"It's my show tonight," she said.
Anakin was growing impatient. A few nights' rest had rejuvenated all of them, though Sereine wrung her hands ceaselessly over what Palpatine might be doing in his spare time. In her new position, she could monitor what he did in the Rotunda and the Senate Office Building, but who knew what he did when he went home? The past few nights, she reported, Palpatine had left early-something he never did in the thirteen years of Sly Moore, giving Sereine an insouciant grin as he swept out the door.
Anakin felt much better; his sleep had been restful and strangely untroubled by dreams. "Sereine," he said. "We're running out of time. Padme is running out of time. We need to think of a plan."
Lady Valorum's forehead puckered in a worried frown. "What if Finis is right?" she said. "What if we need more information? What if we're not asking the right questions ... because we don't want to hear the answers?"
Sereine insisted they take public transport. "And I don't think we should discuss strategy in the building any more, especially the elevator."
Anakin considered. "You're probably right," he said.
"Anakin, I'm going to give you a job to do for me tonight—and from now on, actually."
"What's that?"
"When I speak to Palpatine during these lovely evenings together, I want you to monitor how I sound. It's okay if I'm sad and I cry, but if I start to get angry or loud or sarcastic, or belittling, or anything other than placidly calm, the rule is that I have to leave, and try it again later. We need a signal," she said.
"Crying isn't placidly calm," Anakin pointed out.
"But it isn't mean, either. What I'm trying to say is that when I cross that threshold, I have to be respectful to Palpatine at all times. Especially when we're discussing The Situation. Will you help me out? It's important."
"I don't get it," said Anakin.
"I need to get some truth out of him, and I can't if he knows I'm going to bludgeon him for it."
"Okay," said Anakin.
"Now, a signal."
"I'll just touch you. I'll put my hand on your arm, like this." Anakin put a restraining hand on her forearm.
"And if that doesn't work, say my name. I'll know what you mean."
"All right."
They filed into Palpatine's private office after his last appointment in a scene that was becoming depressingly familiar. Palpatine checked his chrono and switched on a sort of annoyed patience, clasping his hands on his polished desktop with a brittle smile.
"The twentieth hour this time? Not midnight?" he said, sarcastically-pleasant.
"We thought we'd catch you before you left," said Sereine, clearly referring to whatever the Chancellor might be doing with his evenings.
Anakin caught the sarcasm. "Sereine," he said.
She cast him a sidelong glance and laughed, and Palpatine flashed them a curious look.
Sereine reached into a pocket for a plastic printout flimsy. Anakin, having no idea what she had planned for tonight, craned his head to look, and saw a printout of the day's headlines. At the top was a picture of Gabo Gorn, a convicted killer of at least twenty women and girls, who had spent the past twelve years on Death Row. His case had wound ponderously through the higher court system throughout the war.
She straighted out the folds in the flimsy and looked down at it, then up at the Chancellor.
"I see that you've refused a pardon to Gabo Gorn. Why?"
Understanding dawned instantly in Palpatine's blue eyes, and one corner of his mouth pulled back. He settled back in his chair as though preparing for a long stay.
"Because he is too dangerous to live, of course." A hint of sarcasm.
"To whom?"
Palpatine just stopped an irritated sigh, but couldn't quite hold back the one-shoulder shrug. "To people, of course. To society."
Sereine's voice went very quiet and almost monotone. "Does it matter? Why not let him live? In fact, why even lock up criminals at all?"
Palpatine had little patience with this line of questioning, and it showed in the overplayed concern in his voice. "Why, to protect people. So they won't be hurt, of course."
"Why shouldn't you be locked up or killed? You're a criminal."
A feral smile. "No, I'm not. You once told me I was magnificient. More than once, as I recall. Much more than once." Anakin tried not to imagine the circumstances that might have occasioned those remarks.
Sereine leaned slightly forward. Anakin thought she looked exactly like Coruscant's leading female holojournalist conducting an important interview. "Tell me the difference between you and Gabo Gorn."
Palpatine bridled, clearly playing only because he had to. "Gabo Gorn is an animal."
Sereine had found the right tone in her holojournalist persona, and she was staying there. "Tell me more. What makes a person an animal? How do you define that?"
