"Let's Go."

"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away."

-Poul Anderson, "Death and the Knight" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 1991), pp. 737-765 AT p. 765.

This is both the very last sentence in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and our last sight of Manse Everard. The end of the series and our last sight of Everard were not necessarily going to be identical but there was always a good chance that they would be. The very beginning of the series is Everard's interview for his job with the Patrol. Then, after that introduction, he appears in every subsequent instalment including the few in which he is not the central character.

A chapter of The Shield Of Time has a similar ending:

"Through the transceiver: 'Come join us and let's get this business finished.'"

-209 B. C., p.118.

This also is the end of a mission although not the end of the novel or even of PART TWO. Instead, this fifth and final "209 B. C." chapter is followed first by Everard's debrief with Shalten in Paris in 1902 A. D., then by an authorized Time Patrol alteration of an event in 1985 A. D. Only then does the narrative proceed to PART THREE and to Wanda Tamberly at the Patrol Academy in the Oligocene period in 31,275,389 B. C., a setting with which we are already familiar from the opening instalment, "Time Patrol." The series goes a long way and could have gone much further.

Cells And Spirit

Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART TWO, 1987 A. D.

Shalten tells Everard:

"'...though the cells of the body be many, the works of the body are naught save that the spirit order them.'" (p. 67)

Does Shalten mean that there is a literal "spirit" distinct from the body but ordering bodily "works" in the same way that Everard had ordered some "'...well-coordinated teams...'" (ibid.) of Time Patrol agents? (That is the context of their conversation.) How much is known about the mind-body problem in Shalten's era? Has it been solved? Is it soluble? When is his era? When Everard had asked where-when Shalten was from, he was told:

"'You don't need to know...'" (ibid.)

Why not? Is Everard likely to be captured by enemies who would benefit by learning about Shalten's home era? Maybe. Everard is about to tackle the last remaining Exaltationists.

The brain does not seem to receive orders from anywhere outside itself. It has no Cartesian centre that might serve as a link to an immaterial entity. Instead, electrically firing and electrochemically interacting neurons somehow generate consciousness but how? For practical purposes, mental processes are unified around a sense of "I" although this can break down under pressure. I cannot say that brain processes are unified around a sense of "I" because we can describe the brain without ascribing any consciousness to it. This is the mind-body problem.

Two Time Travel Tricks

I have been reading thrillers in which fugitives manage to stay out of sight, confounding the police or anyone else who might be looking for them. But imagine how a time traveller would be able to stay out of sight. You don't want anyone to find you or know where you are for a whole year? Then just travel forward in time for a year.

Imagine this scenario. Everard travels from June 1984 to a single day in June !987, then returns to June 1984. On that day in June 1987, Shalten briefs Everard about the Bactrian letter, which was discovered in 1985. Some time between June 1984 and the relevant day in 1985, Shalten deletes the discovery of the Bactrian letter. Thus, he deletes his briefing of Everard about that letter. But that does not prevent Everard from arriving back in June 1984 knowing about that letter and able to act on the knowledge.

(I am trying to retrieve some sense from Shalten's confused account here.)

1902 AD

The Shield Of Time, 1902 A.D.

Shalten debriefs Everard back in 1902 because:

"'In your position among us, you need to know the whole truth. For you to learn it later in this century could pose a hazard. Causational loops can be very subtle. Your experiences and accomplishments in Bactria must continue to have happened. Therefore you must be informed well pastward of our preparations for them. I thought you would enjoy a visit to my Belle Epoque.'" (p. 122) 

Everard's activities in Bactria cannot cease to have happened because of any temporal changes that are made in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Shalten has made some complicated changes. By deleting 1985 A. D., pp. 11-16, when Garshin was given the Bactrian letter, he has also deleted 1987 A. D., pp. 66-76, when he himself informed Everard of the Bactrian letter. Everard remembers experiences that did not occur in the current timeline. Shalten has to delete events that he wants to delete while preserving events that he wants to preserve. No doubt Unattached agents know how to do this.

