Tactics of Mistake

by Gordon R. Dickson

  He continued to pace up and down talking. After a while, the arm- and leg-weary men, soothed by their relaxed position and the slow movement of the clouds, lulled by the steady, pleasant, monotonous sound of his voice, ceased in fact to pay any attention to the sense of his words. He was merely talking. To Arvid, at one end of the line, Cletus’s voice seemed to have gone off and become as remote as everything else about him. Lying on his back, Arvid saw nothing but sky. It was as if the planet beneath him did not exist, except as a soft grassy pressure at his back, bearing him up. The clouds moved slowly in the endless blue, and he seemed to drift along with them.

  A nudge at his feet brought him suddenly and sharply back to consciousness. Cletus was smiling down at him.

  “All right,” Cletus said, in the same steady low tone, “on your feet and step over there.”

  Arvid obeyed, getting heavily upright once more, and moving off, as Cletus had indicated, about a dozen feet. The rest were still on the ground, with Cletus talking to them. Then he saw Cletus, who was still pacing, pause at the feet of David Ap Morgan and nudge the sole of David’s right foot with his toe.

  “All right, David,” Cletus said, without breaking the pace or tone of his talking, “up you get and join Arvid over there.”

  David’s eyes, which had been closed, jerked open. He got to his feet and went over to stand by Arvid. As the two of them watched, one by one other members of the class went to sleep and were quietly wakened and weeded out until no one but Eachan still lay on the grass, his eyes wide open.

  Cletus abruptly ended his talking with a chuckle. “All right, Eachan,” he said. “There’s no point in my trying to put you to sleep. You get up and join the others.”

  Eachan rose. On their feet and all together once more, the class looked at Cletus.

  “The idea,” said Cletus, with a smile, “is not to fall asleep. But we won’t worry about that for a while yet. How many of you remember feeling any kind of a floating sensation before you did drop off?”

  Arvid and three others raised their hands. Eachan was one of them.

  “Well, that’s it for today,” Cletus said. “Tomorrow we’ll try it without the muscle-tiring exercises first. But I want you all to go back to your quarters and try doing this again, by yourself, at least three times before tomorrow morning. If you like, you can try putting yourself to sleep tonight with it. We’ll gather together here again tomorrow, at this same place at the same time.”

  In the next few sessions Cletus worked with the class until all of them could achieve the floating sensation without drifting off into sleep. With this accomplished, he led them by easy stages into autocontrol of pain and deep bodily sensations. When they had become fairly adept at this, he began to move them gradually from a relaxed and motionless position into movement—first getting them to achieve the floating sensation while standing upright, then when walking slowly and rhythmically forward, and finally under any kind of activity up to the most violent. This achieved, there remained for them only the ability to make use of the trance state in various types of autocontrol under all conditions of activity, and he turned them loose to become teachers, in their turn to the other officers in training—who would, again, pass on the training to the enlisted men under their command.

  By this time nearly three months had gone by, and the officers in training had advanced to the point where they could begin to pass on at least the physical end of their training to the troops that would be under their orders. Recruitment was started for Dorsais to fill the enlisted ranks—and for some few extra Dorsai officers to replace those who had dropped out of the training program.

  Just at this time Cletus received a thick envelope of clippings sent him by a news-clipping service on Earth he had contacted before leaving Bakhalla. He opened the envelope, alone in Eachan’s study, and spread the clippings out in order of their dates to examine them.

  The story they told was simple enough. The Coalition, sparked by a few key speeches by Dow deCastries himself, was attempting to raise a storm of protest against mercenary troops on the new worlds in general, and the Dorsais in particular.

  Cletus replaced the clippings in their envelope and filed them in the cabinet holding his own correspondence. He went out on the terrace to find Melissa there reading.

  It was high summer in these Dorsai mountains, and the sun was in late afternoon position above the farther peaks. He paused for a moment, watching her as she sat unsuspecting that he watched. In the clear sunlight, her face was untroubled, and somehow more mature-looking than he remembered it back at Bakhalla.

