Poul Anderson: Time Patrol

“Their house was struck, and they said they had only left it because—”

“Ah, but the point is they did leave it. That’s written. Now it’s you who wants to change the past.”

“But this woman here—”

“Are you sure there wasn’t a Mary Nelson who, let us say, settled in London in 1850 and died of old age about 1900?”

The lean face grinned. “You’re trying hard, aren’t you? It won’t work. You can’t fight the entire Patrol.”

“Can’t I, though? I can leave you here to be found by the Enderbys. I’ve set my hopper to emerge in public at an instant known only to myself. What’s that going to do to history?”

“The Patrol will take corrective measures… as you did back in the fifth century.”

“Perhaps! I can make it a lot easier for them, though, if they’ll hear my appeal. I want a Danellian.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” said Everard. “If necessary, I’ll mount that hopper of yours and ride a million years up. I’ll point out to them personally how much simpler it’ll be if they give us a break.”

That will not be necessary.

Everard spun around with a gasp. The stunner fell from his hand.

He could not look at the shape which blazed before his eyes. There was a dry sobbing in his throat as he backed away.

Your appeal has been considered, said the soundless voice. It was known and weighed ages before you were born. But you were still a necessary link in the chain of time. If you had failed tonight, there would not be mercy.

To us, it was a matter of record that one Charles and Mary Whitcomb lived in Victoria’s England. It was also a matter of record that Mary Nelson died with the family she was visiting in 1944, and that Charles Whitcomb had lived a bachelor and finally been killed on active duty with the Patrol. The discrepancy was noted, and as even the smallest paradox is a dangerous weakness in the spacetime fabric, it had to be rectified by eliminating one or the other fact from ever having existed. You have decided which it will be.

Everard knew, somewhere in his shaking brain, that the Patrolmen were suddenly free. He knew that his hopper had been… was being… would be snatched invisibly away the instant it materialized. He knew that history now read: W.A.A.F. Mary Nelson missing, presumed killed by bomb near the home of the Enderby family, who had all been at her house when their own was destroyed; Charles Whitcomb disappearing in 1947, presumed accidentally drowned. He knew that Mary was given the truth, conditioned against ever revealing it, and sent back with Charlie to 1850. He knew they would make their middle-class way through life, never feeling quite at home in Victoria’s reign, that Charlie would often have wistful thoughts of what he had been in the Patrol… and then turn to his wife and children and decide it had not been such a great sacrifice after all.

That much he knew, and then the Danellian was gone. As the whirling darkness in his head subsided and he looked with clearing eyes at the two Patrolmen, he did not know what his own destiny was.

“Come on,” said the first man. “Let’s get out of here before somebody wakes up. We’ll give you a lift back to your year. 1954, isn’t it?”

“And then what?” asked Everard.

The Patrolman shrugged. Under his casual manner lay the shock which had seized him in the Danellian’s presence. “Report to your sector chief. You’ve shown yourself obviously unfit for steady work.”

“So… just cashiered, huh?”

“You needn’t be so dramatic. Did you think this case was the only one of its kind in a million years of Patrol,work? There’s a regular procedure for it.

“You’ll want more training, of course. Your type of personality goes best with Unattached status—any age, any place, wherever and whenever you may be needed. I think you’ll like it.”

Everard climbed weakly aboard the hopper. And when he got off again, a decade had passed.