Manse Everard/Eborix the Celt arrives in Tyre in 950 BC. The Time Patrol base has received a blackmail threat to destroy the city. Everard suspects Merau Varagan. If we are reading the Time Patrol series in its original publication order, then we are as yet unfamiliar with Varagan. Everard recounts his first encounter with that individual, which has to have occurred between episodes, and, at the end of this story, he does indeed apprehend Varagan. Thus, like Moriarty, Varagan is introduced and defeated within a single episode. However, there is more. Another incident involving Exaltationists including Varagan had occurred between the first encounter and the Tyre incident and that is recounted in the later written "The Year of the Ransom." Finally, the tracking down of the remaining Exaltationists occurs in The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, which also involves a flashback to a conversation between Everard and Varagan after the arrest of the latter. Varagan has been promoted to the status of a continuing villain.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I recall the Exaltationists rebelling against a civilization older than the Old
Stone Age is distant from us.
Ad astra! Sean
IMHO, it required some distortion to have the Exaltationists try to blackmail the Time Patrol.
What they -should- have done would be an out-of-the-blue attack, combined with transporting humans back before the founding of the Academy. Hunter-gatherers would have done fine back then. That would wipe out most of the Time Patrol.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I like that scenario, a pity Anderson never thought of it or had it suggested to him. I am sure he would have devised some means of thwarting that kind of attack,
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, I think he would too. He did a time travel story where some Sicilian Normans hijacked a time machine and built a castle in the very remote past, early in his career.
"The Nest" in PAST TIMES.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Paul beat me to mentioning "The Nest" (first pub. in 1953). This story, written only a few years after the rather primitive "Flight to Forever," shows how much more sophisticated Anderson was becoming when writing time travel stories.
Ad astra! Sean
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