Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 11

It was eight hours until they finally saw the smoke rising over Omsk. The sun had been up since 3:30AM, but now it hung low in the grey sky, waiting for the moon to rise in its stead and take its turn on the endless celestial watch. A full moon tonight, thought Karpov. We will make certain our ships cannot be silhouetted. They will have guns along the riverfront, and I will take no chance that they will be aimed my way.

Bogrov was correct. There were five airships hovering at intervals above the city, their bloated steel grey shapes looking like a school of barracuda. One had three dull red stripes on its dorsal tail, the Orenburg, flagship of the fleet. Undoubtedly Volkov had arrived here in that ship. Bold of him to risk the fleet flag like this. I left our own flagship, Irkutsk, behind, choosing Abakan for the journey. If there is treachery here then at least our better ships will still be safe. He stooped to peer through the sighting telescope, shifting from one enemy ship to another. Yes… Orenburg, 12 gun dreadnaught, Pavlodar, Astana, Sarkand, all with eight DRP recoilless cannon. Then he had a flash of anger when he read the name of the last ship.

Those bastards! They did this simply to goad me, and rub my nose in their shit. He could see that the airship’s old name had been painted over, and it now bore the name of the very city they were hovering over, Omsk. It was a jabbing way to let him know that Volkov thought he was going to keep this place as his own, in spite of the outcome of these talks. Karpov stood up stiffly, his jaw set. We’ll see about that, he thought.

Omsk was a place of extremes. Situated on the Irtush river, a ready source of fish and fresh water, it was founded by the Cossacks in the 16th and 17th centuries, and grew rapidly as a gold rush town when Colonel Ivan Bukholts made the discovery up river from the present city center in 1716. A trading town for many years, it was also a cold frontier outpost at the edge of Siberia, and a place where the cast off rabble of European Russia might be sent in exile when they fell on hard times.

Prisoners surviving the hard labor camps of Siberia settled there after they gained their freedom again, and so it became a city of hard men, desperate men, where hope was in short supply. But in drawing all these wild misfits and felons to its bosom, the city became a fortress of survivors, their faces branded with letters to indicate their crimes-K on the right cheek, A on the forehead, T on the left cheek to spell KAT, which was short for “katorjnik” the word for “convict.”

Yes, thought the Admiral, a city of marked men in the midst of all this desolation. Karpov fingered the mark on his own cheek, branding him for crimes he had committed. I am no different, he thought, remembering. That was then, this is now. Forget the past. Focus on what is before you.

He looked out the airship gondola viewports, noting the wide streets and broad prospects, heavy iron bridges over the river, and the areas cleared for parks and gardens. They had tried to make the place a little like Saint Petersburg, he thought, but out here that is like putting a dress on a boar. Still there were some buildings in the city that remained unscarred by the war. He spied the tall gleaming gold spire of the Resurrection Military Cathedral where the meeting would be held, the walls of the old frontier fortress, the Siberian Cadet School and Governor’s Palace, and the Old St. Nicholas Church. The rail yards seemed to be a hub of activity, and he could clearly see the grey uniformed troops of Volkov’s Legion there, clustered in groups, a blight on the place.

Old Man Kolchak made his residence here and established Omsk as the capital of the White Russian movement, he thought. What would he think to see his white city muddied with grey? That is why I am here. I must get the place back again, and they can damn well re-name that airship as well! I’ve half a mind to blast that damn ship from the sky, but not before I see this Volkov eye to eye.

“Make ready to disembark the troops,” he said to the Air Commandant. “The fleet is to remain on a full alert standing until I return. Yes, we come here under the protection of a flag of truce, but I will take no chances with a man of Volkov’s reputation. He might like nothing more than to get his hands on someone like me. Then he would have the city and a hostage to go with it! So stand ready, Mister Bogrov. If I do not return by the time that fat sun out there rises again, I want you to blast the hell out of those ships,” he pointed, “and start with that one!” His finger was on the misnamed Omsk.

“Aye sir. We’ll give them a hell of a fight.”

An hour later the battalion of the 18th Siberian Rifles was marching proudly through the streets of the city to the site of the old Resurrection Military Cathedral, their forest drab green uniforms immaculate, black belts and boots shined and gleaming, the hard clap of their timed footfalls sharp on the cobblestone streets. The honor guard carried the flag and standard of the Free Siberian State, led by a select squad with drawn sabers. Theatrics mattered at times like this, thought Karpov, still remembering his landing at Vladivostok to meet with the Mayor.

