Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine® Volume Three Read online

  Rom had only been half listening to Brunt’s diatribe, but at the mention of Dav, his lobes perked right up.

  “As some of you may know,” Brunt continued, “Dav has a daughter named Prinadora. For a time, Prinadora was married to the youngest son of Keldar, named Rom.”

  All eyes at the table turned to look at the Grand Nagus.

  Brunt went on. “Prinadora and Rom had a standard five-year marriage, during which time she bore him a son named Nog.” Brunt said Nog’s name as if it were a curse, which didn’t surprise Rom. Brunt’s disdain for Rom’s entire family extended to his Starfleet-officer son. “Rom then signed an extension—an indefinite extension!”

  This time, the mouths of all the congressmen fell open as they stared at Rom. Rom’s own mouth did likewise. What is he talking about?

  “After five years, Rom and his son left Prinadora, with all his money going to Dav. He went to work for his brother in a bar on a Cardassian space station—but he was still married! And the marriage contract did contain the standard monogamy clause!”

  The congressmen started to mutter to themselves. Rom didn’t pay attention to any of it, choosing instead to stare at the tapestry on the far wall, and feel more like Smeet with every passing moment.

  Brunt, naturally, wasn’t finished. “I ask you, my fellow congressmen—is this what we want in our Grand Nagus? A man who casts aside a dutiful Ferengi wife who bore him a son in order to cavort with an alien and to pollute the Ferengi bloodlines with halfbreed filth?”

  Kain started to talk, coughed twice, then spoke without even bothering to save his phlegm, which right there indicated the depth of his outrage. “You mean to tell me that his marriage to that Bajoran woman is in violation of a contract? A Ferengi contract?”

  Brunt smiled, and for the first time that Rom could remember, the smile was quite sincere. “Yes, that is what I mean to tell you, Congressman Kain. Our Grand Nagus—has broken a contract!”

  5

  A deal is a deal—until a better one comes along.

  —RULE OF ACQUISITION #16

  “What do you mean the marriage is illegitimate?”

  Quark had said nothing until they got back to the nagal residence, mostly because he couldn’t say anything prior to that. Rom left the meeting holding a padd in one hand and his staff in the other, and was otherwise as silent as the Prime Bank’s obelisk.

  He finally revealed what was happening when they were all in the living room of the residence.

  In response to Quark’s rather irritated question, Rom silently handed Quark the padd.

  “What’s it say, Quark?” Mother asked.

  Waving her off, Quark said, “Give me a second.” He read the report, which had been filed by someone called Investigator Rwogo. I didn’t even know they had investigators on Ferenginar. According to the padd, Rwogo didn’t work for the FCA. He made a mental note to ask about it later.

  “According to this,” Quark said, “some investigator was looking through Dav’s records.”

  Nog leaned over to Ro and whispered, “My maternal grandfather.”

  Ro nodded.

  “The investigation included a check on Rom and Prinadora’s marriage contract. Turns out the extension wasn’t exactly what we all thought it was.”

  Mother looked at Rom, who was staring straight ahead, un-blinking. “Rom, what is he talking about? I thought you signed a five-year extension.”

  “So did I,” Quark said, “and that, when the term expired, Dav would be entitled to all of Rom’s assets. That’s what Rom told me when he and Nog came to Terok Nor looking for work because he had no money.” He held up the padd’s display. “But according to this, it was an indefinite extension, and Dav got all of Rom’s assets if Rom ever left her. But they’re still married, and the marriage has a standard monogamy clause.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ro said. “This contract was originally drafted, what, twenty years ago, right?”

  “Twenty-five, actually. Why?”

  “You mean to tell me that twenty-five years ago, Ferengi marriage contracts had a standard monogamy clause. Why?”

  “To preserve family values,” Mother said with her usual disdain for proper Ferengi traditions. “Most people didn’t care where a Ferengi male went to get his oo-mox, but a stable home—and one with as few females actually living in it as possible—was desired, so it’s preferred that marriages are one-to-one.”

  Ro got that look on her face that Bajorans always got whenever the subject of Ferengi societal norms came up. “Gee, how enlightened.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mother said.

  “Can we get back to the subject at hand?” Quark then looked over at Nog, who was staring at his father in disbelief. Quark recognized it as the same expression on Quark’s own face when Rom revealed that the boy was attending a human school, and again when he announced his intention to apply to Starfleet Academy. Now you know how we felt, kid.

