Elena Fairchild took a long breath. “Don’t worry about that, Gordon,” said Elena. “The tankers don’t matter now. They’re no longer with us…”
MacRae scratched his head at that. “Well they were five miles off our stern ten minutes ago,” he said, an edge of frustration creeping into his tone.”
“Yes,” she returned, “they were, and they’re probably still sitting there, god help them now that we’ve moved.”
“Moved? You’re not making sense, Elena.” He used her first name, he realized, and in front of Mack Morgan, but then he threw that aside. They were talking about the two million barrels of crude oil he’d been shepherding the last nine days, and it was no time to worry about the niceties of protocol. Mack wasn’t stupid. He could read the book that MacRae and Ms. Fairchild had been writing together, and knew they had cross that thin professional line between them and become something more than a company CEO and her dutiful ship’s Captain.
“Sorry Gordon, but there’s no other way to put it. We’ve moved. Argos Fire is no longer in the soup the world was serving up in 2021. They key finally worked and it did its job—only not the way I expected. We’ve moved in time, gentlemen. We haven’t lost our tankers, but they’ve lost us, and god speed them both to safety now. We’re somewhere else. Their fate is no longer our concern.”
“Somewhere else?” MacRae looked at Morgan now to see how he was taking this, and he was just standing there, stupefied, and looking to MacRae to sort things out. The Captain had at least one anchor on the situation. Elena had made some startling revelations the previous night, about the Russians, their experiments with an odd effect of nuclear detonations that cause aberrations in the flow of time. Yet the real stunner had been the business about the shadowy group that had been established within the Royal Navy called the Watch.
Yes, the Russians were playing with time travel, or so she had explained, and it all had something to do now with that big warship that went missing last July in the Norwegian Sea, the battlecruiser Kirov. The ship went missing alright, to another century! It had apparently displaced in time to the 1940s, and became embroiled in the Second World War! That was what she had told him, the goddamned Russians were tampering with history, but the real revelation was how she had managed to find that out. He remember the moment when her words had struck him like a thunderbolt…
“Something truly profound is about to happen,” she had told him, “something terrible.”
Chapter 29
“What?” he had asked. “Is it somehow related to this Russian ship?”
“Yes. Kirov has everything to do with it, but we aren’t exactly sure what to expect. One thing we were told is this: it could be catastrophic—life ending—at least life as we know it now. And the worst of it is that no one that survives will know about it. This thing will happen and then it will all change—that is if the missiles don’t finish off the world first.”
“What do you mean with talk like that? What will happen that could be worse than a full on nuclear exchange? Is another volcano about to pop off? And how can you know something like this? Is this all speculation? I can understand that the world’s at the edge of oblivion now with this news from Morgan on the Russian ICBMs, but you sound a whole lot more terrified than that.”
“I am… And to answer your question, we know because we were warned about this very moment—told what to expect.”
“Warned? By who? Has some pointy headed scientist come up with this prediction or was it a politician this time?”
“No, Gordon. The warning didn’t come from anyone here…”
MacRae remembered the look he had given her, cocking his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. “See here now. If you expect me to believe in little green men from Mars...”
“No, it has nothing to do with extraterrestrials either. I’m afraid our doom will be kept all in the family this time around. The warning came from the one and only place that could possibly know what would happen. It came from the future.”
From the future… Yes, as impossible as that sounded it held a kernel of sense that he could finally grasp. If it was ever possible to perfect the science of travel in time, it would be in the future. If it was true that the Russians had been conducting strange experiments on the fringes of their nuclear weapons tests all through the decades, then future generations would know that and certainly do the same. If these experiments carried on through the decades yet to come…
“You’re saying they revealed this event, this thing about to happen?”
“More or less. Look, Gordon, I need you to think now. I’ve told you a good deal, but not everything. Yet consider what I’ve said. The Russians have been playing with time. They’ve sent a bloody battlecruiser back through time, and it’s been less than kind about minding its own business. Things have changed, quite a few things. I’m not sure about it all myself, but think about it. The world can take a poke now and then and still hold together. We’ve learned that much. The history has a kind of cohesive quality. It wants to hold true, but there are some events that are too profound. The changes they introduce in the line of causality cannot be smoothed over.”
MacRae and Morgan were trying to follow her, but this was all fairly amazing and they could not quite grasp what she was saying. Elena could see the looks on their faces, so she tried again.
“Let me see if I can make this a little more concrete,” she began. “Yes… a man is laying concrete for a new walk. He gets it all laid out, mixes everything with just the right amount of water and all. Now he has only so long to trowel and smooth it all out before it begins to dry and harden. Once it does, it can’t be changed easily, and any blemish or misstep in the process sets in as it hardens. History is like that. Events get sifted and mixed into the slurry of time, and it all gets laid out nice and neat, hardening to the facts we take for granted as unchangeable. Well that isn’t true. Find a way to go back in time and do things differently, and you can change things quite easily. In this case that’s what the Russians have done, and messed that nice fresh laid concrete up rather badly. That change ripples forward. Break something there in the past, and things get broken here too, in our time. Back then it might be just a seemingly insignificant change, like a soft motion of the mason’s trowel, but here it could manifest like a sledgehammer on the hardened concrete of the history we know, and it can be rather terrifying. It’s called a finality—an event so important that it must change the history of everything that follows it. When that happens, things do change all throughout the continuum, suddenly and painfully. That’s what we were warned of, and it’s about to happen—it may be happening even as we speak. The only way to avoid the maelstrom of change is to be in the center of a safe spot on the flux of time—a nexus point.”
