BeyHop Chpt 69

==Beyond Hope- Chapter 69 - The ripples before the tsunami==
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
===Painful Small Talk===
Spider MoonKowloon System, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran States)3065
Warriors and Soldiers as a common rule, tell war stories. "...so this freebirth, who just made it through as Abtakha, after spending months being rebuilt, grabs a boulder using his 'mech's hands, and hurls it down the slope at the Com Guards. And he says, 'anyone who even thinks the word 'surrender' over being short a few consumables had better think again, we do not surrender here'." Marthe was telling a war story from Tukayyid. "He proceeded to lead that star forward using rocks, trees, and melee attacks. They almost reached Aidan's position in time. It was insane," she laughed. 
"So that was Henry?" Helena asked politely.
"Aff. Henry Jade-Falcon, Henry Ngo, was one of the best I had seen. Then he got killed."
"I knew he'd be good," Elizabeth commented. "But he didn't…" she looked away.
"At Blackjack, your brother took out five Elite warriors while piloting a training 'mech, a Chameleon. He was the last cadet to be taken alive, and he fought for three days after everyone else surrendered. It took a month before he could speak, and the first weeks were, according to his bondholder, 'problematic'. He refused to speak English for weeks."
This is torture for Liz. I need to think of a way to change the subject, Helena thought to herself.
“So Khan Suvarov, I can’t help but notice you’re an outlier among our guests?” Helena probed.
“Aff. I am an Aerospace phenotype. So I have more familiarity with this sort of environment than my fellow Khans,” Ariel answered.
“A pilot then. Must be interesting.”
“It can be trying. Our culture is so bent toward venerating the MechWarrior that an Aerospace or Elemental phenotype is rare as a leader.”
Elizabeth softly chuckled, "But a 'MechWarrior can't fight, if a 'MechWarrior can't land."
“Aff. That is how I came to power. I showed the usefulness of aerospace superiority, and have worked to build up that arm of my Clan. It has resulted in success. It is also a large part of why I am willing to consider other ideas. Other reforms. ‘Unconventional’ seems to be paying dividends, as you would put it.” Ariel nodded.
“Strategy over tactics," Liz said. "They're learning faster than I expected, Helena."
“Aff. I came to realize our conflict is not just one of force of arms, but of ideas, economic output… a truly ‘Total War’.”
“Yeah. But until they actually get over some elements of their caste system and really start to crank the babies out, hell, even then we’ll probably still have so much of a lead on them that they’ll never catch up,” Helena nodded.
"How much was lost?" Liz asked. "Before you time-jumped, do you figure, Helena? Arthur and I were working off fragments from before-long before-the Amaris war, never mind the Succession Wars. How much got lost before we noticed?"
"I do not understand…?" Marthe said.
"We're in a dark age," Elizabeth told her. "All of us. The things on that dropship? Are based on 21st century theories. The methods for producing exotic matter necessary for it? Were twenty fifth century ideas. My husband and I are lauded in the Inner Sphere for our science, but it's more like we're digging in the crannies of a forgotten history."
“I mean, just look at what Helm brought back. There were techniques in there for quadrupling the typical milk production of a Terran dairy cow of the time that was lostech,” Helena offered. “Simple basic stuff like that was lost.”
"And 'Gateway'?" Vlad asked.
"KF theory extrapolated it before we had interstellar flight. We've lost more than we even have names for, and we don't know we lost it… or didn't, at least. It's like someone was holding us all back."
“In my time, the way the Mother Doctrine was presented to me was primarily just a matter of restricting exports. There was nothing about actually stopping the research of the Great Houses. Then Elizabeth showed me a real version. Maybe one that came about later. But it was horrifying nonetheless.”
"So, you have a suspect," Vlad inquired.
"The Earthers," Liz said. "Mother Doctrine, Holy Shroud, Holy Shroud Two, Scorpion, some of the terrorist attacks we've faced in the last decade… all trace back to Old Earth."
