"Timothy Zahn - Cobra 3 - Cobra Bargain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

years since he'd struck out on his own into the maze that was Cobra Worlds politics.
Unfortunately, other things had changed even more than the skyline. Lately he found himself
spending a lot of time staring out that window, trying to recapture the sense of challenge and
excitement he'd once felt about his profession. But the bootstrapping seldom worked. Somewhere
along the line, pushed perhaps by Priesly's public bitterness, Cobra Worlds politics had taken on
a hard edge Corwin had never before experienced. In many ways it had soured the game for him--
turned both his victories and defeats a uniform bittersweet gray--and made the governorship a form
of combat instead of a means for aiding the progress of his worlds.

It brought to mind thoughts about his father, who had similarly soured on politics late in life,
and more and more often these days he found himself fantasizing about chucking the whole business
and escaping to Esquiline or one of the other New Worlds.

But he couldn't, and he knew it. As long as the Jects' sour grapes were threatening the foundation
of the Cobra Worlds' security and survival, someone had to stay and fight. And he'd long ago
realized that he was one of those someones.

Across the desk from him Justin shifted slightly in his chair, breaking the train of Corwin's
musings. "I assume you had a specific reason for asking me here?" he probed gently.

Corwin took a deep breath and braced himself. "Yes, I did. I heard from Coordinator Maung Kha
three days ago about Jin's application to the Academy. He was..." He hesitated, trying one last
time to find a painless way to say this.

"Summarily rejecting it?" Justin offered.

Corwin gave up. "She never had a chance," he said bluntly, forcing himself to look his brother
straight in the eye. "You should have realized that right from the start and not let her file it."

Justin didn't flinch. "You mean there's no reason to try and change an unfair policy simply
because it is policy?"

"Come on, Justin--you _teach_ out there, for heaven's sake. You know how traditions hang on.
Especially military traditions."

"I also know that those traditions started back in the Old Dominion of Man," Justin countered. "We
haven't exactly been noted for blindly adopting their methods in anything else. Why should the
military be immune?"

Corwin sighed. Various combinations of Moreau family members had hashed through all this in one
form or another dozens of times over the past few years, ever since Justin's youngest daughter had
first decided she wanted to follow in her father's Cobra footsteps. Like Justin's father before
him... and Corwin was well aware that, for the Moreaus at least, family tradition wasn't something
to be treated lightly.

Unfortunately, most of the others on the Council didn't see it that way. "Military tradition is
always particularly hidebound," he told Justin. "You know it, I know it, the worlds know it. It
comes of having conservative old people like you at the top running things."

Justin ignored the attempt at levity. "But Jin would be a _good_ Cobra, possibly even a great