"All eight signed a 'Gentlemen Adventurers' contract, making them all mutually heirs to each other - all of them and their issue.  They did it with great care, using as models similar contracts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that had stood up against every effort to break them.  Now these were all high-powered people; among them they had quite a lot.  Happened to include considerable Lunar Enterprises stock, too, besides what Brant held.  Smith might turn out to own a controlling interest, or at least a key bloc in a proxy fight."