Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

“That’s beside the point,” Captain van Tromp answered stiffly. “I’m a professional man.”

“Meaning there isn’t enough money on this planet to tempt you into giving up commanding space ships. I understand that.”

“But I wouldn’t mind having money, too.”

“A little more money won’t do you any good, because daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation regardless of the amount. That’s a widely experienced but previously unformulated law of nature, to be known henceforth as ‘Harshaw’s Law.’ But, Captain, real wealth, on the scale that causes its owner to hire a battery of finaglers to hold down his taxes, would ground you just as certainly as resigning would.”

“Why should it? I would put it all in bonds and just clip coupons.”

“Would you? Not if you were the sort of person who acquires great wealth in the first place. Big money isn’t hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of singleminded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money, to the utter exclusion of all other interests. They say that the age of opportunity has passed. Nonsense! Seven out of ten of the wealthiest men on this planet started life without a shilling—and there are plenty more such strivers on the way up. Such people are not stopped by high taxation nor even by socialism; they simply adapt themselves to new rules and presently they change the rules. But no premiere ballerina ever works harder, nor more narrowly, than a man who acquires riches. Captain, that’s not your style; you don’t want to make money, you simply want to have money—in order to spend it.”

“Correct, sir! Which is why I can’t see why you should want to take Mike’s wealth away from him.”

“Because Mike doesn’t need it and it would cripple him worse than any physical handicap. Wealth—great wealth—is a curse… unless you are devoted to the money making game for its own sake. And even then it has serious drawbacks.”

“Oh, nonsense, Jubal, you talk like a harem guard trying to convince a whole man of the advantages of being a eunuch. Pardon me.”

“Very possibly,” agreed Jubal, “and perhaps for the same reason; the human mind’s ability to rationalize its own shortcomings into virtues is unlimited, and I am no exception. Since I, like yourself, sir, have no interest in money other than to spend it, there has never been the slightest chance that I would acquire any significant degree of wealth just enough for my vices. Nor any real danger that I would fail to scrounge that modest amount, since anyone with the savvy not to draw to a small pair can always manage to feed his vices, whether they be tithing or chewing betel nut. But great wealth? You saw that performance this morning. Now answer me truthfully. Do you think I could have revised it slightly so that I myself acquired all that plunder—become its sole manager and de facto owner while milking off for my own use any income I cared to name—and still have rigged the other issues so that Douglas would have supported the outcome? Could I have done that, sir? Mike trusts me; I am his water brother. Could I have stolen his fortune and so arranged it that the government in the person of Mr. Douglas would have condoned it?”

“Uh… damn you, Jubal, I suppose you could have.”

“Most certainly I could have. Because our sometimes estimable Secretary General is no more a money-seeker than you are. His drive is political power—a drum whose beat I do not hear. Had I guaranteed to Douglas (oh, gracefully, of course—there is decorum even among thieves) that the Smith estate would continue to bulwark his administration, then I would have been left undisturbed to do as I liked with the income and had my acting guardianship made legal.”

Jubal shuddered. “I thought that I was going to have to do exactly that, simply to protect Mike from the vultures gathered around him—and I was panic-stricken. Captain, you obviously don’t know what an Old Man of the Sea great wealth is. It is not a fat purse and time to spend it. Its owner finds himself beset on every side, at every hour, wherever he goes, by persistent pleaders, like beggars in Bombay, each demanding that he invest or give away part of his wealth. He becomes suspicious of honest friendship—indeed honest friendship is rarely offered him; those who could have been his friends are too fastidious to be jostled by beggars, too proud to risk being mistaken for one.

“Worse yet, his life and the lives of his family are always in danger. Captain, have your daughters ever been threatened with kidnapping?”

“What? Good Lord, I should hope not!”

“If you possessed the wealth Mike had thrust on him, you would have those girls guarded night and day—and even then you would not rest, because you would never be sure that those very guards were not tempted. Look at the records of the last hundred or so kidnappings in this country and note how many of them involved a trusted employee—and note, too, how few victims escaped alive. Then ask yourself: is there any luxury wealth can buy which is worth having your daughters’ pretty necks always in a noose?”

Van Tromp looked thoughtful. “No. I guess I’ll keep my mortgaged house—it’s more my speed. Those girls are all I’ve got, Jubal.”

“Amen. I was appalled at the prospect. Wealth holds no charm for me. All I want is to live my own lazy, useless life, sleep in my own bed—and not be bothered! Yet I thought I was going to be forced to spend my last few years sitting in an office, barricaded by buffers, and working long hours as Mike’s man of business.

“Then I had an inspiration. Douglas already lived behind such barricades, already had such a staff. Since I was forced to surrender the power of that money to Douglas merely to ensure Mike’s continued health and freedom, why not make the beggar pay for it by assuming all the headaches, too? I was not afraid that Douglas would steal from Mike; only pipsqueak, second-rate politicians are money hungry—and Douglas, whatever his faults, is no pipsqueak. Quit scowling, Ben, and hope that he never dumps the load on you.

“So I dumped the whole load on Douglas—and now I can go back to my garden. But, as I have said, the money was relatively simple, once I figured it out. It was the Larkin Decision that fretted me.”

Caxton said, “I thought you had lost your wits on that one, Jubal. That silly business of letting them give Mike sovereign ‘honors.’ Honors indeed! For God’s sake, Jubal, you should simply have had Mike sign over all right, title, and interest, if any, under that ridiculous Larkin theory. You knew Douglas wanted him to—Jill told you.”

“Ben m’boy,” Jubal said gently, “as a reporter you are hard-working and sometimes readable.”

“Gee, thanks! My fan.”

“But your concepts of strategy are Neanderthal.”

Caxton sighed. “I feel better, Jubal. For a moment there I thought you had become softly sentimental in your old age.”

“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 looked troubled. “I’m not supposed to talk.”

“Then don’t,” Jubal reassured him. “I can deduce it, and so can Ben.”

Dr. Nelson said, “Skipper, both Stinky and I are civilians again. I shall talk where and how I please—”

“And shall I,” agreed Mahmoud.

“—and if they want to make trouble for me, 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. We did.”

“Stow it, Sven. I intended to talk—these are our water brothers. But, Ben, I would rather not see this in your column. I would like to command a space ship again.”