  He went out onto the terrace and she looked up from her reading spool at the sound of his feet. He caught her gaze with his own, and her eyes widened a little at the seriousness with which he stood looking down at her. After a minute he spoke.

  “Will you marry me, then, Melissa?” he said.

  The blueness of her eyes was as deep as the universe itself. Once again, as it had in the hospital in Bakhalla, her gaze seemed to evaporate the barrier of protective loneliness that his experience with life and people had led Mm to build about him. She looked up at him for a long moment before answering.

  “If you really want me, Cletus,” she said.

  “I do,” he replied.

  And he did not lie. But, as the protective barrier flowed once more into position about his inner self, even as he continued to match her gaze with his, a cold interior part of his mind reminded him of the necessity that there would be now to lie, hereafter.

  19.

  The wedding was set for a date two weeks away. Meanwhile, Cletus, seeing the formation of the force he had begun to raise on the Dorsai now beginning to operate under its own momentum, took time out for a trip back to Kultis and Bakhalla for a conversation with Mondar, and a farther trip to Newton seeking employment for the newly trained Dorsais of his command.

  On Bakhalla, he and Mondar had an excellent dinner at Mondar’s residence. Over the dinner table Cletus brought the Exotic up to date. Mondar listened with interest, which increased visibly when Cletus got into the matter of the special training in autocontrol he had initiated for the officers and men who would be under his command. After the dinner was over, they strolled out onto one of the many terraces of Mondar’s home to continue their talk under the night sky.

  “And there,” said Cletus, as they stood in the warm night breeze, looking upward. He pointed at a yellowish star low on the horizon. “That’ll be your sister world, Mara. I understand you Exotics have got quite a colony there, too.”

  “Oh yes,” answered Mondar thoughtfully, gazing at the star.

  “A pity,” said Cletus, turning to him, “that they aren’t as free there from Alliance and Coalition influence as you’ve been here on Kultis since the Neulanders were taken care of.”

  Mondar withdrew his eyes from the star, turned himself to face Cletus and smiled. “You’re suggesting we Exotics hire your new battle unit to drive out the Alliance and Coalition forces?” he said, humor in his voice. “Cletus, we’ve strained our financial resources for you already. Besides, it’s counter to our general philosophy to contemplate deliberate conquest of other peoples or territories. You shouldn’t suggest it to us.”

  “I don’t,” said Cletus. “I only suggest you contemplate the building of a core-tap power station at the Maran North Pole.”

  Mondar gazed through the darkness at Cletus for a moment without speaking. “A core-tap power station?” he echoed at last, slowly. “Cletus, what new subtlety are you working at now?”

  “Hardly a subtlety,” replied Cletus. “It’s more a matter of taking a square look at the facts on Mara, economic and otherwise. The Alliance and the Coalition are both still stretched to their economic limits to maintain their influence with various colonies on all the new worlds. They may have lost ground here. But they’re both strong on Mara, on Frieland and New Earth under Sirius, on Newton and Cassida, and even to a certain extent on the younger old worlds of the solar system—
Mars and Venus. In fact, you might say they’re both overextended. Sooner or later they’re bound to crack—and the one that’s liable to crack first, because it’s invested more of its wealth and manpower in influencing new world colonies than the Coalition has, is the Alliance. Now, if either the Alliance or the Coalition goes under, the one that’s left is going to take over all the influence that the other formerly had. Instead of two large octopi, with their tentacles into everything on the new worlds, there’ll be one extra-large octopus. You don’t want that.”

  “No,” murmured Mondar.

