And suddenly Julian was aware of the bitter taste of repressed rage in his mouth. He simply couldn’t work out what was up with the boy. If Tim didn’t want to take the job that awaited him at Orley Enterprises, that was his business. Everyone had to go his own way, even if Julian couldn’t really understand that there were other paths to take apart from a future in the company, but okay, fine. Except – what the hell had he actually done to Tim?
Then everything happened very quickly.
An audible gasp from all the onlookers introduced the final phase. For a moment it looked as if the cabins would crash into the circular terminal like projectiles and pull the whole platform into the sea, then they abruptly slowed down, first one, then the other, and decelerated until they entered the circle of the space terminal and disappeared into it, one after the other. Again there was applause, broken by cries of ‘Bravo!’ Heidrun came and stood by Finn O’Keefe and whistled on two fingers.
‘Still sure you want to get into one of those?’ he asked.
She looked at him mockingly. ‘And you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Boaster!’
‘Someone will have to stand by your husband when you start clawing the walls.’
‘We’ll just see who’s scared, shall we?’
‘If it’s me,’ O’Keefe grinned, ‘remember your promise.’
‘When did I ever promise you anything?’
‘A little while ago. You were going to hold my hand.’
‘Oh yeah.’ The corners of Heidrun’s mouth twitched with amusement. For a moment she seemed to be thinking seriously about it. ‘I’m sorry, Finn. You know, I’m boring and old-fashioned. In my film the woman falls off her horse and lets the man save her from the Indians. Screaming her head off, of course.’
‘Shame. I’ve never acted in that kind of movie.’
‘You should have a word with your agent.’
She gracefully raised a hand, ran a finger gently over his cheek and walked away. O’Keefe watched her as she joined Walo. Behind him a voice said:
‘Pathetic, Finn. Total knock-back.’
He turned round and found himself looking into the beautiful, haughty face of Momoka Omura. They knew each other from the parties that O’Keefe avoided like the plague. If he did have to go to one, she inevitably bumped into him, as she recently had at Jack Nicholson’s eighty-eighth.
‘Shouldn’t you be filming?’ he said.
‘I didn’t end up in the mass market like you did, if that’s what you mean.’ She looked at her fingernails. A mischievous smile played around her lips. ‘But I could give you some lessons in flirting if you like.’
‘Very kind of you.’ He smiled back. ‘Except you’re not supposed to get off with your teacher.’
‘Only theoretically, you idiot. Do you seriously think I’d let you anywhere near me?’
‘You wouldn’t?’ He turned away. ‘That’s reassuring.’
Momoka threw her head back and snorted. The second woman to have walked away from him in the course of only a few minutes, she strutted over to Locatelli, who was noisily talking shop with Marc Edwards and Mimi Parker about fusion reactors, and linked arms with him. O’Keefe shrugged and joined Julian, who was standing with Hanna, Rebecca Hsu, his daughter and the Rogachevs.
‘But how do you get the cabin all the way up there?’ the Taiwanese woman wanted to know. She looked overexcited and scatterbrained. ‘It can hardly float up the cable.’
‘Didn’t you see the presentation?’ Rogachev asked ironically.
‘We’re just introducing a new perfume,’ said Rebecca, as if that explained everything. And in fact for half the show she’d been staring at the display on her pocket computer, correcting marketing plans, and had missed the explanation of the principle. At first sight it would look as if the slabs that formed the cabin sterns were sending out bright red beams, but in fact it was the other way round. The undersides of the plates were covered with photovoltaic cells, and the beams were emitted by huge lasers inside the terminal. The energy produced by the impact set the propulsion system in motion, six pairs of interconnected wheels per cabin, with the belt stretched between them. When the wheels on one side were set in motion, those on the other side joined in automatically in the opposite direction, and the lift climbed up the belt.
‘It gets faster and faster,’ Julian explained. ‘After only a hundred metres it reaches—’
There was a beep from his jacket. He frowned and dug out his phone.
‘What’s up?’
‘Forgive the disturbance, sir.’ Someone from the switchboard. ‘A call for you.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘It’s Gerald Palstein, sir.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ Julian smiled apologetically at everybody. ‘Could I neglect you for a moment? Rebecca, don’t run away. I’ll explain the principle to you every hour, or ideally more often, if that’ll make you happy.’
He dashed off into a little room behind the bar, stuck his phone into a console and projected the image onto a bigger screen.
‘Hi, Julian,’ said Palstein.
‘Gerald. Where in heaven’s name are you?’
‘Anchorage. We’ve buried the Alaska project. Didn’t I tell you about that?’
The EMCO manager looked exhausted. They had last seen each other a few weeks before the attempt on his life. Palstein was calling from a hotel room. A window in the background gave a glimpse of snow-covered mountains under a pale, cold sky.
‘No, you did,’ said Julian. ‘But that was before you were shot. Do you really have to do this to yourself?’
‘No big deal.’ Palstein waved the idea away. ‘I have a hole in my shoulder, not my head. That kind of injury lets me travel, although unfortunately not to the Moon. Regrettably.’
‘And how did it go?’
‘Let’s say Alaska’s preparing itself with some dignity for the rebirth of the age of the trapper. Of all the union representatives I’ve met there, most of them would have liked to finish the job that gunman in Canada fluffed.’
‘Just don’t beat yourself up! Nobody’s been as hard on his sector as you have, and from now on they will listen to you. Did you tell them about your planned allegiance?’
‘The press release is out. So yes, it came up.’
‘And? How was it received?’
‘As an attempt to get ourselves back in action. At least most people are being kind about it.’
‘That’s great! As soon as I get back, let’s sign the contracts.’
‘Other people think it’s a smokescreen.’ Palstein hesitated. ‘Let’s not kid ourselves, Julian. It’s a great help to us that you’re getting us on board—’
‘It’s a help to us!’
‘But it’s not going to work any miracles. We’ve been concentrating on petrol for far too long. Well, the main thing for us is to avoid competition. I’d rather have a future as a middle-sized company than go bankrupt as a giant. The consequences would be terrible. There’s nothing you can do about your downward slide, but you may be able to prevent the crash. Or cushion it at least.’
‘If anyone can do it, you can. God, Gerald! It’s a real shame you can’t be with us.’
‘Next time. Who took my place, by the way?’
‘A Canadian investor called Carl Hanna. Heard of him?’
‘Hanna?’ Palstein frowned. ‘To be quite honest—’
‘Doesn’t matter. I didn’t know him either until a few months ago. One of those people who got rich on the quiet.’
‘Interested in space travel?’
‘That’s exactly what makes him so interesting! You don’t have to make the subject tempting for him. He wants to invest in space travel anyway. Unfortunately he spent his youth in New Delhi and feels obliged to sponsor India’s moon programme because of his old connection.’ Julian grinned. ‘So I’ll have to make a big effort to win the guy over.’