[[Posted 14-01-2007, 01:51:55]]Reception Hall, 2200 Hours, 3081/08/26...Elizabeth sipped her tea, and scrolled through directories on her PADD.
How I hate these things, let me count the-oh, better file a sell order on that one... Something
Loomed, and she heard a scape of one of the chairs at her table moving. After logging the sale, she looked up.
The man was big, brawny, suntanned. Handsome in a rugged way that was completely different from Peter's rugged handsome. This man filled his tuxedo almost to bursting.
"Devlin Stone, again?" Liz greeted him, "I thought you would be more interested in persons of more significance."
"I could hardly stay away, Duchess Ngo. You seem to be the only person here not pretending to be having a good time." A steward brought him a cup of something hot, steaming, and definitely non-alcoholic. Liz sipped her tea in silence, waiting.
He sighed heavily, sipped his drink, and broke the silence. "You're the key to the Lyrans. Not
Peter, you. I don't like going around a point, when I can get straight to it."
She smiled at him, it was a false smile, her eyes did not carry it. "Well, you are mistaken, I am merely here to assist the Archon in a particularly difficult negotiation."
Stone snorted, "Yeah, and I'm here tonight to be photographed with famous people and make inspiring quips for the morning tabloids. Bullshit. You're heading this up, even if it's Peter who gets the credit...and you're doing a fine job of sabotaging the whole affair. Pray tell me why, if you would be so honest?"
Liz folded her PADD. "I assume you have the good sense to record this. You want to know...
why." she poured her cup full, and added spoon of sugar, and a shake of black pepper. "Study History much, Mister Stone?" she asked casually.
"Hmmm...some." he replied.
"Familiar with the mid to late twentieth centuries, European history and Asia?" she asked.
"Very." he replied, "Pre-Terran Alliance history,right?"
She nodded, "You're also familiar with the conditions leading up to that time, are you not?"
"Yes...I am. I am, in fact, considered rather well-educated. This is going somewhere, isn't it? the
Krystallnacht reference...and Year Zero." He answered.
"Correct, and correct. You're a dangerous man, Mister Stone-your kind of charisma happens maybe once or twice in a Millenium under normal circumstances-but the Twentieth Century saw four men with it, and the nineteenth saw three. We're in a 'Transition' century right now-something that hasn't been since Stephan Amaris and Aleksandr Kerensky were both alive... and you're him, you're the Millennial. You're Ceasar, and Alexander, Lincoln, Washington, Pol Pot, Lenin, Mao, and Hitler." she sipped her tea for a breath, "Men like you have big dreams, and the ability to make those dreams happen. Unfortunately, there is no real room for common people in those dreams, it's the commoners who wind up crushed and abandoned under the heels of the Idealists marching to Utopia."
"I'm doing this for them." he said.
"Ah, they all say that, Mister Stone, usually right before they line the dissidents and counter-revolutionaries up to be shot, or maybe shoot the leaders and sterilize the innocent bystanders, perhaps round up dangerous elements and try to crush the will out of them..." she set the cup back down after taking a sip, "Men like you may not be able to be totally
stopped, but they can be
slowed down, 'moderated' so that those powers and ambitions don't consume innocents like a firestorm in a paper factory."
"So... you think that by damaging my position
now you're going to accomplish some kind of 'moderation'?" He said scornfully.
"Yes. It is fortunate that those Plants went up when they did-I didn't have to sneak a team in to demolish them later, after you've rebuilt your war-machine and gone looking to add territory, or worse, export your 'revolution' to adjoining states to create dependent clients, clients governed by your men, from here, on Terra." she said smoothly.
"the Star League was governed through the highest period of human achievement from Terra...by the descendents of a...what did you call it, 'Millenial'?" He pointed out.
"The Star League was a boot on the neck of humanity, Mister Stone. To achieve it's 'Peace' it slaughtered millions-even during alleged 'peacetime'. Averting such an Iron Dream from recurrance is
well worth the risk." she countered, "The Camerons put the Amaris family in place in the Republic, and backed their most horrific domestic policies
,with force, right up to the day that Stephan Amaris killed First Lord Cameron."
