Project Purple

38 - The Governor

August had been a bad month for the colony. It had been devastating for Wallace.

His lover's dalliances with the Buckskinner had started gradually, but then with glaring frequency; Renee was returning to the gubernatorial hut very late. One night she didn't return at all.

Wallace felt like he was sinking under the crushing momentum of urgency, like being all alone, lost at a crossroads, knowing that turning the wrong way would have its dire consequences, but that a decision had to be made.

"Where is my pipe?" Wallace asked her one morning.

She stopped, as if startled, "How should I know?"

He had never meant to smother her, yet one look into her cold, contemptuous eyes told him this was precisely what she felt. And that contempt in her voice cut into Wallace like the reaping scythe. He couldn't care less about the pipe-He wanted her back. Yet he sat there in the shadows as she swaggered off, impotent, a prisoner to his own haughty validations, and to his own psychic disarray.

The next day his pipe was waiting for him by the door of the hut-no doubt, his consolation prize for her departure.

He had no friends. They had all connived against him in their mule-headedness; couldn't they see the necessity of education? He had tried to school the servants; the Goatwench surely appreciated the academic stimulation-It was helping her. Of course, he felt horrible about the lashings; it had all gone too far.

But they were playing no games! - They could all, possibly, be killed for not doing exactly as mandated. Wasn't that cold fact obvious to everyone now? Like lab rats in some sadistic social experiment, they were being tested for some kind of duress. Wallace had the sinking feeling they were failing.

And now the Goatwench, who had ben near catatonic all month, had awoken with a raor and drawn first blood (it was arguable who had killed first). The others all looked at her with awe, wondering where this raw strength had come from. Wallace wondered, too. Who was she?

"It's all prattling balatroon," he grumbled to himself in the prescribed language, while pulling on his tightly packed pipe, and a gradual hue illuminated his haggard face.

It was an early evening sky of deep purple and of infinite duration. He sat at the quad table by himself, eyeing a white bird, a dove, which had landed at his feet and began pecking the ground near his boots. He looked back up and noted the Buckskinner walking by on sentry duty. The colony had been training with their few weapons all day-preparing for what? - No one had the least inkling.

The dove stepped closer, unafraid, and the meager glow from Wallace's pipe turned into a reddish hue-That was when he suddenly stood up.

"I intend to move heaven and earth to make this venture successful, and nothing is going to stop it."

There had to be peace. He would return the gun-minus the bullets. They would return the body of the dead man. They weren't animals; they would see there was no point to fighting. They would make a treaty. This was surely what the organizers had in mind-A peace treaty!

The Goatwench grunted her distaste with the idea. "And if they kill you?"

"Then there is no hope for anything."

He was out of the time it took to build consensus; out of the time it took to appease, to vindicate, to connive. He had used his time, and used it stupidly.

"The squabble stops now."

He stood up at their little fire and the others barely noticed him. He stood up because he was not going to be passed up any more. The faculty didn't think the Worm could lead, didn't think he was capable of inspiring his colleagues. He stood up because she hated him, doubting he was capable of what the situation now demanded-stringent diplomacy. He stood up because he was tired of feeling like some wretched finger-puppet.