Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [83]
“Ah,” said Leia.
Captison leaned back, looking relaxed. “After a few boom years, the veins began to narrow and the Bakur Corporation factioned. My father’s element wanted to prospect other sites. Another faction lobbied to develop Bakura’s other resources. Still another—mostly second-generation—wanted to bring in settlers at exorbitant fares, or establish a set of luxury resorts.”
“Once the galaxy learns about a newly opened habitable world, it often becomes … stylish.”
“Which brings in a certain undesirable element.”
Perhaps he meant rebels and smugglers, or gamblers and trinket sellers. “It can.”
Captison laughed. “In many ways, Leia, you remind me of my niece.”
“I wish my life had been as simple as Gaeriel’s.”
“She has been a good child,” Belden wheezed from the back seat beside Captison’s bodyguard. “It remains to be seen if she’ll be a good senator.”
Prime Minister Captison tapped a window absently. “She has abruptly reached the disillusionment phase of new adulthood.”
“I understand,” said Leia. “I reached it rather young.” Captison’s chauffeur kept the speeder between two others in a crosstown lane. Salis D’aar, like many sizable cities, funneled air traffic along established routes.
“Oh,” interjected Senator Belden, “please thank Commander Skywalker for trying to help Eppie. He’ll know what I mean.” Then he started talking about mountain soil, namana fruit harvest, and juice extraction.
Leia waited, wondering when the men would feel safe enough to really talk. This could be her only chance to gain headway for the Alliance.
Five minutes later, Captison’s chauffeur landed the speeder at a small dome surrounded by gaudy repulsor signs that hovered several meters overhead. Leia reached for the entry hatch. Captison laid a hand over hers. “Wait,” he said softly.
Ten minutes after that, Captison’s chauffeur and bodyguard took off again in the government speeder while Leia stepped into the front passenger’s seat of a smaller rental craft, Hoth-white with ice-blue cushions and console. “Do you do this often?” she asked, amused but pleased by their subterfuge.
“Never done it before.” Captison steered out into traffic. “It was Belden’s idea.”
“It’s safe to assume that the speeder pool’s not secured for talking.” The senior senator leaned forward between them and patted his bulging breast pocket. “This will help, too. We are now inaudible.”
Captison frowned and switched on a music channel. Tuned percussion filled the cabin. “You must understand we’re taking some risk speaking with you at all. In public, we’re even forbidden to console you on the loss of Alderaan. However, in private …”
Not his voice amplifier, then. “What do you have, Senator?”
Belden covered his pocket with one hand. “A relic from pre-Imperial Bakura. Corporate infighting crippled our government, but it made our ancestors into survivors. This creates a bubble impenetrable by sonic scanners. Under the Empire, no faction has dared to manufacture more of them.”
Mentally Leia calculated the instrument’s value at somewhere near the Falcon’s. “Better not lose it, then. Gentlemen,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’d be intrigued to know why the Empire hasn’t pushed Bakura into the Rebellion camp.”
“Nereus has been subtle, I suppose,” guessed Captison. “Applying pressure slowly. Like boiling a butter newt.”
“Beg your pardon?” asked Leia.
“They’re too primitive to react to slow stimuli,” creaked Belden. “Put one in a pot of cold water, bring up the heat slowly, and he’ll boil to death before he thinks of jumping out. And that’s what’ll happen here, unless—” He poked Captison’s shoulder.
“Easy, Orn.”
Leia glanced starboard and down into a hilly park. “What would it take to push you, Prime Minister?”
“Not much,” Belden interjected. “He’s smarter than he lets on.”
“Is there an underground, Senator Belden?”
“Officially, no.”
“A hundred members? Ten cells?”
Belden cackled. “Close enough.”
“Are they ready to rise?