true, the voice in his mind said. my analysis is that such are inherent in the nature of your species.
Raj leaned back against the clay and lit a cheroot. What's the point, then? he asked. If all I'm doing is letting people make mistakes on a bigger scale and a broader canvas?
Center was silent for half a minute. this is a difficult question, and one at the limits of my powers of analysis. i was not constructed so as to be capable of philosophical doubt.
Another pause. in your terms: the fall represented a limitation of human choice due to suboptimal decisions. the greater capacities of a unified and technologically advanced civilization free humans from the determinism of nature. both their triumphs and their failures become matters of choice.
Ours aren't?
only to a very limited degree. the vast majority of humans on bellevue are peasants, because you lack the productive capacity to organize yourselves otherwise. this precludes forms of government and social organization less authoritarian, because the civilized regions depend too heavily on coercion to produce the surplus on which cities and a literate leisure class depend. if the fall continues, even agriculture-based societies will collapse and maximum entropy will be reached at a hunter-gatherer level. the survival of human life on this planet will then be in doubt.
As if to illustrate the point, the carnosauroid's retching scream sounded again through the night.
a new civilization may eventually emerge; but it will lack any continuity with the ancestral culture. and fifteen thousand years of savagery means hundreds of generations of human lives without the opportunity to exercise their capacities.
Raj nodded. Peasants were old at forty, and every day in their lives was pretty much the same, except when something went badly wrong. The Church said it was punishment for men's sins-which seemed to be literally true in Center's terms as well-but there was no reason for the punishment to go on forever.
He shivered slightly, despite the warmth of the earth at his back. The fate of the human race for the next fifteen millennia rests on me, then. And our chances of pulling it off are no better than even.
correct.
He stood and flicked the stub out into the darkness, a solitary ember that arced away and was lost in the night. He turned. Behind him the command group was gathering about the pool of light cast by a kerosene lantern, the undershadow putting the bones of their faces into hard relief. They were unfolding maps, munching on hardtack and pieces of jerked meat; their smiles and eyes looked as feral as so many war-dogs in the yellow light.
"Well, sooner started, sooner finished," Raj said. He strode into the light. "Right, gentlemen. Tewfik's main force is rather smaller than I'd expected-about sixteen thousand men, according to Captain M'lewis's report."
"Countin' banners, sir. Couldna' git closer. Them wogs is screened tighter 'n a cherry inna raghead's hareem."
Everyone nodded. Colonial units were less standardized in number than their Civil Government equivalents. One reason for that was a deliberate attempt to make it harder for observers to get a quick, accurate tally of a Colonial army's numbers by counting the unit standards.
"We'll take sixteen thousand as a ballpark figure-which worries me, Messers. We're here" — he put his finger on a spot west of Ain el-Hilwa- "and we have to cut the bend of the Drangosh to get back to our bridgehead opposite Sandoral. I hope you all realize that after leaving Ali's main army-"
He moved his finger to the west bank, and north almost to Sandoral, then south again to the Colonial pontoon bridge.
"— he could have dropped forces off to cross the river and take up blocking positions north of us."
By their expressions, the thought was an unpleasant surprise to a few of the battalion commanders-although not to his Companions.
"That depends on Tewfik's estimate of our numbers and intentions. We'll let the men rest another hour, then start out at Maxiluna rise." With both moons in the sky, there would be more than enough light for riding. "We'll make use of every hour of darkness we can; it'll be cooler, too.
"Colonel Staenbridge," he went on, "you take the three companies of the 5th and lead the way. Spread out but move fast. Captain M'lewis, you'll be the scout screen for the scout screen. Gerrin, if you run into anything you think you can handle, punch through. If not, go around if that's possible, screening our retreat. Major Zahpata, you and your 18th Komar will follow in column of march right behind. Exercise normal caution, but rely on Colonel Staenbridge for your intelligence. Gerrin, if you run into anything you can't handle, Major Zahpata is to move up immediately and support the 5th at your direction. Understood?"
Both men nodded. At least I don't have to wonder who'll take orders from whom, Raj thought thankfully. That sort of thing had nearly gotten him killed in the Southern Territories campaign, at the hands of the late unlamented Major Dalhousie. The problem was that the Civil Government didn't have permanent field armies or a structure above the battalion level-large concentrated field forces were too tempting to ambitious generals. By now, all these men had been on campaign with him long enough to work smoothly together, and he'd disposed of the purblind idiots, one way or another.
"The rest of you will be following in double column up these roads," he said, tracing the route northwest with two strokes of his finger. "They're never more than a kilometer apart, so you'll be close enough for mutual support. If Colonel Staenbridge runs into a major block-force, you'll flank and go round-taking a lick at them from the rear in passing. Boot their arse, don't pee on them; we cannot afford to get tangled up in a meeting engagement."
"My oath no," Staenbridge said mildly, still studying the map. "Not with Tewfik and sixteen thousand wogs after our buttocks."
"Exactly."
"What's the source of our intelligence on these pathways through the badlands?" Zahpata asked.
Raj had drawn those in himself. "Personal sources, Major. You may rely on them." Center can do more with my eyes than I can, he added silently.
"Major Gruder, I have a special tasking for your command. Otherwise, the order of march will be as follows-"
When the other officers dispersed to their units, Raj lead Kaltin Gruder out into the mouth of the notch.
"Kaltin, I want you to execute a battalion ambush on Tewfik's lead elements here," he said.
Gruder squinted up at the eroded clay hills, comparing them with his memory of the same scene by daylight. "Good ground," he said. "And we've given them a couple of bloody noses-he'll be more cautious this time."
"Probably. Time is exactly what I want you to gain; but not at the price of your battalion. Understood?"
Gruder nodded. Raj went on: "Tewfik knows he has two ways to win this campaign. The quick way is to catch us and smash us up before we get back to Sandoral. He's got numerical superiority, but it'd still be expensive. On the other hand, a quick victory is always preferable; the sooner you win, the less time the other side has to come up with something tricky. The slow way is to chase us back into Sandoral and starve us out. So he'll probably be willing to take a swipe at you to save time, but it won't be a reckless one."
Raj reached a space of flat sand, coarse outwash detritus from the bluffs above. He smoothed it further with his boot and drew his sword to sketch in it.
"This is your position. More or less of a very broad V, with the open end facing south. Have your men dig rifle pits at the foot of these hills; I'll detail the City of Delrio to help before they pull out. Scatter the dirt, and it'll be difficult for them to estimate your numbers before they get close. I suggest you place them by companies like this." He traced lines. "With your dogs reasonably close to hand, here and along here. I'll also have the Delrio leave you their splatguns-that'll give you eight total. Put them down here-here-here-here, in pairs."