"It occurred to [Everard] that he had been rushed into this job, all the way down the line, with never a pause to plan it as he should have done. Hence this botch." (p. 151)
No way. That cannot happen to a Time Patrol Unattached agent, unless he literally has no access to a timecycle between being asked to embark on a mission and having to decide how to conduct the mission. But he should not let that happen either. In this case, Sandoval, having been ordered to co-opt an Unattached agent, approached Everard so Everard could have made any amount of time for himself to think about the mission before they departed for 1280.
Everard briefly considers killing all the Mongols but dismisses this thought on the ground that:
"There are decent limits." (ibid.)
Indeed there are but, as I have asked before, how many Patrol agents would agree with you, me or Everard about this? And would the Danellians object if some Patrol agents did murder other human beings? They defend a history in which massacres and genocide are committed in any case. The series raises many more questions than it answers.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree on how Anderson's Time Patrol stories could raise many questions in some readers mind. And perhaps more than Anderson himself had expected.
Ad astra! Sean
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