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regional director of the GEC’s reforestation program, looked every inch the grandee from Madrid. Thin aristocratic nose, sculpted cheekbones, hair as silver as a newly minted coin. Yet he wore a faded windbreaker and chinos that had lost their crease years ago.

    “Listen to reason,” Bazain said, almost pleading. “The very fact that I’m on this plane with you proves that we have no intention of doing harm.”

    “Not yet.”

    “Not at all—if you simply divert the funds as you’ve been asked to do.”

    Alvarez felt his blood seething. “That money is for the reforesting of this jungle! How dare you and your … your thugs—how dare you demand extortion money from this program?”

    Bazain hunched forward in the bucket seat, rubbing his palms on the knees of his expensive trousers. “It’s not, me. I only work for them.”

    “The Mafia.” Alvarez spat the word.

    “That’s an old-time phrase. Nobody uses that term anymore.”

    “Whoever they are, they are crooks.”

    “They are businessmen.”

    “Who want to steal money that is needed to bring this rain forest back to health!”

    Bazain sighed deeply. Then, with obviously strained patience, he explained once again, “What does it matter if we get a share of the program’s money? The money comes from the Global Economic Council, doesn’t it? And where do they get it? From taxes. They take it from all the national governments in the world, and from the big multinational corporations.”

    “It doesn’t matter where the funding comes from.”

    “Certainly it matters! They collect billions, hundreds of billions. Every year! So you siphon some of the money they give you to us. All you have to do is go back and tell them that you need more funding.
    Tell them that the program is more expensive than you had thought it would be. That’s what everybody else does.”
    “I will not?’ Alvarez snapped. “Every centavo given to this program will be spent on reforesting the jungle.”
    Bazain shook his head sadly.
    “Don’t you understand?” said Alvarez. “The world is being choked to death by the greenhouse effect. The best way to reverse the greenhouse is to plant trees. Billions of trees! Replace what has been cut down and then go on to plant still more. Others are seeding the oceans to grow more algae; they take up carbon dioxide and . . .”
    “Spare me!” Bazain raised his hands.
    “You don’t want to understand, is that it? You don’t want to know.”
    “You must understand something,” said Bazain, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Unless we get our share of your money, you will be killed. That is the message I was told to give you. My superiors have been very patient, but their patience is finished. You pay or you die. This plane will be blown out of the
    air. Your young scientist up there will be killed. Maybe your wife and children, too. They are capable of it.”
    Alvarez said nothing. He was panting, his nostrils flaring like a thoroughbred racehorse’s.
    “And if such violence happens,” Bazain went on smoothly, “what will come of your precious program then? Even if the GEC presses on with it, it will cost much more, won’t it? Dealing with us is far cheaper. And safer.”
    Alvarez had no answer.

FIVE

    DAN RANDOLPH STOOD at the long, sweeping glassteel observation window that curved across the far end ofAlphonsusCity ’s main dome. Away from the GEC tribunal and the need to be dressed respectably, he wore his usual sky blue coveralls, faded from long use, wrinkled and comfortable. No name patch on its breast; merely the sturdy simple logo of Astro Manufacturing. He had no need to be recognized.
    “The people who know who I am don’t need to be reminded,” he often said. “The ones who don’t, don’t need to know.”
    The great ringed plain of Alphonsus was so wide that Dan could not see its far side from the observation port where he stood. The Moon’s abrupt horizon cut across the tired old ringwall