«Worse yet, his family is always in danger. Captain, have your daughters ever been threatened with kidnapping?»
«What? Good Lord, no!»
«If you possessed the wealth Mike had thrust on him, you would have those girls guarded night and day — still you would not rest, because you would never be sure of the guards. Look at the last hundred or so kidnappings and note how many involved a trusted employee … and how few victims escaped alive. Is there anything money can buy which is worth having your daughters' necks in a noose?»
Van Tromp looked thoughtful. «I'll keep my mortgaged house, Jubal.»
«Amen. I want to live my own life, sleep in my own bed — and not be bothered! Yet I thought I was going to be forced to spend my last years in an office, barricaded by buffers, working long hours as Mike's man of business.
«Then I had an inspiration. Douglas lives behind such barricades, has such a staff. Since we were surrendering the power to insure Mike's freedom, why not make Douglas pay by assuming the headaches? I was not afraid that he would steal; only second-rate politicians are money hungry — and Douglas is no pipsqueak. Quit scowling, Ben, and hope that he never dumps the load on you.
«So I dumped it on Douglas — and now I can go back to my garden. But that was simple, once I figured it out. It was the Larkin Decision that fretted me.»
Caxton said, «I think you lost your wits on that, Jubal. That silly business of letting them give Mike sovereign “honors”. You should simply have had Mike sign over all interest, if any, under that ridiculous Larkin theory.»
«Ben m'boy,» Jubal said gently, «as a reporter you are sometimes readable.»
«Gee, thanks! My fan.»
«But your concepts of strategy are Neanderthal.»
Caxton sighed. «That's better. For a moment I thought you had gone soft.»
«When I do, please shoot me. Captain, how many men did you leave on Mars?»
«Twenty-three.»
«And what is their status under the Larkin Decision?»
Van Tromp frowned. «I'm not supposed to talk.»
«Then don't,» Jubal advised. «We can deduce it.»
Dr. Nelson said, «Skipper, Stinky and I are civilians again. I shall talk as I please — »
«And I,» agreed Mahmoud.
« — and they know what they can do with my reserve commission. What business has the government, telling us we can't talk? Those chair-warmers didn't go to Mars.»
«Stow it, Sven. I intend to talk — these are our water brothers. But, Ben, I would rather not see this in print.»
«Captain, if you'll feel easier, I'll join Mike and the girls.»
«Please don't leave. The government is in a stew about that colony. Every man signed away his Larkin rights — to the government. Mike's presence on Mars confused things. I'm no lawyer, but I understood that, if Mike did waive his rights, that would put the administration in the driver's seat when it came to parceling out things of value.»
«Whatthings of value?» demanded Caxton. «Look, Skipper, I'm not running down your achievement, but from all I've heard, Mars isn't valuable real estate for human beings. Or are there assets still classified “drop dead before reading”?»
Van Tromp shook his head. «No, the technical reports are all de-classified. But, Ben, the Moon was a worthless hunk of rock when we got it.»
«Touché,» Caxton admitted. «I wish my grandpappy had bought Lunar Enterprises.» He added, «But Mars is inhabited.»
Van Tromp looked unhappy. «Yes. But — Stinky, you tell him.»
Mahmoud said, «Ben, there is plenty of room on Mars for human colonization and, so far as I was able to find out, the Martians would not interfere. We're flying our flag and claiming extraterritoriality right now. But our status may be like that of one of those ant cities under glass one sees in school rooms. I don't know where we stand.»
Jubal nodded. «Nor I. I had no idea of the situation … except that the government was anxious to get those so-called rights. So I assumed that the government was equally ignorant and went ahead. “Audacity, always audacity”. »
Jubal grinned. «When I was in high school, I won a debate by quoting an argument from the British Colonial Shipping Board. The opposition was unable to refute me — because there never was a “British Colonial Shipping Board”.
«I was equally shameless this morning. The administration wanted Mike's “Larkin rights” and was scared silly that we might make a deal with somebody else. So I used their greed and worry to force that ultimate logical absurdity of their fantastic legal theory, acknowledgment in unmistakable protocol that Mike was a sovereign — and must be treated accordingly!» Jubal looked smug.
«Thereby,» Ben said dryly, «putting yourself up the well-known creek.»
«Ben, Ben,» Jubal said chidingly, «by their own logic they had crowned Mike. Need I point out that, despite the old saw about heads and crowns, it is safer to be publicly a king than a pretender in hiding? Mike's position was much improved by a few bars of music and an old sheet. But it was still not an easy one. Mike was, for the nonce, the acknowledged sovereign of Mars under the legalistic malarky of the Larkin precedent … and empowered to hand out concessions, trading rights, enclaves, ad nauseam. He must either do these things and be subjected to pressures even worse than those attendant on great wealth — or he must abdicate and allow his Larkin rights to devolve on those men now on Mars, i.e., to Douglas.»
Jubal looked pained. «I detested both alternatives. Gentlemen, I could not permit my client to be trapped into such a farce. The Larkin Decision itself had to be nullified with respect to Mars — without giving the High Court a chance to rule.»
Jubal grinned. «So I lied myself blue in the face to create a theory. Sovereign honors had been rendered Mike; the world had seen it. But sovereign honors may be rendered to a sovereign's alter ego, his ambassador. So I asserted that Mike was no cardboard king under a precedent not in point — but the ambassador of the great Martian nation!»
Jubal shrugged. «Sheer bluff. But I was staking my bluff on my belief that others — Douglas, and Kung — would be no more certain of the facts than was I.» Jubal looked around. «I risked that bluff because you three were with us, Mike's water brethren. If you did not challenge me, then Mike must be accepted as Martian ambassador — and the Larkin Decision was dead.»
«I hope so,» Captain van Tromp said soberly, «but I did not take your statements as lies, Jubal.»
«Eh? I was spinning fancy words, extemporizing.»
«No matter. I think you told the truth.» The skipper of the Champion hesitated. «Except that I would not call Mike an ambassador — an invasion force is probably closer.»
Caxton's jaw dropped. Harshaw answered, «In what way, sir?»
Van Tromp said, «I'll amend that. I think he's a scout, reconnoitering for his Martian masters. Don't mistake me — I'm as fond of the boy as you are. But there's no reason for him to be loyal to us — to Earth, I mean.» The Captain frowned. «Everybody assumes that a man found on Mars would jump at the chance to go “home” — but it wasn't that way. Eh, Sven?»
«Mike hated the idea,» agreed Nelson. «We couldn't get close to him; he was afraid. Then the Martians told him to go with us … and he behaved like a soldier carrying out orders that scared him silly.»
«Just a moment,» Caxton protested. «Captain — Mars invade us?Mars? Wouldn't that be like us attacking Jupiter? We have two and a half times the surface gravity that Mars has; Jupiter has two and a half times ours. Analogous differences on pressure, temperature, atmosphere, and so forth.We couldn't live on Jupiter … and I don't see how Martians could stand our conditions. Isn't that true?»
«Close enough,» admitted van Tromp.
«Why should we attack Jupiter? Or Mars attack us?»