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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.
“But what really sent the Raft into a tailspin was my pricing model. I sold my service as a subscription. It worked for me because I had a steady income, and it worked for my clients because they didn't have to raise funds for each and every case they wanted heard. The only caveat, however, in my system is that I only hear disputes between two parties who are paid-up members in good standing with me. You couldn't sue an outsider, it all stays in the family. That way, my impartiality is maintained. Get it? Both parties are paying me, so neither has the upper hand.”
“Doesn't that mean you pretty much have to have everyone on the Raft as a client for the scheme to be practical?”
“Exactly,” Maggie said with no small measure of pride. “And that's what Rafters do. Pay two, three, or even four competing Magistrates to make sure their bases are covered. It's called selling your franchise. Giving up a small amount of your freedom so you're covered by the largest possible legal umbrella. You get to sue in my court, but also get sued. Either way, you have to abide by my decisions.
“Many other Magistrates have switched to my subscription model to stay relevant. It's competitive law enforcement. You dryfoots think that out here we're a lawless bunch of no-good beach bums, but in reality we're exactly the opposite: your average Rafter is positively swimming in law and order. Redundant and competitive, maybe, but more than just one emergency number to call when you're in trouble. And all for a fraction of the price of one good lawyer on dryland.”
“And Horus is a dues-paying member of your clan?”
“Much to my eternal shame, yes.” Maggie moved from behind the helm. She had maneuvered the Soft Cell out of the main current of traffic and towards the shore of Bainbridge Island. There, near the tree-lined beach of Fort Word, a lone ramshackle boat sat moored. Maggie began to reef her sails, slowing her vessel.
“And he's paying you? He's paying you to come after him like this and arrest him?”
“That's right.” The sailed furled, the Soft Cell lost its momentum as it closed in on the cluttered vessel. Maggie quickly moved the length of her boat and stepped up to the pulpit. “Me and perhaps the other half-dozen Magistrates he subscribes to. I just got here first.”
“And having this franchise gives you police powers over him?”
“It's all in the contract he signed,” Maggie said. As the bow of Maggie's vessel touched up against the moored craft, she reached out and caught hold of the parked vessel. In a long, smooth series of motions she began to lash the two craft together.
When she'd finished, Maggie pulled herself erect and examined the cluttered deck of the other vessel. “So, I have his franchise, and that makes me his cop,” Maggie continued. “And Meerkat, to
o. I had her franchise, too. You take the good with the bad. But when you've taken money to do a job...”
As Maggie stood at the gunwale of the Soft Cell, she began to ready herself to leap across to the cluttered deck of the moored vessel beyond. As she did, she drew a small, black, polymer revolver from the waistband of her jeans and leveled it at the foreign deck.