“Thus, part of why you want us so close. A veiled threat,” Marthe noted.
"Veiled? No, explicit. To keep the peace, you have to keep the peace," Liz explained. "Someone has to sit on them, and the Great Houses are too… compromised by them. They really didn't have a choice once they started putting their dirty laundry on the HPG network."
“Comstar spent a lot of time and effort making themselves look like the good guy to the common person. Negotiating ceasefires, taking in refugees, staying neutral, and keeping civilization going by maintaining the HPG nets. All while the other hand went unnoticed, stoking the flames of war, discontent, and making sure they would be the ones to bring humanity out of the dark age.”
Elizabeth brought out her PADD. "These seven names. They're researchers whose discoveries would have changed the world: medicine, chemistry, physics, engineering… Only we don't know that, because they died and their work was destroyed. The only reason I know those names is because the eradication didn't include popular magazines in local markets where the basic ideas were spoken, but no specifics on the research were shown… Because any more extensive sources were eradicated. Great Grandmama Sophie hid our manufacturing as salvage to avoid the nukings that took out most of my family's competitors in the tooling and fabrication markets. We didn't just outmaneuver Bridgeport of Donegal, their offices were brought to ten thousand degrees in under a second after they started testing an innovative new Myomer Loom system in the mid 29th century. All their prototypes and documentation were lost. Someone has been standing on the neck of mankind for centuries. Olmstead of Skye was down river when they blew the dams. All their data, factories and tooling went bye-bye too. I can go on. I took a huge risk outing Ngo Enterprises as more than a spectacularly lucky salvage outfit in 3051. And they recently tried to take me out with poison. It cost me a third child."
"Where did you get the list then?" Khan Sennet asked.
"Corporate Espionage department, during Grandfather's term. After he got out of Blackgate, where he’d been sent for criticizing Alessandro's policies, and where they kept him because someone told them he knew where Katrina Steiner and Arthur Luvon were hiding from Alessandro's supporters."
"Corporate…espionage?" Vlad asked in surprise.
"Interstellar corporation with multinational competitors. If you don't have one, you stop being one," Liz explained. "And end up being someone else's subsidiary if you're VERY lucky."
"Seems… dirty." Vlad made a face of distaste.
"That would be because it is. They play dirty tricks, we play them back, or try to stop them. In trying to stop them, you develop certain assets you must have, to protect funding, or customers, or suppliers, or trade secrets you have to have, or you don't have a business. For example, Ngo Enterprises kept the secret of being a working manufacturer, under the cover of appearing to be a salvage and refit shop, for over a century and a half. Which is why our facilities didn't get nuked, unlike a lot of places IN our business, who were always the first or second thing targeted by one House Lord or another during the Succession Wars. When they weren't 'raided' into nonexistence by suspiciously well equipped pirates."
"You dropped that… cover story for a reason?" Marthe observed.
"Yeah, because someone noticed that the sheer amount of times we rebuilt major manufacturers meant we had to be finding more industrial equipment than had been manufactured since before the Succession Wars," she explained. "There's only so far you can fool people before they start recognizing patterns. Stoney was, of all things, what clued me in."
“Such waste. All of it. It should not be this way.” Vlad shook his head.
"You're right, but your way isn't any better, or you'd have outpaced us from day one and we'd never have been able to catch up, much less pass you," Liz stated. "There's the basic problem of command economies right there: no real innovation, because there's no reason to innovate. No growth because your growth has to meet a specific quota, and there's no reward for being either more efficient with the work, or less costly in achieving it besides not having your brains blown out. And finally, no incentive to work hard, because hard work wears you out faster, and you'll be left to die. That right there kills your psychological investment in generating prosperity, improving processes, and generating more than what the central planning office tells you you must to avoid being shot."
"Not all of us are like that…" Barbara Sennet added.
