Nemesis

by John Schettler

  “He did, and his conclusion was a load of utter nonsense about radio shows, weather stations, and Norwegians with dogs. He’s clearly deluded, sir. Perhaps Zolkin should make room and he can transfer here permanently.” He gave Fedorov a disparaging glance.

  “Yet was it not Mister Fedorov who suggested you mount that recon operation to Jan Mayen?”

  “That was an obvious next step in our investigation. I intended to do so immediately after recovering the submersible.”

  “Well, you were just telling me what Orlov discovered there. Go on, Captain. Finish your report.”

  Again the sideward’s look at Fedorov, dismissive, frustrated. “No facilities were found on the island sir. I believe they were destroyed.”

  “Destroyed? Orlov reported this?”

  “Not exactly. He simply indicated they were not there.”

  “What would be there, Fedorov?”

  “Sir, the MET station. Five or six buildings at Olonkin, including the new Loran-C Antenna. That operates just like our old CHAKYA Seagull radio navigation antenna systems at around 100 KHz. Most similar systems were discontinued with the advent of GPS, but this one was still active, and when we lost satellite links I immediately looked for that signal.”

  “But you did not find it.”

  “No sir. This is why I recommended the recon operation to Jan Mayen to investigate.”

  “As any astute officer would.” Volsky gave the Captain a look that seemed to buttress Fedorov in his eyes, but Karpov said nothing. “So Orlov found nothing on Jan Mayen? No facilities at all?” He looked at the Captain now.

  “A small weather station manned by two men,” said Karpov, “just as Fedorov predicted.”

  “Predicted?”

  “He told me this was what we would find, and in this, he was correct. Yet I find that evidence of only one thing, Admiral. Whatever is going on here, Fedorov is complicit. He even named one of the men we would discover there, and Orlov found this.” He reached into his pocket, like an attorney producing exhibit one for a judge. It was the worn and typewritten identity card that Fedorov had told him to look for.

  “That card was taken from one of the Norwegians on that island, and Fedorov named the man before the mission was even launched! He’s clearly involved in this somehow, Admiral. We need to get to the bottom of this here and now.” His eyes hardened on Fedorov, the suspicion obvious.

  “Fedorov? You were aware of this?”

  “I was, sir.”

  “Then explain yourself please. Is the Captain correct? His inference is obvious. Are you involved in something that needs further explanation here?”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Karpov. “Don’t forget that radio message he force fed us on the bridge, Admiral. What was that business about, Fedorov? Some kind of signal or code flashed to the British? I find it alarming that they would contact us like that, and ask to speak with you as if you were one of their own. You even admit you were associated with the man who made that call. You heard him, Admiral.”

  “Yes, yes, an Admiral Tovey… But there is no such Admiral presently serving with the Royal Navy, and I assume you verified this yourself, Captain.”

  “I did sir. So that stands only as further evidence of deception and duplicity here, and it is clear now that Fedorov is involved—and not on our side of the equation.”

  “That’s a very serious charge, Captain,” said Zolkin,

  “Yes it is, Doctor. And this is a very serious matter. While we are here chatting about it, we have hostile contacts on every side, and an aircraft bearing down on us at low elevation. I came here for only one reason. To obtain the Admiral’s permission to go weapons free in the event I deemed it necessary to defend the ship. Now it seems we are investigating Fedorov here, and so be it. His behavior in recent days has been more than disturbing. It is more than that knock on the head you had trouble curing. It now borders on sedition, and I intend to have him answer for it.” He underscored that remark with an obvious tone of restrained anger.

  “I questioned Nikolin further, and learned that Fedorov asked him to send an all ships respond message on our 272 coded channel. Coded or not, it was a brash thing for a Navigator to be ordering. Now Orlov tells me he’s been nosing about the ship, Admiral. He was down in engineering yesterday. What business does a navigator have there? When the Chief questioned him about it, he was insubordinate, just as he was with me. How long are you going to tolerate this?”

