Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine® Volume Three Page 3

  Rom always forgot that part. Being ruthless gave him a headache.

  Now he sat in the meeting room in the Tower of Commerce reserved for the Economic Congress of Advisors. The thirteen congressmen sat in chairs, six to a side and one at the foot of the table made of gold that sat in the room’s center. The nagus’s chair—the only one that actually had proper cushions—was at the head, and it too was made of gold, with jeweled decorations. Small computer terminals sat in front of each chair, and a large viewer—framed in gold—sat on the wall to the nagus’s right. On the left was a shelf containing all manner of expensive objects. Also on that shelf was the machine that made a visual record of this and all meetings of the congress, which were closed to the general public when they occurred. However, copies of the visual record were sold afterward for a good price.

  Rom stared at the tapestry sewn in latinum that hung on the far wall depicting Grand Nagus Gint, the first nagus, ascending into the arms of the Blessed Exchequer in the Divine Treasury. Rom had heard rumors that Grand Nagus Smeet had sold the tapestry and replaced it with a fake, but he had never believed those rumors. The cost of producing a fake would be almost as much as the sale price of the original. Still, that may not have stopped Smeet. He wasn’t the most financially bright nagus—that’s why he was assassinated.

  Rom turned his mind away from thoughts of Smeet. They hit too close to home.

  The president of the congress, an eager young Ferengi named Fal, sat to Rom’s right and was tapping commands at his terminal. “The next order of business is the resolution to create an investigatory arm of the police force.”

  Kain, the oldest member of the congress—Rom had heard that he used to babysit Zek—grumbled, and coughed twice, hacking up a considerable amount of phlegm. When he was finished, he carefully wrapped the handkerchief he’d coughed into and put it in a case he removed from his pocket. He’s probably going to try to sell it, Rom thought. Kain had retired to a moon that he bought a few years ago—ironically, from Rom’s own cousin Gaila, who was in desperate need of quick cash at the time—but Zek had lured him out of retirement to join his new congress. According to the records, Zek’s lure had been another moon.

  His coughing fit over, Kain asked, “Whadda we need that for? We’ve got a police force and a military.”

  “Our police force is a collection of whip-wielding thugs,” said Nurt, a wide-eyed, round-stomached male of middle age, who had been one of the major proponents of Zek’s reforms over the past few years. “They don’t know how to solve crimes, they just know how to take bribes and beat people up.”

  “Isn’t that all a police force is supposed to do?” Kain asked.

  Not answering the question, Nurt instead said, “As for the military, their jurisdiction is purely extraplanetary—they don’t have the authority to act on Ferenginar itself, and I don’t see any good reason why they should be allowed to.”

  “This is insane,” Kain said. “We’ve got the FCA to regulate financial malfeasance.”

  Fal said, “The idea isn’t to regulate malfeasance, it’s to solve actual physical crimes—assaults, murders, that sort of thing.”

  “Whose lame-brained idea was this, anyhow?” Kain asked.

  Fal stared at Rom. Rom stared back, wondering why the young president felt the need to stare at him.

  Then he realized he was being prompted. “Oh! Uhh, it was my idea.”

  “Oh, and an excellent idea it was, Grand Nagus,” said Liph, another of the congressmen, and several others followed with similar groveling.

  There was a lot about his new job that Rom didn’t like, but he really enjoyed the groveling.

  Kain, however, was not among those in suck-up mode. He pulled on one of the tufts of hair in his left ear. “It’s a stupid idea. What’ll it accomplish?”

  “Well, uhh, it’ll get more people who commit assaults and rapes and murders and robberies off the streets.”

  Sitting up straighter in his chair, Kain coughed three times, then said, “Since when is thievery a crime?”

  Nurt shook his head. “We’re not speaking of the noble art of theft, Congressman Kain, but rather outright robbery. Why, for the last month, a succession of homes in the city of Kope have been broken into, with valuables being stolen. There’s no art to this, no financial acumen being shown, just blundering into profit like some kind of Klingon.”

  “Worse,” Liph said. “Even a Klingon wouldn’t violate the sanctity of a home.”

