Golem 7 (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “I suggest we take a vote,” said Kelly.

  Chapter 21

  Lawrence Berkeley Labs, Arch Complex, 12:15 P.M

  “There may be something more here,” said Robert. “This steamer that survives the attack by U-556—it may be more significant that you think, Maeve. In all the altered data I uncovered, it remained consistent. Darlington Court survives again and again, yet our RAM Bank data clearly shows she was the first ship sunk by Wohlfarth when he attacked convoy HX-126. I’ve got exact times from the convoy reports and ships logs.

  “Here… I ran down the service history of this ship. It was the sister ship to the Arlington Court, a vessel that was picked off by U-boats as a straggler from convoy SL-7A, on November 16, 1939. It was built by the same company that commissioned the Darlington Court, and get this…. The captain of Arlington Court, a man named Charles Hurst, had an interesting history as well. He loses his ship and gets a new assignment, the Darlington Court, only to suffer the same fate as her sister ship—picked off as a straggler from Convoy HX-126. The captain survives both attacks.”

  The professor flipped through his notes and then keyed in a search to the RAM Bank. “Here is the testimony of Chief Engineer A.H. Stirling, who was on the Darlington Court when she was hit: ‘About 12:58 the same day, in position 57 18N 41 07W, as our Escort hoisted a signal reporting a submarine on our starboard side, we were struck by a torpedo on the port side in the engine room, followed 2 seconds later by another torpedo in the deep tank forward of the engine room. The sea was calm, wind slight, weather was fine and visibility hazy. We were making 8 1/2 knots on Course 035°. The first explosion, which was heavier and sharper than the second, stopped the main engine immediately, and the second torpedo, which struck the deep tank, split the ship in two. The ship capsized immediately, and in about 45 seconds she was out of sight.

  I had only just come out of the engine room when the torpedo struck us and, finding it impossible to enter it again, I came on to the boat deck, trying to get my lifebelt over my head, when I was washed over the side. When I came to the surface I looked for wreckage but could not see anything except the blazing tanker, British Security, directly astern of us, which was torpedoed immediately after us. The flames were about 60 ft. high, and a huge column of smoke appeared to come out of the water and burst into flame. I swam about for 3 hours and about 16:00 I managed to reach our starboard lifeboat at the same time as the captain.’”

  “So it’s clear from our touchstone data that Darlington Court was attacked by U-556 well before British Security,” said Paul.

  “Until things changed,” said Robert. “Now then… Here’s the eyewitness report from our RAM Bank of Captain B. Green of the Cockaponset. This was to be the third ship sunk that night by U-556. In our old history this is the ship Wohlfarth wastes his last torpedo on, not Darlington Court as Kennedy had it in his book. The times in these reports confirm that. He uses Greenwich Mean Time here, which accounts for the difference between this and the Commodore’s report, but the basic sequence of events is the same. Listen: ‘At 12:50 the Darlington Court, which was No. 41 in the convoy, was torpedoed. About 2 minutes after the Darlington Court was torpedoed a Tanker astern of her (this was British Security in station 42) was struck by a torpedo, and almost immediately caught fire. Another tanker astern got into the flames from the other tanker, and when she came out we noticed that she also was on fire, continuing to burn for 3 days. At 12:55 we made an emergency turn of 90° to port and proceeded at full speed, but we had to make more than 90° turn in order to keep clear of the flames.

  At 13:10 when in position 57.24N 40.56W, the sea being calm, wind S.E. force 2, the weather fine and the visibility good, we were struck by a torpedo on the starboard side in No. 4 hatch. All the hatches were blown off and the ship immediately listed and water came over the after deck. No one saw the wake of the torpedo.’”

  “Well that about nails it,” said Paul. “He gives the exact times each ship was hit, and Darlington Court gets it first. Yet in the altered Meridians—at least as far as we could tell—that ship is the survivor.”

  “Every time I looked,” Robert emphasized. “So here is a suspicious case of a survivor that changes the history again, just as Maeve warns.”

