DENVER—PHOENIX COMPLEXIt occupied the center of the Greater Hall—a double disk twelve meters across and three meters high, bounded on either side by deep black, twelve by three-meter, vertical panels whose leading- and trailing-edges were razor-sharp—the wings. Two stacked, half-meter-high tubes circled the disk structure. A square tubular extension projected eight meters forward from the double disks’ leading-edge, ending with a one-meter sphere. The tube’s sides were the same deep black as the wings. At the rear, two meters right of centerline, a square hatch opened upward, revealing an airlock’s interior. Max sat at the top of a three-meter ramp that sloped from the hatch to the Greater Hall’s deck, watching the boisterous crowd.
Everyone who could was crowded into Greater Hall for the