  “With a proper investigatory agency,” Nurt said, “those crimes can be stopped, as well as even more heinous ones.”

  “Besides,” Rom added, “it would provide job opportunities for Ferengi who have intelligence, but, uhh, don’t have the lobes for, uh, business.” Like me, he managed to avoid adding. Not that it was necessary, as everyone in the room filled in the blanks.

  Silence fell over the room after that, and then Fal said, “If there is no other discussion, we shall put it to a vote.”

  Each congressman voted. The tally appeared on the wall viewer: nine in favor, four against.

  Fal then took the next step that was a vital part of any vote. “Would those voting against wish to attempt to financially influence the vote with bribes?”

  Apparently none of the four—Kain was one them, Rom was sure of that—felt strongly enough about the issue to try to buy the vote. That was, if anything, a stronger mandate than the nine favorable votes.

  Then the final step: “Would the Grand Nagus want to use his veto?”

  This time, Rom didn’t hesitate. “No.” It was his resolution, after all.

  “Very well.” Fal cleared the viewer. “Congressman Nurt, as the cosponsor of the bill with the Grand Nagus, you have right of first refusal to supervise the assembling of this new division.”

  Smiling, Nurt said, “I accept. I already have several recruiting offices bidding for the staffing rights.”

  Fal nodded. “Moving on to the final bit of business.”

  Oh no, Rom thought. I hate this part. But he had little choice. If I don’t do this, Moogie will kill me.

  “The Grand Nagus,” Fal said, “proposes that Congressman Liph be removed from this august body.”

  Several cries of outrage came from around the table, the loudest from Liph himself.

  Speaking over the tumult, Fal said, “Liph has been diverting tax funds earmarked for several of the Grand Nagus’s social programs and used them to invest in quadrotriticale futures. As most of you know, the quadrotriticale crop this year was a disaster.”

  The congressman sitting across from Liph looked across at him and said, “It’s not bad enough you stole tax money, but you stole it for a bad investment?”

  Fal stared at Rom again. This time he added a verbal prompt: “Nagus?”

  “Huh?” Rom thought everything was going just fine. They didn’t need him.

  Then he realized that he really needed to be the one to make this official. “Oh! Uhh, Liph, you are a disgrace to this congress and I, uhh—want you to leave.”

  “Leave?” Liph laughed. “Leave where, Nagus?”

  “The Economic Congress of Advisors. Now—please?” Rom cursed himself—that please ruined it. He was almost approaching aggressive until then.

  Liph stood up. “I did nothing wrong!”

  Rom tried to summon sufficient outrage. “You took food out of the mouths of hungry Ferengi!”

  “So? If they’re hungry, let them starve, and cut down on the surplus population!”

  “Quadrotriticale futures?” That was Kain, having just completed, and bottled, another coughing fit. “Why didn’t you just flush the money down the waste extractor? You’ve got the lobes of a human.”

  Liph turned angrily on the elderly Ferengi, and Rom wondered if Liph might try to harm him. Worry for the old man’s health warred with joy at the increased sales of a congressional visual record that included a literal floor fight.

  However, the three congressmen who sat between Liph and Kain also st
ood up, apparently not taking kindly to Liph’s threatening an old man of Kain’s vast portfolio.

  Fal spoke quickly. “Why, ah, why don’t we vote on this?”

  Whirling on Fal and Rom both, Liph barked a laugh. “Vote? There is nothing on which to vote! It is obvious that this drooling idiot we call Grand Nagus has turned you all into lobeless gree worms!”

  Kain pointed at Liph. “You watch it, boy. I was cheating Yridians when your mother was too young to chew food. And I also know better than to steal money from a government—especially a Ferengi government—and then invest it in a slug-brained scheme like quadrotriticale. Only lobeless gree worm in this room is you.”

  Liph threw up his hands. “Suit yourself, you old imbecile. All of you can rot. I don’t want any part of a congress that would censure me for doing business.”

