Tactics of Mistake (16 page)

The settlement was actually a tight little V-shaped clump of condominiums and individual homes surrounding a warehouse and business section and filling the triangular end-point of flatland where the valleys of the Blue and Whey rivers came together. This patch of flatland extended itself, with a few scattered streets and buildings, up the valley of each river for perhaps a quarter of a mile before the riverbanks became too high and steep for much building to be practical. The town was a community supported essentially by the wild-fanning of a majority of its inhabitants, wild-farming being the planting, in the surrounding jungle areas, of native or mutated trees and plants bearing a cash crop without first dividing up or clearing the land. A wild-farmer owned no territory. What he owned was a number of trees or plants that he tended and from which he harvested the crops on a regular basis. Around Two Rivers a sort of native wild cherry and mutated rubber plants introduced by the Exotics four years ago were the staple wild-farm crops.

The local people took the invasion by the Dorsais in good spirits. The mercenaries were much quieter and better-mannered in their off-duty hours than were regular troops. Besides, they would be spending money in the town. The locals, in general, paid little attention to Cletus, as, with Eachan Kahn, he marked out positions for strong points with dug-in weapons on the near banks of the two rivers just above the town and down within the open land of the community itself. When Cletus had finished, he had laid out two V-shaped lines of strong points, one inside the other, covering the upriver approaches to the town and the river junction itself.

“Now,” said Cletus to Eachan, when this was done, “let's go take a look up beyond the pass.”

They took one of the support ships that had just discharged its cargo of Dorsai soldiers and was about to return to Bakhalla for another load. With it they flew up and over the area of Etter's Pass and made a shallow sweep over the some ten miles of mountainous territory beyond it to where the ground sloped away into the further jungle that was Neuland territory.

“I expect the Neulanders will be coming around to see what we're doing,” he said to Eachan, “as soon as their people in Bakhalla tell them the Dorsais have moved up here for training. I want this side of the mountains kept under observation by men who won't be spotted. I assume you've got people like that?”

“Of course!” said Eachan. “I'll have a watch on up here all twenty-six hours of the day. How soon do you want it to start?”

“Right away,” answered Cletus.

“I'll have men started out in half an hour,” Eachan answered.

“Anything else?”

“Yes,” Cletus said. “I want those defensive strong points, in and above the town, dug in, with an earth wall inside and sandbags outside so that it's at least six feet thick at the base and seven feet above the level of the ground outside.”

Eachan frowned slightly. But his reply was laconic. “Yes, Colonel,” he said.

“That's it, then,” said Cletus. “I'm headed back to Bakhalla. I'll have the ship drop you back down at Two Rivers first. Are you planning on coming back to town later?”

“This evening,” he answered, “as soon as I've got all the men moved in here and set up. I'm planning on commuting. Here, days—Bakhalla, nights.”

“I'll see you back at the city then,” said Cletus. He turned to the pilots of the support ship. “Take us back to Two Rivers.”

He dropped off Eachan and went back to Bakhalla. There he found his work waiting for him—in two stacks, for, in accepting a role as Bat's deputy commanding officer of the Dorsais, he had in essence taken on another full job. The Dorsais operated with a small to nonexistent Headquarters staff, as they did in all areas requiring noncombatant personnel. In the field, each Dorsai was his own cook, launderer and bottle washer, and each officer was responsible for all paper work involving his command. Away from the field, in barracks so to speak, men were hired from the regular fighting units, at a small addition to their ordinary wages, to work as clerks, cooks, vehicle drivers and the rest, but in the field there was none of this.

Those Dorsais, therefore, who ordinarily would have lightened Cletus's paper workload concerning the mercenary soldiers were now in battle gear up at Two Rivers. It was this fact that also required Eachan to commute back to Bakhalla every night to take care of his own paper work.

Cletus, of course, had the use of the staff Arvid had collected to help in making his forecasts of enemy activity. But members of the staff, including Arvid himself, were fully occupied with their regular jobs, at least during normal working hours. Cletus had set them to functioning as a research service. They were collecting information on both Neuland and the Exotic colony, plus all the physical facts about Kultis—weather, climate, flora and fauna—that pertained to the two opposed peoples. This information was condensed and fed to Cletus as soon as it was available; at least half his working day was taken up in absorbing and digesting it.