Anger flared behind the hooded eyes; but whether anger at the implied accusation, or anger at being forced to play through this whole charade, Anakin couldn't tell.
"An animal doesn't care about anything beyond his own ... sensate gratification."
"Isn't that what you've done?"
"Sereine. Let's stop this. To cut right to the heart of your question, a monster has no morals. That's what you want, isn't it? And I'm a monster, because I have no morals, or I could never have done what I have done, and now that I've listened to you, I must surely admit my error and allow you to march me off to my shameful fate in the Jedi Temple. Sereine, I'm surprised at you. You're shrewder than this. Can you do no better than this?"
Anakin cast a quick glance to his left while Palpatine's exasperated eyes locked with Sereine's. She simply stared back calmly and waited, not moving a muscle. Anakin quickly returned his own eyes to Palpatine, and when the Chancellor looked his way, he was ready with his own steady gaze.
A silence filled the room.
"I have morals," Palpatine spat finally. "I know right from wrong. I have self-control. I feel guilt and remorse, the same as you. I love, and hate, the same as you. I seek to do good in the universe."
The journalist spoke again. "In what way have you done good in the universe?"
A grim upturn of one corner of Palpatine's mouth. "Well. I'm not finished yet. A great measure of what I am doing is to secure the freedom of those Republic citizens unlucky enough to have been born strong in the Force."
Anakin had to break in. "What?"
"Our great Galactic Republic ensures freedom well enough, for that fortunate majority born like our friend here," he gave Sereine a curt nod. The small minority like us spend our lives, in one way or another, as slaves to the Jedi Order."
Anakin blinked. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. You've been trained never to think about this.
"The Jedi never ask what you want. They simply tell you what you're supposed to want. They never give you a choice at all. That's why they take their students-their victims-at an age so young that choice is meaningless. By the time a padawan is old enough to choose, he has been so indoctrinated-so brainwashed-that he is incapable of even considering the question.
"But you're different, Anakin. You had a real life, outside the Jedi Temple. You can break through the fog of lies the Jedi have forced into you. What would you have been, if the Jedi hadn't forced you to try to become what they wanted? What would you have wanted to do? If you could have developed the skills there only, without the coersion, how would you have lived your life?
"When my work is finished, all those born strong in the Force will have the freedom to consider that question...to live that question, for themselves. We are more powerful. Why should we have less freedom than the so-called—" he gave Sereine a quick sneer— "normal people? Is this correct? Is it right? No!"
Sereine spoke again, visibly trying to maintain her journalistic composure. "Haven't you caused harm in so doing? Finis told me something interesting. He told me that when Queen Amidala called for his head that day during the Naboo invasion, she did so on your advice. We three know that you said she did that without consulting you. You planned the Naboo invasion, didn't you? You ran it...didn't you?"
Palpatine waited a beat, then nodded once. "I did. But no harm was ever intended in that instance. That was all Finis's fault. If he hadn't sent Jedi without informing me, it wouldn't have happened. I grieved for those who died. I respect all that the Force has placed here. I didn't want that.
"Haven't I tried to rebuild during this war in every way practical? Look at my armies. Droids, clones—really, I've designed this to cause as little damage as possible!"
"Except to the Jedi," said Sereine.
"You'll forgive me if I believe the Jedi have a lot to answer for."
"What about the rest of the citizens? Outside your window, I'm looking at the Zoft Building. It's half gone, and twenty-five thousand people died in it, during an unnecessary kidnapping of you, that you planned!"
Anger crept into her tone. Anakin looked over and caught her eyes.
"Well, that wasn't supposed to happen, either!" Palpatine exploded. "I'm very sorry about it. You know that I've attended the candlelight vigils and laid wreaths like everyone else. If I were doing it for my approval rating, as you well know, I needn't have bothered. If I had foreseen it, perhaps I could have planned around it, but I didn't. I do have the gift, but it isn't infallible!"
Anakin couldn't hold back a snort. "You have to know, if you're planning a battle like that one over a heavily populated planet, you're going to kill a lot of civilians!"
