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‘Yes and no.’ Rogachev took a swig of the low-alcohol Château Palmer. ‘There were a few probes of that name; the Chinese sent them up to explore the Moon at the beginning of the century. But in fact it’s a mythological figure.’

‘Chang’e, the moon goddess.’ Lynn nodded.

‘Gaia seems to have a head full of myths then,’ smiled Nair. ‘Selene was the Greek moon goddess, wasn’t she? And Luna was the goddess in ancient Rome—’

‘Even I know that,’ said Miranda gleefully. ‘Luna, and then Sol the sun god, the jerk. Eternal gods, y’know, up, down, round and round, never stopping. One comes home and the other one leaves, like a married couple working different shifts.’

‘The sun and moon. Shift workers.’ Rogachev twitched his lips in a smile. ‘That makes sense.’

‘I am so interested in gods and astrology! The stars tell us our future, you know.’ She leaned forward, overshadowing the venison scraps on her plate with the great twin stars of her breasts, which she had poured into some shimmering scrap of
almost nothing for the evening. ‘And do you know what? You want to hear something else?’ She stabbed the air with her fork. ‘Some of them, the ones that really had a clue what was going on in ancient Rome, they called her Noctiluca, they lit up a temple all for her, at night on the Palatine, that’s one of the hills in the city. I’ve been there, y’know, Rome’s like full of hills, not a city up in the hills though, it’s a city
on
the hills, if you get me.’

‘You should tell us more about your travels,’ Nair said amiably. ‘What does Noctiluca mean?’

‘The one who lights up the night,’ Miranda said solemnly, and rewarded herself with an uncommonly large gulp of red wine.

‘And Mama Quilla?’

‘Somebody’s mom, I’d guess. Julian, what’s Mama Quilla?’

‘Well, we were rather running out of moon goddesses,’ said Julian with relish, ‘but then Lynn dug up a few more, Ningal, the wife of Sin, the Assyrian god of the moon; Annit, she was Babylonian; Kusra from Arabia, Isis from Egypt—’

‘But we liked Mama Quilla most of all,’ Lynn spoke across him. ‘Mother Moon, an Inca goddess. Even today the heirs of the Inca culture worship her as the protector of married women—’

‘Oh, really?’ Olympiada Rogacheva pricked up her ears. ‘I think the bar might turn out to be my favourite place.’

Rogachev didn’t bat an eye.

‘I find it surprising that you considered using the Chinese moon goddess,’ said Nair, picking up the thread again hastily before the embarrassment could spread.

‘Why not?’ asked Julian artlessly. ‘Are we prejudiced?’

‘Well, you are China’s greatest competitor!’

‘Not me, Mukesh. You mean the USA.’

‘Yes, of course. But nevertheless, sitting here at this table I see Americans, Canadians, English and Irish, Germans, Swiss, Russians and Indians, and until a while ago we had the pleasure of our French friends’ company. But I don’t see a single Chinese person.’

‘Don’t worry, they’re here,’ said Rogachev equably. ‘Unless I’m much mistaken, they’re not a thousand kilometres from here, south-west, busy digging away at the regolith.’

‘But they’re not
here
.’

‘No Chinese investor has shown an interest in our project,’ said Julian. ‘They want their own elevator.’

‘Don’t we all?’ remarked Rogachev.

‘Yes, but as you have rightly pointed out, unlike Moscow, Beijing is already mining helium-3.’

‘Talking of the elevator.’ Ögi scooped up foie gras onto the dark-red meat. ‘Is it true that they’re just about to make the breakthrough?’

‘The Chinese?’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘They make that announcement with admirable regularity.’ Julian smiled knowingly. ‘If it were actually the case, Zheng Pang-Wang would not take every opportunity he can find to drink tea with me.’

‘But’ – Mukesh Nair propped himself up on his elbows and massaged his imposingly fleshy nose – ‘isn’t it the case that your American friends would take lasting umbrage if you were to flirt with the Chinese, especially after the Moon crisis last year? I mean to say, are you perhaps not quite so free in your decisions as you would like to be?’

Julian pursed his lips. His face darkened, as always when he set out to explain the extent of his independence of all government power. Then he spread his arms in a fatalistic gesture.

