Refractions of the Truth

by Linda Lyons

Midnight. Alone.

The tiny lights of hovercraft passing his window provided the only illumination in the room. Eerie shadows flitted like spirits across the bare walls.

Finis Valorum recalled an article he had read once, about a smuggler kept in solitary confinement by the Mandalorians for nine months, uninterrupted. He was beginning to feel a little like that man. When the press could ravage him no more, it had embraced Palpatine with loving arms, and the coldness from all quarters now was almost unendurable. It was as if the universe itself had set her face against him, walling him off up here alone in this naked little office, where the lights played on the wall as if through ventilation slats in the door of a dungeon.

He was no longer Chancellor, but he was still chief representative of Chandrila. No wrongdoing had been proven against him, and until it was, he was not required to resign.

After the initial shock had worn away, he became determined to stay the course. The terrible stain on his reputation would remain otherwise, and if he were light years away in some obscure corner when it was finally lifted, the news would cause no more notice than a summer breeze. He would die Finis Valorum, tax criminal.

And so he had resolved to stay. But the resentment had stayed as well, and grew every time he had to sit and watch Palpatine from the Chandrilan box, orchestrating the mad Senate like the finest of conductors, with never so much as a glance at Finis. It worsened with every step around the building. Here was the dining room where he and Palpatine and their staffs had toasted together in celebration of many a victory. Here was the committee workroom in which he had spent so many hours teaching Palpatine, mentoring him, grooming him, in effect, to humiliate him before the entire galaxy. If he stepped out of the east entrance, he could still see himself embracing Palpatine in the arbor, so glad to hear that his old friend had finally become engaged.

It was worse than humiliation now, or resentment, or even anger. Finis recognized that he was deeply hurt, and he could no longer remain silent. He could not imagine what he had done to deserve this. Lately he had begun letter after letter to Palpatine, but he had deleted every one. His wife told him he would never find the appropriate words on a datapad; it was a betrayal of his own spirit. He could never accept such cowardice on his own behalf; it would be as if the years of friendship -- and his own most genuine heart -- weren't worth speaking for. He would have to confront Palpatine in person.

And so he would. He deleted his final letter, and got up to leave for the night.

It was strange the next morning to walk into his own office and see Palpatine's staff there. He recognized the quick looks that flitted across their faces: panic.

He faced Palpatine's secretary across her desk. "I need to speak with Chancellor Palpatine, please."

Avila stared at him, blinked, and actually stammered. "He's busy all morning, sir."

"I checked his schedule on the common board, Avila. No, he isn't. Now, would you announce me, please?"

Avila exchanged glances with Palpatine's chief of staff -- another old friend. After a moment she swallowed, got up, and walked around the desk to ring Palpatine's door chime. The door opened and she disappeared inside.

The door whispered open again and she emerged. "You can g- " the word caught and strangulated and she coughed. "Go in now, sir," she finished.

Finis's own throat went dry. He turned and walked the few steps into the sanctum.

Palpatine sat back in Finis's chair, behind Finis's desk, in front of Finis's favorite window, hands folded, face carefully neutral. A moment of panic: Finis Valorum, elder statesman, former Chancellor, could not think what to say. "Speak from your heart," Mavis had said. "You need to."

After a moment Palpatine broke the silence. "I presume you have something to say to me, Finis. What is it?"

Valorum opened his mouth. Out came, "Why did you do this to me?"

Palpatine gave a small shake of his head. "I don't understand. I did nothing."

Silence.

"The Queen's outburst took me completely by surprise. She hadn't discussed that with me." He shook his head again. "It was no use to make any statement about it. I knew no one would understand that ... least of all yourself."

Valorum advanced on him suddenly, trembling with suppressed rage. "That is not what I mean. I'd been wondering for weeks who leaked the news of my tax problems to the press. Who would want to hold up a decision on the Nemoidians with fearful speculation about whether the Chancellor could hold a fair hearing? There were only a handful of people who could have spoken about that. And I had eliminated every one, but you. And thought, I must have overlooked something! You could never do that to me! Until young Queen Amidala stepped forward and called for my head. The moment she did, I knew."

