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‘Zheng is the driving force behind Beijing’s space travel. An entrepreneur, bound to the Party, which amounts to the same thing. He never misses a single opportunity to infiltrate my ranks, but I’ve got my defences up, so he tries to do it by plotting. Obviously the Chinese would love to woo me away and have me all to themselves. They’ve got money, more than the Americans, but they don’t have the patents for the lift, or the brainpower to build fusion reactors that don’t immediately shut themselves down again. A few weeks ago I met old Pang-Wang in Paris. A nice guy really. He tried to tempt me with Chinese money, and appealed to my cosmopolitan heart by saying that a clean energy supply would be of benefit to the whole world. He asked whether I didn’t think it was indecent that all the money from helium-3 was going to the Americans. So I asked him what the Chinese would think of it if I went on to sell the patents to the Russians, Indians, Germans, French, Japanese and Arabs.’

‘I’d be more interested to know what the Americans would think of that.’

‘The question is actually a little different: Who has the whip hand? In my opinion, I do, but of course I would create completely new geopolitical relationships. And do I want that? For the most part, I’ve had a kind of symbiotic relationship with America, to our mutual advantage. Recently, since the Moon crisis, Washington has been haunted by the ghosts of the Little Depression of 2008 to 2010. They’re worried things might get out of hand if they give that much power to one single company. Which is ridiculous:
I
gave
them
the power! The power to stake out their claim up there. Using my means, my know-how! But it seems the desire to have more control over companies is rampant.’ Julian snorted. ‘Instead of which the governments should be putting their energies into infrastructure, healthcare and education. They should be building streets, schools, houses, old people’s homes, but the private economy even has to help them out with that, so what do they have to
crow about? Governments have proved incapable of pushing forward global processes, they only know how to squabble, hesitate and make lazy compromises. They didn’t manage to get to grips with environmental protection in that laughable treaty, they demand sanctions against corrupt and warfaring states in their shaky voices, despite the fact that no one’s bothering to listen, so they just stock up on nuclear arms and impose trading blocks on each other’s markets. The Russians don’t have any money left for space travel now that Gazprom is hanging in the balance, but it would still be enough to give to me and the Americans for permission to use the next space elevator. Then we’d have another player on the Moon with us, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing.’

‘But America doesn’t agree.’

‘Well, no, because they’ve got me. The fact is, together we don’t need anyone else, and in a situation like that Washington thinks they can get away with anything and demand more transparency.’

‘So what’s your plan? Bringing the Russians over to your side without America’s blessing?’

‘If America doesn’t want to play with them and continues to block my ideas, then yes – as you can see, I’ve invited some very illustrious guests. Zheng is right, but not in the way he thinks. I’ve had it up to here with the sponsorship failing to make headway! Competition is invigorating for business. Sure, it would be a bit shabby to run from the Americans to the Chinese now – they’re all the same idiots everywhere when it comes down to it – but offering the lift to
all
nations, now that’s got a ring to it.’

‘And you said as much to Zheng?’

‘Yes, and he thought he’d misheard. He certainly never wanted to unleash
that
kind of change in perspective, but he was overestimating his contribution. I’d had the idea for a long time already. He just made me more determined to do it.’

Bowie fell silent for a while.

‘Well, I’m sure you know you’re playing with fire,’ he said.

‘With the sun’s fire,’ said Julian serenely. ‘With reactor fire. I’m used to fire.’

‘Do your American friends know about your plans?’

‘They may have an idea, to a certain extent. It’s no secret whom I go trotting off to the Moon with.’

‘You sure know how to make enemies.’

‘I’ll travel with whomever I like. It’s my elevator, my space station, my hotel up there. They’re far from happy about it of course, but I don’t care. They should make me better offers and stop their control games.’ Julian suckled noisily at his bottle and licked his lips with his tongue. ‘Delicious, isn’t it? On the Moon we’ll have wine
with an alcohol substitute. Totally insane! 1.8 per cent, but it tastes like really hard stuff. Are you sure you want to miss out on that?’

‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Bowie laughed again.

‘Never.’ Julian grinned.

‘But you’re too late. Don’t get me wrong: I love life, and it’s definitely too short, I agree with all that. Three hundred years would be wonderful, especially in times like these! But it’s just that I—’

‘—ended up being turned from an alien into an earthling after all,’ finished Julian with a smile.

‘I was never anything else.’

‘You were the man who fell to earth.’

‘No. I was just someone who tried to get to grips with his difficulties around people by disguising himself, using the line “I’m sorry if the communication between us isn’t working, I’m from Mars”.’ Bowie ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You know, my whole life I gleefully absorbed anything that ignited the world, anything that electrified it; I collected fashions and sensitivities like other people collect art or postage stamps. Call it eclecticism, but it may have been my greatest talent. I was never really an innovator, more of a champion of the present, an architect who brought that feeling of being alive and trends together in such a way that it looked like something new. Looking back, I’d say it was my way of communicating:
Hey, people, I understand what moves you, look at me and listen up, I’ve made a song out of it!
Or something along those lines. But for a long time I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. I simply didn’t know how to do it, how a simple conversation worked. I was afraid of getting into relationships, incapable of listening to others. For someone like that, the stage, or let’s say the world of the arts, is the perfect platform, it’s ideally suited to giving monologues. You reach everyone, but no one reaches you. You’re the messiah! A puppet of course, an idol, but for that very reason you can’t let anyone get close, because then it might get out that you’re actually just shy and insecure. And so, with time, you really do become an alien. You don’t need to put a costume on to be one, but of course it helps. If you feel as uneasy around people as I did back then, then you just make outer space out to be your home, look for answers from a higher being, or act as though you’re one yourself.’

Julian tapped his bottle, let it drift away from him for a moment then grasped it again.

‘You sound so terribly grown up,’ he said.

‘I am terribly grown up,’ laughed Bowie, bursting with happiness. ‘And it’s wonderful! Believe me, this whole spiritual paperchase to find out the connection between humanity and the universe, why we were born and where we go
when we die, what gives us and our actions meaning,
if
there even is a meaning – I mean, I love science fiction, Julian, and I love what you’ve created! But all this space stuff was always just a metaphor for me. It was only ever about the spiritual search. The Churches’ maps were always a little too vaguely drawn for me, full of one-way streets and dead ends. I didn’t want anyone else to dictate how and where I was supposed to look. You can ritualise God, or you can interpret him. The latter doesn’t go down pre-set paths; it demands that you slip away from them. I did that, and I kept on creating new spacesuits for myself in order to explore this empty, endless cosmos, hoping to meet myself, as Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Major Tom. And then, one day, you marry a wonderful woman and move to New York, and suddenly you realise: Out there, there’s nothing, but on the Earth there’s everything. You meet people, you talk, communicate, and what seemed difficult before now just happens, with wonderful ease. Your inflated fears shrink to become bog-standard worries; the early flirt with death, the pathos of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide’ reveals itself to be nothing more than the spectacularly unoriginal mood of a clueless and inexperienced young boy; you no longer wake up with the fear of going crazy; you no longer think obsessively about the misery of human existence, but about your children’s future. And you ask yourself what the devil you were looking for in space! Do you see? I’ve landed. I’ve never enjoyed living on Earth so much, amongst other people. And if my health allows I can enjoy it for a few more years. It’s bad enough that it will only be another ten or twelve, and not three hundred, so I’m looking forward to every moment. So, give me one good reason why I should fly to the Moon now, now that I’ve finally found my home and settled in down there.’

Julian thought it over. He could think of a thousand reasons why
he
wanted to fly to the Moon, but suddenly not a single one that would have any relevance for the old man opposite him. And yet Bowie looked anything but old, more as though he had just been reborn. His eyes looked as thirsty for knowledge as ever. It wasn’t the look of an extraterrestrial observer, though, but that of an earth-dweller.

