Yan Dooku delivered the spliced conversations from the Palpatine, Mothma, and Iblis holocrons to Bail Organa's office and then set out on another walk. Melancholy dogged him, following him along the walkways, weighing down his heart in a way it wasn't possible to outwalk, outfight, outlast, or outrun. Hearing one third of the High Council's opinions of him yesterday had been difficult, difficult.
He knew he was in the right. His anger that no one else seemed to, other than Qui-Gon, had been with him a very long time. It was something he had worn for so long, it had become like his Jedi cloak, a thing he hardly noticed anymore. But their contempt … that cut, more deeply than ever he imagined it might.
A heavy weight sat in his chest, and he carried it with him everywhere he went.
He walked, the sights and sounds around him a blur, his feet on automatic. At last he looked up and found himself in the neighborhood in which he had encountered his young friends. It had to be the weekend, he reflected, because today all of them seemed to be out of school, dashing about the sidewalks, yelling, nearly knocking down passersby.
With no work to occupy his mind, one day alone in his room in the Temple simply melded into another.
He slipped into a sidewalk café and waved away its waitress droid. Across the street, Rahr—no one could possibly mistake him—Joven, and two other boys, a Duro and a Human, dashed wildly about the sidewalk. Toy lightsabers appeared and they began battling one another.
He remembered himself at that age. Those duels were not fun, but deadly serious. How hard he had practiced, how hard he had tried in those days, how badly he wanted Lene Kostana to choose him as her apprentice.
He wondered if he would have wound up here, had that happened. The droid returned to evict him for not buying anything; he ordered a cup of tea and watched the galaxy's clumsiest, yet most exuberant, lightsaber duelists terrorize the sidewalks.
He tried to remember if he had ever felt that kind of joy as a child, and decided he had not.
At least it appeared that repairs were almost finished to young Joven's home. It had proper windows and a door now. Dooku sat, reflecting upon the story the boy had told him and the acts of vandalism, the threatening messages that had driven the boy's father to leave an exceedingly well-placed position on Naboo to come here.
Clearly, someone preferred that the current Naboo agricultural policy remain the same. His first suspicion had been Senator Palpatine, considering that this latest had come the very night before Veritine published a very critical editorial about Palpatine. Of course, why the sectorial senator would have any preferences at all regarding the planet's agricultural policies wasn't immediately obvious, especially considering his other source of information: Sereine Lumisol.
He was aware that his strength in the Force had simply overwhelmed her, and she hadn't experienced anything except photophobia and the sudden pain she had complained about. On his side, however, unlocking the Force potential of her mind had given him a sudden and jumbled download, one it was taking him some time to untangle.
In his mind, she appeared as a shrewd, humorous, perceptive, ambitious, and high-minded woman, lusty and passionate. Somewhat controlling, manipulative, a fixer … but not malevolent. A terrible perfectionist with crushingly high standards for herself.
A constellation of her priorities and memories had tumbled into him, some of which he had no right to and found himself discomfited at having inadvertently received.
Oh, some of the things he had missed out on in this Jedi life. And now he was getting too old.
Abashed, he vowed to be much more circumspect in the future when investigating anyone he would have bet his life was Force-blind.
One of those priorities was Senator Erasmesheev Palpatine. Dooku realized Sereine was in love with him and that the relationship was tense and uncertain. But, inadvertently, he had received her memory of him angrily tossing aside the offending editorial Veritine had written, and she had said, "If it isn't getting bigger on its own, let it alone."
To her knowledge, he had. Still, Dooku considered it prudent to keep the possibility that he hadn't in the back of his mind … and try to forget the rest.
He finished his tea and discovered the lightsaber game was over and Joven's young friends had dispersed. He got up and strode across the street before the boy could go inside.
Joven Veritine crouched on the sidewalk, examining some sundry item or bit of currency someone had dropped there. Dooku sent him a light touch in the Force and waited for him to turn around.
Joven's mouth dropped open. "Master Dooku!"
Dooku raised his brows. "So you figured me out, I see."
Joven stared up at him, more still than he had been all morning. "Well, I didn't, my friend Selway did, but we found out who you were." Two big blue eyes fixed tremulously on Dooku's face, and the boy's sense of awe flashed through the Force. After over an hour or two of watching him run furiously across the walk, careening into people, Dooku decided to do nothing to put the boy at ease.
"I wish you had been here earlier," said Joven. "My friends were all here. They would have been blown away meeting you! You're the greatest Jedi ever!"
Dooku chuckled. "I wouldn't go that far. And I was here." He pointed across the street. "Waiting for all of you to send someone to the hospital playing at lightsabers along the walk."
"We don't have anyplace else to play," said Joven sullenly. "Why did you come back?"
"I came back to check on you," said Dooku. "It looks as if there's been some repair. Have you suffered any more incidents? Are you safe?"
Joven looked away. "My dad is taking my mom and me home so we'll be safe. We just got here and now we have to move again."
Dooku bent slightly lower. "You'll be going back where you moved from, yes?"
"No!" Joven flushed over a sprinkling of freckles. "We have to go stay with my grandma. She lives halfway across the planet. Another new school, more new kids …"
Dooku ran a hand though his beard. "Not an experience I ever had, not until I was made Padawan."
"Yeah? Well, you were lucky. I hate moving. Hate it!"
