"No! Nanotechnology would be available only to the very rich. It would be one more method by which the rich separate themselves from the poor. This cannot be allowed! The gap between the rich and poor is one of the most pernicious and dangerous causes of unrest and instability on Earth! We must strive to narrow this gap, not widen it."

"By making everybody equally poor," Joanna muttered, seated on Doug's other side.

"Furthermore," Faure continued, "nanotechnology can be used as an insidious new form of weapon, deadlier than poisonous gas, more difficult to detect and counter than biological weapons. In a world tottering on the brink of catastrophe, the very last thing we desire is a new weapons technology. We have worked for more than ten years now to convince nations to give up their armies and allow the Peacekeepers to protect their borders. We have reduced the world's nuclear arsenals to a mere handful of missiles. We stand for disarmament and peace! How could we allow scientists in their secret laboratories to design perfidious new weapons of nanomachines?"

"So," Zimmerman grumbled, down the table from Doug, "now I am an evil Dr Frankenstein."

Faure took a sip of Evian, replaced the glass delicately on the podium, and resumed.

"As I said, every nation on Earth has finally signed the nanotechnology treaty. At last, there is no place on Earth where nanotechnology can be practiced or taught."

Another burst of applause. But Doug knew what was coming next: the real reason for Faure's speech.

"Yet there is a place where nanotechnology is practiced every day, every hour. That place is not on Earth. It is on the Moon, at the privately owned center called Moonbase."

"Pass the bread, here comes the baloney," somebody in the cafeteria said, loudly enough to echo off the rock walls. No one laughed or even stirred to see who said it.

"The residents of Moonbase have refused to suspend their nanotechnology workings. They have refused to stop their researches into new forms and uses of nanotechnology.' Faure's face had become grim. "True, they have offered to allow United Nations representatives to inspect their facilities and their laboratories, but they absolutely refuse to abide by the requirements of the nanotechnology treaty."

He looked up at his audience. "This cannot be allowed! We cannot permit them to develop further the nanotechnology in secret, some four hundred thousand kilometers away from our supervision!"

Faure's moustache was starting to bristle. "Who knows what kinds of new and dreadful capabilities they are developing in their secret laboratories? Who knows what their intentions are?"

People in The Cave were jeering now. "The bastard knows we need nanobugs to make the air we breathe!"

Taking a deep breath, Faure raised his hands as if motioning for attention. "Therefore, I have sent a detachment of Peacekeeper troops to Moonbase to enforce the conditions of the nanotechnology treaty on the lunar residents. They will arrive at Moonbase within slightly more than four days. Their mission is one of peace; but they are of course prepared to defend themselves if the Moonbase residents offer resistance."