Plagueis's first guise under which to meet the young Palpatine, is at a rare political event in the Palpatines' home, in which Tapalo is meeting with the other faction. He'll first need to find his father, of course.

His father is here!

"Magister Damask," says Cosinga Palpatine, a suspicious look on his face. "It's... good to see you. I understand you've been... involving yourself in the recent political events?"

"Yes," replies Damask. "But please, feel free to discuss other matters. We may not agree on all the fine details of policy, but I'm quite sure we can find ways to bring a better future to this planet together. How have you been? Is your family well?"

Okay... they're socializing? "I've been rather well, thank you, and my family too." A blatant lie, but it's not like that matters. "We found an excellent resort by the Lake Paonga for the summer, and we - " covered up two murders with crippling bribes " - were learning a few charming little sports, like - " riding landspeeders " - fishing, and noeu-sphere racketball, and a little dejarik."

"Oh? I used to play dejarik, although I'm afraid I'm out of practice these days." He's not at all out of practice. He tries to play it with other politicians whenever possible, and then analyzes the game afterwards with a droid, to determine whether they tried to beat him, or tried to lose. It's an excellent way for him to get a grasp on their psychology, with all the ways that dejarik metaphorically stands for the game of politics itself. But if Cosinga brought it up, maybe he tries the same sort of thing, sometimes? Well, that doesn't really matter right now, Cosinga's not the one he wants to get a read on. So he'll put it off. "Hopefully we can play a game or two some time. I don't believe I'm familiar with noeu-sphere racketball?"

"A fairly simple sport; two teams try to hit a ball back and forth across a net, and if one fails to intercept it, they lose a point."

"So, how have you been spending your time? I've heard you've been very active in your science division?"

He was not supposed to have heard that; that was supposed to have been kept quiet, but he supposes things leak out all the time. What was the lie again - "Yes, a little. I studied some biology when I was younger, and I helped them make a bit of a breakthrough on Iktotchi horn rot. We have treatments in the early stages of production, and so far they've been doing a marvelous job at repairing damage from rockmite infestations. It could entirely revolutionize the horn care industry for the entire Iktotch moon. I can't say I deserve that much of the credit, I have a wonderful team. But it was a nice experience getting to help out on the industrial level for a change."

Hopefully that will satisfy him. There's not much harm in people knowing that Damask is working on biological research, but if anyone found out that the scale was far, far larger than one disease on one moon... well, they're not ready for that yet.

Once he's solved immortality, then the galaxy will know. Until then, he's an ordinary businessman with a few harmless hobbies, that hopefully people will stop hearing about so often.

"Oh, that's nice to hear. Have you had much time to get away from work, yourself?" The answer will be no and that will remind him that no matter how rich he is, he's still just an ordinary worker, not part of the true aristocracy.

Damask frowns. "No, I don't think I really have." Well, Cosinga can play all the status games he wants, Damask prefers not to be thought of as too important. Back to the topic he wanted to discuss - "I suppose I've always wanted to settle down a little, start a family like you. It must be quite nice, having children around the house."

"Yes, it is." For four out of five of his children. "I don't suppose any of them are around - ah..." He looks around the room. There's Sheev. Nope! Where are the others? Any of the others? Any of them? Really? Urgh, but now he's looked at Sheev and it'll seem too awkward if he doesn't call him over. "Sheev? Could you come over? There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Sheev Palpatine arrives, with a grimace. "Hello," he says. "I'm Palpatine." He shakes Damask's hand.

He's definitely Force-sensitive. Very powerful. He can tell just by being near him. "Nice to meet you - ah... Sheev?"

"I'd prefer just Palpatine, sir," he says.

"He doesn't much like his name," Cosinga says with a shrug and a forced smile. Because the first name stands for what his parents chose for him, and the last name stands for all of his power.

"Of course," says Damask. "Have you been enjoying your vacation? I heard you had been picking up a few sports?"

Oh shit did someone find out about - "Yes, a little," Palpatine replies. "Racketball, and dejarik, and landspeeder racing, and fishing, and so on." Put it in the middle, so it doesn't draw attention in case he doesn't know.

"Landspeeder racing! Your father didn't mention that!" Damask knows exactly what happened and is really enjoying this subtext.

"Yes, my father taught me how to drive one, and we were riding in town for a while." Associate the blame with his father so that he'll have no choice but to once again intervene in favor of his son, even if he doesn't want to.

You bastard. Unfortunately not literally, he's tested and it really is his son, even with all of its problems. "Yes, it's a fairly relaxing sport," he says. "If you wanted to take a ride, I'm sure we could arrange that?" If Damask already knows what happened, Cosinga has already lost. But if not, then he wants to make sure to make sure he gets an impression of it being very slow, and free from any risk whatsoever. A nice, calm ride would ensure that. And he supposes if Damask does know, Cosinga can use the ride to try to bring up bribery, although he suspects it'll take millions upon millions of credits if it's even possible at all.

"That would be a pleasure!" Hopefully these are two-person landspeeders? If they're fit for racing, they probably can't fit four. So he needs to arrange it so that Sheev - or just the young Palpatine, he supposes, if the boy doesn't like the name - ends up driving. "Palpatine," he says to the boy, "would you like to give me a tour of this delightful area?"

No no no no say no say no he's giving Sheev glares which clearly mean no he needs to do the driving himself -

"That sounds delightful!"

DAMMIT.

Once they've gotten a safe distance from the Palpatines' home, Damask casually says, "I know your secret, Palpatine."

Wonderful. Does he have a weapon on hand?