Crown of Empire
by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
The Pact of Mankind is a dinosaur lumbering toward oblivion: hedged about by alien enemies, it is rotten with decadence and corruption. The Pact is run by competing oligarchies of criminal corporations, but it is ruled by a single man--the High Secretary of the Pact. But if he should die, it would be feeding time in the piranha tank.