"You should thank General Lu May for that, instead of me," Cletus answered, dryly. "He has a good deal less to fear from us, sitting back behind his mine fields and his perimeter defenses, than he does in the open field, where the Dorsais are a great deal more mobile than his troops. He has more men and he's in an entrenched position."
"But you don't have to try to take the place by assault!" protested Reyes. "You can live off the country or supply yourself from Breatha as you want. Lu May's cut off from outside supplies. It's just a matter of starving him out!"
"That may not be easy," said Cletus, "unless he's been strangely forgetful, while preparing for everything else, to stock enough provisions for the city and his troops so that they can hold out longer than we can afford to sit here besieging them."
Reyes frowned. Plainly, it seemed to him that this Dorsai marshal was taking an entirely too gloomy a view of the situation.
"Do you object to besieging the city?" Reyes demanded. "If so, I should probably mention that the Breatha government considered this the optimum - indeed the only - course you could pursue, if you were lucky enough to trap Lu May in a fixed position."
"I don't object - for now," Cletus answered, quietly. "But that's because there're military reasons for it, far removed from the opinions of your government. I might remind you, Chancellor, that one of my stipulations in accepting employment with Breatha Colony, as it is with every government with whom I sign a contract, is that I, alone, be in charge of the conduct of the campaign."
He turned and sat down behind the desk in the office of the field structure in which they had been talking. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."
Reyes hesitated, then turned on his heel and walked out.
Cletus continued the siege for three weeks, throwing up breastworks and digging his own trenches behind them to encircle the city, as if he had every intention of staying indefinitely. Meanwhile, outside of an occasional exchange of small-arms fire, there was little open conflict between the city defenders and its Dorsai attackers.
Meanwhile, overhead, a similar unspoken truce existed. Dorsai aircraft patrolled the atmosphere above and about the city to prevent city-state vessels from entering or leaving it. But beyond this, there was no aerial conflict. As in most inter-colony armed conflicts on the new worlds, air warfare was being avoided by the sort of tacit agreement that had interdicted the use of poison gas during World War II in the twentieth century on Earth. The object of armed struggle between opposed technology-poor communities, such as the young colonies, was not so much to destroy the enemy's productive capacity as to take it away from him. One did not obliterate by bombing that which one had started a war to obtain. And if the factories and other hardware of civilization were valuable, the men who had the skills to operate them were almost as valuable.
Therefore, bombing and even the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons in the vicinity of built-up areas was avoided, and - atmosphere craft being almost as expensive as spacecraft - any other use of the skies other than for reconnaissance or the transporting of troops was likewise avoided.
At the end of three weeks, however, Cletus apparently lost patience with this stalemate and issued orders, orders that brought Chancellor Ad Reyes literally running to Cletus' headquarters office, the black gown tucked up to allow free movement to the chancellor's legs.
"You're pulling out half your forces and sending them to take Armoy City and its spaceport!" Reyes accused him, bursting into Cletus' office.
Cletus looked up from the desk at which he was working. "You've heard of that, have you?" Cletus asked.
"Heard of it!" Reyes strode up to the edge of the desk and leaned over it almost as though he would have liked to have thrust his face nose-to-nose with Cletus'. "I've seen them! All those civilian trucks you requisitioned to transport your secondary command are headed off toward Armoy! Don't tell me that isn't where they're headed!"
"That's where they're headed," said Cletus, agreeably. "The rest of us will be following them in twenty-four hours. There's plainly no point in continuing this siege any longer. I'm going to raise it, move on Armoy City and take that spaceport of theirs."
"Raise the siege?... What kind of trick is this? If you'd been paid by the city-states to betray us, you couldn't have picked a better - " He broke off abruptly, shrinking a little at the sudden sound of his own words in his ears. Cletus was on his feet behind the desk.
"I hope I don't hear you correctly, Chancellor." Cletus' voice and eyes had changed. "Are you accusing Dorsais of dishonoring a contract with your government?"
"No... that is, I didn't mean... " Reyes stammered.
"I'd advise you to be careful of what you do mean," said Cletus. "The Dorsais don't break contracts, and we don't tolerate talk that we do. And now, for the last time, let me remind you that I - I, alone - am in command of this campaign. Perhaps you should get back to your own quarters, now."
"Yes, I... " Reyes fled.
Just before dawn the following morning, the rest of the Dorsais besieging Spainville mounted their military vehicles and pulled out with all armor and weapons. Only their aircraft remained above Spainville to discourage pursuit by air reconnaissance.
Dawn rose on the empty trenches and breastworks that the mercenaries had thrown up, but it was nearly noon before their silence and appearance of abandonment could tempt patrols out from Spainville to investigate. When, however, the former Dorsai positions had been investigated and found to be abandoned, the patrols took note of the direction of the signs of departure visible in the pasture earth and summer grass south of the city, and passed the word hastily to General Lu May.
Lu May, roused with this news from his slumbers after a late evening, swore in a way that had gone out of fashion forty years ago.
"We've got him!" the old man exploded, rolling out of bed and beginning hastily to struggle into his clothes. "He couldn't stand the waiting - now he's cut his own throat!"
"Sir?" protested the colonel who had brought him the news. "Cut his own throat? I don't understand - "
"That's because you kids know nothing about war the way it's really fought!" trumpeted Lu May, getting into his trousers. "Grahame's headed for Armoy City, idiot!"
"Yes, sir," said the colonel. "But I still don't see - "
"He's faced the fact that there was no hope of his taking the city here!" snapped Lu May. "So he's pulled out and decided to take Armoy City, instead. That way he can claim that he did the best he could, and at least got Breatha Colony the spaceport that was giving them competition! With the spaceport, he'll tell them, they can make a deal to protect their corridor to the sea! Don't you see? Grahame's finally faced the fact that it was a bad contract he signed. He wants to get out of it on any terms - but he can't get out unless he has at least something to offer Breatha. Armoy City and that spaceport will be it!"
"Yes, sir," said the colonel, earnestly. "I see all that. But what I don't understand is why you say he cut his own throat. After all, if he's able to give Breatha Colony the spaceport and Armoy City to bargain with - "
"Idiot! Double idiot!" roared Lu May. "He has to take Armoy City first, doesn't he, fool?"
"Yes, sir - "
"Then he's going to have to occupy Armoy City with his forces, isn't he?"
Dressed at last, Lu May waddled hastily toward the door. Over his shoulder, he continued, "If we move fast after him, we'll catch him inside Armoy City, and we can surround him! He's got no supplies to last in a city like that very long - and if we need to, we even have the men and weapons to take the city by storm! Either way we can wrap his Dorsais up and have him as a prisoner to do what we want with!"