  “Just a moment here, Mister Karpov. You are trying and convicting this young man, and that would be something only a naval board of inquiry should do.”

  “I will insist on this the moment we reach Severomorsk,” said Karpov tersely.

  “Very well… Captain, that is within your rights, but, at the moment, I would like to hear from Mister Fedorov. That is unless you feel anything you say now may be held against you, Lieutenant. The Captain has raised a serious charge here, and if you wish to request a legal advocate before speaking further, that is your right as well.”

  “No sir,” said Fedorov. “I will need no legal defense. I understand what the Captain believes, but I have denied any wrongdoing here, both to him, and to you sir.”

  “Then how is it you knew this man on Jan Mayen?” said Karpov accusingly. “Was he your contact there? Is this why you wanted that mission mounted? Out with it, Fedorov. Perhaps these men were saboteurs, Admiral. They may have been responsible for the destruction of those facilities on the island.”

  “Destruction?” Fedorov was not prepared to allow the Captain to continue down this corridor. “Orlov reported that no visible damage was found—no sign of any attack, or any demolition as you now suggest.”

  “Oh? I wasn’t aware that Orlov reported to you, Lieutenant. That said, what you say is correct. There was no evidence of an attack found. What I find most damning here is how you knew that would be the case. Admiral?” Karpov looked at Volsky now, wanting him to pursue the matter further.

  Volsky took a deep breath, looking at Fedorov. “Your earlier explanation to me was quite… unusual, Mister Fedorov—except for one thing, and it has been bothering me like that bad molar I’ve been nursing along for so many years. Captain, did the Lieutenant here come to you with information about the present condition of the moon?”

  “What? Yes, he spouted off something about it, along with all the rest of his fairy tales. Sir, quite frankly, his behavior has been so bizarre that I should have had him permanently relieved long ago.”

  “Did you understand what he told you—about the moon being off its normal phase and time?”

  “Frankly, sir, with you disabled here and the ship’s business so pressing, I had no time to go about gazing at the moon and stars. Clearly Fedorov was seeing stars here, probably from that knock on the head, or so I first believed. Now it seems we have something more to deal with, and he has not yet answered for it.”

  “Well, Mister Fedorov came to me with this same information,” said Volsky. “In fact, he made a point to come to me right at moonrise, and I watched it come up right out that window there.” He pointed. “The Lieutenant knows his sun and moon, as any Navigator would, and he insisted it should not be there. So after he left, I took it upon myself to look up the same information he must have relied on. Sun and moon data is obtainable in our computer database, for every date and time, and for any geographic position on this earth. So here is the real issue we must now discuss—Mister Fedorov was correct. This was no fairy tale he was spinning out. The moon was wrong yesterday, and it is also wrong today. Our present position has us in the UTC plus one time zone, and I took the liberty of obtaining our exact coordinates with a brief call to Mister Petrov on the bridge this morning—just to double check. The sun was up ten minutes early this morning. I set my alarm to wake up and see it with my own eyes. It rose at precisely 01:39, but it wasn’t supposed to be there until 01:49. As for the moon, it was supposed to be lording it over the skies up here, risen all day, a nice morning crescent phase according
to the data. I called in three men and had them go look for it, but it is not there…”

  “Admiral, we all know visibility up here is hit and miss. It was probably lost in cloud cover.”

  “No sir,” said Fedorov, seeing his moment now. “It was clear all night, and remains clear now. I walk the deck before breakfast whenever I’m on the noon shift, and the moon is down. I can tell you, and with no uncertainty, that this is wrong. I can point to the place in the sky where we should see it at this very moment, but there is no moon, and this can mean only one thing…”

  The silence was distended, a long interval where each man seemed to be waiting for another to speak. Then Fedorov said it, knowing he was opening himself to an attack upon his sanity by a Captain who now seemed very eager to skewer him as a traitorous agent, surreptitiously working for the enemy.

