When Manson Everard returned from the Time Patrol Academy in the American Oligocene to New York and the hour of his recruitment, he:
"...got a list of contemporary agents (several of them holding jobs in places like military intelligence)..." (p. 16).
So the intelligence services have been extratemporally infiltrated!
The Patrol must have agents in both the CIA and the KGB. These agents must liaise with each other and not always in the interests of the governments that they ostensibly serve. They must take extra care not to be detected or suspected of loyalty to another cause.
Longer term, their loyalty is to the human race and its evolution. The career of such an agent, on either side during the Cold War, is one of the many untold stories of the Time Patrol series.
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
An interesting notion, that agents of the Time Patrol infiltrated the CIA, KGB, or even the British MI5. And I can see how the longer term loyalty of such officers would be to the Time Patrol and the course of human evolution or development leading to the Danellians. The chief job of such agents would be both recording and tracing historical developments and deflecting the agencies they ostensibly serve from lines of investigation leading to the discovery of the Time Patrol. Assuming of course, there is such a thing as time traveling and a Time Patrol!
After I finish some other reading, I think I will start rereading THE TIME PATROL and THE SHIELD OF TIME.
Sean
Sean,
My aim is to persuade others to read or reread Anderson.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
A worthy and admirable goal! Because Poul Anderson was a great man and wrote masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy which DESERVES to be read over and over again.
I wish more blog readers would leave their own remarks about Poul Anderson and the essays we have written in the combox. I was delighted to get comments from Nicholas about my "The Imperial Gardener" piece.
I'm currently reading John Wright's THE JUDGE OF AGES. Next comes Taylor Anderson's MAELSTROM (vol. 3 of his "Destroyermen" series). Then I should be ready to reread PA's Time Patrol stories. And, this being Lent, I'm reading a chapter a day of Scripture (St. Matthew's Gospel).
Just to add a touch of paranoia, are there Time Patrol agents keeping tabs on what we say just in case we stumble across a REAL Time Patrol? (Smiles)
Sean
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