The Raft (3 page)

“Maggie...”

“Rachael, take your own advice: don't
start.”

“But-”

“Don't.”

Rachael let her mouth close. She busied
herself with her second boot and sock. When she was barefoot, she
pulled herself back to her feet and tested the fiberglass below her
toes. It was cold and damp and Rachael felt dizzy.

What the hell was she doing here?

She began shuffling back towards the stern,
one hand keeping hold of the grab rail and the other holding her
boots. “What are you going to do, Maggie?” Rachael said, not
looking up from her toes.

“Do?” Maggie seemed surprised by the
question. “Arrest Horus, of course.”

Of course. “But I thought you said you
weren't a cop?” Rachael said as she reached the cockpit. She
dropped heavily down onto one of the long benches, never slacking
her iron grip on the boat's railing.

“I said it didn't work like that. But if it
helps to think of me as a policeman, fine.”

“No,” Rachael winced. That was Maggie: don't
explain, just condescend. “If I'm going to write an article about
the Raft, you have to explain things to me. Are you a cop or are
you not?”

Maggie paused, looked at Rachael out of the
corner of her eye, then chuckled. “Yes. And no. It just not like
that out here, Rachael.”

“But you can arrest this Horus
character?”

Maggie nodded.

“And you're sure he's the murder?”

Maggie shrugged.

“Well, is he or isn't he? Isn't he innocent
until proven guilty? Even out here on the Raft?”

“I doubt anyone has ever seriously considered
Horus innocent of anything in his life. But I see your point.”

“Then who decides if he's guilty or innocent?
A jury of his peers? A judge? What? Does the Raft have any sort of
judicial system in place?” Rachael shifted in her seat, trying not
to think about her queasy stomach. “No? You've never had to deal
with a serious crime like this, have you? So there's never been any
need. Damn it, Maggie, this is what everyone onshore is saying:
that you're a bunch of spoiled, pie-in-the-sky New Agers, dodging
taxes, skipping out on the check, preaching peace and love while
practicing self-preservation. And now the Raft has finally killed
someone, some poor, young, innocent girl, and now the world can see
you all for what you really are: dangerous. Dangerous to yourself
and dangerous to mainstream society.”

Maggie didn't answer. She flipped a few
switches on the console by the helm and the sound of churning water
rose from a propeller at the stern of the
Soft Cell
. The
craft lurched perceptively forward, cutting into the drizzle of the
typical Puget Sound morning.

Apart from the sound of the needing water,
the boat was completely silent. No engine noise. Everything was
electric.

“Maggie,” Rachael continued, changing her
tone. “They're ramping up for something big back onshore. I don't
know what, I've only heard rumors, but you don't need me to tell
you what the death of this poor girl means: cops, the FBI, the
Coast Guard. Everyone has woken up this morning with the Raft first
and foremost in the news. If popular opinion has kept the Raft safe
until now, it's going to rise up and bite you in the ass when
America hears about this girl. It's everything they've been waiting
for, Maggie, all the ammunition they've ever needed. This time,
Maggie, they're going to sink the Raft.”

“I know,” Maggie said tersely.

“Then let's go,” Rachael pleaded. She stood
up and put her hand on the suspended dinghy. “Lower this back in
the water and let's head back to Alki. Forget about this boat and
forget about the Raft. The time has come, Maggie. Cut your losses.
You know what's going to happen when the FBI sails out here and
starts pushing people around. There's going to be violence. There's
no need for you to get caught up in that. Come on, Maggie, let's
head back to shore. We can put you up, we have spare room. You'll
be safe. Maggie? Maggie, are you listening?”

“I am, I am,” Maggie replied, holding the
helm in both hands.

“Then let's go.”

“No.”

“Maggie.”

“Rachael.”

“You don't seriously want to be out here, in
open water, when the authorities arrive? Do you?”

“No, certainly not.”

“Then what are you planning to do?”

