Stranger in a Strange Land

Jubal waved it aside. «I said it wasn't a policy. We've always had assassination — from prominent ones like Huey Long to men beaten to death with hardly a page-eight story. But it's never been a policy and the reason you are alive is that it is not Joe Douglas's policy. They snatched you clean, they squeezed you dry and they could have disposed of you as quietly as flushing a dead mouse down a toilet. But their boss doesn't like them to play that rough and if he became convinced that they had, it would cost their jobs if not their necks.»

Jubal paused for a swig. «Those thugs are just a tool; they aren't a Praetorian Guard that picks the Caesar. So whom do you want for Caesar? Courthouse Joe whose indoctrination goes back to when this country was a nation and not a satrapy in a polyglot empire… Douglas, who can't stomach assassination ? Or do you want to toss him out — we can, just by double-crossing him — toss him out and put in a Secretary General from a land where life is cheap and assassination a tradition? If you do, Ben — what happens to the next snoopy newsman who walks down a dark alley?»

Caxton didn't answer.

«As I said, the S.S. is just a tool. Men are always for hire who like dirty work. How dirty will that work become if you nudge Douglas out of his majority?»

«Jubal, are you saying I ought not to criticize the administration?»

«Nope. Gadflies are necessary. But it's well to look at the new rascals before you turn your present rascals out. Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it's eight times as good as any other method. Its worst fault is that its leaders reflect their constituents — a low level, but what can you expect? So look at Douglas and ponder that, in his ignorance, stupidity, and self-seeking, he resembles his fellow Americans but is a notch or two above average. Then look at the man who will replace him if his government topples.»

«There's little difference.»

«There's always a difference! This is between “bad” and “worse” — which is much sharper than between “good” and “better”.»

«Well? What do you want me to do?»

«Nothing,» Harshaw answered. «I'll run this show myself. I expect you to refrain from chewing out Joe Douglas over this coming settlement — maybe praise him for “statesmanlike restraint — ”»

«You're making me vomit!»

«Use your hat. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. The first principle in riding a tiger is to hang on tight to its ears.»

«Quit being pompous. What's the deal?»

«Quit being obtuse and listen. Mike has the misfortune to be heir to more wealth than Croesus dreamed of… plus a claim to political power under a politico-judicial precedent unparalleled in jug-headedness since Secretary Fall was convicted of receiving a bribe that Doheny was acquitted of paying. I have no interest in “True Prince” nonsense. Nor do I regard that wealth as “his”; he didn't produce it. Even if he had earned it, “property” is not the natural and obvious concept that most people think it is.»

«Come again?»

«Ownership is a sophisticated abstraction, a mystical relationship. God knows our legal theorists make this mystery complicated — but I didn't dream how subtle it was until I got the Martian slant. Martians don't own anything… not even their bodies.»

«Wait a minute, Jubal. Even animals have property. And the Martians aren't animals; they're a civilization, with cities and all sorts of things.»

«Yes. “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests”. Nobody understands “meus-et-tuus” better than a watch dog. But not Martians. Unless you regard joint ownership of everything by millions or billions of senior citizens — “ghosts” to you, my friend — as “property”.»

«Say, Jubal, how about these “Old Ones”?»

«You want the official version?»

«No. Your opinion.»

«I think it is pious poppycock, suitable for enriching lawns — superstition burned into the boy's brain so early that he stands no chance of breaking loose.»

«Jill talks as if she believed it.»

«You will hear me talk as if I did, too. Ordinary politeness. One of my most valued friends believes in astrology; I would never offend her by telling her what I think. The capacity of humans to believe in what seems to me highly improbable — from table tapping to the superiority of their children — has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness but Mike's faith in his “Old Ones” is no more irrational than a conviction that the dynamics of the universe can be set aside through prayers for rain.»

«Mmm, Jubal, I confess to a suspicion that immortality is a fact — but I'm glad my grandfather's ghost doesn't boss me. He was a cranky old devil.»