That was one part of it. The other was that numerous contentious
factions in the space cities and on the so-called open worlds wanted
to spill over on the Freeholder planets. Again the Overgovernment
refused, and again it made sense to Dowland. But the Freeholders
feared--perhaps with justification, so far as Dowland could tell--that
political pressures would mount with each increase in excess population
and eventually lead to such measures. Many of them, probably the
majority, led by Anthony Brand Carter--Firebrand Carter, head of the
largest and wealthiest of the Families--believed that the only safe
solution was to arm the planet. They wanted heavy weapons, and enough
of them: the right to build them, to man them and, if necessary, to
use them to beat off encroaching groups. The Overgovernment pointed
out that the possession and use of major implements of war was by law
its own exclusive privilege. Litigation on the matter had gone on
for decades, was periodically renewed by Carter and his associates.
Meanwhile, many of Terra's sportsmen became members of an extremely
able-bodied group called Carter's Troopers, and assiduously practiced
the skills of battle with the means allowed them. Dowland and the Solar
Police Authority knew the Troopers were crack shots, excellent fliers
and horsemen, but the Overgovernment was not worrying about it at
present.
Mr. Paul Trelawney, the younger of the brothers, had been a Trooper
for two years while in his twenties, then had quarreled violently
with Firebrand Carter, had left Terra to major in physics at the
Overgovernment's universities, and presently received his degree.
What he had done after that wasn't known. He appeared occasionally
on Terra, might be here at present. Miguel, Paul's senior by almost
twenty years, now in his early fifties, had also taken an interest in
physics, attending an Overgovernment university a quarter of a century
earlier. Miguel's studies terminated before he obtained a degree,
as a result of a difference of opinion with the president of the
university, whom he challenged to a duel. The records of both brothers
indicated, in Dowland's opinion, more than a trace of the megalomania
not too uncommon among men with excessive wealth and no real claim
to distinction. But, in spite of their choice of studies, there was
nothing to link either Trelawney to the missing YM. Mental brilliance
might have made them suspect; but their I.Q. readings, while definitely
better than average--a number of notches above Dowland's own, for
that matter--were not outstanding. Their scholastic performance had
been of comparative quality. Miguel, on his return to Terra, had
dropped physics in favor of experimental biology. The ranch on Lion
Mesa was adapted to his hobby, which at the moment was directed to the
production of a strain of gigantic wild hogs for hunting purposes.
Presumably the breeding of bad-tempered tons of bacon on the hoof
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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