Thurston J. Blancmange sipped from a crystal champagne flute as he looked out over the noble prow of his luxury yacht, which he had named Askari. At the time, it had seemed to him like a terribly clever choice of name for a yacht, but neither his employees (too frightened), his country-club buddies (didn’t care), or his mistresses (stupid) had asked him the reason, and in the intervening years he’d forgotten what it was.

He shook his head and tutted at the view, and punched the intercom button. “Captain!” he said to the man he had hired to operate the yacht for him, whose name he had also forgotten. “Turn the ship around to face the other shore.”

“I’ll try, sir,” came the reply, “but it will take a few minutes to coordinate with the captains of the other yachts.”

Blast. Thurston sipped his champagne again, and frowned at the other two yachts crowding the 100-foot wide duckpond in the middle of the park. He should have known that it would be crowded on the first sunny day of spring. He would have to phone his congressman and see if some sort of law could be passed.