Perhaps it was indeed best he hadn't become a father. Dooku stood there, somewhat at a loss. "I'm sure your father only means that you be safe."
Joven stomped to the wall and leaned there under the shade of the awning. "We wouldn't even have to go if it weren't for my mom."
Dooku followed. "And why is that?"
Glassy blue eyes met his. "She's sick," said Joven. "I want to stay with my dad, but he says no, so I have to go."
Dooku felt awkward, as if he should know what to say, but he didn't. Must he feel at sea in everything these days? At last he tried, "What's wrong with your mom? Why is she sick?"
"Um …" Joven's eyes shifted cagily to the left. "I don't really know."
"Is she bedridden? I thought I had heard she wasn't at home the other day." Dooku stared ahead at the passersby.
"Sometimes she gets up," said Joven. Dooku felt a resistance, a wariness from the boy.
"Is she going to get better?" said Dooku.
The boy stared straight ahead. "I don't know," he said. "Would be nice if it happened in this lifetime, though."
Dooku heard resentment, and felt it in the Force. Not the kind of feeling he imagined one would have toward a parent who was obviously physically ill. It was the sort of resentment he remembered feeling himself toward Masters Quist, Braylon, and even Yoda at times. Because he felt he had been mistreated.
He looked over at the boy. Young Joven stared straight ahead and would not look at him.
Dooku decided to shift his line of questioning. "When are you leaving, then?" he said in a lighter tone.
"I don't know. A week, I think. I have to try to get Mom to pack."
Another odd comment. "Commercial transport, or your father's own?"
"My dad has a little Eta shuttle. We're going in that."
Dooku formulated plans. It shouldn't be too difficult to slip back into that hangar and plant a small tracking device on the Star Cruiser, which he was willing to bet anyone having a choice between the two ships housed there would choose to follow the Veritines in. If the ship moved, he could follow it.
He had delivered the holocron splices, he had nothing he needed to stay here for, and this could help him solve the riddle of who was hiding out in LiMerge and terrorizing the Veritines.
"I assume we've all reviewed the Chancellor's notes and outline," said Bail. Four Senators and one consultant had reconvened in his small conference room once again, minus one Jedi. "I thought, rather than one person trying to write what looks to be a rather thick bill, we divide this four ways and split the work, and finish four times faster." He looked around the table to three nods. "I'm asking Sereine to attend any meetings we have, listen in, observe the progress, and write our opening and closing speeches to the floor."
Sereine felt a flush start in her chest and rise to her face, along with a riptide of pride and disbelief. She had expected to have a hand in picking the Republic's legislators for years to come. But to actually be asked to work on legislation?
Of course, she knew she was unqualified to write legislation—but then again, were such "Senators" as those from the Banking Clan and the Trade Federation? But to actually be asked to write the speeches to introduce landmark legislation on the floor—she didn't know whom to thank, Bail or the Chancellor or both, but clearly someone had faith in her. Generally, Senators wrote introductory pieces for big bills themselves, with people on their regular staffs. Consultants might be asked for an opinion, but they didn't get to write, not for something potentially groundbreaking like this.
She made up her mind right then that this would be an opening and a closing people wouldn't forget. And she knew unerringly who the correct choice was to deliver them. If she played her cards right, these would be speeches that could make Palpatine's name.
Then again, it all depended on what ended up in the legislation. If it was something she could be proud of, then so would everyone else.
Bail gave her a brief smile. She hadn't realized what was in her eyes and her face at that moment, but he had noticed her reaction.
He looked down at his data screen and cleared his throat. "It's rather difficult to divide what's essentially a three-part bill into four parts," he said. "Since this all started with me and it seems Alderaan has the problem with trafficking lanes, I'm going to write that portion, if that's all right with everyone." Three nods again.
"The slavery portion, I'm giving to Garm, and Mon is the one with the law degree, so I'm giving her the provisions that will govern the Jedi Order. I'm sure it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that this bill will set precedent in actually codifying the traditional relationship of this body with the Jedi Order into law. If it applies in these instances, it will be understood in the courts to apply to all others. Senator Palpatine …" he said, and Sereine's stomach clenched.
Her Palpatine was not going to like this at all. He had let her read Valorum's request, together with his outline and his notes. Valorum was a talented legal mind. Sereine knew he had a photographic memory, and much research and work was already contained in what he had sent.
Nothing of significance was left over for Palpatine.
Oh, no, she thought. He is going to have a fit.
She reached for Palpatine under the table and rested a restraining hand on his thigh, and ventured a quick sidewise glance at his face.
"We'd appreciate your feedback on all of this," Bail said, "and since you have a greater sense of all the history behind the issues than the rest of us, I'm going to pair you with Mothma. She'll construct the legal framework and if you can compose a preamble for us that summarizes that and details the reasons for the bill, it should lead nicely into her portion, which I plan to place first."
Sereine detected not a trace of anger on his face. In his sweetest, most agreeable tone, she heard, "Of course. I would be pleased to."
His first year on the floor, that was not what she would have heard. I guess he's learned something here in almost three years.
And it was a good thing, too, because even her own assignment was a plum. Compared to everyone else in the room, Palpatine had been distinctly snubbed.
Of course, she knew why Bail had done it—none of them really knew Palpatine, but they all knew each other, and Palpatine had sort of invited himself along. Her Palpatine was not likely to appreciate that, however.
Oh, but she was going to hear about this tonight.