  “It does have a smell about it,” said Kelly.

  “Are you suggesting the Assassins may have done something here—operated directly within Convoy HX-126?”

  “Well, you all have been talking about how easy it would be to divert a ship like this away from harm—and yet how difficult it is to reverse that and assure its destruction. This is a clear case. It’s an easy intervention for the Assassins to make, and one we can’t easily reverse.”

  “They’ve got their teeth in this pretty deep,” said Paul. “It is suspicious.”

  “There’s more,” said Robert. “Here’s the report from the Commodore of Convoy HX-126. He uses local time: ‘About 09:37 Aurania (an escort) hoisted signal Sub in sight 080° and almost immediately afterwards at 09:38-09:39 Darlington Court first, and British Security immediately after, were hit. Darlington Court rolled over onto her port side at once and sank in 2 minutes. I consider 2 torpedoes hit her. British Security burst into flames fore and aft. A few men were seen getting away in her starboard quarter boat on the weather side. As soon as it was seen that attack was from starboard 9T was hoisted and a long blast blown followed by 2 short blasts. All convoy turned 90° to port together perfectly, just as at exercise, but some were hampered by the blazing tanker whose rudder was hard a port, evidently put on to avoid Darlington Court when she was torpedoed. At 09:45 - The Signals TR, (Proceed at utmost speed) - and SM, (Drop smoke float) were made and obeyed. 09:50 - "Scatter" was made. Whilst scattering, roughly between 09:55 and 10:00 Cockaponset (63) was torpedoed.’”

  “And our history credits that last kill to Wohlfarth and U-556,” said Paul. “It’s clear that someone has been messing with the history here, but how would they have managed to spare Darlington Court?”

  “Good question,” said Maeve. “The more we study this the more we uncover clear information that seems to indicate someone has been running interventions here.”

  “It was obvious what they did earlier with that fishing boat bursting into flames at Brest,” said Kelly.

  “Yes, but this is much more subtle. They are operating around the whims of a Free Radical, our good Kapitan Wohlfarth. He’s got five torpedoes in his lower ship when he finds this convoy, and he uses four of them to get these first two ships. Then he picks off Cockaponset with that final torpedo. But in the alterations we were able to observe Cockaponset is hit earlier on, and it’s Darlington Court that survives. How could they achieve that?”

  “Someone messed with the convoy steaming orders,” said Robert. “There’s further evidence of this in the Commodore’s report, but another odd thing happened here. Several ships in the convoy reported a very large undersea explosion. Well here, I’ll read it to you verbatim from the reports: ‘John P. Pedersen was still afloat, burning before the bridge structure as late as 11:50. (Local time. She had fuel oil cargo. At 10:50, a very heavy explosion shook the ship. No cause for it could be seen. So heavy was it that Nicoya, four to five miles on our starboard quarter stopped and blew off steam. Dorelian, two miles astern, had some men at work on boat deck blown overboard. She stopped and lowered boats.’”

  “Ships two to five miles away reacted that way?” said Paul. “They had men literally blown off their decks?”

  “That’s what the reports indicate,” Robert tapped his notebook with a pen. “The subsequent investigation had this to say: ‘The captain of Cockaponset says the following: "About 20 minutes later (meaning, after all survivors of that ship had gone in the lifeboats) there was a loud explosion which shook the boat considerably and brought a quantity of dead fish to the surface. There was no water thrown up, but just before the explosion it felt just as if something was tapping under the boat. ”

  “That almost sounds like a min
e,” Paul suggested. “But I doubt a typical sea mine could produce an explosion that serious, with effects so far ranging. It had to be an explosion on one of the ships that had already been sunk.”

  “Well here is what the investigation concluded,” said Robert, reading again: “‘No satisfactory explanation of this explosion has yet been deduced, though three possible causes occur:

  a) Darlington Court or British Security, which had been torpedoed at 09:38, blew up. - Unlikely, as the former's cargo consisted of 8000 tons of wheat, and the latter, a tanker, is reported to have still been blazing on the surface some hours later.

  b) A U-boat blew up. - Division of Anti-Submarine Warfare doubts whether the simultaneous explosion of all the torpedoes in a U-boat could produce an explosion of the magnitude here reported.

  c) That the shock was due to a subterranean earthquake.

