A Vast Organization

"The entire organization was so vast that he could not really appreciate the fact. He had entered something new and exciting, that was all he truly grasped with all layers of consciousness...as yet."
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" section 2, IN Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 13.

Anderson fulfills the promise of that passage as the Time Patrol series progresses. The series opens with a conversation between Patrol recruiter, Mr Gordon, and potential recruit, Manse Everard. Of course, Everard becomes the main continuing character but this is not just a Manse Everard series.

First, whenever Everard appears, he is accompanied by a different other Patrol agent or agents. Secondly, there are several occasions when other agents interact with each other without Everard present:

Tom Nomura with Feliz a Rach;
Carl Farness with Herbert Ganz;
Carl with Kwei-fei Mendoza;
Wanda Tamberly with Tu Sequeira;
Wanda with Guion;
Wanda with Ralph Corwin;
Keith Denison with Agop Mikelian;
Keith and Agop with the director of Babylon base;
Wanda rescuing Keith.

Since these agents have different roles in the Patrol, we begin to see that the organization is indeed vaster than Everard's contribution to it even though Guion tells him:

"'You have in truth become one of the most important agents operating within the past three millennia.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time, Part Five, "Riddle Me This," 1990 A. D., p. 263.

Guion is from a later age and has access to Patrol records. Thus, from his perspective, Everard has not become important. It has always been known that he was/is important. As we read, we probably forget this and confusedly think of all the times guarded by the Patrol as simultaneously existing places with a shared past, present and future.