In the display, to Diko's astonishment, she saw herself and Hunahpu.

"It isn't enough to stop Cristoforo, " Diko was saying in the display. "We have to help him and his crew on Hispaniola to develop a new culture in combination with the Taino. A new Christianity that adapts to the Indies the way that it adapted to the Greeks in the second century. But that also isn't enough."

"I hoped you would see it that way," said Hunahpu in the display. "Because I intend to go to Mexico."

"What do you mean, Mexico?"

"That wasn't your plan?"

"I was going to say that we need to develop technology rapidly, to the point where the new hybrid culture can be a match for Europe."

"Yes, that's what I thought you were going to say. But of course that can't be done on the island of Haiti. Oh, the Spaniards will try, but the Tainos are simply not ready to receive that level of technology. It will remain Spanish, and that means a permanent class division between the white keepers of the machines and the brown laboring class. Not healthy."

Manjam paused the display. The images of Diko and Hunahpu froze.

Diko looked around at the others and saw that the fear and anger in their eyes was a match for what she felt.

"Those machines," said Hassan, "they aren't supposed to be able to see anything more recent than a hundred years ago."

"Normally they can't," said Marjam.

"Why does a mathematician know how to use the TruSite?" asked Hunahpu. "Pastwatch already duplicated all the lost private notes of the great mathematicians of history."

"This is an unspeakable violation of privacy," said Kemal icily.

Diko agreed, but she had already leaped to the most important question. "Who are you really, Marjam?"

"Oh, I'm really Manjam," he said."But no, don't protest, I understand your real question." He regarded them all calmly for a moment. "We don't talk about what we do, because people would misunderstand. They would think we are some kind of secret cabal that rules the world behind closed doors, and nothing could be farther from the truth."

"That reassures me completely," said Diko.

"We do nothing political. Do you understand? We don't interfere with government. We care a great deal about what governments do, but when we want to achieve some goal, we act openly. I would write to a government official as myself, as Manjam. Or appear on a broadcast. Stating my opinions. Do you see? We are not a secret shadow government. We have no authority over human lives."

"And yet you spy on us."

"We monitor all that is interesting and important in the world. And because we have the TruSite II, we can do it without sending spies or openly talking to anybody. We just watch, and then, when something is important or valuable, we encourage."

"Yes yes," said Hassan. "I'm sure you're noble and very kind in your godlike role. Who are the others?"

"I'm the one who came to you," said Manjam.

"And why are you showing us this? Why are you telling us?" asked Tagiri.

"Because you have to understand that I know what I'm talking about. And I have to show you some things before you will understand why your project has been so encouraged, why you've had no interference, why you've been allowed to bring together so many people from the moment you discovered, Tagiri and Hassan, that we can reach back and affect the past. And most especially since you, Diko, discovered that someone had already done so, canceling their own time in order to create a new future."

"So show us," said Hunahpu.

Manjam typed in new coordinates. The display changed. It was a long-distance aerial view of a vast stony plain with only a few desert plants every square meter, except for thick trees and grass along the banks of a wide river.

"What is this, the Sahara project?" asked Hassan.

"This is the Amazon," said Manjam.

"No," murmured Tagiri. "That's how bad it was before the restoration began?"

"You don't understand," said Maniam. "That is the Amazon right now. Or, technically speaking, about fifteen minutes ago." The display moved quickly, mile after mile down the river, and nothing changed until at last, after what must have been a thousand miles, they came to scenes familiar from the broadcasts: the thick growth of the rain-forest restoration project. But in just a few moments they had passed through the entire rain forest and were back to stony ground growing almost nothing. And so it remained, all the way to the marshy mouth of the river where it flowed into the sea.

"That was all? That was the Amazon rain forest?" asked Hunahpu.

"But that project has been going for forty years," said Hassan.

"It wasn't that bad when they started," said Diko.

"Have they been lying to us?" asked Tagiri.

"Come now," said Manjam. "You've all heard about the terrible loss of topsoil. You all know that with the forests gone, erosion was uncontrolled."

"But they were planting grass."

"And it died, " said Manjam. "They're working on new species that can live in the scarcity of important nutrients. Don't look so glum. Nature is on our side. In ten thousand years the Amazon should be right back to normal."

"That's longer than -- that's older than civilization."

"A mere hiccup in the ecological history of Earth. It simply takes time for new soil to be brought down from the Andes and built up on the banks of the river, where grasses and trees will thrive and gradually push their way outward from the river. At the rate of about six to ten meters a year for the grass, in the good spots. Also, it would help if there were some really massive flooding now and then, to spread new soil. A new volcano in the Andes would be nice -- the ash would be quite helpful. And the odds of one erupting in the next ten thousand years are pretty good. Plus there's always the topsoil blown across the Atlantic from Africa. You see? Our prospects are good."

Manjam's words were cheerful, but Diko was sure he was being ironic. "Good? That land is dead."

"Oh, well, yes, for now."

"What about Sahara restoration?" asked Tagiri.

"Going very well. Good progress. I give us five hundred years on that."

"Five hundred!" cried Tagiri.

"That's presupposing great increases in rainfall, of course. But our weather prediction is getting very good at the climatic level. You worked on part of that project for a while in school, Kemal."

"We were talking about restoring the Sahara in a hundred years."

"Well, yes, and that would happen, if we could continue to keep so many teams working on it. But that won't be possible for even ten more years."

"Why not?"

Again the display changed. The ocean in a storm, beating against a levee. It broke through. A wall of seawater broke across -- fields of grain?

"Where is that?" demanded Diko.

"Surely you heard about the breaching of the Carolina dike. In America."

"That was five years ago," said Hunahpu.

"Right. Very unfortunate. We lost the coastal barrier islands fifty years ago, with the rising of the ocean. This section of the North American east coast had been converted from tobacco and lumber production to grain, in order to replace the farmland killed by the drying of the North American prairie. Now vast acreages are under water."

"But we're making progress on finding ways to reduce the greenhouse gases," said Hassan.

"So we are. We think that, with safety, we can reduce the greenhouse effect significantly within perhaps thirty years. But by then, you see, we won't want to reduce it."

"Why not?" asked Diko. "The oceans are rising as the ice cap melts. We have to stop global warming."

"Our climate studies show that this is a self-correcting problem. The greater heat and the increased surface area of the ocean lead to significantly greater evaporation and temperature differentials worldwide. The cloud cover is increasing, which raises the Earth's albedo. We will soon be reflecting more sunlight than ever before since the last ice age."