The tactics of mistake

9

Lying on his back in the hospital bed, Cletus gazed thoughtfully at the stiff, sunlit form of his left leg, upheld in traction above the surface of the bed.

"So," the duty medical officer, a brisk, round-faced, fortyish major had said with a fiendish chuckle when Cletus had been brought in, "you're the type who hates to take time out to give your body a chance to heal, are you, Colonel?" The next thing Cletus had known he was in the bed with his leg balanced immovably in a float cast anchored to the ceiling.

"But it's been three days now," Cletus remarked to Arvid, who had just arrived, bringing, as per orders, a local almanac, "and he promised that the third day he'd turn me loose. Take another look out in the corridor and see if he's been in any of the other rooms along here." Arvid obeyed. He returned in a minute or two, shaking his head.

"No luck," he said. "But General Traynor's on his way over, sir. The nurse on the desk said his office just phoned to see if you were still here."

"Oh?" said Cletus. "That is right. He'd be coming, of course." He reached out and pressed the button that tilted the bed to lift him up into a sitting position. "Tell you what, Arv. Take a look up and down the other rooms for me and see if you can scrounge me some spacepost covers."

"Spacepost covers?" replied Arvid, calmly unquestioningly. "Right, I'll be back in a minute."

He went out. It took him more like three minutes than one; but when he returned he had five of the flimsy yellow envelopes in which mail sent by spaceship was ordinarily carried. The Earth Terminal postmark was square and black on the back of each. Cletus stacked them loosely together and laid them in a face-down pile on the table surface of his bedside console. Arvid watched him.

"Did you find what you wanted in the almanac, sir?" he asked.

"Yes," said Cletus. Seeing Arvid still gazing at him curiously, he added, "There's a new moon tonight."

"Oh," said Arvid.

"Yes. Now, when the general comes, Arv," Cletus said, "stay out in the corridor and keep your eyes open. I don't want that doctor slipping past me just because a general's talking to me, and leaving me hung up here for another day. What time was that appointment of mine with the officer from the Security Echelon?"

"Eleven hundred hours," said Arvid.

"And it's nine-thirty, already," said Cletus, looking at his watch. "Arv, if you'll step into the bathroom there, its window should give you a view of the drive in front of the hospital. If the general's coming by ground car, you ought to be able to see him pulling up about now. Take a look for me, will you?"

Arvid obediently disappeared into the small bath cubicle attached to Cletus' hospital room.

"No sign, sir," his voice came back.

"Keep watching," Cletus said.

Cletus relaxed against the upright slope of the bed behind him, half-closing his eyes. He had been expecting the general - in fact, Bat would be merely the last in a long line of visitors that had included Mondar, Eachan Khan, Melissa, Wefer Linet - and even Ed Jarnki. The gangling young noncommissioned officer had come in to show Cletus the new sergeant's stripes on his sleeve and give Cletus the credit for the fact they were there.

"Lieutenant Athyer's report tried to take all the credit for himself," Jarnki said. "We heard about it from the company clerk. But the rest of the squad and me - we spread the real story around. Maybe over at the Officers' Club they don't know how it was, but they do back in the barracks."

"Thank you," said Cletus.

"Hell... " said Jarnki, and paused, apparently at somewhat of a loss to further express his feelings. He changed the subject. "You wouldn't be able to use me yourself, would you, Colonel? I haven't been to clerks' school, but I mean - you couldn't use a driver or anything?"

Cletus smiled. "I'd like to have you, Ed," he said, "but I don't think they'd give you up. After all, you're a line soldier."

"I guess not, then," said Jarnki, disappointed. He went off, but not before he extracted from Cletus a promise to take him on if he should ever become available.