“And how do we do that?”
“I think we’ve already done it.”
The Captain shook his head, like a boxer shaking off a hard punch, and then he turned and stared at the box on the desk by the red phone.
“That?” he pointed at the box, saying nothing more.
“Yes,” said Elena, “That box is from the future too. At least that is what I now believe. Apparently we received more than messages from that distant time—sorry Mack, you haven’t heard any of this, but you may as well know now.”
She told him the same impossible story that she had revealed to Gordon the previous evening, all about the secret group that had been established by the Royal Navy, secret even from the British government itself. She told him how they had begun to receive strange signal transmissions, video feeds of events that seemed to make no sense—until they happened four days later. They had seen the horrific attack on the World Trade Center, in pixel perfect video that replicated the entire event, but four days before it happened! They had been send a list of the closing price of every stock on the Dow three days before the big crash, and it was accurate to the decimal point. That got their attention. Someone was trying to communicate with them from the future, tryi
ng to warn them of a great, impending doom, and it all had something to do with that Russian ship, the battlecruiser Kirov.
Morgan stood there, a stunned look on his face, and Captain MacRae clasped his shoulder. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. “Just as I did when I was told this last evening. At least I had a good stiff gin at hand when I got the news.”
“You mean to say…”
“Yes, it’s all true,” said Elena. “It sounds impossible but it’s been known for some time, really, since 1942 when British intelligence finally figured out that a strange ship they had been calling Geronimo was actually not from their own time, but the future. That’s when the Watch was set, a group of highly placed men in the Royal Navy who set a watch on history itself. You see, that Russian battlecruiser appeared, raised hell for a time, and then simply vanished. The Watch was established to wait for its next appearance, a dozen sheep dogs waiting for the wolf to return. It was started by a very famous British Admiral, the man commanding Home Fleet at the time, John Tovey. It also had a man inside Bletchley Park, Mack, someone you’ve long admired, Alan Turing.”
“Turing? He knew about all of this?”
“He was the one who figured out the Russian ship had to be from the future.”
“But you’re saying tha’ box there is from the future as well?” Gordon pointed again.
“I believe so. It must contain a fragment from the Tunguska event—sorry, that’s a part of the story I haven’t told you about, but we eventually sorted it out. You all know of that event.”
“The big explosion in 1908?” Morgan had heard of it.
“Exactly. Well it wasn’t just nuclear detonations that seemed to fragment time, but any massive explosion could do the same now that the china has been cracked. This is what we’ve learned.”
“But there have been massive explosions all through history. Are you telling me they’ve all affected time?”
“No, just the one’s after 1908. The Tunguska incident was different from any other similar event in the earth’s history. We don’t know why yet, or even what actually happened that day, but whatever it was had a profound effect on time, and like the first crack in a piece of pottery, the whole thing is unstable now. Time has a crack in it, and now any big explosive event seems to be compounding the damage. Beyond that, the event left remnants of a strange element that seems to cut time like a diamond. We’ve found a very few samples, and learned that they can be activated or catalyzed by any nuclear detonation, or other means. Something about the proximity of this element to nuclear fission creates some most alarming effects. We aren’t really sure, but we think the Russians were using it in the control rods of the nuclear reactors aboard that battlecruiser—Kirov. It took a good long time for us to discover that, but we put the clues together with skills you would be privy too Mack, good intelligence work.”
“Then there’s a piece of that thing from Tunguska right here,” said Gordon, “in that bloody box?”
“Correct. It was sent to us… from the future. Tunguska had more profound effects than anyone realizes. Whatever it was that exploded over Siberia that day fragmented spacetime itself, created cracks, fissures, like a stone breaking glass. Stumble upon one of those cracks and you can move right through time. We’ve found quite a few over the last eighty years, and taken great pains to conceal and secure them. In fact, those we have found are behind lock and key.” She reached for her own key now, dangling it to make the point.
“I thought our little foray to Delphi was going to be a farewell journey through one of those fissures in time, but finding that box was the real surprise for me.”
“Well how did you come by that damn key?” Morgan wondered, somewhat pointedly.
“Because I’m a Keyholder,” said Elena. “I was a member of that secret organization—the Watch started by Admiral John Tovey.” She smiled, telling him how she had been recruited seven years earlier. Then she revealed those final lines in the scroll that had been hidden within the box.
“See those numbers?” she pointed them out. “That’s a date line for our intended destination. If our systems recover as they should, we will soon pick up transmissions indicating we are in the year 1941.”
“Date line?”
“Tunguska fragments have a propensity to cut time and fall through to a specific date. In this case that would be January 30, in the year 1941.”
