The budget battle that has consumed lawmakers in Albany for the past three months will either flare up or fade away this week. Governor Pataki has until tomorrow to veto parts of the alternative, more expensive, spending plan that legislators cobbled together on their own. Or, he could accept the legislative plan on the assumption that he is powerless to do any better with legislators poised to override his vetoes. To paraphrase one of Mr. Pataki’s favorite, if Delphic expressions: you can’t veto the absence of reform.

Yet leaving the budget as is would be a mistake for Mr. Pataki, and inconsistent with the refreshing intensity he has shown at key moments in the budget process this year. Some political observers interpreted the governor’s January budget address as a valediction, a bland package of reforms and proposals proper to a man whose thoughts are elsewhere. Others called its $1.1 billion Medicaid containment plan a daring reform proposal. His public statements since January have been similarly difficult to read.

Take, for example, the March 24 meeting Mr. Pataki had with Senator Bruno and Speaker Silver, the two legislative leaders. The last of several public sessions the three men agreed to have this year, the meeting disclosed a side of Mr. Pataki many had never before seen. After 10 years in office, the governor was suddenly unwavering in his commitment to pass a budget by the April 1 deadline. He snapped at the suggestion of taking breaks and instructed staff members to work straight through the Easter weekend.

A different Mr. Pataki showed up for work the following week. Greeting reporters with a smile after Messrs. Bruno and Silver passed a legislative budget on time, the governor appeared unmoved by the fact that the men had restored $695 million to Medicaid, ignored his warnings about out-year gaps and structural balance, and seized control of the Empire Zone program. Days earlier, Mr. Pataki was on an Ahab-like quest to tame spending. Now, he seems to have forgotten about the whale.

It remains too early to tell which Mr. Pataki will show up for work today. His trip to Rome contained, in some respects, a political feint. Some said that by extending the trip through the weekend, the governor gave the appearance of political capitulation. But executive and legislative staffs worked through the weekend to broker agreements on areas where the veto threat still looms. More than $1 billion in welfare spending is at issue, as are proposed cuts to the Family Health Plus program, a proposed tuition increase at public colleges, and a mountain of technical errors that resulted from the rush to finish on time.

But even if agreements on outstanding issues are reached, the final product is not likely to resemble the Medicaid driven plan Mr. Pataki proposed three months ago. A sure sign of Mr. Pataki’s unwillingness to play tough on that issue this year was a health care union rally at Albany last week. A sparse crowd chanting at the governor not to veto a budget that has already been passed was a far cry from the slash and burn rhetoric industry leaders used to describe Mr. Pataki’s original Medicaid proposals. Real Medicaid reform will have to wait until next year.

Unless Mr. Pataki has another sudden change of heart today. At the March 24 meeting with Messrs. Bruno and Silver, the governor’s determination to pass a budget on time resulted in a mixed victory for him. His insistence on accelerating negotiations drove the budget process forward, but the budget that resulted from that work can hardly be said to meet even the modest spending and Medicaid reform proposals Mr. Pataki outlined in January.

Indeed, by shifting energy to budget reform from Medicaid reform, Mr. Pataki may have unwittingly sealed a fate similar to the crazed captain he came to resemble in the weeks leading up to April. By making timeliness his aim, the governor wound up harpooning himself to a deeply flawed legislative budget. Better the governor act now, reach for his veto pen, and pry himself free from that whale before it takes him, and his crew, under.