The walls are warm to the touch. Mathilde Kanak runs her hand along them, caressing the architecture of her floating city. At last, power is hers. Brought to this vast network of inter-connected rafts as a child and sold into prostitution, she now sits at the peak of the nation. In a very real sense, it belongs to her.
Outside, the waves of the Pacific lap against the raft, making it sway slightly near the edges. The rocking is undetectable here, though, far from the refugee shanty towns of the edge communities, where poverty-stricken citizens earn barely an hour of sexual service per year, and survive only off the scraps from the Erotic Bank's kitchens. But Mathilde is glad to feed them those scraps -- she first worked in those shanties.
And now? Far from her roots, she has clawed her way to the top of the Erotic Bank, made its currency -- the hour of sexual service -- into the currency of the whole Floating World, and parlayed that into the presidency itself. Her rivals float in suspended animation tanks, against the day they may prove useful. A nation lies at her feet.
Her thoughts turn to acquisitions. A whole world of opportunity, for the entrepreneur shrewd enough to take it.
Years earlier, leagues distant...
The sand is too hot for this, really. Mathilde can't keep her feet on the beach too long, or they'll burn. But not too fast. The rules of the women's dance are this: both feet can't leave the earth at once, one foot must always be in contact with the ground. The men's dance honours the sky, with great leaps and shouts. The women's dance honours the earth, with silences, and always with one foot grounded. And so Mathilde dances, learning the steps, but fast, with a teenager's impatience.
The birdsong changes. What's that? Mathilde looks around, to the sea. There are buildings on the horizon, moving towards her island. Shimmering in late afternoon's light as the sun sinks towards them. She stares. Such a thing can't be comprehended. Towers in the ocean, dancing towards her.
----------o----------
High in one of those towers, the Corporate Oligarchy of the Floating World has gathered. Solomon Nuku'alofa, CEO of AmphX, is speaking.
"You know about the vast new markets for the amphibious automobile. Profits are way up, for AmphX and for the rest of you too. Tomorrow we're announcing a four-for-one stock split. The markets look like they'll never stop leaping upwards. But one problem may threaten our eternal profit curve: labour shortages. Even with the free immigration to anyone who wants to come, we can't find enough cheap labourers. And we can't outsource to some Third World country without sending the factories offshore, where we could lose the secret of the amphibious auto manufacture. So i have a proposal."
He swictches on the Power Point, which highlights in bright colours: OPERATION PRESS GANG
"As you can see on the map," he indicates his second slide, "we are currently moving towards New Caledonia, undefended and heavily-populated. With your approval, motor launches are standing ready to buzz the coast and make offers they can't refuse to healthy young New Caledonians. In other words, we'll be teaking care of our labour shortage now, with new manpower abducted from this island. We'll also be taking care of it for future generations, since we'll also be taking women aged 15 to 25 for the prostitution and childbirth industries. AmphX is prepared to cut you all in on these industries. So, gentlemen, what do you think. Is Operation Press Gang a go?"
The short silence is broken by a voice from the foot of the table. "DrillCorp votes aye." And then the voices are tripping over each other to answer.
"Floating Industries votes aye."
"Digital Book Co votes aye."
"Armsco FW votes aye."
Nuku'alofa smiles broadly. There is no surprise in his face. Greed always wins out.
"Then, gentlemen, I declare the Corporate Oligarchy agreed. Operation Press Gang is greenlighted."
----------o----------
Carrying torches, Mathilde's parents return from the festival in Nouméa. The last fingers of orange and pink light are slipping below the horizon. Their hut is empty, their daughter nowhere to be found.
"Mathilde," they call. "Chérie? Ou est toi?" Their voices more and more desperate, they search for the girl. On the beach, kicked-up sand: signs of a struggle. "Chérie? Dieu, ma fille!" As the darkness closes in, only the voices of terrified parents can be heard, callign over and over "Mathilde!" But the girl is gone.
The present...
Candlelight dances along Mathilde's arm. A naked young man brings her a plate of food. She ignores it, and him.
Three opportunities. Herbal stimulants distilled from the miki-poki tree of Azeria. A skull from Tanah Burung, purporting to be the missing link between humans and orangutangs. And from Dar-pol, coal and the chance to develop the offshore seabed resources of a sea-fearing people, in exchange for some of the uranium which the Floating World had in abundance.
She snapped her fingers, and secretaries came running.
"Change the Floating World's course," she ordered. "Set sail for Dra-pol."
The great mass of lashed-together rafts shuddered as mighty engines screamed their effort to change course. Turbines beat against the Pacific waves. Wooden houses creaked; metal yelled its pain as it scraped against metal. The Floating World, ever so slowly, began to shift course to the north.