"I read Kerensky's book," Liz stated. "All of it. I can extrapolate. See, most of my production? They're subcontractors and smallholders. People who own their means of production and sell to me. Some of them I give seed money to, so they can compete with each other, and they have a vested interest in improving their processes, productivity, and profitability. Which means less resources they spend and they KEEP THE DIFFERENCE, so they have something for themselves and something to pass on. You saw it from the shuttle: we've got dozens of yards going. All the wildcatters and co-ops that run those, that feed them the materials, that work here? They're doing it with motivation, and I don't need troops holding guns to their heads to get them to do it."
“Some of us have strayed from Kerensky’s book. Some of us consider that a good thing. Others not so much,” Barbara continued. “Our Clan has always allowed for the accumulation of personal wealth. Futures exchanges. Media empires. Trade. We do not limit our Merchants. Indeed, they are highly respected in our Clan.”
Elizabeth inclined her head, "How many of those merchants also do their own work though?" she asked. "See, in my system, if you don't like your boss? You can quit. You can pick up your toolbox and go into business for yourself, doing all of it: the sales, the admin, the work. Or you can find another job, another boss, on your own and work there for what you can both agree is a fair wage. It's based on consent, which is why I don't have to deploy the riot troops to break up a strike every forty days like the Regent did… and some of you still do."
“I contend Clan Diamond shark is no more distasteful in its practices than you are Duchess Ngo. Or do you allow your staff to cross political lines and work for the Combine? Or your own boycott on House Davion?”
"That's more them, than us," Liz said. "If someone wants to leave the firm and try their hand somewhere else? I don't let the Company cross lines. Individuals who want to go expat and work for someone else? They lose any contractual benefits they might've gotten. They'll have to get their own, and my benefits packages are very good to encourage people to want to stay... But I don't shoot someone for leaving. If they're skilled enough, we negotiate a severance package and they can go work for whoever. They just don't get to drag me in with them."
Barbara blinked. "Has that happened?"
"Lost two good VP's from the engineering department to Knight-Lenovo, and one to Irian in the last five years. Granddad lost a few to an offer from Defiance back in the thirties, and one guy? He skipped two national borders to go to work for the Cappies. One of their firms… poor guy didn't know what he was getting into. I sent his widow a nice fruit basket after the Maskirovka disappeared him." She leaned forward. "I don't have to keep my people penned up. I do my damnedest to make sure their being here is voluntary. When it stops, they go away on their own. Now, that's people who leave, voluntarily, above-board. Story is a little different for someone taking backhanders from the competition while still drawing a paycheck from me… and in that way, I'm worse than you imagine."
“I am not sure that is possible. But despite the insults towards our way of life, we are wise enough to understand we do not have to like you. Or agree with your interpretations of our society to work with you,” Marthe said.
"Agreed," Liz said with a nod. "You're going to be working more with Helena, than with me. I may be the Duchess of the system, but she's The First Lord of the Star League. She says ‘frog’ and I'm in the air. But thats me-as-duchess, not me-as-businesswoman. For that, she pays like every customer, because MY employees deserve to be paid."
“Yes. She is the one our oaths are bound to,” Marthe nodded.
Barbara looked thoughtful. "Obligation," she said.
"Yes," Liz nodded. "My obligations demand certain things. My word has to be good, or it falls apart for me, and everyone below me. Everyone around me."
“Honor. That is something we can understand,” Vlad nodded.
"Sometimes I hate it," Liz said. "But then, if I let my sentiments rule, it would wreck the lives of a couple billion people who don't deserve to have those lives wrecked."
“As our duties are to our Clans,” Ariel added.
"I’m angry at my father for a lot of things, but he had one thing right. You wear a uniform, that uniform is the embodiment and representative of everyone you serve. And as a leader, you serve. Their hopes, their aspirations, their dreams, their ambitions," Liz said. "True or false?"
“True,” Ariel answered.
"That's something I understand."
“We are elected to our positions, and it is not automatically for life. We do not need to die to be removed. So we must carefully weigh our decisions. Keeping in mind what serves our Clans best,” Barbara nodded.
