"Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 05 - The Spirit of Dorsai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

"And it was the first Amanda who was given charge of Foralie district, by the people in the
district, then?" he asked. "Why her? She hadn't been a soldier."

"I told you," she said. "During the Outlaw Years, she'd led the way in clearing out the lawless
mercenaries. After she did thatтАФand other thingsтАФ

with just the women, the cripples, old men and children to help her, the rest of the districts
fallowed her example and law came to all the Dorsai. She was the best person to command."

"How did they do it, then?"

"Clean out the outlaws?" the third Amanda asked.

"NoтАФthough I want to hear that sometime, too. What I meant was, how did Amanda and Foralie
district defeat first-line troops? Most military scholars seem to think that the invaders defeated
themselves, that they had to defeat themselves; because there was no way a gaggle of women,
children and old people could possibly have done it."

"In a way you could say the troops did defeat themselvesтАФdid you ever read Cletus' Tactics of
Mistake?" she answered. "But actually what happened was a case of putting our strengths
against the weaknesses of the invaders."

"Weaknesses? What weaknesses did first-line troops have?"

She looked at him again with those level eyes.

"They weren't willing to die unless they had to."

"That?" Hal looked at her curiously. "That's a weakness?"

"Comparatively. Because we were."

"Willing to die?" he studied her. "Non-combatants? Old people, mothersтАФ"

"And children. Yes." The armor of sunlight around her seemed to invest her words with a quality
of truth greater than he had ever known from anyone else. "The Dorsai was farmed by people
who were willing to pay with their lives in others battles, in order to buy freedom far their homes.
Not only the men who went off to fight, but those at home had

that same image of freedom and were willing to live and die far it."

"But simply being willing to dieтАФ"

"You don't understand, not being born here," she said. "It was a matter of their being able to make harder
choices than people less willing. Amanda and the others in the district best qualified to decide sat down
and considered a number of plans. They all entailed casualtiesтАФand the casualties could include the
people who were considering the plans. They chose the one that gave the district the greatest
effectiveness against the enemy for the least number of deaths; and, having chosen it, they were all ready
to