Poul Anderson 
Game of Empire 
A Flandry Book

DOMINIC FLANDRY HAS FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.But fight, scheme and betray he might to stave it off, with the inevitability of physical law the Long Night of interstellar barbarism approaches. He has known that for 50 years — just as he has known that a lost cause may be the only one worth fighting for. That is why he has devoted his life (that part of it not devoted to the decadent pleasures of a decadent civilisation) to providing a few more years of peace and plenty for uncounted billions of sentient beings.But now Dominic is of an age more suited to deciding the fate of empires from behind the throne; others must take up the challenge of courting danger on strange planets filled with creatures stranger still. Such a one, with her faithful Tigery companion, now enters the galactic stage. Her name is Diana.Though her career is just beginning, two things are certain: illegitimate or not, she’s the true daughter of Dominic and…SHE’LL DO HER OLD MAN PROUD!