part0011

The door opened, and a man in a dark overcoat walked into the sick bay where Karpov was still resting quietly on his cot. Seeing him, Doctor Zolkin offered a brief greeting, and then excused himself, as per Karpov’s earlier request.

“The sea…” Karpov closed his eyes for a moment. He had spent the last day in a quiet slumber, dreaming the life of the Siberian, slowly playing the memories that had come to him so suddenly. It was as if he had been given a great sea chest, finding stacks of letters, photographs, and journals recounting that life. It was at once revealing of all the Siberian had lived and done, while also standing as a testament to his life. It was also ashes work, as Karpov also came to terms with his sudden demise. He was reliving it all, the triumph, the tragedy, the dreams become nightmares. They were one and the same.

“Yes, the sea,” he said again. “I never wanted to be anywhere else, Tyrenkov. Oh, I passed my time in Siberia during the war, doing what I had to there to consolidate power. I reveled in those wonderful old airships, the closest thing I could find to do that resembled my days aboard Kirov . Yes, I was Admiral of the Fleet. Then, when I learned Kirov had returned, the only thing on my mind was getting back to that ship, and I was willing to take it, by force or deception, from both Volsky and Fedorov at that time. I never once thought that I, myself, might already be there. You recall the night you came to me and told me that was so?”

“Quite an understatement,” said Karpov. “There I was, fresh off the boat, if you will. There I was. I stood there looking at my very own self. He seemed just a little younger, raw, unfinished, yet full of potential. There was so much he did not yet know, and at that moment, I came to feel like his older brother. I had taken the first long loop through time aboard Kirov , but he had only just arrived, bewildered, and perhaps still struggling to comprehend and believe what had just happened to his ship and crew. Strangely, Fedorov was the only man on his ship that knew anything, because the soul that served with me aboard Kirov in that amazing first loop had somehow found its way into the mind and heart of the young Navigator serving aboard my brother’s ship. Understand?”

“Of course. Well, Tyrenkov, you are the man I recruited to my side during those early years in Siberia, my trusted Chief of Intelligence—until you became a wayward moon. Yet I suppose any man can turn, falling prey to some lure or another, and power is often the most compelling gravity that can seize a man. Do you remember when we labored to turn Kymchek, Volkov’s security man?”

“Of course, though I never truly believed he had come over to our side. Volkov would have had too many ways he could make Kymchek suffer. So while he paid us lip service, and bowed and scraped as he had to once we had him, Kymchek was always in Volkov’s service, secretly, as he believed, but it was quite transparent to me.”

Tyrenkov smiled. “My own self,” he said frankly. “Yes, I served my own ambitions and desires, like every man. Have you ever really been foolish enough to think things were otherwise? That is not the way of the world, Karpov. Men serve others, and sometimes they even dupe themselves into thinking they serve some greater cause, but in the end, I think they really serve their own ambitions.”

“Perhaps true,” said Karpov, “if somewhat jaded. Well, speaking of service, be it to some greater cause or to the petty desires we are all prey to, I have a proposition for you. I am certain you are aware of the death of the Siberian.”

“Yes… How do you lay your own self to rest, Tyrenkov? How do you bury your own future? That is what I have been struggling to do these last few days. I once thought of the Siberian as my younger brother, but when we arrived here, and I finally met him again, he was an old grey man. He had lived out decades that remain waiting for me in the years ahead, all in service to the Free Siberian State, and certainly to his own ambitions as well, as we both know. Now he is gone, and that leaves a great void at the top of the leadership pyramid over there. How would you feel about taking that throne?”

“Exactly. It has a nice ring to it, does it not? My brother left instructions with his most trusted lieutenants, but first and foremost, he specified that I should stand in his place if anything should happen to him, or have the final say as to who would advance to that post in the line of succession. In truth, I knew nothing of the men in his orbit, until recently. There are some very good men there, and chief among them is General Erkin Kutukov. He commanded the 1st Siberian Guards, and is presently serving as acting head of state, but now I offer this position to you. Interested?”

