Karpov was trying to correct that historical aberration. He had already taken back Kamchatka, and was now successful in covering his invasion of Sakhalin Island. Then came the unexpected challenger, the hot missiles flying in a duel of 21st Century ships—certainly surprising and very dangerous, but not even a shadow compared to the peril he was contemplating now.
It came to him again, amid the jumble of things he dealt with each day, when Karpov had asked him whether there was any further risk of paradox ahead. He told him this seemed to be a safe time, because the ship did not vanish in August of 1941 as it had the first time around. He remembered how he explained it to Karpov.
“We vanished in August of 1941, sailed through that broken future to the Med, and then reappeared a full year later, in August of 1942, right in the middle of Operation Pedestal. With Malta gone, that history isn’t likely to repeat, let alone the fact that we are still here in the Pacific. We never vanished last August like the first ship.”
“Should we fear that date, August of 1942? Might there be another paradox there?”
“No… I don’t think so….”
Karpov nodded. “So then, if there’s no paradox to worry about come this August, what has you so spooked?”
“Just what I discussed with you earlier. We could do something, cause a change here that would knock out a key supporting beam holding up the future that built this ship. I’ve been thinking about that, and trying to discover what it could be, where the key event is that we must not disturb, and I think I may be on to something.”
At that point their discussion had disintegrated into a search for the real Prime Mover on all these events. Was he to blame, or was it Orlov, or Karpov? Everyone had an opinion. But what was time doing here? Orlov’s sudden awakening to the knowledge of events they had lived through in the Med was also disturbing, and as Fedorov considered those things, he lined up the dominoes in his mind, getting more anxious with each one he placed. Orlov jumped ship… I tried to kill him to erase him from the continuum, but he survived. Then, once we got back to Vladivostok in 2021, I tried to go back and rescue him, all with the aim of preserving the integrity of the history I knew.
That was a story that spun off in entirely unexpected directions, and it all had to do with Ilanskiy. It was there that I fell through to 1908, the Tunguska event, and there that I met Mironov. I effectively killed Josef Stalin with a single whisper in Mironov’s ear. Volkov’s pursuit also brought him to Ilanskiy, and in that, the Orenburg Federation was born. All of that depended on Orlov jumping ship, but that won’t happen now, even though it was a root cause that gave rise to the world we’re sailing in here.
Orlov jumped ship, and now he tells me how he leapt out of that helicopter, and I remember the ship’s logs on that clearly—18:30 hours, on the 13th of August, 1942. This entire world depended on him surviving that jump… and I put five S-300s in the air to try and kill him before he could leap to safety. My god, this is what happens when a missile fails to get its target. This whole broken world is the result. Now the real problem asserted itself in his mind.
It’s already late September. Orlov should have already jumped ship by now, but the world is still here. If this history is re-writing the old, like the Mona Lisa painted over some older image on the canvas, then how can this world still persist? It depends entirely on Orlov’s jump, but that didn’t happen. Could I be wrong about the importance of that event? Then something struck him like a thunderclap. He was wrong. It wasn’t August 13 that mattered!
His heart was racing, and a queasy feeling of utter peril clamped down on him. Orlov’s jump didn’t matter. That’s not where the history really changed. It was something he did after that, and something I did in response.
I’ve been worried we would come to some essential pillar holding everything up, and then take some action to topple it, and this entire world along with it. But that’s not how it will happen. It will happen by inaction, by Orlov failing to do something he did in the past… by me failing to react. then all the dominoes that fell from his earlier act come tumbling down. There would never be a reason for me to go after him, to ever meet with Sergei Kirov, or for Volkov to ever pursue me on the Trans-Siberian Rail. There could never be an Orenburg Federation.
His heart was pounding now, for time was creeping silently toward the real moment of truth. Tomorrow was the 27th of September, 1942. The world here held together until now because Orlov was just reveling in the bars and brothels of Spain this last month. He was picked up, put on a ship, and made his way to the Black Sea. But soon, in just a few days, he does something that truly matters, and when it is decidedly clear that can’t happen, then time is in a real quandary. Then the meridians of fate diverge, and the history of these events moves forward on a line that takes it farther and farther from the time line that created it. How far can it go before Time realizes it is an impossible dead end, a line of causality that leads nowhere—a world that must end? My god, I was wrong! I told Karpov there was no risk of paradox here, but I was wrong. We’re facing it all again—another Paradox Hour—September 30, 1942!
What can I do? The question pulsed at his temples. What can I do to create a situation here, on this timeline, that might justify or underpin its continuation? Yes, that was the key. Where Orlov failed to act, I must act in his place. In fact, I’m the only one who can act now to preserve this line of fate. I’m the reason things haven’t already fallen apart here, because I know exactly what I would have to do. Time has been waiting for me to choose.
With that thought he was off at a run, heading for the officer’s dining room where he knew he would always find Karpov at this hour. There was so little time, and so far to go, but if he failed to act, if he failed to get there in time….
“Settle down Fedorov, you’re working yourself up into a fit. Here, drink some wine and catch your breath. Now what is it that has you so upset?”
He went over the whole thing with Karpov, his unreasoning fear, and then the desperate attempt to discover where the key lever was on these events. It was just days away now, on the 30th of September.
“More of your crazy time theory? You are saying that this date is some kind of trip wire, and the whole world is about to blow up? How can I believe that?”
“Yes, it is crazy, and I’m not sure what we can expect. All I know is that the last time we faced a situation like this, bad things happened. The ship itself vanished!”
“I thought you said that was because of the imperative of its first coming. We don’t have that now in this situation. We steered north for Murmansk, not south into the Denmark Strait. That was a major point of divergence—yes? You see, I’ve thought about all of this as well. Remember, I faced the wrath of time alone aboard Tunguska, and… well… here I am, enjoying this nice cut of meat. You should try it, Fedorov. It would do you some good.”
“Eat? With all this in the air? No, we’ve got to work this through—determine what we can do about it. I have a plan.”
“A plan? Good Lord, Fedorov, I’ve heard that one before. It was your crazy plans that set all this in motion.”
“I thought that once myself, but no longer. In one sense, yes, what you say is true. But a man must have a reason to take action, and without Orlov jumping ship as he did, I would have had no reason to go after him.”