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

hooded, as if he looked inward rather than outward at them all. "I've seen too many men with nothing but
theory get trampled on when they ventured out into the real world."
"Men are real," said Cletus. "So are weapons тАж But strategies? Political consequences? They're no
more real than theories. And a sound theorist, used to dealing with unreal things, is a better manipulator
of them than the man used to dealing only with the real tools that are actually only end products тАж Do
you know anything about fencing?"
DeCastries shook his head.
"I do," said Eachan.
"Then maybe you'll recognize the tactic in fencing I use as an example for some I call the tactics of
mistake. It's in the volume I'm writing now." Cletus turned to him. "The fencing tactic is to launch a series
of attacks, each inviting ripostes, so that there's a pattern of engages and disengages of your blade with
your opponent's. Your purpose, however, isn't to strike home with any of these preliminary attacks, but
to carry your opponent's blade a little more out of line with each disengage so gradually he doesn't notice
you're doing it. Then, following the final engage, when his blade has been drawn completely out of line,
you thrust home against an essentially unguarded man."
"Take a damn good fencer," said Eachan, flatly.
"There's that, of course," said Cletus.
"Yes," said deCastries, slowly, and waited for Cletus to look back at him. "Also, it seems a tactic
pretty well restricted to the fencing floor, where everything's done according to set rules."
"Oh, but it can be applied to almost any situation," said Cletus. There were coffee cups, as yet
unfilled, spaced about the table. He reached out and captured three of these and lined them up, upside
down between himself and deCastries. Then he reached into a bowl of sugar cubes standing on the table
and brought his fist back to drop a cube onto the tablecloth by the central cup.
 He covered the sugar cube with the central cup and moved all the cups about, interchanging their
positions rapidly. Then he stopped.
"You've heard of the old shell game," he said to deCastries. "Which one of those cups would you say
the sugar cube's under?"
DeCastries looked at the cups but made no attempt to reach out to them. "None of them," he said.
"Just for purposes of illustrationтАФwill you pick one, anyway?" asked Cletus.
DeCastries smiled. "Why not?" he said.
He reached out and lifted the middle cup. His smile vanished for a second and then returned again. In
plain view sat a sugar cube, white against white on the tablecloth.
"At least," said deCastries, "you're an honest shell-game operator."
Cletus took up the middle cup, which deCastries had set down, and covered the sugar cube. Once
again he rapidly switched around the positions of the overturned cups.
"Try it again?" he asked deCastries.
"If you want." This time deCastries chose to lift the cup at the right end of the row as it faced him.
Another sugar cube was exposed.
"Once more?" said Cletus. Again he covered the cube and mixed the cups. DeCastries picked up the
cup now in the center and put it down with some force when he saw the sugar cube he had exposed.
"What's this?" he said. His smile was definitely gone now. "What's the point of all this?"
"It seems you can't lose, Mr. Secretary, when I control the game," said Cletus.
DeCastries looked penetratingly at him for a second, then covered the cube and sat back, glancing at
Pater Ten.
"You move the cups this time, Pater," he said.
Smiling maliciously at Clems, Pater Ten rose and switched the cups aboutтАФbut so slowly that
everyone at the table easily kept track of the cup deCastries had last handled. That particular cup ended
up once more in the middle. DeCastries looked at Cletus and reached for the cup to the right of the one
that plainly contained the cube. His hand hesitated, hovered over it for a moment, and then drew back.
His smile returned.