The tactics of mistake

24

Landing back on the Dorsai, Cletus phoned ahead to order Major Arvid Johnson, now acting field commander, to meet him at Grahame House. Then with Bill Athyer like a smaller, beak-nosed shadow at his side, he took a hired atmosphere craft to Foralie and Grahame House, still wearing his battle uniform.

Melissa, with Arvid and Eachan, met him just inside the front door. Athyer, diffident still in spite of his present rank, stood at the far end of the entrance hall as Cletus greeted Melissa and Eachan briefly before striding on toward the door to bis office-study and beckoning Eachan and Arvid to follow him.

"You too, Bill," he said to Athyer.

He closed the door of the office behind them. "What's the latest word?" Cletus demanded of his father-in-law, as he walked around to stand behind the pile of message blanks on his desk and stare down at them.

"It seems deCastries was appointed to this position as Commander-in-Chief of the joint Alliance-Coalition troops on the new worlds several months ago," answered Eachan. "The Coalition and the Alliance just kept it secret while the two high commands built up a news campaign to get the common citizens of Earth on both sides ready for the idea. Also, Artur Walco's here to see you. Seems like deCastries is already making trouble for him at those stibnite mines on Newton."

"Yes, there'll be brush wars breaking out all over the new worlds now... I'll see Walco tomorrow morning," said Cletus. He turned to Arvid.

"Well, Arv," he said. "If the Dorsai had medals to give I'd be handing you a fistful of them right now. I hope someday you can forgive me for this. I had to have you thinking I'd shoved you aside into the field for good."

"You didn't, sir?" asked Arvid, quietly.

"No," said Cletus. "I wanted a development in you. And I've got it."

In fact, it was a different man who stood before them to answer to the name of Arvid Johnson. Not the least of the change was that he looked at least five years older. His white-blond hair had darkened as though with age, and his skin was more deeply suntanned that it had been. He looked as though he had lost weight, and yet he appeared larger than ever, a man of gaunt bone and whipcord muscle, towering over all of them.

At the same time, something was gone from him for good. A youthfulness, a friendly softness that had been a basic part of him before was vanished now. In its place was something grim and isolated, as though he had at last become coldly conscious of the strength and skill in him that set him apart from other men. A quality like the sheer, physical deadliness of Swahili had entered into him.

He stood without moving. When he had moved earlier, it had been almost without a sound. He seemed to carry about him now a carefulness born of the consciousness that all others were smaller and weaker than he, so that he must remember not to damage them without intent. Like someone more warrior than man, prototype of some line of invincible giants to come, he stood by Cletus' desk.

"That's good to hear," he said softly, to Cletus, now. "What do you want me to do?"

"Fight a campaign - if necessary," said Cletus. "I'm going to give you a world to defend. And I'm promoting you two grades to a new rank - vice-marshal. You'll be working in team with another officer also holding an entirely new rank - the rank of battle operator."

He turned slightly to look at Bill Athyer. "That'll be Bill, here," he said. "As battle op, Bill will rank just below you and above any other officer in the field with you, except myself."

Arvid and Bill looked at each other.

"Battle operator?" said Eachan.

"That's right," Cletus answered him. "Don't look so surprised, Eachan. This is something we've been headed toward from the start, with the reorganization and retraining of the men."

He looked back at Arvid and Bill. "The marshal, or vice-marshal, and the battle operator," Cletus said, "will form a general commander's team. The battle op is the theoretical strategist of that team and the vice-marshal is the field tactician. The two will bear roughly the same relationship to each other as an architect and a general contractor in the construction of a building. The battle op will first consider the strategical situation and problem and lay out a campaign plan. And in this process he will have complete authority and freedom."

Cletus had been watching Bill in particular as he spoke. Now, he paused. "You understand, Bill?" he said.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Then, however" - Cletus' eyes swung to Arvid - "the battle op will hand his strategical plan to the vice-marshal, and from that point on, it'll be the vice-marshal who has complete authority. His job will be to take the plan given him, make any and all alterations in it he thinks it needs for practical purposes and then execute it as he sees fit. You understand, Arv?"

"Yes, sir," said Arvid, softly.

