Time Patrol members research past events not only by reading surviving records but also by directly observing the events, but the latter is no easy matter. Everard had to rove that period from end to end before he was certain that the story of Odin's betrayal had originated in an action of Farness himself.
When following a trail into the past, detective work is necessary at each stage to determine where and when to travel to next. In 49 AD, the resident Patrol Specialist hears that Edh, whose origins Everard and Floris are investigating, had arrived by boat on the Baltic littoral five or six years previously. Further, her accent sounds Scandinavian.
In 43 AD, Everard and Floris, scanning from above, see one ship with a woman. Jumping ahead shows them where the boat will land. Jumping back enables Everard to meet it. Listening from above to Everard's conversation with the captain, Floris identifies the island from which the boat had come. And so on until they find the pivotal event in Edh's early life. So the first extra dimension is the ability not only to live through time like everyone else but also to travel back and forth within it.
"'...we'll track down the place and moment of her landing.'
"'And then -' Floris's words trailed away. She gazed past the river and the forest beyond, northeasterly toward an unseen shore."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 570.
The shore toward which she gazes still exists in 49 AD but she really looks toward an event that occurred there five or six years previously.
Time travel stories set in a mutable timeline have a second extra dimension. Time travelers can encounter effects of events that have not occurred and will not occur in this timeline. Thus, significant events recede not only pastward but also in another direction.
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