now a small flotilla of merchant Marine ships out there as well.”
“These concerns were raised at the conference in Siwa,” said Tovey, “and at the meeting in Alexandria. Six men now know the truth, and I think that they shall form the first six recruits in that little group I’ll call the Watch. We have resolved to limit general knowledge of these events to as few key players as possible. As for the rank and file on the ships, and the troops Kinlan now commands, we have some control, which is why that brigade has been kept where it was, in a very isolated place, and why we have these new ships segregated here in the Azores.”
“Laudable, and quite important,” said Paul. “Yes, you must do everything possible to limit knowledge of what has happened. For at this moment, time itself is on the verge of rupturing and tangling in a way that could be absolutely fatal. This ship has ravaged the continuum once already, and the man that drove that energy has now returned for a second loop—a Doppelganger, something that I thought might never occur. We now face the very real possibility that the original Karpov still exists in Russia, and it is likely that he may soon gain knowledge that his own duplicate exists as well. This could lead to a real calamity, events introducing so much variation into the continuum that it simply cannot recover. It is not something that may happen, ladies and gentlemen, I strongly believe that an event I call a Radical Transformation is already underway, and it will lead us to only one certain outcome if we do not find a solution—that Grand Finality you spoke of Miss Fairchild.”
“What is it?” said Elena, the fear obvious on her face.
“A kind of Gordian knot in time,” said Paul. “These variations and Paradox events get time so doubled back on itself, that an insoluble looping begins to occur. Time cannot find a way to resolve it, and so it gets stuck in an endless replay. If this happens the future simply ceases to exist, because time cannot progress beyond the point of the finality…”
“Ceases to exist?”
“As terrible as that sounds, that is what the theory predicts. Since the future cannot be created in the line of causality, it must be destroyed, and that shadow ripples backwards on the continuum like a backwash from Paradox. That may be the reason the voices from our own distant future have all gone mute, for there, the impact of all these changes will be most severe—annihilation—and that is a silence that will eventually roll back upon us all…”
A small measure of that silence fell on the room at that moment, stilling every voice there. Only the quiet hum of the radio set thrummed in the background, a cold and lifeless pulse on the airwaves of time, a mechanical Doppelganger, something there that should not exist, an insult to the very fiber of the universe itself. Then Admiral Tovey spoke, the words coming from that same poem by William Butler Yates he had running in his mind moments ago. It seemed, in that moment, to hold all the fear and uncertainty, and the intimation of utter doom that each of them felt.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned…”
The Saga Continues…
Kirov Saga: Nemesis
The second volume in the third season of this long running tale carries the story into the turbulent waters of the north. With Admiral Volsky fallen ill, Fedorov struggles to prevent Karpov from repeating the awful events that ended in nuclear fire, and the explosion that again sent the ship reeling through time. With his memory intact, knowledge of Rod-25 and everything Karpov would do, he sets his mind on gaining control of the ship, yet must face the dangerous wrath of Karpov if he is to succeed.
Meanwhile, the Siberian, as the second Karpov is now called, has struck his bargain with Sergei Kirov, but one that could bring about another fatal collision in time. Learning that Kirov has reappeared, he sets his mind on trying to find that ship, and in so doing gain control over the most powerful weapons in the world. Unaware that his duplicate self even exists, he soon finds he has a shadowy accomplice.
The war continues on the Russian front as the Germans slowly begin