  With that Liph stormed out. Rom breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried that it would come to a vote and that they’d elect to keep Liph on the congress. Then Moogie really would kill me. Ishka was the one who uncovered Liph’s scam when she noticed that the money they’d collected for disaster relief hadn’t actually made it into the proper account. It didn’t take her long to trace the funds back to Liph and then forward to a dreadful investment on Sherman’s Planet.

  “If that’s everything,” Nurt said, rising from his chair, “I have a police force to form.”

  Holding up a hand, Fal said, “I’m afraid it isn’t, Congressman. We’re not done with the final bit of business.”

  Nurt frowned. “I don’t—”

  “We need a new congressman, you—” Kain interrupted himself by hacking up some more phlegm. Rom idly wondered how much he was selling it for. Given how much of it there is, it’s not like it’s a collector’s item. Kain then continued: “And I have just the person in mind. He’s a fine man, has the lobes for business, and has served as one of the finest liquidators in the FCA. His name is Brunt.”

  “Brunt!” Rom yelped.

  “Yes, Brunt.” Kain coughed a few more times. “Now, I know he’s been opposed to most of the reforms—he even opposed forming this congress—but I think he’s the best man for the job. Trust me, I’ve been around since before most of your grandparents were buying their first tooth sharpeners, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned—” Kain then went into another coughing fit. After packing away the phlegm, he went on. “Where was I? Oh, right—if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that any good change comes when someone who does things the old-fashioned way sticks around to keep you dishonest. Besides, what better way to prove that the new way of doing things is right than by having its biggest opponent on the congress and being voted down every time? It’ll do wonders!”

  Several of the congressmen nodded in agreement. Even Nurt said, “Makes sense, yes.”

  Rom’s mouth dried up. His tongue felt like sandpaper. Bad enough Kain is nominating Brunt, but everyone’s accepting it!

  “I can’t think of any good reason not to appoint him.” That was Nilva, the chair of Slug-O-Cola.

  “I can!” Rom found himself saying.

  “Why’s that?” Kain asked.

  As generally happened when he was put on the spot—and indeed often when he wasn’t—Rom’s mind went blank. “Uhh—I don’t like him very much?”

  Nurt chuckled. “He’s FCA—you’re not supposed to like him.”

  A thought occurred to Rom, and he looked at Nilva. “But—but you were the one who convinced the FCA to deny his petition to be Grand Nagus two years ago!”

  “That was two years ago.” Nilva shrugged. “Besides, that was for Grand Nagus. This is different. Brunt’s got a good set of lobes on him, undersized though they may be, and he knows his greed. He’ll be fine. Besides, Kain’s right—it’s always good to have opposition that you can beat on a regular basis.”

  Rom’s heart sank. With Nilva and Kain supporting it, there was no way it wouldn’t pass.

  “If there’s no other discussion?” Fal looked around the table, and nobody spoke up. “Then we shall put it to a vote.”

  Again, each congressman voted. Rom stared at the viewer in openmouthed agony as the tally came up: eleven in favor, one against. Rom wondered who voted against, then decided it didn’t matter all that much.

  “Would the congressman voting against wish to attempt to financially influence the vote with bribes?”

  Nobody spoke up. Rom was hoping that the nay vote might at least make a token attempt.

  “Would the Grand Nagus want to use his veto?”

  Suddenly, sunshine came back into Rom’s world. Of course! I can veto it! Yay! “Yes, absolutely, I want to use my veto right now. I veto Brunt as a congressman!”

  Boy, he thought, that was a close one. Imagine what would happen if Brunt became part of the Economic Congress. We’d be ruined!

  Rom leaned back in his comfortable chair with a smile on his face.

  “And now the vote to override,” Fal said.

  The smile fell. Rom had forgotten about this part. He’d never vetoed anything before, so this hadn’t come up. But the congress had the right to vote to overturn the veto. If three-quarters of the congressmen present—which in this case meant nine out of the twelve—voted yes, the veto would be negated.

  He could only hope that the power of the nagus’s disapproval would be enough to convince at least three of the congressmen to change their votes.

  Moments later, the tally showed up on the viewer.

  Nine in favor, three against.

