"Dickson, Gordon R - Childe Cycle 4 - 1971 - The Tactics of Mistake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

THE TACTICS OF MISTAKE - Gordon R. DicksoneVersion 1.0 - click for scan notes
THE TACTICS OF MISTAKE
Gordon R. Dickson


Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you
Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are
but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger Е
LESSONS: Anonymous
1
The young lieutenant-colonel was drunk, apparently, and determined to rush upon
disaster.
He came limping into the spaceship's dining lounge the first night out from
Denver on the flight to Kultis, a row of bright service ribbons on the jacket of
his green dress uniform, and looked about. He was a tall, lean officer, youthful
to hold the rank he wore in the Expeditionary Forces of Earth's Western
Alliance; and at first glance his open-featured face looked cheerful to the
point of harmlessness.
He gazed around the room for a few seconds, while the steward tried
unsuccessfully to steer him off to a booth nearby, set for a single diner. Then,
ignoring the steward, he turned and headed directly for the table of Dow
deCastries.
The white-faced, waspish little man called Pater Ten, who was always at
deCastries' elbow, slipped away from his chair as the officer approached, and
went toward the steward, still staring blank-faced with dismay after the
lieutenant-colonel. As Pater Ten approached, the steward frowned and bent
forward to talk. The two of them spoke for a moment in low voices, glancing back
at the lieutenant-colonel, and then went quickly out of the lounge together.
The lieutenant-colonel reached the table, pulled up an empty float seat from the
adjoining table without waiting for an invitation and seated himself across from
the tawny-haired, beautiful young girl at deCastries left.
"Privilege of first night out, they tell me," he said pleasantly to all of them
at the table. "We sit where we like at dinner and meet our fellow passengers.
How do you do?"
For a second no one spoke. DeCastries only smiled, the thin edge of a smile that
barely curved the lips in his handsome face, framed by the touches of gray in
the black hair at his temples. For five years, now, Secretary of Outworlds
Affairs for Earth's Coalition of Eastern Nations, he was known for success with
women; and his dark eyes had concentrated on the tawny-haired girl ever since he
had invited herЧwith her mercenary soldier father and the Exotic Outbond who
made up the third in their partyЧto join his table, earlier. There was no
obvious threat in that smile of his; but reflexively at the sight of it, the
girl frowned slightly and put a hand on the arm of her father, who had leaned
forward to speak.
"Colonel Е " The mercenary wore the pocket patch of an officer from the Dorsai
World, under contract to the Bakhallan Exotics, and he was a full colonel. His
darkly tanned face with its stiffly waxed mustache might have looked ridiculous
if it had not been as expressionlessly hard as the butt-plate of a cone rifle.
He broke off, feeling the hand on his sleeve, and turned to look at his
daughter; but her attention was all on the interloper.