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Nuclears had not been used on-planet, against people, even during the most critical days of the Ulantonid War. They had joined the list of ba
He had been right. The Shadowline war was the swan song of the freecorps. Confederation would move in and disarm them for sure, now. The public outcry would leave the government no choice.
He overlooked one small fact while thinking that. The media were completely indifferent to the Shadowline war. No one was covering it. Hardly anyone off Blackworld knew anything about it. He, the people in the war room, and perhaps a handful of men in Twilight, were the only folks Darkside who knew that proscribed weaponry had been employed.
Forty-Five: 2860-3023 AD
Only months after they had overcome the last Dharvon, Deeth growled, "I'm bored, Rhafu. I think I've figured out why my father was always so damned cranky. There's no real challenge in trying to boost a profit margin a tenth of a percent."
Rhafu looked at Deeth, perhaps thinking the young Head was fooling himself. "Your peers would argue the point."
"That's their lifestyle. The Haug and Gaab haven't ever done anything else. I might be happy if I'd had a normal childhood. But I didn't. The normal life makes me feel caged."
"We have a mission your father bequeathed us."
"We can't do anything about it. We're stuck with the tedious stuff here. By the time we clear it up, the animals will be warring with Ulant, and we'll have to wait them out. That could last twenty years. The Ulantonid are stubborn."
"I don't recall your father saying revenge had to be instantaneous. Even so, I have to admit to a certain restlessness myself."
"Any ideas?"
"Some."
"Let's hear them."
"I think we should divide ourselves into a greater and lesser House. One to go on being traditional Norbon, the other to exploit Osiris and pursue our vendetta with the animals. Creating a dual structure would isolate risks. If we fail, we wouldn't take the Family down with us."
Deeth eyed Rhafu uncertainly. They had built a very responsive, monolithic structure in order to destroy the Dharvon. He did not want to relinquish any of the power he had acquired.
"Your cousin Taake hasn't much imagination, but he's a competent administrator. Put him in charge of the Homeworld arm of the Family. Collect up our more venturesome people and move to Osiris. You'll find plenty of excitement there. And all the work you want, too. We can build puppet empires. We can develop broader markets. Raise sithlac domes. Construct breeding stations. Hell, we could even get into ordinary commerce and industry. It's a whole planet, and we don't have to share it with anyone."
A primitive, medieval world, Deeth thought. We can play God, if we want. What more could I ask? "I'll consider it. Any other suggestions?"
"We could exploit this war. We've collected a lot of new dependents since we came home. We have to employ them somehow."
"Build a raidfleet? Rhafu... When I was little, when I first went to Prefactlas, that was all I ever thought about. Growing up to be a raidmaster."
"Don't think it's all adventure and romance, Deeth. Even piracy is plain hard work if you're going to be any good at it. Ships have to be bought or built. Arms have to be acquired. All that takes financing. You have to assemble reliable intelligence sources. You have to find men who'll work together without letting too much pride get in their way. Men without Family loyalties who would become loyal to you and one another. That's not easy with our people."
"Yes, yes. I see. More of the same old administrative hoohaw. But at least with an interesting end in sight." Deeth began to recover some of that awe and excitement he had felt when, as a child, he had studied the adventures of the great raiders.
If the Sangaree race had one outstanding weakness, it was a cultural bias against tight, devoted administration, a cultural aversion to administrative detail. They pictured themselves as a people of action and behaved accordingly. The sprawling, suffocating, ever-growing bureaucracies characteristic of human enterprises were unknown to them. They strayed to the extreme in the opposite direction, sometimes so far that the lack was as crippling to them as was the excess to humankind. Critical records might amount to nothing more than a few handwritten notes on scraps of paper soon lost... What did not exist in the minds of the Heads and their immediate assistants could be extremely ephemeral, and setbacks frequently came about simply through failure of communication or absence of administrative precision or reliable records.
A Family's most prized retainers were those few Sangaree capable of being clerkish and detail-conscious. The Families scrambled for them aggressively and traded them carefully.
Deeth's raiding and Osirian operations prospered. In time the Norbon were accepted, grudgingly, as one of the Sangaree First Families. Deeth and Rhafu earned a reputation as a team with a golden touch. Their projects usually sprang from Rhafu's fertile mind. Deeth's carefully recruited employees and agents put them into effect. The old man did his best to remain obscure and play his own role.
In a sense Rhafu was the power behind the throne, the real genius of the Family. Deeth simply manipulated hands.
Deeth did not want to be the brains. He dared not be. Despite all the lessons of Prefactlas, he remained impulsive. Rhafu usually softened the impact of his impetuosity, but there were times when the Family welfare suffered because of some ill-considered scheme Deeth launched without consulting the old man.
Though one of the First Families now, the nouveau riche Norbon were never fully accepted as such. They were a little too crude, too rough, too much involved in the more barbarous ways of garnering wealth. And Deeth employed outsiders.
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 cu
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.