"Some Place Mysterious And Forbidden"

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 1985 A. D., pp. 11-16.

I discussed the above chapter here and ended by stating that this timeline was to be deleted. According to the view expressed in the Time Patrol series, a deleted timeline simply does not exist and has never existed in any sense whatsoever. If this were the case, then it would follow that pp. 11-16 describe not events that did occur but events that would have occurred if they had not been prevented. Garshin would have seen sunlight from behind the captain's helmet making a halo as if on an angel guarding somewhere mysterious and forbidden. It is possible to describe events that did not happen: alternative history fiction. Our accounts can only be imaginative and speculative  but maybe Danellian and Patrol science can calculate alternative timelines in detail? 

However, the series contradicts itself when it asks us to accept that there are occasions when an event first occurs, then has never occurred. Everard to Denison:

"'...you're not a suicidal type. Would you actually want the you of this instant never to have existed? Think for a minute precisely what that implies.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 9, p. 107.

Denison responds:

"'Mithras!'...'You're right. Let's not talk about it.'" (ibid.)

So they agree not to delete the timeline in which they are having this conversation. Thus, the Denison of that instant does exist and consciously thinks, "I exist now but it might nevertheless turn out to be the case that I do not exist now." That is contradictory.