Cobra Bargain

"Oh, I was convenient, all right," she said bitterly. "Everything I did-everything I said-he just twisted all of it into knots like a snake pretzel.

And everyone just rolled over and believed him."

Corwin and Justin exchanged looks. "Well, now, that may be open to debate,"

Corwin said. "I take it you stopped reading after the opinion reports and final vote came on?"

"I'd already seen how Priesly mangled what really happened," she said, blinking back tears of frustration. "I didn't need to see what the public would do with it."

"Oh, then, you missed a real treat," Justin said. Jin frowned over at him, to find a smile quirking at his lips. "It seems that about fifteen minutes after the vote came out an anonymous transcription hit the net: purportedly, that of discussions in the upper ranks of the Ject camp over the past couple of days. It shows several men, including Priesly himself, deciding how best to distort what happened on Qasama to their own political benefit."

Jin stared at him. "But who would... you two?"

"Who, us?" Corwin asked, radiating wide-eyed i

Justin's acquaintance who decided that perhaps Priesly was going a bit too far on this one."

Jin took a deep breath. For one brief moment it had felt better... "But it really doesn't help any. Does it?"

Corwin shrugged. "Depends on whether you're talking short-term or long-term results. Yes, I've resigned my governorship, so as far as that goes Priesly's won; and yes, your supposed failure will probably make it difficult, if not impossible, for other women to be accepted into the Cobras."

Jin snorted. "So what are all the big long-term gains? The fact that Qasama is temporarily safe from Troft meddling?"

"Don't sell that one short," Justin chided her gently. "Mangus was indeed as great a threat as we'd thought all along, just not quite as immediate a one.

That part of your mission was a complete and resounding success-and everyone on the Council knows it, whether they admit it publicly or not."

"And we've made at least two other long-term gains, as well," Corwin told her.

"First of all, Priesly may not yet realize it, but in kicking me out of the

Directorate he's shot himself in the foot."

"How?" Jin asked. "Because it makes him look like a bully?"

"More or less. Never underestimate the power of a sympathy backlash, Jin, especially when it involves a name as historically revered as ours." Corwin smiled wryly. "In fact, I've been preparing a campaign for the past few days to try and guide the expected public reaction straight down Priesly's throat. Now, with all this other stuff coming out, I don't think I'll have to bother."

Jin closed her eyes. "So the Jects lose power, and all it costs is your career," she sighed. "Standard definition of a Pyrrhic victory."

"Oh, I don't know," Corwin shrugged. "Depends on whether I was tired of politics anyway, doesn't it?" Gently, he reached over to take one of her bandaged hands.

"Times change, Jin, and we have to change with them. Our family's had more than its fair share of political power over the past few decades; perhaps it's time for us to move on."

"Move on to what?" she asked.

"Move on from politics to statesmanship," Corwin said. "Because we've now got the one thing neither Priesly nor anyone else in the Cobra Worlds can take away from us." He lifted a finger and leveled it at her. "We've got you."

Jin blinked. "Me?"

"Uh-huh. You, and the first ever genuinely positive contact with the people of

Qasama."

"Oh, sure." Jin snorted. "Some contact. The twenty-year-old niece of an ousted political leader and the nineteen-year-old heir to a minor village mining industry."

Her father made an odd sort of sound, and Jin turned her head to look at him.

"What's so fu

"Oh, nothing," Justin said, making a clearly halfhearted effort to erase his amused smile. "It's just that... well, you never can tell where something like that will lead."

He took a deep breath; and suddenly the amusement in his smile vanished, to be replaced by a smile of pride and love. "No, you never know, Jasmine Moreau, my most excellent daughter. Tell me, have you ever heard the story-the full story, that is-of your grandfather's path from Cobra guardian of a minor frontier village to governor and statesman of Aventine?"

She had; but it was worth hearing again. Together, the three of them talked long into the night.