“Sorry Chief. I don’t mean to pry into your affairs, but what was it you thought I took from you?”
Orlov leaned back, folding his arms. “Nosy little runt, aren’t you. Want to know what the Chief does in his sleep, do you? You want to get cozy with me now, Fedorov? Well I’ll tell you what. I’ve been dreaming I was off this damn ship, that’s what. Dreamt I jumped so far that none of you would ever see me again. Found bars, beer, babushkas, and better food. And when someone got nosy with me I choked the breath right out of him. You want to get nosy with me now?”
“Alright…” Fedorov held up a hand. “Like I say, I don’t mean to offend. Just making conversation, that’s all. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the cold potatoes.” He stood up, taking his plate and intending to go to the buffet that had been set out tonight. Yet even as he did so, the things the Chief had just said to him struck an odd chord in his mind. That was what Orlov had done—jumped ship, and from his old story, he had quite a time in the bars and brothels of Spain thereafter. Orlov said I took something from him….
A sudden memory returned to him now, of those first strange moments after the ship last vanished in the Atlantic. Orlov had been below decks seeing to the work crews, which were scouring the ship to see if any further damage had been sustained.
“Chief on the bridge!” came the boatswain’s call, and Orlov huffed through the side hatch in a grumpy mood. “Top to bottom,” he said gruffly. “The men are going over the whole damn ship!”
“I trust you are well, Chief,” said Volsky.
“Not bad,” said Orlov. “But we found another stair missing on the lower engineering level. They had to rig a ladder there. Damn thing was half there, three steps, the rest gone. What’s going on around here, Fedorov?” Even Orlov turned to the ex-navigator for answers now, but Fedorov could only speculate.
“We’re shifting, yet in an uncontrolled state,” said Fedorov. “Remember my example with magnetism? The ship may have acquired some kind of phantom energy throughout its travels. It may be causing these effects. How were the final mast inspections, Chief?”
“Everything seems to be working on the main masts and radar decks. The Tin Man optical units checked out fine too. An Engineering team is on the way to fix that mess.” He thumbed the main bridge hatch. “Speaking of magnetism, there’s just one other thing gone haywire.” He smiled, handing Fedorov his pocket compass.
Fedorov took it, and to his amazement, the needle was completely lost. It spun left and right, then twirled about, unable to find magnetic north, a useless flutter, no matter which way he held it.
“Keep it,” said Orlov. “It’s no good to me.” He tramped over to the coffee station near the plotting table, and looked for a mug. “Who knows,” he said. “Maybe the coffee will taste better for a while.”
…Half way to the buffet, Fedorov stopped, an odd impulse sending his hand into his jacket pocket. His heart leapt as his fingers settled on a small object, and he slowly drew it out.
It was Orlov’s compass!
Chapter 3
How could it be here? That was the first question burning in Fedorov’s mind. Orlov gave this to me on the other ship, the ship I still remember with complete clarity. Yet this is more than a memory, it’s a physical object, and I clearly remember that moment when Orlov handed it to me. In fact, he disappeared shortly after that, which is why I was so surprised when I first encountered him here on this ship.
It was a remnant of that other life, he thought, just like that bandage Doctor Zolkin discovered down in sick bay, and the data on his computer with the names of the missing crew—just like that magazine Karpov found, the one we recovered from that island off the northern coast of Australia. My god… that seems so long ago now, and we were just about to enter the Pacific at that time. All these things were odd remnants from the life I experienced before. Yet how could they be here, on this ship?
Now he remembered the strange documents Alan Turing had found in the archive of Bletchley Park. They were detailed accounts of experiences from that other life, that other meridian of time we were sailing on before we shifted and manifested here in June of 1940. But this isn’t the same ship. It doesn’t make any sense. How could these things exist here?
A sudden thought occurred to him. If Orlov gave me this compass once before, might he have a similar one now? He hesitated briefly, seeing the Chief’s surly mood, but decided to ask anyway.
“Chief,” he said. “Were you in the habit of using a pocket compass?”
“What?” Orlov gave him a blank look. “Pocket compass? I suppose I have one somewhere. What’s the matter, Fedorov? You lost all of a sudden, or do you just miss your post at navigation?” He gave him a wry grin.
“Once a navigator, you always have your nose in the charts. Yeah, I’m missing my compass. If you’re not needing yours…”
“I’ll look for it.” Orlov said nothing more, getting up and bussing his tray over to the dirty dish counter.
Fedorov was very confused about all of this as he slowly made his way back to the buffet. The boundaries between these two meridians of time seemed strangely permeable. Admiral Tovey has been right at the edge of recollection from that first encounter we had with him after we shifted here. Now Zolkin seems to be struggling with memories from those earlier experiences. I wonder if Orlov is too.
“Say Chief,” he said tentatively. “This may sound odd, but do you ever get the feeling that we’ve done this before?”
“You mean that slop they’ve been serving at the buffet the last three days?”
Fedorov smiled. “No, not the food. I mean this whole situation—the ship, this incredible shift in time. Ever have what they call déjà vu?”
“What’s that, some kind of French cologne?”
“No, no. It’s a feeling that comes where you think you’ve already lived through some present moment before—maybe like you’re stuck in some kind of loop or something, and you keep going over and over events of the past, reliving them.”
Orlov looked over his shoulder, giving Fedorov a nod. “Maybe I know this. You mean like a dream—like those nice little nightmares I told you about?”
“Something like that, only it tends to happen while you’re awake. You walk into a room, and you suddenly think to yourself—I’ve been here before, done all this before.”
Orlov grinned again. “Yes, every time I go to take a shit.”
“Seriously. Ever get odd feelings like that—things repeating, odd memories returning over and over?”
“Well… Like I told you, I see things in my sleep—dreams—and yes, they repeat over and over. What of it?”
“What kind of dreams? What is it that repeats? You said you were choking someone?”
“You some kind of shrink now? What is it with you, Fedorov? Alright, I have this nice little dream where I’m choking someone to death. I can see his face, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who he is.”
“Are you sure?” Now a memory returned to Fedorov, a conversation he had with Orlov in this very room, just shortly after the ship appeared in June of 1940. He had been reading one of the history books Sergei Kirov had given to him, trying to get a grasp on all that had changed. A weariness overcame him, and the tea he was drinking was not helping. He was just about to finish up and get some sleep when Orlov happened along….
“What are you doing, Fedorov? Nose in the books again? You should have been promoted to the ship’s librarian.” Orlov said that with a grin, realizing, after all, that he was speaking to the ship’s Captain now, and remembering the humiliating lesson Troyak had taught him about showing due respect when he had been busted to the Marine detachment. He had come to the officer’s dining hall for a cup of coffee before going on duty, and found Fedorov sitting at a table reading.