Devil's Garden

Chapter 10

“Turn the page, please. Yes… there in the right hand column. See for yourself… Page 363.” Kamenski pointed out the reference in the Chronology Of The War at Sea, and Admiral Volsky squinted, needing his reading glasses, but what he saw filled him with foreboding.

“Dear God,” he breathed. “Karpov engaged the US Pacific Fleet!”

“Apparently so.”

“He sunk the battleship Iowa…” Volsky read silently, a sadness rising in his eyes like a shadow. “I see…” he breathed heavily. “Then it appears that Karpov has fallen back on his old ways. He obviously did this after he took the time to deliver that letter to us, which means he deliberately sortied into the Pacific again to confront the Americans.”

“It appears that he bit off more than he could chew this time.”

“And he used a tactical warhead, just as before. But my God! The American reprisal against Vladivostok was terrible! Wasn’t that enough, three of our ships for one of theirs?”

“Actually the score was somewhat more even. I believe your enterprising Captain also sunk an aircraft carrier, several destroyers and a couple cruisers. It seems he was a very busy man. And in that final battle the Iowa scored a hit on what they describe as a Russian destroyer and broke its back before she, in turn, was sunk.”

“By an atomic weapon! I might have known Karpov would revert to his old ways. A bear is a bear, whether it is hunting for honey, fish or foul. But if the Americans bombed Vladivostok, then what are we doing here? How is it the history has survived to bring the two of us here like this? The odds against it ever happening would be staggering.”

“Hiroshima is a thriving modern city today. The same for Nagasaki. The Americans destroyed both-at least in one rendition of the history. We rebuilt the city, or so I have learned. In fact, should you discuss the bombing of Vladivostok in 1945 with anyone else in your headquarters here they will already know about it.”

“You remember Hiroshima? No one else seems to here. I let it slip once…Pearl Harbor as well, and all I got were blank stares.”

“Yes, I remember Hiroshima, and Pearl Harbor as well. They happened in the old world you and I left behind so long ago. No one else here will know about them, though they will know that Vladivostok was bombed in 1945.”

“They have seen this book of yours as well?”

“No, they don’t need my book, it is all the world they have always known, the world they grew up in. It’s all history to them. You and I were the only ones in the dark, Admiral, because we’re from another world, in a manner of speaking.”

“I don’t understand. You are saying they already know what Karpov did?”

“Certainly, just ask your Chief of Staff, or anyone else around here. They will know the history you just read, though that reference mentions nothing about Karpov. It was very vague, simply describing a Russian flotilla. They will know that history recorded an engagement between Russian ships and the US Navy in August of 1945, but nothing else-not the way the world used to be before Karpov vanished and appeared in 1945, the world we came from. That is reserved for old grey heads like yours and mine. For them, nothing has changed at all.”

“How is it we know differently?”

“Think about that, Admiral. You know a world where you sailed quietly out of Severomorsk to conduct live fire exercises. Then you know the world you came back to when you returned to Vladivostok. Now you know this world, the world after Karpov’s intervention in 1945, though you have probably been too busy to read up on things. Perhaps there are more worlds we will come to be acquainted with. I have lost track of them as they go by.”

“But Talanov does not know anything of Kirov’s displacement in time. He has no idea what really happened after we left Severomorsk!”

“He wasn’t even assigned here in that world. Talanov was in the Baltic, but he doesn’t know or remember a single minute of that old life-the life before Kirov vanished. When it happens, when things change, no one knows it except a very few. Talanov lives in the bliss of unknowing. He looks around at the world and accepts it as a matter of fact. It was always this way, the history he knows. Vladivostok was destroyed by the Americans in 1945. It’s history as it reads now, at least for the moment, and he has never known otherwise.”

“Then he could not perceive the change? Three days ago Karpov was here and nothing I just read in that book had happened. Talanov knew that world too, and in that world there was no such event as the destruction of Vladivostok by B-29 bombers. Are you saying he has no recollection of that either?”

“Precisely. Yet how is it you know these things, but he does not? This is your next question. Yes? Well, I cannot be certain, but I believe it is because you have moved in time, Admiral. You are a member of a very select group of people on this earth who have actually displaced in time. Somehow the contents of your brain are not affected by these changes. It is as if you reside on some safe spot in the time line of events now, like the eye of hurricane or the center of a whirlpool on the sea. It is a dead zone, a zone of calm and stability, and yet a place where any possibility could manifest at any moment. You are there, safely aware of all your experiences and free from the ravaging hand that rewrites history each time a crazy sea Captain decides to take on the world.”

Volsky gave Kamenski a long look, his eyes narrowing. “You say I know these things because I have traveled in time. Very well, let us assume that has something to do with it. But how is it you know these things, Mister Kamenski? The last time I looked you were not on the crew roster of Kirov.”

“Well said, Admiral. But the answer to that question should be apparent to you. I know these things because I, too, have moved in time.”

“You?”

“Yes, and it is a very long story. I told you something of it when I discussed the odd effects we discovered with our nuclear test program, if you recall that.”

“You mean the men who went missing, like our crew member vanished at the Primorsky Engineering center?”

“Something like that, though he was sent on his way by Rod-25, just like your Mister Fedorov and all the men on the Anatoly Alexandrov you sent back to fetch him home. Yes, we discovered some very odd things with those nuclear tests. The most shocking thing was that time travel was possible. It was kept very secret, of course, but we have been working on it, unbeknownst to the central government, and much has been done over the years. Only a very few men will know the whole story. I was one of them, being involved in intelligence my entire career.”

