Landing his private yacht on Sojourn, Plagueis intended to move his new captives to their holding cells soon, but first he felt a compulsion to attend to something quite different.

Plagueis turned a corner of the compound, and there it was.  The hallway with the holding cells containing his experimental subjects.  There were forty cells, half empty, the other half containing a number of sapient species--human, trandoshan, yinchorri, wookie, and others still.  As he walked past them, a datapad in his hand, he frowned, troubled by something besides their progression in his experiments.  He saw them all watch him with varying degrees of apprehension and hatred, their pain apparent to him not only through their expressions, but through his connection to them in the Force.

It was that pain that had been troubling him.  It was causing him pain.  All of them had been slaves or other unfortunates who he had acquired through various shady means.  They had done nothing to provoke his cruelty to them.  Of course, Plagueis had never cared before. But it seemed that had changed.  He entered the cell of the first captive, a human dressed in the plain brown jumpsuit he supplied all of them.

“Hello,” he said.  “You are injured.  Allow me to assist.”  He held out a hand, and coaxed the midichlorians to close the precise, surgical wounds in the her arm.  Wounds he had created.

The human watched him silently with suspicion.  Plagueis hesitated.

“I am going to release you.”

The human gave him a wary look.  “You will send me back to Gardulla?”  Fear and uncertainty flitted across her features.

“No,”  Plagueis said.  “You will be free. ”

“Where will I go?”

“A few moments, please,” Plagueis said, bringing up the HoloNet page for Damask Holdings on his datapad and logging into the site.  A moneyless freed slave would just end up a slave again.  Clearly, they would need some sort of financial resources if they were to avoid that fate.  But how much should he give them?

Perhaps 5,000? he thought.   No, that won’t last long at all.

25,000, then?   It seemed a rather paltry amount.

50,000?   Perhaps more reasonable, but they had no possessions--no clothes, besides the rather unstylish jumpsuit they wore, no speeders, no furniture, no books, datapads, nor anything else an ordinary person would have purchased over the course of their life.

100,000?   That might make up for their disadvantage somewhat, but what about education, without which they might be unqualified for any jobs allowing them to better themselves?

500,000?   Yes, that seemed--but wait.  What if they had health expenses from damage he couldn’t heal, or from something he had overlooked?

1 million.  Surely that is enough.

He frowned.

Perhaps there should be some additional cushion, in case I overlooked an expense.

He created the new account, placing the ownership in the human’s name.  He had logged in as a fictitious employee, so the account creation would not be linked to him.  After all, a new account created by a large banking company such as his was just another account among billions.  An account created by the CEO of that company, on the other hand, would be rather more peculiar and could draw unwanted attention.

He finished creating the account in a matter of minutes.

Plagueis handed her a card.  “This is linked to an account containing 2 million credits.  It is yours.”

She looked at the card in stunned shock.  “Why are you doing this?”

Plagueis looked down at the cell’s silvery metallic floor.  “I believe it is called--guilt,” he said.  He paused.  “You will not remember any of this.  You escaped Gardulla and won the money in the lotto.”  He didn’t need to elaborate the suggestion.  Her mind would fill in the necessary details.

“If you say so,” she said, giving him a bemused smile.  Plagueis returned the smile.  The suggestion would not take effect until she left the planet.  It would be too confusing otherwise.

He briefly wondered if giving former slaves such exorbitant resources might draw unwanted attention to himself, or to them.  He did not think it would be traced to him.  The truth of the situation was in this case much more bizarre than any likely scenario a hypothetical investigator might devise.  Perhaps the main concern would be suspicion that the money was stolen.  But he had already created a record trail to a fictitious lotto account from which the money had supposedly been transferred from.  And any investigation of transfers from  that account would only occur if the account holder complained, which of course was a rare occurrence for nonexistent account holders.

But what if?  What if somehow, an investigation was opened by some nosy busybody who found the circumstances suspicious?  Possible.  He supposed that was a risk, but he also thought that 2 million credits would give someone reasonable protection from that risk.

More worryingly, was it possible the Jedi would become involved, perhaps if one of the former slaves was linked to criminal activity?  And what if that somehow led them to him?  Plagueis smiled wryly, quickly dismissing the thought.   Because of course the Jedi always investigate crimes outside their jurisdiction.

With that fear allayed, Plagueis opened the next cell.