  Yet the truth will out, he thought, and I must speak it. “Sir, if the moon is wrong, then the time is wrong with it. I can only conclude that this is not the time and day we believe it is. This is not the second morning of August, 2021.”

  As much as he was accustomed to the date and time changing with every plunge of Rod-25 into the ship’s reactors, Fedorov knew it was still a heady thing to say to these men now. Karpov just blinked, obviously unhappy to hear Fedorov spin out the same yarn as he had before, only this time things were different. This time Volsky was sitting there presenting the evidence, a bemused expression on his face.

  “Yes,” said the Admiral. “And Mister Fedorov tells me that he can back check the physical observation data to obtain the date corresponding to these conditions. Correct?”

  “Yes sir. If I am correct, we can verify my calculation at a little after 18:30 this evening. The moon will rise some time after that, depending on our position at that time, even though it should be there now, and up all day. And at that time, I predict we will see a waxing gibbous moon, just as it was yesterday.”

  “And if our calendar is wrong, then what day do you calculate for these sun and moon conditions?”

  “The second day of August, in the year 1941.”

  Another moment of silence, and then the inevitable scorn from Karpov. “Preposterous,” he said, spitting out the word. “A clever way to dodge what is really going on here, Fedorov—your complicity in some kind of elaborate deception being staged by our enemies. 1941? This is the same slop you dumped on my plate earlier, and I have no appetite for it.”

  Yet the silence from both Volsky and Zolkin was very telling. It was abundantly clear, and slowly dawned on Karpov, that both men were seeing this sun and moon business as weighing very heavily.

  “1941,” said Volsky. “Just like all the radio broadcasts Nikolin has been monitoring. Yes, they all claim that is today’s date.”

  “That can be staged easily enough,” said Karpov.

  “Every station? Iceland, London, he’s even pulled in broadcasts from the United States, and they are all in agreement with Fedorov’s conclusion. Yes, it is an impossible conclusion, I know this very well. You have every right to be dismissive of such a claim, Captain. Yet, as I concluded here with Doctor Zolkin, the sun and moon do not lie, even if you believe Fedorov is duplicitous here. I, for one, cannot conclude that he is some kind of agent or spy working with our enemies to undermine us. He has done nothing more than to use his eyes, his training, and common sense to come to this conclusion, as astounding as it may seem. That said, I have a quiet suspicion of my own, Mister Fedorov. Something tells me that you may know more about what is happening here than you have already said. Whatever it is, for your sake, and the sake of this ship and crew, I want to hear it. Right now.”

  Into the fire, thought Fedorov, and he took a deep breath.

  Chapter 11

  At that moment, another alarm sounded for Air Alert One. The contact Rodenko had been tracking had obviously persisted in its approach, and Karpov’s eyes flashed as he looked up, almost as if he was trying to peer through the ceiling to the bridge above.

  “That will be that air contact approaching 50 kilometers. I ordered Rodenko to sound the alert in that event.”

  Volsky took a heavy breath. “Very well, then I suggest you get to the bridge, Captain. I authorize you to take any action you deem necessary to protect the ship, but consider well. We are already headed for what may be a very stern rebuke and investigation at Severomorsk. If this is a civilian aircraft….” He did not have to elaborate on that, and Karpov nodded.

  “Sir, I believe we may still have time to get the KA-226 up for a look. It’s fast enough to get out there, but I would need it to launch immediately. May I use the intercom?”

  “Do so. Identify that contact by any means possible.”

  The Captain reached quickly for the handset, and Fedorov passed a brief moment, recalling how he had seen the exterior cable running to that unit cut above the outer hatch when Karpov had tried to seal the Admiral in and take the ship. It was a most unnerving feeling to know this man before him had that darkness within him, yet, at the moment, the Captain did not yet believe the assertion that the ship was not in its proper time. He was much more dangerous after he accepted that fact, and now the urgency of the moment had him fully focused on this threat to the ship. He knew what was coming next. What would inevitably happen when Karpov reached the bridge?

