The Raft (7 page)

But as the weeks passed and it became
apparent that Maggie was genuinely perusing her plans to put their
home on the market, Rachael realized that Maggie had not been
joking. She was serious, she was really going to leave dryland and
live on a boat. Rachael was devastated. Rachael was hurt. Rachael
was angry.

And then, one day, Maggie was gone.

And here they were, five years later, with
Rachael throwing up over the grab rail of the very boat Maggie had
sold their home to purchase. Rachael righted herself and again
watched Maggie at the helm of the
Soft Cell
. The sun shone
on her face and wind whipped the curls of her hair around her
face.

Rachael should be mad, she should storm about
and stomp her feet and yell. But all Rachael was feeling was a
strange inner calm, the pleasure of seeing Maggie safe. When the
wire had come and Rachael had assumed that the dead woman was
Maggie... but now that was almost forgotten, replaced by the sight
of Maggie stand proud and tall at the helm of her boat.

So much taller than that lump on the couch
that Rachael remembered.

Chapter 7

The Raft was a floating Barnum & Bailey
Circus. Rachael could describe it no other way.

The Agate Pass opened out into the slower,
calmer waters of the Puget Sound. Circling the northern tip of
Bainbridge Island, the
Soft Cell
came sailing into the wakes
of a hodgepodge of small craft constituting the main flotilla of
the Raft.

The first outrider of the Raft Rachael caught
sight of was an elderly man standing aboard a paddle board. He was
moving away from the shore, for no apparent destination, buck naked
except for an elaborate Indian headdress of eagle feathers.

He waved as the
Soft Cell
sailed
silently past. Maggie returned his salute.

Soon, there were more boats moored here and
there, moored with a comfortable amount of water between each
craft. But as Maggie sailed farther around the north end of the
island, the craft grew thicker on the water. Before long,
artificial islands floated to the left and right of the
Soft
Cell,
whole islands formed by the lashing together of large,
mismatched collections of boats and dinghies. Everywhere there were
signs of life: on one craft, a group of long-haired, bearded men
performing in a drum circle; on another, a harem of burka-veiled
women stood watching the passing of Maggie's boat while a solitary,
smiling, gold-toothed man sat at the boat's prow, smoking a
hookah.

A cross between Seafair and Burning Man
indeed, Rachael thought, remembering Maggie's off-the-cuff
description. Rachael had no idea what she'd expected, but she
marveled at each and every ship as it passed. She'd never
understood the scale of the Raft, the reports on the news had never
done it justice. It was
big,
Rachael realized as Maggie
sailed the
Soft Cell
past cluster after cluster of bustling
boats. How many could there be? Five hundred? A thousand? It had to
be nearer to a thousand, she thought, climbing to her feet and
trying to see back to the edge of the Raft, back along the route by
which they'd entered. Rachael could no longer make the path Maggie
had followed through the clusters of boats, the Raft seemed to
close in behind them.

Rachael turned her attention back towards the
bow. She could just make out something large at very center of the
Raft. As they closed in, the outline of a ship resolved into view.
The ship sat at the epicenter of the commune. As Rachael sailed,
she could see the shiny chrome of the multi-decked Art Deco ferry,
the
Kalakala
, before her.

Rachael laughed. She knew that the old ferry,
a famous piece of Northwest history, had been purchased and
restored by a member of the Raft, but to see it in person was quite
something else. The mass of the great silver ferry dominated the
congregation of ships, sitting at their hub like an old church at
the center of some rural community. It glistened in the morning
sunlight, slick with the earlier light rain.

“The
Kalakala
!” Rachael said with joy.
“There it is!”

“That's Gandalf's junk,” Maggie replied.

“What- Gandalf's boat is the
Kalakala
?” Rachael felt like a schoolgirl. “We're going to
go aboard?”

“You bet,” Maggie smiled. “Sort of our town
hall. Gandalf bought it from some dryfoot years ago and restored
it. Its car deck is the only place a good number of Rafters can
stand shoulder to shoulder.”

“So this Gandalf,” Rachael said playfully.
“He's some sort of wizard?”

Maggie chuckled. “Smart ass.”

