intelligence he had collected before this meeting. “Karpov? He was en route to a meeting with Sergei Kirov in Moscow, at least according to radio intercepts my boys collected. He left Siberia a few days ago. In fact, he should be in Moscow now.”
“Well the Russians have just stated they are presently sailing in the Norwegian Sea near Jan Mayen,” said Tovey. “Could he have traveled all that distance?”
“Not likely,” said MacRae. “That would be some 3000 miles, and that’s taking the direct route up over the pole, and with no stops and fair wind. They might make it in three days, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and not with a stopover in Moscow for this meeting Mack has just mentioned.”
“Just a moment,” said Paul, turning to Admiral Tovey. “Are we talking about the same man here? You’re saying this Siberian leader was a former officer from the Russian ship?”
“That’s what I’m told,” said Tovey. “They believe he was lost in an incident that occurred earlier. The very same incident I talked about before—in 1908. Then Admiral Volsky and that Captain Fedorov were quite distressed when they learned the man was still alive, and had apparently moved forward in time with the ship. I don’t know all the details, but they seemed convinced that the Siberian was the same man that served aboard Kirov. I’ve never met the man, but I’m told he’s a bit unsavory.”
“Good lord,” said Paul, thinking. “Could this be so?”
Tovey gave him a penetrating look. “What are you thinking, Professor Dorland.
Paul took a deep breath and tried to explain as best he could. “Admiral, as I explained earlier, the ship we’re presently in contact with is not the same one you last saw steaming off your bow last May. In one respect it is the same, but this is the ship that first arrived in 1941. That happened in the Norwegian Sea, just where you say this ship now claims to be sailing. So this officer, this man Karpov, he’s right there aboard Kirov at this very moment.”
“And how could he be there and still making headlines as he meets with Sergei Kirov?” said Mack Morgan.
Paul looked at him, a very serious expression on his face. “When this event occurred—the Paradox Hour we spoke of—one of several things could have happened. The first possibility is that the Heisenberg precursor waves could have found a way to alter the history of 2021 to try and prevent Kirov from shifting back, but that wasn’t very likely. It would have denied that first cause, and in our day, the ship did indeed vanish on July 28th.”
“Aye, said Morgan. “It was in the news, and we all heard it.”
“So Kirov was coming, and there was no way to prevent that, which means the second possibility, that the ship you last sailed with, Admiral, might simply replace it when it arrived here again—well, that isn’t very likely either. The two ships were not in the same location.”
“And the third possibility?” Tovey prodded.
“That both ships manage to survive the Paradox—again, very unlikely. Co-location is very rare. The theory doesn’t entirely forbid it, but it is usually factored out of any possible shift equation, and precisely because it gives rise to Paradox. Yet what we have here is a very peculiar situation, the Chaos Zone I spoke of earlier. The wave of change emanating from 1908 encountered Paradox, then split and formed two wave patterns. These are the conditions that can give rise to real anomalies. Is this is the first contact you have had with the Russians since it last vanished.”
“Correct,” said Tovey.
“Interesting… And there’s someone aboard that ship who clearly knew of your special communications arrangement—fleet protocol one…. Gentlemen, Miss Fairchild, I believe we have a situation here, something that has arisen from that Chaos Zone after the Paradox. We’re still in it now, and the waves of chaos abound all around us. Someone on the Russian ship is experiencing intense déjà vu at this moment, so much so that memories of past lived events were retained when he shifted here. And if this Vladimir Karpov is presently there aboard that ship, and also in Moscow as your Mister Morgan seems to believe, then we’ve got a real problem here. We’ve got a Doppelganger…”
Tovey raised his eyebrows. “A duplicate? The same man alive twice in the same world? I thought you said this couldn’t happen. You clearly didn’t think we would end up with two ships here.”
“Yes, that’s a great