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No, this was an older version of Sergei and an older version of Sergei would not have been after Lunik's secrets.
Then why was he there? In Russia, a place Sergei had sworn off from ever visiting again when he returned from the International Space Station in a time-travelling Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. That was his past, he'd said back then. That was who he'd been. Time travel had changed him, he'd told me. He was a RATS Surgeon now, not a Russian Cosmonaut.
It had more to do with Russia abandoning him, I thought. History had been rewritten when Sergei Ivanov disappeared in an Orion module on return from the ISS. He'd no longer been their golden child, their superstar spaceman. He'd become a footnote in their history instead. A cosmonaut who'd fucked up and got himself killed on re-entry.
There'd been no debris field, no meteor-like shower. But according to the Russian Space Programme, Sergei Anton Ivanov had failed in his duty.
He'd turned his back on them right then and there, and for as long as I'd known him, never stepped foot in the USSR lands ever again. Until he picked up Carolyn Wylde at Cape Canaveral. I could just imagine it, her surprise appearance on his Lunik module. Her don't mess with me attitude. Her kiwi sense of humour. Her talk of her family. Her parents thought dead in Russia. Her sister left behind on Launch Pad 39A.
Did Sergei return to Cape Canaveral to try to pick Mimi up as well? And when he saw us there, did our presence alter his plan? Was our appearance in Cape Canaveral, chasing him through Time's waves, what made him finally return to the motherland? Did I make Sergei go home finally?
He had Carolyn, alternate universe or not, and at that time, maybe even she didn't know she was in a different universe. But he had one Wylde, and there's just something about the Wyldes. Some ephemeral effervescence, somejoie de vivre. Something that Mouse has. Something Sergei would have seen in Carrie. Something he'd want more of.
Sergei has an addictive personality. He's greedy; amongst his more manipulative qualities. He'd want more than one because we had one. So, he broke his own promise to himself and returned to Russia. He plucked the Wylde parents out of the Neva river, jumping tracks into an alternate universe while he did it.
Because he'd taken a path Time hadn't expected? Because his change of plans meant a change to the future? To RATS but also to Time itself?
I'd known this moment was big. But what would Time consider big?
The destruction of Time itself.
Sergei was the key, I realised. Sergei was an Origin Event. Bloody fucking bollocks, but Sergei was theoriginalOrigin Event, wasn't he? And if he was the original Origin Event, the one that started time travel and therefore RATS, and now he was changing the future of both, then his moment in the spotlight was not done yet.
Origin Events had to be corrected. We'd always assumed that if Mimi was an OE, we'd have to correct her before Time did. But Time never did correct Mimi. Because she wasn't the Origin Event.
Sergei Bloody Ivanov was. Hestillwas. An OE that Time had been trying to correct for centuries.
I looked around the overgrown garden, then. Rafe had gone back into the storeroom to take care of his charges. Maybe Clive had sent him away while my eyes had been shut and my mind had been reeling. I don't know. But it was just Clive, and me, surrounded by tangled weeds and fallen fruit from gnarled old trees. The Orion ticked softly behind me, Charles waiting patiently inside for us to leave.
"Have you worked it out yet, son?" Clive asked.
"Why don't you just tell me?"
"Would you believe me if I did?"
I shook my head, feeling numb. "Sergei's the OE."
"The only OE," Clive agreed.
"What about Carrie?"
"Carolyn was the railroad switch that allowed Sergei to jump tracks. She was an anomaly and nothing more. But an anomaly that changed everything going forward."
"And this Sergei? The one that just caused a rip in Russia?"
"You know the answer to that."
Maybe I did, but my mind didn't want to think about it. I let out a deep breath of air and looked around the garden for inspiration again.
"My Dream Carrie," Clive suddenly said, "knew more than we did. The first dream, she told me only enough to get things started."
"The first dream? You've had more than just the one?"
"Of course. Haven't you had more than just the one of Mimi?"
"No. Yes. Maybe. They're all the same. Similar, at least."
"Then I am truly jealous of your good fortune, Jack. Your future hasn't changed any."