Stone's turn to be silent for a while, Elizabeth sipped her tea, and waited quietly.
"You said 'Trade is more stabilizing than Tribute'...it's a quote, I presume?" Stone asked.
"Yes, Jerry Pournelle, a futurist from the Twentieth Century said it in a piece of speculative fiction, it's true-to a point." she replied.
"That point being?" Stone pressed.
"When Trade
becomes Tribute, when the trade balance is one-sided, and when the Trade is a cover for other, less savoury activities-for instance, buying British Oil right up to the point that the Germans were ready to begin the Battle of Britain, or getting loans from Jewish Bankers, then lynching them to avoid paying back the agreed upon interest." she stated.
"Hitler for the first, and Richard the Third for the second-he took Loans to launch his Crusade, then had the Jews in London put to death to avoid paying them back." Stone snapped.
"Well... I guess you
are educated. Then you understand-I have nothing to show me that you will not, if given the chance, turn out to be a Stalin or Lenin...or Castro, sending Guevarra to topple governments in the South America in order to build his empire. I
won't allow that, but I can't topple what you have already built, so I will throw sand-in-the-gears to slow you down and buy time for everyone else to catch up."
"I wouldn't do that. I just want things to
settle down." Stone insisted, "I'm trying to forge something that will bring an
end to these stupid, petty wars."
"Can you speak clearly for all who succeed you? The United States was isolationist at the beginning of the 1890's, by the end of the 1990's, they were the most powerful nation in the most powerful alliance of nations mankind had ever seen-the Pax Americana, of course, did not extend to Israel, or to the zone under Chinese domination, but it held sway over China as well-and they held the rest of asia in their hands. Isolationism turned into Interventionism, and interventionism turned into a poisonous form of cosmopolitan Tyranny...your 'Republic' won't even allow all of its subjects the rights that, for instance, my own enjoy as part and parcel of their birth -you've created a system with a permanent underclass that will only become MORE permanent the longer it runs. At first, it will look like anyone can rise above the level they were born to, Mister Stone, but there are limits to how many can enter government service, or how many can buy their citizenship. Sooner or later, stratified societies either stagnate, or erupt. teh typical cure for impending eruption has typically been to go fight a war with someone. The longer it takes you to get to the point you
can, the less likely it is that your successors
will...and that's even assuming you aren't trying to tool Krupp and Irian to start pumping out war-machines as fast as they ever have."
"Pot and Kettle, Duchess, you're a
Noble and you speak as if you cribbed from
My speech book." Stone said, "You're a closet Republican, aren't you?"
she folded her hands, "Government should serve the
interests of the People, it should
Govern, as opposed to
Rule them, its powers are rightfully limited, and in the end, it is answerable for what it does in their name."
"Agreed...******, I thought I was going to be dealing with a Monarchist Blue-nose...I find out, you're threatened because you think I'm doing something
wrong." Stone said.
"I don't advocate my world's governing style for the rest of the Commonwealth, mister Stone-that's our main difference. I wouldn't try to force our way on someone else unless there was no other choice-anymore than I would tolerate someone else forcing my people to their system. Your Republic is going to try and force an alien system on billions of people simultaneously, whether they desire it or not, whether they are responsible enough to
handle it, and it tightly limits who derives the benefits, not to those who work hard, but to those who are
seen to work hard. Party Membership becomes more important than Honest labours, and it's an evangelical philosophy you have, that, combined with your brilliance, charisma and the weight of your followers, makes you the most dangerous man in the Inner Sphere."
Stone paused... "So, that means you won't change your position, doesn't it?" he asked.
"About sums it up neatly, yes." Liz said, "I see no other course. At its current size, and with what you have on-hand, the Republic is a buffer that no-one is going to cross for generations, but if you're allowed to grow, you go from being an assurance of some kind of peace, to a threat in your own right...a threat that
my people will likely bear the brunt of thwarting in blood later."
