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She had gone rather overboard keeping people out of her own suite. `DO NOT DISTURB,’ the notice read. `DO NOT EVEN THINK OF ENTERING. I DON’T CARE WHAT IT IS. GO AWAY. I’M BUSY!’

When she went back in she noticed that the message light on her phone extension was winking, and wondered how long it had been on.

`Hello?’ she said to the receptionist.

`Oh, Miss McMillan, I’m so glad you called. Everybody’s been trying to reach you. Your TV company. They’re desperate to reach you. Can you call them?’

`Why didn’t you put them through?’ said Tricia.

`You said I wasn’t to put anybody through for anything. You said I was to deny that you were even here. I didn’t know what to do. I came up to give you a message, but…’

`OK,’ said Tricia, cursing herself. She phoned her office.

`Tricia! Where the haemorrhaging fuck are you?’

`At the editing…’

`They said…’

`I know. What’s up?’

`What’s up? Only a bloody alien spaceship!’

`What? Where?’

`Regent’s Park. Big silver job. Some girl with a bird. She speaks English and throws rocks at people and wants someone to repair her watch. Just get there.’

Tricia stared at it.

It wasn’t a Grebulon ship. Not that she was suddenly an expert on extraterrestrial craft, but this was a sleek and beautiful silver and white thing about the size of a large ocean-going yacht, which is what it most resembled. Next to this, the structures of the huge half-dismantled Grebulon ship looked like gun turrets on a battleship. Gun turrets. That’s what those blank grey buildings had looked like. And what was odd about them was that by the time she passed them again on her way to reboarding the small Grebulon craft, they had moved. These things flitted briefly through her head as she ran from the taxi to meet her camera crew.

`Where’s the girl?’ she shouted above the noise of helicopters and police sirens.

`There!’ shouted the producer while the sound engineer hurried to clip a radio mike to her. `She says her mother and father came from here in some parallel dimension or something like that, and she’s got her father’s watch, and… I don’t know. What can I tell you? Busk it. Ask her what it feels like to be from outer space.’

`Thanks a lot, Ted,’ muttered Tricia, checked that her mike was securely clipped, gave the engineer some level, took a deep breath, tossed her hair back and switched into her role of pro- fessional reporter, on home ground, ready for anything.

At least, nearly anything.

She turned to look for the girl. That must be her, with the wild hair and wild eyes. The girl turned towards her. And stared.

`Mother!’ she screamed, and started to hurl rocks at Tricia.

22

Daylight exploded around them. Hot, heavy sun. A desert plain stretched out ahead in a haze of heat. They thundered out into it.

`Jump!’ shouted Ford Prefect.

`What?’ shouted Arthur Dent, holding on for dear life.

There was no reply.

`What did you say?’ shouted Arthur again, and then realised that Ford Prefect was no longer there. He looked around in panic and started to slip. Realising he couldn’t hold on any longer he pushed himself sideways as hard as he could and rolled into a ball as he hit the ground, rolling, rolling away from the pounding hooves.

What a day, he thought, as he started furiously coughing dust up out of his lungs. He hadn’t had a day as bad as this since the Earth had been blown up. He staggered up to his knees , and then up to his feet and started to run away. He didn’t know what from or what to, but running away seemed a prudent move.

He ran straight into Ford Prefect who was standing there surveying the scene.

`Look,’ said Ford. `That is precisely what we need.’

Arthur coughed up some more dust, and wiped some other dust out of his hair and eyes. He turned, panting, to look at what Ford was looking at.

It didn’t look much like the domain of a King, or the King, or any kind of King. It looked quite inviting though.

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