he was, looking for latitude and longitude to make sense of all this.
“And then what? Zolkin raised his heavy brows.
“Then I was here.”
“Yes, and I let you go without taking proper note of your condition. I’d like to run a few tests this time around, just to make sure. Then the Admiral tells me you are given the entire day off tomorrow. That is good for you, and I would have most likely ordered it in any case. Now then… Do you feel any numbness or pain?”
“No Doctor.”
“Alright. Then Let’s check your blood pressure, and as I do so just answer a few simple questions for me. To start with, how are things back home?”
“Home? Well enough I suppose.”
“And where is that, exactly. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about your family.”
“Saint Petersburg. My mother and father still live there.” Fedorov answered perfunctorily, yet he was still inwardly wrestling with a hundred questions. He knew what Zolkin was doing here, sizing up his mental state by asking these simple things.
“And your wife?”
“I’ve never married.”
“Yes, of course. I remember reading that in your file earlier.”
“Look Doctor, I know you want to see to my wellbeing here, but I can assure you that I am of sound mind.” He knew Zolkin was assessing his sense of personal identity, his awareness of location, date, time, and the present situation. Disorientation was a definite altered mental state, and he knew it could signal a serious medical condition.
Yes, he thought. I know who I am, but does anyone else? I am Anton Fedorov, Captain of the battlecruiser Kirov, yet apparently that has changed. Orlov ordered me about on the bridge and was thinking to send me right over to the navigation station. He even dismissed Petrov when I arrived. And my god, it’s clear that the ship has one too many Captains now. I know where I am, clearly aboard Kirov. The bulkheads and deck plates are hard and firm, and this is certainly no dream. Yet from what I have gathered, I took a fall on the bridge during the shift, and everything started after that. Was I seeing things? Was Karpov just a hallucination? He decided to test this possibility with Zolkin.
“Doctor… How long has Karpov been in his present position?”
“Weren’t you at the ceremony when the command change occurred?” Zolkin gave him an assessing glance.
“Of course, sir. I know that Karpov came aboard last May, but I was asking about his time in the service.” He was really just mentioning Karpov to see if Zolkin would know who he was talking about, and hoping the whole time that the Doctor would protest, knowing Karpov was long gone. Yet he was not going to find an easy solution to this dilemma that way. It was clear that there was nothing wrong with Zolkin’s memory concerning Karpov.
“Too long, I’m afraid,” said Zolkin. “No offense to the Captain, but there are many who would say the same thing, and wish that Karpov would take early retirement. Yet here he is, finally Captain of the fleet flagship, and I suppose we are all stuck with him for the time being.”
And on the examination went, as Fedorov settled into the grim realization that something profoundly disturbing had happened. He was Anton Fedorov, but clearly not the man he was before they attempted that last shift. He looked down at his uniform jacket cuff, and there were the insignia of a Lieutenant. Zolkin had fetched a new coat for him, and now he remembered how he had referred to him wearing someone else’s coat earlier.
So now even my uniform was different, he thought with some renewed sense of shock, noticing it for the first time. And now he began to make the same inner assessment that Zolkin was undoubtedly working through in his quiet examination. Who was he, where was he? What was the date and time? What was his present situation?
He was Anton Fedorov, aboard the battlecruiser Kirov, yet possibly not the same ship he had been Captain of only hours ago. As to the where and when of his situation, everyone else on the ship seemed to be wrestling with that same problem. And yet… He could clearly remember everything he had lived through and experienced, all of it, as far as he knew. He recalled all those battles they had fought in the Atlantic as clearly as the action the ship had only recently fought against the German carrier Graf Zeppelin.