The Gran showed the Muuns his back and began to stamp toward the door, leaving his aide to stir in confusion for a moment, before he, too, rose and hurried out.
Hill’s mouth was open in surprise. “He can’t—”
“Let him go,” Damask said.
The elder Muun compressed already thin lips. “If we’re to benefit from the power they wield in the Senate, we’ll need to find some way to placate them, Hego.”
“I disagree,” Damask said. “We need to find a way to show Teem that he is expendable.”
By the time the guards had ushered in the quartet of Gossams who managed Subtext Mining, his ire had risen so high in his throat he could taste it. Typical of their diminutive species, the three saurians had reverse- articulated legs, fish-shaped heads, and long necks Damask knew he could snap with two fingers — and perhaps would, for how they had double-crossed Tenebrous.
“We were stunned to receive your invitation, Magister,” Subtext’s chief operating officer said. “We had no idea we were even on your scanners.”
Damask smiled thinly. “We keep a close watch on galactic events. I trust you’ve been enjoying our food and entertainment?”
“More than you know, Magister,” the chief Gossam said with a meaningful laugh. “Or perhaps more than we care to admit.”
Damask forced a kindred laugh. “More than I know … That’s very funny indeed.” He broke off laughing to add, “Allow us to show you how we execute some of the inner workings of the Gathering.”
The Gossams looked at one another in surprise before their leader said, “We’d be honored.”
Damask stood and nodded to four of the Sun Guards, who fell in alongside the Gossams as he, Hill, and two other Muuns led them to a bank of ancient turbolift cars.
“All the real action takes place below,” Damask said, setting the car in motion with a wave of his hand.
In silence they descended two levels, and when the car’s doors parted, they filed into a cavernous underground hall. Central to the dimly lighted space were several large square platforms that could be raised by means of hydraulic poles, operated by separate teams of sweating, snuffling snub-nosed Ugnaughts. One platform, burdened with a slag heap of metal, was just descending, to sounds of raucous cheering and wild applause entering through an opening in the towering ceiling. Secured by manacles and chains on an adjacent platform writhed a hissing, snarling, fanged beast the size of a bantha.
“We’re directly beneath the central courtyard,” Damask explained as the beast-laden platform was elevating. “Each cargo symbolizes an abhorrent aspect of the Republic — practices we all wish to see overturned.”
By then the platform had been raised to the level of the courtyard. The crowd quieted for a moment, then, simultaneous with massive discharges of energy, erupted into ovation once more.
“Those discharges were the laser cannons doing their work,” Damask said loudly enough to be heard as the platform dropped back into view, revealing that what had been the beast was now a smoking, foul-smelling husk of sinew and bone. He aimed a sinister smile at the Gossams. “It’s all theater, you understand. Merriment for the masses.”
“Obviously a real crowd-pleaser, Magister,” one of the Gossams said, swallowing some of his words.
Damask spread his thin arms wide. “Then you must join in.” Approaching, he nodded his chin toward one of the empty platforms, beside which the Sun Guards had positioned themselves. “Climb aboard.”
The saurians stared at him.
“Go ahead,” Damask said, without humor now. “Climb aboard.”
Two of the guards brandished blasters.
The chief Gossam looked from one Muun to the next, terror widening his eyes. “Have we done something to displease you, Magister?”
“A good question,” Damask said. “Have you?”
The chief Gossam didn’t speak until all four had clambered up onto the platform. “Precisely how did we come to your notice?”
“A mutual friend brought you to our attention,” Damask said. “A Bith named Rugess Nome. You recently supplied him with a survey report and a mining probe.”
The platform began to rise and the Gossams extended their long necks in fear. “We can make this right!” one of them said in a pleading voice.
Damask eyed the ceiling. “Then be quick about it. The laser cannons fire automatically.”
“Plasma!” the same one fairly shrieked. “An untapped reservoir of plasma! Enough to provide energy to a thousand worlds!”
Damask signaled one of the Ugnaughts to halt the platform’s rise. “Where? On what world?”
“Naboo,” the Gossam said; then louder: “Naboo!”
Hill elaborated, though unnecessarily. “Something of a hermit planet in the Mid Rim, and capital of the Chommell sector. Relatively close to Tatooine, in fact. Once a source for the veermoks we had cloned for use as game in the greel forests.”
Damask allowed him to finish and looked up at the Gossams. “Who hired you to conduct a mining survey?”
“A faction in opposition to the monarchy, Magister.”
“We swear it to be true,” another said.
“This Naboo is ruled by a royal?” Damask asked.
“A King,” the chief Gossam said. “His detractors wish to see the planet opened to galactic trade.”
Damask paced away from the platform. He considered torturing the Gossams, to learn who had hired them to sabotage Tenebrous on Bal’demnic, but decided to leave that for another day, since the Bith was known to have had many adversaries. Turning finally, he ordered the Ugnaught to return the platform to the floor.
“This plasma reservoir is as enormous as you claim?” he demanded.
“Unique among known worlds,” the leader said in relief as he and his comrades stood shivering in Damask’s withering gaze.
Damask regarded them in silence, then swung to the commander of the Sun Guards. “Transport them to the most remote world you can find in the Tingel Arm, and make certain they remain there in the event I have further need of them.”
Leaving his fellow Muuns to rest, Damask climbed the fort’s eastern rampart for starrise. He was as weary as any of them but too dissatisfied with the outcome of the Gathering to find much comfort in sleep. On the chance that an untapped reservoir of plasma might be of interest to the disgruntled leadership of the Trade Federation — and ignoring for the moment the effect it could have on Malastare’s energy exports — he had ordered Hill and the others to learn everything they could about the planet Naboo and its isolationist monarch.
Once the Gossams of Subtext Mining had been dealt with, Damask and the Muuns had devoted the rest of the evening to meeting with members of what they termed their steering committee, which was made up of select politicians, lobbyists, and industrialists; financiers representing Sestina, Aargau, and the Bank of the Core; elite members of the Order of the Canted Circle and the Trade Federation Directorate; and gifted ship designers, like Narro Sienar, whom Plagueis planned to support in his bid to become chief operating officer of Santhe/Sienar Technologies. The committee met periodically, though seldom on Sojourn, to assure the swift passage of corporate-friendly legislation; fix the price of such commodities as Tibanna gas, transparisteel, and starship fuel; and keep Senators in place on Coruscant as career diplomats, as a means of distancing them from what was really taking place outside the Core.
Not everyone agreed that the Muuns’ strategy of “tactical astriction” was the best method for keeping the Republic off-balance and thus ripe for manipulation. But Damask had insisted that their common goal of oligarchy — government by a select few — would eventually be realized, even if attained as a result of actions and events few would observe, and about which some of the membership might never learn.
Starlight glinted from the hulls of the last of the departing ships. Damask took comfort in knowing that his guests believed they had taken part in something secretive and grand, and had been encouraged to execute campaigns that on the surface may have seemed informed by self-interest but were in fact bits of Sith business.
Movements in the symphony that was the Grand Plan—
