Beneath Ceaseless Skies | Playing God by K.J. Parker
The sea is a remarkable thing. Nobody owns it. It'll kill you if you give it half a chance, but it'll take you anywhere you want to go. It can turn a nobody like my father into a person of consequence. You can rob other ships, murder people and throw them over the side, swoop down on cities and steal and slaughter to your heart's content, and nobody will come after you, because of jurisdictional issues. The sea isn't a place, it's a state of mind. The sea is freedom.
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