The morning edition of the Galactic Citizen said that the Governor of all that was, now finishing his first term and running for the office a second time, was a corrupt lackey of evil partnerships, tied to socialist unionists, the academic guild and big media.  He smiled, though with only affected warmth.  It was a political smile, and had served him well on more than one occasion when an opponent had made an accusation that was closer to the truth than even the opponent, himself, knew.
  The newspaper was absolutely right, he thought. 

   He passed his hand before his eyes.  His shoulders sagged slightly.  He was tired of the fraud the way an addict comes to be tired of narcotics.  But, he was hooked, and could not let it go.  Power's last pleasure was the enduring one.  Control of the destiny of your enemies.  A warm feeling made out of hate. 
   And, his current opponent was the worst of enemies -- an honest man. A fellow named Barr. The damage he could do, the disruption he could cause to the orderly disreputable processes of the galaxy!  He must be stopped, at all costs.
   "Governor Gossky?"
   The voice floated across his mind.  For a moment he couldn't decide if it was current or a greeting from some other time.  He looked up, his famous gray eyes stopping on the round, shiny head of his Assistant for Internal Communications, Wald Bently.

   "Yes?" he said.
   "I have the latest polls, sir," said Bently, placing a small stack of thin sheets on the metal desk.  Gossky had chosen the unusual desk because it reminded him of an operating table.  He had gutted many a man leaning across it.  The cold surface by touch reminded him of his duty, and of the temperature of a heart destined to survive..
   He waved the man away and studied the papers.
   It was going to be close.
   Each sheet concerned itself with a quadrant of the Milky Way, but the numbers on them identified their locale within a quadrant as surely as if they had come from counties in an American state.  There in the SW, the Etrille system, populated by descendants of the old French Republic.  Troublesome, arrogant people.  Farmers, mostly, but of the correct philosophy.  Leftists to a man.  Born and bred to be slaves.

   And, this one.  The outer edge of the NW quadrant.  Celtic people, blunt and hairy, but oddly gifted poets.  Independant, common, yet conservative.  Cursed people.  They fought the yoke.  But, all that required was another approach.
   These people wanted something that he could provide.
   He began to write a message..

                                           2

   William Brannick sat on the stone bench in an alcove porch of the castle, perhaps thirty feet above the desolate surrounding landscape.  His people had settled this planet because it reminded them of their ancestral home so far away.  Brutish highlands, dark lochs and cold moors scoured by strong winds off icy seas.
   Men became like the land, after a time.  Soft lands bred soft men.  Hard lands, hard.  It took herculean discipline to survive geography made of frigid marshes, rocky parapets and stones.  Stones everywhere.  Cold, dark, hard pitiless stones.
   The rain swept in off the northern ocean, stinging his face like salt sleet.  He barely noticed it, most of his concentration going to the message in his hand.  It was from Governor Gossky.  As he stared at it, dark blotches appeared like black plague measles as raindrops impacted on the words and between them.

   "He proposes a meeting," he said.
   From behind a thick doorway hanging, a feminine voice said, "Do not trust him, my husband."
   "He is soft from the city," he said.
   "A city of snakes," came the response.
   "Aye, vipers, indeed," he said. "Soft and poisonous."
   He had been to Vladim as a boy.  His father was a delegate to the Peace Convention after the Four System War.   The city and the planet were named alike.  Vladim, the capitol of a planet and a galaxy, was a vast sprawl of squat buildings located on a high escarpment over a forested vale the color of quicksilver. Strange birds whose skin appeared to be aluminum.  Green clouds rimmed in orange.  Three distant suns, a red, a white and a blue, dancing in a chrome sky. 

   After dinner, he walked in the rain with Carlen Taylor, his neighbor to the north.
  "What do the clans in the uplands say?" he asked as they stopped for a moment at an overlook that gave view into a narrow, thickly wooded valley.
   "They are with us," said Taylor.  "To a man."

