Pathspace: The Space of Paths by Matthew Kennedy

posts armed guards outside my rooms.”
He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. “But feel free
to fly away, if you can.”
     

Chapter 10
     
    Kristana: “and made firm the sand”

    The Governor walked, and
did not walk in peace. How could she, with everything that was
happening? But her face was impassive as she passed the guard
stations. You must always be more confident, more calm
than the troops , the General had told her.
She could remember the scene as if it were last night.
    “ Even if I'm not?” she had
asked, sitting by the bed, listening to his labored
breathing.
    “ Especially if you're
not! Nothing will terrify them so
much as thinking their Commander is worried.” He coughed into a
handkerchief, and groped for his cup of water. “They will always
assume that you know more than they do, whether you do or not. If
you look worried, they'll assume there's something bad you haven't
told them. And nothing is scarier than a danger you don't know the
details of. Not knowing what it is makes it a hundred times as
scary.”
    “ But I'm only human” she
protested.
    “ Not when I'm gone, you
won't be,” he retorted. “You'll have to be something more, their
rock in the quicksand. You're ready for this. Tough enough for
this. In the last year you've met commanders, reviewed troops, and
debriefed returning sorties. We've let them see you by my side in
all major decisions. This will work.. It has to. People, especially
troops, need to believe that someone has a plan, that someone has the answers. Otherwise …
otherwise it's all quicksand, and they'll panic.”
    She stroked his head. “But
what if it is all quicksand?” she
whispered.
    “ Then you fake it,” he
said. “You'd be surprised how much your troops can do if they don't
know how bad the odds are. I've led them to victory many a time
against odds of five, ten to one. Do you think I ever said 'men,
were doomed, but put up a good fight anyway?' Hell no! I put on my
game face and said 'let's go GET those fuckers!' And we did. Every
time.” He stopped and retched into the handkerchief again. Specks
of blood stained the linen. She felt as if they were coming out of
her own heart.
    “ Robbie” she whispered,
using the name no one else dared use with him, “Robbie … I don't
know if I can do it. You're my
rock. Without you, love, it's all quicksand.”
    He just looked at her with
those hazel eyes. Eyes she had worshiped for eighteen years still
pierced her like darts, opened holes into her soul, wounds that
would never close. Even now, in his last battle, they remained
clear and imposing. “You must ,” he
told her. “Or everything I've done was for nothing. For nothing!
Without a strong leader, it'll be civil war, and you know it. The
State will collapse, and Texas will pick up the pieces. Are you
going to let that happen? Is that how you are going to remember me?
Is that – “ he lapsed into another coughing fit, but above the
linen clenched in his fist, his eyes held hers,
indomitable.
    She waited until the worst of it passed.
Slowly, he regained control, but his color was paler now, as if he
were using up the last drop of himself to try to get through to
her. Then he spoke again, but she had to lean forward to make out
the words.
    “ If you ever loved me,” he
said, “then do this. Do it for me. Do it for yourself. Do it for
all the poor bastards who will be lost without you. Keep the dream
alive!”
    His head fell back on the pillow, but the
eyes still watched her, waiting for her agreement. Those eyes clung
to her as unwaveringly as the General had clung to his Dream.
    There was a knock at the door. Without
waiting, Collins stepped into the room. The young lieutenant's face
was blank, but new lines at the corners of his eyes, a hint of
redness in them from blinking back too many tears, and the way he
unconsciously fiddled with one of his buttons betrayed his
nervousness, his unspoken fears for the future. “I'm sorry,