Hammer of God

Chapter 36

Tyrenkov reached the window, peering out across the rooftops of single story buildings that extended for three short blocks to the rail yard. The town was much bigger now, so he reasoned that he had moved forward in time as Karpov expected he would. But this was not to any place in the 1940s. He looked and saw the sky streaked with the contrail of a fast moving aircraft. Out across the town itself, he saw strange vehicles moving on the main street, with shapes that were smooth and sleek compared to the bulky, squarish chassis of the cars and trucks he knew from his day.

So this was the future-some brave new world that was completely unknown to him. What year was it? He could go down to the front desk and find that out soon enough. For now he stood mesmerized to think that he must be in a time well beyond the span of his normal life. No man knows the hour or day of his own death, yet he is cursed to know he will die, unlike the other witless creatures he shared the earth with. Suppose he was fated to live out a normal life, seventy years or so. Then if he was alive here now, he must have traveled at least that far beyond the year when he was to die. Some quick math told him he could have moved into the early 21st century!

He knew that is where Ivan Volkov had started his journey back in time. He went down the stairs, not once, but twice as Karpov had deduced. So it was likely that this stairway would be rebuilt one day in the 1940s, because it existed to allow that passage by Volkov into the past. In fact, it had to be rebuilt before September of 1942! It suddenly struck him that he may have made that same journey in reverse. The odd music, shiny vehicles, strange craft in the sky, all conspired to tell him he was in the future-the world Karpov and Volkov came from.

There by the window he was a small table and two chairs. A book lay on the table near a candle, and he picked it up, curious. Then he heard a dull rumble, and the blare of a horn as a train began to pull into the rail yard. His attention was immediately drawn outside as the train arrived. These were not the old, weathered rail cars from his day, but sleek, rounded silver sided cars with many windows. He watched carefully, hoping to catch a glimpse of the people from this future world when they emerged from the train. There… he saw the conductor in a dark, navy blue uniform opening the door of a train car and lowering a small stairway down. Then, one by one, people emerged, strangely dressed, most carrying some small bag that they set on the ground, and then dragged along behind them with a thin handle that they pulled out of the bag itself!

Then he saw them, the men in uniform, and his keen eye soon picked out the details that seemed oddly familiar to him. He had been Karpov’s right hand man for some time now, always admiring the trim cut of the Admiral’s uniform, and the jacket he always wore. These men wore the same! They were obviously military, and they were security men. He could see their careful movements, fanning out, eyes searching, scanning the other passengers as they detrained. They were looking for someone, that much was obvious, and then another man emerged, taller, stiff backed, clearly the officer in charge.

His mind had flashed to a strange possibility. Could it be? If he was seeing what he thought he was, then time was of the essence now-every second. Instinct took over, and he turned and ran back to the upper landing of that stairway. He was through the door quickly, closing it firmly behind him, and then, with one hand against the wall to steady himself, he hurtled down, counting each heavy footfall as he went, his heart beating fast with the urgency of the moment.

He knew what he had just seen- who he had just seen-and the knowledge he now had in his head could change the entire world.

Karpov was waiting breathlessly at the bottom of the stairs, sitting at a dining table facing the door by the hearth, a service revolver ready in his jacket pocket. His mind ran along all the corridors of possibility. Would Tyrenkov return? Would he find a way safely into the future? If so, what year could he reach. He knew that if he could get back to 1941, it would have to be just after Tunguska disappeared in that storm over the English Channel. That was the only safe ground for him, days he had not yet lived in his own life.

There is just a narrow window there left for me, he thought. Tyrenkov was correct. I have only until July 28th of 1941, and then Time will be faced with an insoluble problem. Kirov could not arrive in the Norwegian Sea on that day without compromising his position there in time-yet the ship had to arrive for him to even be where he was now. Look what had happened to the older crewmen aboard Tunguska when we shifted in that storm! That was what he was facing now-clear evidence that Time would not hesitate to snuff out his life to see her chess board remained tidy. It was just that way. No two chess pieces could occupy the same square on the board. One had to die, no matter how powerful it was, if any other piece could reach its square.

It was all too much for him to contemplate, and thinking about it left him feeling a deep sense of impending doom, a sense of dread that was now dogging his mind, ever since Tyrenkov had come out with that question.

