Stranger in a Strange Land

millions or billions of senior citizens -'ghosts' to you, my friend-as being 'property.'"
                "Say, Jubal, how about these 'Old Ones' Mike talks about?"
                "Do you want the official version? Or my private opinion?"
                "Huh? Your private opinion. What you really think."
                "Then keep it to yourself. I think it is a lot of pious poppycock, suitable for enriching lawns. I think it is a superstition burned into the boy's brain at so early an age that he stands no chance of ever breaking loose from it."
                "Jill talks as if she believed it."
                "At all other times you will hear me talk as if I believed it, too. Ordinary politeness. One of my most valued friends believes in astrology; I would never offend her by telling her what I think of it. The capacity of a human mind to believe devoutly in what seems to me to be the highly improbable-from table tapping to the superiority of their own children- has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it-.--especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible. Mike's faith in his 'Old Ones' is surely no more irrational than a conviction that the dynamics of the universe can be set aside through prayers for rain. Furthermore, he has the weight of evidence on his side; he has been there. I haven't."
                "Mmm, Jubal, I'll confess to a sneaking suspicion that immortality is a fact-but I'm glad that my grandfather's ghost doesn't continue to exercise any control over me. He was a cranky old devil."
                "And so was mine. And so am I. But is there any really good reason why a citizen's franchise should be voided simply because he happens to be dead? Come to think of it, the precinct I was raised in had a very large graveyard vote-almost Martian. Yet the town was a pleasant one to live in. As may be, our lad Mike can't own anything because the 'Old Ones' already own everything. So you see why I have had trouble explaining to him that he owns over a million shares of Lunar Enterprises~ plus the Lyle Drive, plus assorted chattels and securities? It doesn't help that the original owners are dead; that makes it worse, they are 'Old Ones'-and Mike wouldn't dream of sticking his nose into the business of 'Old Ones.'"
                "Uh ... damn it, he's obviously legally incompetent."
                "Of course he is. He can't manage property because he doesn't believe in its mystique-any more than I believe in his ghosts. Ben, all that Mike owns at the present time is a toothbrush I gave him-and he doesn't know he owns that. If you took it away from him, he wouldn't object, he wouldn't even mention it to me-he would simply assume conclusively that the 'Old Ones' had authorized the change."
                Jubal sighed. "So he is incompetent ... even though he can recite the law of property verbatim. Such being the case I shan't allow his competency to be tried . . . nor even mentioned-for what guardian would be appointed?"
                "Huh? Douglas. Or, rather, one of his stooges."
                "Are you certain, Ben? Consider the present makeup of the High Court. Might not the appointed guardian be named Savvonavong? Or Nadi? Or Kee?"
                "Uh ... you could be right."
                "In which case the lad might not live very long. Or he might live to a ripe old age in some pleasantly gardened prison-for-one a great deal more difficult to escape from than Bethesda Hospital."
                "What do you plan to do?"
                "The power the boy nominally owns is far too dangerous and cumbersome for him to handle. So we throw it away."
                "How the hell do you go about giving away that much money?"
                "You don't. You can't. It's impossible. The very act of giving it away would be an exercise of its latent power, it would change the balance of power-and any attempt to do so would cause the boy to be examined on his competence to manage in jig time. So, instead, we let the tiger run like hell while hanging onto its ears for dear life. Ben, let me outline the fait accornpli I intend to hand to Douglas . . . then you do your damnedest to pick holes in it. Not the legality of it, as Douglas' legal staff