She paused for effect. “Money. That’s what motivates the whole science. Research into biotechnology will be worth around one hundred billion dollars by the turn of the millennium. They tell us it’s for ‘the good of mankind,’ to feed the hungry millions of the world. But there is not a shred of evidence that the technology will be any cheaper, or any more productive in the long term.

“When they ran into trouble with regulators in the States, the big biochemical companies simply started moving their projects to other parts of the world. Like China. Places where there is little or no regulation to govern the commercial introduction of genetically modified crops. And do you know what’s interesting? When one of these companies comes up with a crop that’s resistant to a certain herbicide, guess who also manufactures that herbicide.”

“The same company?”

“You’re catching on. And instead of reducing the amount of herbicide we’re polluting our planet with, we’ll be using even more, because the crop we’re growing is resistant to it.”

She slapped her palms on her thighs. “Jesus, it makes me so mad! And these goddamn scientists! Philanthropists? Like hell. They’ll do anything to keep the funding coming in from the biochemical companies so they can carry on playing God. And don’t believe the myth about these crops bringing down costs and increasing yield to feed the third world. Remember the guy with the tomatoes—the fact that he has to buy fresh seeds every year? Well, that’s what farmers in the third world are going to have to do, too. And who will they have to buy them from? Well, the biochemical companies, of course—who also control the price.”

Li shook his head. “This is all a bit too much for me. I mean, all I know is that they brought in this super-rice three years ago and they have doubled production. There is no hunger in China. For the first time we are major exporters of food to other countries.”

Margaret shrugged, passion finally spent. And she wondered what point there had ever been in it. There was nothing she could do to change the way things were. “I guess,” she sighed. “Like I said, it’s not as if the technology might not have some benefits. It’s the long term I worry about. The consequences we can’t possibly predict that are going to affect our children, or our children’s children.”

Li growled and banged the steering wheel. The traffic had ground to yet another halt. “What’s the time?” he asked.

“Nearly half past.”