It took him some time to attend to the rest of the captives.  However, after three hours, twenty Force healings, 40 million credits, and one large cruiser shuttle later, he had finally completed his task.  All forty cells stood empty.   It was necessary.  I needed more--space. Only, of course he hadn’t, not with half the cells originally empty, and space didn’t explain the effort he had gone through to soothe their pain, or the sizable sum of money he had unnecessarily parted with.

He sighed and then turned to the opposite wall.  Several hundred smaller cages lined the wall.  These were the non-sapient test subjects.  He stared at them.  Beady eyes of various furred, feathered, and scaled creatures stared back.  He sighed and put a hand to his forehead.

Oh, no. Nonononono.

Not them, too.

I’m not done with them.

Those experiments are still--in progress.

Much like the status of the other experiments with the slaves.

But! The slaves were different!

Larger.  Took up too much space.

I won’t do it.

I won’t!

Slowly, gritting his teeth, he walked up to the control console and stared down at it.   He noted the red of the alphanumeric Aurabesh characters and the black of the background.  He noted the curved squares outlining each character.  He ran a finger down the side of the console.

Some of the furred animals began squeaking and chittering excitedly.

“This isn’t what it looks, you know,” he said to them with a grimace.

A lizard stared at him.

“You mean nothing to me. Vermin.”  He sneered at it.

Several birds cooed.

“You think that’s charming?  You know what’s even better?  Slides of your entrails.”

Soon the animals were emitting a cacophony of sound.

With deliberate slowness, he typed each letter and digit of the authorization code, his face a mask of incandescent rage.  Nearly completed, he yanked his hand back, as if from a flame, holding his wrist with the other hand.

If I do this, it undermines everything I stand for.

After a maddening several minutes of deliberation, he loosened his grip on the hand, and it reached out again, tentatively.  The last letter was typed.  All the cells opened at once.

Immediately, animals jumped, hopped, or flew out from their cages. A feeling of immense relief washed over him as he watched them scurry, slither, and flap away in all directions.

“Go free!” Plagueis said quietly, smiling brightly while feeling both strangely elated and disgusted with himself.  The animals dispersed within the compound.  There were no windows or doors leading outside in this area.   Free enough , he supposed.  Plagueis didn’t have time to carry each and every one of the small creatures outside.  It wasn’t as if he cared what happened to them, after all.

Revolting, all of them.

I have completely lost it.

He sighed.  He still needed to go and move the captured criminals here.  Then he would wait for Sidious.  His Apprentice would be arriving with his own set of captives soon.

Plagueis wondered why he did not feel similarly distraught about his new test subjects, who he thought much more similar to him than any of the ones he had released.  How exactly did this emotional response work?  This ‘love’? It didn’t seem to make him care for everyone indiscriminately.  Thankfully.  But what was the deciding factor?  He needed more data. And he needed it fast.

Subject is experiencing rapid degradation of character.  Loss of resolve and-- he grimaced-- gross sentimentality.

Exiting hyperspace, Sidious thought it was time to ensure everything was in order for the trip to Sojourn.

Sidious looked to the cradle where he would be leaving Maul for the duration of his stay at Sojourn.  The caretaker droid, with its boxy but friendly-looking face would see to Maul’s needs while Sidious and Talzin walked through the compound that comprised the secret laboratory of Sidious’ Master.

“You’re sure you can do this without being detected by Plagueis?”  Sidious spoke to Talzin inside the ship, holding Maul in one arm.  He had some apprehensions about her trying to use her powers of invisibility to deceive his Master.

Talzin smiled.  “I wasn’t detected by you.”

“That’s different,” Sidious said.  “Plagueis is considerably more knowledgeable than I.  He has lived longer already than any human lives in an entire lifetime.”

“There is only way to find out for certain, yes,” Talzin said.  “But I will not wait here, in fear of him.  If the worst happens then I will--improvise.”

Sidious frowned.  “You mean, you don’t have a plan for if something goes wrong?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Well, I do!”  He took a deep breath, his mind racing.  “Alright.  If Plagueis sees you, I will feign ignorance of your presence, and I will offer to question you myself.  If Plagueis refuses that offer and takes you captive, I will secretly release you, and again claim ignorance when he brings up your disappearance.  If he tries to kill you, we will both attack him then and try to kill him.”  It seemed a very inelegant and simplistic plan, but surely it was better than nothing.  Improvise indeed!

“Your concern for me is heartwarming,” Talzin said.  “If entirely unnecessary.”

Sidious pointed a finger at her, scowling.  “I am not doing this for you.  I am doing this for Maul.  You would do well to understand the difference.”

