Rivers of Time

When our twentieth wedding anniversary was coming up, I asked Brenda what she would like for a bloody ripper present. She said she would love a time safari. Didn't want to kill anything—she never does— but just go back and have a look round. By coincidence, I had just received an invitation from the new Aussie transition chamber in Darwin, urging me to come and try it out. They would pay the travel expenses, not only mine but also those of any colleagues I brought along.

Well, we decided that I should take Brenda and leave the Raja to run the business in my absence. Of course, I had to invite Professor Prochaska. But he had already been there during the construction and testing of the Darwin chamber, so he begged off. Instead, he urged that I take Bruce Cohen, our chamber wallah, who was eager to have a look at the competition.

I had another reason for wanting to go down-under.

Transition-chamber people have a trade journal, The Time Traveler, which comes out bimonthly in Darwin, Australia. It was originally published here in St. Louis, but a few years ago it moved to Australia to cut costs. The then editor of this little magazine was one Mark Prendergast. Although I had never met him, for some strange reason he had taken a violent dislike to me from the start. There was never an issue in which he didn't work in a few gibes and insults. Strange, when you consider that we had never seen each other; but there it was. The latest issue of The Time Traveler ran a piece stating, among other things, quote:

"I hear that we down-under are about to be blessed with a visit from the Lord of Bull Art, Reginald Rivers—beg pardon, now Sir Reginald. They say he is coming on a second honeymoon. I suppose we common Aussies will have to approach His Lordship on our knees, place our hands between his, and swear fealty in medieval style. He will doubtless have a big bloke standing by with a spiked club, to let any impudent upstart who gets above himself have it on the sconce."

Prendergast had been going on like that ever since the magazine started. This puzzled me, since I had never met the cove or exchanged communications with him. Anyway, I thought it would do no harm to meet the bloke and size him up. If he were laboring under some whopping great misapprehension—let's say, he had confused me with another man who was a convicted thief or child molester—perhaps I could straighten him out.

Labor trouble in the Australian transition chamber? Yes, Mr. Saito, there was, in connection with Prendergast's antics. I'll tell the whole story.