"Necessary losses. It doesn't mean I don't regret them. They are, after all, loyal citizens of my—" He stopped himself for a moment, and Anakin could not fathom why. "Of my Republic, and what is the Republic without its citizens?"
Sereine leaned forward. "Tell me why it was necessary."
"To protect myself. I don't think either of you know how close the Jedi came to discovering my identity. They forced me to defend myself. What was I to do?"
Anakin burst out, "But you're making them defend themselves! You started everything! You started the aggression first, when you starved nine thousand of the very people who elected you on Naboo! And you kept right on doing it!"
He tried to calm himself. "Look at it this way. If the Jedi didn't defend themselves, and the populace, the Sith would call that foolish, wouldn't they? You would call them idiots!"
Palpatine shifted and straightened his robes, settling into a patient look. "Anakin," he said. "These are mysteries which can't be fully explained in one evening. These are teachings for my apprentice, which you—" he looked at Sereine— "can never be, and you, young friend-" he narrowed his eyes at Anakin— "are not."
Anakin was about to say more, but the look in Sereine's eyes stopped him. She wanted her question answered. Anakin stopped, and sat back in his chair. And they waited.
Eventually Palpatine filled the silence. "I realize that society would call me a criminal," he said. Anakin could hear the "but" coming.
"In most cases, a criminal act is an evil act," Sereine said, as calmly as if she were reading from a dictionary. "I think evil can be defined as harming an innocent." She gestured at the buildings outside the window with a wave of her arm. "Those people didn't hurt you. They don't even know you-or wouldn't, if not for the career you undertook to use them in your war against the Jedi."
"And some of those people will have Force-sensitive children," Palpatine shot back. "Should they be conscripted into the Jedi Order, like this young man? What would he have been, had he been allowed to choose?"
Sereine waited.
"Who is the criminal, Sereine? You forget, I was born to this. Not every Sith was born Sith, but I was. Should I have waited for the Jedi to find me and kill me? Who would have been the idiot then? Should they persecute me for what Lord Bane did? Who is the criminal then?"
An idea formed in Anakin's mind, one he didn't at all like. "But ..." he said slowly. "But ... you admire Lord Bane. You said it just the other night. That the real Sith, the worthy Sith, believe they're destined to rule. To conquer. By any means necessary. Most of the fallen masters believe that, you said. Admire that. And you decided they were right. You chose to follow them ... not Lord Plagueis."
"Lord Plagueis's mind was far from resolved on the matter. He didn't believe in the rule of conquer by force, no ... but he didn't believe in the conscription of souls by the Jedi, either. And he certainly didn't believe we should be exterminated simply because we were Sith. And that actually happened to him ... even though he tried to stop the fighting. Even though he was as gentle and reasonable as he could be—and the Jedi could feel that he loved. They knew that!"
"You're evading the question," said Sereine. "Sheev, why aren't we supposed to redress issues with one another this way? Why does society have rules about this?"
She locked simmering blue stares with him and waited.
"Because beings aren't evolved enough to do the right thing on their own," said Palpatine. "Because if we didn't have the rules and the punishments for breaking them, no one would ever do the 'right' thing. Beings would only ever do what is 'right' for themselves, and forever be at one another's throats. The mere fact that what benefits one being is at the expense of another and restraint is therefore required proves that we aren't all One," said Palpatine.
"But it proves something more—that beings have to be taught, forced, to respect one another. If that is how you define evil, then we are all essentially evil. All of us, every one. Especially the Jedi, who choose to remain blind to the evil that they do." The Chancellor paused and looked from Sereine to Anakin and back again.
"Do the Sith really believe that?" said Anakin. "I don't mean about the Jedi. I mean about everyone. The Sith really believe that everyone is evil?"
"We hold that truth to be self-evident," said Palpatine. "How can you live here in the Capitol and not see evidence of this every day? Greed and corruption have always reigned, Anakin, and ever shall. But it's more than that, young one. Darkness is the very fabric of the universe. If I turn out this lamp, is it not dark?"
"But that's so cynical!" Anakin protested. "There's so much light and good in people. Especially the Jedi! Obi-Wan—Master Yoda—" he stopped.
