"How much is the contract worth, Julia?" someone shouted. Too loud to pretend she hadn't heard.

"As it says quite clearly in your information kit, operating costs for the Clarke-class spaceplane work out at four hundred pounds New Sterling per tonne lifted into low Earth orbit. if you know anyone who can offer a cheaper price, I'm sure the Prime Minister would be interested to hear from them." She took a pace back and turned sharp right as soon as she finished speaking, gesturing to Prince Harry and David Marchant towards Building One. A posse of aides and management staff instinctively clustered round, isolating her. Nobody else got a chance to shout any more questions.

Access GeneralBusiness. She loaded a note to postpone the announcement about the new cyber factories for a couple of weeks. There were eighteen of them, due to be built under stage twelve of Event Horizon's expansion programme, ranging from a precision machinery shop to a large-scale composite structures plant, employing nearly thirty-five thousand people when they were complete.

Exit GeneralBusiness. It would never do for people to draw any unwarranted connections between the waste-disposal contract and the siting of all eighteen factories in marginal constituencies.

The VIP reception was held in Building One, a spacious rectangular lounge on the second floor. Chairs had been pushed back against one wall, leaving room for the caterers to set up their table opposite. The seafood buffet was proving popular with the guests. Waiters circulated with glasses of Moët champagne on silver trays. A loud purr of conversation was drowning out the pianist

Julia stood by the window wall sipping some of the champagne, watching the crowd of spectators traipsing round the spaceplane below. It was mainly family groups, parents leading eager children, stopping to take pictures under the nose. Five different channel news teams were recording their reporters using the spaceplane as a backdrop.