The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [66]
“I know,” Ranjit said, more for the monk’s sake than his own.
“He may never even need to be born again. And if he is, I am sure it will be as someone or some creature near you. And, oh, Ranjit, when you can travel, please come and see us. And do you have a lawyer? There is a little bit in your father’s estate. Of course it all goes to you, but there are documents to file.”
That troubled Ranjit. He had no lawyer. But when he mentioned it to Mevrouw Vorhulst, she said that wasn’t a problem, and from then on he did have a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, either, but a partner in Gamini’s father’s firm, whose name was Nigel De Saram. What troubled Ranjit a good deal more was the stabbing guilt he felt. He hadn’t known of his father’s death, and the reason for that was that he had not bothered to ask.
Oh, sure, he told himself, he had been full of a thousand other concerns.
But if it had been the other way around, would Ranjit have slipped his father’s mind?
Not counting servants, Mevrouw Vorhulst was his only visitor for the first few days, but then he argued (and the doctors had to agree) that no stress any visitor might cause him would come anywhere near the stress caused by strong young jailers hitting him with clubs. The barriers were reduced. The next morning, while Ranjit was experimenting with some of the Vorhulsts’ exercise machines, the Vorhulsts’ butler came into the gym, cleared his throat, and said, “You have a visitor, sir.”
Ranjit’s mind had been far away. “Have there been any messages for me?” he asked.
The butler sighed. “No, sir. If any messages come, they will be brought to you at once, as you requested. Now Dr. De Saram would like to see you. Shall I show him in?”
Ranjit quickly put on one of the Vorhulsts’ infinite supply of dressing gowns. Lawyer De Saram quickly took charge. He didn’t seem very junior to Ranjit—he was maybe fifty or sixty, maybe more—and he was clearly good at what he did. He didn’t have to be told about the bequest from Ranjit’s father. Although he had been asked to handle Ranjit’s affairs barely forty-eight hours before, he had already established Ranjit’s existence with the appropriate Trincomalee court and had a pretty good idea of the value of the bequest. “Not quite twenty million rupees, Mr. Subramanian,” he said, “but not far under it, either—or, at the current rate of exchange, about ten thousand U.S. dollars. The bulk of it is two pieces of property, your father’s home and a smaller house that is currently unoccupied.”
“I know the house,” Ranjit told him. “Is there anything I have to do?”
“Not just now,” De Saram told him, “although there is one possibility that you may wish to give some thought to. Dr. Bandara himself would have wished to do this for you, but, as you know, he is involved in some highly classified matters with the United Nations.”
“I do know, but I don’t know much,” Ranjit said.
“Of course. The thing is that you might normally have a claim for damages against the people who, ah, prevented you from coming home for so long, but—”
Ranjit said, “I know. We aren’t to talk about those people.”
“Exactly so,” De Saram declared, sounding relieved. “However, there is another avenue you may wish to take. It would be possible for you to bring an action against the cruise line company on the grounds that they should not have allowed their ship to be taken over by pirates. That would not be for as large a sum as the other, of course, both because their responsibility is a little harder to establish and also because their solvency is not very strong—”
“No, wait a minute,” Ranjit said. “They had their ship stolen, which I was on because of my own stupidity, and now I should sue them for letting it happen? That doesn’t sound fair.”
For the first time De Saram gave him a friendly grin. “Dr. Bandara said you would say that,” he announced. “Now I think my car should be about ready….”
And indeed