"We've spent many evenings here in the past discussing Obi-Wan," said Palpatine, his eyes and his voice conveying the content of some of those talks. "And Master Yoda."
Anakin subsided into silence. Palpatine had him there and there was no use protesting.
Palpatine spoke only to Anakin now. "Anakin," he said, his expression compelling, his tone beckoning. "To study the dark side is not wrong."
Sereine snapped, "It's the using it to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people that we have the problem with."
"If you insist," said Palpatine, barely looking at her. "Anakin, I have used the Force to do the things I've done. In truth, there is no 'dark' or 'light' aspect. Only the Force. What we are describing with that terminology is not the Force, but the perspective from which we approach it. You will recall this from your earliest teachings. Your earliest Jedi teachings."
Anakin nodded.
"And that is how we are able to find all manner of wondrous things, within the Force as well as within ourselves. Your own master killed my first apprentice as a mere padawan. Don't you think he may have touched the 'dark side' to achieve that?"
What wondrous things must I find to save Padmé? Anakin wondered.
Sereine fumed at his left. He tried to ignore her.
"Anakin." Palpatine leaned forward. "We are supposed to reach our full potential in the Force, we have to. Because to fail to become all of which we are capable is a denial of the Force. And that, my friends, is another teaching which is common to both your Order—" Palpatine directed this to Anakin with a nod—" and mine. I don't ..."
The Sith master paused for words. "While I don't want to use such a word as 'superior,' there are those of us who have infinitely greater ability in the Force than others. You are one, Anakin—I have known it since the day I first met you. And-" a graceful bow of his head. "And I am one. There are wrongs to be addressed. One tries to be as gentle as one can with—with those who have not the ability that we have."
Palpatine's blue eyes softened, shifted to his right, and stopped on Lady Valorum, glowing like twin candles. Anakin didn't turn his head to follow his look. But as he studied the Sith master's face, something unsettling, intimate, and intensely private jumped across the desk to Sereine in Palpatine's look.
Palpatine added to his last speech in a soft, throaty purr. "Unless, of course, those 'others' ... wish it otherwise."
Sereine slit her eyes at him. "I remind the master Sith that I blew over two decades of his work completely into his face on less than twelve hours' notice. How 'inferior' can I be?"
Palpatine rose to his feet, that slow flush creeping into his face.
"Sereine," said Anakin, and stood up.
"Perhaps, " said Palpatine severely, "you don't realize your own darkness. Admit it, Sereine. You never really loved me. You, my dear, are more power-hungry than I am, but you don't dare to see that in yourself. Look at you—would anything less than two Supreme Chancellors have done it for you?"
Sereine stood up, her face a cipher. "I didn't know you'd thought about the Chancellery until that last year. Until the last month of that last year. But I will say, for someone who was only using me to groom himself for the Chancellery, you stuck around a lot longer than you needed to. Some five years longer, in my estimation."
Now Palpatine's eyes narrowed. "I never told you the truth, 'Darling.' I only ever proposed to you to get you away from Finis. You will recall, there was some discussion of an extended term for him at one time, which seriously split the vote in what was to be my election year. Poor ineffectual Valorum...he wasn't the only one on that podium with horns, was he?"
Anakin didn't quite understand how the battle lines had so quickly been drawn.
"He had so much going on at home, and he was so very unhappy, that I was sure he'd simply step down on schedule to go home and deal with it all. Until he put his own morals aside enough to cheat, himself, with you.
"And I know how you are, my dear. When you have a client whose policies meet with your approval, you can be very controlling. I knew you'd be right there at his elbow, encouraging him to keep his seat, and I needed to get you out of there. I thought he'd graciously take his leave, without you.
"Little did I suspect he'd be so miserable without you that he'd elect to pursue a third term simply to distract himself! That was one gambit that did backfire on me, I admit. So perhaps the Naboo invasion was my fault, after all."
The color drained from Lady Valorum's face. Her chest rose and fell as if she'd just come in from a brisk walk. Her eyes met Palpatine's, showing no emotion.
"I would never have wanted to marry you, Sereine," the Sith continued, in a more conciliatory tone, as if to excuse his earlier outburst. "You always knew that."
"Of course I did. It's why I never would have said yes."
