I had seen only part of “V”, the first mini-series, while waiting for Diane in the airport, and after a few minutes I decided that I didn’t want to watch any more of it. I told my agent that I hadn’t seen it all, but that I would try to find someone who had recorded it and would get back to her. She gave me the whole weekend. A friend who had both mini-series on videotape loaned them to me. 

I made myself watch them over and over, despite severe problems I had with the Visitors coming to steal water from Earth when there was more than they could use in our cometary cloud, about their being shape-shifters, and about their coming from Sirius, which is a large hot blue-white star which has no planets any more, only a white dwarf companion, which would have destroyed any planets that once might have been there. I know that “V” was very popular, but I really, really didn’t like it. 

I called my agent Monday morning, and told her that I didn’t want to do it. She told me that it paid $7,500, which was about three times Diane’s annual stipend as a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill. So I asked my agent, when did she want it? She said, within a month. I told her that I already had two weeks of other obligations. She said, “Take it or leave it, but decide now.” I took it.