"Good," said Cletus. "Then you and Bill are released from your present duties as of now and you'll begin immediately on your new jobs. The world I'm giving you to start with is the Dorsai here, and the first force you'll be working with will be made up of the women and children, the sick, the injured, and the average men."

He smiled a little at them. "Then get at it, both of you," he said. "None of us has any time to waste nowadays."

As the door to the office closed behind the two of them, a wave of the fatigue he had been holding at bay for a number of days and hours now suddenly washed over him. He swayed where he stood and felt Eachan catch him by the elbow.

"No - it's all right," he said. His vision cleared and he looked into Eachan's concerned face. "I'm just tired, that's all. I'll take a nap and then we'll hit things after dinner."

With Eachan walking guardedly beside him, he walked out of the office-study, feeling as though he were stepping on pillows, and went up to his bedroom. The bed was before him; he dropped onto its yielding surface without bothering even to take off his boots... And that was the last he remembered.

He awoke just before sunset, ate a light meal and spent half an hour getting reacquainted with his son. Then he closeted himself in his office with Eachan to attack the pile of paper work. They sorted the correspondence into two piles, one which Cletus had to answer himself and one which Eachan could answer with a few words per letter of direction from him. Both men dictated until nearly dawn before the desk was cleared and the necessary orders for the Dorsai and off-world troops were issued.

The interview in the study next day with the Newtonian chairman, Walco, was brief and bitter. The bitterness might have gone into acrimony and the interview prolonged unduly if Cletus had not cut short Walco's scarcely veiled accusations.

"The contract I signed with you," said Cletus, "promised to capture Watershed and the stibnite mines, and turn them over to your own troops. We made no guarantee that you'd stay in control of the mines. Holding onto them was up to you, and to whatever agreement you could make with the Brozans."

"We made our agreement!" said Walco. "But now that they've suddenly been reinforced by fifteen thousand Alliance and Coalition troops, courtesy of this fellow deCastries, they're refusing to honor it. They claim they made it under duress!"

"Didn't they?" Cletus said.

"That's not the point! The point is, we need you and enough troops from the Dorsai, right away, to match those fifteen thousand soldiers from Earth that the Brozans're holding over us like a club."

Cletus shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm facing unusual demands on my available mercenaries right now. Also, I'm not free to come to Newton, myself."

Walco's face went lumpy and hard. "You help get us into a spot," he said, "and then when trouble comes, you leave us to face it alone. Is that what you call justice?"

"Was justice mentioned when you signed us to the original contract?" replied Cletus, grimly. "I don't remember it. If justice had been a topic, I'd have been forced to point out to you that, while it was your funds and experts who developed the stibnite mine, that was only because you were in a position to take advantage of the Brozan poverty that was then keeping them from developing the mines themselves. You may have a financial interest in the mines, but the Brozans have a moral claim to them - they're a Brozan natural resource. If you'd faced that fact, you'd hardly have been able to avoid seeing their moral claim, which would have to be recognized by you, eventually - " He broke off.

"Forgive me," he said, dryly. "I'm a little overworked these days. I gave up long ago doing other people's thinking for them. I've told you that neither I, nor an expeditionary force of the size you ask for, is available to you right at the moment."

"Then what will you do for us?" muttered Walco.

"I can send you some men to officer and command your own forces, provided you contract to let them make all the military decisions, themselves."

"What?" Walco cried out the word. "That's worse than nothing!"

"I'll be perfectly happy to let you have nothing, then, if that's what you prefer," said Cletus. "If so, let me know now. My time's limited at the moment."

There was a second's pause. Gradually the lumpiness of Walco's features smoothed out into an expression almost of despair.

"We'll take your officers," he said, on a long exhalation of breath.

"Good. Colonel Khan will have the contract ready for you in two days. You can discuss the terms with him then," said Cletus. "And now, if you'll excuse me... "

Walco left. Cletus called in David Ap Morgan, one of Eachan's old officers, now a senior field commander, and gave him the job of heading up the officers to be sent to command the troops of the Associated Advanced Communities on Newton.

"You can turn the job down, of course," Cletus wound up.

"You know I won't," said David Ap Morgan. "What do you want me to do?"

