Isso soa como As sereias de Titã, um romance de Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., que também foi a resposta para essa velha pergunta entre outras.
O personagem principal, Malachi Constant, é um homem muito rico, não um ator. A sra. Rumfoord é a "viúva" de Winston Niles Rumfoord, que está em uma condição estranha como resultado de um acidente no espaço:
Winston Niles Rumfoord had run his private space ship right into the heart of an uncharted chronosynclastic infundibulum two days out of Mars. Only his dog had been along. Now Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog Kazak existed as wave phenomena—apparently pulsing in a distorted spiral with its origin in the Sun and its terminal in Betelgeuse.
The earth was about to intercept that spiral.
Rumfoord se materializa na Terra de tempos em tempos. A história começa com Constant fazendo uma visita à propriedade de Rumfoord, onde Rumfoord deve se materializar:
"You—you really can see into the future?" said Constant. The skin of his face tightened. His palms perspired.
"In a punctual way of speaking—yes," said Rumfoord. "When I ran my space ship into the chronosynclastic infundibulum, it came to me in a flash that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been." He chuckled again. "Knowing that rather takes the glamour out of fortunetelling—makes it the simplest, most obvious thing imaginable."
"You told your wife everything that was going to happen to her?" said Constant. This was a glancing question. Constant had no interest in what was going to happen to Rumfoord's wife. In asking about Rumfoord's wife, he was being coy.
"Well—not everything," said Rumfoord. "She wouldn't let me tell her everything. What little I did tell her quite spoiled her appetite for more."
"I—I see," said Constant, not seeing at all.
"Yes," said Rumfoord genially "I told her that you and she were to be married on Mars." He shrugged. "Not married exactly—" he said, "but bred by the Martians—like farm animals."
Constant acorda depois de uma grande festa:
The pool had once been covered uniformly by un undulating blanket of gardenias. But a persistent morning breeze had moved the blooms to one end of the pond, as though folding a blanket to the foot of a bed. In folding back the blanket, the breeze revealed a pool bottom paved with broken glass, cherries, twists of lemon peel, peyotl buttons, slices of orange, stuffed olives, and the ruins of a white grand piano. Cigar butts and cigarette butts, some of them marijuana, littered the surface.
Ele recebe uma mensagem do presidente da empresa que possui:
Constant stood unsteadily, rubbing his face with his hands. "Quitting?" he said dully. "Old Ransom K. Fern quitting?"
"Yah," said the woman. She smiled hatefully. "He says you can't afford to pay his salary any more. He says you better come in and talk to him before he goes home." She laughed. "He says you're broke."
Dois recrutadores disfarçados do Exército de Marte (humanos) em Xangai Constant e o levam a Marte, onde sua memória é apagada e seus companheiros o chamam de Unk.
Há também cenas em Mercúrio e na lua de Saturno, Titã.