Could I find a way to somehow avoid that awful moment when the line of my own fate might become hopelessly tangled? We were only there for a very brief time, twelve days before the ship vanished again into that bleak future. If I could find a way to be somewhere else for that brief, twelve day period, then it was another long year before Kirov appeared in the Tyrrhenian Sea-safe ground. It was August into September of 1942 when they fought in the Med, and eventually made their way out towards Saint Helena, and that harrowing sojourn to the Pacific. Again, the ship was active in that year for only a brief period of time. That was when Fedorov began to piece together the clues that began with that twelve day interval on the time shifts, which eventually led us to Dobrynin’s maintenance procedure, and Rod-25. What was it about that control rod that caused it to open time?

By the time inspector Kapustin had determined the origin of the materials used in that control rod, Karpov was already well out to sea in Kirov, leading the red banner fleet in that impossible journey that saw him face down the powerful American Pacific Fleets, and in two different eras. So Karpov had no inkling yet that Tunguska had anything to do with Rod-25’s unusual effects. Nor did he understand, really, why this time rift had formed on the plane of this stairway at Ilanskiy. He only knew that men who walked those stairs moved in time. He also knew that violent explosions could cause similar rifts. The Demon volcano had sent him to 1945, and nuclear explosions had also been involved in moving the ship to different eras.

That thunderstorm moved Tunguska, he knew. What else could account for my presence here in 1909 now? Could I move that way again, or was that a random event that might never repeat? Suppose I did get safely back to 1941 before the date of Kirov’s first arrival. Would I spend the next weeks and months reviewing weather reports and chasing thunder storms? Suppose I get lucky and find one. What is to say it would not just simply return me to this year, 1909? Why should I assume I could get where I really need to go, to those days just after Kirov disappeared off Argentia Bay? That would give me another year free from this nagging paradox, but how can I get there?

He was thinking all this when there was a sound on the stairway that made him suddenly tense up. Footsteps! Someone was there, coming down from the second floor-or from some other lodging in infinity. He reached into his pocket, hand firm on his service pistol, waiting. Anyone might be coming down those steps, by design or by mere happenstance.

To his great relief, it was Tyrenkov, somewhat breathless himself, and flushed with urgency. The lower door opened, and he stumbled through, blinking in the light, and clearly disoriented. Then he saw Karpov sitting there just as he left him, and smiled, composing himself. The need for speed was over. He had plenty of time now-long decades, and he took a deep breath, relaxing.

“Tyrenkov!” Karpov was up on his feet. “Thank god you are unharmed. What happened? Did you get back to 1941?”

Tyrenkov shook his head. “No sir, not 1941, at least not any place in it that I recognized. But I did get somewhere else, somewhere much farther ahead in time, or so I believe. Everything looked… clean. The inn itself was quite different, the walls, decor, the carpeting. There was music playing, but I could not see where it was coming from. I went to the window to have a look at the town, and it is much bigger than it was in 1941. I could see people, oddly dressed, and strange vehicles. Then the train pulled into the station and the real business started.”

“Not 1941? You are certain?”

“The train I saw looked nothing like the cars we used on the trans-Siberian rail. They looked all shiny and new. I saw a plane in the sky-moving so fast that it left a streak in the clouds.”

“A jet aircraft,” said Karpov matter of factly. “Then you did move much farther forward.” Karpov realized that Tyrenkov must have gone all the way to 2021, the place Volkov came from. There was already a clear connection to that year into the past, as Volkov had proven that. Yet Tyrenkov never lived in those years. He could get there safely, while when I went up those stairs, I had to appear in a time well after the onset of the war, before that battle in the Pacific against Tanner and his Carrier group. I saw only the ruin of the world, and that terrible detonation over the naval armory at Kansk. But Tyrenkov… He could theoretically get to any date in the future after the time we vanished in that storm.

“I see,” said Karpov. “So our little experiment was successful, at least in one regard. Time does make allowances. You were worried you might appear in January of 1941, a time when you were already alive there, but I was not concerned. I knew you could not appear at such a time. The chair was already occupied, and by your very own self. So you see, Tyrenkov, do not think harshly of me. I was not throwing you to the wolves. I knew you would get somewhere safely, but I see that it was not where I expected.”

“Where did you expect I would go?”

“1942-to a time after the stairway was rebuilt. That is where I must ultimately get myself. The years ahead are… problematic for me. I must find a way to avoid certain dates in the chronology-dates when I was already alive aboard my ship. But I see my experiment failed.”

“But you can get home, sir. The stairway leads all the way to your time!”

