Doppelganger (37 page)

“I see,” said Paul. “Are there other boxes associated with keys like the one you possess?”

“Not that I know of. In fact, I didn’t even know how this one would work, though I was aware that other keys existed, other passages securing rifts in time. The Watch learned of that, but it seems much of this has been embedded in British history for a good long while. Frankly, Mister Dorland, I have come to believe this history has been tampered with many times in the past. Yes, we’ve found evidence of keys associated with hidden passages, and always they were places under British control at some point. Delphi was a bit of an oddity, however. We never held Greece, though we’ve fought there. In any case, we’ve kept them very secret, known to very few living souls. So when I received my key, I had some inkling of where it might eventually take me. In fact, I thought our little foray to Delphi was going to be a farewell journey through one of those fissures in time, but all I found was that box.”

“So that your
ship
could move here,” said Paul, leaping ahead. “I see… the box must have amplified the effect, extending the shift radius, almost like that control rod did aboard
Kirov
, as you’ve explained it.”

“So it seems,” said Elena, “yet I could not fathom why, unless I was meant to join forces with Admiral Tovey here and fight the good fight with
Argos Fire
.”

“And that you have,” said Tovey.

“Thank you, Admiral, but the military assistance I can offer you has some hard limits.”

“Aye,” said MacRae, “We’re down to just seven missiles remaining after that last little foray, at least for the ship killers. Our air defense systems are a wee bit stronger, but as Miss Fairchild has it, we’ll eventually run out of those as well.”

“Well not just yet,” said Mack Morgan. “One of those ships in the flock we’re shepherding now is a fleet replenishment vessel. I’ve kibitzed with her Master, and they have a nice little snake pit over there, several cases of Aster-15s and a few more Aster-30s. No GB-7s, as that was a private special order for this ship, but they do have Harpoons, and we might easily adapt our firing systems to utilize that missile.”

“You’ve just won yourself a new feather for that cap. The job is yours Mack. See to it.”

“Aye, Mum, I’ll take care of everything with the ship’s engineers.”

“Well that’s encouraging,” said Tovey. “The Russians had a good deal to do with our holding off the
Hindenburg
and other bad company. Now that they’re gone, I’m realizing how crucial their contribution was to our effort here.”

“All this is very interesting,” said Paul, taking these revelations in now. “As to those keys… You said there was nothing machined on the shaft of yours?”

“No, I said the was no clue as to location there, at least a spatial location. My key was apparently designed to work anywhere in tandem with that box I retrieved from Delphi. Yet there was a series of numbers on the note we found in that box. They were temporal coordinates, a date, which is why I knew we might end up in 1941. I thought it was just a means of saving a chosen few, the Keyholders, and I was grateful my ship and crew could come along. When I first went to Delphi I thought it might only allow me to take a small contingent through that passage. Then I found there was no rift or passage there at all.”

Paul nodded. “So the box, and the hidden Tunguska fragment you suspect it contains, must have been tuned in some way to open the continuum to 1941.” Paul was analyzing all this new information, slowly piecing the puzzle together.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Elena, “but here we are. Yet I wondered why. Then I remembered another part of the story of these keys. The Watch knew there was once one hidden in the Elgin Marbles, only we didn’t discover that until it had already vanished, when the damage to the Selene Horse revealed it had once been there. You see, my key might fit into that impression left in the statue like a glove, which is why we knew it might be a very special key indeed. Then here you come in that uniform claiming you were the man who first discovered the key, and the very reason it disappeared.”

“Yours truly,” said Paul. “Guilty as charged. So when all this shenanigans started up again, and my key simply vanished, I came back to try and see if I could find it the very same way I encountered it the first time, in the one location where I knew it must exist—the hold of battleship
Rodney
. Well you may be interested to know that particular key is also associated with a hidden passage. Because I can tell you where it is. The shaft of the key had numbers engraved on it, and I deciphered their meaning.”

Elena was silent for a moment, then simply stared at him. “Do go on,” she said quietly.