So it was that the first five days after the Dorsais had been moved up to Two Rivers, Cletus spent at his office between the hours of seven in the morning and midnight, with very few breaks in between. About seven o'clock of the fifth evening, after the rest of the staff had already left for the day, Wefer Linet showed up unexpectedly.

“Let's go catch some more Neulander guerrillas,” Wefer suggested.

Cletus laughed, leaned back in his chair and stretched wearily. “I don't know where there are any, right now,” Cletus said.

“Let's go have dinner then and talk about it,” said Wefer craftily. “Maybe between the two of us we can figure out how to find some.”

Cletus laughed again, started to shake his head, and then let himself be persuaded. After the dinner, however, he insisted on returning to his desk. Wefer came back with him, and only reluctantly took his leave when Cletus insisted that the work yet undone required his immediate attention.

“But don't forget,” Wefer said on his way out, “you'll call me if anything comes up. I've got five Mark V's, and four of them are yours on half an hour's notice. It's not just me, it's my men. Everyone who was with us there on the river has been spreading the story around until I haven't got anyone in my command who wouldn't want to go with you if another chance comes up … You'll find something for us to do?”

“It's a promise,” said Cletus. “I'll turn up something for you shortly.”

Wefer at last allowed himself to be ushered out. Cletus went back to his desk. By eleven o'clock he had finished the extensive and detailed orders he had been drafting to cover the actions and contingencies of the next two days. He made up a package of the orders, which were to be passed on to Eachan Khan for application to the Dorsai troops, and, going out, drove himself in a staff air-car to the Headquarters building in the Dorsai area.

He parked in front of it. There were two other cars waiting there; the one window of Eachan's office that faced him was alight. The rest of the building—a temporary structure of native wood painted a military light green that looked almost white in the pale light of the now-waxing new moon overhead—was dark, as were all the surrounding office and barracks buildings. It was like being in a ghost town where only one man lived.

Cletus got out of the car and went up the steps into the front hall of the building. Passing through the swinging gate, which barred visitors from the clerks normally at work in the outer office, he went down the corridor beyond the outer office to where the half-open door of Eachan's private office was marked by an escaping swathe of yellow light that lay across the corridor floor. Coming quietly up on that patch of light, Cletus checked, suddenly, at the sound of voices within the room.

The voices were those of Eachan and Melissa—and their conversation was no public one.

Cletus might have coughed, then, or made some other noise to warn that he had come upon them. But at that moment he heard his own name mentioned—and instantly guessed at least half of the conversation that had gone before. He neither turned and retreated nor made a sound. Instead he stood, listening.

“I thought you liked young Grahame,” Eachan had just finished saying.

“Of course I like him!” Melissa's voice was tortured. “That's got nothing to do with it. Can't you understand, Dad?”

“No.” Eachan's voice was stark.

Cletus took one long step forward, so that he could just see around the corner of the half-open door into the lighted room. The illumination there came from a single lamp, floating a foot and a half above the surface of Eachan's desk. On opposite sides of the desk, Eachan and Melissa stood facing each other. Their heads were above the level of the lamp, and their faces were hidden in shadow, while the lower parts of their bodies were clearly illuminated.

“No, of course you can't!” said Melissa. “Because you won't try! You can't tell me you like this better—this hand-to-mouth mercenary soldiering—than our home in Jalalabad! And with Dow's help you can go back. You'll be a general officer again, with your old rank back. That's
home,
Dad! Home on Earth, for both of us!”

“Not any more,” said Eachan deeply. “I'm a soldier, Melly. Don't you understand? A
soldier
.' Not just a uniform with a man walking around inside it—and that's all I'd be if I went back to Jalalabad. As a Dorsai, at least I'm still a soldier!” His voice became ragged, suddenly. “I know it's not fair to you—”

“I'm not doing it for me!” said Melissa. “Do you think I care? I was just a girl when we left Earth—it wouldn't be the same place at all for me, if we went back. But Mother told me to take care of you. And I am, even if you haven't got the sense to take care of yourself.”

