A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber

Author:David Weber
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Adventure, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781451638264
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2011-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

S. M. Stirling

AUTHOR'S NOTE: readers may be amused to learn that both the climax of this story and the archeological methods described therein are closely modeled on real events which took place in the Eastern Mediterranean in 1795.

The Committee of Public Safety of the People's Republic of Haven rarely met in full session.

There were security reasons, for one thing; for another, since the purge of the Parnassian faction, the rivalries had gotten too savage. Two dozen men and women sat stiffly along the long table the new regime had inherited from the old Legislaturalist government. The room had a restrained elegance of dark wood and creamy panelling that spoke of that older era, as well. Say what you liked about the Hereditary Presidency and its elitist flunkies, they'd had good taste. Much good it had done them when the jaws of his trap closed on them.

Well, at least we're not shooting at each other, Chairman Robert Stanton Pierre thought wearily. Yet. There were times when he wondered who was worse, the profiteers who swarmed over the State like flies, or Cordelia Ransom and her grim incorruptibles.

Out at Trevor's Star the navies of the People's Republic and the Star Kingdom of Manticore were shooting at each other. Men and women were dying by the thousands to buy the Committee more time. By God, he was sick of these cretins wasting it!

"Citizens," the Chairman of the Committee of Public Safety said coldly.

That brought silence. He gave a wintry nod. Those rivalries were not helping the war effort of the People's Republic, but they were making it less likely that enough of the other Committee members would combine against him . . . and he knew with a leaden certainty that none of his possible replacements would do as well. His eyes slid of their own volition to the head of State Security. Saint-Just's face was calm as always, his appearance so utterly unremarkable that the only thing noticeable about it was its own extreme inconspicuousness. Oscar could do it. But State Security had inspired too much hatred along with the fear, not least among the People's Navy. Nobody would accept the head executioner of the purges as head of state. More, the first move of any new head of the Committee would be to purge Security, which meant that Security had no choice but to keep supporting him.

And Oscar knows better. We've been in this together too long. The paranoia was getting to him. Oscar Saint-Just was as reliable a friend as he had on the Committee.

I hope, he thought. When you're riding the tiger, you can't dismount. He had no choice but to bring himself and Haven through and out the other side of the crisis. Cordelia Ransom smiled back at him and nodded. And I need her too. Ransom was the one who'd built up the Committee's propaganda machine, who'd lashed the Dolists out of their apathy. She'd overseen the public carnival of blood as they fed the Legislaturalists and

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