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

Cletus nodded. "I see," he said. "But it's a mistake for you to try to mend things through deCastries.
He's not capable of being influenced the way you hope."
"Mend things тАж " She turned her head and stared at him, meeting his eyes this time in unthinking
shock, her face suddenly pale.
"Of course," said Cletus. "I'd been wondering what you were doing at his table. You'd have been
underage at the time your father emigrated to the Dorsai, so you must have dual Coalition-Dorsai
citizenship. You have the right to go back and live on Earth any time you want to take up your Coalition
citizenship. But your father can't be repatriated except by special political dispensation, which is almost
impossible to get. Either you or he must think you can get deCastries to help you with thatтАФ"
"Dad's got nothing to do with it!" Her voice was fierce. "What kind of a man do you think he is?"
He looked at her. "No. You're right of course," he said. "It must have been your idea. He's not the
type. I grew up in a military family back on Earth, and he reminds me of some of the generals I'm related
to. In fact, if I hadn't wanted to be a painterтАФ"
"A painter?" She blinked at the sudden change of topic.
"Yes," said Cletus, smiling a little wryly. "I was just starting to make a living at it when my draft
number came up, and I decided to go into the Alliance Military Academy after all, the way my family had
wanted me to from the beginning. Then I got wounded, of course, and discovered I liked the theory of
military art. So painting got left behind."
While he was talking she had come to a halt automatically before one of the stateroom doors lining
the long, narrow corridor. But she made no attempt to open it. Instead she stood, staring at him.
"Why did you ever leave teaching at the Academy, then?" she asked.
"Someone," he said, humorously, "has to make the worlds safe for scholars like myself."
"By making a personal enemy out of Dow deCastries?" she said, incredulously. "Didn't it teach you
anything when he saw through your game with the teacups and the sugar cubes?"
"But he didn't," said Cletus. "Oh, I ought to admit he did a very good job of covering up the fact he
hadn't."
"He covered up?"
"Certainly," Cletus answered. "He lifted the first cup out of over-confidence, feeling sure he could
handle whatever came of my shell game. When he turned up the first cube he thought I had blundered,
not he. With the second cube, he revised his ideas, but was still overconfident enough to try again. When
he turned up the third cube he finally woke to the fact that the game was completely under my control. So
he had to find an excuse for stopping it and refusing to choose a fourth time."
She shook her head. "This is all the wrong way around," she said, unbelievingly. "You're twisting what
happened to make it look the way you want it."
"No," said Cletus. "DeCastries was the one who twisted it, with his actually very clever explanation of
why he wouldn't lift a cup a fourth time. The only trouble was, it was a false explanation. He knew he'd
find a sugar cube under any cup he lifted."
"How could he?"
"Because I had cubes under all three cups, of course," said Cletus. "When I lifted one cube from the
bowl, I palmed two others. By the time he got around to the fourth choice, deCastries had probably
figured that out. The fact that the game turned out to be the avoiding of finding a cube, instead of trying to
find one, misled him at first. But pointing it out by then would have been too late to keep him from
looking foolish at having played the game three times already. People like deCastries can't afford to look
foolish."
"But why did you do it?" Melissa almost cried. "Why do you want to make an enemy like that?"
"I need to get him involved with me," said Cletus, "so I can make use of him. Unless I can make him
annoyed enough to thrust, I can't parry. And only by successfully continuing to parry every attempt he
makes can I finally get his whole attention тАж Now you see," he went on, a little more gently, "why you
ought to be worrying about your own involvement with Dow deCastries instead of mine. I can handle
him. On the other hand, youтАФ"