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* * *

‘Rebecca Hsu is heading this way,’ Norrington said on the walkie-talkie.

Lynn left the kitchen of Stellar Island Hotel, gave the canapés a quick examination, issued instructions to her little group of waiters and waitresses and stepped out into the sunlight.

‘Has she brought bodyguards?’ she asked.

‘No. On the other hand she has checked several times to ask if we seriously intend to refuse her docking permission.’

‘Excuse me? Rebecca wants to park her
damned yacht
here?’

‘Calm down. We refused to budge. Now she’s coming in the speedboat.’

‘That’s okay. When does she get here?’

‘In about ten minutes. As long as she doesn’t fall overboard on the way.’ An idea that Norrington seemed to find cheering. ‘There must be some pretty good sharks
around here, don’t you think? When I last saw our little darling she was fit for a banquet.’

‘If Rebecca Hsu gets eaten, you’re dessert.’

‘Funny and relaxed as ever,’ Norrington sighed and ended the conversation.

She followed the coastal path at a walking pace, as her mind split into pieces and thousands of concerned and disembodied Lynns haunted the hotel grounds. Was there something she’d overlooked? Each of the booked suites gleamed immaculately. Even in terms of furniture the personal preferences of the guests had been taken into account: lilies, mountains of lychees and passion fruit for Rebecca Hsu, Momoka Omura’s favourite champagne, a luxury volume about the history of car-racing on Warren Locatelli’s pillow, reproductions of Asian and Russian art on the Ögis’ walls, old tin toys for Marc Edwards, the biography of Muhammad Ali with photographs never before published for the edification of good old Chucky, chocolate-scented bath oils for Miranda Winter. Even the menu reflected likes and dislikes. Lynn’s worried ghosts sighed in the saunas and jacuzzis of the spa area, prowled icily over the golf course, streamed damply into Stellar Island Dome, the underground multimedia centre, and found nothing to complain about.

Everything that was supposed to work, worked.

And besides, no one would
see
that they hadn’t been ready in time. Unless the guests opened doors they had no business opening.

Tools were still lying around in most of the rooms, bags of cement were stacked up, the paintwork was only half finished. In the knowledge that she couldn’t keep the official opening deadline, Lynn had put all her energy into getting the booked suites ready. Only part of the kitchen was operational, enough to spoil the group, but certainly not the three hundred visitors for whom the hotel had actually been conceived.

She stopped for a moment and looked at the gleaming ocean steamer that grew out of the basalt. As if her pause were a signal, hundreds of seabirds scattered from a nearby cliff and formed a swarming cloud that drifted inland. Lynn gave a start. She imagined the creatures swooping down on the hotel grounds, shitting all over it, hacking and scratching it to pieces and chasing the few people into the sea. She saw bodies drifting in the pool, blood mixing with water. The survivors ran up to her and screamed at her for not preventing the attack. Loudest of all was Julian.

The hotel staff were frozen. Their eyes wandered back and forth between Lynn and the hotel, visibly unsettled, since their boss suddenly gave every appearance of witnessing the Day of Judgement.

After a minute of complete stillness she pulled herself together and continued down the coastal path to the harbour.

* * *

Andrew Norrington saw her walking on. From the hill above the pool where he had taken up his post, he could look out over large sections of the eastern shore. In the harbour, a natural inlet extended by blasting, several small ships lay at anchor, most of them patrol boats and some Zodiacs, marked with the familiar O of Orley Enterprises. He could have provided plenty of room for Rebecca Hsu’s yacht, but not even in his wildest dreams did Norrington imagine giving the Taiwanese woman special treatment. All the others had, as agreed, flown in on Orley’s company helicopters, why not her? Rebecca could be glad that she’d been allowed to travel in by water at all.

As he walked down to the pool, he thought about Julian’s daughter. Even though he didn’t particularly like Lynn, he respected her authority and competence. Even at a young age she had had to shoulder a huge amount of responsibility, and in spite of all the naysayers she had put Orley Travel at the top of all tourist companies. Without a doubt, Stellar Island Hotel was one of her
pièces de résistance
, even though there was still much to be done, but it paled into insignificance next to the OSS Grand and the Gaia! No one had ever built anything comparable. In her late thirties, Lynn was a star in the company, and those two hotels
had
been finished.

