Mosala said quietly, “The voting patterns in the UN don’t show it – but the fact is, the anti-sanctions faction is not a tiny minority. At present, there’s all kinds of bloc solidarity and surface agreement, because everyone believes they can’t win, and they don’t want to cause offense.”

“But if someone gave the right little push, they might start an avalanche?”

“Maybe.” She laughed, embarrassed. “Talk about delusions of grandeur. The truth is, I get sick to the core every time I think about it – and I don’t actually believe anything dramatic is going to happen.”

“One person to break the symmetry. Why not?”

She shook her head firmly. “There’ve been other attempts to shift the vote, which have all fallen through. Anything’s worth trying – but I have to keep my feet on the ground.”

Several things were running through my mind at once – though what might happen if the biotech patent laws ever really collapsed, globally, was almost too distant a prospect to contemplate. But the fact remained that Mosala had more use for the documentary than I’d ever imagined – and she’d told me all this to let me know as much, to give me the leverage she wanted me to employ, to ensure that her emigration did cause a stir.

It was also clear that the whole endeavor – however Quixotic – would be extremely unpopular in certain quarters.

Was that what Kuwale had had in mind? Not the Ignorance Cults, not PACDF fundamentalists, not even pro-science South African nationalists outraged by Mosala’s “desertion” – but powerful defenders of the biotech status quo? And if the teenaged burglar “paid to frighten her” hadn’t been lying, after all…

Mosala walked over to a side table and poured herself a glass of water. “Now you know all my deepest secrets, so I declare this interview over.” She raised the glass and declaimed self-mockingly, “ Vive la technolibération! ”

“ Vive .”

She said seriously, “Okay: there are rumors. Maybe half of Stateless knows exactly what’s going on – but I still don’t want those rumors confirmed until certain arrangements, certain agreements, are much more solid.”

“I understand.” And I realized, with a kind of astonishment, that somewhere along the way I’d won some measure of trust from her. Of course she was using me – but she must have believed that my heart was in the right place, that I’d let myself be used.

I said, “Next time you’re arguing circularity with Helen Wu deep into the night, do you think I could…?”

“Sit in? And record it?” She seemed to find the prospect dubious – but she said, “All right. Just so long as you promise not to fall asleep before we do.”

She walked me to the door, and we shook hands. I said, “Be careful.”

She smiled serenely, slightly amused at my concern, as if she didn’t have an enemy in the world.

“Don’t worry. I will.”

Chapter 17