  “Father, is this true?” Nog asked.

  Rom kept staring ahead.

  “Don’t you remember?” Ro asked Nog.

  “I was only seven, and Father never really talked about it.”

  Ishka also stared at Rom. “I only heard about it, too. Rom, answer your son, is this true?”

  Rom stood up. He opened his mouth, but then it just hung there.

  Quark waited patiently. It often took Rom a few minutes to rev himself up to coherent speech.

  Finally, he spoke. “I have to go see Leeta.”

  With that, he left.

  Quark snorted. “What do you think he’s gonna tell her?”

  “The truth,” Nog said defensively.

  “Which is what?” Quark asked.

  “Rom wouldn’t lie to us,” Mother said. “He’s a good boy.”

  Nog said, “Grandmother’s right. Father would never do anything like that. He’s not capable of it.”

  “Isn’t he?”

  Quark whirled on Ro. “What are you saying?”

  “I remember when I was reading the files Odo left behind for his successor. One of the things he said about Rom was that he’d made a mistake about him. I remembered that, because it was one of only about three mistakes that Odo actually admitted to in the entire time he was assigned to the station. His exact words were that he underestimated Rom.” She looked at everyone in the room, ending with Quark. “I’m willing to bet each and every one of you in this room has, at some point or other, underestimated him, too.”

  “I haven’t,” Quark said indignantly. “If anything, I’ve over-estimated him. He’s an idiot, always has been.”

  “He’s not an idiot,” Nog said. “You always put him down, but the truth is, Uncle, your bar would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for my father!”

  “Oh yeah? Well, if—”

  “That’s enough!” Mother cried. “Both of you stop it! This whole thing is ridiculous. Aren’t we all forgetting something?”

  “What?” Quark asked.

  “Brunt is the one who raised this accusation.”

  Quark blinked once, then again, then said two words he rarely ever had cause to say in his life: “Mother’s right. Brunt’s been out to get us for years. The evidence has gotta be fake.”

  “So where do we stand?” Mother asked.

  “In trouble,” said a voice from the doorway.

  Quark turned to see Krax standing there. Great, just what we need, Zek Junior here to get in the way.

  Krax held up a data chip. “This is the visual record for the session. I was able to obtain an advance copy for a fee.”

  Mother stood up. “Well, don’t just stand there, play it!”

  “I’ve already watched the important part,” Krax said. “The congress is going to review the evidence between now and the next official session. At that point, they’re going to vote on whether or not to oust Rom as Grand Nagus.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” Mother said with her usual inability to grasp the obvious.

  “Why can’t we?
” Quark said. “Seriously, what would be so wrong about Rom not being Grand Nagus?”

  “Rom is a fine Grand Nagus, Quark. Just because you want to cling to the outmoded ways, doesn’t mean—”

  Quark stood up and went face-to-face with his mother. He hesitated for a second—the last time they got into a heated argument, she had a major cardiac infarction—but this needed to be said. “They’re not ‘outmoded,’ Mother, they’re the way Ferengi society has flourished!” Before Mother could counterargue, Quark waved her off. “But leave that aside for a minute, Mother—forget which one of us is right and which one of us is wrong, because you’ll never see reason that I’m the one who’s right.”

  Mother grimaced. “Quark—”

  Holding up his hands, Quark said, “The point is this, Mother—why are you here?”

  That caught her off-guard. “What are you talking about, Quark?”

  Nog spoke up. “She’s here to help Father, obviously.”

  “And why is that?” Quark asked Nog. “Shouldn’t she be on Risa in happy retirement with Zek?”

  He turned back to Mother, and as soon as he saw the look on her face, Quark knew he was right. “It’s true, isn’t it? You came back because Rom couldn’t handle it. He needed your help, just like Zek did. At least with Zek, you had an excuse—he was getting old, he needed someone to make him focus. But with Rom, you’re fighting his very nature. Rom isn’t a great leader, Mother—he’s an engineer. He sits in small, cramped rooms with computers and solves problems other people give him.”

  “That’s not what an engineer is,” Nog said. “An engineer is someone who fixes things that are broken. He makes things better. Some of the finest leaders I’ve known have been engineers—like Chief O’Brien.”

  “Nog is right,” Mother said. “Rom is just the person to fix what’s broken on Ferenginar.”

