A Moral Question

When Manson Everard and Janne Floris had completed their joint mission to the first century AD, Janne spent just over a year of her lifespan tying up loose ends by time traveling about between 70 and 95 AD, then returned to Amsterdam, 1986, in the week that she had left it, because her parents and public persona are there, whereas Manse returned directly to that same week in New York, 1986, where, after a few days, he wrote to Janne, then, on receiving her phone call, traveled by timecycle from the Patrol office in New York to the one in Amsterdam, drew Dutch money and took a taxi to Janne's apartment. Thus, since completing their mission, he has experienced only a few days whereas she has endured over a year, although Patrol medical treatment prevents physical aging.

Although this chapter is set entirely inside Janne's apartment, it retains a hint of Amsterdam: open window; mildness of spring; traffic sounds like distant surf. Janne agrees that it is eerie when the future creates its past. Already knowing of engraved thank offerings to Nehalennia on the island of Walcheren, Janne persuaded the prophetess Veleda to proclaim Niaerdh peaceful and to move her south where she became Neha the Gentle, Nehalennia.

Janne as Niaerdh visited Veleda on her deathbed and promised her a life after death with the goddess. Now she yells. "'It was a lie!'" (Time Patrol, p. 636) Here is the moral question. Was Janne right to comfort Veleda in this way?