`It’s Trillian!’ shouted Arthur. `Or is it… er… God, I can’t stand all this parallel universe stuff. It’s so bloody confusing. It seems to be a different Trillian. It’s Tricia McMillan which is what Trillian used to be called before… er… Why don’t you come and watch, see if you can figure it out?’
`Just a second,’ Ford shouted, and returned to his negotia- tions with room service. `Then we’ll need some natural reserves for the animals that can’t hack it in the wild,’ he said. `Set up a team to work out the best places to do that. We might need to buy somewhere like Zaire and maybe some islands. Madagascar. Baffin. Sumatra. Those kind of places. We’ll need a wide variety of habitats. Look, l don’t see why you’re seeing this as a problem. Learn to delegate. Hire whoever you want. Get on to it. I think you’ll find my credit is good. And blue cheese dressing on the salad. Thank you.’
He put the phone down and went through to Arthur, who was sitting on the edge of his bed watching television.
`I ordered us some foie gras,’ said Ford.
`What?’ said Arthur, whose attention was entirely focused on the television.
`I said I ordered us some foie gras.’
`Oh,’ said Arthur, vaguely. `Um, I always feel a hit bad about foie gras. Bit cruel to the geese, isn’t it?’
`Fuck ’em,’ said Ford, slumping on the bed. `You can’t care about every damn thing.’
`Well, that’s all very well for you to say, but…’
`Drop it!’ said Ford. `If you don’t like it I’ll have yours. What’s happening?’
`Chaos!’ said Arthur. `Complete chaos! Random keeps on screaming at Trillian, or Tricia or whoever it is, that she aban- doned her and then demanding to go to a good night club. Tricia’s broken down in tears and says she’s never even met Random let alone given birth to her. Then she suddenly started howling about someone called Rupert and said that he had lost his mind or something. I didn’t quite follow that bit, to be honest. Then Random started throwing stuff and they’ve cut to a commercial break while they try and sort it all out. Oh! They’ve just cut back to the studio! Shut up and watch.’
A rather shaken anchorman appeared on the screen and apologised to viewers for the disruption of the previous item. He said he didn’t have any very clear news to report, only that the mysterious girl, who called herself Random Frequent Flyer Dent had left the studio to, er, rest. Tricia McMillan would be, he hoped, back tomorrow. Meanwhile, fresh reports of UFO activity were coming in…
Ford leaped up off the bed, grabbed the nearest phone and jabbed at a number.
`Concierge? You want to own the hotel? It’s yours if you can find out for me in five minutes which clubs Tricia McMillan belongs to. Just charge the whole thing to this room.’
24
Away in the inky depths of space invisible movements were being made.
Invisible to any of the inhabitants of the strange and tem- peramental Plural zone at the focus of which lay the infinitely multitudinous possibilities of the planet called Earth, but not inconsequential to them.
At the very edge of the solar system, hunkered down on a green leatherette sofa, staring fretfully at a range of TV and computer screens sat a very worried Grebulon leader. He was fiddling with stuff. Fiddling with his book on astrology. Fiddling with the console of his computer. Fiddling with the displays being fed through to him constantly from all of the Grebulons’ monitoring devices, all of them focused on the planet Earth.
He was distressed. Their mission was to monitor. But to monitor secretly. He was a bit fed up with his mission, to be honest. He was fairly certain that his mission must have been to do more than sit around watching TV for years on end. They certainly had a lot of other equipment with them that must have had some purpose if only they hadn’t accidentally lost all trace of their purpose. He needed a sense of purpose in life, which was why he had turned to astrology to fill the yawning gulf that existed in the middle of his mind and soul. That would tell him something, surely.