The tactics of mistake

25

Mondar had changed in some indefinable way, since Cletus had seen him last, when they met again in Mondar's garden-enclosed residence in Bakhalla. There were no new lines in the calm face, no touch of gray in the Exotic's hair, but the blue eyes, like Melissa's, were becoming strangely deeper in color, as though the time that had passed had dredged new levels of understanding in the mind behind them.

"You can't help us on Mara, then, Cletus?" were the words with which he greeted Cletus on the latter's arrival.

"I don't have any more troops to send," said Cletus. "And if I had, I'd strongly suggest we not send them."

They passed through the halls of Mondar's house, walking side by side, and emerged into an enclosure half-room, half-arbor, where Mondar waved Cletus to a wide, basket-weave chair, and then took one like it himself. All this time Mondar had not spoken; but now he did.

"We stand to lose more than we can afford, if we lose our present investment in the core-tap," said Mondar. "We've still got a contingent of your Dorsais here in Bakhalla. Can't we use some of them to retake the core-tap site?"

"Not unless you want the additional Alliance-Coalition troops that have been put into Neuland to come boiling over the border into your colony, here," said Cletus. "You don't want that, do you?"

"No," said Mondar. "We don't want that. But what's to be done about the Friendly mercenaries occupying the core-tap site?"

"Leave them there," said Cletus.

Mondar gazed at him. "Cletus," he said softly after a second, "you aren't just trying to justify this situation you've created?"

"Do you trust my judgment?" countered Cletus.

"I've got a high regard for it," Mondar answered slowly, "personally. But I'm afraid that most of the other Outbonds here and in the Maran colonies of our people don't share that high regard at the moment."

"But they still trust you to make the decisions about me, don't they?" asked Cletus.

Mondar gazed at him, curiously. "What makes you so sure of that?" he asked.

"The fact that I've gotten everything I've ever asked the Exotics for, through you - up until now," answered Cletus. "You're the man who has to recommend me as a bad bet or a good one, still, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Mondar, with something of a sigh. "And that's why I'm afraid you won't find me as personally partial to you now as I might be, Cletus. I've got a responsibility to my fellow Exotics now that makes me take a harder view of the situation than I might take by myself. Also, I've got a responsibility to come to some kind of a decision between you and the Alliance-Coalition combination."

"What's the procedure if you decide for them - and against us?" asked Cletus.

"I'm afraid we'd have to come to the best possible terms with them that we could," Mondar answered. "Undoubtedly they'd want us to do more than dismiss the troops we've now got in hire from you, and call in your loan. They'd want us to actively throw our support on their side, hire their troops and help them against you on the Dorsai."

Cletus nodded. "Yes, that's what they'd want," he said. "All right, what do you need to decide to stick with the Dorsai?"

"Some indication that the Dorsai stands a chance of surviving the present situation," said Mondar. "To begin with, I've told you we face a severe loss in the case of the Maran core-tap, and you said just now, even if you had the troops to spare, you'd suggest doing nothing about the Alliance-Coalition occupation of the site. You must have some reasoning to back that suggestion?"

"Certainly," said Cletus. "If you stop and think for a moment, you'll realize the core-tap project itself is perfectly safe. It's a structure with both potential and actual value - to the Alliance and Coalition, as well as to anyone else. Maybe they've occupied the site, but you can be sure they aren't going to damage the work done so far by the men or machines that can finish it."

"But what good's that do us, if it stays in their hands?"

"It won't stay long," said Cletus. "The occupying troops are Friendlies and their religious, cultural discipline makes them excellent occupying troops - but that's all. They look down their noses at the very people who hire them, and the minute their pay stops coming they'll pack up and go home. So wait a week. At the end of that time either Dow will have won, or I will. If he's won, you can still make terms with him. If I've won, your Friendlies will pack up and leave at a word from me."

Mondar looked at him narrowly. "Why do you say a week?" he asked.

"Because it won't be longer that that," Cletus answered. "Dow's hiring of Friendly troops gives away the fact that he's ready for a showdown."