“Of course,” said Karpov. “Here on the ship, your duties are simply too limited to satisfy. Frankly, you are made for bigger things, Tyrenkov. Analyzing message traffic, studying orders of battle, sifting through intelligence channels was the work you did in your early years, but now you are a man. The days and years ahead are going to be hard and difficult for Siberia. The Chinese may have agreed to this cease fire, because they get all of Heilongjiang province back from my brother—ground we overran in the last three weeks in this fight for Vladivostok. Yet you and I know that the conflict will remain at the boil for some time now—perhaps for years. It will need a good cook to stir that pot, and I cannot think of anyone better suited to the task. So I offer it to you.”

“No, I can tell you now that I have no intention of returning to Siberia to take up the reins of its affairs. My brother Self has already lived that. I want to take a different course, and remain here, aboard Kirov . Of course I will insist that I retain complete authority over this ship, and over any others that might ever join the ranks of the Siberian Navy. There isn’t much of that around these days, but it’s one thing we might fix in the years ahead. I will also expect your full support, logistics, air support, whenever requested.”

Karpov smiled with a nod, knowing that was true. “Tyrenkov, I am a fighter. I do my scheming and planning simply to make sure I get to the fight, and with everything I need to prevail. As for the day to day machinations of state, I built a government beneath me to manage that, and yes, I found you as well. This is what you wanted, correct? Stay here, and you will always be in my shadow. In Siberia, you will have come as close to your general ambition of ruling over all of Russia as is presently possible.”

“I think we understand one another,” said Karpov. “Once it was in your mind to try and get rid of me, as you discarded Orlov when you thought to set up a little triumvirate with Volkov. Once Fedorov and I had your name penciled at the very top of our list of problems, yet, as we have seen, we are able to reason things out and reach accommodations. In taking you on here, we gained much, did we not? You brought weapons, that interesting key you found at Ilanskiy, and you would be under my thumb. I never pressed it too firmly upon you, and for good reason. I know your caliber, Tyrenkov. I have taken your measure, as you have certainly taken mine. So let us leave it with this—we will cooperate with one another, and all in the general aim of what we both know we must do for Siberia—for Russia.”

“Until they take one step more on their path. Think of Sergei Kirov. He formed and led his Soviet Union through its most tumultuous and darkest hours, and being there, meeting and speaking with him on numerous occasions, I could clearly see his greatness. Look at the Soviet Union now. Instead of 50 years of useless and wasteful ‘Cold War’ with the West, he found a way to reach an accommodation, and he did so while still preserving the government we brought to life in the revolution. To do this, he only let go of one thing, the need to export communism to the rest of the world. So in this history, we had no Castro in his Cuba, and if China embraced communism, they did so in their own way, and in their own time. Today the Europeans see our politburo as nothing more than a variant of their own governing systems, and frankly, if you study what Sergei Kirov built in Russia here, you will see we never really shunned democracy. Perhaps we can do the same.”

“Perhaps,” said Tyrenkov. “Yet this war will end, Karpov. What will a fighting Admiral do when that happens one day? When Kirov has no more battles to fight, then where will you go, and what will you do with this ship and the crew that serves you so faithfully in all these adventures?”

Karpov gave him a long look. “That is tomorrow,” he said. “In one sense, I have already seen it. Yes, we are the men who move from yesterday to tomorrow in the blink of an eye. I never fooled myself in that, knowing it was power beyond the measure of that ever held by the world’s mightiest leaders. You drank from that same cup, Tyrenkov, and it’s a dizzy, heady brew. But its exacts a price, it has consequences, terrible consequences, as we have seen in more than one world where we found ourselves. So let us face tomorrow when it comes. Today, we have other business. I offer you this position in Siberia. Do you want it?”

“Of course! And I thank you for your consideration. You have grown, Admiral. We give ourselves these names and titles, and we wear these uniforms to play the part, but sometimes certain men grow so large that no tailor can ever really fit them. We saw some of the truly great men of the last century, Churchill, Kirov, Roosevelt. The thought that our names might ever be mentioned in the same sentence with such men never occurred to us, but we now have a good deal to say what happens when they write the history of this century.”

