‘And the rest of the gang?’
‘I’m pretty sure that Locatelli will come up with an eight-figure sum. His megalomania alone dictates that he needs a monument in space, and our facilities are equipped with his systems. Involvement would be only logical. The Donoghues and Marc Edwards have promised me major sums on the quiet, the only issue is how many zeroes there are going to be at the end. There’s a really interesting Swiss guy, Walo Ögi. Lynn and I met his wife two years ago in Zermatt; she took some pictures of me. Then we have Eva Borelius on board, perhaps you know her, German stem-cell research—’
‘Am I right in thinking that you’ve simply copied out the Forbes List?’
‘It wasn’t exactly like that. Borelius Pharmaceuticals was recommended to me by our strategic management team, and so was Bernard Tautou, the water tsar from Suez. Another guy whose ego just needs massaging. Or there’s Mukesh Nair—’
‘Ah, Mr Tomato.’ Palstein raised his eyebrows appreciatively.
‘Yes, nice guy. But he has no stake in space travel. It doesn’t do us much good that he’s rich, so we’ve had to bring a few extra criteria into play. Wanting to give humanity a more viable future, for example. Even the anti-space-travel brigade stand shoulder to shoulder on that one: Nair with food, Tautou with water, Borelius with medicine, me with energy. That unites us, and it’s encouraging the others. And then there are privately wealthy individuals like Finn O’Keefe, Evelyn Chambers and Miranda Winter—’
‘Miranda Winter? My God!’
‘What, why not? She doesn’t know what to do with all her money, bless her, so I’m inviting her to find out. Believe me, the mixture is perfect. Guys like O’Keefe, Evelyn and Miranda really loosen the gang up, it makes it really sexy, and in the end I’ll have them all on my side! Rebecca Hsu, with all her luxury brands, isn’t that interested in energy, but she goes for space travel as if she’d come up with the idea all by herself. She’s completely fixated on the idea that Moët et Chandon will be drunk on the Moon in future. Did you ever look at her portfolio? Kenzo, Dior, Louis Vuitton, L’Oréal, Dolce & Gabbana, Lacroix, Hennessy, not to mention her own brands, Boom Bang and the other stuff. As far as she’s concerned we’re a unique and inimitable brand. I could fund half of the OSS Grand with the advertising contracts I’m signing with her alone.’
‘Didn’t you invite that Russian too? Rogachev?’
Julian grinned. ‘He’s my very personal little challenge. If I manage to get him to put his billions into my projects, I’ll do a cartwheel in zero gravity.’
‘Moscow are hardly going to let him go.’
‘Wrong! They’ll practically force him into it if they think they can do business with me.’
‘Which will only be the case if you build them a space elevator. Until that happens, they’ll look on Rogachev as if his money’s flowing into American space travel through your project.’
‘Nonsense. It’ll look as if it’s flowing into a lucrative business, and that’s exactly what it will be doing! I’m not America, Gerald!’
‘I know that. Rogachev, on the other hand—’
‘He knows it too. A guy like that isn’t stupid, after all! There isn’t a country in the world today that’s capable of paying for space travel with its own funds. Do you really think that cheerful community of states that worked so harmoniously to set up the ISS was stirred by a spirit of international fraternity? Bullshit! None of them had the money to do it alone. It was the only way to send anything up into space without E.T. laughing himself sick. To do that they had to pull strings and swap information, with the result that they ended up with squat! Funds were short for everything, all kinds of crap was budgeted for, just not space travel. It was private individuals who changed that, after Burt Rutan flew the first commercial sub-orbital flight on Space Ship One in 2004, and who financed that? The United States of America? NASA?’
‘I know,’ Palstein sighed. ‘It was Paul Allen.’
‘Exactly! Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Entrepreneurs showed the politicians how to get things done more quickly and efficiently. Like you, when your sector still meant something. You made presidents and toppled governments. Now it’s people like me paying off that pile of bank-breakers, doomsayers and nationalists. We have more money, more know-how, better people, a more creative climate. Without Orley Enterprises there would be no space elevator, no Moon tourism, reactor research wouldn’t be where it is today, nothing would. Even though it’s not exactly coming down with money, NASA would still have to justify itself to some incompetent regulatory agency or other every time it broke wind. We’re not regulated at all, not by any government in the world. And why? Because we’re not obliged to any government. Believe me, even Rogachev gets that one.’
‘Even so, you shouldn’t just go handing him the OSS user’s handbook. He might get it into his head to copy it.’
Julian chuckled. Then he grew suddenly serious.
‘Any news about your assassination attempt?’
‘Not really.’ Palstein shook his head. ‘They’re pretty sure where the shot was fired from, but that doesn’t really help them much. It was just a public event. There were loads of people there.’
‘I still don’t quite understand who would want to kill you. Your sector’s running out of puff. No one’s going to change that by shooting oil managers.’
‘People don’t think rationally.’ Palstein smiled. ‘Otherwise they’d have shot you. You basically invented helium-3 transport. Your lift finished off my sector.’
‘You could shoot me a thousand times, the world would still switch to helium-3.’
‘Quite. Actions like that aren’t calculated, they’re the product of despair. Of blind hatred.’
‘Exactly. Hatred has never been used to make things better.’
‘But it’s created more victims than anything else.’
‘Hmm, yes.’ Julian fell silent and rubbed his chin. ‘I’m not a hater. Hatred is alien to me. I can lose my temper. I can wish someone in hell and send him there, but only if there’s a point to it. Hatred is completely pointless.’
‘So we’re not going to find the murderer by looking for a motive.’ Palstein straightened the sling that held his arm. ‘Anyway. I just phoned you to wish you a pleasant journey.’
‘Next time you’ll be there too! Soon as you’re better.’
‘I’d love to see all that.’
‘You will see it!’ Julian grinned. ‘You’ll go walking on the Moon.’
‘Good luck, then. Squeeze that cash out of them.’
‘Take care, Gerald. I’ll call you. From up at the top.’
Palstein smiled. ‘You are up at the top.’
Julian thoughtfully studied the empty screen. More than a decade ago, while the oil sector had still kept the Monopolies and Mergers Commission busy with their yields and price rises, Palstein had turned up in his London office one day, curious to see what sort of work went on there. The realisation of the lift had just suffered a sharp setback, because the optimistic new material from which the cable was to be made had apparently irreparable crystal structure flaws. The world already knew that moon dust contained huge quantities of an element that could solve all the world’s energy problems. But without a plan for mining the stuff and getting it to Earth, along with the lack of appropriate reactors, helium-3 seemed like an irrelevance. Even so, Julian had gone on researching on all fronts, ignored by the oil sector, which had its hands full fighting for alternative trends like wind power and photovoltaics. Hardly anyone really took Julian’s efforts seriously. It simply seemed too unlikely that he would be successful.