Authors: John Schettler
“Doctor,”
he began slowly. “I think if you analyze the blood type on that bandage, you
will see it matches your own.”
“Damn
if that isn’t so!” said Zolkin. “Then…”
“Yes,”
said Fedorov. “That is your own blood on that bandage, and now I will tell you
how and why it is there.”
Zolkin
sat down, almost as if his legs could no longer hold his weight. He settled
into a chair by the wall, hand on his chin, waiting.
“Then
it’s all true,” said Zolkin. “Everything you have said,
the whole impossible story. You have lived through it all before, and
apparently I have as well! My God, why can’t I remember it clearly, like you
can.”
That
statement jolted Fedorov. “Remember it clearly? You mean to say you get
memories that seem fuzzy on some of this? Things you can almost grasp, and then
they slip away?”
“Exactly.
The first was the moment I found that bandage in the medicine cabinet. I could
not think why it would be there. That space is reserved for things of
importance, but now I see why I would have put it there. So I stood up to that
bastard and he actually shot me! That is hard to believe, but you know, I
wouldn’t put anything beyond that man. Fedorov… Do you think Karpov knows any
of this? Might he be catching snippets of these events in his recollection as
well? That would make him a very dangerous man if he should learn all of
this—all that you know.”
“Quite
true, but things are far more serious than that.” Fedorov gave him a dour look.
“He
does
know all of this. He lived through it, just as I did.”
“You
mean he can remember? Then why was he so damn adamant that your story was
nonsense when you first started to explain the evidence?”
“Because
the man up there on the bridge is not the same one who leveled those charges
against me when we met here with Admiral Volsky.”
“What?
Not the same man? What do you mean?”
Fedorov
took a long breath. “There are things I haven’t told you yet. When we went ashore,
I told you Karpov was suddenly there, and with a message from Moscow for the
Admiral. The moment he saw us, he began to taunt us, saying things that he
could only have known if he
had
lived through the events I described to
you. I think he was trying to see how the Admiral and I would react—trying to
see if we remembered those events as well. Thankfully, the Admiral was quick
enough to realize the danger in that, and he played dumb. I went along with
that as well.”
“I
don’t understand,” said Zolkin. “How would Karpov know any of this—unless he
does remember it, just like you do? But then why would he play dumb with us
here on the ship, particularly when he was trying to convince the Admiral your
story was hogwash, and you were some kind of traitorous spy for the British?”
“That
wasn’t the Captain—not the one we left on the ship when we went ashore. That
was the man who fired that gun at you on the bridge.”
Now
Fedorov laid out his theory, that somehow, by some strange twist, the other
Karpov, at large in Siberia, had managed to survive the hour when the ship
appeared on July 28th.”
“I once
thought that would be impossible,” he said. “How could that man survive, as
well as the Captain still being here on the ship? You remember my saying how
stunned I was when I first saw the Chief here, and then also learned Karpov was
here as well. I think that literally drained the blood from my head, I was so
shocked by it, and that’s what caused me to keel over! From my perspective,
Karpov was long gone the last time we shifted. He was not on the ship, but I
knew he existed, at large in Siberia, and a very meddlesome presence there. He
had worked himself into a position of great power.”
“That
doesn’t surprise me,” said Zolkin.
“Yes,”
said Fedorov, “I even had evidence of that, and how we first learned of his
existence. You see, after that incident in 1908 on the bridge, we all thought
he had perished. Then we find he was alive in Siberia, and had positioned
himself as Admiral of the Free Siberian Air Corps.”
“He’s a
power grubbing monster, in any form,” said Zolkin.
“Have
you seen him since he came aboard?
“Only
from a distance, in the dining hall. I saw that gauze on his cheek, and meant
to ask him about it, but you know how he keeps to himself when he eats.”
“True,
well it may be that he is hiding something with that. When I saw him ashore at
Severomorsk, it was very obvious to me, knowing all I’ve told you, that this
was the Siberian Karpov, and not the Captain that shifted here with us just
days ago. He said things to us that he could not have known unless this was so.
