Cloak Of Deception

Those manifold voices had their say in the Galactic Senate, which sprouted like a squat mushroom from the heart of Corus — cant's governmental district. Surrounded by lesser domes and buttressed buildings whose summits disappeared into the busy sky, the senate was fronted by an expansive pedestrian plaza. The plaza itself lorded over a sprawl of spired skyscrapers and was studded with impressionistic statues thirty meters high, dedicated to the Core World founders. Angular and humaniform in design, the long-limbed and genderless sculptures stood on tall duracrete bases and held slender ceremonial staffs.

The iconic motif was continued inside the senate, where many of the public corridors that encircled the rotunda featured statues of similar spindly design.

Proceeding briskly along one of those corridors, Senator Pal — patine marveled at the fact that the senate had yet to commission and display sculptures of nonhumanoid configuration. Where some delegates were willing to dismiss the lack of nonhuman representation as a simple oversight, others viewed it as an outright slight. To still others, the decor was a matter of small concern, either way. But with nonhumanoid species dominant in the Mid and Outer Rims, and their delegations fast overwhelming the senate-to the secret dismay of many a Core World human delegate-changes were certainly in order.

With its multilevel walkways, corridors, and vertical and horizontal turbolifts, the hemispherical building was as labyrinthine as the i

Flanked by his two aides, Doriana and Pestage, he smiled pleasantly as he threaded his way toward the rotunda, easing past the blue-robed Senate Guard stationed at the doorway and stepping down into ationaboo's balcony platform in the vast amphitheater.

One of 1,024 identical balconies that lined the i

Adjusting the fall of his elaborate cloak, Palpatine stepped to the podiumlike console at the front lip of the platform. Given Naboo's elevated position in the rotunda, the view to the floor was vertiginous.

The amphitheater was purposely sealed off from natural light, as well as from Coruscant's dubious atmosphere, to minimize the effects of nightfall on the delegates; that is, to encourage everyone to remain focused on the matters at hand, despite the possibility that the sessions might continue late into the evening. But more and more citizens had come to view the rotunda's u

Nevertheless, Palpatine sensed renewed intensity in the recycled air.

Gossip had alerted everyone to the topics Valorum pla

In an effort to take a measure of senatorial opinion regarding taxation of the outlying trade routes, Palpatine had spent the past few days meeting with as many senators as possible. Gently, he had attempted to persuade the undecided into backing Valorum, so that the Supreme Chancellor might carry the day without the support of Naboo and its neighboring worlds. At the same time, Palpatine had devised alternative plans, sufficient for dealing with a host of eventualities.

His own sense of urgency took him by surprise; the buzz in the rotunda was that infectious. But just as he had done at the opera, Valorum delayed his arrival. By the time the Supreme Chancellor finally showed himself, the atmosphere was agitated.

Valorum's perch was a thirty-meter-tall dais that rose from the center of the floor like the stalk of a flower. Conveyed to the bud of the flower by turbolift, Valorum stood alone, with the senate's sergeant-at-arms, parlimentarian, journal clerk, and official reporter seated below him in a round dish that cradled the bud. Echoing the predominant color scheme of the amphitheater, he wore a lavender brocade cloak, with voluminous sleeves and matching cummerbund.

It occurred to Palpatine as he applauded that the Supreme Chancellor's lofty position made him as much a center of attention as target of opportunity.

When the clapping and the occasional verbal accolades had gone on long enough, Valorum held up his hands in a gesture that begged silence.

His first words brought a faint smile to Pal-patine's lips.

"Delegates of the Galactic Senate, we find ourselves beset by a confluence of sobering challenges.

Frayed at its far-flung borders by internecine skirmishes and hollowed at its very heart by corruption, the Republic is in grave danger of unraveling.

Recent events in the Mid and Outer Rim demand that we stem the rising tide of strife by restoring order and balance. So dire is our plight, that even extreme measures should not be dismissed out of hand." Valorum paused briefly to allow his words to sink in.

"The free trade zones were originally created to foster exchange between the Core Worlds and the outlying systems of the Mid and Outer Rims. At the time, it was thought that free and open trade would prove a benefit to all concerned. But those zones have since become a haven not only for smugglers and pirates, but also for shipping and trading cartels that have availed themselves of the liberties we ensured, by setting themselves up as entities of political and military leverage." Murmurs of concurrence and discord stirred the already impassioned air.

"The Trade Federation comes before us with a request that we do something to safeguard commerce in the outlying sectors. They are within their rights to request this, and we are obliged by our covenant to respond. But in a very real sense it is the questionable practices of the Trade Federation that have made it a target for thieves and terrorists." Valorum raised his voice to be heard over hundreds of separate conversations, in as many tongues.

"In the same way, we must accept some of the blame for this, since it was this body that granted the Trade Federation such latitude, and it is this body that has chosen to turn a deaf ear time and again to what transpires in the outlying systems. This practice ca