Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [209]
“I’m becoming afraid,” she replied in a bitter undertone, “that I might know who the bad guys are here, too.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re starting to sound like a Separatist.”
“Anakin, the whole galaxy knows now that Count Dooku is dead. This is the time we should be pursing a diplomatic resolution to the war—but instead the fighting is intensifying! Palpatine’s your friend, he might listen to you. When you see him tonight, ask him, in the name of simple decency, to offer a ceasefire—”
His face went hard. “Is that an order?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Do I get any say in this?” He stalked toward her. “Does my opinion matter? What if I don’t agree with you? What if I think Palpatine’s way is the right way?”
“Anakin, hundreds of thousands of beings are dying every day!”
“It’s a war, Padmé. We didn’t ask for it, remember? You were there—maybe we should have ‘pursued a diplomatic resolution’ in that beast arena!”
“I was—” She shrank away from what she saw on his face, blinking harder, brows drawn together. “I was only asking.…”
“Everyone is only asking. Everyone wants something from me. And I’m the bad guy if they don’t get it!” He spun away from her, cloak whirling, and found himself at the veranda’s edge, leaning on the rail. The durasteel piping groaned in his mechanical grip.
“I’m sick of this,” he muttered. “I’m sick of all of it.”
He didn’t hear her come to him; the rush of aircars through the lanes below the veranda drowned her footsteps. He didn’t see the hurt on her face, or the hint of tears in her eyes, but he could feel them, in the tentative softness of her touch when she stroked his arm, and he could hear them in her hesitant voice. “Anakin, what is it? What is it really?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t look at her.
“Nothing that’s your fault,” he said. “Nothing you can help.”
“Don’t shut me out, Anakin. Let me try.”
“You can’t help me.” He stared down through dozens of crisscross lanes of traffic, down toward the invisible bedrock of the planet. “I’m trying to help you.”
He’d seen something in her eyes, when he’d mentioned the Council and Palpatine.
He’d seen it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Her hand went still, and she did not answer.
“I can feel it, Padmé. I sense you’re keeping a secret.”
“Oh?” she said softly. Lightly. “That’s funny, I was thinking the same about you.”
He just kept staring down over the rail into the invisible distance below. She moved close to him, moved against him, her arm sliding around his shoulders, her cheek leaning lightly on his arm. “Why does it have to be like this? Why does there have to even be such a thing as war? Can’t we just … go back? Even just to pretend. Let’s pretend we’re back at the lake on Naboo, just the two of us. When there was no war, no politics. No plotting. Just us. You and me, and love. That’s all we need. You and me, and love.”
Right now Anakin couldn’t remember what that had been like.
“I have to go,” he said. “The Chancellor is waiting.”
Two masked, robed, silent Red Guards flanked the door to the Chancellor’s private box at the Galaxies Opera. Anakin didn’t need to speak; as he approached, one of them said, “You are expected,” and opened the door.
The small round box had only a handful of seats, overlooking the spread of overdressed beings who filled every seat in the orchestra; on this opening night, it seemed everyone had forgotten there was a war on. Anakin barely gave a glance toward the immense sphere of shimmering water that rippled gently in the stage’s artificial zero-g; he had no interest in ballet, Mon Calamari or otherwise.
In the dim semi-gloom, Palpatine sat with the speaker of the Senate, Mas Amedda, and his administrative aide, Sly Moore. Anakin stopped at the back of the box.
If I were the spy the Council wants me to be, I suppose I should be creeping up behind them so that I can listen in.
A spasm of distaste passed over his face; he took care to wipe it off before