Colonizing The Past

Timecycles and Time Patrol bases, like the Academy and the lodge, represent technological civilization reaching back into and partially colonizing its own pretechnological past, an extraordinary conception. On his mission to 542 B.C., Manse Everard blends in, dressing like a Greek and travelling on horseback, but his timecycle waits in the hills. Time Patrol agents are not recognized as such but are really in charge. They ensure that Cyrus the Great rules for as long as he should and no longer. They, the agents, could openly take control but do not, for their own reasons. 

Despite really being in control, Everard is vulnerable, and must fight for his life, when traveling alone. He also finds the era alien, maybe like any imperial envoy in a far flung province. A youth kills a bull on a painted ceiling:

"...and the Bull was the Sun and the Man." ("Brave To Be A King," p. 92)

That might remind us of solemn identifications in a later tradition but the figures identified are very different.

Guards bear strung bows. There is a large harem. Peasants sacrifice to a pre-Aryan Earth Mother. Mountains, visible beyond Cyrus' palace, are haunted not only by wolves, lions and boars but also by demons. At least, that is how they are seen now. Everard wants to return to the twentieth century.