MD3PAD 250-252

[Toby G Levy]

        Mason and Dixon can't believe they've been hired to work
together again. They feel they showed cowardice on the journey on the
Seahorse and are perplexed at their reputation in the scientific
community. They still regret that they did not get to go to Skanderoon
rather than South Africa.

        They also suspect the Royal Society is sending them to America
to get them out of the way. Mason indulges on paranoid flights of fancy
as to the meaning and motives of the actions of the Royal Society.  He
says that the Society likes to deal with chartered companies and reminds
Dixon that both Maryland and Pennsylvania are chartered companies.

from the Mason & Dixon alpha at hyperarts:

"The lord proprietors of England's colonial trading companies claimed
special protections over their incorporated businesses, extended through
their divinely granted authority, including permanency of incorporation,
limited liability, and the legal authority to be free from community and
worker interference. These protections were initially limited by the
American colonists, whose intent in this area was to create a nation
where the citizenry were the government and the government controlled
the corporations--by ensuring that, if a corporation violated its
agreement to obey all laws, to serve the public good, and to cause no
harm, its charter would be revoked."

Toby