Something in the tone of her voice stung Anstruther.

“No. Certainly not. So you’ve simply done what your mother told you all the years of your life! Did you never have any ideas of your own? What does your husband make of you being stuck here for seventy years, just grubbing in the soil?”

“Andy is my brother, master, if you refer to him. And we’ve been perfectly happy and harmed no one. Nor been impolite to anyone…”

We had regained the tiny paved area by the gate. We could smell the fragrance of the thyme, growing in the cracks between the paving stones, crushed underfoot. The two looked at each other in mutual distrust. Anstruther was a tall, solidly built man, who dominated the fragile little woman before him.

He saw she was angry. I feared he might destroy all her contentment with an expression of his irritation at her narrow-mindedness. He held the words back.

“Well, it’s a pretty garden you have,” he said. “Very pretty. I’m glad to have seen it.”

She was pleased by the compliment. “Perhaps there might be gardens like this on Mars one day,” she suggested, with a certain slyness.

“Not very likely.”

“Perhaps you would like some beans to take away with you?”

“I carry no money.”

“No, no, I mean as a gift. They might improve your temperament after all that factory food you eat.”

“Don’t be disgusting. Eat your beans yourself.”

He turned and gestured to me to open the gate. His two security men were waiting for him outside.

Anstruther’s jet took us to the UN building. Members of the United Nationalities rarely met in person. They conferred over the Ambient, and only on special occasions were they bodily present; this was such an occasion, when the future of the planet Mars was to be decided. For this reason, the United Nationalities building was small, and not particularly imposing, although in fact it was larger than it needed to be, to satisfy the egos of its members.