Kabe tilted his massive head and stared up too. He knew roughly where to look; Masaq’ Hub had been quietly persistent in its pre-publicity over the last fifty days or so.

Silence.

Then a few people muttered something and a number of tiny chimes sounded from personal terminals distributed throughout the huge, open space.

And a new star blazed in the heavens. There was just the hint of a flicker at first, then the tiny point of light grew brighter and brighter, exactly as though it was a lamp on which somebody was turning up a dimmer switch. Stars nearby began to disappear, their feeble twinklings drowned out by the torrent of radiation pouring from the newcomer. In a few moments the star had settled to a steady, barely wavering grey-blue glare, almost outshining the glowing string of Masaq’s far-side plates.

Kabe heard one or two breaths nearby, and a few brief cries. “Oh, grief,” a woman said quietly. Someone sobbed.

“Not even particularly pretty,” Ziller muttered, so softly that Kabe suspected only he and the drone had heard.

They all watched for a few more moments. Then the silver-skinned, dark-suited avatar said, “Thank you,” in that hollow, not loud but deep and carrying voice that avatars seemed to favour. It stepped down from the stage and walked away, leaving the opened room and heading for the quayside.

“Oh, we had a real one,” Ziller said. “I thought we’d have an image.” He looked at Tersono, which allowed itself a faint glow of aquamarine modesty.

The roof started to roll back, gently shaking the deck beneath Kabe’s trio of feet as though the old barge’s engines had woken again. The lights brightened fractionally; the light of the newly bright star continued to pour through the gap between the halves of the closing roof, then through the glass after the segments had met and locked again. The room was much darker than it had been before, but people could see well enough.