Then the focus of talk shifted.
‘Chang’e,’ said Mukesh Nair thoughtfully over the main course, venison with truffles, served with wafer-thin slices of toast that gleamed as the foie gras melted on them. ‘Isn’t that a term from the Chinese space programme?’
‘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.’