Kirov Saga: Hinge Of Fate: Altered States Volume III (Kirov Series) (10 page)

The regional lore was rich with
tales of these strange dome like structures, overturned cauldrons, half buried
in the marshy ground. Place names all throughout the region testified to their
existence. He knew of a stream called Algy Timirbit, which meant “the large
cauldron sank.” Another was called the Olguidakh, or “Cauldron Stream.” Some
said they were orange in color, like copper, but made of a strange metal that
no tool could cut, a metal that could not be chipped, scratched or hammered. They
were thought to be the haunts of tall demons who roved the taiga looking for
the souls of wayward hunters.

Usually covered by frost and snow
in the winter, they seemed like nothing more than small hills to the unwary
traveler. But some of the local peoples had stumbled upon them, and those that
returned claimed there was a small opening in the top, and a winding stair that
led down, where a series of metal rooms were arrayed about a central core, the
home of
Niurgun Bootur,
a demon of the taiga called the “Fiery
Champion.” Shamans warned the people to stay away from such things, or they
would be stricken with incurable ailments. He had finally found one, and from
the feeling in his gut now, the deep thrumming sensation of peril, he knew all the
old legends and tales of the Valley of Death were true. He would do what any
shaman of the taiga would advise—get away from this place, and as fast as
possible.

When they were all secured aboard
the
Narva
again, Corporal Zykov came in and brewed up a pot of good
coffee, spiked with a brandy. “Trouble?” he asked of Troyak, who nodded, saying
only one word: “Siberia.”

“Ah,” said Zykov. “Don’t tell me
you ran across old Chuchuna, the hairy wild man of the taiga.” Legends held
that there was a remnant of a strange Siberian hominoid, Siberia’s Bigfoot,
still lingering in a region that was completely uninhabited by humans. Even
into modern times there were hundreds of thousands of square miles of land
where no human had ever ventured. The name was related to the Yakut Turkic word
for “fugitive” or “outcast,” and in the Siberian Evenki language it meant
“bandit.”

Described as a heavily built
giant of a man that stood up to seven feet tall, Chuchuna was said to have long
arms and an ape like aspect. Some thought they might have been remnants of the ancient
Neanderthals, surviving to modern times. The creature had many other names, but
in the West they came to be called “Yeti.”

“Who knows,” said Troyak. “Maybe
a demon house, maybe a cauldron, maybe nothing at all.” He had seen what looked
like a round metallic dome protruding from the mossy duff of the clearing.

Other legends spoke of unseen
creatures that lurked in the depths of the bogs, dragging reindeer and other
animals beneath the dark waters there in the summer. Another told of an alien
creature that wandered into the cemetery of a small village near Chelyabinsk,
less than a foot tall but with grey skin, blotched with small brown spots,
claws on its hands, huge eyes, and only two tiny holes where the ears should
be. The creature had been called the Siberian Chupacabra, but the woman who
found it called it Aleshenka.

Yakut legends held that there
were places in the wilderness where tall whirlwinds of fire would emerge from
the ground, and massive circular structures would appear, described as
“rotating metal islands” that would fly off into the sky. They had all heard
them, some old stories, some new, none believed, all feared.

“Nothing at all?” Zykov shook his
head. “Look at Orlov there! I haven’t seen him look so glum since we hauled him
off that trawler in the Caspian Sea.”

“Yob tvoyu mat!” Orlov swore, telling
Zykov what he could do with his mother, not wanting to be reminded of his
ill-fated capture during Fedorov’s expedition. “Maybe we should stick you in that
metal basket and send you down there, eh? Did you see all those bones, Chenko?
That place was evil.”

Troyak shifted his equipment
pack. “Whatever it was, it was radioactive,” he said quietly. “We got a low
dosage in the time we were there, not enough to worry about anything, but better
to be somewhere else.”

“Anywhere else,” said Orlov with
a shrug. “That damn place is so thick a man can’t even walk. I fell right on my
face.” He covered for the embarrassment of having turned to run for the tree
line, but neither Troyak or Chenko held it against him. They knew what he had
felt.

