But this is unhealthy speculation. I clear my mind and signal to Maria. And then I jump. Back to my empty room in 2343.
Only it’s not empty. Even as I materialise, I see a figure there – male, bulky, definitely one of Kolya’s ‘brothers’ – crouched over my case. But before I can reach out and grasp him, before I can leap on him or swing a punch, he is gone and I am alone in the room again.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, shaken by the encounter. Because it’s like Hecht said before he died. Kolya seems to know everything. It’s like he knew precisely when I wouldn’t be there, and exactly how long he had. And that’s impossible.
No. It really
is
impossible.
Only he’s done it somehow …
It makes me think of some tiny insect, crouched upon the back of a much larger beast, its feeding tube sunk deep into the flesh of its victim, whose sheer bulk makes it unable to turn and see its tormentor, let alone strike back. That’s how this feels. Like Kolya’s behind us all the while, on our back, sucking away at us. Only why? What has
caused
all of this?
Because there has to be a cause. Even in a fucked-up, non-sequential medium like Time, there still has to be a cause. Something to set it all off. Because nothing happens in a vacuum. Absolutely nothing.
I stand above the case, looking blankly down at it, still stunned by what’s happened. I know what he’s taken without needing to look. The Kolya file. And it strikes me – especially in view of what Schikaneder told me – that we’ve done Kolya’s work for him: traced all of his direct-line ancestors and saved him the bother. Only this once
sequence
would seem to work against him, because he had taken his ancestors out of history
before
we found them.
Only, I recall, we
didn’t
find them. It was their absence that alerted us, not their presence.
So is that what he’s doing? Defending his own personal timeline throughout Time, using his ‘expendable selves’ to do so?
It seems the most likely scenario? But why? Who is he defending himself against?
Not against us, I’m sure. The Russians, then? Maybe. Only I’m not sure how I’m going to find that out.
I close the case and lock it, then sit there on the bed, staring into space, trying to come up with something – an explanation, a first cause, a reason for this madness.
But nothing. What Kolya is doing makes no sense at all.
And I realise that I’ve been here before, at this impasse with logic – back when I was crossing northern Russia with Katerina, making my way with her to Moscow and the odious Nevsky. Then, too, it made no sense. Instinct alone got me through. And even then, I had to die. And I know for a certainty that it’s all linked in. That the agents coming back from the future, Reichenau, Kolya and my death – and maybe Hecht’s death, too – are all part of the same complex loop. And strangely, the linking of it all comforts me, because, though it makes no sense right now, I know – at that moment – that it will. When I know enough. When all the pieces fit. When all the loose ends are traced and tied.
And for the first time that day I smile, remembering what Freisler said. That Katerina is okay. And, smiling, I jump back to Four-Oh. Only to see Old Schnorr this time, to pick his brains about this latest twist.
But what Meister Schnorr has to say only makes me fearful once again.
‘I know,’ he says, when I tell him about the stranger in my room and the stolen file.
‘You
know
?’
‘Yes, he sent me a note.’
And just the way he says it makes me sit up straighter, as if I’m about to be given bad news.
‘Go on.’
‘It seems he’s tired of my young men poking about in the past. He’s begun to hurt them. The note …’ Old Schnorr swallows, a sour expression on his face. ‘He had it branded into Horst’s back. Two of his “brothers” cut Horst’s shirt from his back and held him down while Kolya applied the iron.’
‘Why didn’t Horst jump?’
‘They’d drugged him. Questioned him thoroughly. Then Kolya sent him back.’
‘Sent him back?’
‘Horst didn’t jump. He couldn’t have done. He passed out. And we didn’t bring him back, so …’
I give a shivering breath. ‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to do precisely what Kolya’s asked me to do, and back off. I don’t want any more of my boys hurt. That is … if that’s okay with you, Otto?’
‘Of course. But why has Kolya suddenly taken this tack?’
Old Schnorr removes his glasses and wipes them. ‘Obviously he needed us to find out the information in the file. But he’s got that now, and I guess he doesn’t want us snooping around any more. We’ve served our use.’
‘What if we ignore him? What if I send agents in? Maybe try to snip off the line at some point?’
