The Hero Of The Time Patrol

Never was Manse Everard of the Time Patrol such a hero as in Part Two of The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991). In Bactria in 209 BC, four city guards come to arrest Meander the Illyrian/Everard. In real life, that would mean the end of Everard's mission. In fiction, we at least expect our hero to be detained for a while. Not Everard. Thinking "He who hesitates is bossed..." (p. 59), Everard knocks over the lamp, fights his way past the four guards, then runs out onto the street where the map imprinted on his brain tells him how to evade pursuit.

He spies on the Exaltationists, gaining invaluable intelligence, escapes from the city and arrives as a pilgrim in a temple that is to be used as a meeting place by two Exaltationists, one accompanied by six armed guards, the other wearing the medallion that is Everard's own stolen Patrol communicator. Killing the medallion-wearing Exaltationist and injuring the other, Everard says into the communicator in Temporal, "'Unattached Everard. Come immediately. Combat.'" (p. 113) while the guards run towards him. Then it is all over.

The Patrol arrives in force, stunning everyone around Everard. Then Everard leads some of the other agents to the lair of the two remaining Exaltationists sixty seconds earlier, before those Exaltationists' detectors can warn them of the arrival of the timecycles that rescued Everard. Thus all four Exaltationists are killed or apprehended. And this has all been accomplished when Everard speaks into the communicator. A very economical solution to a major problem.