Dorland reached into his jacket pocket and produced a paper with the number clearly printed out: 36.126225, -05.345633. “Unlike the number on the note you found in that box,” he said, “those are spatial coordinates. Why, in our time you could punch them into Google and get a map of the exact location.”

Tovey frowned, “Google?”

“It would take too long to explain just now, Admiral, but please indulge me. Let me make it a little easier for you, since I don’t think we have a nice handy internet connection to 2021. The key from the Selene Horse was targeted to another long time British possession—Gibraltar—a specific place on the Rock, to be precise, deep beneath Saint Michael’s Cave.”

Tovey was lost when the man spoke of an ‘internet,’ but mention of the Rock, and Saint Michael’s Cave brought him right back into the thick of things here.

“Yes,” he said grimly, “a former British possession indeed. That was where the garrison made its last stand. The Germans have it now.”

“Most unfortunate,” said Paul, “because that was one of those nasty little changes to the history. They never took it before the Russian ship went back to 1908 and generated a Heisenberg Wave. In fact, Admiral, this ship was never even built. All this is an altered meridian, and we, my friends, are now riding the edge of that very same Heisenberg Wave, and right into the Chaos Zone behind that Paradox. Who knows how far the zone of instability exists, how many days? Things will settle down again soon, or I can only hope as much.”

“Well this key can hardly matter now,” said Tovey. “It’s lost. We can’t use it, and neither can the bloody Germans. Do you suppose they’ve discovered what it might open? Might they have found that passage beneath Saint Michael’s Cave?”

“I would hope not,” said Elena, “Even if they did, it would take some doing to get through the door. The works I saw at Delphi were heavy titanium alloy, and very well made.”

“Yet the Germans can be very industrious,” said Paul, “and very determined. If they ever did stumble upon that passage, then it would certainly make them very curious. And as we have no way of knowing where it might lead…” The implications of what he was saying now were obvious to them all.

“Well,” Mack Morgan spoke up again, “all the more reason to make sure the Germans lose their lease on the Rock as soon as possible.”

“Here, here,” said Tovey. “Sir Winston has been in anguish over the loss of Gibraltar for months now. We all have. It was the most strategic base outside of England I could name, save perhaps Alexandria and Suez. Yet the loss of the Rock has closed the entire Eastern Med to convoy shipping. Yes
Invincible
made it through, with the able assistance of the Russians and
Argos Fire
, but none of our merchantmen would fare so well. I can say that Churchill would be in favor of anything we could tee up to get Gibraltar back, but I wouldn’t expect any major operation would be possible for some time. We just haven’t the capacity to make any sizable amphibious attack, and the only way to come at the place by land would mean we would have to control Spain, and that isn’t bloody likely in the short run. Get the Americans in it, and we’ll have another look at things, but it’s all we can do to hold onto Egypt and half of the Middle East right now, and that only by the grace of Brigadier Kinlan’s unexpected arrival.”

“What about a smaller operation?” said Dorland. “Might a commando team land secretly to gain access to that passage?”

“Possibly,” said Tovey. “We’ve some good men in the service of those misdeeds.”

“As do I,” said Elena. “My Argonauts have specialized equipment, night vision, and other technology that can make them very good in such an operation.”

“And we certainly know the ground well enough,” said Tovey. “We built the place, and have every nook and cranny very well mapped. But this is all academic, because that key is quite lost now, and with no blame to heap on Mister Wellings this time around—or is it Professor Dorland.”

“In the flesh,” said Paul. “At least for a while. But suppose I told you that exploring such an operation would not be a fruitless mental exercise, Miss Fairchild. Suppose I told you exactly how we might find that key again. You see, it remains lost here now, on this clear day in August of 1941. But at any
other
time, it might be found very easily.” He smiled, a mischievous look in his eye.

“Something tells me this visit was for more than idle chatter,” said Elena. “You have a plan?”

“Most assuredly,” said Paul. “Yes, I certainly do. But there is one further matter we must discuss before we get to that. You may have wondered why I spoke so harshly about the presumed fate of those Russian radio sets.”

