What Does "Now" Mean To A Time Patrol Agent?

The Shield Of Time.

Guion points out that Everard has prevented the Exaltationists from subverting Simon Bolivar's career, then prevented them from hijacking Atahuallpa's ransom, then rescued ancient Tyre from them but now the Time Patrol must track down the last Exaltationists. However, Guion was born long after the twentieth-century-based part of Everard's career. Further, Guion can have access to the Patrol's records of its entire campaign against the Exaltationists, not just to accounts of Everard's first three encounters with that particular group of time criminals. Of course, Guion must use the word "now" because he is speaking to Everard at this point in Everard's career, between his third and fourth encounters with Exaltationists. Guion explains that he seeks knowledge that might help with the apprehension of the remaining Exaltationists. But that knowledge is not mere factual information. It is:

"'...a clue to...the hypermatrix of the continuum.'" (p. 8)

And beyond the tracking down of the Exaltationists, there might be:

"'...a larger meaning, a direction and an ending -...'" (ibid.)

What Guion seeks is:

"'...no more amenable to symbolic logic than is the concept of mutable reality.'" (p. 5)

But he is trying to cope with mutable reality. He seeks:

"'...whatever measure of comprehension is possible...'" (ibid.)

- because, at any stage in their careers, he or others might return from a journey to the past to find themselves in an altered present.