Stranger in a Strange Land (5 page)

“I don't—Wait a minute! You mean
she
—”

“Hand the lady a cigar! Dr. Mary Jane Lyle Smith. She had it worked out before she left even though development remained to be done. So she applied for basic patents and placed it in trust—
not
a non-profit corporation, mind you—then assigned control and interim income to the Science Foundation. So eventually the government got control—but your friend owns it. It's worth millions, maybe hundreds of millions; I couldn't guess.”

They brought in dinner. Caxton used ceiling tables to protect his lawn; he lowered one to his chair and another to Japanese height so that Jill could sit on the grass. “Tender?” he asked.

“Ongerful!” she answered.

“Thanks. Remember, I cooked.”

“Ben,” she said after swallowing, “how about Smith being a—I mean, illegitimate? Can he inherit?”

“He's not illegitimate. Doctor Mary Jane was at Berkeley; California laws deny the concept of bastardy. Same for Captain Brant, as New Zealand has civilized laws. While in the home state of Doctor Ward Smith, Mary Jane's husband, a child born in wedlock is legitimate, come hell or high water. We have here, Jill, a man who is the legitimate child of three parents.”

“Huh? Now wait, Ben; he can't be. I'm not a lawyer but—”

“You sure ain't. Such fictions don't bother a lawyer. Smith is legitimate different ways in different jurisdictions—even though a bastard in fact. So he inherits. Besides that, while his mother was wealthy, his fathers were well to do. Brant ploughed most of his scandalous salary as a pilot on the Moon run into Lunar Enterprises. You know how that stuff boomed—they just declared another stock dividend. Brant had one vice, gambling—but the bloke won regularly and invested that, too. Ward Smith had family money. Smith is heir to both.”

“Whew!”

“That ain't half, honey. Smith is heir to the entire crew.”

“Huh?”

“All eight signed a ‘Gentlemen Adventurers' contract, making them mutually heirs to each other—all of them
and
their issue. They did it with care, using as models contracts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that had stood up against every effort to break them. These were highpowered people; among them they had quite a lot. Happened to include considerable Lunar Enterprises stock, too, besides what Brant held. Smith might own a controlling interest, or at least a key bloc.”

Jill thought about the childlike creature who had made such a touching ceremony of a drink of water and felt sorry for him. Caxton went on: “I wish I could sneak a look at the
Envoy's
log. They recovered it—but I doubt if they'll release it.”

“Why not, Ben?”

“It's a nasty story. I got that much before my informant sobered up. Dr. Ward Smith delivered his wife by Caesarean section—and she died on the table. What he did next shows that he knew the score; with the same scalpel he cut Captain Brant's throat—then his own. Sorry, hon.”

Jill shivered. “I'm a nurse. I'm immune to such things.”

“You're a liar and I love you for it. I was on police beat three years, Jill; I never got hardened to it.”

“What happened to the others?”

“If we don't break the bureaucrats loose from that log, we'll never know—and I am a starry-eyed newsboy who thinks we should. Secrecy begets tyranny.”

“Ben, he might be better off if they gypped him out of his inheritance. He's very . . . uh, unworldly.”

“The exact word, I'm sure. Nor does he need money; the Man from Mars will never miss a meal. Any government and a thousand-odd universities and institutions would be delighted to have him as a permanent guest.”

“He'd better sign it over and forget it.”

“It's not that easy. Jill, you know the famous case of General Atomics versus Larkin, et al.?”

“Uh, you mean the Larkin Decision. I had it in school, same as everybody. What's it got to do with Smith?”

“Think back. The Russians sent the first ship to the Moon, it crashed. The United States and Canada combine to send one; it gets back but leaves nobody on the Moon. So while the United States and the Commonwealth are getting set to send a colonizing one under the sponsorship of the Federation and Russia is mounting the same deal on their own, General Atomics steals a march by boosting one from an island leased from Ecuador—and their men are there, sitting pretty and looking smug when the Federation vessel shows up—followed by the Russian one.