   As the storm raged outside, night found him staring into the fireplace, whose arched opening topped a tall man.  It was late.  The spirits of men wronged by fate shrieked outside, but he did not hear them.  His thoughts were in a city of soft vipers.
   He looked up as a man in a silver-girded coat strode in.  When the man reached the light of the fire, he saw it was Brian Gleason, captain of the castle guard.
   "The guard is ready," he said.  "What is your wish?"
   "I believe I shall attend this meeting."
   "Then we shall join you," said the soldier.
   They departed in stone-colored ships the next day, rising from the spaceport like dark gulls, then banking and shooting off toward the galactic center.

   From the castle alcove twenty leagues distant, a woman saw the streaks of photonic energy glisten like pearls as once beyond the atmosphere the ships engaged their stardrives.  She watched the empty sky for a long while as the clouds came off the sea to fill it.  Their gift of cold rain turned her dark curls into charcoal streaks down her forehead.  Finally, she turned and went inside.

                                            3

   The street hawkers in their stalls watched the gilded carriage chatter by.  One walked out toward the vehicle with a large green fruit in his hand, held high.  A soldier on horseback shifted his reins and touched the hilt of his ceremonial sword.  The shopkeeper's hand dropped and he stepped back.
   The ways to the Executive offices had no street vendors.  They were narrow and ran between high walls.  The horse's hooves bred echoes which bred more echoes, each generation less than the preceeding, as if sound was made of a declining species.
   The echoes ceased when the carriage arrived at the portal of the Executive offices.  The door swung open and a large man in black furs and silver ornaments stepped down, then, when his guard had dismounted and tied their horses, went in through the door with them.

   The windows in the Governor's private offices were narrow and piggish.  Perfect metaphors for the bureaucratic mind.  William Brannick found the structure gloomy compared to his rainy world and his slate castle.
   Small men bent forward at the neck, carrying file folders, scurried about, their feet whispering on the shiny floor.  At the end of a long corridor, they came to the entrance to the offices of Gossky.    They pushed the door aside and invaded the interior room.  They were expected. The receptionist waved them through the second door.  Gossky looked up, frowned, then smiled at William Brannick.  A snake's smile.
   "Welcome, Mr. Brannick," Gossky said, standing up and extending his hand over a metal desk that looked like an operating table.

   "I feel welcome only on my own planet," said Brannick, refusing the hand.  Gossky waved him to a chair that was too low and too soft, and sat down, himself.
   They sized each other up for an instant, storing observations for later analysis.
   "This project on your planet," said Gossky.  "Tell me about it."
   William Brannick's voice was a rumble from the depths of a deep, dark canyon.
   "The problem on New Glascow is simple," he said.  "The purposes of agriculture there require the opposite of a desert planet.  We must divert water away from our fields, not to them."

   Gossky glanced down at some notes, then looked up and said, "This is a great deal of money."
   William Brannick's face was Slavic, stolid.  "It represents a tenth of the tithes we have made to the central government, and is the only such request we have ever made.  Why have you not allowed it, Gossky?"

   If Gossky recognized the use of his last name in place of an honorific, he did not show it.
   "Fifteen billion galactic credits is a lot of money," he repeated ."How badly does your planet need this?"
   "I take it you want something in return," said William Brannick.
   "How important?" Gossky said, again.
   "How important is agriculture to civilization?" asked William Brannick.
   Silence.  Then, the gray eyes swung to look out one of the piggish windows.  "You have a modified parliamentary system, with ancient ties to a heritage of clan leadership, as I understand it. Though without the old power over your citizens, you nevertheless are a large landholder, and respected by your people."

   "I believe in, and love them," said William Brannick. For some strange reason, the word "love" did not sound awkward coming out of a hairy mountain like him.  Gossky wondered how he did it, or if it was natural.  Was this man guileless, or an artist at appearing so?
   "I will take you for the plain man you seem to be," he lied, looking once more at William Brannick.  "The election is going to be a close one."
   "Aye, so I have observed."
   "You are aware of the power you hold, then."
   "Aye, that I am."
   "Your price is the project funding, I take it."
   "That and one other item," said William Brannick.