He marched proudly, surrounded on every side by a thicket of guards. As they approached the cathedral he heard the orders to advance on the double shouted by the Major At Arms, as he had commanded. The entire battalion moved into a run, each stride precise and timed, like the workings of a great machine bristling with bayoneted rifles as it snaked around the last bend and then came to a halt.

There stood a troop of the Grey Legion, vastly outnumbered by the men the Admiral had brought with him, but he had little doubt that Volkov had ample reserves close at hand. He knew also that he would not be permitted to enter the cathedral grounds with any more than a single squad as an honor guard and escort, and that his battalion would have to move off a thousand meters to the open ground of a city park, as had been agreed. He looked up briefly, noting that two of the Orenburg Airships had been well positioned to bring that park within the field of fire of their guns, but this did not surprise him.

An hour later, after anthems and honorifics, the Admiral finally found himself politely escorted to the meeting room in the cathedral. There sat a solitary man, with short grey hair and brows, easily in his sixties, yet nonetheless of sturdy frame and build. Volkov stood and the two men shook hands briefly before taking seats on opposite sides of the table.

As he met the man’s eye, Karpov had a strange feeling that he had seen him once before, which he quickly dismissed, thinking it must have been the photographs he had reviewed. There on the wall behind Volkov was a freshly printed war poster depicting the dark silhouette of a leader’s statue, undoubtedly Volkov himself, his arm raised in salutation to a fleet of long, sleek airships above. Orenburg had the largest airship fleet in the world, and it was apparently a singular point of pride Volkov wished to make here.

Karpov could see that Volkov’s eye lingered on his for some time. As they were seated he seemed to be studying him very closely, thinking, as if struggling with something in his mind. The moment stretched out in the silence between them and then Karpov had enough of it and spoke.

“Why do you look at me like that? This scar on my face cannot be that intimidating.”

“Forgive me, Admiral,” said Volkov. “I… I have seen you before, I'm certain of it, and your name is familiar too. Yes! I remember now! The resemblance is remarkable.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You…” Now Volkov seemed very ill at ease, and clearly surprised. “This isn’t possible,” he muttered, but his gaze kept steady on, his eyes awakening as if with sudden surmise. “Why, it is you… Could it be so? You are different, yes clearly different, but thirty-two years have passed since I first questioned you, and I never forget a face-never. How can this be? You haven't aged!” Volkov seemed clearly surprised, then a flash of anger crept into his voice, with an edge of suspicion. “Who are you?”

Karpov was annoyed. Was this Volkov’s way of working up an insult to begin these talks, just like that airship out there, bearing the name of our city? A bold man, this one. He folded his arms, fixing Volkov with an equally leaden stare, eyes conveying his displeasure.

“You know very well who I am. What is this drivel you begin with? We have important matters to discuss here, and I am not your long lost cousin. Why do you look at me as if I was a ghost?”

“Because that is what you seem, my friend, a ghost from the distant past that I had almost forgotten. The resemblance is uncanny! Look at me! Look closely! Are you sure you have never seen me before?”

Karpov was clearly unhappy. What was this man saying? How dare he begin negotiations with such a flippant and infantile manner? Yet, even as he thought this, a strange feeling came over him, a sensation of deja vu as if he had indeed seen this man before, though he could not place the face in his memory. He leaned forward, eyes narrow, his face serious and drawn. Yes, there was something strangely familiar about this man. Then something the man had just said stuck in his mind and jogged loose a question.

“What is this you say about questioning me? I am not a prisoner from your days past sent to a Siberian labor camp, if that is what you mistake me for. What is this nonsense you speak now? Thirty-two years? Make sense!”

“You don't remember, do you. No, I don't suppose I look anything at all like I once did thirty-two years ago. Vladimir Karpov! Yes, I knew I had heard the name before, but there are probably 100 men in Russia with that name, so that is nothing unusual. But a name and a face together-this I do not forget. It took me a moment, and when I say more you will understand the shock I must've felt in realizing it, but let me be blunt now, Captain Karpov, are you certain you do not remember this face?”

Captain Karpov? That immediately jarred Karpov on a deeper level. What was this man saying? How could he know that? Might he have heard rumors that I first came to Irkutsk wearing the uniform of a naval captain? No, how would that be possible?

Volkov could see that he had hit a nerve, and so he pushed his finger harder. “Yes, Captain Vladimir Karpov, acting commander of the battlecruiser Kirov. I know you well enough. Once I was very intent on finding that the young officer you sent west on the Trans-Siberian rail-or so we thought… What was his name again?”

“Fedorov?”