“So General Atomics, a Swiss corporation American controlled, claimed the Moon. The Federation couldn't brush them off and grab it; the Russians wouldn't have held still. So the High Court ruled that a corporate person, a mere legal fiction, could not own a planet; the real owners were the men who maintained occupation—Larkin and associates. So they recognized them as a sovereign nation and took them into the Federation—with melon slicing for those on the inside and concessions to General Atomics and its daughter corporation, Lunar Enterprises. This did not please anybody and the Federation High Court was not all-powerful then—but it was a compromise everybody could swallow. It resulted in rules for colonizing planets, all based on the Larkin Decision and intended to avoid bloodshed. Worked, too—World War Three did
not
result from conflict over space travel and such. So the Larkin Decision is law and applies to Smith.”

Jill shook her head. “I don't see the connection.”

“Think, Jill. By our laws, Smith is a sovereign nation—and sole owner of the planet Mars.”

JILL LOOKED round-eyed. “Too many martinis, Ben. I would swear you said that patient owns Mars.”

“He does. He occupied it the required period. Smith is the planet Mars—King, President, sole civic body, what you will. If the
Champion
had not left colonists, Smith's claim might have lapsed. But it did and that continues occupation even though Smith came to Earth. But Smith doesn't have to split with them; they are mere immigrants until he grants them citizenship.”

“Fantastic!”

“But legal. Honey, you see why people are interested in Smith? And why the administration is keeping him under a rug? What they are doing isn't legal. Smith is also a citizen of the United States and of the Federation; it's illegal to hold a citizen, even a convicted criminal, incommunicado anywhere in the Federation. Also, it has been an unfriendly act all through history to lock up a visiting monarch—which he
is
—and not to let him see people, especially the press, meaning
me
. You still won't sneak me?”

“Huh? You've got me scared silly. Ben, if they had caught me, what would they have done?”

“Mmm . . . nothing rough. Locked you in a padded cell, with a certificate signed by three doctors, and allowed you mail on alternate leap years. I'm wondering what they are going to do to
him.”

“What
can
they do?”

“Well, he might die—from gee-fatigue, say.”

“You mean
murder
him?”

“Tut, tut! Don't use nasty words. I don't think they will. In the first place he is a mine of information. In the second place, he is a bridge between us and the only other civilized race we have encountered. How are you on the classics? Ever read H. G. Wells'
The War of the Worlds?”

“A long time ago, in school.”

“Suppose the Martians turn out nasty. They might and we have no way of guessing how big a club they swing. Smith might be the go-between who could make the First Interplanetary War unnecessary. Even if this is unlikely, the administration can't ignore it. The discovery of life on Mars is something that, politically, they haven't figured out yet.”

“Then you think he is safe?”

“For the time being. The Secretary General has to guess right. As you know, his administration is shaky.”

“I don't pay attention to politics.”

“You should. It's barely less important than your own heart beat.”

“I don't pay attention to that, either.”

“Don't talk when I'm orating. The patchwork majority headed by Douglas could slip apart overnight—Pakistan would bolt at a nervous cough. There would be a vote of no confidence and Mr. Secretary General Douglas would go back to being a cheap lawyer. The Man from Mars can make or break him. Are you going to sneak me in?”

“I'm going to enter a nunnery. Is there more coffee?”

“I'll see.”

They stood up. Jill stretched and said, “Oh, my ancient bones! Never mind coffee, Ben; I've got a hard day tomorrow. Run me home, will you? Or send me home, that's safer.”

“Okay, though the evening is young.” He went into his bedroom, came out carrying an object the size of a small cigarette lighter. “You won't sneak me in?”

“Gee, Ben, I
want
to, but—”

“Never mind. It is dangerous—and not just to your career.” He showed her the object. “Will you put a bug on him?”

“Huh? What is it?”