"And you think Alliance is out of the question, or you wouldn't be working so hard to prevent it." Stone said.
Liz nodded, "It is the experience of my folk, that cooperating in hopes of being the last one executed is poor policy. If Israel had struck pre-emptively, the Pan-Islamic alliance would not have conquered Israel in 2041, if they had resisted, instead of relying on non-existent Alliance aid, millions would not have been worked to death in Germanium Mines in the Sinai-death camps that the Alliance ignored because output was so high, and there was such a demand for Jump-ships in the early part of the 22nd century, death by Dhimmitude, enforced and endorsed by the majority of the Western Alliance government-which was the Terran Alliance at that time. An ignorance powered by greed and faint feelings of guilt over the Middle-East's role in the late 20th century."
He frowned, "and justified by Revisionist historians in Europe..."
"Nice, most people don't pay attention to that part." Liz said.
"I was
very well educated preparing for this meeting." Devlin confessed, "I read most of everything I could get when I saw who was coming." He pointed at her, "
Your ancestors from that period weren't Israelis, though."
"Nope, một nước tự do, Anti-Communists." She said, "Christians, as a matter of fact. Kept in the dirt as potential tên phản cách mạng...for generations."
"Counter-Revolutionaries...nice." He sighed. "I wish you would reconsider, the Commonwealth needs all the allies it can get, and not to be too humble about it, I'd say we make a SPLENDID ally."
She shook her head, "Peter's decision in the End, Mister Stone. he's his own man, nobody really pulls his strings but him." she said that last bit with a little peaking of pride in her voice.
"Oh... I see." Devlin said, suddenly abashed. "I heard rumours, but..."
"Oh, Please, not
you too!" Liz
almost snarled.
"Come on, anyone with eyes-anyone, could see that it's an act, Duchess, you two make moon-eyes at each other even when you're spitting in his face for the Vid-Crews, I myself didn't really believe it, until just now." He
grinned, it was a grin that normally could quell a riot-or start one. "I've been sitting here trying to dazzle you with my intellect, since you quite obviously aren't impressed with the package-and you leaked the first genuine emotion I've seen since you got here-and you were talking about Peter the
Man, rather than Peter the
Ruler." He spread his hands, "It all makes
sense now... you're not stopping the great threat of the next century-you're trying your damnedest to preserve the legacy of Peter, Steiner, Davion. Period..."
"THat...is the most
ridiculous thinking I have ever witnessed, Mister Stone." Liz said primly, "I could care
less what happens to Peter's 'Legacy', I find the man irritating and a boor...almost as boorish as yourself." she forced her mouth into a hard line.
"There you go again... false fronts. Jesus, I was blind." his grin widened, "you're almost funny, you know that? Like the girl in class who sighs, but never talks to her crush, and denies it to everyone who bothers to be in range of her voice... Tragic, really, he obviously feels the same way about
you...and he won't do anything
either." Stone folded his hands, and leaned forward onto the table, "..which, of course, is also a false front. Here's what I think-I think you're too damn logical and politically aware for your own good,
You want him to succeed, you want him to succeed on his own, you'll do anything to preserve him-and you
have. Here's what is going to happen next-you're going to get what you want, because it gets the Republic what it needs-you're right about the dangers, there
is a danger that it will get out of control, that it will go Soviet. I
already know this." he tapped his cup, "So, you'll do what you're going to do, and in the end, you'll get what you think you want-and you'll lose him, because he's on a house of cards, and that house can topple in the first breeze, and I don't have to be the one blowing this time. when it does, well... good luck to you, you'll need it."
With that, Devlin Stone bade her good night, stood, and walked out.
Well, that's different.... 
A not-so-subtle warning that Stone has what he believes is a way to bring down Peter, unless Liz plays ball. While that might have worked with most people, I don’t seeing it working on her: she’ll have a card or two up her own sleeve...
