Chapter 31
Karpov was pacing, as he often did when something was bothering him. Now he was having second thoughts about Fedorov’s operation, and wondering what could possibly happen if he let it be.
He tells me he must act, he thought, or this world has no basis to exist. He says it will wither away, warp, fracture, but God only knows how. In that instance, my little steel reign here comes to an eventual end. If he warns Kirov, that only buys us a little more time before the next paradox raises its ugly head. If he kills Kirov, then things should look much different for me here as well, particularly if we are correct and we get Stalin back.
I’m supposed to put that damnable control rod back in the system and run the procedure at the precise moment Fedorov goes down those steps with my brother self. Everything must be in play, he tells me. Time must have all the cards in her greedy hands before she shuffles the deck. But what kind of hand will I be dealt this time? I worked damn hard to get where I am. Now all this will simply vanish, fall apart, or I’ll end up playing second fiddle to Stalin. He’ll be much more difficult to deal with than Sergei Kirov, in spite of my boast to Fedorov on that score. What am I doing here?
And yet… If this does work as Fedorov believes, then a good many problems on my desk get resolved. Stalin would probably settle accounts with Volkov, and the Japanese will get their comeuppance. Since I’m not taking the ship back to 1908 as before, then they have no reason to invade Siberian territory. We could come out of the shift and find we already have Vladivostok back, with no need to bully the Japanese further, unless I decide to help the Americans here.
Should I? They get very powerful here in the Pacific by 1945, and enforce their own steel reign for decades after. Remember how Captain Tanner bragged about that. He as much as told me that the Pacific was his beat, until I put my missiles up his ass. He smiled at that, a little consolation in the midst of his worrisome muse. Then he sighed, looking ahead, thinking hard about the future that might arise from this meridian.
I’ll beat the Japanese, he thought. There was no Midway disaster last May, but I can arrange for that. I could get after the carriers here easily enough, and smash each and every last one. But what about this damn Japanese missile destroyer? I suppose their SM-2s might be able to hold us off for a while, but they can’t stop torpedoes, can they? One way or another, I’ll get their carriers, and I’ll get that damn destroyer as well.
But can the Soviets hold off Germany. Can I stop Volkov on the ground? It will be years before the action in the west presents any real threat to the Germans. This so called Second Front will be futzing about in North Africa for a good long while. Until then, the war in the east will be the real crisis point. Can we win? Supposing we do, even if it takes the use of my special warheads. Then what does the post war world look like?
I suppose Russia gets reunified. Do I then see the Free Siberian State folded under Sergei Kirov’s reign? I have ample room to negotiate there, and well before the war ends. If Kirov reneges, I’ve always got Ilanskiy… Assuming I survive this whole affair.
That was what was really bothering him, as selfish as it seemed. The world could all go to hell, get twisted back on itself like a pretzel, but none of that would matter to Karpov as long as he was still in power, still lording it over the oceans of the world aboard his invincible battlecruiser. He could not see how things could simply change here all at once, or vanish. He had no idea what Fedorov was talking about with his dire warnings, but he was deathly worried about his own sad fate.
If what Fedorov says is true, he realized, I should not be here. In order for me to be in this position, I must first go to 1908, and then come forward again as I did. I’m gloating that Volkov never arises here, but what about me? What about my Free Siberian State? If we kill Sergei Kirov, how do I still end up controlling any of this? Siberia will be Soviet territory, Stalin’s little Gulag farm. And what happens to my airship fleet; my brother?
Then something struck him like a hammer. Just a moment, he thought. This world is the result of actions we took earlier, when the ship first vanished in the Norwegian Sea. It’s the result of Fedorov’s little hunt for Orlov, and my unexpected visit to 1908, all of it. Fedorov’s rescue mission gives us Sergei Kirov and Ivan Volkov, and my sortie in 1908 sets up this entire situation in the Pacific. But those things didn’t happen here. Not on this meridian. We went north to Murmansk, not south to the Denmark Strait. So in this time line, we never fought the British, never went to the Med, and never fought the Japanese as I did when I pounded Yamato before we shifted home again. None of that ever happens here!
But it clearly did happen, because I remember each and every minute of it. By God, I’ve even got that damn magazine we found in the Pacific that told us how the war started in 2021. I’ve got a real and tangible thing from that sequence of events. How is that possible? Clearly, all those other events happened on another time line, not this one. This is just the altered reality those events created, and the ship that caused all this has vanished. But here I am, a remnant from that other time line, just like that magazine!
The realization struck him deeply now. He was mere flotsam, just as he was when time dropped him into the Sea of Japan in 1938. Why? How did this happen? How come I appeared here, and how could that magazine exist here?
Time makes mistakes.
That was all he could think of. Time isn’t perfect, and the chaos we caused was so great, that she slipped a few stitches. That satisfied where the magazine was concerned, but not for his own personal fate.
I’m not just anybody, he thought. I’m Vladimir Karpov. I built this entire world! I was the one who pissed off Orlov. Absent that, he never jumps ship. So all of this is my doing, because I am first cause for this world to exist. That is why I persist here—why I will continue to persist. Time might dearly love to get rid of me, but she can’t, I’m just too damn important. Without me, none of this ever happens.
But what about my brother?
Who is the pretender to the throne here, me or my brother? How could time allow him to enter my world while I was here? Ah… but I wasn’t here. That’s what all that travail was aboard Tunguska. I was somewhere else when my brother self appeared here aboard Kirov. My brother was supposed to replace me! Time was planning to crown my brother king here. That bitch was trying to eliminate me completely, but something happened. I eluded her grasp and survived.
My God! She had it all figured out. Kirov was supposed to appear here, and then time filled Fedorov’s head with the memory of everything we did in the first loop. He was supposed to steer the ship to a different course, which is exactly what he did. As for the world here, these altered states, that was history insofar as time was concerned. It all started rewriting everything back in 1908, and clearly, none of those other events when we fought the British and Italians and Japanese ever happened here. So time is quite content to let this time line persist—in fact, that is exactly what she is planning! There is only one errant thread in her loom as she weaves all this together again—me! So what would I do in her place?
Karpov swallowed hard now, for he knew exactly what he would do. He would find any way possible to get rid of the aberration, and that is exactly what he was, an aberration.
So if I do this, use that control rod as Fedorov planned it, then I throw my fate to the wind again. I place myself at Time’s mercy, and I have no reason whatsoever to believe that she will simply return me safely. Fedorov was talking about men simply vanishing—I’ll be the one to go next. Time doesn’t want me here—she wants my brother!