"Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 04 - Tactics of Mistake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

conclusion."
"Just made a mistake, eh?" said Bat, ironically.
"As it happens," said Cletus, "I think I've got a witness who'll testify I wasn't drunk. He was at the
table. Mondar, the former Outbond from here to St. Louis Enclave."
Bat's mouth, opened to retort before Cletus was half done, closed instead. The general sat silent for
several seconds. Then his eyebrows quivered and the frown line between his eyes smoothed somewhat.
"Then why this report?" he asked in a more neutral voice.
"The ship's people, from what I saw," said Cletus, "seemed partial to the Coalition people aboard."
"Well, then, damn it!" exploded Bat, "if you saw them jumping to the wrong conclusion, why didn't
you set them straight?"
 "As a matter of elementary strategy," said Cletus, "I thought it wouldn't do any harm to let the
Coalition people pick up as low an opinion of me as possibleтАФof me, and my usefulness to you, as a
tactical expert."
Bat looked balefully at him. "Their opinion couldn't be any lower than mine, anyway," he said. "You're
no use to me, Colonel. This is a dirty, little, hole-in-the-wall war, with no room for strategical mysteries.
This Exotic colony's got brains, money, technical developments and a seacoast. The Neulanders've got
no seacoast, no industry and too much population for their back-country farms to supportтАФbecause of
this multiple-wife religious cult of theirs. But that same excess population's just fine for supplying
guerrillas. So, the Neulanders want what the Exotics've got and the Coalition's trying to help them get it.
We're here to see they don't. That's the whole situation. What the Neuland guerrillas try to do, and what
we do to stop them from doing it, is just plain obvious. I need a book-strategy and tactics expert like I
need a hundred-piece symphony orchestra. And I'm sure deCastries and the other Coalition people on
that ship knew it as well as I do."
"Maybe I won't be quite as useless as the General thinks," said Cletus, unperturbed. "Of course, I'll
have to survey and study the situation, starting by setting up a plan for trapping those guerrillas they'll be
infiltrating through Etter's Pass, up country, in the next few days."
Bat's eyebrows shot up into flag position again. "New guerrillas? Who told you anything about Etter's
Pass?" he snapped. "What kind of a rabbit is this you're trying to pull out of your hat?"
"No rabbit," said Cletus, "not even a professional judgment, I'm afraid. Just common sense. With
Dow deCastries here, the Neulanders have to try to put on some sort of spectacular during his
visit тАж Have you got a map handy?"
Bat jabbed a button on the surface of his desk, and the wall of the room to Cletus' left lit up suddenly
with the projection of a large map showing the long, narrow coastline country of the Exotic colony, and
the interior range of mountains that divided it from the Neuland colony inland. Cletus stepped over to the
projection, looked it over and reached up to tap with his left forefinger at a point in the middle of the
mountain range running down the left side of the map. "Here's Etter's Pass," he said to Bat. "A good,
broad cut through the mountains, leading from Neuland down to BakhallaтАФbut according to reports, not
much used by the Neulanders, simply because there's nothing much worth raiding on the Exotic side for
over a hundred miles in any direction. On the other hand, it's a fairly easy pass to get through. There's
nothing but the small town of Two Rivers down below it, here. Of course, from a practical standpoint,
the Neulanders are better off sending their guerrillas into the country through passes closer to the larger
population centers. But if they aren't after profit so much as spectacle, it'd pay them to infiltrate a fairly
good-sized force through here in the next few days, so that a week from now they can hit one of the
smaller coastal towns in forceтАФmaybe even capture and hold it for a few days."
Cletus turned, limped back to his chair and sat down. Bat was frowning at the map.
"At any rate," Cletus said, "it shouldn't be too difficult to set up a net to sweep most of them in, as
they try to pass Two Rivers. In fact, I could do it myself. If you'd let me have a battalion of jump
troopsтАФ"
"Battalion! Jump troops!" Bat started suddenly out of his near-trance and turned a glare on Cletus.
"What do you think this is? A classroom, where you can dream up whatever force you need for a job?