"You're interested in our long-term goal now?" Mondar asked.
"No. In my own," said Cletus. "But in this case it amounts to the same thing, here and there."
He spent the next five days in Bakhalla briefing the Dorsai officers on his training program back on the Dorsai. He invited those who wished to return and take it, along with those of their enlisted men who wished the same thing, and he left them with a sample plan for rotation of troops to that end - a plan in which his own trained men on the Dorsai would fill in for those of the Bakhallan troops that wished to take the training, collecting the pay of those they replaced for the training period.
The response from the Dorsais in Bakhalla was enthusiastic. Most of the men there had known Cletus at the time of the victory over Neuland. Therefore, Cletus was able to extend the value of the loan he had made from the Exotics, since he did not have to find jobs immediately for those Dorsais he had already trained, but could use them several times over as replacements for other men wishing to take the training. Meanwhile, he was continually building up the number of Dorsais who had been trained to his own purposes.
At the end of the week, he took ship for Newton, bearing credentials from the Exotics to discuss the matter of a core-tap power station on Mara with the Newtonian Governing Board as an ancillary topic to his own search for employment for his Dorsais.
Correspondence with the board had obtained for him an appointment with the chairman of the board within a day of his arrival in Bailie, largest city and de facto capital of the Advanced Associated Communities - as the combined colonies of technical and scientific emigrants to Newton had chosen to call themselves. The chairman was a slim, nearly bald, youthful-faced man in his fifties by the name of Artur Walco. He met with Cletus in a large, clean, if somewhat sterile, office in a tall building as modern as any on Earth.
"I'm not sure what we have to talk about, Colonel," Walco said when they were both seated on opposite sides of a completely clean desk showing nothing but a panel of controls in its center. "The AAC is enjoying good relationships currently with all the more backward colonies of this world."
It was a conversational opening gambit as standard as king's pawn to king's pawn four in chess. Cletus smiled.
"My information was wrong, then?" he said, pushing his chair back from the desk and beginning to stand up. "Forgive me. I - "
"No, no. Sit down. Please sit down!" said Walco, hastily. "After you've come all the way here, the least I can do is listen to what you wanted to tell me."
"But if there's no need your hearing... " Cletus was insisting, when Walco once more cut him short with a wave of his hand.
"I insist. Sit down, Colonel. Tell me about it," he said. "As I say, there's no need for your mercenaries here at the moment. But any open-minded man knows that nothing's impossible in the long run. Besides, your correspondence intrigued us. You claim you've made your mercenaries more efficient. To tell you the truth, I don't understand how individual efficiency can make much difference in a military unit under modern conditions of warfare. What if your single soldier is more efficient? He's still just so much cannon fodder, isn't he?"
"Not always," said Cletus. "Sometimes he's a man behind the cannon. To mercenaries, particularly, that difference is critical, and therefore an increase in efficiency becomes critical too."
"Oh? How so?" Walco raised his still-black, narrow eyebrows.
"Because mercenaries aren't in business to get themselves killed," said Cletus. "They're in business to win military objectives without getting themselves killed. The fewer casualties, the greater profit - both to the mercenary soldier and to his employer."
"How, to his employer?" Walco's eyes were sharp.
"An employer of mercenaries," Cletus answered, "is in the position of any businessman faced with a job that needs to be done. If the cost of hiring it done equals or exceeds the possible profit to be made from it, the businessman is better off leaving the job undone. On the other hand, if the cost of having it done is less than the benefit or profit to be gained, then hiring the work accomplished is a practical decision. The point I'm making is that, with more efficient mercenary troops, military actions which were not profitable to those wishing them accomplished now become practical. Suppose, for example, there was a disputed piece of territory with some such valuable natural resource as stibnite mines - "
"Like the Broza Colony stibnite mines the Brozans stole from us," shot out Walco.
Cletus nodded. "It's the sort of situation I was about to mention," he said. "Here we have a case of some very valuable mines out in the middle of swamp and forest stretching for hundreds of miles in every direction without a decent city to be found, worked and held onto by a backward colony of hunters, trappers and farmers. A colony, though, that is in possession of the mines by military forces supplied by the Coalition - that same Coalition, which takes its cut of the high prices you pay the Brozans for the antimony extracted from the stibnite."
Cletus stopped speaking and looked meaningfully at Walco. Walco's face had darkened.
"Those mines were discovered by us and developed by us on land we'd bought from Broza Colony," he said. "The Coalition didn't even bother to hide the fact that they'd instigated the Brozan's expropriation of them. It was piracy, literal piracy." Walco's jaw muscles tightened. His eyes met Cletus' across the desk top. "You picked an interesting example," he said. "As a matter of theoretical interest, suppose we do go into the matter of expense, and the savings to be gained by the efficiency of your Dorsais in this one instance."
A week later, Cletus was on his way back to the Dorsai with a contract for the three months' hire of two thousand men and officers. He stopped at Bakhalla on Kultis on the way back to inform the Exotics that their loan was already promising to pay off.
"Congratulations," said Mondar. "Walco has a reputation of being one of the hardest men on any world to deal with. Did you have much trouble persuading him?"
"There was no persuading involved," answered Cletus. "I studied the situation on Newton for a point of grievance before I first wrote him. The stibnite mines, which are essentially Newton's only native source of antimony, seemed ideal. So, in my correspondence after that I dwelt upon all those aspects and advantages of our troops under this new training, which would apply to just such a situation - but without ever mentioning the Brozan stibnite mines by name. Of course, he could hardly help apply the information I gave him to that situation. I think he was determined to hire us to recover the mines even before he met me. If I hadn't brought up the subject, he would have."
Mondar shook his head with a slow smile of admiration. "Did you take advantage of his good humor to ask him to consider the Maran core-tap plan?"
"Yes," said Cletus. "You'll have to send a representative to sign the actual papers, but I think you'll find he'll be falling over himself in his eagerness to sign the agreement."
The smile vanished from Mondar's face. "You mean he's seriously interested?" Mondar demanded. "He's interested in a situation in which they'd put up that kind of equipment and professional services simply in return for a long-term financial gam?"
"He's not merely interested," said Cletus. "You'll find he's pretty well determined not to let the chance get away, no matter what. You should be able to write your own terms."
"I can't believe it!" Mondar stared at him. "How in the name of eternity did you get him into such a favorable mood?"
"There wasn't any real problem," said Cletus. "As you say, the man's a hard bargainer - but only when he's bargaining from a position of strength. I began, after our talk about the Dorsais was done, by just dropping the hint that I was on my way to Earth, where I had family connections who'd help me in getting Alliance funds to help you set up the Maran core-tap. He was interested, of course - I think, at first, more in the prospect in getting some such sort of Alliance aid for Newton. But then I happened to dwell on some of the financial benefits the Alliance would receive in the long run in return for their help, and that seemed to start him thinking."