should meet one day.
That aside, this man Fedorov suggested that the only possible explanation as to
how those photographs could exist would be if they were brought here by
someone.”