‘You could try. But my guess is that he’d anticipate that. Somehow he knows what we’re going to do before we do it.’
Again, it’s impossible. He can’t know that. Unless
…
‘He’s upriver,’ I say, suddenly certain of it. ‘He’s sitting up ahead of us in Time and responding to our moves as we make them. He doesn’t know
before
us, it only looks that way from where we are. He’s making changes retrospectively. Twisting time to suit himself.’
‘Maybe,’ Schnorr says, ‘but how does that help us if we’re stuck back here in the present?’
‘I don’t know. But Zarah said something about our agents – German agents – coming back from up the line. If we can make contact with them somehow …’
I know. It sounds vague even to my ears. But I recall that moment back in the room in 2343, and the feeling of certainty I felt – about all the pieces falling together slowly – and I know that has to mean something. Kolya isn’t invincible, after all. He’s not a god. And even if it seems like he has the jump on us at every turn, there must be a way of catching him out. He must have a weakness. Everyone has a weakness.
Only I have no plan, and as Meister that’s bad, because they’re all looking to me for a plan – a way of proceeding. I look to Old Schnorr and shake my head.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I … I just don’t know.’
‘Then go back. Finish what you were doing. If it’s in the loop, it’ll have meaning.’
Now that does make sense.
If
it’s in the loop.
‘You think there’s something there to find?’
Old Schnorr shrugs. ‘Meister Hecht thought there was.’
Maybe. Only towards the end Hecht seemed far from focused.
‘What if I find her?’ I ask. ‘Do I kill her? Do you think he’d let me kill her?’
‘I doubt it. But that’s your call, Otto.
If
you find her.’
And so I return again, to my room in 2343. Only I don’t sleep well. At the back of my mind I’m half convinced that Kolya is going to jump in there while I’m asleep and slit my throat, only I know he won’t, if only because I’ve yet to have my children – yet to spend all of that time at Cherdiechnost. I’m
guaranteed
that time, and so I’ll live through this. Or so I read it. But when finally I get some sleep, I’m plagued by dreams, and by one nightmare in particular where I’m back in Cherdiechnost, at night. Nevsky is there, hauling an empty cart – the same cart as held Katerina and my corpses – smiling at me toothlessly, while he points to a painted wooden sign that reads ‘Krasnogorsk, 1000 verst.’
So that I wake, sheened in sweat, even as the dawn peeks through the curtains at my window.
Haushofer greets me gruffly. He looks like he too had a bad night, and when I hand him my list, his temper worsens.
‘Sanger! You can’t pick Sanger! Sanger’s father is Minister of the Interior!’
‘I know that.’
‘Then you’ll choose someone else. Some other boy.’
‘But I want to question Sanger.’
‘It’s out of the question.’
‘What if Sanger’s my suspect?’
Haushofer stares at me in shock. ‘You mean …’
‘No. I
don’t
mean. Only I must have free access to everyone. There can be no exceptions. It doesn’t matter whose father is who. If you wish, we can take this matter up with the Ministry directly.’
It’s not what I want – in fact, it’s the very last thing I want, because if they start asking who I am we’re in trouble, but Haushofer doesn’t know that. He’s silent a moment, and then he stands. ‘But
Sanger
…’
‘You have a room prepared?’
Haushofer hesitates, then nods. Some of his brash confidence has been knocked off him by my intransigence. ‘I’ll need a viewer. And a file on each of the boys. Medical files, too. Nothing kept back. We need to be
thorough
, after all.’
Haushofer glares at me. It’s almost as if I’ve suggested something indecent. ‘We will protest,’ he says. ‘
Officially
.’
‘Good,’ I say, and stand. ‘In triplicate, I hope.’
His eyes narrow, a certain hatefulness revealed in them now. ‘You would do well not to make enemies, Herr Scholl.’
True. But not in the sense he means.
The room they have allocated me is in a building on the edge of the campus, overlooking woodland. It’s a fairly standard room, with an old-fashioned blackboard running the length of one wall and maps and portraits of various historical figures – Arminius, Barbarossa, Frederick, Bismarck, Hitler and Gelthardt – suggesting to me that they teach history here normally.
