On their return, the judging panel extracts each competitor’s radioactive stove and, according to the degree of radioactive decay of the event, determines the ranking. 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. I was just explaining to her that it’s not good to get more than fifty feet away from the chronomotocycle because it might get out of sync and yank us back to the present when she let out an exclamation of amazement:
“There’s another one closer,” she exclaimed delightedly and, before I could get a word in edgewise, she hurried a few steps toward the flower. This girl must have mistaken me for a time taxi, or it wouldn’t explain the confidence with which she approached me.