Jarnki had been wrong, however, in believing that Athyer's report would be accepted at face value among the commissioned ranks. Clearly, the lieutenant was known to his fellow officers for the kind of field commander he was - just as it had been fairly obvious that Bat had not by chance chosen an officer like him to test Cletus' prophecy of guerrilla infiltration. As Arvid had reported to him, after that night at Mondar's party, the word was that Bat Traynor was out to get Cletus. In itself this information had originally meant merely that Cletus would be a good person for his fellow officers to avoid. But now, since he had pulled his chestnut out of the fire up on the Blue River without burning his fingers, there was plainly a good deal of covert sympathy for him among all but Bat's closest supporters. Eachan Khan had dryly hinted as much. Wefer Linet, from his safe perch inside the Navy chain of command, had blandly alluded to it. Bat could hardly be unaware of this reaction among the officers and men he commanded. Moreover, he was a conscientious commanding officer in the formal sense. If anything, it was surprising that he had not come to pay a visit to Cletus at the hospital before this.

Cletus relaxed, pushing back the tension in his body that threatened to possess it in impatience at being anchored here on the bed when so many things were yet to be done. What would be, would be...

The sound of the door opening brought his eyes open as well. He raised his head and looked to his right and saw Bat Traynor entering the hospital room. There had been no warning from Arvid, still in the bathroom. Fleetingly, Cletus permitted himself the hope that the young lieutenant would have the sense to stay out of sight now that his chance discreetly to leave the hospital room was barred.

Bat strode up to the edge of the bed and stared down at Cletus, his expressive eyebrows drawing together in a faint scowl.

"Well, Colonel," he said, as he pulled a nearby chair close to the bed and sat down so that he stared into Cletus' face. He smiled, in hard, genial fashion. "Still got you tied up, I see."

"I'm supposed to be turned loose today," Cletus answered. "Thank you for dropping by, sir."

"I usually drop by to see one of my officers who's in the hospital," said Bat. "Nothing special in your case - though you did do a good job with those six men up on the Blue River, Colonel."

"The guerrillas weren't very eager to make a fight of it, sir," said Cletus. "And then I was lucky enough to have them do just what I'd guessed they'd do. The General knows how unusual it is when everything works out in the field just the way it's planned."

"I do. Believe me, I do," answered Bat. Under the heavy brows, his eyes were hard but wary upon Cletus. "But that doesn't alter the fact you were right in your guess about where they'd come through and what they'd do once they were through."

"Yes, I'm happy about that," said Cletus. He smiled. "As I told the General, I pretty much bet my reputation on it to my friends back on Earth just before I left."

He glanced, as if unthinkingly, at the loose pile of face-down spaceship covers. Bat's eyes, following the direction of Cletus' gaze, narrowed slightly at sight of the yellow envelopes.

"You've been getting congratulations, have you?" Bat asked.

"There've been a few pats on the back," Cletus said. He did not add that these had been only from such local people as Eachan, Mondar and newly made Sergeant Ed Jarnki. "Of course, the operation wasn't a total success. I heard the rest of the guerrillas managed to get back through the pass before Lieutenant Athyer could contain them."

Bat's eyebrows jerked together into a solid angry line of black. "Don't push me, Colonel," he rumbled. "Athyer's report said he got word from you too late to take his men up into position to bar the pass."

"Was that it, sir?" said Cletus. "I'd guess it was my fault, then. After all, Athyer's an experienced field officer and I'm just a desk-jockey theoretician. I'm sure everybody realizes it was just luck that the contact my squad had with the enemy was successful and the contact the lieutenant and the rest of his company had wasn't."

For a moment their eyes locked.

"Of course," said Bat, grimly. "And if they don't understand it, I do. And that's what's important - isn't it, Colonel?"

"Yes, sir," said Cletus.

Bat sat back in his chair, and his brows relaxed. "Anyway," he said, "I didn't come here just to congratulate you. A suggestion by you came through to my office that you set up a staff to make regular weekly forecasts of enemy activity. There was also your request for personnel and office space to facilitate your making such forecasts... Understand, Colonel, as far as I'm concerned, I still need you like I need a fifty-man string ensemble. But your success with the guerrillas has got us some good publicity back at Alliance HQ, and I don't see how you can do any harm to the rest of the war effort here on Kultis by setting up this forecast staff. So, I'm going to approve it." He paused, then shot the words at Cletus. "That make you happy?"

