Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams [6]
She seemed to be slightly anxious about something rather than aggrieved or irate.
“Okay,” said Tricia. “Give me ten minutes.”
She went up to her room. Apart from anything else, she had so little faith in the ability of the guy on the message desk at reception to deal with anything so complicated as a message that she wanted to be doubly certain that there wasn’t a note under the door. It wouldn’t be the first time that messages at the desk and messages under the door had been completely at odds with each other.
There wasn’t one.
The message light on the phone was flashing, though.
She hit the message button and got the hotel operator.
“You have a message from Gary Andress,” said the operator.
“Yes?” said Tricia. An unfamiliar name. “What does it say.”
“Not hippy,” said the operator.
“Not what!” said Tricia.
“Hippy. What it says. Guy says he’s not a hippy. I guess he wanted you to know that. You want the number?”
As she started to dictate the number Tricia suddenly realized that this was just a garbled version of the message she had already had.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Are there any other messages for me?”
“Room number?”
Tricia couldn’t work out why the operator should suddenly ask for her number this late in the conversation, but gave it to her anyway.
“Name?”
“McMillan, Tricia McMillan.” Tricia spelled it, patiently.
“Not Mr. MacManus?”
“No.”
“No more messages for you.” Click.
Tricia sighed and dialed again. This time she gave her name and room number all over again, up front. The operator showed not the slightest glimmer of recognition that they had been speaking less than ten seconds ago.
“I’m going to be in the bar,” Tricia explained. “In the bar. If a phone call comes through for me, please would you put it through to me in the bar?”
“Name?”
They went through it all a couple more times till Tricia was certain that everything that possibly could be clear was as clear as it possibly could be.
She showered, put on fresh clothes and retouched her makeup with the speed of a professional and, looking at her bed with a sigh, left the room again.
She had half a mind just to sneak off and hide.
No. Not really.
She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she could fool herself she could fool anybody.
She was just going to have to tough it out with Gail Andrews. Okay, she had given her a hard time. Sorry, but that’s the game we’re all in-that sort of thing. Ms. Andrews had agreed to do the interview because she had a new book out and TV exposure was free publicity. But there’s no such thing as a free launch. No, she edited that line out again.
What had happened was this:
Last week astronomers had announced that they had at last discovered a tenth planet, out beyond the orbit of Pluto. They had been searching for it for years, guided by certain orbital anomalies in the outer planets, and now they’d found it and they were all terribly pleased, and everyone was terribly happy for them and so on. The planet was named Persephone, but rapidly nicknamed Rupert after some astronomer’s parrot-there was some tediously heartwarming story attached to this-and that was all very wonderful and lovely.
Tricia had followed the story with, for various reasons, considerable interest.
Then, while she had been casting around for a good excuse to go to New York at her TV company’s expense, she had happened to notice a press release about Gail Andrews and her new book, You and Your Planets.
Gail Andrews was not exactly a household name, but the moment you mentioned President Hudson, Cool Whip and the amputation of Damascus (the world had moved on from surgical strikes-the official term had in fact been “Damascectomy,” meaning the “taking out” of Damascus), everyone remembered who you meant.
Tricia saw an angle here which she quickly sold to her producer.
Surely the notion that great lumps of rock whirling in space knew something about your day that you didn’t must take a bit of a knock from the fact that there was suddenly a