I asked the woman, “Do you have a notepad?”

“In the bus.”

“Do you want the communications software? You could keep the camera…”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Good idea. Thanks!” She went to fetch the notepad.

The camera had only cost me ten dollars, but the copy fee for the software turned out to be two hundred; I could hardly retract the offer, though. When she returned, I approved the transaction and the machines conversed in infrared. She’d have to pay for any more duplicates – but the program could be moved and erased for free, passed on to other groups of divers.

When Rajendra emerged he started whooping with joy. As soon as he was free of the safety line, he sprinted away across the plain, still carrying the scuba tanks, before doubling back and collapsing in a breathless heap. I didn’t know if he was hamming it up or not – he hadn’t seemed the type – but as he took off the diving gear, he was grinning like a madman in love, exhilarated, trembling.

Adrenaline, yes – but he’d been diving for more than the thrill of it. He was back on solid ground … but it would never be the same, now that he’d seen exactly what lay beneath it: now that he’d swum right through the island’s tenuous foundations.

This was what the people of Stateless had in common: not merely the island itself, but the firsthand knowledge that they stood on rock which the founders had crystallized out of the ocean – and which was, forever, dissolving again, only enduring through a process of constant repair. Beneficent nature had nothing to do with it; conscious human effort, and cooperation, had built Stateless – and even the engineered life which maintained it couldn’t be treated as God-given, infallible; the balance could be disturbed in a thousand ways: mutants could arise, competitors could move in, phages could wipe out bacteria, climate change could shift vital equilibria. All the elaborate machinery had to be monitored, had to be understood.

In the long run, discord could literally sink the place. If it was no guarantee of harmony that nobody on Stateless wanted their society to disintegrate … maybe it helped focus the attention to realize that the land beneath their feet might do the same.

And if it was naïve to think of this understanding as any kind of panacea, it had one undeniable advantage over all the contrived mythology of nationhood .

It was true.

I copied everything from the camera’s memory, to give me the scene in high resolution. When Rajendra had calmed down slightly, I asked for his permission to use the footage for broadcast; he agreed. I had no definite plans – but at the very least I could always smuggle it into the interactive version of Violet Mosala .

Munroe came with me, still shouldering his folded easel and rolled-up canvas, as I headed back for the terminus.