Geddes shifted the pointer further north, holding it at arm's length. 'Up there between the true desert and the rain forests is where Nyala plans to build a power station.'

Everyone present had already heard about this, but still there were murmurs and an uneasy shifting. It would take more than one set of fingers to enumerate the obvious problems. I picked one of them at random.

'What about cooling water? There's a drought in the Sahara.'

McCahill stirred. 'No problem. We put down boreholes and tapped plenty of water at six thousand feet.' He grimaced. 'Coming up from that depth it's pretty warm, but extra cooling towers will take care of that.' McCahill was on the design staff.

'And as a spin-off we can spare enough for local irrigation and consumption, and that will help to put us across to the inhabitants.' This from Public Relations, of course.

The drought in the Sahara is going to continue for a long time yet,' Geddes said. 'If the Nyalans can use their gas to fuel a power station then there'll be the more electricity for pumping whatever water there is and for irrigating. They can sell their surplus gas to neighbour states too. Niger is interested in that already.'

It made sense of a kind, but before they could start making their fortunes out of oil and gas they had to obtain the stuff. I went over to the map and studied it.

'You'll have trouble with transport. There's the big stuff like the boilers and the transformers. They can't be assembled on site. How many transformers?'

'Five,' McCahill said. 'At five hundred megawatts each. Four for running and one spare.'

'And at three hundred tons each,' I said.

'I think Mister Milner has sorted that out,' said Geddes.

Milner was our head logistics man. He had to make sure that everything was in the right place at the right time, and his department managed to keep our computers tied up rather considerably. He came forward and joined me at the map. 'Easy,' he said. 'There are some good roads.'

I was sceptical. 'Out there – in Nyala?'

He nodded thoughtfully. 'Of course, you haven't been there yourself, have you, Neil? Wait until you read the full specs. But I'll outline it for you and the others. After they got colonial rule their first president was Maro Ofanwe. Remember him?'

Someone made a throat-slitting gesture and there was a brief uneasy laugh. Nobody at the top likes to be reminded of coups of any sort.

'He had the usual delusions of grandeur. One of the first things he did was to build a modern super-highway right along the coast from Port Luard to Hazi. Halfway along it, here at Lasulu, a branch goes north to Bir Oassa and even beyond -to nowhere. We shouldn't have any trouble in that department.'

'I'll believe that road when I see it.'

Milner was annoyed and showed it. 'I surveyed it myself with the boss of the transport company. Look at these photographs.'

He hovered at my elbow as I examined the pictures, glossy black-and-white aerial shots. Sure enough, there it was, looking as though it had been lifted bodily from Los Angeles and dumped in the middle of a scrubby nowhere.

'Who uses it?'

The coast road gets quite a bit of use. The spur into the interior is under-used and under-maintained. The rain forest is encroaching in the south and in the north there will be trouble with sand drifts. The usual potholes are appearing. Edges are a bit worn in spots.' This was common to most African tarmac and hardly surprised me. He went on, There are some bridges which may be a bit dicey, but it's nothing we can't cope with.'

'Is your transport contractor happy with it?'

'Perfectly.'

I doubted that. A happy contractor is like a happy farmer – more or less nonexistent. But it was I who listened to the beefs, not the hirers and firers. I turned my attention back to Geddes, after mending fences with Milner by admiring his photographs.

'I think Mister Shelford might have something to say,' Geddes prompted.

Shelford was a political liaison man. He came from that department which was the nearest thing British Electric had to the State Department or the British Foreign Office. He cocked an eye at Geddes. 'I take it Mr Mannix would like a rundown on the political situation?'

'What else?' asked Geddes a little acidly.

I didn't like Shelford much. He was one of the striped pants crowd that infests Whitehall and Washington. Those guys like to think of themselves as decision makers and world shakers but they're a long way from the top of the tree and they know it. From the sound of his voice, Geddes wasn't too taken with Shelford either.

Shelford was obviously used to this irritable reaction to himself arid ignored it. He spread his hands on the table and spoke precisely. 'I regard Nyala as being one of the few countries in Africa which shows any political stability at the present time. That, of course, was not always so. Upon the overthrow of Maro Ofanwe there was considerable civil unrest and the army was forced to take over, a not atypical action in an African state. What was atypical, however, was that the army voluntarily handed back the reins of power to a properly constituted and elected civil government, which so far seems to be keeping the country on an even keel.'

Some of the others were growing restive under his lecturing, and Geddes cut in on what looked like the opening of a long speech. That's good so far,' he said. 'At least we won't have to cope with the inflexibility of military minds.' I grinned. 'Just the deviousness of the political ones.'

Shelford showed signs of carrying on with his lecture and this time I cut in on him. 'Have you been out there lately, Mister Shelford?'

'No, I haven't.'

'Have you been there at all?'

'No,' he said stiffly. I saw a few stifled smiles.

'I see,' I said, and switched my attention to Sutherland. 'I suggest we hear from the man on the spot. How did you find things, John?'

Sutherland glanced at Geddes for a nod of approval before speaking.

'Well, broadly speaking, I should say that Mister Shelford seems correct. The country shows remarkable stability; within limits, naturally. They are having to cope with a cash shortage, a water shortage, border skirmishes – the usual African troubles. But I didn't come across much conflict at the top when we were out there.'

Shelford actually smirked. Geddes said, 'Do you think the guarantees of the Nyalan Government will stand up under stress, should it come?'

Sutherland was being pressed and he courageously didn't waver too much. 'I should think so, provided the discretionary fund isn't skimped.'

By that he meant that the palms held out to be greased should be liberally daubed, a not uncommon situation. I said, 'You were speaking broadly, John. What would you say if you had to speak narrowly?'

Now he looked a little uncomfortable and his glance went from Geddes to Shelford before he replied. 'It's said that there's some tribal unrest.'

This brought another murmur to the room. To the average European, while international and even intercounty and intercity rivalries are understandable factors, the demands of tribal loyalties seem often beyond all reason; in my time I have tried to liken the situation to that of warring football clubs and their more aggressive fans, but non-tribal peoples seemed to me to have the greatest difficulties in appreciating the pressures involved. I even saw eyebrows raised, a gesture of righteous intolerance which none at that table could afford. Shelford tried to bluster.

'Nonsense,' he said. 'Nyala's a unified state if ever I saw one. Tribal conflict has been vanquished.'

I decided to prick his balloon. 'Apparently you haven't seen it, though, Mister Shelford. Conflict of this sort is never finished with. Remember Nigeria – it happened there, and that's almost next door. It exists in Kenya. It exists throughout Africa. And we know that it's hard to disentangle fact from fiction, but we can't afford to ignore either. John, who are the top dogs in Nyala, the majority tribe?'