"Yes, sir," said Cletus. "Thank you, General."

"Don't bother," said Bat, grimly. "As for Athyer - he had his chance, and he fell on his face. He'll be coming up for a Board of Inquiry into his fitness as an Alliance officer. Now - anything else you want?"

"No," said Cletus.

Bat stood up abruptly. "Good," he said. "I don't like having my arm twisted. I prefer handing out favors before they're asked. Also, I still need those tanks, and you're still going back to Earth at the first opportunity, Colonel. Tuck that fact into your prognostications and don't forget it!"

He turned on his heel and went toward the door. "General," said Cletus. "There is a favor you could do me... "

Bat checked and swung about. His face darkened. "After all?" His voice was hard. "What is it, Colonel?"

"The Exotics have quite a library here in Bakhalla," said Cletus. "With a good deal of military text and information in it."

"What about it?"

"If the General will pardon me," said Cletus, slowly, "Lieutenant Athyer's main problems are too much imagination coupled with not enough confidence in himself. If he could get away and season himself for a while - say, as Information Officer for the Expeditionary Forces, to that Exotic library - he might turn out highly useful, after all."

Bat stared at Cletus. "Now why," said Bat softly, "would you want something like that for Athyer instead of a Board of Inquiry?"

"I don't like to see a valuable man wasted," said Cletus.

Bat grunted. He turned on his heel and went out without a further word. Looking a little sheepish, Arvid emerged from the bathroom.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said to Cletus. "The General must've come by air and landed on the roof."

"Think nothing of it, Arv," said Cletus, happily. "Just get out in that corridor and find me that doctor. I've got to get out of here."

Twenty minutes later, Arvid having finally located and produced the medical officer, Cletus was finally out of his cast and on his way to the office space Arvid had located for him. It was one of a set of three office suites, each consisting of three rooms and a bath, that had originally been erected by the Exotics for housing VIP guests. The other two suites were empty, so that, in essence, they had the building to themselves - a point Cletus had stipulated earlier when he had sent Arvid out to search. When they reached the office, Cletus found it furnished only with some camp chairs and a temporary field desk. A lean major in his early forties, with a white scar across his chin, was examining these in disparaging fashion.

"Major Wilson?" asked Cletus, as the officer turned to face them. "I'm Colonel Grahame."

They shook hands.

"Security sent me over," Wilson said. "You said you were expecting some special problem here, Colonel?"

"I'm hoping for one," replied Cletus. "We're going to be handling a good deal of material here, from the classified category on up. I'm going to be making weekly forecasts of enemy activity for General Traynor. Sooner or later the Neulanders are bound to hear of this and take an interest in this office. I'd like to set it up as a trap for anyone they send to investigate."

"Trap, sir?" echoed Wilson, puzzled.

"That's right," said Cletus, cheerfully. "I want to make it possible for them to get in, but, once in, impossible for them to get back out."

He turned to indicate the walls around them.

"For example," he said, pointing, "heavy steel mesh on the inside of the windows, but anchored so that it can't be pried loose or cut through with ordinary tools. An obvious lock on the outer door that can be easily picked - but a hidden lock that fastens the door securely once the open lock has been picked and the door opened and shut once. Metal framing and center panel for the door frame and door itself, so that they can't break out once the hidden lock has closed the door... Possibly a wiring system to electrify the doors, windows and ventilator system just to discourage any attempt to break loose."

Wilson nodded slowly, but doubtfully. "That's going to add up to a good bit in the way of work-tune and materials," he said. "I suppose you have authorization for this, Colonel... ?"

"It'll be forthcoming," said Cletus. "But the thing is for your division to get to work on this right away. The general was just talking to me less than an hour ago in the hospital about getting this office set up."

"The general - oh!" said Wilson, becoming brisk. "Of course, sir."

"Good, then," said Cletus. "That's settled."

