“It’s in use, all right — but not the way the Morlachers had in mind,” Werry said grimly. “We’ve got angels here too, you know, and the Chinook makes a dandy roost for them. At night they come in from all over the province for their get-togethers.”

Hasson visualised the task of trying to police the huge eyrie at night and there was an icy heaving in his stomach. “Can’t you seal the place up?”

“Too much glass. They can pick a window anywhere and cut through the bars and they’re in.”

“What about CG field neutralisers? A building like that must have had them to keep off peepers.”

“The money ran out before they were installed.” Werry glanced at his wristwatch. “Look, Rob, you must be real hungry by this time, I’ll take you right on home now to eat and we can stop by for a look at the hotel some other time. How does that sound to you?”

Hasson was on the point of falling in with the suggestion out of courtesy when he realized he had no desire for food. Furthermore, making a closer inspection of the fantastic building would stave off the ordeal of having to meet the other members of Werry’s household.

“I couldn’t look at food just yet,” he said, testing the position. “A column that height must have one hell of a foundation.”

“Yeah — in the ground, where you can’t see it.”

“All the same…”

“Tourists,” Werry sighed, swinging the car to the left to pick up a tree-lined avenue which ran towards the hotel. At this proximity, for the occupants of a vehicle, the building registered on the vision as nothing but a silvery mast sprouting from behind ordinary buildings and making a dizzy ascent to unseen regions. The idea of following that slim pylon upwards for four hundred metres and finding a world of conference halls, ballrooms, cocktail bars and bedrooms seemed utterly preposterous, as much a part of a fairy tale as a giant’s castle at the top of a beanstalk.