Then Orlov remembered the small
shiny metal he had found by chance, wondering if it was silently burning him
with a radioactive emission. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out,
holding it up to see that it glittered with an unnatural light. “Test this,” he
said.

“Where did you get that?” Zykov
leaned his way to get a better look at the fragment.

“It was right in front of my face
when I tripped up. Is it radioactive, Troyak?”

The Sergeant grunted, pulling out
his Geiger counter and doing a scan of the object, eventually shaking his head.

“Nothing to worry about,” he
said. “Keep it as a little souvenir.”

Orlov pocketed the object
returning to his coffee, the memory of that unheard sound still deeply
troubling. They were cruising at 500 meters now, but he still felt uneasy, and
he could sense the other men were equally discomfited.

They all lapsed into silence
until Captain Selikov came back to the aft cargo gondola and saw them all huddled
with their mugs of hot spiked coffee.

“Well?” He was understandably
curious as to what the men had found, but Orlov just kept staring into his
coffee mug. No one else said anything, and the Captain nodded, inwardly knowing
that they had just had a taste of the reason he wanted to get the ship as far
from this place as possible.

“We’re low enough to navigate
beneath this cloud deck,” Selikov said at last. “I could follow this river northwest,
and with any luck we may get back to the main branch of the
Yenisei River
and find our way to the Angara. But
that is 400 to 600 kilometers out of our way, and we might just as easily head
south from this point. The Tunguska river bends that way here. If I follow it
for a little while it will point us towards the Angara, which is where we were
supposed to be all along, before that storm took us off course. In fact, the
Tunguska River is pointing us right at our objective at the moment.”

“Let’s hope the damn ship’s
compass settles down,” said Zykov. “How do you know you can keep us heading
south? What if we get lost again?”

“I think I know where we are on
the chart now. The river splits here, and one branch leads south for a while.
There should be a little Evenik village called Kuyumba soon. Then it will begin
to jog east again, and If you think you have seen the real nightmare in
Siberia, let me tell you that you have seen nothing yet. That way leads to hell
on earth. There’s a place there where every tree has been blown to the ground,
for hundreds of kilometers in every direction. I think you know of what I
speak.”

Selikov folded his arms, considering.
“Shall we try to get south from here?”

No one objected.

Chapter 9

They
eventually found the
small village Selikov had mentioned, no more than a few log cabins and wood
sheds by the winding Tunguska River. Even though their compass was still
quivering, the effects were less pronounced, and the Captain was confident that
he had the nose of the airship pointed south. So they left the river, vanishing
over the green wilderness, where small rivulets formed a web that wandered
through the taiga forest, aimless waterways to nowhere. It was another three
hours at about 80KPH before Selikov was heartened to see what looked to be a
substantial river, running perpendicular to his present course, just as he had
hoped.

“There is the Angara,” he said
jubilantly. “With steady weather and a nudge in the right direction I can still
navigate without a compass. Look,” he pointed for Orlov to see. “The needle still
can’t seem to find its way north.”

“So how do we find Ilanskiy?”

“It should be about another 275
kilometers, due south on our present heading. Look there,” he pointed at the
river below. “That’s the village of Boguchany on the Angara River. Another three
hours should do it. The only problem is that we still have this odd
interference on many of the ship’s systems, including our RUS-1 radar. What
about that thing you mounted on the gondola?”

“The
Oko
panel? That is
our radar,” said Orlov. “But Troyak says it suffers the same effects. We’re
getting a signal but not at the ranges we would expect. It’s very strange. That
is a heavily shielded system, very resistant to jamming or any other
disturbances. All the radio equipment is cloudy as well. I thought it would
abate when we got farther south, but it persists.”

“Well I don’t like going in blind
like this,” Selikov warned.

“Don’t worry,” Orlov admonished.
“This place is still out in the middle of nowhere—just a backwater stop along
the Trans-Siberian rail, and I’m told there are very few trains these days.
This should be a quick in and out. Troyak is very efficient.”

