Tuesday 28 July 2015

Working Backward

Carl Farness, recovering lost stories and poems, works forward from 300 to 372 AD. However, time travelers must also be able to follow events backwards:

"'He was tracing the migrations of the different Aryan clans. They're very obscure, you know. You have to start at a point when the history is known for certain, and work backward...He'd make inquiries among the people, learn their own traditions, and then afterward check back at a still earlier point...'" (Time Patrol, p. 60)

"'...we must follow [Veleda's] spoor through the past, to wherever she began.'" (p. 542)

"...we're tracking her back through time - to try and discover what she signifies." (p. 548)

In 70 AD, Heidhen tells Everard that he and Veleda are of the Alvarings but the Specialist Janne Floris does not recognize this name.

In 60 AD, Everard and Janne hear Veleda speak and Everard recognizes the younger Heidhen beside her.

In 49 AD, Specialist Jens Ulstrup, resident ethnographer, tells Everard and Janne that Veleda arrived by ship five or six years previously.

In 43 AD, knowing that Veleda and Heidhen will arrive by ship, Everard and Janne, flying on timecycles, see a ship with a woman aboard, jump ahead to see where it will land and jump back to meet it, Everard disguised so that Heidhin will not recognize him in 70 AD. The ship's captain describes the island of the Alvarings and Janne recognizes it as Oland.

Earlier in 43 AD, Everard and Janne, cautiously exploring Oland by flying above on timecycles, see Roman sailors raping Edh (Veleda). Janne intervenes and this intervention by the goddess inspires Edh, accompanied by Heidhin, to leave the island and travel among the tribes, preaching the destruction of Rome...

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