Strong shook his head. "Your title wouldn't be any good anyhow. The Moon doesn't stay in one place; it passes over owned land certainly-but so does a migrating goose."
"And nobody has title to a migrating bird. I get your point-but the Moon always stays over that one belt. If you move a boulder in your garden, do you lose title to it? Is it still real estate? Do the title laws still stand? This is like that group of real estate cases involving wandering islands in the Mississippi, George-the land moved as the river cut new channels, but somebody always owned it. In this case I plan to see to it that we are the 'somebody.'"
Strong puckered his brow. "I seem to recall that some of those island-andriparian cases were decided one way and some another."
"We'll pick the decisions that suit us. That's why lawyers' wives have mink coats. Come on, George; let's get busy."
"On what?"
"Raising the money."
"Oh." Strong looked relieved. "I thought you were planning to use our money."
"I am. But it won't be nearly enough. We'll use our money for the senior financing to get things moving; in the meantime we've got to work out ways to keep the money rolling in." He pressed a switch at his desk; the face of Saul Kamens, their legal chief of staff, sprang out at him. "Hey, Saul, can you slide in for a p0w-wow?"
"WThatever it is, just tell them 'no,'" answered the attorney. "I'll fix it."
"Good. Now come on in-they're moving Hell and I've got an option on the first ten loads."
Kamens showed up in his own good time. Some minutes later Harriman had explained his notion for claiming the Moon ahead of setting foot on it. "Besides those dummy corporations," he went on, "we need an agency that can receive contributions without having to admit any financial interest on the part of the contributor-like the National Geographic Society."
Kamens shook his head. "You can't buy the National Geographic Society."
"Damn it, who said we were going to? We'll set up our own."
"That's what I started to say."
"Good. As I see it, we need at least one tax-free, non-profit corporation headed up by the right people-we'll hang on to voting control, of course. We'll probably need more than one; we'll set them up as we need them. And we've got to have at least one new ordinary corporation, not tax-free- but it won't show a profit until we are ready. The idea is to let the nonprofit corporations have all of the prestige and all of the publicity-and the other gets all of the profits, if and when. We swap assets around between corporations, always for perfectly valid reasons, so that the non-profit corporations pay the expenses as we go along. Come to think about it, we had better have at least two ordinary corporations, so that we can let one of them go through bankruptcy if we find it necessary to shake out the water. That's the general sketch. Get busy and fix it up so that it's legal, will you?"
Kamens said, "You know, Delos, it would be a lot more honest if you did it at the point of a gun."
"A lawyer talks to me of honesty! Never mind, Saul; I'm not actually going to cheat anyone-"
"Humph!"
"-and I'm just going to make a trip to the Moon. That's what everybody will be paying for; that's what they'll get. Now fix it up so that it's legal, that's a good boy."
"I'm reminded of something the elder Vanderbilt's lawyer said to the old man under similar circumstances: 'It's beautiful the way it is; why spoil it by making it legal?' Okeh, brother gonoph, I'll rig your trap. Anything else?"
"Sure. Stick around, you might have some ideas. George, ask Montgomery to come in, will you?" Montgomery, Harriman's publicity chief, had two virtues in his employer's eyes: he was personally loyal to Harriman, and, secondly, he was quite capable of planning a campaign to convince the public that Lady Godiva wore a Caresse-brand girdle during her famous ride
or that Hercules attributed his strength to Crunchies for breakfast. He arrived with a large portfolio under his arm. "Glad you sent for me, Chief. Get a load of this-" He spread the folder open on Harriman's desk and began displaying sketches and layouts. "Kinsky's work-is that boy hot!" Harriman closed the portfolio. "What outfit is it for?"
"Huh? New World Homes."
"I don't want to see it; we're dumping New World Homes. Wait a minute-don't start to bawl. Have the boys go through with it; I want the price kept up while we unload. But open your ears to another matter." He explained rapidly the new enterprise.
Presently Montgomery was nodding. "When do we start and how much do we spend?"
"Right away and spend what you need to. Don't get chicken about expenses; this is the biggest thing we've ever tackled." Strong flinched; Harriman went on, "Have insomnia over it tonight; see me tomorrow and we'll kick it around."
"Wait a see, Chief. How are you going to sew up all those franchises from the, uh-the Moon states, those countries the Moon passes over, while a big publicity campaign is going on about a trip to the Moon and how big a thing it is for everybody? Aren't you about to paint yourself into a corner?"
"Do I look stupid? We'll get the franchise before you hand out so much as a filler-you'll get 'em, you and Kamens. That's your first job."
"Hmmm... ." Montgomery chewed a thumb nail. "Well, all right-I can see some angles. How soon do we have to sew it up?"
"I give you six weeks. Otherwise just mail your resignation in, written on the skin off your back."
"I'll write it right now, if you'll help me by holding a mirror."
"Damn it, Monty, I know you can't do it in six weeks. But make it fast; we can't take a cent in to keep the thing going until you sew up those franchises. If you dilly-dally, we'll all starve-and we won't get to the Moon, either."
Strong said, "D.D., why fiddle with those trick claims from a bunch of moth-eaten tropical countries? If you are dead set on going to the Moon, let's call Ferguson in and get on with the matter."
"I like your direct approach, George," Harriman said, frowning. "Mmmm back about i 84; or '46 an eager-beaver American army officer captured California. You know what the State Department did?"
"They made him hand it back. Seems he hadn't touched second base, or something. So they had to go to the trouble of capturing it all over again a few months later. Now I don't want that to happen to us. It's not enough just to set foot on the Moon and claim it; we've got to validate that claim in terrestrial courts-or we're in for a peck of trouble. Eh, Saul?"
Kamens nodded. "Remember what happened to Columbus."
"Exactly. We aren't going to let ourselves be rooked the way Columbus was."
Montgomery spat out some thumb nail. "But, Chief-you know damn well those banana-state claims won't be worth two cents after I do tie them up. Why not get a franchise right from the U.N. and settle the matter? I'd as lief tackle that as tackle two dozen cockeyed legislatures. In fact I've got an angle already-we work it through the Security Council and-"
"Keep working on that angle; we'll use it later. You don't appreciate the full mechanics of the scheme, Monty. Of course those claims are worth nothing-except nuisance value. But their nuisance value is all important. Listen: we get to the Moon, or appear about to. Every one of those countries puts up a squawk; we goose them into it through the dummy corporations they have enfranchised. Where do they squawk? To the U.N., of course. Now the big countries on this globe, the rich and important ones, are all in the northern temperate zone. They see what the claims are based on and they take a frenzied look at the globe. Sure enough, the Moon does not pass over a one of them. The biggest country of all-Russia-doesn't own a spadeful of dirt south of twenty-nine north. So they reject all the claims.