Meanwhile, at least, Poul Anderson presents a vivid description of the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris in 1902, a world that, as Everard reflects, will crash to ruin in a dozen years. See 1902 AD.

From 976 BC To 1988 AD

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO.

For complex espionage and counter-espionage in ancient Bactra, see here.

PART TWO begins and ends with chapters headed 1985 A. D. These chapters have a common viewpoint character, Yuri Alexeievitch Garshin, and are set in the same year although in different timelines.

Between these "bookends," there are five chapters headed 209 B. C. Each such chapter is followed by another with a different year date. Manse Everard converses with:

Wanda Tamberly in 1987 A. D. and in 1988 A. D.;

Merau Varagan in 976 B. C.;

Unattached agent Shalten in 1987 A. D. and in 1902 A. D.

In chronological order:

976 BC

209 BC

1902 AD

1985 AD

1987 AD

1988 AD

Complicated but worth it.

Shalten Mentions The Bible

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 1987 A.D.

"'Although [Antiochus] himself is tolerant, a descendant of his attempted to crush Judaism in Palestine, as you may read in First and Second Maccabees.'" (pp. 75-76)

(An explicit Biblical reference.)

What Shalten says next suggests a whole new phase for the Time Patrol series:

"'Given total power in Asia, that attempt may well succeed. Therefore the whole world that brought you and me into being is a phantom, a might-have-been, which conceivably, an alternate Time Patrol keeps suppressed.'" (p. 76)

Everard suggests the same idea to Wanda. He tells her that, if the Exaltationists change events, then:

"'There'd never have been a you or a me, a United States, a Danellian destiny, a Time Patrol...unless they organized one of their own to protect the misshapen history they brought into being.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Year of the Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 641-735 AT 23 May 1987, p. 718.

So we might see wars in the remote past between rival Time Patrols.

Shalten's Biblical Style

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO.

See Exaltationists And Lucifer.

Shalten:

"'And the genetic engineers of the thirty-first millennium set themselves to bring forth a race of supermen, bred to adventure on the cosmic frontier,' Shalten said once, 'and lo, they found they had begotten Lucifer..'"
-976 B. C., p. 43.

"'How often does man, vain of his intellect, find that the harvest of his efforts is vanity!'"
-1987 A. D., p. 69.

Ecclesiastes 1:2.

If there is any more Biblical phraseology from Shalten, then I will add it here.

Some Speculations

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, what eras do Mr. Gordon, Guion and Shalten come from? Could it be the same Danellian that spoke to Everard in "Time Patrol" and The Shield Of Time, PART SIX? Might each important Patrol agent have a "guardian Danellian," so to say?

I used to think vaguely of the Danellians as occupying an end-of-time-and-the-universe cosmic culmination scenario. However, one million years is not very far into the future in cosmic terms. We saw in A Cat that, in "Flight to Forever," time traveler Martin Saunders passes through a city of energy in about AD 4,050,000. Although in a different timeline with a different temporal structure, the inhabitants of the city perform some of the functions of Danellians.

Saunders thinks of them as "Them" and as "the gods."
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT CHAPTER SIX, p. 281.

They might be evolutionary successors of mankind although this is only one possibility. One of Them makes the time projector airtight, makes its windows unbreakable and increases its time dilation to millions of years per minute.

A hundred million years later, Saunders knows that the gods are no longer on Earth but does not know whether They have died, abandoned Earth or gone on to another plane of existence. A billion years later, another non-human city warns him away.

When Saunders has returned to 1973, the time projector dissolves because the gods had put some annihilating device into it and he agrees with Their decision. They do not want Saunders to change the twentieth century. He does not want human beings to be able to travel into the past by going around the circle of time. Thus the gods play the role of Danellians on a cosmic scale and it is unlikely that Saunders is the only time traveler that they guide.

Lastly, an old friend revisits. Saunders thinks that he hears Taury's "...voice whisper in the cool wet wind..." (p. 288)

Exaltationists And Lucifer

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 976 B.C.