“The greatest boon to spies since the Mickey Finn. A microminiaturized recorder. The wire is spring driven so it can't be spotted by a snooper circuit. The insides are packed in plastic—you could drop it out of a cab. The power is about as much radioactivity as in a watch dial, but shielded. The wire runs twenty-four hours. Then you slide out a spool and stick in another—the spring is part of the spool.”

“Will it explode?” she asked nervously.

“You could bake it in a cake.”

“Ben, you've got me scared to go into his room.”

“You can go into the room next door, can't you?”

“I suppose so.”

“This thing has donkey's ears. Fasten the concave side against a wall—tape will do—and it picks up everything in the room beyond.”

“I'm bound to be noticed if I duck in and out of that room. Ben, his room has a wall in common with a room on another corridor. Will that do?”

“Perfect. You'll do it?”

“Umm . . . give it to me. I'll think it over.”

Caxton polished it with his handkerchief. “Put on your gloves.”

“Why?”

“Possession is good for a vacation behind bars. Use gloves and don't get caught with it.”

“You think of the nicest things!”

“Want to back out?”

Jill let out a long breath. “No.”

“Good girl!” A light blinked, he glanced up. “That must be your cab. I rang for it when I went to get this.”

“Oh. Find my shoes, will you? Don't come to the roof. The less I'm seen with you the better.”

“As you wish.”

As he straightened up from putting her shoes on, she took his head in both hands and kissed him. “Dear Ben! No good can come of this and I hadn't realized you were a criminal—but you're a good cook as long as I set the combination . . . I might marry you if I can trap you into proposing again.”

“The offer remains open.”

“Do gangsters marry their molls? Or is it ‘frails'?” She left hurriedly.

 

Jill placed the bug easily. The patient in the room in the next corridor was bedfast; Jill often stopped to gossip. She stuck it against the wall over a closet shelf while chattering about how the maids just
never
dusted the shelves.

Changing spools the next day was easy; the patient was asleep. She woke while Jill was perched on a chair; Jill diverted her with a spicy ward rumor.

Jill sent the exposed wire by mail, as the postal system seemed safer than a cloak and dagger ruse. But her attempt to insert a third spool she muffed. She waited for the patient to be asleep but had just mounted the chair when the patient woke. “Oh! Hello, Miss Boardman.”

Jill froze. “Hello, Mrs. Fritschlie,” she managed to answer. “Have a nice nap?”

“Fair,” the woman answered peevishly. “My back aches.”

“I'll rub it.”

“Doesn't help. Why are you always fiddling in my closet? Is something wrong?”

Jill tried to reswallow her stomach. “Mice,” she answered.

“ ‘Mice'? Oh I'll have to have another room!”

Jill tore the instrument loose and stuffed it into her pocket, jumped down. “Now, now, Mrs. Fritschlie—I was just looking to see if there were mouse holes. There aren't.”

“You're
sure?”

“Quite sure. Now let's rub the back. Easy over.”

Jill decided to risk the empty room which was part of K-12, the suite of the Man from Mars. She got the pass key.

Only to find the room unlocked and holding two more marines; the guard had been doubled. One looked around as she opened the door. “Looking for someone?”

“No. Don't sit on the bed, boys,” she said crisply. “If you need chairs, we'll send for them.” The guard got reluctantly up; she left, trying to conceal her trembling.

The bug was still in her pocket when she went off duty; she decided to return it to Caxton. Once in the air and headed toward Ben's apartment she breathed easier. She phoned him in flight.

“Caxton speaking.”

“Jill, Ben. I want to see you.”

He answered slowly, “I don't think it's smart.”

“Ben, I've got to. I'm on my way.”

“Well, okay, if that's how it's got to be.”

“Such enthusiasm!”

“Now look, hon, it isn't that I—”

“ 'Bye!” She switched off, calmed down and decided not to take it out on Ben—they were playing out of their league. At least she was—she should have left politics alone.