“1941?” Mack Morgan was shaken by the news. Then we’ve slipped through one of these cracks as well? The whole bloody ship? Because of something in that box there?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Elena.
“Well, what in God’s name are we suppose to do here?” Morgan folded his arms. MacRae was also waiting.
“Live, gentlemen,” Elena said with finality. “Live… Because if we had stayed where we were it would have been the end for us, as the whole damn world goes to hell in 2021. Our friends from the future told us that too
“The war?”
“That and more, this radical change I’ve been talking about. No time to explain it all now, but the simple fact is this. If we had stayed this ship would probably be destroyed by now, and we’d all be dead. But we’ve moved—in the nick of time—and we’re here. This is our watch now, my watch, and this may shock you, but we’re here to stay.”
“What? You mean we can’t get back?”
“No, I’m afraid we have a one way ticket this time, Mack.”
“We’re stuck in 1941, just like that bloody Russian ship? Is that why we’ve been sent? Are we supposed to find the Russians and deal with them?”
“Possibly. We’re here for good now. This is our life, but this ship still remains true to its service as a proud member of the Royal Navy.”
“Royal Navy? I thought Argos Fire sailed for Fairchild Incorporated.”
“So you did, and that was a convenient thing for other people to think as well. Do you think the British government would so easily sign off on a Daring class destroyer just because I asked them nicely and had the money to pay for one?”
Now Morgan gave her a wry smile. “Clever girl,” he said slowly. “You say you are a member of this Watch, started by Tovey during the war, and the Argos Fire has been registered in the Royal Navy Fleet all this time. Well some intelligence master I am. You’ve kept that secret well.”
“That we have. Now that we’re here we’ve got to have our wits about us. This is World War Two. There’s fighting in Greece and the British are at it in North Africa. So we sail for Heraklion as planned, and get to safe waters under British control. We may have to be discreet in the short run, and we’ll need time to break this news to the ship’s crew. Their lives are all replanted here as well, and we owe them the same explanation I have just given you. Once we get the ship’s systems sorted out, which should be a matter of hours, we’ll try to make contact with Admiral Tovey as soon as possible.”
“Tovey? What? And just announce ourselves as fresh off the tube from 2021?”
“Something like that. You see, I neglected to mention the man who signed off on that farewell note I read you from the box.” She showed them the paper now, and there was the name in large, bold letters: ADM JOHN TOVEY.
Elena smiled. “A box from the future, a voice from the past, and here we are in the present moment, with a new lease on life, and a new mission, gentlemen. But I certainly hope Admiral Tovey and Alan Turing have sorted through this Geronimo business by now, because we’re about to deliver a new warship to the service of the Royal Navy, and it may come as quite a surprise.”
Chapter 30
Everything Elena told him was confirmed within the hour. Mack Morgan huddled in his secure comm-link room, where data feeds from all his intelligence sources would come in, including the “Black Line,” which was no longer operational. In fact, most of his feeds, taps on satellite transmissions, were now gone. He had some intermittent Morse code in the local area, and some other transmissions that would not resolve through t
he normal Morse decoder, so he put his decryption team on them with the considerable resources of the ship’s computers. Beyond this, there was traffic on normal radio bands, AM, FM, and shortwave, but nothing in the HF or ultra low frequencies that would be used by modern military or government sources. All that traffic was as dead as his Black Line. The world he had once been so connected to was gone.
What he did hear was all typical AM broadcast news at the outset, and he thought he was listening in on a documentary. The Germans were in the Balkans, and Greece was under attack. He checked on some facts and found it easy to isolate the probable year of this news to early 1941. Nailing down the exact month and day was not as easy, until he caught a BBC transmission that confirmed everything Ms. Fairchild had told them.
It was true, impossibly true, and here they were in January of 1941! There were some odd stories in the stream that he could not quite get a handle on. From what he could gather there was fighting in the Caucasus, but a quick fact check told him that should not be happening until July of 1942. The startling thing was that it seemed to be a battle between two Russian factions, and he caught news of the Orenburg Federation and the siege of Novorossiysk that made no sense to him. There was also fighting on Malta, and he knew enough about the old war to realize there should not be fighting there at all, except the air duel that made the place one of the most heavily bombed pieces of real estate in the war.
Confused and frustrated, he took the information to the Captain first, and the two men were discussing it in the ready room off the Bridge.
“It doesn’t make any sense. What’s this Orenburg Federation?”
“Beats me, Mack. And you’re correct about that report of fighting on Malta. That never happened.”
“Yeah? Well I looked a few things up. The Germans are in Greece, but that wasn’t supposed to happen until April of ’41. In North Africa the British were supposed to have taken Derna in Libya on their first offensive of the war against the Italians, but it’s the other way around! They just retreated from the place, and guess who’s nipping at their heels—Rommel. He wasn’t suppose to set foot in Libya for another two weeks, arriving with his 5th Light Division and a Valentine on the 14th of February, but he’s already closing in on Tobruk. Things are all out of whack, Gordon. If this is 1941 then someone has shuffled the deck here, and we’re not being dealt a fair hand.”
Three Kings (Kirov Series) Page 25
