Search Worlds Without End

8 stories about conflicts in time travel.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Time Wars) - essay by Poul Anderson
• 3 - Frost and Thunder - (1979) - novelette by Randall Garrett
• 27 - Gunpowder God - [Kalvan] - (1964) - novella by H. Beam Piper
• 75 - Amphiskios - (1949) - novelette by John D. MacDonald
• 110 - Delenda Est - [Time Patrol - 5] - (1955) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• 149 - Dragonrider - [Dragonriders of Pern short fiction] - (1967) - novella by Anne McCaffrey
• 265 - The Timesweepers - (1969) - novelette by Keith Laumer
• 296 - Run from the Fire - (1975) - novelette by Harry Harrison
• 329 - Skirmish on a Summer Morning - (1976) - novella by Bob Shaw

In the 27th Century, international disputes are resolved through time travel, "clocking" soldiers from the future into conflicts of the past. It seemed like an elegant idea: wartime industries drove the economy without actually putting nations through the physical ravages of war. And since the past already happened, history could not be changed. So went the theory. What could possibly go wrong?

Lucas Priest found out the hard way. Enlisting in the U.S. Army Temporal Corps seemed like an adventure compared to his boring corporate job, but after marching with the Roman legions against Hannibal, fighting Custer's 7th Cavalry with Crazy Horse, and raiding with Attila's savage Huns, he could have used a little boredom. And it was about to get much worse.

History, it turned out, could be changed, and a plot to kidnap and impersonate King Richard the Lion-hearted was discovered barely in the nick of time. But could it be stopped before a madman changed the course of history? Two elite commando teams had tried and failed in their attempts. Now Priest was drafted to take part in a third.

The team was tasked to infiltrate the past with impersonations of their own to prevent a timestream split. But it would be hard enough passing themselves off as Sir Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, and Little John without having to assassinate a king....

Using time travel to fight wars seemed like the perfect way to solve the international disputes of the 27th Century: all the economic advantages of warfare without any of the devastation taking place in your own time. Multinational corporations and governments geared up for the effort, secure in the knowledge that since the past already happened, it could not be changed, so history was safe. Or was it? When it was discovered that history could, indeed, be changed as a result of interference from the future, it seemed too late to stop the Time Wars, so a special unit was created to "adjust" for historical disruptions and preserve the continuity of the timestream. But as if going back into the past on missions to preserve the future wasn't challenging enough, now the elite First Division of the U.S. Army Temporal Corps faced a new and much more dangerous threat. A peaceful protest group had spun off a militant offshoot called the Timekeepers, radicals who believed the only way to stop the war machine was to create massive historical disruptions. A covert agent of Temporal Intelligence gave his life to warn of a terrorist plot by the Timekeepers, so Capt. Lucas Priest and Pfc. Finn Delaney are clocked back to 17th Century France, so they can join up with agents of the T.I.A. already in place to find out what the Timekeepers have planned. Their target could be Cardinal Richelieu, but it will be hard enough trying to figure out who their target is and how to stop them in a scenario where almost anyone could be a ringer, including a young Gascon named D'Artagnan and three of the King's flamboyant musketeers.

In the 27th Century, time travel allows international disputes to be settled by "clocking" soldiers from the future into conflicts of the past to do battle in the Time Wars. The politicians and the corporate leaders who created an entire international economy based on the idea of "an end to war in our time" believed that the past was absolute: it had already happened, therefore it could not be changed. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

The greater the number of people who traveled back into the past, the greater were the odds of temporal contamination, changing history in ways that could disastrously affect the future. Major Lucas Priest, a veteran of the elite First Division of the Temporal Army Corps, was tasked to "adjust" the blunder of a Temporal Intelligence agent who had accidentally caused the death of Sir Percy Blakeney, the wealthy English adventurer who saved French royalists from the guillotine. Now, someone else had to become the famous "Scarlet Pimpernel" and carry on that work.

Trying to adjust key historical events during the bloody and tumultuous French Revolution would be challenging enough. The trouble was, rogue covert agents from Temporal Intelligence were already on the scene, and they had their own agenda....

The year was 1891, and Ruritania was a small, seemingly insignificant Balkan country that was about to crown a new king. But a conspiracy headed by his own half brother resulted in the would-be king being kidnapped and held in Zenda Castle, an impregnable medieval fortress. While two factions secretly battled for control in Ruritania, an even more dangerous conspiracy was launched from the far future; one that was about to make a tiny Balkan country the focal point for plot to change the course of history.

