Nemesis Read Free Page B

was at stake
now than the resolution of this war. That clock would strike out the hours,
year after year, and here was a man who had knowledge of all that might happen,
a window on the decades that would transpire long after he, himself, was dead.
    “In
truth, I have been so beset with the immediate crisis of this war that I have
given little thought to things like this.”
    “That
is understandable,” said Karpov. “You are a time traveler too, Kirov, only you
come to this moment from the past. A choice you made in that past has served to
shape the world we now stand in, the moment you killed Stalin. It was a wise
choice, for otherwise he would have done the same to you.”
    Kirov
nodded gravely, a look of anxiety on his face now as he remembered that moment
when his finger clenched the cold trigger of that pistol, and changed all
future history.
    “I told
you how I came to that decision at our first meeting,” he said. “Though I had
no idea things would turn out this way. My part, I controlled easily enough.
But Ivan Volkov was quite a surprise. He was never mentioned in any of the
material I found on my forays up those stairs at Ilanskiy. Yes. You know I have
read the history of this war, but it only takes us so far before it becomes
useless. Things are happening now that never occurred. I should have all the
Caucasus, and all of the Orenburg Federation under my belt when I face the
Germans.”
    “And
all of Siberia,” said Karpov. “And yet it was still a nightmare when the
Germans came, and four bloody years of fighting that have only just begun.”
    “If we
can survive,” said Kirov. “We are fighting hard, in fact even doing a little
better than we once did, according to what I have read. We’ve been stubborn in
the north, but the Germans are raising hell in the south. If we lose there, and
they get through to link up with Volkov’s troops, then we lose the oil. Yes, I
can build tanks, but soon the factories will run out of fuel for the machines,
and what will those tanks run on?”
    “Don’t
worry about that,” said Karpov. “I told you I am presently sitting on massive
reserves of oil in Siberia. But it will take some effort to get at it. I know
exactly where it is, at Perm, Emba, in the Western Urals, and in the Far East
on Sakhalin Island and Kamchatka. You see why we will need to run the Japanese
out of those territories soon? So don’t worry about oil, my friend, I can get
you all you need. But first I want that ship— my ship—so I can deal with
the Japanese Navy. I would have done all this earlier, but for the stupid
interference of Volsky and Fedorov. They are the reason Japan now sits on the
Golden Horn Harbor, and I intend to reverse that, but I need my ship. Do we
have a bargain?”
    For
what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul,
thought Kirov? Here I sit, dickering with the Devil. Everything he says sounds
so reasonable, for even the Devil can cite scripture for his purpose. Yes, I
have read Shakespeare along with all the great Russian writers. He had a good
deal to say about this man … a villain with a smiling cheek. A goodly apple
rotten at the heart…
    Yet
what if all he says about our future is true? Do my allies here turn on me as
he describes? Will that reoccur this time around, or can I forge a different
understanding with the West, as Volsky hopes?
    “Something
tells me it isn’t just the Japanese Navy you are worried about, Karpov,” he
said, voicing his inner concern. “It’s the American Navy too.”
    “It is
any navy that would set itself in opposition to the rightful interests of
Russia,” said Karpov flatly. “You think I do this for personal aggrandizement?
I am not so foolish, or even so selfish. No. I act in the interest of the
nation I swore to serve—the nation you have been struggling to re-unite, after
it broke like bad china. Well, you have heard what I said about the future. If
you think three separate states is