The best time-travel story since H.G. Wells's The Time Machine by the Grand Master of science fiction the story of Andrew Harlan Technician & Eternal. Andrew Harlan's job is to range through past & present centuries monitoring & even altering Time's myriad cause-&-effect relationships. As a Technician with the Allwhen Council he initiates Reality Changes that may affect the lives of as many as fifty billion people
- & a million or more of them may be so drastically affected as to be considered new individulas. Above all therefore a Technician must be dispassionate. An emotional make-up is a distinct handicap. Then Harlan meets Noys & falls victim to a phenomenon older than Time itself
- love. Years of self-discipline are cast aside as Harlan uses the awesome techniques of the Eternals to twist Time so that he & Noys might survive...together.