“Yes…” said Fedorov. “We’d have to sink them all.”
“What? Did you think we could just go hunting and sink all the aberrant new ships that set sail because of our meddling? Then what about the history? There was no battle of Midway here. Moscow burned. The Germans are in Baghdad! No, too much has changed. After that, there’s Ivan Volkov, the Orenburg Federation, and everything happening elsewhere in this war. We can’t do what we thought we could—what we agreed to in our little tryst. Yes, you thought it was possible, but I’m telling you now that it isn’t. I knew that from the very first, but I agreed to go along with you and Volsky because I didn’t want to make an enemy of Gromyko. He was sent here by Kamenski to kill this ship, if you recall, but the Director wasn’t going to solve the problem that way either. It just isn’t possible now with this new flotilla of Japanese ships out there… But we have another solution, and I think you know what it is.”
Chapter 36
Fedorov lowered his head. He had felt this himself, realized the staggering odds stacked against them, but he had been willing to try. What else was there to do but try? Yet now Karpov was finally leveling with him and saying that their whole mission and plan was clearly not going to work.
“So you’re saying all of this is for naught,” he said. “It’s all just an exercise in futility.”
“Yes, it is…. From this point in time.”
That subtle pause when Karpov spoke was filled with an enormous amount of unspoken information.
“You mean….”
“Yes,” said Karpov. “I mean that we cannot succeed with our plan here—not in 1943. It will be nothing more than an exercise in futility, as you say, and it will also likely lead to the death of this ship and crew. But look here.” He tapped the lower base of the fan, the point from which each colorful segment originated, all fanning out into the future.
“The source of all our torment is here—in 1908. I realized this the moment I found myself there after I sunk those American battleships in 1945. I shifted back, but not Orlan, and that will always be on my conscience—yes, I still have a soul, in spite of what you may think of me.”
“You’re suggesting we go back again—to 1908?”
“That is the source, the real point of origin—the point of divergence in time that changed everything that came after. Isn’t that correct? I knew this the moment I found myself there, and I set about using the power I had to try and set things right. I would have succeeded there too—until Kazan appeared on the scene. You and Volsky thought you were doing the world and time a great favor by coming back after me, but you had it all wrong, Fedorov. I was the one chance you had at fixing this damn mess, and I’m telling you now that it simply cannot be done here in 1943. You knew that yourself when you went back on that mission to get after Sergei Kirov.”
“But you ordered me to abort that mission.”
“Yes, and you disobeyed. Now don’t tell me it was because I took that shot at your helo. You know damn well that was just a thin cover for what you really wanted to do. You knew it then, and you know it now—1908 is the key. It’s the only place where we can find a lever strong enough to move the whole world. 1908, Fedorov. That’s where we have to go if we are to have any chance at setting things right. And there you were, sucked back there again under some very mysterious circumstances, because Mother Time knows that’s the only place she could drop you to have any chance at putting all the broken china back together. When it came right down to it, you lost your nerve. You couldn’t kill Sergei Kirov and stop him from killing Stalin with that very same bullet. You thought we could fix things here, and you decided to come back, roll up your sleeve, and get busy. Well, here’s another little secret that you may already know. I never thought we could put things back the way they once were. Never. What’s done is done. All we could do was work to shape the new world that was coming, but now I see even that is self-serving crap.”
“Honesty cuts like a knife at times,” said Fedorov. “You’re right—I did lose my nerve. But so did you when you called off my mission.”
“No, that was just pure selfishness on my part,” said Karpov. “I’m not ashamed to say it. I made the same choice that Lucifer did. I simply decided it was better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. I was quite comfortable after fighting my way to the top of the heap in the Free Siberian State. Yes, I was quite comfortable here on my battlecruiser, and with the power to bring Yamamoto and Tojo to their knees, until Takami showed up, and now we get all her friends. But I never thought, for one minute, that I was crusading to restore the time line as it once was. That can’t be done from here. I’m telling you that it can only be done from 1908. That said, I simply decided I would prefer to live out my life here. Selfish, certainly. I’m a narcissistic bastard, but I was going to be a very content bastard here in the 1940s, and I was going to rule the roost. Now, however, it seems that someone has crashed my party. It isn’t going to be fun here from this point forward. Kazan came gunning for me, but I managed to get that situation under control. Now we’ve got the Japanese to worry about.”
“Not feeling so glib and confident?” asked Fedorov.
“Let’s just say that death is in the cards now, rude and untimely death. Who wants that? Certainly not me. I only narrowly averted it during that last engagement. I’d prefer not to have to refight that battle, not unless I can even the odds using Kazan as I’ve said earlier. Face it, we’re wasting our time here, quite literally. 1908, Fedorov! We’ve got to go back there if we want to do this thing—all of us.”
Fedorov was silent for some time. He knew that everything Karpov had just said was true. They couldn’t change things from here, and they were fools to ever think they could. If they had the balls to try here, then they would have to see reason and do exactly what Karpov was suggesting. They would have to go back to the source—to 1908.
He looked up, seeing the coldness, unremitting, in Karpov’s eyes, but he could do nothing else but agree. “Alright,” he said. “You’re correct. The key lever point is 1908. We both know that, but each time we entertained a decisive intervention there, we lost our nerve. Yet that is why you persisted in rebuilding that back stairway at Ilanskiy, isn’t it? You knew all along that you always had one last resort—a way to get back to 1908 and settle affairs there.”
“True again,” said Karpov.
“How would we get back there? Are you suggesting we go to Ilanskiy and use those stairs; kill Sergei Kirov like we planned before?”
“That would be a start,” said Karpov. “And from there, we will have at least a sporting chance of getting Ivan Volkov out of the equation as well. Nukes or no nukes, we weren’t going to do that here.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Fedorov. “You’re probably correct to say that we might not be able to eliminate Volkov from here. The idea about using a nuclear threat was ill-conceived. A good sniper would be the way to go.”
“I’ve already put Tyrenkov on that assignment.”
“What? You took out a contract on Volkov?”
“Why not? We need him gone, and if my people can get to him, all the better. Don’t put much faith in his sudden peace overture. That man is a skunk, through and through. He’ll use us while he can, and then just as easily stab us in the back if he gets the chance. But even if we could assassinate him here, it won’t eliminate his Orenburg Federation. Someone else will just be waiting in the wings to take power there. So the only way to eliminate that contamination would be to nip it in the bud—or rather pull the weed before it can really take root and spread.”