John Schettler - Devil's Garden

“What good will that do us?”

“We would still have the control rods, Chief. This may sound strange now, and I have not yet thought it through, but I think Karpov is correct about at least one thing here. There is something decisive about this year-1908. We have all fallen through some hole in time into this nice little circle of hell here, all the Fallen Angels gathered here together, and this is where it must all end. The question is how? What can we do? The helicopter idea is futile. This whole plan with the Anatoly Alexandrov of mine was useless. It wasn’t Orlov we needed to worry about. I was wrong. He wasn’t the demon we set loose in the world. It was Karpov all along!”

“Then what do we do?”

“We have to stop him before his actions here become irreversible, that’s what we do.”

“But how, Fedorov? The hovercraft and all these Marines will do us no good here either.”

“Not here-not now. First we must get back home. Look Chief…You say you can hear the change in the reactor when it happens, yes?”

“It has a very distinctive vibration. Yes, I can hear it like I might hear music, if that makes any sense.”

“Alright then, we’ll try again. Do you suppose you could do something with the reactors, just as Doctor Zolkin suggested once in jest. He said to go have the Chief fiddle with the reactor and send us home. Is there any way to make adjustments in the procedure to change things?”

“Possibly,” said Dobrynin, thinking about it now. “I could vary the rods scheduled for replacement. I usually go odd-even-and so forth. That’s what I was doing on Kirov . Perhaps I could break that sequence and try something different.”

“Odd even? Do you remember which it was when we always shifted forward?”

“Why yes…even, yes, it was an even numbered rod each and every time, though I never considered that before.”

“And this last shift here?”

Dobrynin smiled. “Odd, Mister Fedorov, very odd. Of course! This is why that shift sounded so different to me. I was expecting a rising melody, and the orchestra descended into chaos.”

“Well, that’s a start. We use an even numbered rod now, though why would that matter?”

“They are all placed in different locations in the reactor core, so the neutron flux is different, almost like a different note played on a wind instrument changes the tone, if that makes any sense to you.”

“Then you could listen and remember the sound of a forward shift? Is that possible?”

“Of course. I hear the reaction every time it happens. It descends when we slip backward in time, and it ascends when we move forward. I know the sound well enough if I hear it.”

“And perhaps you could also fiddle with those other two control rods in their containers. Lids on, lids off, who knows what we might do. I know it would be hit and miss, but we have to try, Chief. We’ve got to get home, one way or another, and that before Karpov does something catastrophic here.”

“What does it matter when we go? Won’t everything he does be finished and done when we get home? The man and the whole crew will be in their graves when we get there. It’s a hundred and thirteen years before we get home!”

“I think it does matter….” Fedorov was thinking hard now. “If we leave this time before he does something decisive, perhaps we still have a chance. Suppose we learn what he does and then return here-to this moment-before he even does it!”

“Suppose we could return-to what end? To have this discussion all over again here with Karpov?”

“No, Chief, to stop him.”

“But how, Fedorov? You haven’t answered that yet.”

“I think I may have a plan, but first, somehow, some way, we have to get safely home and then find a way to return to this moment. I only hope your inner ear is a good one. Can you remember what that last shift that brought us here sounded like?”

“Remember it? I recorded it! I’ve been listening to the reactor sing its song to the heavens ever since we got here, trying to figure out what was happening. So lately I’ve been recording the sound from all these shifts so I could sort through it and see if I hear anything that leads me to an engineering process.”

“Excellent Chief! Then there’s a chance you might be able to get us here again-to 1908. I’m counting on that-in fact I think the whole world will be counting on that. Let’s get started! I’m going below for a moment.”

“But Fedorov…suppose I can work my magic and get us back here again. What will you do? We’ll be facing the same problem we have now!”

“No, we won’t be here in the Caspian. Once we get home we can fly to Vladivostok with all the control rods and be right there in the Pacific. Then, if we shift again, Kirov will be very close.”

“What if Karpov refuses to let you board the ship?”

“Don’t worry, Chief. I have a plan. But first, there’s still one other problem I need to resolve here.”

Fedorovsat with the two men, a signalman named Chenko at his side to interpret, and the looming presence of Sergeant Troyak standing behind the men to keep a good eye on them.

“I am Captain Anton Fedorov,” he began. “Who are you?”

“David Sutherland, Lieutenant in the service of His Majesty’s special forces. This man is Sergeant Jack Terry.”

“What were you doing here?”

Sutherland knew the rule-name, rank and serial number. He had given the first two, but these were Russians, supposed allies, and not enemies, though they had been forced to treat them as foes because of the necessities of this mission. And he was still shaken by what he had seen, doubting his own sanity now and feeling like a fish out of water. So he decided to talk with these men and see what he could find out about them.

“We were sent to find a man-the man we had with us when your Marines made our acquaintance.”

That gave Fedorov a start. These men were sent to find Orlov? How could that be? It would mean that the British knew about the Chief. What could they have learned that would have prompted a mission like this?

“You were sent to find Orlov-that was the man you were with. Sent by who?”

“What does that matter? We were given orders to find him, and that we did, until you blokes came along.”

“Here? In the Caspian Sea? How did you think you might find him here?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, sir.” Sutherland folded his arms, still feeling very distressed and with this unaccountable feeling that something very odd was going on here. He would once refer to himself as ‘a lucky Scorpio, and an unconventional, adventure-seeking Scot,’ but this was more than he bargained for.

“Very well…” Fedorov considered the situation. “Was there another man with you-a third man?”

At this Sutherland seemed very distressed. Protocol whispered that he should say nothing of Haselden. After all, the voice said, what if he simply slipped overboard while you weren’t looking? No! said another voice in his head, you know damn well what you saw, and he blurted it out.

“He… he just vanished!” Now he looked at Sergeant Terry, as if still trying to convince the man. “I tell you Haselden was right by my side on the gunwale and then the man simply faded away.” The minute he said that he realized the Russians would probably think he was sporting with them to avoid revealing any further information. So he was surprised when the young officer leaned forward, a very serious look in his eye, and questioned him further about it.

“Vanished? You saw this with your own eyes?”

“That I did,” Sutherland said stubbornly, though Sergeant Terry gave him a frown of disapproval.