In theory, a patent lasted only seventeen years – but biotech companies had perfected the strategy of reapplying for the same coverage from a different angle when the expiration date loomed: first for the DNA sequence of a gene, and all its applications … then for the corresponding amino acid sequence … then for the shape and functionality (irrespective of precise chemical makeup) of the fully assembled protein. I couldn’t bring myself to simply shrug off the theft of knowledge as a victimless crime – I’d always been swayed by the argument that no-one would waste money on R&D if engineered lifeforms couldn’t be patented – but there was something insane about the fact that the most powerful tools against famine, the most powerful tools against environmental damage, the most powerful tools against poverty … were all priced beyond the reach of everyone who needed them the most.

As I began to cross toward the exit, I saw Janet Walsh heading in the same direction, and I hung back. She was walking with a group of half a dozen men and women – but one man walked a few meters outside the entourage, with a practiced smooth gait and a steady gaze directed straight at Walsh. I recognized the technique at once, and the practitioner a moment later: David Connolly, a photographer with Planet Noise . Walsh needed a second pair of eyes, of course – she would hardly have let them put all that nasty dehumanizing technology inside her own body … and, worse, her own POV would have left her out of every shot. Not much point employing a celebrity journalist if she wasn’t on-screen.

I followed at a discreet distance. A group of forty or fifty supporters were standing outside in the warm night air, holding up luminescent banners – more telegenic in the relative darkness than they would have been inside – which switched in synch between HUMBLE SCIENCE!, WELCOME JANET! and SAY NO TO TOE! They cheered in unison as Walsh came through the doors. She broke away from her halo of companions to shake hands and receive kisses; Connolly stood back to capture it all.

Walsh made a short speech, wisps of gray hair blowing in the breeze. I couldn’t fault her skills with camera or crowd: she had the knack of appearing dignified and authoritative, without seeming stern or aloof. And I had to admire her stamina: she displayed more energy after the long flight than I could have summoned if my life had been in danger.