These advantages, and the normal thick cloud cover over Siberia, gave them every hope that they could reach the objective site undetected. They also hoped that they would learn the outcome of the mission before they met with the British.
“And what if we encounter Karpov in one of his zeppelins?” Troyak asked the obvious question.
“You will have to use your best judgment, Troyak. The Admiral hopes to avoid engagement. We do not want to let Karpov know we are here just yet. Admiral Volsky is considering the matter. But you must protect the airship, and your men. This mission is very important. Coordinate with Captain Selikov. He knows how to fight the airship. You handle ground operations with your Marines. For the moment it is Volkov that we are worried about. If the situation allows you to reconnoiter down those steps and find him, report and Admiral Volsky will give the final order. And Sergeant, no one needs to know about Karpov for the moment, particularly Orlov.”
“I understand, sir.”
“One other thing…” Fedorov did not quite know how to say this, but struggled on. “If you should go down those steps, and for any reason cannot return, then realize that you are at a very decisive point in history. We know what Volkov does, and what we are trying to prevent here. How you accomplish that is up to you, Sergeant. But I realize we are asking a great deal of you. The fate of the world, of all our lives, and the life of our homeland, will be on those broad shoulders of yours.”
Troyak took that in for a moment. “I will do everything in my power to complete my mission, sir. You can rely on me.”
“But… we may not ever see you again, Troyak.”
The burly sergeant smiled, shouldering his automatic weapon. “Don’t worry about me, Captain.” He saluted, and for the first time Fedorov knew what that salute was all about as he returned it.
“God be with you.”
Now they were committed, up in the long steel gondola beneath the Narva, the tether released and the airship slowly ascending into the grey skies. Fedorov waved, pumped his arm, and saw a man return the gesture from above, a distant salute. They were on their way.
And we will be on our way as well, thought Fedorov. Kirov was already turned around, the ship’s nose pointed north again in the Kola inlet, and starting to work up speed. They would be 36 hours at full speed before they reached the meeting place with the British, sailing up around the north cape of Norway, then down through the Norwegian Sea to the Faeroes. Narva had a longer journey, some 3600 kilometers, but they expected to average at least 100kph and should make it to Ilanskiy within that same 36 hour period.
“Will we get this man Volkov?” The Admiral had asked him. “What do you really think our chances are if I give the order?”
“I don’t know, sir. In fact, I don’t know what we can possibly expect here if Troyak succeeds. Suppose the Orenburg Federation never arises. Would we suddenly forget about it? Would all the references and history I’ve been reading in those books we were given suddenly change? What about all the Soviet troops along the Volga facing down the Grey Legion? I just don’t understand how any of that could be affected. Are they all just going to appear somewhere else as we sit down to tea with Admiral Tovey? Will we be able to remember we even launched the mission? Why would we? There would be no reason to go after a man who was never there-do you see what I mean, Admiral?”
“Madness, Fedorov. I don’t understand any of it. Every time I lay my head down to try and sleep I keep thinking that I will awaken to the old world, before we left Severomorsk the first time.”
“There is one anchor I have tried to use for my thinking on this. The work of that American physicist-Paul Dorland. He was talking about something called a Heisenberg Wave.”
“What in God’s name is that?
“Werner Heisenberg, sir. He was a German theoretical physicist and one of the creators of the theory of quantum mechanics. Now that I think of him, he must be alive even now, working in what was called the German Uranium Club. They were trying to develop nuclear fission and an atomic weapon. In fact, Heisenberg came to believe that the war would eventually be decided by the bomb.”
“Yes, they are all working to lay their eggs,” Volsky shook his head. “And here we sit with three already in the nest. But how does this relate to this wave business?”
“The Heisenberg wave was not his idea. It was just a name given to a theory proposed by the American physicist, Paul Dorland. Heisenberg once proposed what he called the Uncertainty Principle. In effect, he claimed that events in the subatomic world, the world of quantum mechanics, were not certain. The movement and orbits of particles were not there unless and until they were observed. It is like these possible changes we’ve been discussing. Perhaps they only take real form the instant we observe them. Once a change has been made in the past, then its consequences sweep forward in time, like ripples from a stone thrown in a pool of still water. This is the Heisenberg Wave. Dorland theorized that it literally re-arranged every quantum particle it encountered as it migrated out, though its range was unknown. He carried this idea further by saying that only the knowing observer would realize the change had taken place, and in order to be able to make such an observation, he would have to be in a safe place, one that would keep them from becoming swept up in the wave of change itself. He called this a Nexus Point.”
“You and Kamenski should have a long talk, Fedorov. He tried to explain this to me once, but I have no mind for it. We seem to remember things that others forget, or have never even known. We knew about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and how that war ended, but if I asked anyone at the naval headquarters at Fokino, they all talked about the bombing of Vladivostok. Now here we are again in a world where that has never happened. Are we in one of these Nexus Points?”
“I don’t know, but this time I have my doubts. We have always been the ones making the changes in the past. We were the stone thrown into the water, and the Heisenberg Wave swept away from us, leaving us unaffected. Yet this time, if Troyak goes back and changes something, then we could very well be at risk.”
“It is too much for me to keep track of all these things. I have enough trouble trying to keep the ship and crew on a steady course. Yet what you say here gives me much to think about.”
“I understand, sir.” Fedorov recalled how Kamenski had described it before they set out on Kazan to try and stop Karpov in 1908… Time is not the nice straight line from point A to point B that you think it is. It is all twisted and folded about itself and, in fact, any two points on that squiggly line could meet and be joined. This is why I say we are all together now, in one place, a nexus point where the lines of fate meet and run through one another like a Gordian knot, and we sit here trying to figure out how to untangle it…
“Perhaps we will know if anything happens,” he said at last. “Perhaps we just need to have faith, and do right as we see it, moment to moment. Then let God, Fate, and Time sort everything out. We’ll just have to do our best and see what happens, sir.”
Even as the Narva lifted off the mooring tower and climbed into the sky, Vladimir Karpov was musing in the gondola bridge of airship Akaban. So I have finally seen the end of all my mischief, he thought with some foreboding. The war in 2021 reaches its awful conclusion. What else could that have been? I was watching a nice fat nuclear warhead going off, right over the 10th Naval arsenal on the other side of the river.
He could see the place where it would be built, just a thicket of pine and taiga now, where the rail line curved towards Kansk. He was suddenly beset with the feeling that nothing mattered any longer. No matter what I do here, he thought, I cannot save the world. Or is it the things I do here that bring that awful vision to life in the future? Which is it?