Three Kings

“One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.”

Baltasar Gracian

Chapter 10

The periscope mast broke through the placid sea, leaving a quiet frothing wake behind it. There, cruising like a great whale just beneath the surface, was the massive shadowy form of the hidden submarine. On the bridge of the boat, its commander had hoped to see the gleam of moonlight on the water, a glimmering trail that would lead his eye over the stillness of the sea, but there was nothing. The night was thick, the darkness so solid that it seemed a tangible thing. Then he saw the strange luminescent light, just as before, a soft pale glow swelling away from the sub in all directions. He sat eyeing the charts of the region, his hand slowly rubbing the back of his neck to chase away the tension there.

“Anything?” he said quietly in the taut stillness of the bridge.

“Nothing sir. Clean in all directions, but my coverage seems very limited.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting the peninsula, but not much else beyond fifteen to twenty kilometers.”

The Captain leaned over his radar operator’s position now, eyeing the screen, then glancing furtively at the digital displays from the sub’s mast cameras. “Fifteen kilometers?”

“Range seems to be increasing now sir, but very slowly. It’s as if there’s a bubble expanding around us.” Lieutenant Gorban pointed to his screen as he spoke. “That’s the tip of Cape Aniva, and this is the peninsula stretching up to Korsakov, but I can’t see across Aniva Bay to CapeCrillon. It’s as if it wasn’t even there!”

“No surface contacts?”

“Nothing, sir. Absolutely nothing. But who can say with the equipment acting up like this?”

Gromyko ran his hand over the short close cropped hair on the back of his head. “They said this was likely,” he said quietly to his executive officer, Belanov. “We should have full sensor coverage within the hour, but what about Kirov?” He turned to his communications officer now, Lieutenant Alexi Karenin.

“Get that message off.”

“Aye sir, initiating beacon signal now as programmed, but-”

“But what, Mister Karenin?”

“Well my equipment doesn’t seem to be functioning properly either.”

Gromyko gave him a frustrated look. “Chernov?” The Captain looked to his able sonar man now, Lieutenant Andre Chernov.

“There’s a lot of noise, sir, a very deep rumble. I have no contacts but with the sound field this distorted I would have to go active to be sure.”

“Belay that for the moment. Sit tight and keep listening, Chernov. Until we know where the hell we are I’m not moving a muscle.”

“Sir,” said Belanov, “has it happened? Have we moved?”

“Take a look at those screens,” said Gromyko, pointing to the digital displays from his mast cameras. “One minute we had decent moonlight, the next it’s pitch black, so something has obviously happened to us.”

Even as he said that he recalled the words of Director Kamenski when he was with them on the boat, first trying to explain the impossible truth that was now before them. It was very strange indeed. He had told them they discovered odd effects related to nuclear detonations, effects beyond the blast, radiation, and EMP pulse.

“The detonation ruptured the time continuum,” said Kamenski, but it took a while for the information to register on his own internal sonar.

“Excuse me, Director… Time continuum?” The recollection of his own plaintive question was the only meager protest he had offered. It was incredulous, preposterous, unbelievable, but here was a former Director of the KGB, certainly not a man given to flights of fancy, and he was giving him this story with plain faced candor evident in every aspect of his tone and manner.

“Yes, Captain, the fourth dimension. Time. You know the first three well enough as you move about them in this vast ocean here-length, breadth and height, or depth in the case of your submarine. Well you must also know that you move in the fourth dimension as well-in time. Until Tsar Bomba went off, everything moved in only one direction through time, from this moment to the next in that second by second journey we all take from the cradle to the grave. But Tsar Bomba showed us that journey could also be affected by very powerful detonations-and time itself could be breached. Physical objects could be blown through that breach, and they would end up in the same spatial location, but in another time.”