The Fifth Quadrant (Gloria VanDeen, Band 3) - Softcover

Ryan, C.J.

 
9780553589023: The Fifth Quadrant (Gloria VanDeen, Band 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553589024 ISBN 13: 9780553589023
Verlag: Spectra, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

In the 33rd century, unbridled pleasure and unparalleled peace make the world go round—under the watch of a vast corporate order that includes living goddess Gloria VanDeen, a powerful player as gutsy as she is gorgeous.

More popular and more ambitious than ever, Gloria is entertaining two tempting offers: to become Empress, or to rise through the ranks of the Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs and take out some bad guys along the way—if they don’t get her first. . . . 

When someone takes a potshot at Gloria with a weapon unseen since the Empire’s last great war, it’s clear that success won’t come without a price. For among power brokers, warriors,and rebels lies a dirty secret that could crack the Empire wide open. And Gloria is determined to get to the bottom of it—even if it means going to the top.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C.J. Ryan is the pseudonym of an author who lives and works in Philadelphia. This is his third science fiction novel.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One


The light of the two suns beat down on the baking streets of Cartago like a curse. One of them was small, blue, and hot; the other was fat, red, and less hot. They were separated in the sky by about the width of a fist held at arm's length, and Cartago whirled endlessly about a point somewhere between the two blazing orbs. In the streets they cast twin shadows, which angled away from one another slightly, as if reluctant to admit they knew each other.

Gloria VanDeen followed her host and his entourage through the swarming streets, enjoying the color and bustle and the singsong entreaties of the bazaar merchants. Exotic, fantailed phoenixbirds could be hers for only ten crowns, or perhaps even seven. Silken scarves and golden bangles and cotton caftans of the highest quality would only enhance her astonishing beauty, and at a price so low she would feel guilty for taking such advantage of the poor but honest merchants of Cartago; but the honor of being permitted to offer garments and jewelry to grace the famous form of Gloria VanDeen would more than offset the financial loss. The most beautiful woman in all the Empire surely deserved no less than the finest craftsmanship and artistry in the entire Sector–nay, the entire Quadrant!

"I would buy you something as a souvenir," Praetor Ulmani said to her, "but that would surely cause a riot. The merchant whose wares you wore would become insufferable, and his competition, unable to bear their shame, would doubtless kill him."

"Then I suppose it's best that I wear nothing," Gloria said with a smile. "I wouldn't want to be responsible for a tragedy."

"Spirit forbid it!" Ulmani grinned at her. Since nothing–or very nearly nothing–was precisely what Gloria was wearing, the comment seemed apt. Her soft, flowing, nearly transparent garment rested lightly on her shoulders and descended in narrow vees of sheer white fabric, front and rear, shielding her from the suns but not from the hungry eyes that surrounded her.

Honestly, there were times when being Gloria VanDeen was just so damn much fun that it should have been illegal. Gloria smiled and waved happily to the throng in the streets, then let Ulmani take her elbow and usher her along.

The people of Cartago, like their Praetor, had many reasons to be grateful to Gloria VanDeen, and Gloria was aware that her beauty and sexual presence were prominent among them. Without those attributes, it was doubtful that she would have been able to fulfill the mission that had brought her here.

On this, the thirteenth day of January in the year 3218, Standard Calendar–just three days after her twenty-fifth birthday–Gloria VanDeen was the most famous, popular, and (quite possibly) important woman in an empire that spanned a sphere of space two thousand light-years in diameter and was home to some 3 trillion sentient beings. The fact that she was the former wife of the man who was now Emperor Charles V was of some importance, as was her position as head of the Office of Strategic Intervention–the newest action arm of the Department of Extraterrestrial Affairs, the sprawling bureaucracy that administered the Terran Empire. Alone, either one of those facts would have made her a woman of some consequence; together, they made her a potent force. But it was her beauty, brilliance, and courage that had won the hearts of the masses and made her, as was often said, the Sweetheart of the Empire.

At moments like this, Gloria was outrageously happy to be exactly who and what she was. She had just brought her mission on Cartago to a triumphant conclusion. And for a change, the intervention had been brief, bloodless, and relatively simple.

Cartago was a thirsty world, where a small population of some 5 million lived on the margins of a globe-girdling desert. Just 194 light-years from Earth, the planet had been settled some eight hundred years earlier in pre-Imperial days. In later years, it probably never would have been colonized at all, but in that first era of interstellar expansion, Earthmen were not very particular in their choice of new worlds. If a planet had oxygen in its atmosphere and a mean surface temperature somewhere between the freezing and boiling points of water, it was a candidate for settlement. Cartago qualified, if only just.

Over the centuries, the slowly growing population had splintered into what amounted to tribal groups, although the ethnic, cultural, and religious orientations of the three main tribes differed little. The only differences of real consequence concerned water and access to it. The Mountain Tribe controlled the flow of the precious liquid that trickled down to the dusty plains and the lands of the Eastern and Western Tribes. Accordingly, the Mountain Tribe had always selected the Praetor who headed the planetary government, such as it was. The coming of the Empire had remarkably little impact on Cartago, and generations of Imperial Governors and Dexta bureaucrats were content to let the natives work things out for themselves.

In recent years, however, the elders of the Eastern and Western Tribes had–for Spirit knew what bizarre reasons–taken to sending their brightest sons and daughters back to Earth to be educated in the law. Having nothing better to do when they returned to their homeworld, the young barristers began suing the other tribes over the only thing that mattered on their world–water. Thus, there had been angry protests, boycotts, insults, threats, and finally, the sequestration of water that had once flowed freely from the slopes of the central mountains. The Imperial Governor had been unable to persuade anyone to see the light of reason, and the tiny Dexta establishment on the planet had thrown up its arms in despair.

So Norman Mingus had sent Gloria to Cartago.

A year and a half earlier, before the creation of the OSI, Gloria–then a Level XIII Dexta bureaucrat–had used her wit and wiles to attract a thousand volunteers on the planet Pecos to help her avert a genocide on the backwater world of Mynjhino. Dexta Secretary Norman Mingus, taking note of her success, had recognized the extraordinary power she possessed and sought to employ it on a regular basis by appointing her to lead the new Office of Strategic Intervention. He had planned to use Gloria as his chessboard queen, dispatching her hither and yon throughout the Empire to hot spots where the existing bureaucratic machinery was failing to respond adequately to the challenges of the moment. In the year since the formation of the OSI, Gloria had only burnished her already gleaming reputation as the sexiest and most desirable woman in the Empire–and, in the process, had achieved some remarkable results for the benefit of Dexta and the Empire it served. She was wildly popular in every corner of the Empire–except, perhaps, for the Imperial Household itself, where Charles had yet to reconcile himself to the new role being played by the woman who had walked out on him nearly seven years earlier.

Cartago was the fifth intervention for Gloria and OSI, and by far, the easiest. Gloria hadn't even bothered to take along any staff; Cartago was just two days away from Earth via Flyer, and so help was relatively close at hand should any prove necessary.

None did. In less than two weeks on the planet, she had met with a handful of young lawyers, a clutch of tribal elders, and Praetor Ulmani, adroitly resolving their conflicts through a combination of judicious bribes and personal persuasion. The Dexta Comptroller would probably grumble about the bribes, small though they were, but Gloria had thoroughly enjoyed her sojourn on Cartago.

In fact, resolving the conflicts on Cartago had been so easy that Gloria seriously wondered if...

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Verlag
Spectra
Erscheinungsdatum
2006
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553589024
ISBN 13 
9780553589023
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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