John Schettler - Tigers East

“Captain,” he said. “You might want to make up for lost sleep. In another six or seven hours you’ll have your answers, at least in part.”

“Sleep? After that?” he thumbed the red glow on the horizon behind them. “No, I’d better walk the ship and see to the men. If we might have a fight ahead of us, then they’ll need to be ready. And they’ll have questions too—like how we go from the dark of night into that mess back there, and all in the blink of an eye. What do I tell them? And another thing—you were right about that moon. How do we go from no moon, to that sliver of a moon we spotted, and in the wrong place, all in the blink of an eye? Then it ups and disappears altogether. Its broad daylight. That’s the sun up there in all that smoke and haze, not another moon. This is insane.”

“Captain… Things are going to be … somewhat strange for a time. I could tell you what I think has happened, but you won’t believe a word I said.”

“Try me.” Symenko wanted something, any explanation that could help him make sense of what he was experiencing now.

“Alright, let me put it to you this way. The sun and moon don’t lie, they mark the time each day, and when they change like that, it can mean only one thing—the time has changed right along with it. Look at the sun. See how high up it is? It wouldn’t be up like that in September, not in this latitude, and not at this hour. But there it is. That’s a summer sun, and you know it as well as I do. So if the moon was wrong, and that sun out there is up like that, we aren’t where we were when that gibbous moon last set. We’re somewhere else—not another place, but another time. That’s my explanation. If you have a better one, let me know.”

“Another time?” Symenko shook his head, starting for the ladder up. “God almighty, what a load of crap that is. Karpov will straighten you and your lot out soon enough. Just you wait.”

“Zykov,” said Fedorov. “Go with him and make sure all is well with the other men.”

Fedorov knew Symenko had a volatile temper, and he didn’t want the Captain stirring up anything with the rest of his crew. When they had gone up, and the hatch was closed, he looked at Troyak and Orlov. The other four Marines were stationed in pairs, two in the engineer’s compartment aft, two more watching the local contingent of Naval Marines that Symenko had with him.

When they had gone, Orlov came over, wanting more from Fedorov. “Was that a load of bull you just fed the Captain, or are you on the level?”

“I was quite serious, Chief.” He looked at Troyak as well, bringing him in on what he had to say. “We’ve moved. We aren’t in the same time as before. That event out there is the Tunguska Event. That’s what we were overflying, only in 1942. Well… It isn’t 1942 any longer. I can tell the two of you that, because at least you’ve been through it once before, and you, Orlov, remember going through it a good many other times. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. Well, I very much doubt that another asteroid fell right there again, right where the thing fell at Tunguska. I already know that events like this bend and break time. So if I’m right, then this is 1908, and just a day or so after that thing fell back there on the 30th of June.”

“1908?” Orlov gave him a blank look.

“So you see why I didn’t want to get into it with Symenko,” said Fedorov. “As for you two, you need to know the truth. It’s 1908, and probably the first of July, the day after Tunguska. I’ve changed our heading and we’re going to Ilanskiy, just east of Kansk. There’s someone there I have to…. Speak with.”

He couldn’t quite say the words that were lurking behind that conversation. There was someone there that he had to kill, an innocent young man that he had come here to murder. He just brought Orlov along to get him off the ship, and to keep an eye on him. Troyak and the Marines were just muscle, and they had already brought him this far—along with these incredible twists of fate. Yet even as he thought that, he was beginning to feel that Time herself had gotten him this far. Once he set his mind on what he had to do, she became a willing co-conspirator. Anything might have happened to them when they overflew the epicenter of that event. The anxiety, the feelings of doom and fear were all just harbingers. This had been the last thing he expected.

“You have to speak with someone?” said Orlov. “But you heard Symenko earlier—Karpov has the place locked down tight. We can’t get through.”

“Yes we can.”

“But what about those airships Symenko warned us about?”

“They were there in 1942, Orlov. I just told you that this is 1908!”

It took a while for things to get through Orlov’s thick skull. “Oh,” he said dumbly. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. There wouldn’t be any airships, and none of Karpov’s men either.”

“Exactly.”

“Who’s the man you need to see there?”

“Mironov. Alright, I’d better tell you both this, and it will be a lot to swallow. It all started with you, Chief, and you remember it very well—when you decided to jump ship. Well I came after you to get you home again, and you, Sergeant, came right along with me.”

So he told them, the whole knotted tale of what had happened when he and Troyak got to Ilanskiy. Orlov grinned at times, nodding his head when a part of the story included him. He had all that inside his head now, clear memories of everything. He could still see those bulging eyes and purple lips as he choked the breath out of Commissar Molla.

“This young man,” Fedorov finished. “He was going by the name Mironov back then—right now, in 1908. Later he would change that name and take another—Kirov.” He folded his arms watching them both closely. He had told Troyak this once before, and when he said it again, something registered in the Sergeant’s eyes, a faded memory suddenly jogged to life. It was just as Fedorov was telling it, he knew, though he could not trace the memories with any clarity, as Orlov could.

“Sergei Kirov?” said Orlov. “The man we named our ship after?”

“That’s correct.”

“You came all this way to speak with him? He was right ahead of us on our old course. All we had to do was divert to Leningrad.”

“Yes, I could have gone to visit him in 1942 once we got our hands on this airship. But it’s here that matters. Now is the crucial time—1908. That’s why I was trying to get to Ilanskiy in the first place—to go down those stairs like I did before, and find him again.”

“Well what in God’s name do you want to speak with him about?”

“It was going to be more than that,” said Fedorov darkly, the feeling of guilt and shame already heavy on him again. “This was something that Karpov and I worked through for a very long time. This whole situation—back in 1942—well it’s my fault. You see, I told Mironov something, opened my big mouth, and I let something slip. That changed everything. It set up that whole crazy world, the war we were fighting, the Orenburg Federation, all of it.”

“Mironov set that up? I thought Volkov did all that.”

“Yes, he did, but he might not have ever succeeded if I had kept my mouth shut. When we’re this far back in time, any little slip can have major consequences to the events that follow. One little slip could end up becoming something very big. Well, I made a mistake, and now I have to correct it—at least I’m going to try.”

Orlov nodded. “But didn’t you already make that mistake?” Orlov could work things out if given time. He had been following what Fedorov was telling him very closely. “You said you appeared here on the morning of the event—that shit back there we flew right over a while back. That’s when you met this Mironov—Sergei Kirov. So you’ve already made your mistake—yesterday if this is July first like you think it is.”