And so the shock of that was on me again, to realize both men must have
survived that hour on July 28th.”
“Are
you certain? Might it be that he simply remembers things, just as you do… Just
as I struggle to recall things when something suddenly hits me, like when I first
touched that bloodied bandage.”
“No,”
said Fedorov. “I’ve spent a good long while with him since then. In fact he was
just visiting me in my cabin for a little chat. I think he was still probing to
see if I might know more than I let on. While ashore, I realized how dangerous
that would be for me, and the Admiral, bless his soul, realized it too. We both
played dumb, and I think Karpov bought our act, but he remains leery about me.
I could sense that when he spoke to me in my quarters. He’s still probing;
still suspicious. I let a good deal slip when I was trying to convince the
Admiral of what had really happened. I was afraid I may have said something to
compromise my real identity.”
“Your
real identity? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean
that I am not the same man who left Severomorsk on this ship a few days ago
either, Doctor. I know this to the depth of my bones. I sometimes bite my
fingernails when I am thinking or worried about something. Before that last
shift, we were in battle, and things on the ship were very serious, very
dangerous. Look…” He held out an index finger and Zolkin could see how the nail
was bitten down so far that the fingertip had bled.
“I
remember doing that before… But in the Atlantic, right before that final shift.
Then I found myself here on this ship, but look at that finger. It may seem an
insignificant testimony to what I am saying now, but I know it to be true, just
like everything else I’ve said. I am the man who was at sea in the Atlantic, in
May of 1941 when we made that final shift. I am not simply Fedorov, remembering
things I once lived through. I’m the man who lived out each and every one of
those moments, and up on the bridge, Karpov is the same. That man wasn’t with
us when we sailed from Severomorsk. He arranged to meet us there. It was he
that sent that coded recall order—the only man alive in this time who could
have known how it should have been formatted, and known the confirmation code
word. ”
“Good
Lord, Fedorov! You mean he’s replaced our Captain—the man who was in here
arguing you were a spy?”
“Yes.”
“Then
he’s… some kind of duplicate? A Double?”
“A
doppelganger,” said Fedorov. “It’s a German word—means Double Walker. This is
what I believe, though I’m not sure how it happened. I thought only one or the
other could survive, but not both men, never two men alike allowed in the same
time. But I was obviously wrong on that score.”
Zolkin
scratched his grey-white hair. “Then what happened to the Captain who sailed
with us days ago? For that matter, what happen to you—to your other self? Where
is that young officer who was always lost in his history books?”
“I
don’t know. I think the Captain may have done something with his other self.
Who knows, but the man aboard this ship now is the Siberian. I’m certain of
that, and he is very, very dangerous.”
“And
your other self?”
Fedorov
had a glum look on his face, the guilt obvious to Zolkin’s careful eye. “I
don’t know… But I don’t think that man survived…”
Now
Zolkin gave him a heartfelt look, slowly nodding his head, thinking of all he
had heard from Fedorov, and realizing all he had endured. Now he was standing
there, head down, knowing he may be responsible for his own death.
“My
good young man,” he said. “You’ve been through purgatory here, worse than that.
You’ve been through hell and back again. I’m so sorry… I wish I had believed
you earlier, but you can surely understand why I came to those other
conclusions.”
“Of
course… But that doesn’t matter. Now you know the real truth, but I have been
posing as if I were still that unknowing young officer. Yet I don’t know how
long I can hide that way. I’m telling you Karpov is different, and if you spend
any time around him in the days ahead, you will notice that too. Well I’m
different too. I
have
been through hell and back, and that has to change
a man. Can you see that in me now?”
“That I
can, Fedorov,” said Zolkin softly.
“Others
may notice it as well,” said Fedorov. “Orlov tried to pull his tough guy
routine on me a couple days ago, and I stood up to him. He had to know that
wasn’t the Fedorov he knew me to be. Others may have noticed things about me too.”
