For reasons that make sense to him at the time, Manse Everard sends his time vehicle to materialize five years in the future at noon in Piccadilly Circus. Later, he is informed that the Patrol will snatch the vehicle away the instant it arrives. They could equally have done that if he had sent it five years into the past.
What interests me here is the precise dates involved. Everard dispatches his vehicle from 17 November 1944. Five years into the future from then would take it to 1949. I was born on 1 January 1949. Thus - willingly suspending disbelief, of course - a riderless time machine would have appeared in public in the year of my birth. (I think that that would have been appropriate.)
If the Patrol had been unable to snatch the arriving machine instantaneously, then they would have had to take other measures. Preventing Everard from sending the machine would have prevented its arrival because that arrival was not earlier than but later than the departure.
I think that there are loose ends at the end of this story but we won't go there this time.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That's neat and convenient, being a New Year's day baby born on January 1, 1949!
Ad astra! Sean
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