Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).
"Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks"
This Time Patrol cover illustration showing Varagan on foot firing an energy weapon at Everard on a timecycle is inaccurate. In "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" (flashback), Varagan on a timecycle, rescuing Varagan on a horse, fires an energy weapon at Everard on a horse. The crag and (at least one) condor are as described in the text.
Pursued by Everard, Varagan rides towards an easily recognized landmark, the crag, notes the time and waits for his older self to rescue him. Everard says that the dangers of such a time loop include "'...the possibility that he would make himself never have existed.'" (p. 281) I think that, to prevent his own previous existence, Varagan would have to travel to a time earlier than his own birth and, even then, his current self would still exist after preventing his birth. He would still exist not only according to the rules of time travel as stated in the Time Patrol series but also, I argue, according to straightforward logic. Born in timeline 1, he prevents his birth in timeline 2, then continues to exist in timeline 2 both because there is no reason why he should cease to exist and because there is a law of the conservation of energy. If anyone else prevents Varagan's birth, then Varagan does not cease to exist but simply does not exist.
There are several possible outcomes of the stunt that Varagan pulls.
(i) No older Varagan comes to the rescue. Everard arrests Varagan who, imprisoned on the exile planet, has no access to time vehicles, therefore cannot rescue his younger self.
(ii) An older Varagan rescues the younger Varagan (which is what happens).
Variable time allows for some more complicated options like -
(iii) An older Varagan arrives but Everard kills him and arrests the younger Varagan who, imprisoned on the exile planet, does not become that older Varagan who had arrived only to be killed by Everard.
It must be uncanny for Time Patrol members working in a period when current events seem to contradict recorded history. What is happening? Are the records incomplete or inaccurate? Is another time traveler deliberately or inadvertently changing events? Or are events changing randomly? Simon Bolivar follows the advice of a mysterious friend who is not mentioned in the biographies...
"The Year of The Ransom" is 95 full pages of Time Patrol, almost a short novel. (My rule of thumb length is 100+.) The opening section, headed "10 September 1987", is six full pages, pp. 641-646, narrated in the first person and present tense by a new character, Wanda Tamberly, who is not yet in the Patrol but already working in a relevant profession, hoping to join the research staff at Darwin Station in the Galapogas after grad school.
We do not read Wanda's reminiscences but rather overhear her momentary thoughts and reflections:
"This sun wants respect. Tilt my hat brim against it and stop for a drink from my canteen.
"Catch a breath, take a look around. I've gained some altitude..." (p. 645)
This telegrammic style often dispenses with the first person pronoun.
On the fifth of the six pages, we learn, if we are already familiar with the series, that this is a Time Patrol story. Something like a large wheel-less motorcycle with an anachronistically dressed rider appears and hangs in the air. Wanda inhabits the same timeline as the Time Patrol and is about to be kidnapped by a time criminal. Thus, we are within a familiar scenario but seeing it from an unfamiliar perspective, that of an innocent bystander caught up in a temporal conflict.
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