A Time Patrolman, Emil Volstrup, who knows that King Roger should not die in this year is informed that Roger has just been killed in battle. Thus, in the Time Patrol timeline, Roger lives beyond 1137 whereas, in the alpha timeline, Roger dies in 1137. In the Time Patrol timeline, Volstrup heard a report of this battle but also heard, as he expected, that Roger had survived it.
In the alpha timeline, Volstrup reflects:
"Cobblestones, an arcaded building opposite, a Saracen passing by in white cloak and turban, sparrows fluttering up from some scrap of food, none of it seemed real any longer. Why should it? Whatever he saw could at any instant cease ever having been. Everything around him could. He himself." (pp. 269-270)
No, they can't. A world existing until a certain moment and then ceasing to exist at that moment can at least be conceived of without self-contradiction - although it would contradict the empirically based conservation laws. But how can anything exist from time t0 until time t10, then, at t10, cease having existed from t0 until t10? That does not make any sense.
Volstrup should realize that, using tenses in the Temporal language, there WAS a Time Patrol timeline but is NOW an alpha timeline. In the Time Patrol timeline, he (Volstrup) would have heard a report of a battle that Roger survived whereas, in the alpha timeline, he instead hears a report of the same battle but with a different outcome and therefore with different historical consequences. In the Time Patrol timeline, Volstrup and everything around him did not cease to exist when he heard the outcome of the battle. On the contrary, that timeline continued to exist for another million years until the Danellian Era.
So there should not be any talk of Volstrup and his world ceasing to exist, let alone of their ceasing ever to have existed. Good night, folks! Vintage Festival in Morecambe tomorrow.
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