‘Just look, what’s the reason you’re all here? Even though the nation-states all make a big noise about how effective their space programmes are, they would leap at the chance to get in line with the Americans if the offer were ever made. Or let’s say, they’d try to deal as equal partners, meaning that they would pump money into NASA’s budget and then they’d get to stake their claims. But the offer’s never made, and there’s a very good reason for that. There’s an alternative, though. You can support
me
, and this offer is exclusively reserved for private investors. I’m not selling know-how, but I’m inviting participation. Whoever joins in can earn a great deal of money but can’t give away any formulas or blueprints. That’s why my partners in Washington are prepared to put up with this little dinner party of ours. They know that none of your countries are going to be building a space elevator in the foreseeable future, let alone developing the infrastructure to extract helium-3. There’s no technological basis, there’s no budget, in short, there’s nothing at all. Evidently, people such as yourselves would only ever lose money by investing in your own national space programmes at home. Which is why Washington is ready to believe that we’re just talking about shares and investment here. It’s a different matter with China though. Beijing has
built
the infrastructure! They’re
mining
the helium-3! They’ve laid their groundwork, but they are working with old-fashioned technology, which limits them. That’s their dilemma. They’ve already come too far to hitch themselves to another partner, but they simply don’t have the blasted elevator! Believe me, under the circumstances there’s not one Chinese
politician or investor who would put even a single yuan into my hands, unless of course—’

‘They could buy you,’ Evelyn Chambers cut in. She was following several conversations at once. ‘Which is why Zheng Pang-Wang drinks tea with you.’

‘If there were a Chinese dinner guest at the table tonight, he certainly wouldn’t be here intending to invest. Washington would conclude that I was taking offers for a transfer of know-how.’

‘Don’t they already think that, given that you meet with Zheng?’ asked Nair.

‘People meet all the time in this industry. At congresses, symposia. So what? Zheng’s an entertaining old rogue, I like him.’

‘But your friends are getting nervous anyway, aren’t they?’

‘They’re always nervous.’

‘They’re right to be. Anybody who gets up here will start digging.’ Ögi wiped his bristling moustache and threw the napkin down by his plate. ‘Why don’t you do it though, Julian?’

‘What? Switch sides?’

‘No, no. Nobody’s talking about switching sides. I mean, why don’t you just sell the space elevator technology to any country that wants to buy, and then you’d be rolling in gold? There’d be healthy competition up here on the Moon, and that would be a real boost to your reactor business. You could secure shares in the extraction side of things worldwide, you could negotiate exclusive contracts for the electricity supply, just as our absent friend Tautou controls fresh water. They sign him over whole aquifers in exchange for treatment plants and supply chain.’

‘Meaning that you would not switch from one dependent position to another,’ said Rogachev, taking up the idea, ‘but everybody would depend on
you
.’ He raised his glass to Julian, slightly mocking. ‘A true philanthropist.’

‘And how is that supposed to work?’ Rebecca Hsu broke in.

‘Why not?’ asked Ögi.

‘You want to let China, Japan, Russia, India, Germany, France and who knows else all have access to the elevator technology?’

‘Pay for access,’ Rogachev corrected her.

‘It’s a bad plan, Oleg. It wouldn’t take long for all of them to be knocking heads up here.’

‘It’s a big moon.’

‘No, it’s a small moon. So small that my neighbours in Red China and your American friend, Julian, have nothing better to do with their time than make for the same place to mine in, am I right? It only needed
two
nations,’ she said, holding up index finger and middle finger, ‘to start a squabble which is euphemistically described as
the Moon crisis. The world was on the brink of armed superpower confrontation, and that wasn’t much fun.’

‘Why did the two of them go to the same place?’ Miranda asked ingenuously. ‘Accidentally?’

‘No.’ Julian shook his head. ‘Because measurements suggest that the border region between the Oceanus Procellarum and the Mare Imbrium has unusually high concentrations of helium-3, the type you’d usually find only on the dark side of the Moon. There’s a bay, the Sinus Iridum, next door and east of the Montes Jura, which seems to be similarly rich in deposits. So obviously everybody claims the right to mine there.’

Rebecca furrowed her brow. ‘And how’s that going to be any different with more nations?’

‘It should be. If we can divide the Moon up before the gold rush starts. But you’re right of course, Rebecca. You’re all right. I have to admit that I applaud the idea that space travel should be the concern of the whole human race.’

‘Perfectly understandable.’ Nair smiled. ‘You will only profit from the good cause.’

‘And us too, of course,’ Ögi said emphatically.

‘Yes, it’s a noble ideal.’ Rogachev put down his cutlery. ‘There’s only one problem, Julian.’