“Melly…" Eachan's voice was no longer ragged, but it was deep with pain. “You're so sure of yourself…“

“Yes, I am!” she said. “One of us has to be. I phoned him, Dad. Yesterday.”

“Phoned deCastries?”

“Yes,” Melissa said. “I called him in Capital Neuland. I said we'd come anytime he sent for us from Earth.
We'd
come, I said, Dad. But I warn you, if you won't go, I'll go alone.”

There was a moment's silence in the darkness hiding the upper part of Eachan's stiff figure.

“There's nothing there for you, girl,” he said, hoarsely. “You said so yourself.”

“But I'll go!” she said. “Because that's the only way to get you to go back, to say I'll go alone if I have to—and mean it. Right now, I promise you, Dad…“

Cletus did not wait to hear the end of that promise. He turned abruptly and walked silently back to the front door of the building. He opened and closed the door, banging the heel of his hand against it noisily. He walked in, kicked open the gate in the fence about the outer office area and walked soundingly down the hall toward the light of the partly opened door.

When he entered the office room, the overhead lights had been turned on. In their bright glare, Melissa and Eachan still stood a little apart from each other, with the desk in between.

“Hello, Melissa!” Cletus said. “Good to see you. I was just bringing in some orders for Eachan. Why don't you wait a few minutes and we can all go have a cup of coffee or something?”

“No, I…“ Melissa stumbled a little in her speech. Under the overhead lights her face looked pale and drawn. I've got a headache. I think I'll go right home to bed.” She turned to her father. “I'll see you later, Dad?”

“I'll be home before long,” Eachan answered.

She turned and went out. Both men watched her go.

When the echo of her footsteps had been brought to an end by the sound of the outer door of the office building closing, Cletus turned back to face Eachan and threw the package of papers he was carrying onto Eachan's desk.

“What's the latest word from the scouts watching the Neulander side of the mountains?” Cletus asked, watching the older man's face and dropping into a chair on his side of the desk. Eachan sat down more slowly in his own chair.

“The Neulanders've evidently stopped moving men into the area,” Eachan said. “But the scouts estimate they've got thirty-six hundred men there now—nearly double the number of our Dorsai troops. And they're regular Neulander soldiery, not guerrillas, with some light tanks and mobile artillery. My guess is that's better than 60 per cent of their fully equipped, regular armed forces.”

“Good,” said Cletus. “Pull all but a couple of companies back into Bakhalla.”

Eachan's gaze jerked up from the packet of orders to stare at Cletus's face. “Pull back?” he echoed. “What was the point in going up there, then?”

“The point in going up there,” said Cletus, “was to cause Neuland to do exactly what they've done—assemble troops on their side of the mountain border. Now we pull back most of our men, so that it looks as though we've lost our nerve. Either that, or never intended to be a threat after all.”

“And was that what we intended?” Eachan looked narrowly at Cletus.

Cletus laughed cheerfully. “Our intent, just as I say,” he answered, “was to make them assemble a large force on their side of the pass through the mountains. Now we can pack up and go home—but can they? No doubt you've heard the army rumor—and by this time the Neulanders will have heard it too—that General Traynor and myself were overhead discussing an invasion of Neuland, and that we made a special trip up to Etter's Pass to survey it with that in mind.”

“You mean,” said Eachan, “that deCastries and the Neulanders will be sure that we really meant to invade them?”

“I mean just the opposite,” said Cletus. “There's a great deal of truth to the fact that a liar is always going to suspect you of lying and a thief'll always suspect your honesty. DeCastries is a subtle man, and the weakness of subtle men is to suspect any straightforward action of being a screen for some kind of trick. He'll be sure to have concluded the rumor was leaked specifically for the purpose of causing him—and Neuland—to move a lot of troops into position on a false invasion scare, which would evaporate then and leave them looking foolish. Consequently, being the man he is, he'll have resolved to play along with our game and take advantage of us at the very moment we plan to be chuckling over his embarrassment.”