Julia clapped along with everyone else, impressed despite herself. The spaceplane was giga-conductor powered, the first of its kind, capable of lifting fifty tonnes into orbit without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further. Event Horizon already had orders for two hundred and twenty-seven, with options on another three hundred.

It was an icon to the new age which the giga-conductor was ushering in. The power-storage system was the ideal cheap, easy to manufacture Green solution to the energy problems of the post-Warming world, where hostility to petrol and coal was a tangible, occasionally fatal, aspect of life. And Event Horizon held the worldwide patent; every kombinate, company, and state factory on the planet paid her for the privilege of manufacturing it. The royalty revenue was already over two billion Eurofrancs a year, and it had only been available for twenty-three months. Every nation was racing to restructure their transport systems around it.

She had seen artists' impressions of the commercial hypersonic jets which kombinate aerospace divisions were developing, long arrow-finned needles that looked like scaled-up missiles, cutting the transit time between continents to less than an hour. Car companies, those which had survived, were eager to bring out new vehicles, retooling factories which had lain idle for nearly fifteen years. Scooter sales were already booming.

Julia walked down the VIP podium's steps, accompanying the Prime Minister and Prince Harry, lesser dignitaries trailing after them. She kept a beautifully straight face as she showed them round the spaceplane, pointing out features of interest; for once grateful for the steely discipline she had learnt at her Swiss boarding school. But it was hard—this is the air scoop, these are the wheels.