“Of course,” she said, smiling serenely.

Infuriating , he thought.  However, it wasn’t anger, but worry that creased his brow as he watched her prepare her spell.

Sidious had felt a change in the humid air of Sojourn the moment he had arrived, a feeling of the Force twisting in on itself, and had feared that it might be a sign of his Master’s growing temper, perhaps at the failures Sidious had reported to him.

He couldn’t have been more mistaken.

“Master,” Sidious said, as they reached the cell block, Sidious leading a prisoner towards the cells and zapping him with Force Lightning whenever he thought to try to escape.  “This place seems unusually empty.”  There were a handful of prisoners who looked to be the criminals Plagueis had recently captured, but Sidious knew he had had a number of slaves he used in his experiments.

“That's because I released all my prior test subjects.”

“The slaves?  I assume you cleared their memories of this place?”

“Yes, that's correct.”

Sidious's eyes widened.  “You completed your experiments with them?”  He shoved the captive criminal forward when he dallied in front of him.  Briefly, he wondered where Talzin might be at this moment, but of course it could only be a good thing that he couldn’t answer that question.

“Not really,” Plagueis said casually, his expression dispassionate.  “I needed the extra space.”  He didn’t meet his Apprentice’s gaze.

Sidious didn’t believe the excuse for a moment.  He tried to wrap his mind around the idea of an impulse powerful enough to cause Plagueis to abandon an experiment.  Perhaps if he felt his life threatened.  But that hardly seemed the case here.  Yet he knew what must be at the root of this.  This was not attachment to a particular person he felt close to, as Sidious had come to associate with his own changed nature.  This was true, undiluted  compassion--a drive to care that extended even to those he may have encountered only briefly and might never see again.   It was that terrible rot the Jedi were always preaching.  At any rate, for Plagueis to put such things even above his own greatest interests seemed inconceivable to Sidious.

Sidious resolved then and there not to let himself go that far.  He would care about Maul, and only Maul.  To allow himself anything else would be the worst weakness and sentimentality.   Though he admitted, he also cared for his mother and siblings--but they were dead--so he did not see how that could further influence him.  And he certainly didn’t care for Talzin, though he couldn’t help wonder if she trailed behind them or to the side, and whether she was keeping a cautious distance from Plagueis or hovering over his shoulder.  Plagueis who had, it seemed, undergone a much more dramatic shift than his Apprentice.

And the release of the slaves was not even the full extent of it.

“I notice,” Sidious said carefully, “that I hear nothing from the small cells, either.”

“Oh, that.  There was a malfunction in the cage wiring.  It released all the test subjects,” Plagueis said calmly.

“Most unfortunate,” Sidious said.

“Indeed,” Plaguies replied, though he hardly sounded disappointed, and there was the shadow of a smile on his face as he stared off into the distance.

I don’t believe it , Sidious thought, stunned. He let them go.  What other explanation made sense?  Sidious did not buy for a moment that the malfunction had been in the wiring .  It was all due to the effects of the Font, as Talzin called it.  What else would explain his Master’s complete lack of rage at this turn of events?

Sidious realized then that he was feeling something akin to affection for his Master.  The Muun had been more of a father to him than the man who had sired him, after all.  And he seemed genuinely calm and content now, his manner pleasant and friendly. No.  This is dangerous , he thought. Plagueis is dangerous.  He needs to die.  It's the only way to be sure I'm safe.  It's the only way to be sure Maul is safe.  No loose ends.

Plagueis wasn't making such thoughts easy, however.

"I'm pleased with your results, Sidious," he said.  "With these test subjects, I will have plenty of data points.  You have done an excellent job."

Sidious  tried to quash the growing pride he felt.  What made it worst of all was that he suspected his Master might actually mean it.  "Are you certain?  As I said, I wasn't able to retrieve the pirate captain."

Plagueis waved a hand dismissively.  "These things happen," he said.  "Anyway, a sapient Dark Side nexus would hardly be an ideal test subject.  Probably would have thrown my data way off."  He looked up, turning his head to an empty cell.  “You can put this one here.”

Sidious smiled, shoving the prisoner into the indicated cell and activating the force field to contain him.   “Of course, Master.”  He began to worry that his desire for Plagueis’ approval would interfere with what he felt needed to be done.  He had already told Talzin that he planned to strike at Plagueis soon, perhaps even within the next year.

But he couldn’t do that if he was going to become so sickeningly maudlin.