Astropop and the Teletransporter Part 2

When we had finished howling I said, all right, can we have lunch now?

And the professor laughed and agreed.

It will be a good opportunity to explain the amazing thing that just happened.

We left the lab and returned in the direction of the canteen. As we went, I looked

over at my younger self and noted that he had my way of walking, a sort of trot with the head

turning from side to side and the tail curled over the back.

In the canteen, the professor ordered grilled steak for himself and raw steak cut up into cubes for us Astropups.

I watched the younger me eat.

He liked to roll his eyes up to the ceiling while he was chewing, just like I do. I tucked

into the steak in similar fashion. The food helped me settle down and overcome the sense of shock

at meeting my younger self so unexpectedly. So, said the professor,

I expect you two are wondering how you came to meet each other.

It's like this.

Ten years ago, I developed an earlier version of the teletransporter that you saw demonstrated today.

First, I succeeded in sending a chair from Cornwall to Perth in

Australia. And then I transported a live rabbit called Pinky, who lived in our lab.

What happened to Pinky? I asked, because I like to know that animals are treated properly.

He emigrated to Australia, said the professor. The next stage of my dream was to test

teletransportation through space. This would be an amazing experiment, though very expensive and difficult to arrange.

Then one day I saw an advertisement online for space tourism.

It was your ship Astropub that was offering to take people from Earth for a trip of a lifetime in space.

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