Masters of the Game

Chapter 8: No Matter How You Scream and Shout

She advised Palpatine not to give a speech or do any work at the camp for photos, as Princess Olivia Sen had. Instead, they decided Palpatine would just walk about, quietly introduce himself to people, and ask them something that would get them to talk about their experiences. And then, Sereine said, the most important thing would be the words, "I'm sorry." The words that, just after the disaster, would have conjured images of incompetence and weakness, were safe words now because they would be linked with images of reverence and compassion. The camp was made up of many small buildings, of which Palpatine would visit three.

Tomal had the idea of sending additional staff with the Senator to speak to more people than Palpatine himself had time for, jot down their stories, and put them on Palpatine's official bulletin page. So, this was done.

Palpatine visited the miserably hot camp site in a sort of casual light linen shirt and slacks, dove gray, which blended in rather than standing out. People stood back from him respectfully and spoke quietly. At the end of his visit Palpatine bethought himself to take the administrator aside and ask about any special needs the camp had, promising to see to them "effectively this time," with a wry tilt of his mouth marking the humor Sereine usually had to get him alone to see.

She was embarrassed she hadn't thought of that herself.

The most prominent headline ran, "A Time of Healing and Forgiveness." It featured several very good holos of Palpatine with refugees, and Sereine could not have been any more pleased. The same day, some enterprising journo got independent confirmation of where the working heaters actually had come from, which didn't hurt. They got invitations to other camps after this, and had time to schedule two more before the campaign had to move on.

After the final successful visit, candidate and staff gathered in the campaign cruiser staff room, admiring the latest polling numbers. The staff cheered; Palpatine smiled. Bibble still had a commanding lead, but Palpatine was drawing even with the Princess now, and Sereine predicted the imminent end of Phase One.

"She's going to realize she can't catch Bibble, and we're gaining on her. And running a campaign is expensive."

Sure enough, the next night, the Princess dropped out of the race. Palpatine seemed pleased enough that, briefly, Sereine imagined he might invite her into his quarters that night.

But he didn't, and almost the next day, the bottom dropped out.

Sereine began Phase Two—the defeat of Sio Bibble—immediately, scheduling Palpatine on as many walkabouts among the common people as she could. He delivered speeches, as well, of course, but she wanted him as visible and accessible as she could make him.

And discovered: Her candidate did not do well among large throngs of people, even accompanied by guards who kept them from packing too closely around him.

Palpatine became short and snappish. His expression grew taut and tense. His first day, the issue was tolerable, but by the third day, everyone realized they were in trouble. He fairly snapped his hands away from people who reached out to touch him.

Sereine watched him on the transport back from his last walkabout on Day Three and did a slow boil. He huddled at the rear of the transport and turned his back to everyone. Staff and guards alike gave him a wide berth, as if he were radioactive.

Tomal walked up and stood beside her. After a moment, he murmured, "I'm not so sure I want to see the holos from today. I don't know how they're going to look."

"There should have been some bad ones yesterday, and there weren't. We were lucky. The press is still getting ratings with their Palpatine-forgiveness-and-redemption angle. But they're not going to cover for him forever." She sighed and brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "Is he purposely trying to ruin all our hard work? How can he do so well for three days in the camps and then come out here and do so poorly?"