Lord Sidious sat at his desk, staring down at the second section and forcing himself to read every word.
"I didn't make my quota," said fifteen-year-old Quarren Dullerr Froz, who spent two years in slavery mining thorilide on the Gorse moon of Cynda before he was rescued. "My master whipped me twenty-five lashes, and they put salt on me. The salt burned me like it was acid, and I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. The scars contracted on my back, and I had to have two surgeries so I could move my arms all the way again."
A memory arose, so visceral Sidious could feel the burning of salt in his own wounds again as if it were yesterday. How fifty-six long-dead Sith spirits managed to procure that much salt in an abandoned Sith Temple on Korriban, Sidious never knew, but the sensation of it, he would never forget.
11-4D had managed to eradicate the scars on his back after much painful surgery, but the scars on his chest and arm were too extensive; nothing could be done for those.
Even worse was being forced to eat chunks of the stuff after two days without water on a hot desert planet. The dizziness, the headaches, the nausea all came rushing back. To this day, Sidious could not salt his food, or stomach anything salty. He gripped the edge of his desk, forced his eyes open—feeling that odd pricking sensation that told him they were about to change color—and tried to return himself to the present by reading on.
Former Human slave Tarrin Dack has said of his time in forced labor in the spice mines of Kessel, "If we didn't work fast enough, they just stopped giving us water. There would be no water for two days, and those of us who didn't make rate after that were forced to eat salt. Two of my friends died in convulsions after one of those times."
How had Ederra come up with these infernal stories? Had she simply read his nightmares?
Sidious paused, trying to steady his breathing, trying to quiet the Darkness that would bring on what 11-4D called "Sith uveitis." His staff and colleagues could not see Senator Palpatine walking around the Senate Office Building with Lord Sidious's eyes. A cold chill shook him; yet his palms were slicked with sweat.
He swallowed against a rush of bile and sat, trying to quell the unnatural cold trembling even though the room was warm and he hadn't removed his frock coat.
At last he forced himself to read on.
Lenska Tadroza was a young Twi'lek girl when she was sold into prostitution on Cantonica. When she tried to run away, she was captured and placed in solitary confinement for three months. "I thought I had been buried alive. Blackness, blackness and nothing else, for so long I thought I had gone blind. I thought I had gone insane. I screamed and screamed and no one would let me out
Sidious could not finish the passage. It was as if he had written it himself. Suddenly he was back there again, in a tomblike chamber on Korriban, surrounded by eternal nothingness—
He did not need to die to understand the madness he would experience after death. Because he had already experienced it. Twice.
A sudden flush suffused his chest and traveled down his arms. A tingling buzz hit him like Force lightning, seizing his arms with a frightening numbness. His heart pounded in his chest, and he felt a little squeezing pain.
Terror took him. Am I having a heart attack?
He couldn't. He couldn't. He was so far, much too far, from discovering the secret to immortality. If he had a heart attack now—
He would be trapped in that terrible nothingness forever.
He lay his head on his desk, panting, scarcely able to draw breath. He closed his eyes, praying to he knew not what. And, just before a terrible wave of dizziness swept him round and round, he remembered—
He had brought the former medical droid 11-4D to work with him today.
Oh, thank the dark side. He reached for the communicator and summoned his droid.
He heard the doors open and close. In a moment he felt sensors being attached to his arms and legs.
"Why are you tachycardic, master?"
The tightness grew; his head hurt. Sidious panted for air, clenching his fists. "I experienced … a memory …" Excruciatingly embarrassing to admit to anyone, even a droid.
"Master. You are experiencing a panic attack."
"A … a what?"
11-4D rolled his sleeve up and Sidious felt a small pinprick. In a few seconds, the dizziness and the pressure eased, and he felt his heart settle into better control. Then nausea hit him.
"I feel sick."
For the second time in far too few days, he found himself retching over his office trash bin. This time he actually brought up part of his breakfast.
He sat up at last, panting, sweating. He was beginning to feel a bit better. One thing was for certain: During one's apprenticeship days, the title "Master" didn't refer only to one's predecessor's role as a teacher. In those days, it was submit, or be killed.
11-4D pricked him again. "For nausea," it said.
