time-path n.

We've been here for hours, and there’s been no further change in time paths that we've noticed. Is it likely that the scrambling of time and space is ended, sir? If it has, and the time paths stay jumbled, we'll never find our world intact, of course, but we can hunt for colonies, perhaps even cities, of our own kind of people.

You came trundling down a crazy time-path to seek me out. So that I could tell you the things you need to know.

Unanimity of all three precogs is a hoped-for but seldom-achieved phenomenon, acting-Commissioner Witwer explains. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance, since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information of altering the future.

Did even so small a thing as the publication of Thespis set up its ripples and create an alternate time-path, and was I in that alternate time-path?

‘Smedley Faversham!’ said the timecop Julie Anne Callender, reaching for her blaster pistol. ‘What the hell are you doing in 1999?’ ‘I’m waiting till the coast is clear,’ said the time-thief. There was dust in his voice. The last time that Patrolwoman Callender had crossed the time-path of Smedley Faversham, he had been young and vigorous. Yet now he seemed incredibly old.