“Ten years? I apologize.” Ten years meant he was practically a pioneer; Stateless had been seeded in 2032, but it had taken almost a decade to become habitable and self-sustaining. I was surprised; the founders, and most of the earliest settlers, had come from the US.

I said, “My name’s Andrew Worth. I’m here for the Einstein Conference.”

“Bill Munroe. Here for the light.” He didn’t offer his hand.

“I can’t afford the picture. But I’ll buy you lunch, if you’re interested.”

He looked at me sourly. “You’re a journalist.”

“I’m covering the conference. Nothing else. But I’m curious about … the island.”

“Then read about it. It’s all on the nets.”

“Yes – and it all contradicts itself. I can’t decide what’s propaganda and what isn’t.”

“So what makes you think anything I might tell you would be any more reliable?”

“Face to face, I’ll know.”

He sighed. “Why me?” He put down his stylus. “All right. Lunch and anarchy. This way.” He started to walk across the square.

I hung back. “You’re not going to leave this – ?” He kept walking, so I caught up with him. “Five hundred dollars – plus the easel and the stylus – and you’re willing to trust people to leave it untouched?”

He glanced at me irritably, then turned and waved his notepad at the easel; it emitted a brief ear-splitting squeal. A few people turned to stare. “Don’t you have alarm tags where you come from?” I felt my face redden.

Munroe chose a cheap-looking open-air café, and ordered a steaming white concoction from the instant-serve display counter. It smelled nauseatingly fishy – although here, that didn’t necessarily imply that it had once been the flesh of any vertebrate. Still, I lost whatever faint hint of an appetite I might have been working up.

As I thumbed approval of the payment for the meal, he said, “Don’t tell me: you’re deeply perplexed by our use of international credit as a means of exchange, the existence of free-enterprise eating establishments, my shameless attachment to private property, and all the other trappings of capitalism which you see around you.”

“You’ve done this before. So what’s the stock answer to the stock question?” Munroe carried his plate out to a table which gave him a clear view of his easel.

He said, “Stateless is a capitalist democracy. And a liberal socialist democracy. And a union of collectives. And several hundred other things for which I have no name.”

“You mean … people here choose to act as they would in those kinds of society?”