As the team that was to send me to the Precambrian explained to me, in recent years all sorts of hypotheses had been put forward about the origin of life on Earth. Sometimes I barely managed to stay in the time I wanted for a few seconds, because like a bungee jumping rope stretched really tight, time was pulling me back to where I belonged. Especially as I had made a kind of ‘path’ for myself, so I could get there with my eyes closed. Instead, I will say a few things about the behind-the-scenes aspects of these races that are less well known to the general public, but which are, after all, part of their very substance. Thinking of Eliza’s frightened eyes the moment I abandoned her in the Jurassic, I agreed and only then wondered why on earth one of their specialists wasn’t making the trip.
