Glen Cook - Shadowline - Starfishers Triology - Book 1

He did not use them in the traditional way, as cat's-paws among their own peoples. He found good men and brought them into the Family operations on Osiris and, occasionally, Homeworld. Accountants. Economists. Data-processors. And soldiers, hard men who became the fist of the Family, led by trusted Sangaree retainers.

The more traditional Families were appalled. And not a little jealous of the wealth-accumulating and fighting efficiencies of the Norbon.

Deeth received few social invitations, but even fewer slights that might be viewed as invitations to bad feelings. He did not miss the social life. He remained unregenerate in his distaste for parties and the people who frequented them.

During the war he saw occasions when he thought he could fulfill his father's charge on the cheap. He moved without consulting Rhafu, hoping, like a child eager to surprise a parent with an accomplishment. His enemies were cunning and slippery. They seemed to smell danger from light-years away. They evaded him every time, and so effectively that they remained unaware of the nature of the threat.

During the war, from a distance, he re-encountered his son, and could not shake the Sangaree sense of Family. He applied a few helpful nudges where the Norbon had the power, and helped create a rich man. And an instrument by which, Deeth hoped, Norbon influence might be intruded into the heart of human power structures.

Much later, long after he had revealed himself, Deeth began spiriting Michael off to Homeworld and Osiris for a belated Sangaree education.

There were grave deficiencies in Michael's character. Deeth was disappointed. He never let on. Michael was his only child.

Deeth did not marry. That he did not, and remained untempted by the prizes steered onto his path, caused quiet comment. There were ungrounded speculations about the nature of his relationship with Rhafu, and questions about Michael.

Only Rhafu suspected the truth, and even with his oldest friend Deeth refused to discuss the question.

Norbon w'Deeth was carrying a torch for an animal woman called Emily Storm.

For a bred pleasure slave.

That one dread secret could topple his empire. A physical relationship could be tolerated, could be winked at, but an emotional involvement could not. Not ever. Such weakness could not be accepted in a Head.

He dared not share his feelings for fear that it would, like a Frankenstein monster, get loose and destroy him. His own House would repudiate him.

He had won the loyalties of his relatives. They would go into hell for him if he ordered it, but for the sake of a perverted love they would not follow him to a new Wholar.

Yet he walked the edge. He dared bring Michael into Sangaree society. He formed an alliance with the Gaab by wedding his son to one of their daughters. He dodged all questions about Michael's mother by saying that she had perished on Prefactlas.

Rhafu, sensing the mild, unformed suspicion of the Heads, spread a tale of a companionship with a Sexon girl. He used the whole true story of Deeth's youth, merely changing Emily's name.

Time marched. Decades dwindled into the past. Deeth suffered severe and extended depressions whenever he withdrew from his work and realized that he had, again, become an administrator. Fulfillment of his great obligation to his father seemed to be ever more remote. There just was no time to plot against the Storms.

A sudden and unexpected opportunity arose on a world the humans called Amon-Ra.

Michael sent word that his brother, who had just assumed command of the Iron Legion, had agreed to help the underground human government oust the Sangaree Families controlling the world.

The Amon-Ra Families were all small and weak. They would stand no chance against the Legion.

Deeth decided to help them. Over Rhafu's protests, without adequate preparation, he threw in his raidships. Aboard them he sent the quasi-military forces he had developed on Osiris.

He lost everything. Every man, every ship, every weapon. It was a hard way to learn the truth about his officers. Landless, Houseless, Familyless Sangaree simply were not disciplined enough to make war in human terms.

Rhafu treated him to an extended lecture on those cultural biases which made it impossible to fight the Storms heads up...

"All right!" Deeth finally snarled. "I can see that for myself. And I'm going to correct it. We'll build a real fleet and real army. And if our own people won't do, we'll use animals. All animals." They had used humans and Ulantonid from the beginning, but never in command positions.

Amon-Ra slipped away. The years and decades rolled on. Deeth buckled down, subjected himself to an intense self-discipline, did not let up till the Norbon had recovered from the Amon-Ra disaster.

When he did pause to look around he found himself blessed with an excuse for ulcers. Michael and his children... They carried on as if they were alone and immune to anything. Time and again, one or another endangered his plans for the future of the Storms or threatened to scuttle one of his profitable intrusions into the human business sphere. The children were the despair of their mother, who was a stolid First-Family woman completely uninterested in bizarre adventures. She came to him, as the Norbon, again and again, pleading for his intercession.

What could he do? He dared not overcontrol them for fear of losing an invaluable bridgehead in human affairs.

With his financial backing they were pushing tentacles into every corner of Confederation, and those tentacles were channels along which Norbon influence flowed. And when the Norbon prospered, all Sangaree eventually profited.

Following Amon-Ra, Deeth became an avid follower of the human wars, especially the Storm-Hawksblood contests, which contained so much genuine animosity at the command level. "Rhafu, I think this is what we need. We bend their own wishes and guide them into a to-the-death struggle... "

"They're too intelligent to fall into that trap. They don't let personal feeling interfere with business."

"Nevertheless... " Deeth tried putting agents into both mercenary forces. He failed. He had to rely on his son for inside information. And Michael was both unstable and the possessor of a strong streak of Sangaree self-centeredness.

The creation of Festung Todesangst strengthened the Norbon immeasurably. It freed the Family of the old Sangaree administrative bugaboo, and allowed Deeth to pirate invaluable commercial information. In a very few years the Norbon had as much power and wealth over the First Families as the First Families had over the average Sangaree Family.

Deeth's secret monitoring facility inside Festung Todesangst, existing outside the knowledge of his son and granddaughter, apprised him of Michael's discovery on Blackworld. It screamed a priority instel when Michael first ran his numbers.

Forty-Six: 3032 AD

It was not much of a New Year. The Legion did not celebrate. Edgeward City tried, but events in the Shadowline had killed any spirit of optimism. The various parties fell flat.

Storm spent New Year's Day and the following week alone, or, when he craved company at all, with Helmut Darksword. Helmut was taking Wulf s death badly.

Cassius was ripping Twilight into bloody chunks in the Shadowline. Hawksblood's leaderless troops were falling apart. Storm could not refresh his interest in the Legion's advances nor in the enemy's mysterious vulnerability. He played his clarinet, read his Bible, and sat and stared at his old .45, twirling the dark steel cylinder as he did so.

Cassius had cut off the Meacham crews at Shadowline's end. He was having no trouble repelling relief forces attacking from the shade of the Twilight shadow generators. His men, despite orders to the contrary, frequently refused to play the old mercenary games of fire and maneuver. While Walters remained cool and professional, they went and slugged it out with the enemy, determined to teach lessons that would remain forever unforgotten.