Hunter Patrol

Description

Hunter Patrol is an excellently plotted short story by H. Beam Piper, centered on time travel and featuring lots of intriguing and thought-provoking twists.

The story is set in the future, with World War IV dragging on for over a decade and with humanity devastated by horrible destruction. The protagonist of the story is a soldier and former high-school chemistry teacher from Saint Louis who is sent into the future with an important and dangerous mission: to kill a dictator who tyrannizes the entire world.

When the soldier returns to his present, he has absolutely no recollection of his mission, but he brings back a mysterious envelope with the secret formula of an addictive beverage that induces a kind of psychosis in those who try it. The drink enables him to become the ruler of the world, so the question arises: was he, in fact, sent on his mission in the future to kill himself? A lot of other questions follow as well – can the future be changed?, is it possible to alter what has already happened?, does the perspective of power necessarily change human beings for the worse?

H. Beam Piper was not only a master of storytelling – he was also a master of plots based on the time paradox, as well as of raising complex questions about human nature. One of the themes Piper’s stories revolve around is that history is a process that can be changed and a process that repeats itself endlessly. The conflicts in many of Piper’s stories arises from the paradoxical conflict between present and future or between past and future. Piper’s answer to the questions he brings up is always exciting, always unusual and what is at stake in his stories is always the soul of man and the future of humanity as well.
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