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'I went upstairs. Took me a while to find my bag, and then there was someone else in the bathroom. Came down and he was gone.'
Tricia paused.
'And . . . ?' said Gail.
'The garden door was open. I went outside. There were lights. Some kind of gleaming thing. I was just in time to see it rise up into the sky, shoot silently up through the clouds and disappear. That was it. End of story. End of one life, beginning of another. But hardly a moment of this life goes by that I don't wonder about some other me. A me that didn't go back for her bag. I feel like she's out there somewhere and I'm walking in her shadow.'
A member of the hotel staff was now going round the bar asking people if they were Mr Miller. Nobody was.
'You really think this . . . person was from another planet?' asked Gail.
'Oh, certainly. There was the spacecraft. Oh, and also he had two heads.'
'Two? Didn't anybody else notice?'
'It was a fancy dress party.'
'I see . . .'
'And he had a bird cage over it, of course. With a cloth over the cage. Pretended he had a parrot. He tapped on the cage and it did a lot of stupid > stuff and squawking and so on. Then he pulled the cloth back for a moment and roared with laughter. There was another head in there, laughing along with him. It was a worrying moment I can tell you.'
'I think you probably did the right thing, dear, don't you?' said Gail.
'No,' said Tricia. 'No I don't. And I couldn't carry on doing what I was doing either. I was an astrophysicist, you see. You can't be an astrophysicist properly if you've actually met someone from another planet who's got a second head that pretends to be a parrot. You just can't do it. I couldn't at least.'
'I can see it would be hard. And that's probably why you tend to be a little hard on other people who talk what sounds like complete nonsense.'
'Yes,' said Tricia. 'I expect you're right. I'm sorry.'
'That's OK.'
'You're the first person I've ever told this, by the way.'
'I wondered. You married?'
'Er, no. So hard to tell these days isn't it? But you're right to ask because that was probably the reason. I came very close a few times, mostly because I wanted to have a kid. But every guy ended up asking why I was constantly looking over his shoulder. What do you tell someone? At one point I even thought I might just go to a sperm bank and take pot luck. Have somebody's child at random.'
'You can't seriously do that, can you?'
Tricia laughed. 'Probably not. I never quite went and found out for real. Never quite did it. Story of my life. Never quite did the real thing. That's why I'm in television I guess. Nothing is real.
'Excuse me lady, your name Tricia McMillan'!'
Tricia looked round in surprise. There was a man standing there in a chauffeur's hat.
'Yes,' she said, instantly pulling herself back together again.
'Lady, I been looking for you for about an hour. Hotel said they didn't have anybody of that name, but I checked back with Mr Martin's office and they said that this was definitely where you staying. So I ask again, they still say they never heard of you, so I get them to page you anyway and they can't find you. In the end I get the office to FAX a picture of you through to the car and have a look myself.'
He looked at his watch.
'May be a bit late now, but do you want to go anyway?'
Tricia was stunned.
'Mr Martin? You mean Andy Martin at NBS?'
'That's correct, lady. Screen test for USIAM.'
Tricia shot up out of her seat. She couldn't even bear to think of all the messages she'd heard for Mr MacManus and Mr Miller.
'Only we have to hurry,' said the chauffeur. 'As I heard it Mr Martin thinks it might be worth trying a British accent. His boss at the network is dead against the idea. That's Mr Zwingler, and I happen to know he's flying out to the coast this evening because I'm the one has to pick him up and take him to the airport.'
'OK,' said Tricia, 'I'm ready. Let's go.'
'OK, lady. It's the big limo out the front.'
Tricia turned back to Gail. 'I'm sorry,' she said.
'Go! Go!' said Gail. 'And good luck. I've enjoyed meeting you.'
Tricia made to reach for her bag for some cash.
'Damn,' she said. She'd left it upstairs.
'Drinks are on me,' insisted Gail. 'Really. It's been very interesting.'
Tricia sighed.
'Look, I'm really sorry about this morning and . . .
'Don't say another word. I'm fine. It's only astrology. It's harmless. It's not the end of the world.'
'Thanks.' On an impulse Tricia gave her a hug.
'You got everything?' said the chauffeur. 'You don't want to pick up your bag or anything?'
'If there's one thing that life's taught me,' said Tricia, 'it's never go back for your bag.'
Just a little over an hour later, Tricia sat on one of the pair of beds in her hotel room. For a few minutes she didn't move. She just stared at her bag, which was sitting innocently on top of the other bed.
In her hand was a note from Gail Andrews, saying, 'Don't be too disappointed. Do ring if you want to talk about it. If I were you I'd stay in at home tomorrow night. Get some rest. But don't mind me, and don't worry. It's only astrology. It's not the end of the world. Gail.'
The chauffeur had been dead right. In fact the chauffeur seemed to know more about what was going on inside NBS than any other single person she had encountered in the organisation. Martin had been keen, Zwingler had not. She had had her one shot at proving Martin right and she had blown it.
Oh well. Oh well, oh well, oh well.
Time to go home. Time to phone the airline and see if she could still get the red-eye back to Heathrow tonight. She reached for the big phone directory.
Oh. First things first.
She put down the directory again, picked up her handbag, and took it through to the bathroom. She put it down and took out the small plastic case which held her contact lenses, without which she had been unable properly to read either the script or the autocue.
As she dabbed each tiny plastic cup into her eyes she reflected that if there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and other times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.
Chapter 3
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has, in what we laughingly call the past, had a great deal to say on the subject of parallel universes. Very little of this is, however, at all comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God, and since it is now well-established that all known gods came into existence a good three millionths of a second after the Universe began rather than, as they usually claimed, the previous week, they already have a great deal of explaining to do as it is, and are therefore not available for comment on matters of deep physics at this time.
One encouraging thing the Guide does have to say on the subject of parallel universes is that you don't stand the remotest chance of understanding it. You can therefore say 'What?' and 'Eh?' and even go cross-eyed and start to blither if you like without any fear of making a fool of yourself.
The first thing to realise about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel.
