"History is pain. The enduring tragedy of human history is that we have inflicted it upon ourselves. By we, I mean mankind. Nature has laid some hardships on us, sure. But what we do to our own kind makes Krakatoa, Vesuvius, small pox, the black plague and AIDS amount to nothing. Even though we have known for millennia that cooperation is mathematically superior to competition, there is some part of ‘human nature’ that belies that equation. Our howling predatory nature knows that having vital resources is only half of the game. The other half is depriving others of it, to our eternal and universal shame.

"The Psych Evaluation Board will tell you to view the people you meet upstream as ‘potentialities’, because they make our reality real. They are ‘temperons’ and microstrands…but they are more than that. They are more than Pre-Maturation locals; they are human beings who are irrevocably trapped in their environment. And they suffer every day so that we can exist.

If you want to stay sane, stay home. Don’t go further upstream than the Day in May. But if you are bold, or foolish enough to go ‘where angels fear to tread’, as one of my own Sempai has called it…if you go upstream into the Covert Zone, or the Restriction Zone…remember what you see. Look around you while you are there, and you will feel the suffering of millions. We cannot undo the horrors of the past - yet we must remember. And still, we must learn. The only honor they will ever have is what we give them. People in our past suffered like no one will ever suffer again. But do not close your eyes to it, because while you can’t save them all, you may be able to spare a few of them from it without damage to the time stream you are assigned to.

Your empathy for those people says volumes about you. Contrary to what the Psych Board will have you believe, it means you are more than just a tuner, you are a human being."

-Commander Jared Tamarind addressing the Stream Agent Academy, class of 27,860

Amsterdam, Holland. August 4th, 1944

Anne started awake in the dim room. Had they been found? She had heard a sound, like a puff of wind, or a candle guttering out, a low, faint popping of air. She looked about the small, dim room, and saw him.

The man was sitting in the chair by the painted-over window. He held one of her books in his hands. There was something strange about the tender reverence he showed as he gazed down at the worn, dog-eared manuscript. He held it like her grandfather had held the Torah. Like it was priceless, and fragile.

He did not seem to be aware of her. She drew her legs up protectively, and watched him, her fear building. This was not the way she had imagined it. Where were the others? Was she alone? How did he get in without making any noise?

He had the whitest hair she had ever seen. Not gray, like elderly people, but white, like a mouse. He wore nice clothes, not fancy, but functional, and little worn. His face was round, and pale, but friendly. She could not see his eyes, but, he was turning the pages of the book, so he must be reading it.

A tiny wisp of resentment rose in her like a bit of smoke from a spark. He was reading her diary! She was briefly impressed with herself for her audacity at a time like this.