  The shock of the explosion and lack of any visible effect supports the view that the explosion occurred below the surface.

  These reports appear sufficiently remarkable to warrant further investigation. It is therefore suggested that the Masters of all ships of this convoy be asked to describe their experiences at this time, and whether any eruption of the surface of the water was seen. It is requested that Division of Anti-Submarine Warfare may be informed of any facts which throw any light on the origin of this unexplained explosion.”

  “Pretty amazing,” said Kelly. “An undersea earthquake? I hardly think that would register as an explosion, or have the effects described by the eye witnesses. Since when would an earthquake produce quantities of dead fish at the surface? No, this was clearly an explosion.”

  “The Royal Navy felt that it could not be a U-boat, even if all her torpedoes exploded at once—it was that damn big. They didn’t even consider it might be a mine—much too small. And there were no reports on the German side indicating any loss of a U-boat here.”

  “Then it had to be on Darlington Court,” said Paul.

  “But that was discounted as well,” said Maeve. “That ship was just carrying wheat.”

  “Wheat can explode,” said Robert. “Grain silos have ignited in the past.”

  “True, but the explosion was enormous,” said Paul, “That’s what the report says, so perhaps it had a little help. And we must remember our Sherlock Holmes— ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ And Darlington Court is what remains, at least in our history. She was the only ship that was under water in that area, because British Security was still afloat as was Cockaponset, just about to sink. Her captain’s report states the explosion literally shook his boat.”

  “Add a nice bomb to all that wheat and you might get a fairly significant detonation,” said Robert. “You think the Assassins managed to get a bomb aboard her to possibly sink her and save Wohlfarth torpedoes?”

  “Well we know how much these terrorists love to blow things up,” said Paul. “Someone has obviously intervened here to spare Darlington Court. She doesn’t get hit and there is no underwater explosion reported in the altered Meridian. That’s even more evidence that she was the source of that unexplained event. Suppose they had a bomb hidden in her hold. Suppose they meant to detonate it when Wohlfarth fires, giving him another kill, as it were. It may have influenced his decision on retaining that last torpedo.”

  “Then they would want to time it perfectly if it was a ruse to dissuade Wohlfarth from wasting a torpedo,” said Robert. “There were two explosions on Darlington Court, in the RAM Bank history, fore and aft. But this really big explosion happened well after that in our data. Look at the times noted in the reports. Darlington Court is hit twice at 09:38, and the explosion is reported at 10:50. That’s seventy-two minutes later, well after Wohlfarth’s attack should have been concluded.”

  They sat with that for a while, trying to imagine scenarios where the explosion could be fit neatly into an intervention plan. “Could they have planned to blow up Darlington Court, and just botched the timing?” Paul suggested.

  “Or could it have been aimed at causing damage to the German U-Boats, a very powerful undersea explosion,” Kelly put in. “In that case it would be the other side involved—the Order.”

  “Well whatever it was, they botched it on both counts,” said Maeve. “If they smuggled a bomb on board they should have detonated it the instant a U-Boat was sighted. The convoy would assume it was torpedoed, but they blew it. Wohlfarth got to the ship too quickly, sunk it, and their bomb went off later, accounting for the underwater explosion as Paul suggests, at least in our history.”

  “Yet none of this happens on the altered Meridian,” said Robert. “That’s the time line we’re dealing with now.”

  “This is some serious shit here,” said Kelly. “What do you mean, in our history? You’re talking like the Assassins or the Order were at work on our timeline. There are signs of intervention all over this attack on the convoy.”

