Traveling backward in time, Don Miguel had to undo the errors and interruptions on other time-interlopers; he had to preserve the present. Even the most insignificant nudging of the past could entirely alter the present! And he suspected that this had already happened: that a maniacal genius crazed with a desire for nationalist vindication had plotted to alter the victorious Spanish Armada of 1588 - thus changing recorded history and perhaps even imperiling the Imperial Spanish Empire of 1988! If Don Miguel did not successfully intercede, when he came back to the present he might find a different world... a different time... a time in which he probably didn't even exist!