‘Which is?’

‘How to survive such a shift of opinion.’

Small chocolate cakes, served lukewarm, released a gush of heavy, dark sauce when cut open, flooding out into the colourful fruit purees surrounding them. At about ten o’clock a leaden tiredness descended over the table. Julian announced that the next morning was free time, after which everybody could enjoy the hotel facilities to their heart’s content or take a look around the lunar surface nearby. There would be no longer excursions until the day after. Dana Lawrence enquired as to whether everything was to their satisfaction. They all had words of praise, Hanna included.

‘And I still don’t think that Cobain would mean anything to the kids today if we hadn’t made that film,’ O’Keefe insisted in the lift. ‘Just look where grunge has ended up. On the “lousy music” shelves. Nobody’s interested in guys like him any
more. The kids prefer to listen to the artificial stuff, The Week That Was, Ipanema Party, Overload—’

‘You used to play grunge with your own band though,’ said Hanna.

‘Yes, and I gave up. My God, I think I was ten years old when Cobain died. I wonder what the hell he meant to me.’

‘Don’t give me that! You played the guy.’

‘I could play Napoleon as well, you know, doesn’t mean I’m going to try to rule all Europe. It’s always been like that, people think that whoever their heroes are at the time, they must be important.
Important!
There are always
important
albums in pop music, then twenty years later not a living soul has heard of them.’

‘Great music stays alive.’

‘Bullshit. Who knows Prince these days? Who knows Axl Rose? Keith Richards, the only thing we know about him is that he was a mediocre guitar player for a beer-hall band whose songs all sounded the same. Believe you me, the gods of pop are overrated. All stars are overrated. No two ways. We don’t go down in history, we just go down to the grave. Unless of course you commit suicide or get shot.’

‘And why does everyone these days draw on the works of the seventies and eighties? If what you say is true, then—’

‘Okay, it just happens to be in fashion.’

‘Has been for a while.’

‘And what does that prove? In ten years’ time there’ll be another nine days’ wonder. Nucleosis, for instance, that kind of thing keeps coming around again, two women and a computer, and the computer composes about half their stuff.’

‘There’s always been computers.’

‘Not always as the composer though. I’m telling you, day after tomorrow, all the stars will be machines.’

‘Codswallop. They used to say that twenty-five years ago. What came back? Singer-songwriting. Handmade music will never die.’

‘Could be. Could be we’re just too old. Good night.’

‘G’night, Finn.’

Hanna crossed the bridge to his suite and went in. He’d dutifully followed all the conversations as the evening went on, without getting caught up in knotty discussions. For a while he’d tried to share Eva Borelius’ passion for horses, and then had steered her towards music, only to find himself bogged down in German Romanticism, about which he knew less than nothing. O’Keefe saved him with a few remarks about the comatose condition of Britpop at the end of the Nineties, about Mando-prog and psychobilly, just the thing to talk about when your thoughts were elsewhere, and Hanna’s thoughts really were. Everyone would go off to sleep
soon, that much was clear. Back on board the spaceship they had been warned that there’d be a price to pay for the days in zero gravity, the exertions of landing, their bodies adjusting and the flood of new experiences. The bedroom was clad with a mooncrete slab at bed height, so that in an hour at latest, nobody would be looking outside at all, and the staff lived below ground anyway.

Time to wait.

He lay down on the comically thin mattress that was nevertheless enough to support him comfortably here, weighing only sixteen kilos as he did; he put his hands behind his head and shut his eyes for a moment. If he stayed lying here, he’d fall asleep, besides which he still had plenty to do before he set out. Whistling gently, he went back into the living room and stroked his guitar-case. He strummed a brief flamenco, then turned his instrument over on his knees, felt around the edges, pressed here and there, removed the clasp where the strap clipped on and lifted up the whole back.

There was a thin sheet of material fixed to it, exactly the shape of the guitar body, covered with a tracery of fine lines. Orley’s security team hadn’t examined his luggage, as they would have done with regular tourists, but had just asked a few polite questions. Nobody had even dreamed of doubting that his guitar was just a guitar. Julian’s guests were above all suspicion, but nevertheless the organisation had not wanted to take any risks; however, an X-ray would merely have revealed that the instrument had a thicker back than usual. Only an expert would have recognised even this, and certainly wouldn’t have known that it was because it was made of two boards lying on top of one another, and that the inner board was made of a special and extremely resistant material.