“No, seriously. What is he? Does he head this
Gray Beard council?” Rachael's reporter persona was making an
apprentice.

“I guess. Owning the town hall sort of makes
you the Mayor by default,” Maggie shrugged.

“Then, he's not elected? Appointed?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“I guess elections would be too structured
for the Raft.”

“They would,” Maggie nodded. “Legend has it
that the Raft chose the members of the council by measuring the
length of beards. Gandalf, with the longest whiskers, was made
chairman.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“It's misogynistic bullshit,” Maggie said
with venom. “But it served an important purpose.”

“What's that?”

“To look justifiably ridiculous to anyone
watching from dryland. It's all unofficial you see, the Raft. It
doesn't really exist. It's survived by walking a thin line of
plausible deniability with the dryfoot authorities. It doesn't
exist, therefore there's never been any need to do anything about
it. The second anything aboard the Raft started to look official,
like a governing council, the aura of deniabliity would have been
broken.”

“So you choose your leaders by the length of
their beards?”

“Exactly. Stupid. Juvenile. Sexist. Totally
impractical.”

“Just like the Raft,” Rachael smiled.

Maggie returned her grin. “But even without
the Gray Beards, Gandalf might still run most everything out here.
After all, he started the Exchange, and it's his gold that backs
it.”

The word 'gold' caught Rachael's ear. “What?
Exchange? Gold?”

“Mmm,” Maggie's grin turned into a sly
smirk.

“You're kidding me?”

“Nope. A room full of it somewhere. Aboard
the
Kalakala.
”

“A gray-bearded wizard, sitting on a horde of
gold?” Rachael said in disbelief.

“Life is stranger than fiction,” Maggie
said.

“At least the Raft is.”

#

The rafts of boats were growing thicker as
they neared the
Kalakala
. Dozens of craft were moored
together, bobbing gently on the waves. Twenty yards from the hull
of the old ferry, the raft grew so thick that the
Soft Cell
could sail no farther. Here, at the core of the Raft, boats formed
one large artificial island, wrapping the
Kalakala
in a
protective shell of smaller ships.

Maggie pulled up along the side of a large,
opulent pleasure craft and yelled out “Ahoy” in a deep, resonating
voice. From the lower decks of the pleasure yacht, a pair of young
men appeared and rapidly helped Maggie secure the two boats
together.

“From here, we walk,” Maggie told Rachael
once the lines were secure.

“Walk? Across the other boats?”

“Yes, it's how it works. This is as close as
we'll get to the
Kalakala
until this Raft breaks up and
starts to sail north. It's customary to allow other Rafters use of
your decks for transit. Sometimes these Rafts can get pretty big.
Everyone out here kind of likes to huddle together.” Maggie moved
up the length of the
Soft Cell
toward Chemical. “Come on,
let's go see the Wizard,” she told him.

“Piss off,” Chemical cursed.

“I could just leave you tied up here,” Maggie
said.

“No, you can't, Maggie Straight. I'll
sue.”

“You can't sue, Chemical, you don't have a
Magistrate.”

“But-”

“Come on.” Maggie took a pocket knife from
her jeans and cut the zip tie that held Chemical to the pulpit.

With Chemical Ali G free, Maggie took him by
the scruff of the neck and lead him off the deck of the
Soft
Cell
and up onto the deck of the neighboring pleasure
yacht.

“Maggie Straight?” Rachael asked, scrambling
up onto the yacht to follow.

“Yeah,” Maggie sighed. “Maggie Straight the
Magistrate,” she said.

“Really?”

“You said everyone on the Raft has 70's
Citizen Band handles...”

“Ooo, can I call you that?” Rachael
smirked.

“Absolutely not!” Maggie fired back.

#

Gandalf made a hole-in-one putt, a
two-banker, once off the angled support of a four-foot-tall Space
Needle, and once off the miniature
Dick's
Drive-In
sign. His ball vanished through the Astroturf before the burger
restaurant, appearing again below it at the precipice of the
diorama of Snoqualmie Falls. It skittered down the plastic water,
dropping onto the bridge deck of the I-90 bridge. Along this, it
scuttled back and forth, bouncing off guide walls until it broke
out onto the green surrounding the hole, a reproduction of Husky
Stadium, complete with working scoreboard.