“What am I planning?” Maggie finally turned
to look at Rachael, incredulity in her voice. “Just what I said:
arrest Horus, put him in cuffs, and hand him over to the dryfoot
cops, guilty or innocent. I don't care. If the cops want a patsy,
then I'm more than happy to provide them with one.”

“But that's not going to satisfy them,
Maggie.” Rachael shook her head.

“And why not?” Maggie replied. “If the Raft
can solve this murder before the dryfoots have even finished with
their breakfast, why not?”

“Maggie, I don't think you understand-”
Rachael began.

“No Rachael, I don't think you understand.
Dryfoot cops – Feds – aboard the Raft, you don't understand how the
Rafters will react. Violence is an understatement. It will mean
all-out war. People here have been foretelling this for years.
They've been readying themselves since the earliest days of the
Raft. People have guns, lots of them, and every intention of using
them.”

“Then all the more reason to go ashore
now.”

“I can't leave the Raft to that fate,
Rachael, I just can't. Not when there's so much I can still do to
avert it.”

“Then there's no convincing you?” Rachael
said dejectedly. She dropped back down on the cockpit bench and
leaned back.

“No,” Maggie replied. “At least, not
yet.”

“Then?” Rachael perked up, letting her word
hang in the air between them.

“Maybe. I'm going to need your help, Rachael.
If I show up onshore with Horus, that's one thing. But if I show up
onshore with Horus
and
a reporter from the newspaper...
well, that's something else entirely.”

Rachael nodded, leaned back against the bench
with a smile.

“Maggie?” she said tentatively after a long
silence.

“Yes?”

“I- I don't really have a story to write,”
she admitted. “My editor isn't even out of bed at this hour. When
the news came in... I was so worried...”

“It's all right,” Maggie replied, her eyes
fixed straight ahead, watching the water. “I only keep that
phone... because I know you still had the number.”

“What a pair we make,” Rachael commented
reflectively.

“Yes,” Maggie answered. “What a pair.”

Chapter 3

The Raft, like so many social revolutions,
was only made practical by a seemingly unrelated technological
innovation.

In 2026, after the government embargoed
diesel sales to the various unaffiliated Rafts that had sprouted up
on the many inland waterways of the United States, the movement
appeared literally dead in the water. Without fuel, living
disconnected from dryland would be totally impossible.

If it had not been for the recent
introduction of cheap, high-strength, flexible solar cells, the
Raft would have sunk before it even really cast off from the shore.
Clean, cheap solar energy arrived just in the nick of time to offer
the Rafters an alternative to the government-controlled fuel
monopoly. The Raft stayed afloat and has remained predominately
solar powered to this day.

Of course, many original Rafters, old hands
at sailing, opted to live aboard their sailing craft. This too
provided them with a source of power. On a blustery day, they could
happily sail to and fro to their heart's content. But wind was a
finicky power source. Such vehicles normally depended on diesel
motors to maneuver when the wind was poor, or when close to land.
Solar cells, however, stitched into the fabric of their sails,
allowed for the best of both worlds: wind power when the breeze was
favorable, and electric motor power when it was not.

So quite by accident, the Raft became the
poster child for green, eco-friendly living. It was hardly by
choice, but a necessity forced upon the Raft by government
pressure. For what the government could control, it could take away
from the Raft, and was more than happy to do so. The sun and wind,
however, belonged to everyone. And that the Rafter could count
on.

#

When the
Soft Cell
had motored
completely around the southern tip of Bainbridge Island, Maggie
unfurled its sails and let the wind carry the boat north. Its
foresail was its solar panel, one of the newest designs. Not simply
solar cells stitched onto the fabric of the sail, but a whole sail
weaved out of photovoltaic material. It glistened silver as the
first rays of sun broke through the rain clouds. It whipped and
snapped in the breeze, as thin and fixable as any cloth.

They were sailing full and by as the
tree-lined shore of Fort Ward passed to their right. The Rich
Passage was busy with its usual morning traffic. Vessels of all
shapes and sizes, some Rafter but mostly dryfoot, passed by. A
State of Washington Ferry lumbered by, hauling its load of cars and
passengers towards the port of Bremerton. In its wake, the hull the
Soft Cell
bobbed and danced. Maggie sat at the helm, calmly
watching the water, the wind whipping her hair around her.

