Turn Backward, O Time!

In the 25th century, time travel exists, but freedom doesn't. Donovan works in the metallurgical plants of a solar system governed by the ruthless Criminal Destroyers, who hunt down anyone who dares to traverse the centuries without the Komitet's sanction. His crime: wanting youth, wanting escape, wanting to live. When he makes his desperate leap backward to the 20th century, he finds something unexpected: peace, paint, and the chance to become someone new. But the past offers no real refuge. The C.D. follow. Rejuvenation strips away memory. And Donovan discovers that you cannot outrun the man you were. This is vintage 1950s hard SF wrapped in existential dread, a story about the terror of being found out, the theft of identity, and the cold truth that some prisons have no walls, only time. Kubilius writes with sharp, controlled prose that builds toward a conclusion as inevitable and terrible as gravity.