"It does?" Mondar's eyes were still closely watching him. Cletus met them squarely with his own gaze.

"That's right," he said. "We know the number of the available field troops in the Alliance-Coalition force that Dow's put together. It can be estimated from what we already knew of the number of troops the Alliance and the Coalition had out on the new worlds, separately. Dow had to use all of them to start enough brush wars to tie up all my Dorsais. He hadn't any spare fighting men. But, by replacing his fighting troops with Friendlies, he can temporarily withdraw a force great enough, in theory, to destroy me. Therefore the appearance of Friendly troops under Dow's command can only mean he's forming such a showdown force."

"You can't be sure his hiring of Friendlies as mercenaries means just that, and not something else."

"Of course I can," said Cletus. "After all, I was the one who suggested the use of the Friendly troops in that way."

"You suggested?" Mondar stared.

"In effect," said Cletus. "I stopped off at Harmony myself some time back, to talk to James Arm-of-the-Lord and suggest he hire out members of his Militant Church as raw material to fill uniforms and swell the official numbers of my Dorsais. I offered him a low price for the men. It hardly took any imagination to foresee that once the idea'd been suggested to him, he'd turn around as soon as I'd left and try to get a higher price from Dow for the same men, used the same way."

"And Dow, of course, with Alliance and Coalition money, could pay a higher price," said Mondar, thoughtfully. "But if that's true, why didn't Dow hire them earlier?"

"Because exposing them to conflicts with my Dorsais would have quickly given away the fact that the Friendlies hadn't any real military skills," replied Cletus. "Dow's best use of them could come only from putting them into uniform briefly, to replace the elite Alliance-Association troops he wanted to withdraw secretly, for a final battle to settle all matters."

"You seem," said Mondar slowly, "very sure of all this, Cletus."

"That's natural enough," said Cletus. "It's what I've been pointing toward ever since I sat down at the table with Dow and the rest of you on board the spaceship to Kultis."

Mondar raised his eyebrows. "That much planning and executing?" he said. "Still, it doesn't mean you can be absolutely sure Dow will do what you think he'll do."

"Nothing's absolutely sure, of course," said Cletus. "But for practical purposes I'm sure enough. Can you get your fellow Exotics to hold off action on the occupation of the Maran core-tap site for seven days?"

Mondar hesitated. "I think so," he said. "For seven days, anyway. Meanwhile, what are you going to do?"

"Wait," said Cletus.

"Here?" said Mondar. "With Dow, according to your estimate, gathering his best troops to strike? I'm surprised you left the Dorsai to come here in the first place."

"No need to be surprised," said Cletus. "You know I know that the Exotics somehow seem to get information of events on other worlds faster than the fastest spaceship can bring it. It merely seemed to me that information might reach me as fast here as it would any place. Would you say I was wrong?"

Mondar smiled slightly. "No," he answered. "I'd have to say you weren't wrong. Be my guest, then, while you wait."

"Thank you," said Cletus.

Mondar's guest, then, he remained - for three days during which he inspected the Dorsai troops in Bakhalla, browsed in the local library that had been the scene of Bill Athyer's discovery of a new occupation life and renewed his old acquaintance with Wefer Linet.

On the morning of the fourth day, as he and Mondar were having breakfast together, a young Exotic in a green robe brought in a paper, which he handed to Mondar without a word. Mondar glanced at it and passed it over to Cletus.

"Dow and fifteen shiploads of Coalition elite troops," Mondar said, "landed on the Dorsai two days ago. They've occupied the planet."

Cletus got to his feet.

"What now?" Mondar looked up at him from the table. "There's nothing you can do now. Without the Dorsai, what have you got?"

"What did I have before I had the Dorsai?" retorted Cletus. "It's not the Dorsai Dow wants, Mondar, it's me. And as long as I'm able to operate, he hasn't won. I'll be leaving for the Dorsai immediately." Mondar got to his feet. "I'll go with you," he said.