Up The Line
Robert Silverberg
250 pages
Published in 1969

SUMMARY: Jud Elliott meets Sambo Sambo, ("call me Sam") and lets Sam persuade him to become a Time Courier, the last romantic profession in the world of 2059. Time travel has been perfected for decades and a limited amount of tourism to the past is permitted. The time couriers are the tour guides of the timestream, a bunch of happy and jovial rule breakers, unlike the square jawed nice white boys of all races and creeds that are the members of the Time Patrol, which vanguards the safety of the time stream itself.

VERDICT: if you like time travel stories, or are interested in Byzantium and stories set there, this is the book for you. However, the book is pretty much a product of its time, in the way women are treated (free sex but not equality of sexes) and the casual drug use of the future.

SPOILERS:

In the first part of the book we follow Jud as he meets Sam, gets induced in the Time Couriers service, makes his first time jumps etc. During his training we get to hear about Silverberg's version of time travel and the dangers it brings with it. Jud and his fellow students are cautioned against creating time paradoxes which could change history and especially against "doubling" yourself.

When he's finished his training Jud goes to Istanbul, where he'll handle the Constantinople run --he applies for that run because he's from Greek descent and has always been fascinated by Byzantium.

There he meets one of the eldest serving time couriers, Metaxas, who's both absolutely brilliant at his work and a complete rogue, ignoring all the rules and even gone so far as to set up shop in Byzantium 1105 AD.

Like many time couriers, Metaxas has as hobby tracing back his ancestors. Unlike most though, he makes a point of fucking his female ancestors. Not only them though: he's also a regular customer of the infamous Byzantine empress Theodora and tries to persuade Jud to sample her wares as well.

Jud however is still enamoured of being a time courier and has no desire to jazz an empress, let alone one of his ancestors... Until, by pure coincidence he meets one and falls in love with her. He tries to forget her, first by taking a time tour to 1349 England and the Plague, later by taking Metaxas up on his offer with Theodora.

Nothing works and despondently he goes back on duty. It doesn't help that the tourist he has to guide around the time stream are the most obnoxious bunch he has encountered so far, especially one Sauerabend, who has a thing for prepubescent girls.

Frustrated, one night as his charges are safely asleep in 1204, he returns to 1105 and slips off for a little love affair with his ancestor, Pulcheria. When he returns, Sauerabend has gone. Jumping back in time, he sees him flee into the timestream after having gimmicked his timer. Whilst trying to apprehend him he manages to duplicate himself as well...

One thing leads to another and the end result is that he has to flee back in time for the time patrol, aware that at any time his past can be wiped and he will disappear.