“I assumed you meant they might have been pulled away to wherever the ship itself has gone,” said Tovey.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Paul, “but it’s a little more devious than that. I thought they would be annihilated, because they simply should not be able to exist in this time now.”

“And why not,” said Tovey. “Ours was a bit giddy the other day according to my radio man, on the 28th now that I think of it. But it seems to have settled down again, and functions normally. I was able to discuss arrangements for this meeting with Miss Fairchild and had no difficulty.”

“Yes?” said Paul. “Well all that equipment should be gone, because it should not be able to co-locate with itself when the Russian ship arrived here again.”

There was a momentary silence, and then Tovey leaned forward, looking at Dorland intently. “Arrived here… again? You mean just as it did before?”

“Precisely,” said Paul. “That was the imperative driving the Paradox. The ship simply
had
to arrive for
Kirov
to be here in the past. And that day has come and gone…”

“Then you believe the ship is out there? This very moment?”

Before Paul could answer there was a knock on the stateroom door, one of those moments of synchronicity that sometimes happen as though they were cleverly written fiction.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the orderly. “But you asked to be informed immediately of any message received on the Russian radio set. It was acting up, but we got it sorted out. One’s come through, sir, right on channel 272… the one you insisted we monitor.”

“Well man?” said Tovey impatiently. “What was the message?”

The man simply walked over and handed a paper to the Admiral, who scanned it with a mix of surprise and delight in his eyes. He looked up at the others and spoke slowly. “
Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.
Home Flag, please respond, as per fleet signals protocol one.”

Chapter 33

The
Zone of Chaos following Paradox Hour was widening in all their minds now, for the implications inherent in that message were not lost on anyone present.

“It seems they’re back again,” said Tovey, “Volsky, Fedorov and the whole bloody ship. Good to have them.”

There was a note of caution in Dorland’s eye now. “Yet not in the way you might expect if this has actually happened,” said Paul.

“Explain,” said Elena in the way she often made her questions orders.

“If this happened as I believe, then it is a recurrence of first arrival. The officers and crew will be experiencing events as if they were happening for the first time, and therefore, they may have no recollection of anything that occurred earlier.”

“I don’t understand,” said Tovey. “Is this not the same ship that vanished some weeks ago? Why would they forget anything.”

“Yes, it is the same ship, in one respect, the same officers and crew should be there as before, but they are the crew that arrived for the very first time. The ship is the one that actually arrived here on July 28th, 1941, and this is, for all real purposes, that first arrival.”

“But this world is entirely different,” said Tovey, “at least I’ve been told as much. To me it is the world as it has always seemed, completely in order, except for this bloody war.”

“Yes, it would seem that way to you, but remember, the wave of change the ship initiated in 1908 may have reached this time, but not the year they are now arriving from—not 2021 in our day. Precursor waves may have reached there, but not the real damaging waves with the power to radically change things. I believe they will just have to start over, and sort through their situation from square one, the square they presently occupy in this crazy game.”

“Good lord,” said Tovey. “Then what has happened to the ship that was with me in May? What has happened to Admiral Volsky. That man had a good head on his shoulders, and a heart to go with it. I learned his caution and desire for accommodation saved some very difficult situations in our first encounters. You’re telling me the man there now remembers nothing of the interaction we have had since they appeared here?”

“Not only that,” said Paul, “but most everyone outside a safe Nexus Point will have no recollection of those events either. The Heisenberg Waves presently sweeping through these years can have the effect of wiping such memories clean, though there are exceptions. Persons safely harbored in a Nexus Point will retain their memories. Think of them as safe zones, protected bubbles in the stream. They have limited range, however, and leaving them can lead to some rather strange disorientation. I believe a nexus has formed around this ship, Admiral—more specifically, around you, a Prime Mover at the heart of all these events. The same should hold true for your ship, Miss Fairchild. Your crew should have no memory loss if I am correct.”