That’s the difference between us, he thought. I was always extremely earthly. Always on the frontier, the great communicator, untouched by fear or self-doubt. And then he wondered what it would be like if one day
he
reached the conclusion that this space opera, of which he was the director and protagonist, had only served to bring him closer to Earth, and whether he would like this realisation or not.

Or was he just an egocentric alien after all, one who didn’t even get what was going on with his own children. How had Tim put it?

You don’t have a clue what’s going on around you!

Julian pulled a face. Then he laughed too, but without any real pleasure, raised his glass and toasted Bowie.

‘Cheers, old friend,’ he said.

* * *

A little later, Amber opened her eyes and saw that the Earth had disappeared. Fear shot through her. She had slept straight through the previous night and it had still been there in the morning, half of it in any case. But now she couldn’t see even the slightest glimpse of it.

Of course she couldn’t. Night had fallen over the Pacific half and the lights of civilisation weren’t visible from the height of geostationary orbit. There was no cause for alarm.

She turned her head. Next to her, Tim was staring into the darkness.

‘What’s wrong, my hero?’ she whispered. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘Did I wake you?’

‘No, I just woke up, that’s all.’ She crawled nearer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

‘You were wonderful,’ he said softly.

‘No,
you
were wonderful. Is there something on your mind?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps Julian was right after all. Maybe I’m just seeing ghosts.’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said after a while. ‘It’s good that you’re keeping an eye on things. It’s just that, if you continue to treat him like an enemy, he’ll act like one.’

‘I’m not treating him like an enemy.’

‘Well, you’re not exactly the world champion when it comes to diplomacy.’

‘No.’ He laughed softly. ‘I don’t know, Amber. For some reason I’ve just got a bad feeling.’

‘That’s just the zero gravity,’ she murmured, almost asleep again already. ‘What could go wrong?’

Tim was silent. She blinked, lifted her head and realised she’d been mistaken. You could still see a narrow blue-white crescent on the right-hand side. Everything was fine. The Earth was still in its place.

Go to sleep, my darling, she wanted to say, but the tiredness overcame her with such force that she could only think it. Before she dozed off, she was overcome by the image of a black cloth spreading out over the two of them. Then, nothing.

* * *

Carl Hanna couldn’t sleep, but then again he didn’t need to. He ran his possessions through his fingers one after another, looking at them searchingly, rotating them, turning them over then packing them carefully away again: the small flacon of aftershave, the bottle filled with shower gel and the one with shampoo, tubes of
skin cream, shaving foam, various packages of medication for headaches, sickness, stomach upsets, cotton buds and soft, pliable earplugs, toothbrush and toothpaste. He had even packed dental floss, nail scissors and a file, a hand mirror, his electric hair trimmer and three golf balls. There was a course in the grounds of the Gaia, Lynn had told him, Shepard’s Green. Hanna played golf reasonably well, and he also placed a lot of importance on looking well groomed. Apart from that, none of all this junk was what it seemed to be. Just as the guitar wasn’t really a guitar, Carl Hanna wasn’t the person he pretended to be. It wasn’t his real name, nor was his life story anything but complete fabrication.

He thought about Vic Thorn.

They had taken everything into account, everything except the possibility that Thorn might have an accident. The preparation for his mission had been exemplary, everything planned well in advance. Nothing should have gone wrong, but then a tiny speck of space debris had changed everything in a matter of seconds.

Hanna looked out into space.

Thorn was somewhere out there. He had joined the inventory of the cosmos, an asteroid on an unknown path. Many people believed that he must have stayed in the Earth’s gravitational field, which would have meant encountering his body cyclically in orbit. But Thorn had still not been found. It was possible that he would crash into the Sun one day in the far future. Plausible that some day in a few million years’ time he would turn up in the sphere of a planet inhabited by non-human intelligence and cause a great deal of surprise there.

He held up a roll-on deodorant, pulled off the cap, then put it back on and tucked it away.

This time, it would work.