Book 1 - Shadowline by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

progressed lugubriously. The faces grew more
antagonistic.
    During the desserts the senior Dharvon,
sotto voce
, expressed
his animosity in words. His voice grew louder. Deeth became
frightened.
    The man was falling-down drunk, and had a reputation for verbal
incontinence even when sober. He might say something that would
push the Norbon into a corner of honor whence there was no exit
save a duel.
    The Dharvon was little brighter than his son. He did not have
sense enough to avoid offending a better man. And the stupid pride
of his heir would, of course, lead the Dharvon into vendetta. The
Norbon Family would strike like a lion at a kitten and swallow the
Dharvon whole.
    But the mouth of a fool knows no restraint. The Dharvon kept
pressing.
    His neighbors edged away, dissociating themselves from his
remarks. They shared his jealousies without sharing his stupidity.
Sullenly neutral, they hovered like eager vultures.
    Sangaree found feuds entertaining when they were not themselves
involved.
    Fate interceded just seconds before challenge became
inescapable.
    Rhafu burst into the hall. His face was red, frightened, and
sweaty. He ignored the proprieties as he interrupted his
employer.
    “Sir,” he said, puffing into the Norbon’s
face, “it’s started. The field hands and breeders are
attacking their overseers. Some of them are armed. With weapons
from the wild ones. We’re trying to get them under control in
case there’s an attack from the forest.”
    Guests buzzed excitedly. Heads and station masters shouted
requests for permission to contact their own establishments. A
general rising could not have been better timed. Prefactlas’s
decision-makers were far from their respective territories.
    A few mumbled apologies for leaving ran from the table. What
began as a babble of uncertainty escalated into a frightened
clamor.
    An officer of the Norbon Family forces compounded it. He
galloped in, shouted over the uproar, “Sir! Everyone! A
signal from
Norbon Spear
.”
Spear
was the Head’s
personal yacht and the Family flagship. “A flotilla-scale
naval force just dropped hyper inside lunar radius.” A single
sneeze broke the sudden silence. A hundred pale faces turned toward
the soldier. “No IFF response. The ship types are those of
the human navy.
Spear’s
signal was interrupted. We
haven’t been able to raise her again. Monitors show a sudden
increase in gamma radiation at her position. Computer says she was
hit in her drive sector and blew her generators.”
    The silence died. Everybody tried to leave at once, to escape,
to flee to his own station. The great terror of the Sangaree had
befallen Prefactlas. The humans had located their tormentors.
    A gleeful wild devil spun circles of terror around the hall.
Children wept. Women screamed and wailed. Men cursed and shoved,
trying to be first to escape.
    There had been other station raids. The humans had been
merciless. They never settled for less than total obliteration.
    Prefactlas was an entire world, of course, and a world cannot be
attacked and occupied like some pitiful little island in an ocean.
Not without overpoweringly vast numbers of ships and men. And,
though sparsely settled, Prefactlas had a well-developed defense
net. Sangaree guarded their assets. Normally a flotilla could have
done little but blockade the world.
    But conditions were not normal. The decision-makers were
concentrated far from the forces responsible for turning attacks.
No one had yet found a way around Family pride and stubbornness and
formed a centralized command structure. The various Family forces,
because their masters were far away, would be loafing far from
their battle stations. Or, if the slave rising were general, they
would be preoccupied. Attacking quickly, the humans could be down
before defenses could be manned and effective interception barrages
launched.
    Even Deeth saw it. And he saw what most of the adults did not.
Attack and uprising were coordinated, and timed for the