“The work near El Attara,” Flinders said, “serves as an experiment. The country has a conservation program now, and the local authorities have their own plans for the future.”

Someone said uneasily, “And this is good.”

Flinders said, “Naturally.”

Edrich called out, “Correct.”

Rodriguez-O’Hearn’s voice inquired whether Flinders spoke Arabic.

“Not very well, sir, I’m afraid.” Flinders hesitated. “I’ve been studying for three years. Semitic languages are difficult for Westerners.”

“You made yourself understood, however?”

Flinders smiled. “As to that, sir,” he said, “how does one know?”

The last slide came onto the screen. It was a shot taken by Flinders on the morning of the first planting. Halfway up a slope, a parked truck leaned inward on a narrow, unsurfaced road. The angle of the truck was made more precarious by the ditch into which it was partly sunk and the way in which the photograph had been taken. That the truck had just stopped was evident from the cloud of white dust still rising about its wheels. Nevertheless, the gate of the truck’s open back was down, and two young men in djellabahs had scrambled aboard. One was already handing down to a forest of upstretched hands the first of the small trees with which the truck was loaded. The waiting peasants—the men in brown robes, the women mostly unveiled and wrapped in the bright colors of the country folk—reached up excitedly, but the youth on the truck held the plant with extreme care. Behind him in the truck, young trees were stacked up in even rows, their roots wrapped in burlap; on the hillside above the road, dozens of small craters had already been turned in the fresh earth.

Flinders had forgotten taking the picture, although now he remembered it with a pang of nostalgic pleasure—the brilliant January morning, the shouts of delight which greeted the arrival of the loaded truck, the many serious shakings of the hand, the good omens invoked, and the long day’s work that followed. He recognized all the faces in the picture—most were from the vicinity of El Attara, and a few from villages close to the planting site. Everyone in the photograph seemed to be smiling, even two children who were rolling up stones for the wheels of the truck.

A voice in the dark said, “They look happy, at any rate.”

The technician said, “I guess that’s all.”

The lights went on, and the slide, remaining a moment longer on the screen, grew pale. Flat and dreamlike, the hillside stood at one end of the conference room, and the reaching figures threw up their arms on an empty wall.