Not even Tarkin knew about Sienar's collection of failed experiments.

Sienar walked slowly down the long hall that lay over a kilometer beneath the central factory floor of Sienar Systems' main Coruscant plant. Holograms appeared just ahead of him, holo-projectors turning on as he passed, showing product rollouts for the Republic Defense Procurement plan ten years before, commendations from senators and provincial governors, prototype deliveries for the early contracts with the many branches of the Trade Federation, which had become more and more cloaked in secrecy as it tightened its central authority.

He smiled at the most beautiful-and so far, the largest-of his products, a thousand-passenger ceremonial cruiser rated at Class Two, designed for triumphal receptions on worlds signing exclusive contracts with the Trade Federation.

And then there was his fastest and most advanced design, most heavily armed, as well, made for a very secretive customer- someone of whom Sienar suspected Tarkin was completely ignorant. He should not underestimate my own contacts, my own political pull! he thought.

But in fact, Sienar had never learned with certainty just who that customer was, only that he-or she, or it-favored Sienar designs. But he suspected the buyer was a person of great importance. And he suspected much more, as well. A buyer whose name it is death to even whisper.

So the Republic was changing, perhaps dying, perhaps being murdered around them day by day. Tarkin intimated as much, and Sienar could not disagree. But Sienar would survive.

His ships had likely ferried between star systems the very personages that Tarkin could only hint at. That made him proud, but at the same time. .

Raith Sienar knew that extraordinary opportunity also meant extraordinary danger.

Tarkin was sufficiently intelligent and very ambitious, and also as venal as they came. This amused Sienar, who fancied himself above most of the comforts of the flesh. The comforts of the intellect, however, he was perfectly willing to wallow in.

Luxurious intellectual toys were his weakness, and the best of those toys were the failures of his competitors, which he bought cheap whenever he could, saving them from the scrap heaps of technological disgrace. Sometimes he had had to rescue these unhappy products from a kind of execution. Some were too dangerous to be kept operational, or even intact.

He keyed in his entry code to the underground museum and sniffed at the cool air, then stood for a moment in the darkness of the small antechamber, savoring the peace. Sienar came here most often to think, to get away from all distractions, to make key decisions.

Recognizing him, the chamber turned on its lights, and he keyed another code into the door to the museum's long underground nave. With an anticipatory sigh, Sienar entered this temple of failures, smiled, and lifted his arms in greeting to the ranks of exhibits.

Standing among these glorious examples of overreaching and bad planning helped clear his mind wonderfully. So much failure, so many technical and political missteps-bracing, tart, like a cold, astringent shower!

A group of his favorites occupied a transparent cube near the museum entrance: a squad of four hulking universal combat droids equipped with so many weapons they could hardly lift themselves from the ground. They had been manufactured in the factory system of Kol Huro, seven planets totally devoted to turning out defense systems and starships for a petty and vicious tyrant vanquished by the Republic fifteen years ago. Each was over four meters tall and almost as broad, with very tiny intelligence units, slow, awkward, as stupid in conception as the tyrant who had ordered their design. Sienar had smuggled them past Republic customs ten years ago, and they had not been disarmed, nor were their weapons nonfunctional. Their core intelligence had been removed, however. Not that it had made that much difference. They were kept on minimum power, and their sensors tracked him slowly as he walked past, their tiny eyes glowing, their weapons pods jerking in disappointment.

He smiled, not at them, pitiful monstrosities, but at their makers.

Next in his rank of prizes came a more insidious machine, one that actually revealed both ingenuity and some care in execution: a landing pod designed to invade the metal- bearing asteroids of an unexploited star system and set up shop, making small invasion droids out of the raw ore. The mining equipment had been very well made. The unit had failed, however, in the finesse of its droid factories. Less than one out of a hundred of the droids had proven functional.

Sienar had thought often about this approach, creating a machine to make more machines, all of them programmed to carry out offensive strategies. But the Republic had too many scruples to show much interest in such weapons, and the Neimoidian leaders in the Trade Federation had rejected them out of hand as impractical. Not much imagination there, at least as of a few years ago…

Perhaps that was why their leadership had capitulated to Chancellor Palpatine.

The lights came on for the major rank of cubicles, stretching off five hundred meters to the end of the nave. Two thousand and twelve exhibits of failed weapons and ship design. So many minatory admonishments-you are fallible, Raith Sienar. Always think three times before acting, and then, always prepare three alternatives.

A small cubicle between two larger exhibits held a rather ugly assassin droid, with a long cylindrical head and rudimentary thorax. These assassins had failed on two accounts: they were depressingly obvious in appearance, and they were likely to go completely out of control and kill their makers. This one had had its verbobrain crisped by high-security droids. Sienar kept it here because a former classmate from Rigovian Technical University had been involved in the design, and this very unit had killed her. It was a cautionary reminder not to overstep one's competence.

Anticipating a change in political psychology, Sienar had recently begun to contemplate his own weaknesses, his own narrow focus. He had always preferred elegance, finesse, and pinpoint expression of power. And he had always dealt with leaders who more or less agreed-a widespread ruling class used to centuries of relative calm, used to dealing with isolated system wars through embargo and police action. Who would replace such a ruling class?

Those who espoused elegance and finesse?

He did not think so. Entering his museum of failures, he had begun to see himself mounted in the center of his own prize exhibits, rigid, inflexible, outdated, outmoded. . and so young!

Those who replace effete elites rule by brutality. This was a law in the history of the galaxy. A kind of political balance, frightening but true.

Months ago, coming at his craft from another angle- brutal and centralized strength-Sienar had begun work on the Expeditionary Battle Planetoid, whose design had so entranced Tarkin. Tarkin's reaction suggested that Sienar's guess-stab in the dark might be more accurate-had hit its mark. These new leaders might be far more impressed by high melodrama than style.