Selikov shook his head. He didn’t
even really know why he was on this mission, or why Ilanskiy was in any way
important. He had simply been told to ferry the Marines to the location, set
them down, and provide air cover while they were on the ground. Once they were
recovered, then he was to bring them home. A little over an hour later,
however, they were about to find out that there was more going on at Ilanskiy
than any of them could have believed.

The
Oko
panel radar finally
began to pick up a number of airborne contacts to the south, one at very close
range. It was clearly an aircraft, though it did not approach. Zykov was
monitoring the system with his mobile equipment pack, and reported.

“That plane was probably close
enough to spot us,” he said. “As for the other contacts, they have to be
airships. There is no movement. I believe they are hovering in place.”

“How many?” Captain Selikov
turned his head as Zykov reported.

“I count four main contacts, and
there appear to be a few aircraft up as well.”

Selikov was not happy to hear
this, and quickly convened a meeting with Troyak and Orlov. “Well gentlemen,”
he said. “Either someone has wind of this little mission or they have just
decided to throw a party out here in the middle of nowhere. Your man here says
there are four airships to the south, and if we can see them, then they will
certainly see us if we continue.”

“Four airships? Sookin Syn! What
have we gotten ourselves into here? Could they have been sent here to stop us?”

“I doubt anyone knew of this
mission. Spies could have seen us depart from Severomorsk, or even Port Dikson,
but after that we’ve been lost in Siberia, and there would be no way anyone
could predict our final destination like this. No. This has to be something
more, but I certainly did not expect this here at a small rail depot like
Ilanskiy. What do we do?”

Orlov thought for a moment. “Can
we get through to
Kirov
on your military radio now, Troyak?”

“Interference is still clouding
over the signals, but I will try.”

“You can’t count on getting
through,” said Selikov. “You have to decide whether to push this mission
forward, or abort. If they are on to us, those four airships will make an end
of us in short order. I’m hovering in place. Moving south now would be suicide.
You want to go on with this, then you will have to do it on the ground.”

“On the ground? How far are we
from Ilanskiy?

“Well over 120 kilometers! It
will have to be a very long walk if you go, and there is no way I can get you
out in that event, not with four goddamn airships south. We should turn tail
and head north again at once.”

* * *

Karpov
sat across from Air
Commandant Symenko, a self satisfied look on his face as he poured them both a
glass of brandy.

“Just something to warm you up,”
he said. “I regret that caution dictated I take a fairly hard line with you,
Captain. But you will see that I am not uncouth, or even spiteful. Forgive my
remarks concerning Omsk. They were uncalled for, but understand that city was
never Volkov’s to take or give away. It was ours, the Free Siberian State, and
now the border is back where it belongs, west of Isilkul.”

Symenko accepted the apology,
such as it was, and took a lingering sip of the brandy, finding it very good,
particularly with the fresh summer sausage and a bit of aged cheese and
crackers to go along with it.

“You have a delivery to make?”

“That I do.”

“What was so important that it
could not be handed off to a Lieutenant. There was no need for you to come up
in that drafty spy basket.”

“Orders are orders,” Symenko said
flatly, and he hefted the diplomatic pouch up onto the table.

Karpov gave it a long look,
curious, but waiting. What was there? He summoned a Lieutenant, telling him to
open the brief while he continued to eat his cold cuts, seemingly unconcerned,
in spite of his curiosity. The man undid the leather straps, and pulled out a
plain oversized envelope, placing it on the table near Karpov’s left arm. Then
he saluted and withdrew.

Karpov gave it a sideward’s
glance, finishing a morsel and taking another sip of brandy. “You were ordered
to bring both airships, Symenko, or was that your idea?”

“Orders, plain and simple.”

“Then I suppose this must be
important.” Karpov sighed, taking up the envelope and opening it to find a
letter, addressed to him and signed by Ivan Volkov. As he read it silently, it
was all he could do to keep the emotion from his face in front of Symenko.

It was information he had long
wondered about, and now Volkov’s intelligence network had finally answered the
question that had lingered in his mind for some time. They had found the ship—
Kirov
—his
ship. It was spotted at Murmansk, but what were they doing there?