“Volsky
certainly did,” said Zolkin. “Me? I was busy diagnosing your mental state, and
seeing those differences as a result of anxiety. Now I know better.”
“Yes?
Well I’m worried Karpov may soon figure this out himself. He’s been asking me
some very probing questions—about that message I asked the Admiral to send out.
I tried to cover for that by saying I got it from one of my books, but he asked
me to produce that reference.”
“How
will you get around that?”
“I’ve
already taken care of it. I just doctored a few files I had on my pad device.
It will account for that little oversight on my part, but at that time, I was
not aware of what had happened with Karpov. I’ve gone over and over everything
I could remember saying or doing, looking for a loose shirttail. If he
discovers I know all this…”
The
implication was very obvious to Zolkin.
“Alright…”
said the Doctor. “It seems I was your ally once in all of this, Mister Fedorov.
You can count on me again, as God is my witness. You’ve told me what that man
up there is capable of, no, you’ve told me what he’s actually done! My God! He
used special warheads on the men of this era? Amazing! Well, you say that isn’t
happening now, and things are different. The ship is taking a different course.
Perhaps we can change all those things he did, Fedorov. If I understand what is
happening now, this is a kind of replay of all those events you lived through,
and it only happened because the ship somehow slipped to a time before the
first moment of its coming.”
“Yes,
that’s how I understand it,” said Fedorov.
“Well,”
said Zolkin, a determined look on his face. “Then I want to do everything
possible to see that I never have to write those damn autopsy reports…”
Yes,
thought Fedorov, the reports in that encrypted file. Somehow they had survived
too, just like the evidence the British had uncovered in those file boxes at
Bletchley Park. All of this is starting over again. They were now rewriting
the history they had ravaged in their first coming. Those men might not have to
die.
“But
the ship is heading east,” said Fedorov, greatly relieved to be through this
with the Doctor, and to know he had gained his understanding and support.
“We’re going to Vladivostok. Those were our orders after the live fire
exercises, but it’s 1941 now, and I’ll tell you another impossible thing. The
history here has changed.”
He gave
him that part of the story now, Stalin’s death, the rise of Sergei Kirov, his
hunt for Orlov, and how that damn intelligence officer, Captain Ivan Volkov,
must have followed his trail along the Trans-Siberian rail.
“Lord
almighty,” said Zolkin. “This all happened at the railway inn? What is the
world coming to? You could move in time just by using that stairway?”
“It has
something to do with the time and place that stairway brought me to,” said
Fedorov. “It has something to do with the Tunguska Event. I’ve come to think
that impact did more than we realized. It fractured spacetime. In fact, it may
have cause this instability in time that makes the ship prone to slip. That
control rod I told you about? We later learned it had materials used in it that
were mined very near the impact site at Tunguska.”
“This
gets even more twisted the longer we talk about it,” said Zolkin, exasperated.
“Yes,
there’s so much more I could tell you, but our immediate problem is this…
Karpov is taking the ship east to Vladivostok, but Russia doesn’t control that
port any longer. The Japanese took it from us years ago, during the time before
the revolution, and possibly because of our own meddling in all of this
history.”
“The
Japanese?”
“Yes,
and think now, Doctor. It is 1941, and in a few months it will be December of
that year. What happened in the Pacific?”
“Pearl
Harbor,” said Zolkin darkly. “Japan will be entering the war soon.”
“Exactly.
So now do you see why I am worried about the course that man up there has set
for this ship? Karpov was dead set on restoring Russia’s presence as a Pacific
power. In fact, Admiral Volsky and I were trying to prevent his intervention,
trying to preserve the history, but once a plate cracks, it is never really the
same, no matter how much glue you use.”
“So you
think Karpov is planning something now—with the Japanese?
“Most
certainly. He said as much to me in my quarters earlier. I don’t know what he
has in mind to do, but it was clear that he laid a very careful trap to get
control of this ship again. He’s going to do something when we get out east,
and I fear the Japanese are in for a big surprise.”