"But you did," he said softly. "That very last night ... you did."
Sereine looked away and said nothing.
At last she met his gaze again. "Tell me something, Palpatine," she said. "Tell me one more thing. All of this ... it's just an excuse, isn't it?
"If there were no animosity between the Jedi and the Sith. No Sith war, if Phineas had never been tortured ... you would still do this, wouldn't you?"
Cold blue eyes locked on hers. Palpatine said nothing.
"Thank you," she said. "That's all I wanted to know."
And she turned to leave and waited for Anakin to follow.
Anakin waited until they had left the building before he rounded on her.
"How could he say that to you? How could he say that to you, about Naboo, and almost laugh about it like that? I can't believe we've done this! I can't believe it! And we're stuck with him, just like Chancellor Valorum said we'd be! If it weren't for Padmé, I'd go straight to the Jedi Council right now!"
Sereine spun in front of him and gripped his shoulders and pulled him to a stop. "Anakin, listen to me. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand it at all!"
"Understand what!"
"Any of it. Oh, he understands that he's caused untold destruction. He understands that countless lives have been lost, that he's caused incredible suffering to thousands, millions of people. But there's a big piece of that that's missing, for him. He doesn't understand."
"I don't understand!" said Anakin. "I don't understand what you're talking about."
"It's okay," Sereine soothed. She ran her hands up and down his arms once and patted his shoulders the way his mother used to do. "I'll explain it. I'll explain it ... when I can do a good job of it. I want to think about it some more myself."
She turned to lead the way back to the public transport platform. "Where shall we go? I'm not discussing this in the middle of Republic Plaza at the twenty-first hour."
"I don't think you want to play that recording for Chancellor Valorum. He'll go to the Council even if it does mean war."
Sereine smiled, taking his meaning. "He'd want to, at any rate. My place, then. We're going to have to play that for Finis—he'll want to know why I'm hiding it—but I need to think it out some more first."
On the transport she spoke again. "Now that I look back, I can see it all coming. He knew he was going to invade Naboo. He knew it some five years before he did it."
"I had spent a long time there after I hurt my back. I was too incapacitated to work, and we weren't together any more, anyway. He was angry at me over the Kinman Doriana thing, and I was angry that he had used me that way and hadn't apologized for it.
"I went back to Naboo to try to recuperate, and when I came back to go to the Jedi healers, Finis and I ... well, it's as Palpatine said. Finis's was still with his first wife, and there were problems, and Finis and I had an affair. And there was a push to give Finis a third term, and he was thinking it over ... and that's when Palpatine came back to me and asked me to marry him."
"So did you, or didn't you, say yes?" said Anakin.
"Not for a while. He gave me this rather hideous old-style ring as an engagement ring. I didn't realize that the green stones in it were priceless railites, and the ring was worth some eight million credits, until I found myself seated next to a jeweler at a political fundraiser one night.
"I told Palpatine no, and he tried to get me to keep the ring. He'd keep asking me if I planned to go back to live on Naboo any time soon. And when I tried to give the ring back, he'd say such odd things. About how one never knew what might happen in the future, and to have something of great value could be very important to me one day. That I would need it. He can pretend he didn't say those things now, but I remember them. And he remembers them."
As they entered her empty apartment Sereine became pensive and quiet. She prepared them their customary kaffe without saying a word.
At last she sat down opposite Anakin, warming her hands on her cup.
"I've changed my mind about one thing," she said.
"What's that?"
"I've changed my mind about sacrificing him. If we have to ... if we have to. If there's no other way ... I am willing to see him die now."
Anakin's stomach clenched. "Because of what he said to you?"
"No. Because he doesn't understand what he said to me. Because of this one thing, he really is potentially incorrigibly dangerous. Much more dangerous than I ever realized before in my life."
She stared moodily ahead of her. Anakin was silent for a moment, then he said, "You know I can never let you do that. Not for eleven more weeks, anyway."
"Don't worry." She raised her eyes to Anakin's, and that twinkling smile from the afternoon after Palpatine's address lit her face. "Doesn't mean we're going to give up without giving it everything we've got," she said.
She raised her mug in a complicitous toast.