In Foggia

In Frederick II's palace in Foggia in 1245beta, Lorenzo de Conti's great-grandson and four guards try to arrest Everard and Novak. The two Time Patrolmen fight their way out of their room onto a landing but the entire palace is being alerted against them. They then have the following dialogue -

Everard: We'll never make it like this.
Novak: You go on. I'll keep them busy.
Everard: You'll be killed.
Novak: We'll both be if you don't run while you have the chance, you fool. You know how to end this damned world. I don't.
Everard: Then it'll never have been. You won't exist anymore.
Novak: How's that different from the normal death? Run, I tell you!
(The Shield Of Time, pp. 411-412)

Everard needs two or three days to reach fellow Patrolman Jack Hall who waits concealed with a timecycle but they can then return to rescue Novak within minutes of Everard's escape. But what do we make of their dialogue?

"...it'll never have been." They are in it so it has been.
"You won't exist anymore." Novak is right to ask how ceasing to exist differs from death. But Everard really means, "You'll never have been, either." And, of course, Novak does exist, conversing with Everard.

There is a difference between death and never having existed. A baby who dies soon after birth has a different ontological status from a baby who was never born because his potential parents remained celibate or practiced contraception. Novak is someone who was born in the Time Patrol timeline, is now alive in the beta timeline and might soon die in the beta timeline. That gives him a different ontological status from someone who has never been born in any timeline.