"Helena?" Liz looked to the First Lord. "You know that proviso in the Star League Treaty? The one about nominating new members? That anyone with a seat can do it?"
“Yeah,” Helena answered.
"As First Lord, you're authorized to bear witness, correct?"
“Yup,” Helena nodded.
Liz pulled out a personal Comm unit, "Wells, have Ms Whyte meet me in the Oaken Cudgel. Tell her to bring…" she eyed the Khans, "...four packets from the Diamond File, a stylus, and her legal kit."
"Yes Your Grace."
"What are you planning?"
"Four contracts," Liz said. "Well, really, they're not contracts. But it's easier if I think of them that way."
“I am confused. Then what was it we signed before, if not applications for Star League membership?”
"This is a nomination. It means a short-cut onto the Star League council, because I already know Ragnar will sign off," Liz said. "So will West, and Victor will be happy about it, so that's pretty close to tipping point right there, and finally…" She grimaced. "Theodore owes me a favor, and this will be calling that in. That's enough votes that you'll have to show up for meetings and sit at the big table."
“Basically what you signed before was a provisional treaty agreement anyway. It did include applications to join. This? This is more of an expedited processing form. Cutting through a lot of red tape and waiting time,” Helena added.
"It's also my vote and the proxies I'm holding," Elizabeth stated. "Which means I'm giving up a lot of personal influence, since the people who most often want me to do them favors, are getting the favor they want without needing to give anything up."
"Which of these 'proxies' are you talking about?" Barbara asked.
"I'm holding the proxies for the Guild of Free Spacers, Niops, The Rim Collection, and the Metis Congress," Liz told them. "Kowloon's acting as their representative. It's why I get to sit at the big table."
“It will be worth it just to see Focht’s reaction.” Vlad smirked.
"That nice old man? He'll probably try to pressure me into sponsoring Phelan's people next," Liz noted. "Or he'll have an embolism. Hard to tell with the really old guys."
"Nice old man?" even Helena scoffed.
"Well, he's been nicer than I thought he'd be…" Liz shrugged. "Then again, I don't run into him very often, even in council. I guess a military evaluation would be different, he doesn't ask me for things."
The memories of Tukayyid were evident on Vlad and Marthe’s faces.
"I stepped in it, didn't I?"
“We won our objectives. True, it was painful all the same, but we won,” Vlad began to chuckle.
“Just a little more. We could have had both of ours as well,” Marthe joined in.
“They’re not quite right in the head are they?” Helena observed.
A tall woman in white came in, white suit, white hair, black briefcase.
"Thank you Ms. Whyte," Liz said, and took the folders from the briefcase, a stylus, and began signing forms with quiet efficiency, then she handed them to each Khan. "Read them, I… I must excuse myself for a few minutes."
“I am still unclear why we need to sign two different forms, but Spheroid bureaucracy is not something I am familiar with,” Karianna Schmitt said.
Elizabeth got up and said, "Ms. Whyte can explain it better than I can…I'll be back in a few minutes."
She limped away at a hurried pace, for the short hall marked 'Head', leaving Helena to clarify the Khan's questions with 'Ms Whyte' (Jane's) help.
“Please excuse me. Seems I need to take a moment as well.” Helena made the excuse at the first reasonable opportunity.
-----
She made it to a toilet stall, before the tremors turned into something else. Pleasekeepitquietpleasedontlethemknow. She managed to get down into the safe position she hadn't needed to use since the fifties, as the pain flooded through her as if from her center core outward, and the spasms began.
----
===Rescue===
Helena saw the door swing closed on the Ladies room. What's going on? She knew something was wrong, but not exactly what, only that she'd seen those shakes before. And Elizabeth's pretending not to need the cane was as apparently pretending, as could possibly be imagined.
She pushed the door open, as the whimper became an anguished howl of agony that ran on, and on…
She undid her belt and folded it over, stuffing it into Elizabeth’s mouth.