  Robert didn’t catch the full implications of what Kelly had said, being caught up with his own train of thought. “Now reason this out,” he said. “Any ship that survives here is at least one more torpedo for Wohlfarth and U-556 to use elsewhere. All three go down in our RAM Bank data. Yet one survives when we look at altered history. On the surface you might conclude an intervention like this would have been run by the Assassins. As for the bomb, I’ll go along with Paul and Maeve and agree they may have had a bomb aboard Darlington Court, possibly to get rid of her before she enters Wohlfarth’s periscope sights and thus remove at least one potential target. But the Assassins wouldn’t have done that.”

  “This is getting very curious,” said Paul. “I wondered what you were up to, and it seems you dug up some fairly interesting research here. Yet this bit about Darlington Court still has a lot of haze around it. This was a fairly large convoy. There would have been no shortage of potential targets here.”

  “Yes,” said Robert. “I must say that I have an odd feeling about all of this. I can’t quite put it together in my mind yet, but I found other signs of what looked like obvious tampering concerning these ships. Darlington Court was moved from column seven in the Convoy to the lead ship in column four just before the U-boat attack. Wohlfarth attacks column four. Could someone be moving her into harm’s way, I wondered? Then there was a lot of shenanigans concerning that third ship.”

  “Cockaponset?”

  “Yes, she was supposed to have been assigned to convoy HX-123, but that assignment was cancelled. Then she was to sail with convoy HX-125—cancelled, then HX-125—also cancelled. Finally she gets assigned to HX-126, the fateful convoy Wohlfarth finds.”

  “It’s as if someone really wanted that ship in convoy HX-126,” said Maeve.

  “I considered that,” said Robert. “But why? There was no shortage of ships, as Paul says. Why does this one have to be in the convoy? And if the steaming position of Darlington Court was moved deliberately, putting her right ahead of British Security in column number four, then that would be the Order at work. They want her to get hit…” He let that fall like a stone in still water, and waited for their reactions.

  Maeve seemed to pale with that thought, finally picking up on the thread Kelly had hold of a moment earlier. “But this all happened in our history—the cancelations regarding Cockaponset, the repositioning of Darlington Court, the odd explosion. Robert was reading data from our RAM Bank in those ship reports. If this bomb theory holds up, then it means someone was operating against our Meridian before we even became aware of this!” The conclusion was obvious. “If that is so, then… By God! Do you realize what that would have to mean? Our history, the RAM Bank data, all of it would have to be—“

  “An altered Meridian,” said Paul, and the silence following his words was profound.

  Part VIII

  Altered States

  “All that we see or seem

  Is but a dream within a dream.”

  —Edgar Alan Poe

  “Reality is but
an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

  —Albert Einstein

  Chapter 22

  Lawrence Berkeley Labs, Arch Complex, 12:15 P.M

  “It’s a real possibility,” said Paul. “I’ve considered it many times before this—every time I run across an oddity in our own history. I know, I could be imposing my own inner fears on external events, but don’t you all agree that this looks like deliberate intervention?”

  “It does, but you can’t judge a book by its cover,” said Maeve, unwilling to think that the world and history she knew so well was the creation and result of a conflict that had been raging in Time, unbeknownst to her and the others. She considered what Paul suggested. Once they demonstrated Time travel to the past was viable, that possibility instantly migrated forward on the continuum as well. How hard would it have been for someone to take action to alter events affecting the history they knew? Any moment they spent outside the protective influence of the Nexus Point they were vulnerable.

  Kelly’s RAM Bank idea, and the Golems, had been created to try and immediately warn them when tampering was occurring. The Golems would sample available information and it would be continually compared to the RAM Bank, with all variations noted and color coded and charted in a chronological Meridian. Yet she realized that if anything had changed before he built the RAM Bank, they would not know about it. Though their Touchstone database was an enormous accumulation of data, was it comprehensive? Was it all encompassing? No, it was merely a record of what was known to happen, and 95% of all that actually had happened remained unknown, unwritten, lost in Time. Changes could occur and they would not be aware of it. The world would seem to be normal, but it would not be the world they were born to. Was it so even now? It was an uncomfortable feeling to think that their hold on reality depended on the thin stream of battery power that constantly fed the live RAM Bank data.