Shalten compares the Exaltationists to Lucifer. Everard reflects that Shalten sometimes speaks in Biblical style.

For previous blog references to Lucifer, see here.

For a recent comparison of an Exaltationist to Lucifer, see here.

On my way out for the evening. I recommend Neil Gaiman's and Mike Carey's Lucifer Morningstar as an antidote to John Milton's Satan. The former even acquired a TV series.

The Chronology Of The War Against The Exaltationists

AD
1826 Exaltationists try to subvert Simon Bolivar's career
1533 They try to steal Atahualpa's ransom

BC
950 They threaten Tyre
209 They threaten Bactria

20th Century
1902 Shalten debriefs Everard
1980 Exaltationists are present
1985 Shalten lays his trap
1986 Everard meets Wanda Tamberly
1987 In May, Everard and Wanda are together in San Francisco
1987 Guion interviews Everard; Shalten briefs him

I think that that connects the historical and twentieth century dates of the conflict with the Exaltationists.

Increasing Complexity And Sophistication In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol Series

The complete collection of Time Patrol stories grew from Guardians of Time with four stories to The Guardians Of Time with five to Annals Of The Time Patrol with seven. (There was an intermediate period when there were two volumes, The Guardians Of Time and Time Patrolman, but these two were combined as Annals...) Then an eighth story, The Year Of The Ransom, was published as a single volume. These eight stories could be read as a linear sequence on the assumption that the central character, Manse Everard, experienced the events of the stories in the order that the narratives were presented to us. The next step towards a complete series not only added two further works but also complicated Everard's personal chronology. Now the two volumes comprised:

The Shield Of Time, a new long novel;

The Time Patrol, an omnibus collection of the eight previously published works plus a new short novel, "Star of the Sea."

Everard's more complicated chronology:

he interviews Carl Farness twice in New York in 1980 ("The Sorrow of Odin the Goth");

he works with Janne Floris in Amsterdam in 1986 ("Star of the Sea") and reveals that the events of "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" are in his personal past;

he meets Wanda Tamberly in October 1986 ("The Year of the Ransom");

Everard and Wanda are in San Francisco in May 1987 ("The Year of the Ransom" and The Shield Of Time, PART TWO);

from Phoenicia ("Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" and The Shield Of Time, PART TWO), Everard returns to spring, 1987 (The Shield Of Time, PART ONE);

Shalten briefs Everard in 1987 (The Shield Of Time, PART TWO);

Wanda works in the Galapagos in September 1987 ("The Year Of The Ransom");

Everard and Wanda go out for dinner in San Francisco in 1988 (The Shield Of Time, PART TWO) before she trains at the Time Patrol Academy in 31,275,389 BC (The Shield Of Time, PART THREE).

Thus:

the order of the two stories in Time Patrolman, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" and "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," is reversed;

two other stories, "Star of the Sea" and "The Year of the Ransom," are inserted between them;

early chapters of The Shield Of Time hook this novel onto the events of "The Year..." and "Ivory..."

What The Author Says

It is a truism that the views of a character are not necessarily those of the author. To my surprise, Mikael Blomkvist rarely even votes whereas Stieg Larsson was active in a Fourth International (orthodox Trotskyist) organization.

However, there are times when we know enough about an author to recognize his views in those of some of his characters. Again, approaching the question from the opposite direction, when an author clearly approves of a character, it is at least plausible, although by no means certain, that their views are similar.

Anderson wrote in the SFWA Bulletin, Fall 1979, that income tax undermines liberty and privacy. Shalten addresses Everard on the assumption that the latter dislikes/disagrees with/disapproves of taxation.

In his Afterword to The Psychotechnic League, Anderson writes that he used to be "a flaming liberal" and that this is probably obvious in "Un-Man." It was not obvious to me but then I did not read the story on the assumption that it expressed its author's politics!

