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

which ruled four thousand worlds.

Tira pushed her way through the gauze that
wrapped her bed like a cloud. "Helga, what's
happened?" she asked. She'd heard the words,
but there was no sense to them.

Helga flopped onto a loveseat, hyperventilat-
ing. Cousin by convenience, the connection was
too diffuse to be recognized — except that the
office of High Secretary drew to it relations the
way honey draws flies. Even Helga's Bouriere
surname came from her maternal line, and that
three generations ago.

"Helga!" lira repeated.

Helga stared at her from the loveseat. "Your
sainted father," she repeated in a whisper. The
utter despair in the old woman's eyes and voice
penetrated to Tira's understanding where the
words themselves had not.

CROWN OF EMPIRE

"Oh, no. Not my father." For a moment hys-
teria threatened to overwhelm Tira's normal
good sense. Then, as if a relay had switched in
her brain, she became efficient, doing almost by
rote the things she had been taught since she was
a child. When she was young, the drills for this
eventuality had been a game. She had enjoyed
out-thinldng the evil rebels who strove to endan-
ger the High Secretary. It would have been
comforting to make herself believe it was still a
game. But this time she knew she would not be
permitted to ask for time out.

She resisted her first impulse, to go to the win-
dow, knowing that could expose her to discovery
and attack. She moved quickly to the inner wall
of the reception room. Against the wall was a
massive Neo-Empire Revivalist writing table,
with thin, spiral legs atop traditional crocodile
feet, all in gold. The writing surface was a vast
expanse of malachite, edged in beveled gold
work. Seating herself, Tira toggled two hidden
levers in the table. The green surface lifted up
and back, revealing lira's internal security holo-
gram station.