Stranger in a Strange Land

“I was equally shameless this morning. The administration wanted Mike’s ‘Larkin rights’ and was scared silly that we might make a deal with Kung or somebody. So I used their greed and worry to wring out of them that ultimate logical absurdity of their fantastic legal theory, a public acknowledgment in unmistakable diplomatic protocol that Mike was a sovereign equal of the Federation itself—and must be treated accordingly!” Jubal looked smug.

“Thereby,” Ben said dryly, “putting yourself up the well-known creek without a paddle.”

“Ben, Ben,” Jubal said chidingly. “Wrong metaphor. Not a canoe, but a tiger. Or a throne. By their own logic they had publicly crowned Mike. Need I point out that, despite the old saw about uneasy heads and crowns, it is nevertheless safer to be publicly a king than it is to be a pretender in hiding? A king can usually abdicate to save his neck; a pretender may renounce his pretensions but it makes his neck no safer—less so, in fact; it leaves him naked to his enemies. No, Ben, Kung saw that Mike’s position had been enormously strengthened by a few bars of music and an old sheet, even if you did not—and Kung did not like it a bit.

“But I acted through necessity, not choice, and, while Mike’s position was improved, 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, as such, was empowered to hand out concessions, trading rights, enclaves, ad nauseam. He must either do these things himself… and thus be subjected to pressures even worse than those attendant on great wealth and for which he is even less fitted—or he must abdicate his titular position and allow his Larkin rights to devolve on those twenty-three men now on Mars, i.e., to Douglas.”

Jubal looked pained. “I disliked these alternatives almost equally, since each was based on the detestable doctrine that the Larkin Decision could apply to inhabited planets. Gentlemen, I have never met any Martians, I have no vocation to be their champion—but I could not permit a client of mine to be trapped into such a farce. The Larkin Decision itself had to be rendered void, and all ‘rights’ under it, with respect to the planet Mars—while the matter was still in our hands and without giving the High Court a chance to rule.”

Jubal grinned boyishly. “So I appealed to a higher court for a decision that would nullify the Larkin precedent—I cited a mythical ‘British Colonial Shipping Board.’ I lied myself blue in the face to create a new legal theory. Sovereign honors had been rendered Mike; that was fact, the world had seen it. But sovereign honors may be rendered to a sovereign… or to a sovereign’s alter ego, his viceroy or ambassador. So I asserted that Mike was no cardboard sovereign under a silly human precedent not in point—but in awful fact the ambassador of the great Martian nation!”

Jubal sighed. “Sheer bluff… and I was scared silly that I would be required to prove my claims. But I was staking my bluff on my hope and strong belief that others—Douglas, and in particular, Kung—would be no more certain of the facts than was I.” Jubal looked around him. “But I ventured to risk that bluff because you three were sitting with us, were Mike’s water brethren. If you three sat by and did not challenge my lies, then Mike must be accepted as the Martian equivalent of ambassador—and the Larkin Decision was a dead issue.”

“I hope it is,” Captain van Tromp said soberly, “but I did not take your statements as lies, Jubal; I took them as simple truth.”

“Eh? But I assure you they were not. I was spinning fancy words, extemporizing.”

“No matter. Inspiration or deduction—I think you told the truth.” The skipper of the Champion hesitated. “Except that I would not call Mike an ambassador—I think he’s an expeditionary force.”

Caxton’s jaw dropped. Harshaw did not dispute him but answered with equal soberness. “In what way, sir?”

Van Tromp said, “I’ll amend that. It would be better to say that I think he’s a scout for an expeditionary force, reconnoitering us for his Martian masters. It is even possible that they are in telepathic contact with him at all times, that he doesn’t even need to report back. I don’t know—but I do know that, after visiting Mars, I find such ideas much easier to swallow… and I know this: everybody seems to take it for granted that, finding a human being on Mars, we would of course bring him home and that he would be anxious to come home. Nothing could be further from the truth. Eh, Sven?”

“Mike hated the idea,” agreed Nelson. “We couldn’t even get close to him at first; he was afraid of us. Then he was ordered to go back with us and from then on he did exactly what we told him to do. He behaved like a soldier carrying out with perfect discipline orders that scared him silly.”