"David Drake - Crisis of Empire 04 - Crown of Empire - with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

CROWN OF EMPIRE

This is awork of fi<^n. All Ae characters and events portrayed in
this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or inci-
dents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 1994 by Bill Fawoett & Associates

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Biverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-72208-5
Cover art by Paul Alexander
First printing, February 1994

Distributed by Paramount
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York. NY 10020

Printed ID tfae United States ofAmoricB

Chapter 1

Tira Bouriere leaped upright in bed as her eld-
erly cousin Helga burst in from her own small
room of the suite, shouting, "He's dead! Your
sainted father is dead, child!"

Behind Helga, the holovision the old woman had
been watching still cast its faint light over the room.
The royal suites on two of the four penthouse

Chelsea Quinn farbro

towers around the quadrangle had visual access
to most of the High Secretary's palace. Other
women her age might have spent their free time
in gossip, but Helga considered her station —
companion and chaperone to the High Secre-
tary's eighteen-year-old daughter — put her
above that. Instead, she spied on the goings and
comings, the talk and the actions, of all those liv-
ing in the sprawling warren of the palace, seat of
government and home to the elite of the Pact