Norrington threw his head back and blinked into the sun. He absently flicked a saucer-sized spider from his shoulder, entered the pool landscape via a path overgrown with ferns and conifers, and gazed forensically around the area. By now the whole travelling party had met up by the pool. Drinks and snacks were being handed out, people were noisily introducing themselves. Julian had selected the participants very cleverly. The diverse group there was worth several hundred billion dollars: world-improvers like Mukesh Nair, oligarchs along the lines of Rogachev, and people like Miranda Winter, who had, for the first time, found her pea-brain faced with the task of spending money sensibly. Orley planned to relieve them all of part of their fortunes. At that moment Evelyn Chambers joined them, and smiled radiantly around. Still remarkably good-looking, Norrington thought. Perhaps she’d become a bit plump over time, but nothing compared to the progressive spherification of Rebecca Hsu.

He walked on, ready for anything.

* * *

‘Mimi! Marc! How lovely to see you.’

Evelyn had overcome her revulsion, and was once again capable of communicating. She was almost on friendly terms with Mimi Parker, and Marc was a nice guy. She waved to Momoka Omura and exchanged kisses on the cheek with Miranda Winter, who greeted every new arrival with a ‘Wooouuuuhhw’ that sounded like a burglar alarm, followed by a saucy, ‘Oh yeah!’ Evelyn had last seen Winter with
long, steel-blue hair, and now she wore it short and bright red, which made you think of fire alarms. The ex-model’s forehead was decorated with a filigree pattern. Her breasts squeezed themselves reluctantly into a dress that only just covered the planetary curve of her bottom and was so tight at the waist that it made one fear that Ms Miranda might at any moment split in two. The youngest here, at the age of twenty-eight, she had undergone so many surgical interventions that the mere documentation of her operations kept hundreds of society reporters in employment, not to mention her extravagances, her excesses and the aftershocks of her trial.

Evelyn pointed at the pattern on her brow.

‘Pretty,’ she said, trying frantically to escape the massive double constellation of the Miranda cleavage, which seemed to be drawing her gaze powerfully downwards. Everyone knew that Evelyn’s sexual appetite was equally divided between men and women. The revelation of her private life, namely the fact that she lived with her husband and her lover in a
ménage à trois
, had cost her the candidacy in New York.

‘It’s Indian,’ Miranda replied gleefully. ‘Because India is in the stars, you know?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes! Just imagine! The stars say we’re heading for an Indian age. Quite wonderful. The transformation will begin in India. Humanity will change. First India, then the whole world. There will never be war again.’

‘Who says that, darling?’

‘Olinda Brannigan.’

Olinda Brannigan was an ancient, dried-up Hollywood actress from Beverly Hills who looked like a codfish. Miranda went to her to have her cards read and her future predicted.

‘And what else does Olinda have to say?’

‘You shouldn’t buy anything Chinese. China’s going to go under.’

‘Because of the trade deficit?’

‘Because of Jupiter.’

‘And what sort of dress are you wearing?’

‘This? Cute, isn’t it? Dolce & Gabbana.’

‘You should take it off.’

‘What, here?’ Miranda looked furtively around and lowered her voice. ‘Now?’

‘It’s Chinese.’

‘Oh, stop! They’re Italians, they—’

‘It’s Chinese, darling,’ Evelyn repeated with relish. ‘Rebecca Hsu bought Dolce & Gabbana last year.’

‘Does she have to buy everything?’ For a moment Miranda looked frankly hurt. Then the sun came out once again. ‘Never mind. Maybe Olinda made a mistake.’
She spread her fingers and shook herself. ‘Anyway, I’m
reaaally
looking forward to the trip! I’m going to squeal the whole time!’

Evelyn didn’t doubt for a moment the serious intent behind this threat. She glanced around and saw the Nairs, the Tautous and the Locatellis in conversation. Olympiada joined the group, while Oleg Rogachev studied her, nodded to her and went to the bar. He immediately came over with a glass of champagne, handed it to her and assumed his familiar, sphinx-like smile.

‘So we’re going to be exposed to your judgement in space,’ he said in a strong Slavic accent. ‘We’ll all have to be very careful what we say.’

