they must be on the outer fringes of the Mojave Desert. It was an inhospitable region bisected by long ravines and dried-up river beds. The ground was reddish-brown and peppered with scrub, and the hot desert wind was throwing up miniature dust storms that cast a fine film against the Perspex canopy. Bond was surprised by the direction they were taking. He had anticipated that Drax’s space venture would be situated near his main California installation, in the San Joaquin valley north of Bakersfield.
‘We’re over the Drax estate now,’ said Trudi. She performed a creditable rendition of the old Western cliche: ‘As far as your eye can see, that’s Drax country.’
‘He owns a lot, doesn’t he?’ said Bond.
Trudi turned her head and there was no humour in her eyes.
‘What he doesn’t own, he doesn’t want.’
Bond let silence reign and watched the sage brush drifting across the plain. Almost imperceptibly the outline of the distant mountains slowly began to harden and the desert give way to more fertile grazing ground browsed over by long-horn cattle that hardly bothered to raise their heads as the helicopter flew over. Ahead, the grass was greener still and there was a sprawling collection of buildings that looked like a small town.
‘This is the main complex,’ said Trudi matter of factly. Bond looked down, impressed. There was a railway line and a small marshalling yard, what appeared to be a medium-sized power station and five enormous hangars, one bearing the word MOONRAKER painted on its roof. Bond thought back to the Hollywood sign. This one was larger. A landing strip and control tower lay adjacent to the hangars and there was a large semi-circular building that Bond guessed must be a wind tunnel.
‘So this is where the Moonraker shuttle is made?’ he asked.
‘That’s right. Workshops, hangars, design and experimental blocks, test centre — the whole caboodle.’
Trudi had taken the chopper down low and Bond could see men in overalls operating fork-lift trucks in the deep valleys between the hangars. Apart from the sign on the roof there was nothing to tell the visitor that this place was not a large factory tucked away in the desert. Just as, perhaps, an ammunition factory might be.
Bond looked ahead and was puzzled to see a line of tall poplar trees. Even more so when he caught a glimpse of what lay beyond them. A French Renaissance chateau scarcely smaller than Chambord, its turrets gleaming in the sun like something out of a fairy story. Bond refused to believe what he was seeing. It must be a facade. Some remnant from a long forgotten film shot in the desert that had been left standing because of its amusement value. Look behind it and there would be an untidy framework of scaffolding to keep the thing upright. But the stones looked real enough, as did the formal French gardens with their box hedges, shingle paths and orderly battalions of identical flowers. Bond turned to Trudi and saw the amused expression on her face.
‘Every stone brought from the Loire Valley,’ she said.
‘By Hugo Drax?’
‘Who else?’
Bond looked again at the majestic sweep of the white stone and the recessed windows twinkling like rows of scales on a fish’s back. ‘Magnificent. Why didn’t he buy the Eiffel Tower as well?’
Trudi smiled. ‘He did, but the French government refused him an export permit.’
Bond grinned back at her. ‘Oh well, I suppose if you have to live next to your work you might as well do it in comfort.’
He returned his gaze to the gardens. They were almost over-generously endowed with marble statues of athletes and goddesses reaching from their plinths as if desperately trying to attract attention. Their very number suggested that they were genuine and that Hugo Drax was a man who could never have enough of a good thing. The gyro-dyne swept around the corner of the building and Bond looked in vain for the scaffolding. A formal lawn fronted the long expanse of the building and on it fifty young men and women lay on their backs in five rows of ten. As Bond focussed on the scene they sprang to their feet, raised their arms above their heads and began to rotate their upper bodies on the fulcrum of their hips. They were dressed in black leotards and at first glance appeared like a ballet class undergoing a programme of loosening-up calisthenics. What was immediately obvious to Bond as they stretched their arms upwards and tilted back their heads was that they were the most beautiful group of people he had ever seen. He looked at Trudi questioningly.
‘They’re the astronaut trainees. They’re part of a project very close to Mr Drax’s heart. The Drax Corporation Astronaut Training Scheme.’
‘I thought all that was handled by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration?’ said Bond.
‘It used to be, but Mr Drax offered a scholarship if it could be open to people from all over the world.’ She shrugged. ‘You know, like space belongs to everybody. It was an offer NASA could hardly refuse. They provide a lot of the teaching staff, the Drax Corporation has paid for the installation.’
Bond looked back admiringly. ‘They’re more like the finalists in a Mr and Miss Universe contest.’
Trudi smiled. ‘Mr Drax went out of his way to select the finest physical specimens.’
Bond looked at Trudi appreciatively. ‘I gathered that back at the airport.’
Trudi’s fingers tightened on the handle of the control column.
‘You’re trying to turn a young girl’s head, Mr Bond.’ She moved her arm and the helicopter dipped earthwards.
When the rotor blades had almost stopped turning and the banshee wail of the engine died away to the shudder of a sewing machine shuttle, the canopy was drawn back and Bond unclipped his belt and climbed down to the small take-off pad on which they had landed. ‘Thanks for the ride,’ he said.
Trudi’s smile challenged sunlight. ‘Any time,’ she said. She gestured towards a flight of stone steps and Bond climbed out, feeling the warm desert air on his face. So incongruous were his surroundings that he found it difficult to know exactly where he was. It was as if he had suddenly arrived inside a dream that had taken on the trappings of reality. A man in the black jacket and striped grey trousers of an English manservant hurried forward as they came to the top of the steps.
‘Mr Bond’s bags will be arriving in a few minutes, Gilbert,’ said Trudi. ‘I’ll show him his room.’
