Mike Entrusts Douglas with Managing All His Financial Affairs

At the public Earth–Mars meeting, Mike asks Joseph E. Douglas to take charge of all his business affairs, choosing personal trust over a formal search for an experienced manager. The appointment is presented by Jubal Harshaw on Mike’s behalf, then confirmed by Mike himself before an audience listening across the planet. Douglas does not accept on the spot, but says he will answer promptly; the scene makes the proposed fiduciary relationship an act of trust as much as a practical arrangement.

Background and Need

Mike is at the meeting in two capacities, as a visitor bearing the good wishes of the Martian powers and as a human citizen with rights, property, and obligations. Jubal explains that those obligations include complicated business matters: he has not even assembled a complete inventory of what Mike owns, let alone worked out how to handle tax questions. In Jubal’s account, Mike has no experience of business as humans conduct it, while his affairs cannot simply wait until he learns the Earthly system.

The choice of an agent also reflects Mike’s priorities. Jubal says Mike would rather learn the history, arts, and customs of his second home than immerse himself in debentures, stock issues, and royalties. Rather than treating this preference as neglect, Jubal presents it as a reasonable allocation of attention, consistent with Mike’s interest in understanding human life. Business administration is needed, but it is not the education Mike most wants to pursue.

The Public Request

Jubal raises the matter directly with Douglas during the meeting, explaining that Mike wants to appoint him attorney-in-fact with full power over his business affairs. The offer is deliberately framed as personal rather than official: Mike is asking Joseph E. Douglas, not the Secretary General as an officeholder. If Douglas retires from public life, Jubal stresses, that would not change the request; a successor in the Octagon Office would not inherit the trust by inheriting the position.

Jubal anticipates that accepting would be a considerable burden. He describes Douglas as the busiest person on the planet and says he warned Mike that the request imposed on him. Mike’s answer, as Jubal recounts it, is simply that they can ask Douglas. Jubal connects this directness to Martian customs: people are not hurried into an answer, and trust is not hedged with elaborate precautions. The proposed arrangement could be put in writing, but Mike would also be willing to make it orally, relying on Douglas’s word rather than requiring a bond or audit.

Confirmation and Douglas’s Response

The public setting does not dissolve when Jubal asks whether the personal business should be handled privately. The Secretary General gives him permission to continue, and no one leaves. Douglas then checks the central point with Mike, asking whether Mike wants him to do what is set out on the paper and specifically whether he wants Douglas to handle his business affairs. Jubal holds his breath: Mike has been prepared for a question, but his literal way of interpreting language makes the precise wording unpredictable.

Mike answers clearly and asks Douglas to take the responsibility, calling it a goodness and thanking him. His response turns Jubal’s report into Mike’s own explicit authorization. Because the broadcast reaches rooms around the planet, the confirmation is not merely a private instruction between client and prospective agent; it is heard by a vast public audience. Douglas says the answer is clear, but reserves his decision and promises to provide it promptly. His response recognizes the honor and weight of the request without falsely suggesting that he has already accepted.

Trust, Alternatives, and Significance

Jubal’s presentation defines the appointment as a relationship between particular people, not an automatic delegation to government. Douglas’s public rank may make him an obvious candidate, but Mike’s confidence is directed at Douglas himself. This distinction gives the offer its force: public authority supplies the setting, while the proposed duty rests on personal trust.

Jubal also makes clear that Mike has alternatives if Douglas cannot or will not serve. Ben Caxton is named as the second choice, with further successors held back for the moment. The fallback plan shows that Mike’s affairs require a durable arrangement rather than a symbolic gesture, while leaving Douglas free to decide. The scene thus combines practical succession planning with an unusually uncomplicated conception of confidence: the request is extensive, yet Mike does not surround it with demands for surveillance or proof.

The immediate outcome remains open. Douglas has not yet accepted; he has promised a prompt answer. What is settled is Mike’s choice and the terms on which he makes it: the business will be entrusted to a person he trusts, rather than to whoever happens to occupy an office. In the larger public meeting, that personal request also gives human form to the encounter between Martian practice and Earth’s legal and economic arrangements.