  “Then it’s plainly to your interests to see that, on some place like Mara, neither the Alliance nor the Coalition gets the upper hand,” said Cletus. “After we took care of Neuland, and you invited the Alliance forces out, the personnel the Alliance had here were taken away and spread out generally—plugged in any place the Alliance seemed in danger of springing a leak in confrontation with the Coalition. The Coalition, on the other hand, took its people in Neuland—of which, granted, there weren’t as many as there were of Alliance people, but it was a fair number—and simply shifted them over to Mara. The result is that the Coalition is headed toward getting the upper hand over the Alliance on Mara.”

  “So you’re suggesting we hire some of these newly trained Dorsais of yours to do on Mara what you did here?” Mondar smiled at him, a little quizzically. “Didn’t I just say that philosophically we Exotics consider it inadvisable to improve our position by conquest—or any violent means, for that matter. Empires built by force of arms are built on sand, Cletus.”

  “In that case,” said Cletus, “the sand under the Roman Empire must have been most solidly packed. However, I’m not suggesting any such thing. I’m merely suggesting that you build the power plant. Your Exotic colony of Mara occupies the subtropical belt across the one large continent there. With a core-tap power station at the North Pole, you not only extend your influence into the essentially unclaimed sub-arctic regions there, you’ll be able to sell power to all the small, independent, temperate-zoned colonies lying between Mara and the station. Your conquest on that planet, if any, will be by purely peaceful and economic means.”

  “Those small colonies you refer to,” said Mondar, his head a little on one side, watching Cletus out of the comers of his blue eyes, “are all under Coalition influence.”

  “All the better,” said Cletus. “The Coalition can’t afford very well to drill them a competing core-tap power plant.”

  “And how are we going to afford it?” Mondar asked. He shook his head. “Cletus, Cletus, I think you must believe that our Exotic peoples are made of money.”

  “Not at all,” Cletus said. “There’s no need for you to put yourself to any more immediate expense than that for the basic labor force required to set up the plant. It ought to be possible for you to set up an agreement for a lease-purchase on the equipment itself, and the specially trained people required to set up the plant.”

  “Where?” asked Mondar. “With the Alliance? Or the Coalition?”

  “Neither,” said Cletus, promptly. “You seem to forget there’s one other colonial group out here on the new worlds that’s proved itself prosperous.”

  “You mean the scientific colonies on Newton?” said Mondar. “They’re at the extreme end of the philosophical spectrum from us. They favor a tight society having as little contact with outsiders as possible. We prize individualism above anything else, and our whole purpose of existence is the concern with the total human race. I’m afraid there’s a natural antipathy between the Newtonians and us.” Mondar sighed slightly. “I agree we should find a way around such emotional barriers between us and other human beings. Nonetheless, the barrier’s there—and in any case, the Newtonians aren’t any better off financially than we are. Why should they extend us credit, equipment and the services of highly trained people—as if they were the Alliance itself?”

  “Because eventually such a power station can pay back their investment with an excellent profit—by the time the lease expires and you purchase their interest in it back from them,” said Cletus.

  “No doubt,” said Mondar. “But the investment’s still too large and too long-ranged for people in their position. A man of modest income doesn’t suddenly speculate on distant and risky ventures. He leaves that to richer men, who can afford the possible loss—unless he’s a fool. And those Newtonians, whatever else they are, aren’t fools. They wouldn’t even listen.”

  “They might,” said Cletus, “if the proposition was put to them in the proper manner. I was thinking I might say a word to them myself about it—if you want to authorize me to do that, that is. I’m on my way there now, to see if they might not want to hire some of our newly trained Dorsai troops.”

  Mondar gazed at him for a second; the Exotic’s eyes narrowed. “I’m utterly convinced, myself,” he said, “that there’s no chance in the universe of your persuading them to anything like this. However, we’d stand to gain a great deal by it, and I don’t see how we could possibly lose anything by your trying. If you like, I’ll speak to my fellow Exotics—both about the project and about your approaching the Newtonians for equipment and experts to put it in.”

