Prophet Margin Read Online Free PDF Page B

lights, pilot beacons and drone codes. An omniamp flickered spectral green somewhere to the west: onboard one of the roadiecraft a technician was clearly fiddling with his lightboard.
    Chryz Widdiso was coming to Shtzuth.
    Never before had the world's farming communities been so united. Given the rarity of the faecal planetoid's fertile surfaces, most farm owners regarded each other with open hostility. No longer. In face of the hordes of music lovers, merchandisers, sideshows and supporting acts whose arrival was imminent - and in the instinctive human spirit of earning an obese profit - the farmers had gathered to properly plan exactly how to exploit the situation.
    Widdiso performed once every thirty years. Spending the vast majority of his life sealed within a cryoclam, he remained ever young, ever handsome, and ever lucrative. He had, put simply, the greatest voice in the galaxy.
    Back at the farmhouse, Roolán slouched through the kitchen towards his room, avoiding the wobbling mound of flesh and apron fabric he called "mother". So focused was his attention on his doorway that he failed to notice the slugcat coiled on the floor - until, that is, he trod on it.
    The beast - with which Roolán had never seen eye-to-eye - leapt into the air with a yowl and a panicky squirt of hormone-spray, dislodging a cascade of hors d'oeuvres clearly destined for the planetwide catering effort. Their ornamental plates shattered, pigmented sweetmeats and mouldballs bouncing across the floor.
    Roolán's mother turned from whatever culinary crime she was committing to find the three hundred gull's liver delicacies she'd spent the morning preparing splattered across the kitchen tiles, sprinkled with mould-based nibbles and cat's piss.
    "Roolán!" she shrieked, jowls trembling. "Look what you've... You idiot! That took me... I've been... Idiot!"
    Roolán endured the abuse with well-practiced patience, dipping his head in what he hoped was a convincing display of penitence. The slugcat, with a smug glance at Roolán, moaned.
    "Oh, poor Slippo!" his mother wailed, effecting the female talent of slipping between fury and cuddliness in 0.8 seconds. "Are oo okay, ickle Slippo? Are oo okay? Oo-cha-woo-woo..." Roolán resisted the urge to vomit.
    The woman peered up from beneath fatty brows and fixed Roolán with a glare. "Wait," she hissed, "until your father hears about this..."
    This was a threat too far even for Roolán. "N-no! Plea-"
    The house seemed to shake.
    His mother's eyes widened like dinner plates, multiple chins quivering. Roolán slapped a hand over his own mouth, too late.
    " What do you think you're doing?" she screamed, terrifying the slugcat into another ballistic spray of musk. "How dare you?"
    Roolán made placating gestures, keeping his mouth firmly shut.
    "We've told you and told you and told you I don't know how many times and you're a wicked boy for disregarding us like this and after everything we've done for you and all the sacrifices we've made and I don't know what we're going to do with such an ungrateful little brat and-"
    Roolán guiltily wondered if he might get an early reprieve if she collapsed from lack of oxygen. No such luck.
    When her energy ran out, two hours of venom later, Roolán's ears were ringing. She finished, in between gulps of a restorative pork pie, with a curt: "We'll see what your father has to say... Get to your room."
    The slugcat regarded him from its patch by the hearth with heavy lidded amusement.
     
    His father beat him black and blue, which was something of a let-off from the usual black-and-black, and by the end of a very long evening he fell asleep with his parents' angry shouts marching like soldiers through his dreams.
    "You can't talk, understand? You've got no voice! You're a mute! You can't TALK!"
     
    On Splut Mundi, Abrocabe Zindatsel stepped from the decorous interior of his Palacecraft and ran jewel-encrusted eyes across the horizon.
    "Mm," he grunted, displeased with the