Chapter<br >Nicholas Hyde is working late and alone when Tremaine Thompson comes up<br >the hill to ask his question. The setting sun throws Tremaine s shadow ahead<br >of him as he climbs through strip fields on the slope above the shallow tribu-<br >tary of the Congo River and the ruins of the village. The day s stored heat<br >beats up from the red African dirt. Dry stubble crackles under his boots. In<br >the gallery forest at the edge of the fields， mobs of butterflies， their wings<br >printed with the blue， red， and white logo of a famous soft drink， are love-<br >bombing flowering vines， as indifferent to what happened here as to what has<br >been done to their genes.<br > Fourteen months ago， a ragged gang of armed men burst out of the forest<br >and seized control of the village. They were soldiers loyal to Sergeant Samuel<br >Nyibizo s military dictatorship， in headlong retreat from the victorious forces<br >of a democratic coalition supported by Obligate， the biggest and brashest of<br >the new wave of environmentally conscious transnationals. The soldiers shot<br >two men who tried to resist， and rounded up the rest of the villagers and<br >forced them to undress. They killed the village s pigs and chickens， set fire to<br >the huts and the little tin-roofed schoolhouse， smashed the solar-powered<br >water pump and the satellite dish. Then they marched the naked men，<br >women， and children up into the fields.<br > A young woman who had been collecting wild ginger in the forest saw<br >something of what the soldiers did before she lost her nerve and ran away. She<br >said that they killed the women first， because they had been makin~ the most<br >