I offered to apologize, but he stopped me with a gesture:
“That’s not the case, young man. Bad luck, some would say, but I was only 18, and as it was only my first race among the veterans of this type of racing, I thought the result was quite formidable. While the commission was examining the radioactive samples, a man between two ages approached me, dark-haired and with an expressive and pleasant face. The girls who proved more recalcitrant to my overtures and who were not even impressed by my champion status, I lured away with a trip to the Jurassic. At some point I got to feel the currents of time, for I can’t find another word for it, so I got further than any other competitor, even to where the Target Rock hadn’t even appeared yet, and the Jury had to find other ways of dating it. Scientists were still arguing after I brought them pictures of it evolving low overhead and sending up a thick trail of black smoke. “Well, it’s not quite like that” – an old professor from the Institute explained and showed me the diagrams from their latest experiments. And the return trip, instead of still taking an hour, as the Precambrian trip had done, would this time take only a few minutes.