Accusing Janne Floris of guilt tripping, Everard asks her in disgust whether she is:

"'...some kind of a liberal or something?'"
-"Star of the Sea," 15, p. 597.

I found that a bit strong. Here is the familiar American conservative disdain for that protean enemy, "liberalism." In the light of everything else, I interpreted Everard's attitude as expressing the author's perspective, here presented a bit more strongly than usual.

The last word on this subject has to be: Poul Anderson, like CS Lewis and Alan Moore, was able to present every kind of character with every kind of belief. He understood people that he strongly disagreed with - which we need to do.

Signs Of The Times

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, published from 1955 to 1995, tells us nothing to contradict the course of world events during that period.

In 1954, Manse Everard says that he has not gone as hysterical as the rest of the country. In 1987, Shalten refers to Gorbachev's glasnost. Those are perhaps the only two topical references, reflecting very different periods in some of our memories. Everard would have known of glasnost after he had joined the Patrol in '54 but did not happen to mention it...

"It was a peculiar feeling to read the headlines and know, more or less, what was coming next. It took the edge off, but added a sadness, for this was a tragic era."
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 3, p. 17.

We last see Everard in 1990. His Time Patrol "milieu" ends in 2000. We do not know what comes after that.

Merau Varagan And Ms. Tamberly

When Manse Everard of the Time Patrol has captured the Exaltationist time criminal, Merau Varagan, the latter comments:

"'The stodgy have triumphed again, it seems. You've done a remarkable piece of detective work, tracking us.'"
-Poul Anderson. The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART TWO, 976 B. C., p. 44.

Thus, he anticipates the remarks of his female clone, Raor, when she is captured later in Everard's career. See Enemies' Appraisals II.

When Everard meets Shalten to plan the tracking down of the last Exaltationists, the latter refers to Wanda Tamberly as "'...Miss Wanda...'" and adds:

"'...(I will not employ that preposterous "Ms." appellation)...'"
-ibid., 1987 A. D., p. 70.

In The Devil's Game, Sunderland Haverner says:

"'Quite all right, Mrs. Thayer... Or do you prefer Miss, or even this ridiculous new Ms. I hear about?'"
-Poul Anderson, The Devil's Game (New York, 1980), INTRODUCTIONS, p. 22.

Although we should not attribute the opinions of fictional characters to their creators, I think that it is a safe bet that Anderson disliked "Ms."

Linguistic usage changes during our lifetimes and people find reasons to change terminologies. When I said "Chairperson," someone commented, "'Chairman' already applies to men or women so you don't have to say 'Chairperson,'" to which I replied, "But you don't have to object to me saying 'Chairperson!'"

1985 A.D. x 2

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991).

In 1985 A.D., pp. 11-16, Russian Army Private Garshin wanders alone in Afghanistan after an ambush until a captain appears like "...an angel from his grandmother's heaven..." (p. 11) and gives him a box - which contains the Bactrian letter - with instructions about how to return to his base and to get the box conveyed to the appropriate authorities whereas, in 1985 A.D., p. 123, Garshin wanders alone.

The Time Patrol has planted false evidence, then removed it from the timeline. How did they do it? Maybe:

the Patrol agent who plays the role of the captain is from the far future;
first, he travels from the far future to the far past;
his instructions are - travel forward to 1985 to give the box to Garshin, then return home unless, just before setting off to 1985, you receive a countermanding order to skip past 1985 and proceed straight home;
when Shalten is informed that Everard has killed or captured the remaining Exaltationists, he transmits that countermanding order.

See also:

1985 AD;
The Fall And The Time-Stream.

Life In 209 B.C. III

For Poul Anderson's descriptions of life in Bactra in 209 B.C., see:

Life In 209 BC
Life In 209 BC II

Is a mingling of Classical simplicity with Oriental lavishness a plausible idea? Would the lavishness not overwhelm the simplicity? Is the lavishness represented by the fanciful frescoes and the simplicity by the Attic dining style? Does the word, "However..." (The Shield Of Time, 209 B.C., p. 34), signal the transition from the lavishness to the simplicity? Will Poul Anderson ever cease to amaze us with his descriptions of everyday life in ancient civilizations as if he had been there? Can I write an entire post consisting entirely of questions instead of of statements? Will I shortly retire for the night while beginning to wonder what to post about tomorrow? Will The Shield Of Time, which has already given us Shalten, Antiochus, a trap for Exaltationists and Bactria, continue to provide new blogging material? Who can possibly say?