“Ah, yes, that was the man. Yes, director Kamenski sent me off on a wild goose chase to look for Fedorov, yet I do not think he had any idea what would result! No, how could he? Because even after all these years I have no idea what really happened to me. Don't you remember me now? I am Ivan Volkov, former Captain in Russian Naval Intelligence, the officer you met aboard your ship in the year 2021. I was sent there with Inspector General Kapustin to determine what had happened to your ship after it disappeared in the Norwegian Sea, and look at me now!”

Karpov's eyes widened in shock and surprise. He leaned back, clearly staggered by what this man had just said. There was simply no way this could be possible. And yet, the more he looked at the man the more he began to recognize similarities to the younger man he had confronted aboard Kirov, the meddling intelligence officer, the man he called Kapustin’s lap dog. Yes, Volkov had that same gray hair, dark aspect, penetrating eyes, and now even his voice sounded familiar. But he was older, so much older. Karpov was speechless. Could this, indeed, be the same man? How could anyone else have known about the facts he had just disclosed?

“Yes,” said Volkov, “I remember all too well now. It was that night before you sortied with the ship from Vladivostok. You tried to explain away those missing men on your doctor’s roster. I didn't buy it, of course, but somehow you managed to convince the Inspector General. We went to director Kamenski with the matter, and it was he who ordered me to pursue this man, Fedorov. We knew there was no way he could leave the city by sea or air, as we were watching very closely, but just in case he might've slipped away on the trans-Siberian rail, I was sent to look for him.”

“But that is impossible,” said Karpov. “The man I knew was no more than thirty years old, and you are twice that age.”

“Yes, I am. You have a very good eye, Karpov. I am exactly twice as old as I was when you saw me last. How could I be here now, you must wonder? How could I have aged like this? Believe me, I wondered it myself for years. But in time I put my insanity aside and came to realize that I was here. Then I got busy.”

“Volkov… Why it is you, but how could this be?”

“Let me be more direct, Karpov. I went looking for Fedorov on the Trans-Siberian rail in the year 2021, and I thought I almost found him. Yes, where was the place? The little railway inn just east of Kansk near the old naval munitions center. That's when the madness started. I was searching the premises with my guards, and thought I discovered a hidden stairway at the back of that inn. I found someone was hiding there, and herded the rascal down to the dining hall. The next thing I know I encountered men who seemed completely out of place.”

“Out of place? What do you mean?”

“I was downstairs in the lower lobby, the dining room, with a suspicious character by the ear when I ran into a group of men who held me at gunpoint and claimed they were members of the NKVD! Imagine my surprise-no, imagine my anger-a pair of fools, or so I believed. Well, I dealt with them easily enough. I thought they were just stupid idiots playing with fire, but this fire burns. And yet… when I walked out of that inn later, the rail yard looked strangely different, nothing like the place I had come to. Beyond that, all of my guards had simply vanished. I could not raise them on my jacket radio…”

He smiled, inwardly remembering his indignant anger and surprise over what had happened, and realizing now that there was no one on earth who could ever possibly have received his plaintive radio call as he sought to reestablish communication with his men. That was thirty-two years ago.

“Yes, the year was 1908, though it took me some time to discover that. Imagine my surprise, Karpov. Imagine opening a door, stepping outside, and finding you are in a completely different world! Of course you immediately doubt your own sanity, and this I did, but in time the weight of reality builds and builds and you cannot argue the evidence of your own senses. It was some time before I could actually believe it. I was indeed in the year 1908, and I have been here ever since.”

“1908?”

Karpov was completely amazed at what he was hearing now. Ivan Volkov! This man was telling him he was indeed the naval intelligence officer he had met aboard the ship. One part of his mind was able to accept what he was saying on one level. Karpov had been to the year 1908 himself, equally bemused, bewildered, and yet ready to make the most of the opportunity that madness presented him. He had been displaced in time, lost, bouncing from one era to another for months on end. The ship had finally moved again, after he was flicked from the weather bridge of Kirov like a flea off the back of a rhino. Then time just seemed to discard him, as if it had no place for him any longer. He was cast back into the sea like an unwanted fish and ended up in 1938. Then things had finally settled down when he was returned to Vladivostok on that old merchant ship. At least he had remained here, stable in time, for the last two years.

“You are telling me that you moved in time?”

“Don't be so surprised, Karpov. Your very presence here tells me you have done the same! Yes, how could you be here, I say this to myself? But the evidence of one's eyes is very convincing, is it not? You are Vladimir Karpov, Captain of the battlecruiser Kirov. Do you deny it?” Volkov could see that Karpov remained speechless, bewildered, and now somewhat ill at ease.

“No, you do not deny it. You are Karpov, the same man I spoke with. And given what happened to me, and your presence here, I now begin to understand what happened to your ship.”