After discussion of a few details, and after Wilson had taken a few measurements, the security officer left. Cletus set Arvid to getting Eachan Khan on the field telephone, which, with the table and chairs, was the office's only equipment. The Dorsai colonel was finally located out in the training area set aside for his mercenary troops.

"Mind if I come out?" asked Cletus.

"Not at all." In the small vision screen of the field phone, Eachan's face looked faintly curious. "You're welcome anytime, Colonel. Come along."

"Right," said Cletus. "I'll be there in half an hour."

He broke the connection. Leaving Arvid to see about getting the office supplied with furniture and staff, Cletus went out and took the staff car in which Arvid had driven him here to the training area of the Dorsai troops.

He found Eachan Khan standing at the edge of a field with a ten-meter metal tower in its center, from which what looked like a company of the tanned Dorsai professionals were practicing jump-belt landings. The line of those waiting their turn stretched out behind the tower, from the top of which mercenaries were going off, one by one, the shoulder jets of the jump belts roaring briefly and kicking up a cloud of whitish-brown dust as each one fell earthward. For men not trained exclusively as jump troops, Cletus noted with satisfaction as he limped up to the watching Eachan Khan, there were a great many more soft, upright landings than might have been expected.

"There you are," said Eachan, without turning his head, as Cletus came up behind him. The Dorsai colonel was standing with his legs slightly spread, his hands clasped behind him as he watched. "What do you think of our level of jump training, now you see it?"

"I'm impressed," answered Cletus. "What do you know about guerrilla traffic on the Bakhalla River?"

"Fair amount. Bound to be, of course, with the river running right through the city into the harbor here." Eachan Khan stared at him curiously. "Not so much infiltrators as sabotage materials, I understand, though. Why?"

"There's a new moon tonight," explained Cletus.

"Eh?" Eachan stared at him.

"And according to the local tide tables," said Cletus, "we're having an unusually high tide - all the tributaries and canals will be running deeper than usual as much as twenty miles inland. A good time for the Neulanders to smuggle in either large amounts of supplies or unusually heavy equipment."

"Hm... " Eachan fondled the right tip of his mustache. "Still... if you don't mind a word of advice?"

"Go right ahead," said Cletus.

"I don't think there'd be anything you could do about it," said Eachan. "River security is maintained by a half-dozen Army amphibs with half a dozen soldiers and light weapons on each one. That's not enough to do any good at all, and everybody knows it. But your General Traynor opts for dryfoot war equipment. About six months back he got five armored personnel carriers by swearing to your Alliance HQ that his river defenses were perfectly adequate and that, instead of sending him a couple of patrol boats, they could give him the personnel carriers instead. So if you go pointing out probable trouble on the river, you're not going to be making Traynor very happy. My advice would be to let any Neulander activity there go by on your blind side."

"Maybe you're right," said Cletus. "How about lunch?"

They left the training ground and drove in to the Officers' Club for lunch, where Melissa joined them in response to a telephone call from her father at Cletus' suggestion. She was somewhat reserved, and did not often meet Cletus' eye. She had come with her father for one brief visit to Cletus in the hospital, during which she stood back and let Eachan do most of the talking. She seemed inclined to let him do most of the talking now, although she glanced at Cletus from time to time when his attention was on her father. Cletus, however, ignored her reactions and kept up a steady, cheerful flow of conversation.

"Wefer Linet's been after me," Cletus said to her when they were having coffee and dessert, "to take one of his underwater tours in one of the Mark V submarine dozers. How about joining us this evening, and we can come back into Bakhalla afterward for a late supper?"

Melissa hesitated, but Eachan broke in, almost hastily. Good idea, girl," he said, almost gruffly. "Why don't you do that? Do you good to get out for a change."

The tone of Eachan's voice made his words sound like a command. But the naked voice of appeal could be heard beneath the brusqueness of the words. Melissa surrendered.

"Thank you," she said, raising her eyes to meet those of Cletus, "that sounds like fun."