In my arms, the two cones tried to buzz apart, but I, eager to bring them intact to the scientists, held them with all my might, so that I didn’t even realize I had arrived in the present until the tachometer gave a final, end-of-travel clink. And the return trip, instead of still taking an hour, as the Precambrian trip had done, would this time take only a few minutes. XXX Eliza was clutching my waist feverishly, and I think she was looking eagerly around, when suddenly I heard her squeaking like a mouse and pointing to a flower somewhere near us. The problem was that I sometimes forgot how powerful it was and how hard it stretched the threads of time, especially when I was accelerating like this.




