  “Helo deck, helo deck. This is an emergency launch order! Get the KA-226 up at once, and proceed to identify incoming airborne contact. This is the Captain.”

  “Helo deck. Aye sir, acknowledged. KA-226 is on ready alert and launching now.”

  Back on the fantail, the man at the other end of that intercom was rotating a finger in the air, and the props of the sleep KA-226 began to turn, the engine revving up quickly for a fast launch and climb.

  “Let me know the moment you learn anything,” said Volsky

  Karpov set the handset back in its cradle, adjusting the fit of his officer’s cap with a firm hand. “Very good sir. If you’ll excuse me. I’m needed on the bridge.” With a nod from the Admiral he was out the hatch and gone, his footsteps fast and hard, echoing in the corridor as he went.

  The Admiral glanced at Doctor Zolkin, but then regarded Fedorov with a steady, considering look. “Alright… Let me hear it. What more have you to say, Mister Fedorov?”

  Into the fire… The ship was most likely minutes from making its first intervention in this new time loop. Yet how to explain this to the Admiral without sounding like a complete lunatic, or worse. The eyes of Zolkin were on him, watching, waiting, yet he saw no judgment there, at least not yet.

  “Sir,” he began heavily. “As you correctly concluded, the sun and moon do not lie, nor can I as it comes to this moment. Yet what I am about to say now will sound… somewhat fantastic, certainly unbelievable, as this whole situation may seem to you now—but it does not seem that way to me, because I have lived it all through once before.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Volsky. “Lived it all through?”

  Zolkin inclined his head and spoke now. “Do you mean to say that you are experiencing these events as though they had happened once before? Do you have a sensation of déjà vu?”

  “I would like to say that was the whole of it,” said Fedorov. “A simple mental state of disorientation or memory disturbance would be a most welcome diagnosis for me, Doctor, but I cannot agree that is what is happening. What I am saying to you now is that these events have already happened once—the live fire exercises, the accident with Orel, the strange effects in the sea and sky, and Slava missing afterwards. I have lived through them all, though now, with that odd recall order we received, things are playing out differently.”

  “You mean to say you actually believe this?” said Volsky.

  “I do, sir, as crazy as that makes me sound. But I assure you—this is not a mental condition, not an incidence of déjà vu, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with that fall I took.”

  “That has yet to be determined, Mister Fedorov,” said Zolkin. “You could have
more of an injury than we believed. Effects of concussion can be very subtle, and not immediately apparent. Have you experienced any headache?”

  “No sir, I am fine.”

  “Yes? Well, memory dysfunction, amnesia, and situational confusion can all result from a good knock on the head. Have you experienced any other symptoms—trouble sleeping, problems with speech, ringing in the ears, any further dizziness?”

  “No sir. This is not about my physical or mental condition, as much as you might wish to believe that. It is about the incontrovertible fact that our sun and moon data is simply not correct, and the inevitable conclusion we must draw if that is so. I know this to be true, because it did, indeed, happen once before, and all of this is a recurrence of those events. The story is a long one, but if you will hear me out, I will try to explain.”

  Zolkin did not seem entirely open to this now, preferring to believe there was some underlying medical condition behind what Fedorov was saying, but Volsky decided the matter, raising a hand quietly. “Go on, Mister Fedorov. Explain yourself.”

  “Sir… This ship has displaced in time. The radio transmissions Nikolin has been receiving are not a psychological deception staged by NATO, as Karpov would wish to believe, they are, in actual fact, the current news broadcasts for this day and time—August 2, 1941. There was an accident aboard Orel, and we believed that one of her special warheads was mounted incorrectly during a drill, and detonated. At least this is what we decided must have happened. That detonation had an effect on space and time, and we were displaced to the past.”

  “You are telling us the entire ship just went through a time warp?” Zolkin’s heavy brows raised to underscore his disbelief. “Blown 80 years into the past? Have you been reading science fiction along with your history? How could something like this have happened?”