Julia always got a kick out of the Institute; its sheer size, sprawled over the old Imperial War Museum site and now beginning to creep out towards Thriplow, was a spectacular statement of intent. Event Horizon was staking out its claim on the future for everyone to see, rekindling the old High Frontier dream. There was something fundamentally exciting about commanding such a grandiose venture.

Philip Evans, her grandfather, had started to build the Institute a month after the PSP fell. He believed passionately that space industry would be the catalyst in reinvigorating the country's post-Warming economy. His aim was to develop a centre of excellence where every discipline of space industry could be cultivated and refined, ensuring the company had complete technological independence.

Microgee material processing had already established itself as a hugely profitable enterprise. The number of low Earth orbit factory modules churning out 'ware chips, crystals, exotic compounds, and super-strength monolattice filament had grown steadily even during the worst of the global recession which followed the Warming. But the raw materials the factories needed had to be lifted from Earth, battling against gravity throughout the whole ascent. Philip Evans's vision had the giga-conductor revolution reducing launch costs to a fraction of the chemically powered boosters', increasing profits by orders of magnitude. After that, he predicated, the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources would become economically feasible, and he was determined that as the solar system opened up England would be the trail-blazer, with Event Horizon at the forefront. Julia had inherited that faith along with the material reality—

She had continued to pour money and resources into the Institute and its ambitious programmes in the two years since he died, despite all the pressure and criticisms from the company's financial backing consortium. Now the first phase of her plan was coming to fruition, after Heaven alone knew how many minor setbacks and delays.