CHAPTER 20
Sitting on the bed, Sakiko looked around at the drearily generic decor of her hotel room and thought about how many times she’d had to make a pitch for her research. She’d lost track of the number at the university level alone, first as she’d explained her proposal to her supervisor, then asked for initial feasibility funding from her department head, then went before the dean, the council and, later, because the plan was so urgent and so expensive, when she was seconded to the Institute’s Global Research Division. But even that was barely the beginning. It seemed as if each piece of the project required a fresh round of begging. Recent weeks had been consumed by a seemingly endless schedule of presentations to private enterprises and foundations that might have funds to offer.
