Altered States – Volume II. Darkest Hour

Chapter 34

Siberia was the greatest wilderness on earth, vast, desolate, a seemingly unending stretch of pine and birch forests that stretched from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific. The land was dotted with a hundred thousand marshy bogs, traversable only when frozen over in winter, and broken by steep ridges and deep valleys cut by the aimless wandering rivers that had remained largely unexplored, even to modern times. In all that space, over five million square miles, there were just a scattering of tiny hamlets, and no more than a few thousand people.

Only along the Trans-Siberian rail line were their towns and cities worth the name, but north of that thin steel corridor the wilds of Siberia were largely uninhabited. A few that did live there had passed decades in complete isolation. One family of six, the famous Lykovs, would live more than 40 years without seeing another human being, completely oblivious to the course of modern events, the war and all that followed it, until they were eventually discovered by chance in a remote river gorge by geologists.

So the Siberian wilderness could swallow whole armies if it wished, and they could vanish never to be seen again. The stolid stands of larch, spruce, pine and birch sat in their unknowing silence, and the centuries passed, largely without witness by human eyes. To this day it is said that the wilderness hides undiscovered mysteries, and few have received more speculation than the strange event on the morning of June 30, 1908.

On that day something came from the deeps of outer space, streaking across the Siberian sky, and blasting into the valley of the Stony Tunguska River. One of the few humans that saw it descend described it very strangely: “a flying oblong body that narrowed towards one end, and light as bright as the sun.” Some said it left a trail of smoke and dust behind it, and appeared in the shape of a pipe or fiery pillar. Another described it as a tube, and one claimed it actually changed course as it approached!

Whatever fell there was preceded by a strange magnetic storm that was detected on instruments in European universities for several days before the event. The impact explosion, thought to approach 20 megatons, was seen 1500 kilometers away, and the eerie light in the sky that lingered for days was noticed as far away as London. It devastated the 2150 square kilometers of the taiga forest in every direction, blowing them flat and burning them. It sent seismic waves trembling through the earth and atmosphere that were felt half way around the world, and the sound of thunderous explosions continued for fifteen minutes and were heard 1200 kilometers away.

The magnetic storm persisted another four hours after the impact. Optical anomalies were seen in the night sky all over Europe, along with strange Noctilucent clouds. Radiation was found at the site of the impact, and other anomalies in genetic mutations of the local Tungus people were reported over time. Yet trees that survived the impact went into a sudden, unexplained period of accelerated growth.

The site lay undiscovered for years, but an enterprising Russian scientist named Leonid Kulik had mounted four expeditions, the first in 1927, and the last in August of 1939-at least in the world Fedorov had been born to. He had found an old Siberian newspaper dating from 1908 that made a very unusual claim: “…a huge meteorite is said to have fallen… beyond the railway line near Filimonovo junction and less than 11 versts (12 kilometers) from Kansk. Its fall was accompanied by a frightful roar and a deafening crash, which was heard more than 40 versts away. The passengers of a train approaching the junction at the time were struck by the unusual noise. The driver stopped the train and the passengers poured out to examine the fallen object, but they were unable to study the meteorite closely because it was red hot…”

If the report was true, the object or meteorite, perhaps a fragment of the larger Tunguska object, would have fallen very near the place where the Airship Abakan was now tethered to the tall mooring tower at Kansk, perhaps 25 kilometers from the small hamlet and rail station called Ilanskiy.

What was out there, thought Orlov as he gazed out the main gondola windows. What was causing the strange anomaly in the compass room? The Airship Narva had left Port Dikson, heading south to follow the broad gleaming course of the Yenisei River south. Many other rivers would feed the mighty Yenisei as it wandered north to the cold Kara Sea. They had passed these tributaries as they cruised south, using dead reckoning and compass navigation, and the visible track of the river itself to guide them. On the fifth tributary, the Angara River, they would branch away to follow that east briefly, and then look for the twin tributaries of the Burisa and Cuna rivers that would lead them southwest to a point just above Ilanskiy.

But something had gone wrong.