   Gossky blinked.  He had not expected this.  He struggled to regain his composure.
   "What, then?"
   "You are a natural tyrant, Gossky," said William Brannick.  "My sway over my people is based on a respect for their rights as individuals.  Bureaucrats depise individual freedoms."
   "You want a legal exception to certain laws and regulations, then.  That can be arranged.  Reasons can be found."
   "That is almost what we want, Gossky.  We want to secede from the Galactic Union.  We have had enough of your interference."
   Gossky was bored. The man was a simpleton.
   "That," he said, "I cannot do."

   William Brannick turned to his chief of guards and nodded.  Brian Gleason leaped quickly to the Governor, drawing his sword and placing it across Gossky's neck.
   "You --- fool!" he exclaimed.  "I can issue an order and within days your system will be reduced to neutrinos."
   "Not if you are dead," said William Brannick.
   "Yes," said Gossky, regaining his composure.  "But, how can you trust me to keep my word?  I can have you destroyed as soon as you leave my presence.  Or I can promise what I will not do and then send troops to squash any rebellion when I wish it to be so."

   "Listen carefully to me, bureaucrat," said William Brannick. "I have nothing to lose, for my life is less important to me than my honor.  You are within seconds of death.  Believe that.  What happens after your death is of no importance to you.  It would gladden your heart to know that the entire universe was annhilated at the moment of your ending. 
   "If you kill me, seven worlds will vote against you.  You are at the high tide of your career. But tides ebb and flow. You can feel that ultimate power like the pale blood that courses in your veins.  And, while you are a coward, you are not stupid."
   William Brannick rose to his feet and walked to Gossky's desk.
   "You have three choices. Death now. Fail to free our system before the election and so the loss forever of that which you have come to need as the very air you breathe.  Or, you have the third choice.

   "Do as we wish, painting it as you please, in words that describe you as a great hero.  I think that is the path you will choose, for nothing pleases you more than the accomplishment of a great lie. 
   He placed his hands on the cold metal table and leaned towards Gossky.
     "Tis the moment, Governor.  Is it death, the loss of your power or the continuation of what you hold dearest -- your office?"

                                            4

   The loss of a mere system was a small price to pay.  The next day, from the office of the Galactic Governor, a campaign document was issued.  In part, it said, "My first term in office was a preparation for that which I will now describe. I have seen the people suffering under the weight of a bureaucracy bloated over centuries into a form of oppression.  Now that I have had time to make my preparations, it is this that I promise you during my second term as the leader to all the stars in the Milky Way.
   "We must find another path.  We shall begin that search immediately, even before the election.  My vision is that of a decentralized governmental structure. You may think of it as being similar to a federation of monarchies, but where the king is elected by the common man.  Call him your president, your prime minister or your royal liege lord, as you please. 

  "But remember these words. His true name will be Servant, for he will be no distant official ruling from the galactic center, but a leader of your own kind, who has power to negotiate with other political bodies as though he were in charge of a sovereign nation.  This tie and this tie only do we need to free the regional competitive excellence that has been heretofore stifled -- our affection for each other.
   "And, for the doubters, there must be proof of viability.  Thus, as of this date, I have issued a Galactic Executive Order that establishes the first such political unit as that system of systems whose chief planet is called New Glascow.
   "These, our brothers, have responded to my call, and volunteered to step into the unknown waters.  They will test their depth and pay the price of the explorer who faces new difficulties, preparing a more comfortable path for those to follow.

   "Thus is this office proud to announce the creation of the independent state of New Glascow, and to issue credentials for the exchange of emissaries and establishment of mutual trade venues.  While this magnficent experiment is reaching toward the flourishing success we expect, all other areas of the galaxy will find comfort in pre-existing regulation and practice which will maintain stability and so free the pioneers to step forward into the unknown."

   A senator from Gossky's party called him after the release of the document.
   "So, this is the result of your first term in office?  The galaxy is coming apart at the seams?"
   "Nobody's perfect," said Gossky.  "Besides, I had to do it.  They threatened to kill you if I didn't give in.  Have you seen the overnight poll results?  We've nailed the election."
   "As long as we whip that Barr bastard," said the senator, "it can be by one vote as far as I'm concerned.  God, but I hate honest politicians.  You can never tell what they're going to do.."

(C) 2002 Larry Leonard