Jaru was the only child of a wealthy Thai family; hir father had made a fortune in property development as Thailand’s prosperity grew. They had been estranged when the elder Niyom had died from a stress-induced coronary at sixty-one, never quite able to come to terms with his cherished offspring becoming kathoey. Most assumed the more gentle Jaru would let the company dwindle, but the family’s entrepreneurial gene wasn’t recessive. Hir inheritance came at the same time as Kellan Rindstrom demonstrated quantum spatial entanglement. With a flash of intuition sie would often demonstrate in later life, Jaru immediately saw a way of advancing hir company’s fortunes, benefiting the environment, and providing cheaper housing which the world so desperately needed.

Thailand became the first country to construct ribbontowns. Jaru bought (at a bargain price) hundreds of kilometers of the nation’s motorways and expressway networks, along with the entire 4,000 kilometers of the State Railway network—all of which were becoming redundant as Connexion continued its inexorable advance of portal hubs across the globe.

Jaru began building houses along the abandoned train tracks. Big vehicles ripped up the asphalt and concrete of the roads, exposing the raw earth ready for new foundations to be sunk. What sie had realized was that Ainsley Zangari’s notorious slogan was correct—everything truly was one step away. In this new age of instantaneous transport, habitation didn’t need a civic center anymore. All the facilities like schools, hospitals, and theatres could be accessed no matter where your home was physically located; you just needed a portal door nearby.

It was a model swiftly copied by the rest of the world. With governments desperate for the cash that selling obsolete roads and railways to developers would raise, and solving the global housing crisis at the same time, the resulting construction boom went on to save (or at least salvage) many economies suffering from the collapse of the traditional transport industries.

Multibillionairedom allowed Jaru to expand hir commercial interest out into the burgeoning space industries, constructing new habitats on Sol’s asteroids. Then, in 2078, as a direct result of nine über-corporate habitats declaring themselves low-tax nations open for business, sie sponsored the First Progressive Conclave, where fifteen more idealistically minded space-based billionaires pledged to birth a true post-scarcity civilization for the human race. Each of them committed their habitat to an economy based on a Turing-managed self-replicating industrial base. It was the start of the whole Utopial movement.

Kandara didn’t need any prompting to duck her head in a small bow of acknowledgment. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“You are kind,” Jaru said with a melodic voice. “Though I fear at my age I am no longer terribly spectacular.”

“Age is wisdom.”

Sie chuckled. “Age can be wisdom. It depends how you spend those years.”

“True.” Kandara was aware of Kruse coming into the tent behind her and bowing deeply.

“Are you acquiring wisdom, Kandara?” Jaru asked.

“My life has a purpose. You know that. It’s why I am here.”