Stranger in a Strange Land

questions, the class is dismissed."
                "Don't try to be funny."
                "Hmm ... Jill, I've been awake nights when I should have been dreaming about you, trying to answer that one. It's a two-part question, political and financial-and here are the best answers I have now: If Smith dies, his odd legal claim to the planet Mars vanishes. Probably the pioneer group the Champion left behind on Mars starts a new claim-and almost certainly the administration worked out a deal with them before they left Earth. The Champion is a Federation ship but it is more than possible that the deal, if there was one, leaves all the strings in the hands of that redoubtable defender of human rights, Mr. Secretary General Douglas. Such a deal could keep him in power for a long time. On the other hand, it might mean nothing at all."
                "Huh? Why?"
                "The Larkin Decision might not apply. Luna was uninhabited, but Mars is inhabited-by Martians. At the moment, Martians are a legal zero. But the High Court might take a look at the political situation, stare at its collective navel, and decide that human occupancy meant nothing on a planet already inhabited by non-human natives. Then rights on Mars, if any, would have to be secured from the Martians themselves."
                "But, Ben, that would logically be the case anyhow. This notion of a single man owning a planet ...it' s fantastic!"
                "Don't use that word to a lawyer; he won't understand you. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels is a required course in all law schools. Besides, there is a case in point. In the fifteenth century the Pope deeded the entire western hemisphere to Spain and Portugal and nobody paid the slightest attention to the fact that the real estate was already occupied by several million Indians with their own laws, customs, and notions of property rights. His grant deed was pretty effective, too. Take a look at a western hemisphere map sometime and notice where Spanish is spoken and where Portuguese is spoken-and see how much land the Indians have left."
                "Yes, but- Ben, this isn't the fifteenth century."
                "It is to a lawyer. They still cite Blackwell, Code Napoleon, or even the laws of Justinian. Mark it down, Jill; if the High Court rules that the Larkin Decision applies, Smith is in a position to grant or withhold concessions on Mars which may be worth millions, or more likely billions. If he assigns his claim to the present administration, then Secretary Douglas is the man who will hand out the plums. Which is just what Douglas is trying to rig. You saw that bug transcript."
                "Ben, why should anybody want that sort of power?"
                "Why does a moth fly toward a light? The drive for power is even less logical than the sex urge . . . and stronger. But I said this was a two-part question. Smith's financial holdings are almost as important as his special position as nominal king-emperor of Mars. Possibly more important, for a High Court decision could knock out his squatter's rights on Mars but I doubt if anything could shake his ownership of the Lyle Drive and a major chunk of Lunar Enterprises; the eight wills are a matter of public record- and in the three most important cases he inherits with or without a will. What happens if he dies? I don't know. A thousand alleged cousins would pop up, of course, but the Science Foundation has fought off a lot of such money-hungry vermin in the past twenty years. It seems possible that, if Smith dies without making a will, his enormous fortune will revert to the state."
                "'The state?' Do you mean the Federation or the United States?"
                "Another very good question to which I do not know the answer. His natural parents come from two different member countries of the Federation and he was born outside all of them . . . and it is going to make a crucial difference to some people who votes those blocks of stock and who licenses those patents. It won't be Smith; he won't know a stock proxy from a traffic ticket. It is likely to be whoever can grab him and hang onto him. In the meantime I doubt if Lloyd's would write a policy on his life; he strikes me as a very poor risk."
                "The poor baby! The poor, poor infant!"

    VI

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