“How did you move in time? You must tell me.” Volsky was very interested now, leaning forward over the copy of the book Kamenski had given him, his big eyes searching the other man’s face.

“It’s too long a story to go into it all now. But suffice it to say that some of the ships and planes that have turned up missing over the years were not lost in accidents at sea or because their compass failed them as they searched in vain for a friendly airfield. All this has been kept very quiet, of course; very secret. And only those who actually do move in time really know about it. You are a new member of that very exclusive club, Admiral, which is why I take the liberty of revealing these things to you now.”

The ticking of the clock on the wall was the only thing to break the silence, its unfailing round marking off the seconds of that impossible minute. “This happened in the old world? The World I left at Severomorsk?”

“It did…”

“Then it was possible that world had been altered as well. What did these other ships and planes do, eh? Did they affect the history just as Kirov did?”

“In some ways. Yes, we actually tried to do this, but with very mixed results. Most simply thought nothing had happened. They didn’t know, you see, but I did. I took the time to study the history after each and every experiment, and I had a good number of references I could consult to see what might have changed. I knew things were happening, even if most of the project team itself was in the dark because they never displaced in time. So they still believed the world was the same as the one they were born to, yet I knew different. I knew the real truth. Believe me, Admiral, this can be a very heavy burden to carry. Kirov, however, was not planned. We had no idea that Rod-25 would cause such effects. It was an entirely unexpected event.”

“My God… then the world I came from-”

“Yes, it has changed many times, but in all those events you were one of the unknowing who changed right along with it, and were never the wiser-just like your Mister Talanov. After you displaced in time aboard Kirov, however, you fell into the void, the nexus point where every possible outcome of events intersect to choose a final course and destiny. Once you fall, Admiral, you are there to stay. You have been thrown out of paradise and now you have the privilege of knowing, or the burden, depending on how you look at it. This is why you now know the world has been changed when you read things like that book-because you still remember the old world you came from, and the world before you sent the Red Banner Pacific Fleet out to challenge the Americans-before your Mister Karpov did what you just read in that book.”

“Amazing…I …I don’t know what to say.”

“As I said earlier, you have been too busy trying to manage this new war to have paid any attention to how the last one turned out. Now you know, and if you were to investigate further in a good library, you would find out a great many things have changed. I don’t know which is the unkindest fate-to live in a world of unknowing where ignorance is bliss and the world under your feet seems solid and sure, or to taste of the forbidden fruit of knowledge, and yet never have the peace of certainty. I have made it a point to consult my references each and every day, Admiral, and I must tell you that much has changed over the years. More than we have discussed here.”

“It is enough to drive a man mad.”

“I felt the same way when all this first dawned on me. In fact, I believed I was going insane at one point. Then I found out what was really happening. It has been my lifelong business to know what really happens in this world. Very few men alive know the real truth of many events reported as history in all those library books.”

“So Kirov was sunk along with Orlan. And the destroyer the American battleship hit must have been the Admiral Golovko. God go with them. That was a good ship and crew.”

“Was it sunk, Admiral? Is that what the passage says there?”

Volsky looked again, and now he saw that the wording was deceptive. The passage read that during the Russian occupation of the Kuriles, a small task force of the Russian Pacific Fleet armed with advanced new weapons deliberately attacked US ships and planes and was subsequently engaged by the US Third Fleet under Admiral Halsey. In that battle the Russians successfully deployed a small yield atomic weapon to destroy the battleship Iowa, possibly as a threat intended to get the US to back down over Soviet aspirations to occupy the Island of Hokkaido. A large US fleet retaliated by air and sea, hitting another Russian warship which resulted in the detonation of a second bomb. All ships in the Russian flotilla were presumed destroyed.

“Presumed destroyed-it says that right here,” said Volsky.

“A presumption that was easily made under the circumstances. No trace of Orlan or Kirov was ever found, at least not there in 1945 in the waters southeast of the Kuriles. There was some gun camera photography of the final American air strike. It has never been published but I was able to get hold of this photograph.”

Kamenski reached into his pocket and produced a faded photo, handing it to the Admiral, who studied it closely.

“That is Orlan. Note the unitary hull and superstructure. There is no question about it.”

“Well, I’ve had some time to look into it a little further, and I believe that Kirov survived that battle.”

“Survived? In 1945?”

“No, I believe the ship was again displaced in time.”

“Where?”

“That remains to be discovered. I am waiting for more information, but our time grows short here. This war is very inconvenient.”

“How long have you known all this?”

“That the world is uncertain, always changing, liable to take a new and startling new shape at any moment? I have known since the Tsar Bomba event I spoke of earlier. That was in 1961, but I do not think that was the first instance. The interesting new twist on all this is Rod-25, a whole new factor in the equation. This connection to the Tunguska event is most intriguing. That may have been an event capable of producing these same effects where time is concerned. We stumbled on the secret that displacement in time was possible years later, in 1961, but how to control it? That was the real challenge. I only wish we had more time to investigate this Rod-25 business now. Perhaps it was foolish of us to send those other two rods back on the Anatoly Alexandrov. Yet in doing so we may have changed more than we intended.”

Volsky suddenly remembered Fedorov, and wondered if Kamenski knew the fate of that mission as well. “I suppose if Karpov did all this, then that mission was not successful. All his letter did is send us off on a wild goose chase. The idea to use the Mi-26 sounds preposterous now. What about that, Kamenski? Do you know what happened to Fedorov and Dobrynin?”

“To some extent. I can tell you that the Anatoly Alexandrov got back to 1942 safely, just as you planned it. Then things began to happen. Some very unusual things…because I just came from the special code room. We have received another message.”