“I have always known that,” said Karpov quickly. “Otherwise how did Volkov get here? But I cannot get to any safe place there, Tyrenkov. I was in that world, fighting the Americans in the Pacific before I took the journey that eventually brought me here. So if I go up those steps, I must appear after I vanished from those years, and the war began in earnest at that time. I saw a glimpse of it, the utter destruction of Kansk, as I told you. Beyond that time I have also seen what happens to the world, and it is not pretty. It is no place to live. So you see, Tyrenkov, I am condemned to live out my days here in the past, if I want any semblance of a comfortable life, or if I ever hope to reap the harvest of what I know of days ahead. My only problem here are the days I already lived in the 1940s, like landmines on the road ahead for me if I ever do get back to that decade. That and the fact that I have enemies there-men like Volkov who know entirely too much.”

Now Tyrenkov smiled. “Sir,” he said. “I have some news you will be very interested to hear.”

“Oh? Out with it. What have you learned?”

“While I was at that window, I told you a train pulled into the station. I watched the passengers exit, and I saw a group of uniformed men, clearly military, and security personnel. I could tell it immediately from the way they moved and acted, the way they surveyed the surroundings, watchful, looking at all the passengers. It was immediately clear to me that they were searching for someone, and the odd thing is this-their uniforms looked very much like yours!”

“Like mine? You mean my service jacket?”

“Yes sir, the one you often talk to near the collar. A man appeared, tall, grey haired, clearly the officer in charge of this group, and he was doing the same thing-talking to his collar. So I immediately lunged for that stairway to get back here as quickly as I could. Don’t you see, sir? You told me that there were men searching for that associate of yours-the man named Fedorov. Isn’t that what Volkov told you?”

The light of shock and awareness was in Karpov’s eyes now.

“Volkov!” he said jubilantly. “You believe you saw Ivan Volkov and his security team arriving at Ilanskiy!”

“Yes sir,” Tyrenkov beamed.

“Why didn’t you stay to try and verify this?”

“That would have been very foolish. For one thing, I would be clearly out of place in that environment, and immediately suspect. But more importantly, I already knew that if that was Volkov and his security detail, then they were eventually going to search this inn. So I got back here as quickly as I could, to end my time line in that moment. Every second I spent there was a second I could not use when I go back.”

“When you go back?”

“Of course, sir. You see, we no longer have to waste days, weeks and months trying to find Volkov here in 1909, because now we know exactly where he is, and before he even traveled to the past! So I wanted every second possible available to me. I’ll need all the time there I can get, because next time I go up those steps, I can take a nice sniper rifle with me, and kill him-kill him right after he steps off that train, and from that very window!”

My god, thought Karpov. Tyrenkov is correct! If that is Volkov as he suspects, than we have the bastard-I’ve got him at my mercy now, at long last. Tyrenkov can do exactly that! He can go right back up those stairs and gun him down…

Yet even as he thought all this, his elation faded, replaced by that strange sense of impending doom again. Suppose I order Tyrenkov to do this. What then? What happens to the world they came from, the world where he spent those years from 1938 scratching his way into the position of power he now held in Siberia?

If I kill Volkov here, then he never goes back… He never outmaneuvers Denikin, and it is then very likely that Sergei Kirov prevails over the Whites, and the Orenburg Federation never arises. That may be a most desirable outcome, insofar as our homeland is concerned. But how does it all happen? How do all the chess pieces suddenly get to new squares in the middle of the game?

He thought, and thought. What should I do? How does this affect my own personal line of fate? Does Siberia remain independent, or does Kirov defeat Kolchak as well, and unite the entire country as the Soviet Union? If all else holds true, and I arrive at Vladivostok as I did in 1938, then what? I would have to do a great deal more there to achieve the position I have now, and I would have the tall shadow of Sergei Kirov looming over me the whole time.

A queasy feeling stirred in his stomach now. When he first arrived here in 1909, he realized he was perhaps the most powerful man alive on earth. Yes, Volkov was here, but still unknowing, perhaps still wandering about in a fog. Sergei Kirov was here, but still a young buck, and easily managed given all I know. Yes. He was the most powerful man alive, a demigod. He could shape the contours of the world from this day forward… He had come to the edge of a cliff in his mind, a precipice of doubt yawning beneath his feet. He had the power to change everything, but what to do?

Strangely, it was the words of an English poet that suddenly ran through his mind now, Alfred Lord Tennyson… “ Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change!”

He decided.