I’ve had the room cleared – all but for a single desk and two chairs. On the desk are my files and a ‘viewer’, which will allow me to read and interpret the genetic indents on the boys’ necks. Much is made of this in the Ministry, and if what I’m doing here’s to be accepted as standard procedure, then I need to comply. Besides, I find it all rather interesting, for these people believe with an almost absolute faith that what is encoded in your genes determines who you are and what you’ll be. Ironic, considering the tampering that’s done here at the Akademie. The
enhancing
, should I say. For it’s also a belief in some quarters that money – and power, of course – can make up for certain genetic …
deficiencies
, we’ll call them.
The Akademie, so I’m reliably told, has become expert at papering over such genetic ‘cracks’ and making the best of ‘sub-standard’ genetic stock. In other words, of making sure that certain bloodlines – certain families – remain in power.
A new twist on a very old tale, you might think. And rightly so.
The boys – six of them for this morning’s session – are sitting in the anteroom next door, waiting on my summons. Haushofer is with them, sitting facing them, as if to remind them by his stern and unrelenting demeanour just how they ought to behave. Seeing them thus, as I passed through the room, it struck me that I have seen few smiles and little laughter since I’ve been here, as if the seriousness of the business of the Akademie – the manufacture of perfect servants for the State – does not permit any element of joviality or fun. The boys are like patients, to be cured of any ‘sickness’ of triviality they might possess. To be honed and sharpened and finally released, tools to be used by Greater Germany.
No wonder some of them break.
And I know to an extent just how they feel, for it was how we too – we who survived the dark times and were raised in the Garden and in Four-Oh – have been nurtured. Raised to duty. Raised to believe that it was genetics that distinguished us from those lesser men who did not survive. Raised to consider ourselves an elite, supremely talented, the natural end of all the universe’s striving. As if nothing would come after us. As if we were
it
, the pinnacle.
I examine the first of the files, them, clearing my throat, call out the name. ‘Stefan Kaunitz.’
Kaunitz is twelve but tall for his age, dark-haired and fine-featured. As he appears at the door and bows to me, I stand.
‘Close the door and come across.’
He seems nervous – as well he might – but his social training covers it well. When he sits, he sits with a straight back and a raised chin, and his grey eyes meet mine unflinchingly. I almost smile. He would make a fine
Reisende
.
‘Stefan. You understand that this interview will be completely confidential, and that whatever you say here will be between you and the Ministry alone?’
‘Yes, Meister.’
‘Good. Then relax a little. My questions cannot harm you, not if you have been true to the Fatherland.’
There’s the smallest movement of the head, almost a nod, but Kaunitz doesn’t relax. If anything he seems more tense. His eyes flick to the viewer and then back to mine.
‘Your father,’ I say, not even glancing at my notes. ‘His work means that he travels a great deal, no? Have you ever travelled with him?’
‘Sometimes,’ he answers quietly. ‘In the summer months.’
‘And does he confide in you? Tell you what he’s doing and why?’
This time Kaunitz hesitates before answering. ‘Sometimes.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that. Fathers
should
confide in their sons. But what you learn … do you keep that to yourself?’
‘Of course, Herr Scholl.’
I nod. ‘Good. And friends. Do you have any close friends outside of the Akademie? People from home, perhaps?’
‘My brother,’ he begins. ‘Only he’s here at the Akademie, too. But when we’re home …’
He stops, as if he’s said too much.
‘Go on.’
‘We hunt together.’
‘Ah, good. And are you a good huntsman?’
‘My father considers me so.’
Looking at the boy, I can imagine it. They probably own a large estate – it’s not in the boy’s file – with woods and ancient tracks. Stocked, no doubt, with the latest products of the Reich’s labs. Beasts that died out centuries back and have been genetically re-created: black bear and wolf and wild boar. Creatures that are embedded deep in the Germanic psyche.
‘Your sisters?’
‘Yes, Herr Scholl?’
‘Do you like them? Do you have much to do with them when you’re at home?’
I can see by the puzzlement on his face that this isn’t the kind of question he was expecting, but I am intrigued by this young man. If I
have
to question him – and I must if I’m to maintain my cover here and buy myself the time to find Kolya’s mother – then I might as well satisfy my own curiosity.