"David Weber - Honor 07 - In Enemy Hands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

Office of State Security. But once again, appearances could be deceiving. As
head of the SS, Saint-Just
was the Committee’s executioner, with a power base which was far more readily
apparent than Ransoms.
Yet the very reasons Pierre was willing to trust him with that authority
underscored the fact that Saint-Just
could never be the threat Ransom might someday become. Unlike Cordelia, Oscar
knew his reputation as
the Republics chief warden would preclude his maintaining himself indefinitely
in power even if he
somehow managed to seize it. He was the focal point of all the fear, hatred,
and resentment the
Committee of Public Safety had engendered ... on top of which, he genuinely
had no desire to supplant his
leader. Pierre had given him sufficient opportunities to prove otherwise, but
Saint-Just had taken none of
them, for he knew his own limitations.
Ransom didn't, and that was why Pierre would never have given her the position
Saint-Just occupied.
She was too unpredictable, which translated into "unreliable" in his mind. And
where he was determined to at least attempt to build something constructive
atop the bones of the old, murdered power structure,
she often seemed more interested in the exercise of power than in the ends to
which it was exercised. She
was always at her best whipping up the Proles' mob mentality, and it was her
ability to direct that
mentality against targets other than Pierre and his regime which made her so
valuable. Yet it also gave her
Office of Public Information the first opportunity to put its spin on each
issue as it came along, which
gave her a degree of power, intangible, but frighteningly real, that made her
very nearly Saint-Just's equal.
And, Pierre reminded himself, Cordelia had more than her fair share of cronies
within Oscar's own SS, as
well. She'd been one of the Committee of Public Safety's roving headsmen
immediately after the coup,
before he moved her to Public Information, and she retained personal contacts
with the men and women
with whom she'd served. The fact that she and Oscar were both fierce empire-
builders (although, Pierre
suspected, for quite different reasons) only made the situation worse in many
ways, but at least it let him
play them off against one another, maintaining their "constituencies" in a
delicate, sometimes precarious
balance he could force to support his own position rather than undermining it.
"I understand Cordelia's concerns, Rob," Saint-Just said, answering Pierre’s
unspoken appeal after a
long, pregnant moment. He tipped back his chair, leaning away from the
crystal- topped conference table,
and steepled his fingers across his chest in a posture that made him look even