A day out of Port Dixon they had covered some 1600 kilometers when the skies began to thicken with rafts of dark, threatening clouds. Orlov saw streaks of white lightning rippling on the flanks of the storm, and the ship’s Air Master, Captain Selikov, seemed worried.

“That’s the problem out here,” he said to Orlov. “No good weather maps, so we have to take things as they come. Now we shall have to climb,” he said to his Elevatorman where he stood at the broad metal wheel. “Ten degree up bubble. I want to get above that storm front.”

Narva had become much lighter by burning fuel over the last 1600 kilometers, and there was a fuel weight panel that calculated this, and allowed a man to select just the exact amount of water ballast to be dropped, lightning her further. The airship slowly nosed up into the grey sky, but the storm clouds towered up and up, rising in huge angry anvils hammered by some unseen god that sent thunder and lightning crackling through the sky. For a time they seemed to be navigating a great canyon of angry clouds. They had to get higher, and Selikov nervously watched the altitude increase.

Theoretically, an airship could climb to any height as long at the pressure between its helium gas and the reserve air sacks could be carefully balanced. Helium expanded as the atmospheric pressure weakened with altitude, which is why the helium gas sat inside a larger air filled bag where the air could be pumped out to a reserve air sack at the tail to allow the helium sack to expand. When the ship descended the process was reversed.

Even though it was late July, it was very cold as they gained elevation. The crew of the airship tramped about in their heavy woolen coats, hands tucked into mittens and thick gloves, heads lost in dark fleece hats. Orlov was no stranger to these conditions, having stood many a watch on the cold Arctic Seas, and he was wearing his thick leather service jacket and Naval Ushanka. As they climbed, he watched the ribbon of the river below them grow smaller, then cloud over, until they were lost in the thickening sky.

The Rudderman was standing with a firm grip on the wheel, feeling the winds beginning to buffet the airship’s tail. The wheel itself vibrated in his grip from the pressure exerted on the rudder, over 600 feet behind them. The Elevatorman, a mishman named Yeseni, was exerting himself, spinning the wheel to maintain the inclination and trim of the ship.

The winds became more intense, and Orlov could feel the Duralumin frame of the airship shuddering and creaking as its great mass was moved by the storm. The Captain’s eye strayed to the gas board, where the pressure in each of the big gas bags could be constantly monitored and vented if necessary, though with the rarity of helium that was seldom done, except in emergencies.

They were skirting the north edge of the storm, an old trick the airship captains had used known as ‘pressure pattern navigation.’ Winds in the northern hemisphere circulated around a low pressure center in a counter-clockwise rotation, so by skirting north they would move in the same direction of the winds around the storm.

“Rudderman, ten points to port,” said Selikov. “We’re drifting.” The Carl Zeiss Drift indicator would normally scan the movement of terrain beneath the ship through a downward facing telescope, and the blur of the passing terrain would appear as a streak between two lines on the readout, which were rotated to match the desired course. As long as the streaks were within those lines, the course was true, and a nearby compass allowed the Captain to adjust his course magnetically as well.

With thick clouds and altitude there was little or no terrain to be seen, so the drift indicator became less useful. Selikov kept his eyes fixed on the compass instead, until it began to shudder and quiver oddly within its casing. He looked up, thinking it was only a temporary vibration caused by the buffeting winds, and when he looked at the compass again the needle was spinning wildly.

“What’s this?” He tapped the compass, thinking to stabilize the vibration, but to no avail. Then he walked to the voice pipe and shouted down to the navigation room.

“Navigator, what is your main compass reading?”

There was a long pause before he got the answer he feared. “Captain… I can’t read anything. The compass needle is all over the dial!”

Selikov frowned.

“What is wrong?” Orlov asked.

“This storm has the ship’s compass all fouled up. We can’t read our heading accurately. I will have to attempt radio direction finding if this keeps up. That might help, assuming we can pick up any stations in this region.”

This was tried, but the same odd magnetic interference that had the compasses in a dizzy spin was also clouding over all the radio equipment. Then Troyak came up from the auxiliary crews cabin where his Marines were quartered, and huddled with Orlov over the situation.

“We cannot navigate,” Orlov explained what had been happening. “What about your equipment, Troyak? Our transmitters are quite powerful.”