"Thanks," said Cletus. "All right. I'm going to give you about twelve hundred and fifty men, each one bumped up at least one rank from what he's holding now. You'll have ex-noncoms to be your force leaders. Use them to replace all the local commissioned officers - I mean all. And the contract's being written to give you sole command in military matters. Be sure you keep that command. Don't take any advice from Walco and his government, under any circumstances. Tell them if they don't leave you alone, you'll pull out and come back here."

David nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. "Any plan for the campaign?"

"Just make sure you don't fight any stand-up battles," said Cletus. "I probably don't need to tell you that. Your AAC troops wouldn't be any good in a stand-up battle anyway. But even if they would be, I still wouldn't want you to fight. Tease the Alliance-Coalition forces into chasing you - and then keep them chasing. Lead them all over the map. Hit them just enough to keep them hot after you and break up into guerrilla groups if they get too close. Do anything needed to keep them worried and your own casualties down as much as possible."

David nodded again.

"I think" - Cletus looked at him seriously - "you'll find you'll lose 70 or 80 per cent of your AAC troops through desertion in the first four to six weeks. The ones that hang on will be the ones who're starting to have faith in you. You may be able to start training them as they go to turn into fairly effective soldiers."

"I'll do that," said David. "Anything else?"

"No. Just make it as expensive for the enemy as possible," answered Cletus. "Don't hit their troops when you can avoid it. Make their casualties light, but make it expensive for them in material. The more active duty soldiers they have, the more there'll be around to miss the food, equipment and other supplies I'm counting on you to destroy, every chance you get."

"Got it," said David, and went off, whistling, to his nearby home of Fal Morgan, to pack his gear for the campaign. Like all his family, he had a fine singing voice and he also whistled sweetly and intricately. Unexpectedly, hearing that tune fade away down his entrance hall and out the front door of Grahame House, Cletus was reminded of a song Melissa had played and sung for him once. It was a small, sad, beautiful tune made by a young member of the Ap Morgan family who had died in some campaign when Melissa had been even younger, long before Cletus had come to the Dorsai.

He could not remember it all, but it dealt with the young soldier's strong memories of the house where he had grown up, remembered while he was waiting for an engagement to begin on some other world.

... Fal Morgan, Fal Morgan, when morning is gray,

Your wall stones and rooftree stand near me, today...

Cletus shook the emotional tag end of recollection from his mind. He turned to the task of picking out the men he would promote and send with David.

During the weeks that followed, the demand upon the Dorsai professional soldiers continued. Everywhere that Cletus had won a campaign, the combined Alliance-Coalition forces were in action, trying to reverse whatever situation his successful actions had created.

The efforts of the forces from Earth were ponderous and awesome. Together, the Alliance and the Coalition had better than half a million military people scattered out upon the new worlds. If the full half million could have been made effective in the campaigns Dow deCastries was trying to conduct, any opposition by the Dorsais or the attacked colonies could not have lasted more than a few days in each case.

As it was, however, nearly half the half million were engaged in military occupations other than those of a fighting soldier or officer. And of the more than two hundred and fifty thousand men that this left technically available for active duty in the field, more than a hundred and fifty thousand at any one time were rendered - or managed to render themselves - ineffective through a variety of means and for a variety of causes.

Among these were deep suspicions and old rivalries between former Alliance officers and their new Coalition partners; also, there was laziness and inefficiency among those of all ranks and political backgrounds, and the sheer blundering that inevitably resulted from the disorganization in such a large, hastily formed partnership of military units.

In spite of this, with all these subtractions, there remained a hard core of perhaps eighty thousand well-trained and superbly equipped troops from Earth to face a couple of hundred thousand almost useless and practically nonequipped local Colonial troops, plus a relative handful of Dorsais. Cletus could hardly have put twenty thousand Dorsai men in the field, even if he had scraped together every male from that small world, including walking cripples, between the ages of twelve and eighty.

Sending small contingents of Dorsais to officer Colonial troops was one solution; but only where the Colonial troops had at least a shred of training and effectiveness. Where this was not the case - as on Cassida - or where there simply were no native Colonial troops to officer - as on St. Marie - actual contingents of Dorsais had to be sent.

"But why don't we just stop?" demanded Melissa, anguished one day after she had come back from visiting a neighboring household that had lost yet another of the family's men. "Why can't we just stop sending men out?"

