And the return trip, instead of still taking an hour, as the Precambrian trip had done, would this time take only a few minutes. During the journey, I would have to don a lightweight, flexible suit, much like the kind used by astronauts, fitted with oxygen tanks that gave me a four-hour range. Before everything darkened before my eyes, I managed to smile and hope that in four billion years another champion wouldn’t take initiatives as stupid as mine to force life to start all over again. I sped like lightning through the historical period, then into pre-history and accelerated, so now it only took a few minutes to get to the period where I lost Eliza, and even as I looked for her, I was aware that I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d caught a glimpse of her. It wasn’t until the terms of the trip were explained to me that I realized that the Institute must have tried and failed, and now they were pinning all their hopes on me. That little bit of
