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Considering that it was Finis Valorum’s parents who had underwritten Brief Reign to begin with, it was only fitting that the supreme chancellor be on hand for the opera’s long-awaited return to Coruscant. The mere fact that he would be attending had driven up the price of tickets and made them as difficult to procure as Adegan crystals. As a result, the building was more packed with luminaries than it had been in a long while.

As was customary, Valorum delayed his arrival, so as to ensure that he would be last to be seated. Restless for a glance at him, the audience came to its feet in prolonged applause as he stepped onto the elaborate balcony that had been reserved for Valorum family members for well over five hundred years.

Eschewing his usual surround of blue-caped and helmeted Senate Guards, Valorum was accompanied only by his administrative aide, Sei Taria—in matching burgundy septsilk—a petite young woman half his age, with oblique eyes and skin the color of burrmillet grain.

In true Coruscant manner, rumors began circulating even before Valorum took his seat. But the Supreme Chancellor was inured to innuendo, not merely as an effect of his aristocratic upbringing, but also because of the fact that nearly every sectorial senator—marital status notwithstanding—had made it their practice to appear in public with attractive young consorts.

Valorum waved graciously and inclined his head in a show of benign sufferance. Then, before sitting down, he directed a second bow to a private balcony directly across the amphitheater.

The dozen or so prosperous-looking patrons in the balcony Valorum singled out returned the bow, and remained standing until Sei Taria was also seated—no small feat for the owner of the box, Senator Orn Free Taa, who had grown so corpulent during his tenure on Coruscant that his bulk filled the space of what had once been three separate seats.

Cerulean, with pouty red lips and eyelids, Taa had a huge oval face and a double chin the size of a bantha’s feed bag. He was a Twi’lek of Rutian descent; his lekku head-tails, engorged with fat, hung like sated snakes to his massive chest. His gaudy robe was the size of a tent. Prominently on display was his Lethan Twi’lek consort, nubile and high-cheekboned, her red body draped in bolts of pure shimmersilk.

A member of the Appropriations Committee, Taa was a vocal opponent of Valorum, since his spice-producing homeworld of Ryloth had, time and again, been denied favored-world status.

Taa’s guests in the box included Senators Toonbuck Toora, Passel Argente, Edcel Bar Gane, and Palpatine, along with two of Palpatine’s personal aides, Kinman Doriana and Sate Pestage.

“Do you know why Valorum loves to attend the opera?” Taa asked in Basic, out of the corner of his huge mouth. “Because it’s the only place on Coruscant where an entire audience will applaud him.”

“And he does little more here than he does in the senate,” Toora said. “He merely observes the protocols and feigns interest.”

Fabulously wealthy, she was a hairy biped with a wide mouth, a triple-bearded chin, and beady eyes and a pug nose squeezed onto the bony ridge that capped her squat head.

“Valorum is toothless,” Passel Argente chimed in. A sallow-complexioned humanoid affiliated with the Corporate Alliance, he wore a black turban and bib that revealed only his face and the swirling horn that emerged from the crown of his head. “At a time when we need vigor, direction, unity, Valorum insists on taking the tried-and-true route. The route guaranteed not to upset the status quo.”

“Much to our enjoyment,” Toora murmured.

“But a confidential bow,” Taa said, as he was maneuvering into the chair that had been specially made to conform to his girth. “To what could we possibly owe the honor?”

Toora gestured in dismissal. “This nonsense about the Trade Federation’s requests. Valorum needs all the support he can muster if he’s to succeed in convincing us to enact taxation of the free trade zones.”

“Then it is even more curious that