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

 "You тАж " Suddenly blazing with anger, she turned and jerked open the door. "You absoluteтАФgo mix
yourself up with Dow. Get yourself chewed up to mincemeat. I hope you do. But stay away from
me тАж And from Dad! Do you hear me?"
He looked at her, and a slight shadow of something like pain passed through him. "Of course," he
said, stepping back. "If that's what you want."
She went in, slamming the door behind her. He stood for a second, looking at its blank surface. For a
moment with her there, the self-imposed barrier of isolation he had set up around himself many years ago,
when he found others did not understand him, had almost melted. But it was back now.
He drew a short, deep breath that was almost a sigh. Turning, he went off down the corridor in the
direction of his own stateroom.


4
For the next four days Cletus punctually avoided Melissa and her fatherтАФand was ignored in turn by
deCastries and Pater Ten. Mondar, on the other hand, grew to be almost a close acquaintance, a
circumstance Cletus found not only pleasant, but interesting.
The fifth day out from Earth, the spaceliner went into parking orbit around Kultis. Like its sister planet
Mara, Kultis was a green, warm world with transient icecaps and only two major continental masses,
north and south, as it had been true with Earth during the Gondwandaland period of the home planet's
geological past. The shuttleboats from the chief cities of the various Kultan colonies began to come up to
take off passengers.
On a hunch, Cletus tried to phone down to Alliance Headquarters in Bakhalla for reporting and
billeting information. But the space-to-surface circuits were all tied up by the party for Neuland, in the
forward evacuation lounge. Which meant, Cletus discovered with a little quiet inquiry, Pater Ten speaking
for Dow deCastries. This, of course, was blatant favoritism on the part of a vessel of supposedly neutral
registry. Cletus' hunch flowered into suspicion. One of those calls could well be concerned with him.
Glancing around as he turned from the phone, Cletus caught sight of the blue robe of Mondar, who
was standing by the closed hatch of the midship lounge, only a few steps from Melissa and Eachan Khan.
Cletus limped briskly over to the Exotic.
"Phones tied up," Cletus said. "Thought I'd ask Alliance Forces HQ for instructions. Tell me, is there
much activity in close to Bakhalla by Neuland guerrillas these days?"
"Right up to our front doors," answered Mondar. He looked at Cletus shrewdly. "What's the matter?
Just now remembering how you impressed Dow at dinner, that first day on board here?"
"That?" Cletus lifted an eyebrow. "You mean deCastries goes to the trouble of making special
guerrilla targets out of every light colonel he meets?"
"Not every one, of course," said Mondar, and smiled. "But in any case there's no cause for alarm.
You'll be riding into Bakhalla with Melissa, Eachan and myself in a command car."
"That's reassuring," said Cletus. But his thoughts were already halfway elsewhere. Clearly, whatever
effect he had achieved with Dow deCastries had been at least partly transparent to Mondar. Which was
all right, he thought. The trail he had laid out toward his announced goal was baited along its length for
just the sort of subtle mind that could envision purposes at work invisible to less perceptive men. It was
that sort of mind deCastries possessed, and Mondar's was complex and deep enough in its own way to
prove a useful control subject.
A gong rang through the lounge, cutting through the sounds of conversation.
"Shuttleboat for Bakhalla, now docking," droned the first officer's voice from a wall speaker. "Now
docking, midships lounge hatch, the shuttleboat for Bakhalla. All passengers for Bakhalla should
be ready to board тАж "
Cletus found himself swept forward as the hatch opened, revealing the bright metal connecting tunnel
to the shuttleboat. He and Mondar were separated by the crowd.
The shuttleboat was little more than a cramped, uncomfortable, space- and atmosphere-going bus. It