Her name was Sophia Falco, codename: Falcon, a veteran crosstime field agent of the TIA. She was smart, beautiful, and absolutely deadly. She was also a terrorist, a member of the infamous Timekeepers who had submitted to cybernetic conditioning that created a false persona under which she had enlisted in the Temporal Army Corps, and from there, joined Temporal Intelligence, at which point her true personality was triggered and the woman who had once been Col. Moses Forrester's lover was reborn as his most lethal enemy. And the weapon she was going to use against him was the son he had abandoned in another time.

The elite commando team of Lucas Priest, Andre Cross and Finn Delaney have another historical adjustment mission to perform: save the rightful king of Ruritania and stop the Timekeepers before they can bring about a temporal disaster. And to do so, their commander, Moses Forrester, must journey back into the past with them to destroy the woman he once loved... and murder his own son.

The fifth of Simon Hawk's brilliant Time Wars series returns to print and brings the legendary submarine Nautilus back with it. Aboard her is none other than Jules Verne himself in an adventure that pits the Time Commandos against a ruthless fanatic who hijacks a 20th-century Soviet nuclear sub and time-trips it back to the era of the clipper ship, there to hatch a plot that will plunge all of Time itself into an endless war. Nonstop action and fascinating ideas make this a worthy addition to the series and a must read for Time Wars fans.

The year was 1897. The Khyber Pass echoed with the sounds of war. Soldiers from Britain, India, and Afghanistan were immersed in a bloody conflict.

Enter the Time Commandos. Their mission: To foil a plot that has set timelines on a collision course. Only they can save the timestream from disruption -- with a little help from a war correspondent named Winston Churchill...and a waterboy called Gunga Din.

Traveling with Jason on his mighty vessel, The Argos, in search of the Golden Fleece, Time Commandos Forrester, Cross and Delaney encounter some legendary figures from the past--Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus--and some unlikely surprises.

A plague of vampires and werewolves falls on Victoria's England in the late 1800s--but there's nother supernatural about these creatures. Thery're genetically engineered monsters from the far future, dropped into the past as a devilish tactic in the Time Wars!

It's a mystery more baffling than any penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle--a cosmic riddle to stagger the imagination of the great H. G. Wells. Soon the creators of Sherlock Holmes and The Time Machine join forces with the Time Commandos to combat an ageless evil which strains the very fabric of the universe!

The Time Commandos face a new generation of General Drakov's bio-engineered humanoids - but just how deadly could these tiny enemies be? Just six inches tall, the Lilliputian warriors are armed with laser rifles and a vast technology that threatens the existence of two universes!

In eighteenth-century London, Doctor Lemuel Gulliver's tale of the deadly little people is disbelieved by all but that mad author, Jonathan Swift...and the observers of the Temporal Intelligence Agency. now the Time Commandos wage a vicious battle that rages across a thousand years!

Boston 1765. The freedom-fighting Sons of Liberty are under attack by a Tory secret society called the Hellfire Club. the club's leader- the headless horseman- is a ghostly creature.

Cleopatra. Queen of the Nile ... mistress to Julius Caesar... lover of Marc Antony... and terrorist saboteur?

The Time Commandos travel to ancient Rome to unravel the mystery of a strange prophecy -- one that not only tells Caesar to -Beware the ides of March," but also foretells the exact manner of his death and the names of his assassins.

The Eternal City is full of intrigue, plots, and conspiracies... but agents from the parallel universe have introduced a new element of treachery -- a plan to prevent Caesar's murder and change the course of history. Is the seductive Queen of Egypt their unwitting pawn -- or their cunning leader? To save the future, the Emperor must die... and the Time Commandos may have to do the job themselves!

The Time Commandos travel back in time to the American Frontier to investigate the disappearance of three missing agents.

Combining the suspense of the detective thriller with the awesome wonder of space/time adventure, this novel begins an epic tale of a war across one million alternate Earths.

The second volume in the time travel/parallel universe series sends Pittsburgh private eye Mark Strang, trained with nightmarish weaponry and teamed with the woman of his dreams, to an alternative 1776, where he becomes his own worst enemy.

Mark Strang is asked to travel far back in time to the period of Caesar and the great Roman Triumvirate, in order to investigate the disappearance of a fellow time agent. What he discovers is that Caesar has been subverted by a Closer representative and that the Triumvirate has been undermined with civil war, mutual destruction, and the rewriting of history looming in the near future.