Sidious drew a few deep breaths, chilled by the sweat under his frock coat. "Thank you," he managed.
On the days these memories surfaced, he reminded himself that these experiences were the price he paid for his abilities. He was Master, he reminded himself, the most powerful being this galaxy had ever seen, or ever would again.
No one could touch him now. The secret to immortality; and he was safe.
Forever and ever safe.
Why this had happened, he did not know. He only knew it must never happen again.
"What happened to me?" he said.
"You experienced a terrible fright, or a traumatic memory. If you like, I can procure you a medication to keep this from happening again."
"Please." Sidious closed his eyes, leaning back in his desk chair, overcome with a sudden weakness, as if he had just run twenty kilos. "I can't afford this happening in front of colleagues."
"I will visit the Senate Office Building pharmacy for you. If you are sure you are feeling better, master."
Sidious took a few more deep breaths. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I am."
"I shall return shortly."
His office doors opened and closed again. Sidious didn't open his eyes.
He wondered what to tell Sereiné. He simply could not, simply could not, stand in front of the entire Republic and read that as she had written it. And there was no way he could—or would—explain why.
She had done her research entirely too well.
Sereine was busy all weekend, directing and recording two Sectorial Senators on tight schedules who each had eight pages of narration to do, and who sounded stiff and needed to redo lines several times. She was happy with the script Maisine had written and the holographic animation Arias and Logane had churned out on very short notice. She realized this piece would do double duty as advertising for her boutique firm, and if everything wasn't first class, she was prepared to pull it. As it was, Mon Mothma's sensitively rendered mini-history of slavery in the Republic was flowing smoothly and well, after a few false starts.
The most important thing was Bel Iblis's question at the end: Where was the Jedi Order? For that would flow directly into Palpatine's opening lines. She envisioned one smooth story, from Mothma to Garm to Palpatine to Bail introducing Dooku and Aayla Secura, and quite possibly Qui-Gon Jinn—they hadn't decided yet—to Bail at the very end to sum up. The rest of it needed to be entertaining and keep people's interest, for the middle portion of Palpatine's speech summarized the contents of the bill and could get dry if people weren't primed to care about it.
She sat in the control booth, Tomal at her shoulder, listening to Mon Ane reread her last few lines. "Tomal," she said, "I think she goes last in the credits. I want to list her as, 'and introducing Senator Mon Mothma.' She's doing so nicely here, I want to make sure people remember her name. Make sure Arias corrects that for me."
"Yes, ma'am," said Tomal.
The doors to the booth opened and Palpatine, dressed in a simple blue off-duty tunic and slacks, stuck his head in. "And how are things?"
"Good morning, Zora," said Sereine. She could get away with it here, since the booth was soundproof and only Tomal was in here. "Come in and listen. Mothma's doing a stellar job, but don't ask me til Garm finishes his this afternoon. I'm so pleased everyone's interested in how it's going. Finis sent me a message, and Bail was just here."
"I know he is, I ran into him in your lobby. It appears the Queen is here from Alderaan and they've invited me to a dinner party next week." He came closer and murmured into Sereine's ear. "I think they're trying to set me up with someone."
Sereine laughed out loud and Tomal choked back a snicker. "You don't have to whisper, Kinschem. Tomal had us figured out on the campaign tour." She looked at Tomal. "And if you say anything, I'll …"
"Fire me, and then dump my body somewhere," said Tomal.
Palpatine chuckled, and laid his hand low on her back, where no one in the studio could see. He had been marvelously cuddly and sweet the night of his birthday, and Sereine was relieved at the gesture of friendship from Viceroy Organa and the Queen. Palpatine needed it in this caucus, and after the contretemps with Mon Ane, Sereine had despaired of it ever happening.
"If you could start pulling together some looks for Sheev first thing next week," Sereine said. "Simple robes, none of those busy frock-coat styles. This one has beautiful lifted posture and we want to be able to see it." She let her own arm creep around Palpatine's waist. "Some cummerbunds and stoles, too."
"Colors?" asked Tomal.
"I don't know," said Sereine. "I want white, and he wants red. And then I thought about gold. Better pull us a little of all three. Sizes are in his file, if you don't remember them. If we do white, we're going to need white boots."