Palpatine deliberated while Fordox and Antilles had their visit with Valorum. He was still mulling it over when Sei Taria entered the waiting room some time later.

Palpatine rose and nodded. "How good to see you, Sei. Are you all right?"

She mustered a warm smile. "I'm fine now, Senator. But it was terrible."

Palpatine adopted a grave look. "We will do all we can to protect the Supreme Chancellor." "I know you will." "How is he?" She glanced at the door. "Eager to see you." Armed guards flanked the door to Valorum's room-a windowless corral of monitoring devices, overseen by a bipedal medical droid equipped with servogrip pincers and a rebreatherlike vocabulator.

Valorum looked pale and grim, but he was sitting up in bed, his right arm, from wrist to shoulder, encased in a soft tube filled with bacta. A transparent, gelatinous fluid produced by an insectoid alien species, bacta had the ability to promote rapid cell rejuvenation and healing, usually without scarring. Palpatine often felt that the wondrous substance was as key to the survival of the Republic as were the Jedi.

"Supreme Chancellor," he said, approaching the bed, "I came as soon as I heard." Valorum made a gesture of dismissal with his left hand. "You shouldn't have bothered. They're releasing me later today." He motioned Palpatine to a chair. "Do you know what the guards did when they brought me in here?

They cleared every patient from the emergency room, then emptied this entire floor, with scarcely a concern for the condition of the patients." "The security was warranted," Palpatine said.

"Knowing you would be brought here if they failed, the assassins could have stationed a second team in the admitting area." "Perhaps," Valorum granted. "But I doubt the actions of my protectors earned me any new allies."

He frowned. "Worse, I have to suffer the transparent concern of delegates like Orn Free Taa." "Even Senator Taa understands that the Republic needs you,"

Palpatine said.

"Nonsense. There are many who are qualified to fill my position. Bail Antilles, Ainlee Teem… even you, Senator." Palpatine feigned a startled expression.

"Hardly, Supreme Chancellor." Valorum grinned. "I couldn't help but note how the delegates responded to you during the special session." "The Outer Rim is desperate for voices. I'm merely one of many." Valorum shook his head.

"It's more than that." He paused briefly. "In any event, I want to thank you for the message your aide delivered to the podium. But why didn't you inform me in advance of your plan to propose a summit meeting?" Palpatine spread his graceful hands. "It was a spur-of-the — moment decision. Something had to be done before the taxation proposal went to committee, where it may have been crushed out of hand." "A brilliant stroke." Valorum fell silent for a long moment.

"The Judicial Department has advised me that my attackers are members of the Nebula Front." "I've also heard." Valorum forced an exhale. "Now I see what the Trade Federation is up against." Palpatine said nothing.

"But what was the Nebula Front's motive in attacking me? I'm doing what I can to find a peaceful solution to all this." "Your efforts are obviously not enough for them," Palpatine said.

"Are they so convinced that Antilles or Teem would act differently?"

Palpatine formed his response carefully.

"Senator Antilles thinks only of the Core Worlds. Doubtless he would advocate a policy of nonintervention. As for Senator Teem, he would probably bestow whatever the Trade Federation requests in the way of advanced weaponry or additional franchises." Valorum thought about it. "Perhaps I was wrong in ruling that the Nebula Front shouldn't be allowed to participate in the Eriadu summit. I feared giving the impression that the Republic would be recognizing them as a political entity.

Furthermore, I couldn't envision them sitting down at the same table with the Neimoidians." Confusion clouded his eyes. "But what could they hope to gain by having me killed?" Palpatine recalled Havac ranting about not being invited to the summit.

We need a stronger Supreme Chancellor, Havac had said.

"I've been asking myself the same question," Palpatine replied. "But you were right not to solicit their participation. They are dangerous-and deluded." Valorum nodded. "We can't risk having them interfere at Eriadu. Too much is at stake. The outlying systems must be encouraged to speak for themselves, without fear of reprimand by the Trade Federation or reprisals by the Nebula Front." Palpatine steepled his fingers in reflection, summoning memories of the recent meeting with Havac, hearing again his every word…

"Perhaps it is time to ask the Jedi for help," he said at last.

Valorum regarded him for a long moment. "Yes, perhaps the Jedi would be willing to intervene." He brightened somewhat. "Two of them helped thwart my would-be assassins." "Indeed?" "The senate will have to sanction Jedi involvement. Would you consider introducing the motion?" Palpatine smiled with his eyes. "I would consider it a great honor, Supreme Chancellor." Leaving the hospital docking platform behind, Sate Pestage accelerated into a midlevel traffic lane, then, at each vertical exchange, began to ascend toward the upper-tier thoroughfares, until he had entered a rarefied zone of limousines and private skycars. Here, one seldom encountered a taxi, much less a delivery craft, because those who resided in the heights owned their own vehicles, and goods were delivered to the lower stories of the buildings and moved skyward by turbolift.

Pestage kept climbing until he was in the uppermost lane. In that part of Coruscant, the lane was restricted to skycars the mobile traffic scanners could verify as enjoying diplomatic privilege, which Senator Palpatine's vehicle did.

He piloted the car to the attached platform of a luxurious, kilometer- high skyscraper and docked. From the car's luggage compartment, he retrieved two expensive-looking bags. The larger was a square handheld piece; the other was a sphere about the size of a sweetmelon, which fit snugly into a specially designed shoulder bag.

Pestage carried both into the building's upper-tier lobby, where he was scanned head to toe before being allowed to enter the turbolift that accessed the penthouse. Once again, his employer's credentials opened many a door that would otherwise have been locked to him. Few residents were about, and none gave him a second look, trusting implicitly that anyone who had managed to get into the building had every right to be there.

He rode the turbolift to the penthouse, which was owned by one of Palpatine's peers in the senate, but was presently unoccupied, as the senator had, only the previous day, embarked on a visit to her homeworld.

In the penthouse alcove, Pestage carried the bags to the entry and tapped a code into a touchpad mounted on the wall. When the scanner asked for retinal corroboration, he entered a second code, which essentially commanded the scanner to cut short its usual security routine and simply open the suite.