“Well said. Yes, we grow. Ambition is one thing, and some men never get beyond its grip. Only the truly great men accomplish that. I won’t soft sell this to you. There will be difficulties ahead, for both of us. The Chinese cannot be underestimated. This is their century, and they are rising now in a way that few clearly see. And there are other forces, other men out there, all serving their own ambitions. We must speak now of one man in particular—Ivan Volkov. He is not here. I had Fedorov try and sleuth him out in this history, but nothing was found.”

“But this is not to say that we are rid of the man,” said Karpov. “Frankly, when I learned you had taken up with him in the past, I was quite surprised. You know how ruthless and conniving that man can be. He made his bed with the likes of Adolf Hitler, betraying Russia in that devil’s bargain, and then simply disappeared when we prevailed in WWII. Yet I wonder what really became of that man. Then, imagine my surprise when you send him over to me for a nice little chat!”

“I would not fool myself in thinking that,” said Karpov. “A weed is a weed, no matter where it sits in your well sculpted garden. Volkov may yet be a problem, and now I am talking of the man we just left behind in 2021. Both you and I were able to make good an escape from that world, but we both know the missile that struck near the airfield at the Northern Shamrock was meant for you, and I don’t have to tell you who was behind it.”

“Yes,” said Tyrenkov, “it was Volkov. I knew he was never a reliable partner. The two of us pulled the same carriage for a while, two horses lashed together in the same team, but he was always scheming, and never satisfied. I took steps to seal off any avenue he might find to cause further trouble, either in this future, or in the past. I burned Ilanskiy to the ground once, then rebuilt it to serve my needs. And as for that amazing airship you built, I gave orders that it should be destroyed before we embarked on this ship.”

“Yet we must be wary,” said Karpov. “We must remain vigilant. Volkov is a very resourceful man, and while this version of the man may not have lived out the enmity we engaged in during the war, Fedorov and I have learned that the memories and recollections of a man can emerge, either by slow degrees, or all in one wild rush. When I was very young, I learned to play the balalaika. Then with the business of life, I set it aside for decades. Yet once I picked one up, twenty years later, and I could still play. It’s old memory, Tyrenkov—muscle memory. Volkov already acts and moves in ways that belie that old muscle memory of enmity with us. I clearly saw that, and I think you did as well.”

“Then we must not put him out of the equation here just yet. You took precautions, but he knows about Ilanskiy. That said, I do not think he will have time to do anything with that, given the situation we hurriedly left behind in 2021. We have no further history to read of what may have followed those nukes in Korea, but Fedorov and I have seen its end, and with our own eyes. It wasn’t speculation. No, we knew what was going to happen, because we sifted the ashes long ago, when my own wanton use of a special warhead pushed the ship forward into a shattered world, in a future where none of us could ever hope to find a home again. So we must be careful here, not only in shaping the outcome of this war, but also in making sure that Volkov never gets a toe-hold here, or a chance at finishing his dastardly unfinished business.”

“I don’t know, but what I can say is this…. Anyone who has managed to escape the world of 2021 has ended up here. We came here, then Argos Fire and Kazan . Was that mere coincidence? I think not. There is a reason why this is so, and it is a very dark one. It may just be that there is no other place to go—no other future that has survived our thoughtless intrusion in the past. So we must beware. If there is any way that Volkov might move, then he may just get to this time as we did. Remember what nuclear detonations do to the continuum—they open holes, create rifts, and things move through. Remember also that Volkov is Prime Mover in all of these events.”

“Well,” said Karpov, “there is an old saying that goes something like this…. if we keep heading in this direction, we might just get where we're going. Volkov is the last missing actor in this little play. Everyone else is here, all ready to take their part on the stage. So we must be wary. There could be a few more nightmares heading our way.”

“When you are ready. Yes, you set the hour and day now, Mister Prime Minister. I have every confidence in you, and I know you will not disappoint me. No, not a second time. Are you the man I think you truly are? I suppose we shall see in good time. Pack your sea chest, Tyrenkov. You’re getting a big promotion!”