“Still, it makes a good talking point,” he said.

Werry nodded. “We’ll be going right by it on the way into town. We can stop there and you can have a close look.”

“I’d like that.”

There was little else of interest in the flat white landscape and Hasson kept his gaze fixed on the remarkable structure as it steadily expanded in the frame of the car’s windshield. It was only when they approached to within a kilometre that he began to appreciate the full daring of the unconventional architecture. The central column looked impossibly slim as it soared skywards to blossom outwards into an array of radial beams supporting the circular mass of the hotel proper. It gave the appearance of having been forged from a single piece of stainless steel, although he was sure that seams would become visible upon close inspection. Sunlight glinted on the glass and plastics exterior of the hotel section, making it look remote and unattainable, an Olympian resort for a godlike breed of men.

“There isn’t much room inside that stem for a lift… elevator,” Hasson commented as the car reached the outskirts of Tripletree and began to pass widely separated high-income dwellings perched on snow-covered hummocks.

No room,” Werry said. “The plan was for two tubular scenic elevators running up beside the pylon, but things never got that far. You can see the holes for them on the underside of the hotel.”

Hasson, narrowing his eyes against the intense light from the sky, had just managed to pick out two circular apertures when his attention was caught by a moving speck in the upper air close to the hotel. “There’s a flier up there.”

“Is there?” Werry sounded uninterested. “Could be Buck Morlacher- old Harry’s son. Buck or one of his men.”

“The place isn’t in use, is it?”