| Senator_Cambrist | Date: Monday, 16 Apr 2012, 11:17 AM | Message # 1 |
 Lieutenant general
Group: Users
Messages: 761
Status: Offline
| At first he assumed it was the droll introductory statements that made him feel sick to his stomach, but when, finally, Sir Reuke ur'Tsyne Cambrist had been introduced to the assembled audience in Brentaal's Trade Hall, he knew something wasn't right and, moreover, he had a good idea what it was; namely, the terk hide he'd had for lunch. Though he wouldn't remember it later, he improvised an opening statement, as he usually did in these meetings with his constituents, about what he'd done for them in the Senate lately.
These meetings with the public were a time-honored tradition on Brentaal, and Cambrist hated them—there were always too many pretenders and plebs in the audience telling him how to do his job. Though the meetings were occasionally contentious, most of the time Cambrist succeeded in either boring the audience into submission with facts and figures or, were he so inclined, reciting for them some of the "litany of things I've done for you people before lunch today."
As it turned out, it was a good thing he'd done his work for the day before lunch, because half-way through this meeting, Cambrist was somewhat paler than usual, visibly sweating and, quite unlike him, rather distant. He lost his train of thought and asked "Will you repeat the question?" more than once as his stomach felt like a trash compactor with a school of dianogas thrashing about inside of it.
"What are you doing to improve Curovao's water supply?"
"When will you, or will you propose an endangered species law?"
"How can I be expected to run my business with the cost of lanthanide so high?"
The Terraforming Authority was responsible for water and Cambrist supported granting it immunity from environmental lawsuits so that it can channel water from the poles to the equator, he explained. He would propose no law that declares an animal's life more important than a man's livelihood. And he'd negotiated with Anobis a reduction in the price of lanthanide, allowing Brentaal to stockpile it below market value and use the threat of flooding the market to control its price.
Throughout it all, he drank copious amounts of water, his attendants constantly refreshing his glass. His vision unfocused from time to time, his handkerchief was no longer adequate to mop his brow, and his stomach had just about had it with the terk hide when, in the back of the room, a brown-skinned humanoid—a Duros, possibly. Or a Neimoidian—stood up. Whatever he was, he held up a sign that Cambrist couldn't read and shouted something he couldn't hear, except for one thing he heard quite clearly: "Ten years of the Empire is ten years too many!"
The crowd jostled him and Cambrist's security closed in, but he managed to shout "Remember Talasea! Remember Naboo! Stop the occupation of Dressel! Stop the Empire—!" before a thumping from a stun baton put him under. Most of the audience hissed at him and applauded his arrest, one or two of them kicking his unconscious body as security pulled him from the room.
"What's happening?" Cambrist said faintly, to no one in particular. He squinted, attempting to see what was going on, and reached for his microphone to urge calm on the crowd.
"Are you all right, Senator?" asked a stern voice from beside him.
"Of course I'm all right," Cambrist answered brusquely, attempting to stand from his seat (without success). "I suppose. No," he admitted, "I'm not, actually."
"Have you been hit?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Cambrist was indignant. "I'm not feeling well." He noticed there were more security types around him now, and whatever the audience was doing, it was doing it loudly. The room seemed to spin around him. There were too many voices.
"You're not looking well."
"The Senator may have been poisoned."
"The meeting is over."
"Neimoidian, I think? You can't tell them apart."
"No, not that door—the alarm will sound."
"And this isn't an emergency?"
Cambrist would later remember hands holding firmly to his arms as he was escorted from the Trade Hall, his feet appearing to do the work. He dimly remembered the inside of his speeder, the familiar air of his estate and, later, his bed. It was night now, apparently. Volumes of trade encyclopedias towered over his bed, the mahogany shelves seeming to disappear into the dim, upper recesses of his high-ceilinged room.
He heard his fireplace crackling, then a whirring of servos as a droid approached him.
"I've been instructed to ask how you're feeling, Senator?"
"Your concern is touching," Cambrist answered drily. He was desperately thirsty. He tried to raise his head from his pillow to get a look at the droid, but thought better of it when the room seemed to spin once more. There was no need, at any rate—he recognized the droid's voice as that of TD-28, the castellan of his estate.
"You've recovered your sarcasm, at least," the droid said. "I'm told your digestive system will need more time to recover. You Humans are remarkably frail."
"What happened?"
"Toydarian food poisoning, or so I'm told."
"I know that. I mean what happened at the Trade Hall?"
"A Dressellian nationalist shouted some slogans and apparently it was believed at the time that you'd been poisoned. The Dressellian was arrested and you were brought here."
"Dressellian..." Cambrist mused. He seemed to recall hearing something about them in the news. "What's going to happen to him?"
"He'll be deported, I expect."
"Yes, I expect so too."
As ever anticipating his master's needs, TD-28 set a tray down on Cambrist's beside table; a glass and pitcher of water and some anti-emetic pills. Cambrist accepted them gratefully, managing to prop himself into a sitting position. "Is there anything else I can help you with, Senator?" the droid asked.
"Bring me a datapad."
"Presently, Senator."
(to be continued)
|
| |
| |
