Alan smiled. Bryson had been defeated; Max's money was his. Money that could be turned toward intensified research on the hyperdrive.
"Well, son?" Jesperson asked. "How does it feel to be a millionaire?"
Chapter
Sixteen
At the time, he had been much too excited and flustered to answer anything. But, as the next twelve months went by, he learned that being a millionaire was quite pleasant indeed.
There were headaches, of course. There was the initial headache of signing his name several hundred times in the course of the transfer of Hawkes' wealth to him. There were also the frequent visits from the tax-collectors, and the payment to them of a sum that staggered Alan to think about, in the name of Rotation Tax.
But even after taxes, legal fees, and other expenses, Alan found he owned better than nine hundred thousand credits, and the estate grew by investment every day. The court appointed a legal guardian for him, the lawyer Jesperson, who was to administer Alan's money until Alan reached the biological age of twenty-one. The decision was an involved one, since Alan had undeniably been born three hundred years earlier, in 3576—but the robojudge that presided over that particular hearing cited a precedent seven hundred years old which stated that for legal purposes a starman's biological and not his chronological age was to be accepted.
The guardianship posed no problems for Alan, though. When he met with Jesperson to discuss future plans, the lawyer told him, "You can handle yourself, Alan. I'll give you free rein with the estate—with the proviso that I have veto power over any of your expenditures until your twenty-first birthday."
That sounded fair enough. Alan had reason to trust the lawyer; hadn't Hawkes recommended him? "I'll agree to that," Alan said. "Suppose we start right now. I'd like to take a year and travel around the world. As my legal guardian you'll be stuck with the job of managing my estate and handling investments for me."