"For the same reason the Coalition and the Alliance have combined to send men to reverse everything we've accomplished," Cletus answered her. "If they beat us at every point, they'll destroy our value as soldiers for hire to the other colonies. That's what Dow's really after. Then they'll come on to the Dorsai and destroy us."

"You can't be sure of that - that they're out to destroy us!"

"I can't be other than sure. Nor can anyone who's thought the matter through," said Cletus. "We were winning every campaign and proving ourselves superior to their own troops. A little more of that, and troops from the Alliance and the Coalition wouldn't be needed any more on the new worlds. And with the need gone for any military support from Earth, there'd go Earth's influence among the colonies. This way, if they win, they protect their hold on the new worlds. While if we win - "

"Win!" snorted Eachan, who was in the room at the time.

"If we win," repeated Cletus, looking steadily at the older man, "we break that hold for good. It's a battle for survival between us now - when it's over, either Earth or the Dorsai are going to be counted out on the new worlds."

She stared at him, her eyes unnaturally wide, for a long moment of silence. "I can't believe that!" she said at last. She turned to her father. "Dad - "

"Oh, it's true enough," said Eachan flatly, from across the room. "We were too successful - with Cletus' early campaigns on Newton and worlds like that. We scared the Alliance and the Coalition, both. Now they're out to make themselves safe. And they're very big, and we're very small... And we've already sent out the last men we've got to send."

"They haven't any left in reserve either," said Cletus.

Eachan said nothing. Melissa turned back to Cletus.

"No," said Cletus, although she had not spoken, "I don't intend to lose."

Eachan still said nothing. In the silence, distantly, the front door annunciator chimed. A second later, an aide opened the door.

"Rebon, Exotic Outbond to the Dorsai, sir," he said.

"Bring him in," said Cletus. The aide stood aside and a slight man in blue robes entered the room.

His face held the eternal Exotic calm, but his expression was serious nonetheless. He came up to Cletus as both Cletus and Eachan got to their feet.

"I've got some bad news I'm afraid, Cletus," he said. "A military force of the Alliance-Coalition Peace Force has seized the Maran core-tap site and all the equipment and technicians there."

"On what basis?" snapped Eachan.

"The Coalition has filed claims against the Associated Advanced Communities of Newton," said Rebon, turning slightly to face Eachan. "They've seized the core-tap site as an AAC asset pending settlement of their claim. Mondar" - he turned back to Cletus - "asks your help."

"When did this happen?" asked Cletus.

"Eight hours ago," said Rebon.

"Eight hours!" exploded Eachan. The fastest spaceship - and there was no known swifter way of transmitting messages across interstellar space - required at least three days to cover the light-years between Mara and the Dorsai. Rebon's eyes veiled themselves slightly.

"I assure you it's true," he murmured.

"And where'd the troops come from?" demanded Eachan. He threw a glance at Cletus. "They weren't supposed to have any more available!"

"From the Friendlies, undoubtedly," replied Cletus.

Rebon lifted his gaze back to Cletus, slowly. "That's true," he said, on a note of surprise. "You expected this?"

"I expected deCastries to hire help from Harmony or Association eventually," said Cletus, brusquely. "I'll leave right away."

"For the core-tap site on Mara?" Relief sounded in Rebon's voice. "You can raise men to help us, then?"

"No. Alone. For Kultis," said Cletus, already striding out of the room, "to talk to Mondar."

Boarding the spaceship that would take him to Kultis, he encountered at the foot of the boarding ladder Vice-Marshal Arvid Johnson and Battle Operator William Athyer, who had been ordered to meet him here. Cletus stopped for a moment to speak to them.

"Well," said Cletus, "do you still have any notion I gave you a nothing job when I put you in charge of defending the Dorsai?"

"No, sir." Arvid looked calmly at him.

"Good. It's up to you then," said Cletus. "You know the principles behind whatever action you'll need to take. Good luck."

"Thank you," said Bill. "Good luck to you, too, sir."

"I make it a point not to know the lady," said Cletus. "I can't afford to count on her."

He went up the boarding ladder and the entry port of the ship closed behind him.

Five minutes later it leaped skyward in thunder and was lost into space.