Palpatine was shaking his head again slowly, arms open. "I knew this would do us no good. I knew I could never make you understand."

"Understand WHAT? Understand what, Palpatine? Understand that I rescued you during the most embarrassing first year a junior senator ever spent on the Means committee, and took you under my wing? That you would never have become Chairman of that committee without that? That we've looked out for one another, and sweated together to pass unpopular legislation this galaxy needed, for eight years? That I took you into my home, fed you, worried about you? What about all those dinner parties, long conversations, card games? That was a friendship, Palpatine, a friendship! How could you cause that to mean nothing?"

Palpatine's face twisted suddenly in fury. Both hands came down with a bang on the polished desk.

"How could I cause it to mean nothing? I don't think you understand what you've done here, 'my friend!' " The last words were snarled, ugly.

Finis's voice rose, escaping the confines of decorum. "What?! How can you even think to turn this around on me? I did everything I could do to assist you. I tried to bring the matter up for a full hearing -- and I would have been successful, had you not spoken to the press. I contacted Gunray personally numerous times. I dispatched the Jedi -- "

Palpatine leaped to his feet, pointing an accusing finger across the desk. "EXACTLY!" he shouted. "You dispatched the Jedi! And you didn't tell me everything about that! You want to attack me over trust? Friendship? Tell me how you could make such a move and not even discuss it with me!"

"I told you I was sending ambassadors. I told you the truth about that!"

Palpatine stalked him around the desk, easing closer like a snake. "You didn't tell me ANY OF IT! That was MY planet under siege, Finis, MY Queen, MY people. And YOU made a serious misjudgement -- one I could have averted, had you consulted with me first!"

"A mis-- It was the only thing left to do! The only course of action that held any chance of avoiding bloodshed!"

"Is it not obvious to you yet that you had no idea with whom you were dealing? You knew nothing about these people, nothing about what they needed, or how desperate they were to acquire it! You pushed them ... you threatened them ... you left them no choice!" He looked pained as he spoke now, stricken. "Never once did you see this through their eyes! If you had, you would have known that they could never turn back!"

Palpatine paused, dropped his head, mopped his brow. Squeezed the corners of his blue eyes for a moment, across the bridge of his beaklike nose.

He looked back at Finis. "There had to be another way to handle this. Had to be. But did you ask me, did you come to me when I was counting on you? No! You went to the Jedi!" Palpatine snarled and spat the little word. His voice dropped a full octave.

Finis faltered. "You ... you were so contained about the whole matter, Palpatine. You carried on as if it hadn't even affected you. If it hadn't been for that holo from the Daily I would have thought you weren't even Nubian. I was beginning not to trust you ... "

"Not to trust me," Palpatine repeated wearily, turning to rest his weight on the desk and slowly shake his head. "Because you suspected I had spoken about your insignificant tax matters, no doubt. Well, thank heavens for the inquiring members of the press, stalking us all for that unguarded private moment. You never know when you might need those intrusive holograms to prove to your own dearest friend your true feelings on the total blockade of your homeworld ... "

As he heard the words Finis understood how ridiculous they sounded, and he began to fear that he had made a terrible mistake.

Shoulders slumped over his desk, Palpatine turned his head to glare weakly at Valorum. "We were invaded as a direct result of your Jedi's intervention. They herded my people into starvation camps -- as a direct result of your Jedi's intervention! Over nine thousand Nubian babies, children, and elderly starved to death!"

"Palpatine ... " The unwelcome truth crept next to Valorum's heart, threatening to swallow him whole.

Palpatine continued unmercifully. "My Queen fled in fear for her life -- at least your Jedi were capable of arranging that! -- and nearly perished in the attempt." He turned and straightened, and his voice grew louder. "Our fourteen-year-old Queen, storming her own Palace with a handful of half-trained security guards? Scaling the side of a thirty-level building? She could easily have been killed, Finis, and had she been, her blood would have stained your hands. Your Jedi master, Qui-Gon Jinn -- he is no longer among the living, is he? And the Gungan soldiers ... hundreds and hundreds of Gungan soldiers!"

