right, everybody, meeting’s over.” Jack swung around to face Milly. “And you, get ready to travel. The two of us leave for Jovian L-5 and the Odin Station later today. Shall we say, two hours from now?” He turned away, to leave the antechamber and head for his own private quarters, then added casually over his shoulder, “By the way, the signal is identified in our announcements as the Wu-Beston anomaly.”
It took Milly a moment for that to sink in. The Wu-Beston anomaly. She was not only named, she was named first. In any major scientific discovery, it was traditional for the senior researcher or group to be listed before anyone else. The most famous case was the discovery of pulsars, the centuries-old case that had already reverberated in Milly’s mind during her earlier work looking for SETI signals. It was Jocelyn Bell, as a graduate student, who had noticed the telltale oddities of print-out that told of the existence of rotating neutron stars; however, it was Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish, the senior members of the research team, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for that work.
Jack Beston, in naming the anomaly in the way that he had, was guaranteeing that no such miscarriage of justice would occur in this case.
She gasped, “Thank you.” All the stress and nervousness and nausea of the past hour magically vanished. Her stomach and bladder felt fine.
“Thank you,” she said again. Those were the only words she seemed able to find. But Jack had already vanished and the door was closed.
The others stared at her. It was Pat Tankard who finally spoke. “Two thank-yous for the Ogre, that’s a record. But congratulations and a thank-you to you. You’ve made everything I’ve been doing for the past ten years worthwhile.” She flexed her arm, and the blonde on her biceps grinned. “And good luck. You’ll understand why I say that when you meet Philip the Bastard.”
One hour more, and they would be on their way. Jack Beston had given Milly two hours to get ready, but she had no idea where the first one had gone. She had wandered the Argus Station in a happy stupor, until Hannah Krauss tracked her down.
“Congratulations, Milly. The Wu-Beston anomaly. How about that?” The touch of envy in Hannah’s voice couldn’t be repressed, but it was only a touch. “Are you all ready to go? You certainly don’t look ready.”
“I haven’t even thought about it. What should I take?”
“Just personal stuff. Maybe a stiletto to keep Jack at a distance while you’re traveling? Relax, my dear, I’m just joking. But don’t bother to take any of your signal data, because we’ll send everything you need to Odin Station on tight secure beam.”
Maybe Hannah had been joking about keeping Jack at bay; but Milly, arriving at The Witch of Agnesi carrying just one light travel bag, was not so sure. She made it a point to be there well before Jack Beston, so that she could take a good look around before their departure from Argus Station. This ship was Jack Beston’s personal space- yacht, and she hoped it would tell her something about the man.
Her first impression of the ship told little about Jack, but it blew her away with the evidence of Beston wealth. The drive was of a type she had never seen before, permitting smooth changes of acceleration when and how you pleased. She would feel none of the jolts, jerks, and nauseating turns of a commercial vessel. The navigation system was totally automated. Jack Beston would not need to put a hand on it during the flight to Odin Station (which made Milly wary as to where he might try to put his hands). As for the interior, each fitting that she saw as she wandered from cabin to cabin was more than Milly could afford. The paintings looked like originals and the free-fall rails were of rare woods, all imported from Earth.
Jack Beston’s private suite, at which Milly took a swift and quite unauthorized peek, had a sitting-room, a kitchen containing the most advanced equipment that Milly had ever seen, and a large bedroom. The last contained a circular bed almost three meters across. Who was supposed to sleep there? Jack himself was skinny enough to become lost in its downy vastness.
Perhaps sudden, huge, and unexpected wealth would do that to anyone — especially if the ways that you could spend your money were strongly constrained.
The story as told to Milly by Hannah was sad, wonderful, or ludicrous, depending on your point of view.
Philip and Jack Beston had grown up together on Ganymede in moderate circumstances, neither poor enough to suffer hardship nor rich enough to be part of the jeunesse doree who felt that Ganymede and the whole System were theirs to play in and with. Philip and Jack knew that they came from a family that had once been loaded. That, however, was more than a century ago. Now they were just smart, ambitious, and competitive.
And until Philip’s sixteenth birthday that was enough. Three weeks after that day, the boys received a call while they were in school. They were asked to come, at their convenience but without telling anyone — anyone, which made it really interesting — to the offices of Branksome and Reid. Philip and Jack had never heard of Branksome or Reid, but the caller assured them they had been legal advisers to the Beston family for many generations.
The original Branksomes and Reids were all long-dead, explained Martha Sappho Reid, a woman in her late seventies. She sat Philip and Jack down in the poky little office on deliberately old-fashioned wing chairs. She gave them green tea in ancient porcelain cups, and began.
“I have rather a strange story to tell you. You have heard, perhaps, of Marcus Tullius Beston?”
Jack looked to his older brother for assistance. Philip said, tentatively, “Like, the great-great-grand- uncle?”
Martha Reid nodded. “Add one great, and you have it right. Marcus Tullius Beston trained the first generation of cetacean managers, and he made a gigantic fortune from the Terran sea-farms. However, he formed no permanent liaisons, and he died sine prole.”
She caught the exchange of glances, and added, “That means he died without children. Rather than handing his wealth on to siblings or nephews and nieces, which would commonly be a preferred solution, he followed a quite different path. He set up a trust, the original assets of which were his entire fortune. Furthermore, upon his death the assets of the trust were to be invested and managed, but otherwise remain untouched for a period of three- quarters of a century.
At that time, the heirs would inherit. Marcus Tullius Beston, however, was a man whom many would consider a little eccentric.”
She ignored Philip and Jack, who were looking at each other in a way that suggested they thought Marcus Beston was a total loon.
“Beston’s will decreed that the inheritance would be encumbered,” Martha continued. “Which is to say, it would go only to family members who satisfied certain criteria, and it could be spent only in certain ways. Those ways were rather tightly defined. Inherited wealth was not to be spent on pleasure. It was, rather, to be applied only to such enterprises as might significantly affect the future of the human race, and affect it in beneficial ways.
“In due course, Marcus Tullius Beston died. The first result of his death was perhaps entirely predictable. His will was contested by every living family member, all of whom had been in effect disinherited in favor of the far future. The will survived those challenges, and the trust was established. Perhaps you are beginning to guess the rest of the story.”
Jack looked to Philip for guidance. Philip said, “Er, the whole thing got wiped out in the Great War?”
“Indeed, no, though that is an intelligent surmise. The trust continued and its assets grew, through good times and bad, until the present day. And well before the Great War, the trust managers had the foresight to transfer a substantial fraction of the assets into investment in Outer System development. Now, however, we must come to the present day. It has been seventy-five years since Marcus Tullius Beston died. Today is, in fact, the exact anniversary of his death. The rules for the line of descent for his inheritors were complex, but well-defined. You, Philip Beston and Jack Beston, are his sole inheritors. You were bequeathed and will receive, in equal shares, the value of his estate.”
“You mean we’re going to get money?” The explanation had finally reached a point that Philip and Jack could understand.
“Eventually, but not for some years. The elder brother — that is you, Philip — will have to reach age twenty- three. Moreover, the assets may be used by each of you only in the manner originally described; namely, for such enterprises as will significantly and beneficially affect the future of the human race.”
“Do our parents know all this?”
