Past And Present

Here, I listed several "past" years:

1935 (twice)

300

1890s (visited from 1980)

1980

337

1858

1934

372

43

However, when is the "present"? "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" first appeared in Time Patrolman which was published in October 1983. How much time elapsed between the beginning and completion of writing, then between that completion and publication? Maybe 1980 was the author's present when he wrote the passages set in that year which was Everard's base year while he was supervising Carl Farness. Time Patrolmen will not have our idea of a "present." Everard was recruited into the Patrol in 1954. Later in his career, he recruited Pummairam in Tyre in 950 B.C. Pum stays in his own time so his "present" remains the tenth century B.C.

Carl Farness visits the Moon in 2319. To the Danellians, 2319 and indeed the entire million years guarded by the Patrol are in the past.