It was Rachael who broke the silence.

“So, then what are you, Maggie? If you're not
a cop?” she asked, blinking against the sun trying to break through
the clouds.

Maggie looked back away from the prow and
over to the bench where Rachael was watching the ferry float by.
“They call people like me Magistrates,” she said. “Maybe we're more
that than anything else.”

“You're a judge?”

“I'm in
dispute resolution
, yeah.”

“But not a cop?”

“Well, I'm Horus's cop, I'll tell you that
for nothing.”

“His
personal
policeman?”

Maggie laughed. “No, but God knows he could
use one. I have his franchise.”

“His what?”

“His-” Maggie paused, searching for the right
words. “It's hard to explain.”

“To a regular person? Living in the real
world of law and order?” Rachael said, hardly hiding the sarcasm in
her voice.

“To a dryfoot, yes,” Maggie replied, not
taking the bait. “Look, aboard the Raft, law is a service you
purchase, like anything else.”

Rachael snorted. “And how does
that
work?”

“Well,” Maggie began, turning her attention
back to navigation and keeping her hands on the helm, “Rafters are
almost chronically allergic to authority. I'm sure you've guessed
that. Authority is the reason most cast off... why they left
dryland in the first place. No one wants the Raft to turn into a
smaller, more shitty copy of society at large. We leave
society
to the dummies who think paying 40% VAT is a
reasonable thing to do. But, it's obvious to anyone who's lived out
here for any period of time that you can't run even a loose-knit,
come-as-you-are, wavy-gravy, hand-waving sort of confederation
without at least a few unbreakable edicts.

“Turns out, everyone, eventually, needs a
judge. Eventually, over the normal course of events, we all come to
blows with someone over something. As much as you might try to mind
your own business, it's still
business
. Even in the most
basic of barter economies, you've got to force folk to stand by
their word, or... well, it all comes unraveled. If the Raft can't
enforce contracts, it isn't really the Raft. Or really much of
anything at all.”

“So, some sort of tort law?”

“Right. After you've tried threats and
fisticuffs and yelling really loud and haven't really gotten much
for your red-faced pains, you eventually have to go find some
neutral third party for a little objective adjudication.”

“A neutral third party like the
government?”

It was Maggie's turn to snort. “Yeah, but no
one out here wants anything to do with shit like that. First you
got courts and then you've got cops and then you got men with guns
and inflation and income tax and all that dryfoot crap.”

“You mean civilization?” Rachael smirked.

“Right, crap,” Maggie dismissed. “Aboard the
Raft, all you need is some other Rafter who owes nothing to party A
or party B. That's just about any other Rafter that the two arguing
parties can agree on. And if the arbitrator is adequately
compensated for his efforts, then no one's the worse for wear.”

“You
pay
your judges? Isn't that a
horrible conflict of interest?”

“Well, yeah,” Maggie had to admit. “But it's
not like you can expect someone to do it for free. After all, why
would they? But it was my first thought when got out here, too.
This is how you run your Raft? But then that's the genius of this
place – what makes the Raft wholly unique: if you don't like how
things are run, even the law, you just go right ahead and make
things run better. And that's what I did.”

“You did what?” Rachael asked, confused.

“I hung up a shingle. Went into the
adjudication business myself. But I updated the business
model.”

“The business of right and wrong?”

“Judging it, at least. You see, back then,
when I cast off, female judges were unheard of. Deep down inside,
people are a sexist, racist, stupid bunch of idiots, as I'm sure
you're aware. The Raft isn't any better. It's just made up of
regular folks, after all. But it turns out being a woman is
actually an advantage in this line of business. There's less ego to
bruise with me. And most men actually listen to a strong female
voice better. Maybe I reminded them off their mothers... anyway,
when it comes to losing face, they seem able to lose it better in
front of a woman than another man. After a few cases, I started to
get a reputation for levelheadedness.