Kirov had a grave expression on his face. These men have been through the same madness I suffered through, he thought. Yes, I can see it in their eyes. We are brothers, the three of us.
“Admiral Volsky, in one sense we are all in the same boat, the three of us here, and I, too, am a member of your crew.”
They smiled.
Chapter 15
“I had hoped I could recruit your support,” said Volsky. “Every moment we have been at sea these last months has been a hardship. The men have lost everything they had, everyone they ever knew, and while I have promised them we would find a way to get them home again, that may never happen for us. Once we thought we had come home, but here we are again, and I am no longer sure the world we came from even exists any longer.”
Kirov had a very serious expression on his face, clearly empathizing with everything the Admiral was saying. “Well,” he said, “I owe this man my life, and so in return I will do everything possible to secure yours, and those of every man on your ship. You are welcome to anything we have, food, fuel, quarters ashore. Anything you need can be provided.”
“Thank you, Mironov, it was my hope that we could find a safe harbor here. Yet there is one more thing I must tell you. Our route here took us through the Atlantic and the Denmark Strait, and there has been a major battle there between the British and Germans.”
“Yes, our intelligence has informed me of this, but the British seem to have prevailed. Their navy is the one force the Germans cannot break.”
“It was much more serious than you may realize,” Volsky said with a certain urgency. “Mister Fedorov here is somewhat of a student of military history, and he believes the Germans would have won this engagement if not for our intervention.”
“Your intervention?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. It is a long story, sir, and I cannot give you all the details now, but at one time we made an enemy of the Royal Navy. Finding ourselves in these waters again, and needing support, this time I thought to make them a friend. The Germans sortied with a very powerful fleet, and the situation did not look good for the British. I therefore elected to use the power of my ship to… discourage the Germans, and we were able to see them off home again.”
“I see…” Kirov was very thoughtful now. “I must tell you, Admiral Volsky, that we will not be able to stand neutral in this war for very much longer. When I went up those stairs at Ilanskiy, into Stalin’s world, I learned that Russia and Germany were at war by 1942, and that the Germans had pushed all the way to the Volga! If they were to do the same again, then we are facing annihilation. So in some sense I look upon your coming here as a harbinger of good fate.”
“We are a powerful ship, sir, but I do not think we can sail to the front line if the Germans push for Moscow.”
“And they will,” said Fedorov. “It is almost certain that they will. They called it Operation Barbarossa.”
Kirov nodded gravely. “Even now we begin to see a slow and steady buildup on the Polish frontier, and yes, our intelligence had wind of that very name-Barbarossa. You may or may not know that the Orenburg Federation has declared open war on us and allied itself with Germany. At the moment they are also squabbling with the Free Siberian State. Last winter they crossed the border and took Omsk from the Siberians, which was good news for us. We made overtures to Kolchak, but he seemed indecisive. He, too, has a war on two fronts now, with the Japanese at his back and Volkov on the other flank.”
“I must tell you something now,” said Volsky. “This man Volkov, the man they call the Prophet, we believe that he was not born to this world.”
“What do you mean? He has come from… from another floor in the inn?”
“That may have been exactly what happened,” said Fedorov. “We have thought a great deal about that stairway and the strange effects we have both experienced there. When we learned of this man, Volkov, we began to suspect that he was a man by the same name that had also come from our world-that he has gone down those stairs as well.”
“I see…” A light of realization was evident in Kirov’s eyes. “That would explain much. Volkov was able to outmaneuver Denikin and everyone else-except me. I had the support of the Reds, so he settled into the White movement and consolidated power there. But he had been here for years, decades in fact. I met him twenty years ago, and could see that he was going to be trouble during the revolution.”
“If what we believe has actually happened, he may have gone down that stairway, just as I did,” said Fedorov. “If he ended up in 1908, then that would explain his presence here all these years. We know that he vanished in our day, and at that very place, Ilanskiy. This leads me to suspect that stairway can also make a connection to our world-to the third floor, Mironov.”
“That would be very significant if it did. Do you think Volkov knows about this?”
“We do not know, but I am inclined to believe that he does not. If he did, why would he have remained marooned in the past? It would seem any sane man would try to return the way he came.”
“Something may have prevented him,” said Kirov, “the madness, the shock of what he experienced. I found it very difficult to bear myself.”
“Yet he had years to try and return, but never did. If he does remain in the dark, that is good news, and we hope as much. Because if that stairway still exists in this world, and the effects continue, then it could be a way for us to return to our own time-a way for any man to do so.”
Kirov immediately perceived the peril there. “That would be very dangerous.”
“Yes,” said Volsky. “Men who knew what they were about could use that stairway to cause a great deal of mischief.”
“At the moment that inn may not see many travelers,” said Kirov. “This civil war has been very hard. The railway east has degraded. Much of it has fallen into disrepair. The route from Chebalyinsk to Novosibirsk is impassible now with Cossacks and Tartars at each other’s throats. One or two trains still operate further east all the way to Irkutsk, but there are very few who dare to travel that route. We have men there from our intelligence arm. Things are starting to wake up now that Karpov has come on the scene.”
The name fell like a hot coal in a bucket of ice water, and Kirov could see the immediate reaction in both the other men. Volsky leaned forward, giving Fedorov a worried glance. “Karpov? Tell me more of this man.”
“I wish I could. He seemed to come from nowhere just a few years ago. Old Man Kolchak and his Lieutenant Kozolnikov were running things in the east. Then the name of this man Karpov began to appear in dispatches and signals traffic. We thought he was just another minor official, or perhaps a newly appointed military officer. Then we learned he was given command of the Siberian Air Corps. Now it appears that he exercises considerable influence over Kolchak. They call him the old man for a good reason. Kolchak is getting slow, and he has been unable to unite the disparate warlords ranging throughout Siberia-until recently. Karpov is whipping things into shape there. Yet you both seem very surprised to hear this name. What is your concern?”
“It may be nothing,” said Volsky. “It is just that Karpov was an officer aboard my ship-one we believed was killed in action, though we never recovered his body.”
“When? Was this a recent event?”
“Just days ago for us, but decades past in your time. You see, Mironov, our ship found its way to the same year when you first met Fedorov-1908. How it came to be there is a very long story, but this man, Karpov, believed he was marooned there permanently and took some rather aggressive action against the Japanese. He had it in his mind to reverse the humiliation of our defeat at the hands of Admiral Togo’s fleet in 1905. Yes, he thought he might restore Russia to her position of power in the Pacific, but we knew this would cause grave harm, and so at that time I did everything possible to impede him.”