Trapping The Last Exaltationists

The siege of Bactra (see here) was not a world-changing event but Shalten fakes evidence that it could have been and ensures that this evidence is publicized during a year when there is reason to believe that some Exaltationists may have been lurking. If the Exaltationists heed Shalten's spurious evidence and try to change the course of history from 209 B.C., then Patrolmen will be waiting for them.

When the last Exaltationists have been apprehended, Shalten has the spurious evidence deleted from the timeline. This strikes to me as both unnecessary and dangerous. What other events, necessary to the Patrol's plan, might unintentionally be deleted in the process?

Shalten's and Everard's 1987 conversation about the Bactrian letter "now" never occurred. Nevertheless, Everard of course remembers it and it is unnecessary for Shalten to discuss the letter again with Everard in 1902 in order to ensure that he retains the memory. That part of the dialogue definitely makes no sense.

Patrol agents like Shalten have some nuanced way to manipulate events in order to ensure exactly the right combination of the preservation of the preferred timeline with deletion of potentially harmful happenings but we are told very little of how they do it.

Antiochus The Great

Shalten briefs Everard.

Antiochus:

inherited a collapsing empire;
recovered most of it;
lost Phoenicia and Palestine to Ptolmey;
won them back;
checked the Parthians;
campaigned as far as Greece;
gave refuge to Hannibal;
was defeated by the Romans;
left his son a large domain although less than half of what he had ruled;
made important cultural and legal innovations.

We can learn some history by reading historical fiction and time travel fiction.

The year 209 BC saw Antiochus in Bactria, where the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I had supplanted the original rebel. Antiochus again met with success.^[14] Euthydemus was defeated by Antiochus at the Battle of the Arius but after sustaining a famous siege in his capital Bactra (Balkh), he obtained an honourable peace by which Antiochus promised Euthydemus' son Demetrius the hand of one of his daughters.^{[12][15]
-copied from the Wiki article (see the above link).}

Shalten

Another feature of Shalten's house outside Oakland (see here) is that it is in a "bedroom community" where neighbors can be avoided; very suitable for a Time Patrol agent, like Everard's New York apartment.

Everard does not need to know where or when Shalten is from. The latter, though not Jewish, wears a skullcap. In Robert Heinlein's Future History, men wear kilts. The only point here is that the future will be different. Heinlein is often in the background of Anderson's futuristic fiction. We compared Laurinda Ashcroft with DD Harriman here and Three Worlds To Conquer with Farmer In The Sky here.

Shalten seems to take what he likes from the ages that he visits, importing souvenirs from 1902 to 1987, drinking tea with Amaretto and Triple Sec and smoking perfumed tobacco in a churchwarden.

He thinks carefully about where and when the Exaltationist time criminals might go and how a trap might be laid for them in one of these places or times. Don't believe everything that you read in the newspapers.

From Oakland, 1987, To Paris, 1902

Manse Everard visits Shalten's house outside Oakland in 1987. Appropriately, pines and oaks screen this small house, as if to conceal the secret of time travel.

Inside:

coolness
dimness
anachronism
mahogany
marble
embroidered upholstery
deep carpet
maroon hangings
gold-stamped French titles on leather-bound books
molecularly perfect copies of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec and Seurat

Shalten explains that these are souvenirs from his preferred setting, Paris of the Belle Epoque. Everard later visits Shalten's flat on the Left Bank in 1902. Time Patrolmen do not just travel through time. They travel to specific times that Poul Anderson evokes in meticulous detail.