The Prime Minister, David Marchant, made the first speech; he was a dignified fifty-two-year-old in a blue-grey suit, the embodiment of calm competence. He praised Philip Evans and Julia for their foresight and optimism, then moved on to the workforce and complimented their professionalism, followed up by a couple of political points against the three main parliamentary opposition groups. Julia found herself envying his delivery; he avoided rhetoric and theatrical emphasis, the words just flowed. When it was her turn she accessed the speech and let her words glide straight from the node to her vocal cords, promising that her commitment to funding the space programme remained unchanged, giving a brief outline of projects that would be initiated over the next three years—the larger low Earth orbit dormitory station, expanded science programme, constructing a manned asteroid-survey craft—and managed to get in a joke about one of the engineering apprentices who had been strung up from a hoist by his mates a couple of months ago. She had been on an inspection tour of Building One at the time. It brought an appreciative cheer from the section of the stands where the workers and their families were sitting.

She handed over to Prince Harry for the actual roll out. He got more applause than she had. But then royalty always did. Since the Second Restoration people saw them as a continuity jump-lead to the past; they were a symbol of good times, when there was no Warming and no PSP. Now they were back, and life was picking up again.

Building One's doors slid open ponderously when Prince Harry pressed the button on the pedestal, somewhat predictably a band struck up the 'Zarathustra' theme, and the Clarke-class spaceplane emerged into the afternoon sunlight, escorted by a troupe of engineers in spotless white overalls. It had a swept delta planform with a fifty-metre span, sixty metres long; the metalloceramic hull was an all-over frost-white, except for the scarlet Dragonflight escutcheons on the fin. Three streamlined cylindrical nacelles blended seamlessly with the underbelly, air-scoop ramps closed; reaction-control thruster clusters on the nose and around the wedge-shaped clamshell doors at the rear were masked by protective covers, remove before flight tags dangling.