Beringian Paradox

In 13,211 BC, Red Wolf of the Cloud People informs Wanda Tamberly of the Time Patrol that he has killed Aryuk of the Vole People. Wanda visits Aryuk shortly before Red Wolf killed him. She takes Aryuk on her timecycle to three different places at times shortly after his death. Aryuk plays the role of his own ghost to Red Wolf and others, thus ensuring that the Cloud People will stop exploiting Aryuk's tribe and will leave Beringia the following spring. Wanda returns Aryuk to the time shortly before his death. He dies happy.

Comments On This Paradox

(i) Should Wanda's conditioning not have prevented her from divulging the fact of time travel to Aryuk? On the other hand, he does not really understand what is happening so maybe Wanda's stunt is similar to other apparitions staged by the Time Patrol?

(ii) The Cloud People had intended to settle in Beringia. Ralph Corwin traveled a few years futureward to check on their progress and found that they had left by then. He further established that that would happen in the spring of 13,210. If he had not discovered this, then the Patrol would have believed that the Cloud People were going to stay. In that case, Wanda would have broken the Patrol's Prime Directive by causing their departure. As it is, she needs a lot of help and support from Manse Everard to get her out of trouble with the Patrol for this amount of interference.

(iii) When Aryuk confronts Red Wolf in the role of his own ghost, he says, "'You cannot kill a dead man.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 242) But Red Wolf could have killed him a second time. That would not have prevented Wanda and Aryuk from appearing on a timecycle shortly before Aryuk's first death but it would have duplicated Wanda because there would then have been the Wanda who returned Aryuk to a time shortly before his first death and the other Wanda who instead witnessed his second death. Although such unintended duplications are never mentioned in the series, Poul Anderson acknowledged in correspondence that they should occur now and again.