with the discovery of these natural fissures in time. I assume that is how your ship got here, Miss Fairchild? Am I correct? Was the location of a natural fissure inscribed on the shaft of that key in your possession?”
“Not at all,” said Elena. “I received my orders to go to a specific point, the Oracle of Delphi. I was to excavate the shrine, and was very surprised to find a well engineered passage way. It was certainly nothing that could have been built in antiquity, not even in this time. There were precision milled doors and hatches, all opened by my key, so I assume the Watch received this information by other means.”
Now she shared the strange message she had found in the box, presumably sent by Admiral Tovey himself. She produced the note, handing it to Paul, who read it with studied intensity.
‘Should you read this your mission will have concluded as planned. Keep this device within a secure room aboard Argos Fire at all times and it will serve to hold you in a safe nexus. As of this moment, you are now Watchstander G1. Godspeed.’
Paul looked up at Elena, a question in his eye. “Miss Fairchild,” he said quietly, “why do I get the distinct impression that you know a good deal more about all of this than you have yet spoken?”
“Because I do,” Elena said with equal calm.
Chapter 32
“Have you told him about the box?” said MacRae, not knowing whether or not he was revealing some great secret.
Elena looked at him, then simply shrugged. “You may as well know everything,” she said. “We were ordered to the Delphi Shrine by the Watch, the Group supposedly established by our good friend Admiral Tovey here, though he has yet to live those days out, and now may never do so if this Heisenberg Wave you speak of takes down that little sandcastle and washes the shoreline clean.”
“Yet it did occur once,” said Paul, “and you remember it because you are now clearly a Prime Mover, and this ship, and your own, are in a Nexus Point, a kind of safety zone in the chaos of time when things begin to change. We all share it, otherwise the Heisenberg Wave would be affecting us all here at this very moment.”
“That’s how she explained it all to me once,” said MacRae.
“Yes,” said Elena, “and I used that very same phrase, not because I had any innate knowledge of it. It was simply information I received from the Watch, and they purportedly got it from the future… Until the voices and information from there went silent.”
Now she told Paul her full story, and how the Watch had received those strange transmissions from the future, information from another time!
“Yes,” said Paul. “I’m afraid I pioneered the technique when we were trying to clean up a little mess involving the Bismarck, though that was before these radical changes migrating from 1908.”
“Then do you also know about Tunguska?”
Paul gave her a searching look now. “What about it?”
“The Tunguska Event,” said Elena. “That occurred in late June of 1908, and we have learned that it may have caused some very significant damage to the continuum of time, as you refer to it.”
Yes, thought Paul, Tunguska! It was a major explosive event, and we’ve already learned what can happen when they occur. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? There it was, right in 1908. Did Nordhausen mention anything about it? Then the revelation Miss Fairchild made next struck him with equal surprise.
“I believe the box we found at Delphi may contain a fragment from the Tunguska Event—a massive explosion that disturbed both space and time here when it occurred, and ever since then, other explosive events have continued to fracture time. This is how we learned of these natural fissures.”
“This was information from the future?” Paul asked quickly.
“I believe so,” said Elena. “I can’t say I was really told everything, even though that note there seems to elevate me to the top of the list where membership in the Watch is concerned. This talk of Paradox and Chaos Zones has me worried. We learned that time may have been badly fragmented by that event, like pottery or glass that’s been cracked.”
“And it’s getting worse,” said Paul. “So this is why you knew of that other term, Grand Finality.”
“I was told that as well,” said Elena, though I can’t say I fully understand it.”