John Schettler - 1943

“But we’re that future, are we not?” said Nordhausen. “Doesn’t it have to exist for us to know this here?”

“In one sense, yes. Some future may be realized, but to a point.”

“All three splintered Meridians account for all the years between 1943 and this year.” The professor folded his arms.

“Yet we already know that the future beyond this point goes silent,” said Paul, “and with these nukes being lobbed about, I can possibly see why. Since the future cannot be created in the line of causality, it must be destroyed, and that creates a deep shadow that ripples backwards on the continuum like a backwash from Paradox. This may be the reason the voices from our own distant future have all gone mute, for there, the impact of all these changes will be most severe—annihilation—and that is a silence that will eventually roll back upon us all… My god, I just spoke those words to Tovey and Fairchild.”

Maeve cast a furtive glance at the others. “Well, Maestro, you must have been on the Beta thread for that little meeting. We haven’t told you everything. Welcome to the Gamma thread. Wait until you hear what’s been going on with that ship!”

Karpovsat in his stateroom, close by the private cabinet that he always kept under lock and key. It was open now, his eyes searching over the device within, a headset framing his brow as he listened. It was another radio set, of the same kind that they had given to Admiral Tovey. He had it rigged to transfer any signal received on Nikolin’s HF comm-link module, particularly coded transmissions, which would be decrypted if authenticated by Nikolin.

He had been reading at his desk that morning, and looking over maps of the area around Rabaul, considering his plans. Then he saw the special light he had rigged winking off and on above the cabinet, and reached slowly into his pocket for the cabinet key.

He heard everything that was said, profoundly shocked when he first heard the voice of Admiral Volsky. Could the report of his death have been a deception? That was the first thing that came to mind. Yet there he was, apparently out on another mission aboard Kazan , just as before, and its aim was the same as it had always been.

The Admiral’s seemed to be obsessed with this great doom that was looming in the far horizons of these events. Who can say what it might be. Yet the one thing that stuck in Karpov’s mind was that single phrase from Volsky: We must leave—all of us— Kirov , Kazan , the Argos Fire, all those men you met in the desert, the little fleet of transports, everything must go. Those that will not leave of their own accord must be compelled by other means…. or be destroyed.

Or be destroyed….

So there was Admiral Volsky, he thought, alive again, risen from the dead, just as I seemed to return from what seemed like my certain demise. They must have been very surprised when they learned I was still alive. Yet I settled things, didn’t I. Fedorov has been all about doom and gloom from the very beginning of this adventure. First he was manic about his history, then his head was filled with all this paradox business. That is what this must still be all about—the Second Coming.

I must admit that it certainly had some very real effects. I felt them myself during that terrible night aboard Tunguska . Yet I survived them easily enough. Time has been lusting to find a way to redress that. There are two of us now, my brother and I. She cannot abide that, and looks for any way to balance her books.

So here comes Volsky again, just when I thought that man was dead and buried for good. And here comes Kazan …. What should I do about this? Fedorov cozied up to me real good when he returned from that mission. He realized, as I did, the consequences of his tampering at that foundational level of these events. This world rests on the shoulders of Sergei Kirov. He built it, and now he’s fighting to save it, just as I am. I thought I had finally convinced Fedorov of that, but now here comes old Papa Volsky, and he’ll muddle the waters with this business stuffed into his head by Kamenski.

What to do here?

Fedorov will bring this to me, and if I refuse to hear Volsky out, then what? Is he going to turn to his henchman Gromyko? Does he think he can kill this ship that easily? If I do agree to a meeting, how should I arrange it? I suppose it was at least decent of Volsky to make this call. Yet he did not sound like that bumbling old fool I met in Murmansk. No. He spoke of things that man could have never known, and this thing Fedorov said about two lives being mingled together in one head is most interesting.

Perhaps that was supposed to happen to me.

That thought suddenly shook him. Perhaps Time was going to merge the recollections and experiences I lived through into the body and head of my brother self when the Second Coming happened. Yes… That was what was supposed to happen, but Time could not accomplish it. I was in some kind of protective Faraday Cage aboard Tunguska, and she couldn’t touch me. I was elsewhere. There might have been only one version of myself, just like Fedorov, but one who remembered all that had happened on that first loop. Very interesting… If this happened to Fedorov and Volsky, then might it also happen to other members of the crew?

Now he reached a decision.

I must meet with those two rascals, he thought. They have been my enemies in the past, but Fedorov gave me his word that he would stand with me here. Volsky wants to have his little talk, so I will hear him out, but they will hear me out as well. How to best arrange this?

First things first… Fedorov.

Aspredicted, Fedorov went to Karpov, his heart heavy and mind very troubled when he knocked on the stateroom door. He could not see how he might persuade Karpov, or how their present situation would be any different than the sortie they made to 1908 if he failed, but he had to try.

“Come.”

He opened the door, removing his cap as he eased in and closed it securely behind him. Karpov was sitting at his desk, his eyes scanning paperwork under an LED lamp. “What is it, Mister Fedorov?”

“Sir, we’ve received a secure message on the EAM comm-link system, and we need to discuss it.”

Karpov looked up, rubbed his eye as if to chase away an annoying tick, and gave Fedorov a look that seemed to indicate he had come to some inner decision. “I don’t feel like theater this morning,” he said. “Yes, Mister Fedorov, we certainly need to discuss this one, don’t we. You see, I have a secure comm-link unit right here, and I have it rigged to alert me to any pass-code level communications. So you might as well know that I was listening in on your entire conversation with Volsky. Amazing, eh? That old man simply refuses to die. I must say, I was as shocked as you must have been when I heard his voice.”

Fedorov raised a brow, surprised again, not so much that Karpov had been listening, but more that he had not anticipated that from a man like the Siberian. “Very well,” he said. “No theatrics. I agree. I told you I would be straight up with you and as you can see, I came to you with this immediately.”

“Who was that man?” asked Karpov? “How did he get here—aboard Kazan?”

“ Kazan was in the Atlantic when it last vanished—shifted. Apparently, it went forward again, as far as 2021.”

“So that is where they met Kamenski. My… How would he know about any of this?”

“Good question,” said Fedorov. “He’s a very mysterious man, but very insightful. When I was driven half-crazy trying to sort through this time travel business, it was Kamenski who helped me make sense of things.”