  “Fine. Do that,” said Cletus. He turned back toward the house. “I imagine I should start folding up, then. I want to inspect the Dorsai troops in the regiment you’ve got here now, and set up some kind of rotation system so that we can move them back by segments to the Dorsai for the new training. I want to be on my way to Newton by the end of the week.”

  “I should have our answer for you by that time,” said Mondar, following him in. He glanced curiously at Cletus as they moved into the house side by side. “I must say I don’t see what you stand to gain by it, however.”

  “I don’t, directly,” Cletus answered. “Nor do the Dorsais—we Dorsais, I have to get used to saying. But didn’t you say something to me once about how anything that moved mankind as a whole onward and upward also moved you and your people toward their long-term goal?”

  “You’re interested in our long-term goal now?” Mondar asked.

  “No. In my own,” said Cletus. “But in this case it amounts to the same thing, here and there.”

  He spent the next five days in Bakhalla briefing the Dorsai officers on his training program back on the Dorsai. He invited those who wished to return and take it, along with those of their enlisted men who wished the same thing, and he left them with a sample plan for rotation of troops to that end—a plan in which his own trained men on the Dorsai would fill in for those of the Bakhallan troops that wished to take the training, collecting the pay of those they replaced for the training period.

  The response from the Dorsais in Bakhalla was enthusiastic. Most of the men there had known Cletus at the time of the victory over Neuland. Therefore, Cletus was able to extend the value of the loan he had made from the Exotics, since he did not have to find jobs immediately for those Dorsais he had already trained, but could use them several times over as replacements for other men wishing to take the training. Meanwhile, he was continually building up the number of Dorsais who had been trained to his own purposes.

  At the end of the week, he took ship for Newton, bearing credentials from the Exotics to discuss the matter of a core-tap power station on Mara with the Newtonian Governing Board as an ancillary topic to his own search for employment for his Dorsais.

  Correspondence with the board had obtained for him an appointment with the chairman of the board within a day of his arrival in Bailie, largest city and de facto capital of the Advanced Associated Communities—as the combined colonies of technical and scientific emigrants to Newton had chosen to call themselves. The chairman was a slim, nearly bald, youthful-faced man in his fifties by the name of Artur Walco. He met with Cletus in a large, clean, if somewhat sterile, office in a tall building as modern as any on Earth.

  “I’m not sure what we have to talk about, Colonel,” Walco said when they were both seated on opposite sides of a
completely clean desk showing nothing but a panel of controls in its center. “The AAC is enjoying good relationships currently with all the more backward colonies of this world.”

  It was a conversational opening gambit as standard as king’s pawn to king’s pawn four in chess. Cletus smiled.

  “My information was wrong, then?” he said, pushing his chair back from the desk and beginning to stand up. “Forgive me. I—”

  “No, no. Sit down. Please sit down!” said Walco, hastily. “After you’ve come all the way here, the least I can do is listen to what you wanted to tell me.”

  “But if there’s no need your hearing…“ Cletus was insisting, when Walco once more cut him short with a wave of his hand.

  “I insist. Sit down, Colonel. Tell me about it,” he said. “As I say, there’s no need for your mercenaries here at the moment. But any open-minded man knows that nothing’s impossible in the long run. Besides, your correspondence intrigued us. You claim you’ve made your mercenaries more efficient. To tell you the truth, I don’t understand how individual efficiency can make much difference in a military unit under modern conditions of warfare. What if your single soldier is more efficient? He’s still just so much cannon fodder, isn’t he?”

  “Not always,” said Cletus. “Sometimes he’s a man behind the cannon. To mercenaries, particularly, that difference is critical, and therefore an increase in efficiency becomes critical too.”

  “Oh? How so?” Walco raised his still-black, narrow eyebrows.

  “Because mercenaries aren’t in business to get themselves killed,” said Cletus. “They’re in business to win military objectives without getting themselves killed. The fewer casualties, the greater profit—both to the mercenary soldier and to his employer.”

  “How, to his employer?” Walco’s eyes were sharp.