‘I’m here as a private individual.’ She winked at him. ‘But if you really want to tell me anything—’

Rogachev laughed quietly, without losing his icy expression.

‘I’m sure I will, not least for the pleasure of your company.’ He looked out to the platform. By now the sun was low over the volcano, and bathed the artificial island in warm colours. ‘Have you been through preparatory training? Weightlessness isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.’

‘In Orley Space Centre.’ Evelyn took a sip. ‘Zero-gravity flights, simulation in the immersion tank, the whole caboodle. You?’

‘A few sub-orbital flights.’

‘Are you excited?’

‘Thrilled.’

‘You do know what Julian is trying to do by organising this event?’

The remark hovered in the room, waiting to be picked up. Rogachev turned to look at her.

‘And now you’re interested to find out my opinion on the matter.’

‘And you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t thinking seriously about it.’

‘And you?’

Evelyn laughed.

‘Forget it. In this company I’m the church mouse. He can hardly have had his beady eyes on my savings.’

‘If all church mice had to reveal the state of their finances, Evelyn, mice would run the world.’

‘Wealth is relative, Oleg, I don’t have to tell you that. Julian and I are old friends. I’d love to convince myself that it was that that persuaded him to make me a member of the group, but of course I realise that I manage capital that’s more important than money.’

‘Public opinion.’ Rogachev nodded. ‘In his place I’d have invited you too.’

‘You, on the other hand,
are
rich! Almost everybody here is rich,
really
rich. If
each of you throws only a tenth of his wealth into the jackpot, Julian can build a second lift and a second OSS.’

‘Orley won’t allow a shareholder to influence the fate of his company to any great extent. I’m a Russian. We have our own programmes. Why should I support American space travel?’

‘Do you really mean that?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Because you’re a businessman. Nation states may have interests, but what good is that if you lack money and know-how? Julian Orley dusted off American state space travel and at the same time sealed its fate. He’s the boss now. Worth mentioning to the extent that space travel programmes are now almost exclusively in private hands, and Julian’s lead in the sector is astronomical. Even in Moscow people are supposed to have been saying that he doesn’t give a fig for the interests of nation states. He just looks for people who think the same way as he does.’

‘You might say he doesn’t give a fig for loyalty either.’

‘Julian’s loyalty is to ideals, believe it or not. The fact is that he could get on perfectly well with NASA, but NASA couldn’t cope with him. Last year he presented the White House with a plan for how a second lift could be financed by the Americans, and that would have meant that he was putting himself in a highly dependent position as a supplier of know-how. But rather than using the opportunity to involve him, Congress hesitated and expressed concern. America still hasn’t worked out that for Julian it’s just an investor.’

‘And because this investor seems to lack a certain potency at the moment, he’s extending the circle of his possible partners.’

‘Correct. He couldn’t care less whether you’re a Russian or a Martian.’

‘Even so. Why shouldn’t I invest in
my
country’s space travel?’

‘Because you have to ask yourself whether you want to entrust your money to a state which, while it might be your homeland, is hopelessly underperforming in technological terms.’

‘Russian space travel is just as privatised and efficient as the American version.’

‘But you haven’t got a Julian Orley. And there isn’t one on the horizon, either. Not in Russia, not in India, not in China. Not even the French and the Germans have one. Japan is running on the spot. If you invest your money in the attempt to invent something that other people invented ages ago, just for the sake of national pride, you’re not being loyal, you’re being sentimental.’ Evelyn looked at him. ‘And you aren’t inclined towards sentimentality. You’re sticking to the rules of the game in Russia, that’s all. And you feel no more connected to your country than Julian feels to anybody.’

‘You think you know so much about me.’

Evelyn shrugged. ‘I just know that Julian would never pay for anyone to take the most expensive trip in the world simply out of love for his fellow man.’

‘And you?’ Rogachev asked an athletically built man who had joined them in the course of the conversation. ‘What brings you here?’

‘An accident.’ The man came closer and held out his hand to Evelyn. ‘Carl Hanna.’

‘Evelyn Chambers. You’re referring to the attempt on Palstein’s life?’

‘He should have been flying instead of me. I know I shouldn’t be pleased in the circumstances—’