The new Chancellor paused, shook his head. "I have never seen you handle a situation with such incompetence, Finis, never! Did you expect me to decline the nomination to this office? I couldn't!" He paused once more. "I couldn't."

Valorum did not know what to say. He stood staring, his throat tight.

There was a muffled sound from somewhere. A tinny whisper: " --at each other's throats! What should we do?"

Palpatine's staff must have heard their shouting through the steel doors and surreptitiously turned on his com. The new Chancellor whirled, infuriated, and struck the button so hard the small com unit jumped and clattered back to the desk, its plastic casing cracked.

The two men faced each other, breathing hard, one face flushed with anger and the other deathly pale.

Valorum's heart beat with odd little jerks. "What I did was entirely proper," he rasped. "The Jedi are the most reliable means of managing a conflict of this nature ... have always been, for hundreds of years!"

"Well, see ... what ... happened!" snapped Palpatine, enunciating each word very precisely. "You, my friend, failed to study your opponents, failed to understand them. We have the best negotiators at our disposal here, hostage specialists, psychologists, xenopsychologists. Did you make use of any of this professional expertise before you made your decision? Did you consult with someone who had? No. This failure was predictable, utterly predictable."

It was the shattering blow to Valorum's fragile hold on his confidence. Now it was his turn to crumple, sagging over Palpatine's desk.

"Utterly predictable," the Chancellor repeated, his tenor vibrato croaking in the low register.

At last, Valorum accepted it. The terrible weight of his own failure and guilt descended over him, pinning him helplessly down. He bowed his head, blinked back tears. What to say? There was nothing, nothing he could say.

"Palpatine ... " he managed at last. "You're right. By the Force, you're right." He stood, staring down at his own guilty reflection in the polished desktop, struggling against impending tears.

When he could look at him again, Palpatine's face was strange, indeed. As if he were divided between standing callously by and approaching to take his arm.

"Perhaps it was time that I stepped down," said Finis, tonelessly. "Never would I have believed myself capable of such gross miscalculation ... " he swallowed, turned to face the Chancellor.

"Forgive me."

Palpatine gave him a long, slow look, full of some nameless uncertainty. Almost, came Finis's weird, unbidden thought -- as if he were afraid of him.

Finally the blue gaze shifted to the air traffic outside. "You've seen me make mistakes," said the same low croak. "It's only important that you forgive yourself."

"No," said Finis. "No. It's important that you forgive me. It's important to me."

The Chancellor expostulated suddenly, a well-known Nubian epithet. His long robes whipped fitfully around him in a whirlwind of frustration. "Out," he snapped, pointing to the door. "Get out! Get out of my office, right now. Out!"

Finis hesitated for a moment. Then he bowed once; bowed to the Chancellor.

He could feel Palpatine rustling up behind him as he exited. The doors opened and six staffers' heads jerked up simultaneously as if they were on strings. At the door to the anteroom stood Serena of Naboo, another old friend, wringing her hands; Avila had probably called her to come stop them from killing each other. Not that she could have helped; Palpatine had rejected her, too, as painfully and inexplicably as he had Valorum himself.

Palpatine gestured at her roughly. "Get out of my office, Serena." He placed his hand on Avila's desk and looked around the anteroom, giving his staffers a dangerous claw fish grin. "I need a few moments alone with my staff."

Six people gulped audibly as Serena took Finis's elbow and guided him out into the corridor.

It was some time before the new Chancellor settled himself into his grand office again. He took a deep, calming breath, and tried a smile.

It had worked out well, overall. Valorum would surely resign now, and that was good. Any lingering support for the previous Chancellor could spring into new life in a few years, and Palpatine did not want that.

Some small part of him regretted the loss of their friendship, which Palpatine had truly enjoyed. But he, Palpatine, Sidious -- he had needed to go somewhere, and Finis had been in the way. There was no help for it, no contest, no question. Nothing else to be done.

They could not have parted on better terms, though, Palpatine reasoned, this time with a smile that was genuine. At the proper time, he would show up at Finis's door, offering the forgiveness he had asked for and seeking to make amends, and once more -- as always -- Finis would perform exactly as required.

He had plans for former Chancellor Valorum, yet.

SPEB