His golf ball circled the hole twice, then
dropped into the collective cheers of everyone gathered on the
Kalakala
's car deck.

The representatives of Arrowsoft were duly
impressed.

They were three young men, pasty-skinned
computer types, dressed in slacks. Their youth stood in stark
contrast to the other putt-putt golfers, the rest of the Gray Beard
council. Everyone cheered, everyone was having a good time. The
business meeting was going well. Better than Gandalf could have
imagined.

“Well putt,” the Gray Beard called Orac said,
stepping up to tee off. The Space Needle hole of Gandalf's
Seattle-themed nine-hole putt-putt course was the second hardest,
but through practice, Gandalf had learned its tricks. The course,
after all, filled a sizable chunk of
Kalakala
's car deck,
and he could come down from his quarters above and play whenever he
chose. The only hole he couldn't reliably ace was the ninth hole,
the J.P. Patches clown head trap. It always stumped him and
required at least three or four swings.

Orac chipped at his ball. He made the bank
off the Space Needle, but missed the ricochet off the
Dick's
sign. His putt floundered, missing the opening to the Falls. He'd
have to take a deuce at least.

The car deck let out a collective groan.

The Arrowsoft boys were suitably entertained.
Dressed in their company shirts with the Arrowsoft Robin Hood logo
on the breast, they had originally looked uncomfortable stepping
aboard. Admittedly, a restored Art Deco car ferry was a strange
place for a business meeting, particularly for computer
professionals.

The Arrowsoft boys were typical geeks, with
the requisite lack of social graces. But as Gandalf had shown them
around, given them a tour of the engine room, the restored
Horseshoe Café - converted to his living quarters - and finally
brought them to his nine-hole golf course, they'd warmed to their
surroundings. When Gandalf had suggested a quick game... well, the
Arrowsoft boys couldn't resist.

“You see, it all comes down to a trade
surplus for the Raft,” Gandalf continued.

Six holes in, and he'd been pitching the Raft
to the Arrowsoft representatives the whole game. Gandalf wasn't
entirely sure they were paying attention. It was possible that the
putt-putt golf had been too good of an idea. They were focused on
the complexities of Gandalf's Seattle course and not on the idea of
opening a software development center aboard the Raft. Gandalf
needed their full attention, but he didn't want to lecture them. He
hoped that at least some of what he was saying was sinking in,
because he'd practiced his Raft sales pitch over and over. He knew
his numbers back to front, the cost-to-risk benefit of the whole
enterprise. If only he could get the Arrowsoft boys to listen for
ten minutes, he was sure he could blow their boots off. Both
literally and figuratively.

“If we were the US Government, we'd be
thinking that everything was wonderful. Trade surplus, did you
say?” Gandalf laughed at his own joke. Orac was squaring up to take
his second swing. “That sounds great! Give us more of that. But
that's just the stupidity of it all: those that run the country.
They have such a poor understanding of wealth. The government, like
so many people, foolishly confuses money with wealth. But it isn't.
Money and wealth have very little to do with one other. After all,
you can't
eat
money, you can't drive money around. Money in
itself is worthless. Less than worthless, because in all
probability, you exchanged something of great worth, as in your
time and effort, to get it. And time and effort, my friends, is
something that you can never get back.”

Orac took his swing. His ball dropped through
the opening to the Falls, down the plastic waterfall, across the
floating bridge and rolled to a halt in the end zone of Husky
Stadium, an inch from the hole. A second sympathetic groan rose up
from the other players. Absentmindedly, Orac crossed the course and
tapped the ball in its last inch.

One of the Arrowsoft boys stepped up to the
tee to take his putt.

Gandalf continued. “And there you have the
fallacy of trade deficits. The government thinks they're bad
because money flows out of the country. But that thinking ignores
what's flowing back in. It is trade after all, an exchange of goods
and services. Something must be flowing back in, something of at
least equal value to the money that's flowing out; otherwise, why
would the trades be taking place? And what's flowing back into the
country is real wealth, something that you can eat or drive or play
Xbox games on. Something of
value
. Unlike money.”