----
===Suffering in Shadows===
Spider Moon, Star League HQKowloon System, Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)3065
Karianna Schmitt was finished with this odd paperwork when a scream issued, louder than the music in the room, and the Khans saw uniformed personnel rushing for the bathrooms. 
Warrior's gotta Warrior. She was only just ahead of the other Khans running to respond, imagining all sorts of terrible possibilities.
The screams continued long enough, and they saw.
"GET THEM OUT OF HERE!!" Helena ordered.
The Khans allowed themselves to be escorted from the bathroom.
The screams went on for an eternity. Then they died down… and the First Lord came out.
"I suppose an explanation: Lady Ngo-Steiner-Davion is…unwell, and will not be rejoining us tonight," Helena told them, holding up her pants with one hand. "It would appear the 'cure' was… temporary."
One of the corpsman was holding the tattered remains of what used to be Helena’s belt.
"What is it?" Schmitt asked.
Vlad Ward answered before Helena or Ariel. "Cholmann's Syndrome. She is dying by centimeters, quiaff?"
Helena nodded, holding back her tears.
"Like her ancestor from the video, then. How long does she have?" Ariel asked.
“Not sure, since the attempted cure gave her a lot of years. Now the pregnancies need to be taken into consideration too. We’ll know more soon,” Helena answered.
"Five minutes," Ms. Whyte said. "This one lasted five minutes. She is still in stage two, early phase."
“So we bought until she turns about sixty then? Maybe fifties?” Helena asked.
"With luck, sixty," Ms Whyte said. "Arthur…she hid it from Arthur…he's going to…"
“I apologize but I think you will all agree we should adjourn from any further formal discussions today,” Helena said.
Marthe Pryde's eyes narrowed. "Is it genetic?" she asked.
“Yes. It has been known to skip a generation now and again, but it is inheritable.”
"Clan Jade Falcon has the best genetic scientists in the Clans. And presumably, we are ahead of yours."
"Are you suggesting we are not as good?" Vlad asked.
"It may be a source of glory," Marthe said. "For whichever Clan can cure it…quiaff?"
“Aff. Clan Wolf is also on the forefront of genetic research.”
“The previous attempt came from the Dragoons. So you two should keep that in mind,” Helena pointed out. “But I’ll pass the offer to Elizabeth. Right now, if you all don’t mind, I need to find a new belt. Knew I shouldn’t have had these pants taken out for my pregnancy.”
But Khan Schmitt watched them carry Elizabeth Ngo-Steiner-Davion out on a litter. "How bad is it? Will she recover?"
"Aff. A five minute seizure like that one leaves the body exhausted," Ms Whyte mimicked their speech pattern slightly.
“It’s still the sort of thing one would not wish on their worst enemy. Cholman’s Syndrome in general I mean. Miss Whyte if you could please tend to our guests.” Helena bowed.
"Of course Madame First Lord," Ms Whyte said.
"A remote?" Vlad noticed.
"Yes. My apologies if this offends, but I'm rather… confined currently, unable to come out in public as myself. I suffer from an immune disorder."
“They truly have surpassed us. A telepresence remote that is so lifelike without any obvious transmitters or receivers. A true marvel.” Ariel studied the remote.
"Were you also born with it?"
"No, it was the result of…injuries at the hands of a group of criminals," Ms. Whyte told the Blood Spirit Khan. "I suppose you might say that the closest thing I get to have to a normal life, is done through a remote telepresence rig. At least, for the time being."
“Perhaps we could cure your condition as well,” Vlad offered.
Ms. Whyte smiled indulgently, "Perhaps something to discuss later, one project at a time. The First Lord's relationship with… my employer, is close, almost familial, and far more urgent in her mind at the moment."
“Aff. We have noticed.” Vlad nodded.
“Now I do believe you all were in the process of signing documents and having a meal. Perhaps we should return to that?”
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
69