Read "Empire" by Clifford D. Simak online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was a weird revolution. There were few battles, little blood shed. There seemed to be no secret plots. There were no skulking leaders, no passwords, nothing that in former years had marked rebellion against tyranny.
It was a revolution carried out with utter boldness. Secret police were helpless, for it was not a secret revolution. The regular police and the troopers were helpless because the men they wanted to arrest were shadows that flitter here and there. large and substantial shadows, but impossible to seize and imprison.