  “The veto is overruled. Brunt is the new thirteenth member of the Economic Congress of Advisors.” Fal cleared the viewer. “That concludes this meeting of the Economic Congress. Visual records will go on sale first thing in the morning. We’ll meet again in one week’s time.”

  The various congressmen got up, Kain with some help from the one sitting next to him, and started to leave. Nurt was the first one out the door, apparently eager to begin his work setting the investigatory agency up.

  Rom barely noticed.

  Brunt is on the congress. This isn’t good at all.

  It was fully five minutes after the rest of the congress had cleared out of the meeting hall that Rom had the wherewithal to get up from his chair and head back home to tell Moogie.

  He took one final glance at the tapestry. Although he saw Gint, he couldn’t help but think of Smeet.

  “And you just let him get elected?”

  Ishka couldn’t believe what her son was telling her about the latest meeting of the congress. She paced angrily around the nagal residence’s sitting room while Rom sat quietly on the amra-skin couch that Zek had left behind—it always itched him, he said. Ishka knew it was because Zekkie kept forgetting to apply the rilaj lotion she gave him, but it was easier to just leave the couch behind for Rom and Leeta when she and Zekkie went off to Risa.

  I should be there now, she thought. Instead of pacing on Ferenginar wearing one of her bulky one-piece patterned outfits, along with the gold-and-ruby neckframe Zekkie had given her hanging from her ears, she should have been lying next to Zekkie on a beach on Risa wearing the latest in fashionable swimwear. But Rom needed my help, so I came back—and he obviously still needs my help. “I can’t believe you let them elect Brunt, of all people! He’s spent the last five years trying to destroy our entire family—not to mention what he’s done to poor Zekkie.” Ishka finally stopped pacing and stood over her son. “Why didn’t you bribe the congressmen?”

  Rom blinked twice. “I, uhh, didn’t think of that.”

  “Unnnh!” Ishka threw up her hands. “Rom, I love you, you know that, but sometimes I think your lobes were stunted at birth.”

  “I don’t think it would’ve helped, Moogie,” Rom said. “Kain and Nilva were the ones supporting it. What could I offer either of them?”

  That brought Ishka up short. “Those two? I don’t believe it. Zek babysat for Kain—”

  “I thought it was the other way around,” Rom muttered.

 
“—and as for Nilva, he was the one who kept Brunt out of the nagal chair!”

  “I mentioned that.”

  Whirling around, Ishka asked, “What did he say?”

  “He said this was different.”

  Again, Ishka threw up her hands. “Men! How they managed not to drive Fernginar to ruin for the last few millennia I’ll never know.” She sighed. This day is getting worse and worse.

  She then said words that she knew would upset Rom, but they needed to be said regardless. “We’re going to have to tell Krax.”

  Predictably, Rom winced. “Do we have to?”

  “He’s your first clerk, Rom—and he’s got a good set of lobes on him. He is Zekkie’s son, after all.”

  Rom then said exactly what Ishka thought he would say. “I know—and I remember what he tried to do to the last person Zek named his successor.”

  Krax had come to Deep Space 9 eight years earlier in the company of his father, Zek. Zekkie had named Quark his successor rather than Krax, and then faked his own death as a test for his son. Krax had failed it—miserably. Rather than try to weasel his way into being the power behind the nagal staff like a good Ferengi, he conscripted Rom to help cause an “accident” that would kill Quark, paving the way for Rom to take over his brother’s bar and Krax to be the new nagus. You’d think a Klingon thought that idiotic scheme up, Ishka had thought with dismay when she heard about it years later.

  As a result, Rom had been rather surprised two months ago when Ishka suggested he take on Krax as his first clerk. Zekkie had been just as surprised when Ishka managed to find Krax, who’d been spending the last few years lying low and staying out of Zek’s way.

  But Ishka had examined the young male’s portfolio, and thought that he had learned his lesson. The two months since Rom (reluctantly) made him first clerk had been productive. The investigatory arm of the police force had been Krax’s idea, for one thing, and he had excellent organizational skills. While her son could field-strip a fusion core with his eyes closed, the minutiae of financial paperwork tended to elude him.