“All of my equipment is fouled up too. We lost contact with Kirov half an hour ago, and now I can’t raise them on any bandwidth.”

“We must get clear of this damn storm,” said Selikov. “Our only option now will be to descend to lower altitudes and see if we can spot the river again. Otherwise we are just flying blind here, and we could end up anywhere-miles from the river until we find another tributary to follow.”

Selikov was able to steer wide of the storm cells, but new formations seemed to loom up, forcing him to some very tense moments in the navigation of the ship. It took some physical exertion to turn the rudder or elevator wheels, and the men there were soon drenched with sweat, in spite of the cold. The storm was much bigger than they had first believed, and it was long hours of harrowing flight before they could break into clear air again.

Captain Selikov was frustrated and ill at ease. “Well,” he said finally. “We’ve got clear air for a descent. The only problem now is that I haven’t the slightest idea where we are. Our heading has been unreadable since the compass failed, and it is still spinning like a top! We could be anywhere inside that circle, by my calculations.” He pointed to a ‘farthest on’ circle he had drawn around their last known position on the chart, with a double line on one side indicating the probable direction.

“To make it simple, gentlemen,” until I get down and find a recognizable river, we’re lost. At the moment we can descend, but we’re losing light fast and the moon will also set with the sun, so it’s going to be a very dark night for the next six hours, and navigation will be almost impossible, even if we do find the river. Without that compass, we’ll simply have to hover until daylight.”

Orlov folded his arms, frowning.

“Welcome to Siberia,” Troyak said gruffly.

It was only necessary to become ever so slightly lighter than air to climb, and heavier than air to descend, but the process often took time. It would take three hours of careful maneuvering and ballast recovery via the air condenser equipment and rain collectors, but they eventually secured enough new ballast to begin a steady descent.

At about 6000 feet the landforms were clearly visible again, and they maneuvered towards the gleaming course of a distant river, thinking they could now get back on track. Though the storm had abated, the magnetic disturbance was still giving their compass equipment fits, but the river would take them where they needed to go-or so they believed.

The light faded with the setting sun at 21:30, and it would not rise again until almost five AM. With shadows lengthening on the landforms below, Selikov drifted lower, safely above the forest but at an altitude where he could try and keep the river beneath them. Speed was reduced to the bare minimum as darkness folded over them like a heavy quilt.

It was a very long wait for the sun, even if the night was fleeting by normal standards. They drifted over the endless dark wilderness, hovering with the passing clouds, lost in the realm of osprey and eagle. The crew slept fitfully that night, with Orlov huddled in his cabin trying to keep warm with a good wool blanket.

Hours later a weary Selikov was back on the bridge with Orlov and Troyak, shaking his head as he studied his charts, then scanned the surrounding terrain beneath them. They had found the river, but Captain Selikov remained troubled, shouting back and forth with the navigation room, and finally going there himself for a lengthy conference. When he returned he had a crestfallen expression on his face.

“Good news, and bad news,” he said to Orlov and Troyak. The good news is that we have finally determined where we are. That fork in the river two hours back at sunrise was the village of Bajhit. I hoped it might be Motiygino on the Angara, which is why I steered to follow the course of the lower tributary. That was supposed to take us very near the objective.”

“And the bad news?” Orlov wanted to know the score.

“We have drifted off course during the storm. That river we were following was not the Angara and we are well to the northwest of where we wanted to go.”

“Can’t we follow this river south?”

“No, I’m afraid we would not wish to follow this river, Mister Orlov. It has haunted the nightmares of children in Siberia for generations now. Perhaps you know it, Sergeant Troyak? This is the Stony Tunguska.”

“Tunguska?” Orlov had heard the name. “Isn’t that the place where the asteroid fell? Scientists have been trying to figure out what it was for years.”

“Yes, something happened there, but I am not a scientist,” said Selikov. “Science has always been too strong a drink for me. There was a German physicist who put it very well. I think his name was Heisenberg. He said: ‘The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

“Or the devil,” said Orlov.

Selikov smiled, rolling up his navigation chart. “Well, gentlemen, I prefer to find God in a cathedral. And I think we should get as far from this place as we possibly can, and that soon.”