Of course, the Queen would never be an economic proposition, and even if her projected sister ships were built, only a few of the world’s quarter of a billion inhabitants would ever enjoy this silent gliding through the sky. But a secure and prosperous global society could afford such follies and indeed needed them for their novelty and entertainment. There were at least a million men on Earth whose discretionary income exceeded a thousand new dollars a year, so the Queen would not lack for passengers.

Falcon’s pocket communicator beeped. The copilot was calling from the bridge.

“OK for rendezvous, Captain? We’ve got all the data we need from this run, and the TV people are getting impatient.”

Falcon glanced at the camera platform, now matching his speed a tenth of a mile away.

“OK,” he replied. “Proceed as arranged. I’ll watch from here.”

He walked back through the busy chaos of the Observation Deck so that he could have a better view amidships. As he did so, he could feel the change of vibration underfoot, by the time he had reached the rear of the lounge, the ship had come to rest. Using his master key, he let himself out onto the small external platform flaring from the end of the deck, half a dozen people could stand here, with only low guardrails separating them from the vast sweep of the envelope and from the ground, thousands of feet below. It was an exciting place to be, and perfectly safe even when the ship was travelling at speed, for it was in the dead air behind the huge dorsal blister of the Observation Deck. Nevertheless, it was not intended that the passengers would have access to it, the view was a little too vertiginous.