“Their law rejects the idea that you can own a living thing,” said Donny. “Especially a thing that can feed the world.”

“We won’t be able to feed the world unless we can raise the funds to continue our research. Because our designs are still not hardy enough to really propagate.”

“Not without an army of free labor.”

“Basically. Tell them we can work out a deal where they share in some of that. As a proper licensee.”

“And then they will remind me the reason they have detained Heather. That Promethean Resources owes New Orleans a lot more than they owe you. The value of seven hundred million trees in the forests, or something along those lines.”

“A fanciful narrative wrapped in a simulation of law,” said Lecker. “You know that. They want us to pay for things Heather’s grandfather did, because some egghead came up with a half-baked theory that trees should have rights?”

“If corporations have rights, why not trees?”

Lecker harrumphed at that one.

“You don’t have to buy it,” said Donny. “But I think the better argument is that you can’t make the shareholders pay out of their own pockets for things the management did.”

“Yes, absolutely,” said Lecker. “Go with that.”

“They already awarded the judgment, though,” said Donny. “So the deck is stacked. But what if I got them to forgive it? You forgive the repudiated debt in exchange.”

Lecker leaned forward. “I didn’t agree to meet with you, Donny, because I wanted to work out some loser’s version of a ‘win-win’ deal. I agreed to meet with you because Lou made a very smart point to me, the kind of strategic insight only a first-rate trial lawyer like him can provide: that with you, we have an opportunity to enlist on our side someone the other side thinks is on their side. I am persuaded that is worth a try. But if you want me to pay you, as I know you do, then you will need to help me win. The Council needs to stop giving away our seeds. And they need to drop this retributive case against the company. In exchange, we will help them feed their people and achieve prosperity beyond their crunchy little imaginations.”

“Don’t forget about Heather,” said Donny.

“Of course not,” said Lecker. “That’s an essential part of the package. The most important part.”

Donny wondered if Lecker would be happy to have Heather out of the way.

He looked at the old dentist, sitting atop his virtual billions, the man who helped install the regime that had trashed the country in its misguided effort to save it, and now was angling to make a new fortune feeding the people he had helped starve. Donny tried to imagine presenting his list of demands to the new leaders in New Orleans, a junta of battle-hardened guerrillas and ideologues determined to liberate entire ecosystems from people like Lecker.