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hand at smoothing the waters.
    “I’m only a bystander at this stage, I know, but I’d be interested too in knowing—in layman’s terms—what you’re doing. After all, each of us is involved in this to some degree.”
    “I think we can do that, can’t we, Don.” I put it as a statement rather than a question.
    He shrugged. “Sure. Want to tell them what we just did?” He sounded slightly irritated but the unique nature of the moment was bound to be raising tensions and his irritation was exceeded only by Cartwright’s impatience.
    “Don put the Ko Feng into alcohol because it will dissolve any adulterants or coloring agents that might have been added,” I explained. “No color is visible in the alcohol.”
    Don was already busy with the next test.
    “He’s now soaking a stamen in distilled water—” I caught a puzzled look from Appleton. “Stamen is a common term with botanists—it’s the male reproductive organ of a plant where pollination takes place. Now he’s rolling it between two sheets of absorbent paper. Any water-soluble contaminants will show up at this stage … No, there aren’t any.”
    The commentary seemed to be working. Cartwright looked marginally more composed but I realized how great a strain he must be under. Simpson was walking by. He called in cheerily, “Making progress with the ivory. Be with you in a while.” He went on to the Sushimoto bay.
    Don was now switching on the microscope. He gave me a nod to say he would take over. I nodded back, glad his humor was restored.
    “I’m looking at the stamen at a hundred magnifications…” He waved to us to approach and we crowded round to look at the screen. “Now I’m zooming to five hundred … looks normal … this is a thousand.”
    There was a silence while the watchers wondered exactly what they were looking at. Don went on, “It looks just like a plant stamen. Of course, we have no way of knowing what a Ko Feng stamen looks like. All I can say is there is no reason to suppose that this is not Ko Feng.”
    He looked at me. The others followed suit. “I agree,” I said.
    Don took one more of the stamens with tweezers and laid it on a plastic board.
    “He’s cutting a cross-section so as to look at the internal structure of the stem. It might be possible to breed a hybrid which would look different from any plant we know and thus it might be passed off as Ko Feng …” The significance of what I was saying suddenly occurred to me and I turned to give Sam Rong an apologetic grin. He interpreted it with impeccable intuition and widened his smile in understanding.
    “… but a cross-section reveals the botanical structure and would be almost impossible to change.”
    Don was unrolling a chart showing graphic illustrations of sections of various plants. He ran through them, frequently stopping to compare with the image on the screen. Finally, he nodded.
    “Looks good.”
    A few exhalations of breath might have been sighs of relief all around. Arthur Appleton excused himself. “Better go check on the ivory carvings. More exciting here, though.” He walked off and his voice could be heard echoing as he hailed the museum people.
    Karl Eberhard came in. I had forgotten him. He looked curiously at the microscope screen but said nothing. He seemed to have temporarily concluded his security patrols and he stood and waited to see what was happening next.
    Don now took a ceramic crucible and dropped a couple of stamens into it. He placed the crucible into an infrared heating coil and turned the switch. The digital readout flickered, numbers climbing. Don adjusted the switch to slow the heating rate and we both sniffed, then sniffed again.
    “No obvious aromas that shouldn’t be present,” I reported.
    Don pulled over another piece of equipment. A hood mounted on a pedestal fitted over the crucible and a duct led to a square black box. Several dials on the front of the box showed zero. Don turned switches and a red light