  “Ferenginar isn’t broken!” Quark cried. Why can’t anyone in this room understand that? Why can’t they see what I—and Chek and the rest of his people—see? “And you all should know Rule of Acquisition Number Two-Eighty: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’!”

  In that tone she always took when she refused to admit that Quark was right, Mother asked, “So what’s your solution, Quark? Put Brunt in the nagus’s chair? Because that’s what’s going to happen. And you know it!”

  That brought Quark up short. Rom might have been a terrible choice for Grand Nagus—but Brunt was several orders of magnitude worse. He let personal issues get in the way of business, and had no conception of leading by example, as a nagus had to. Twice, Brunt had tried to grab the nagal staff, and both times Quark had been instrumental in stopping him.

  It looks like the third time really is the charm.

  “You’re right,” he muttered, pained at having to give his mother credit for being correct twice in one lifetime. “We have to stop him.”

  From the couch, Ro said, “That may be harder than you think.”

  Quark looked over to see that Ro was fiddling with Rom’s padd. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’ve only done a preliminary check, but if this thing is fake, it’s a very very good one. I think everyone in this room knows how hard it is to forge a Ferengi contract, and none of the indicators are here.”

  “Keep checking,” Mother said. “We have to prove it’s a fake.”

  Ro stood up. “We may not be able to.” Before Mother could object, Ro said, “But we may not have to, either.”

  Nog said, “The lieutenant is right. There’s more than one way to prove a crime. One is physical evidence—another is a confession.”

  Ro smiled. “Starfleet security training at its finest.”

  “I took Professor Pembleton’s course on—”

  Quark rolled his eyes. “Can we save the mutual admiration society for another time, please?”

  “Sorry.” Nog put his hands together. “We need to investigate. I’ll go see Prinadora.”

  Mother shot Nog a look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Nog?”

  “She’s my mother—it’s my first time back home in years. What could be more natural than wanting to visit with my mother?”

  “You’d better be discreet,” Ro said. “If Krax got his hands on this, so did other people. Besides, I doubt Brunt’s gonna keep it a secret. This will be all over the planet by dinnertime. You going to visit your mother right after your father is revealed to be cheating her won’t help Rom any.”

  Nog nodded. “Good point. I’ll be careful not to be seen.”

  “How you gonna pull that off?” Quark asked.

  Grinning, Nog said, “Starfleet security training at its finest. Don’t worry about it.”

  Quark watched Nog depart the living room. Mother went over to the replicator to get herself a snail juice. Ro just looked at him, but Quark didn’t return the look right away. He was thinking about his brother, and what his brother had been to him for all these years.

  Nog was right—the bar would’ve fallen to pieces without him.

  Finally, he looked up at Ro’s gorgeous face. She looked concerned more than anything. He had to admit, she was taking Ferenginar better than he’d expected. Non-Ferengi usually spent days complaining about the rain, but once she got her initial shock out of her system, she hadn’t said a word about it. And now that the family—indeed, the entire Ferengi Alliance—was facing a crisis, she was right in there helping out.

  Putting a hand on her arm, Quark said, “Listen, Laren—you’ve got to get to work on that contract. Use all those skills Starfleet taught you, and all those Maquis tricks you picked up—that contract’s a fake, and we have to prove it.”

  “Quark—” Ro hesitated. She let out a long breath. “What if it isn’t a fake? What if Brunt’s telling the truth?”

  Snorting, Quark said, “Brunt wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on his left lobe. Besides, it has to be a fake. Rom wouldn’t do that.”

  “I know you love your brother, Quark, but he still hasn’t denied—”

  “I don’t just love him, Laren, I know him. I grew up with him, and we spent a long time together on the station, and I can tell you this: Rom isn’t capable of what Brunt’s accusing him of, and you know why? It would mean hurting someone.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Quark took a breath. “The one thing Rom won’t do is gratuitously hurt someone. The one thing Rom can’t do is gratuitously hurt someone he loves, and I can tell you this: He loved Prinadora then as much as he loves Leeta now. Why do you think Rom’s so bad at business? Why do you think he’s floundering so much as Grand Nagus that Mother had to come back to help him out? He’s a nice guy. There’s a saying I came across a couple of years ago when we were getting ready to play some human game that Captain Sisko liked: ‘Nice guys finish last.’ It should be added to the Rules of Acquisition. Until Zek made him nagus, Rom always finished last because he can’t help being a nice guy. It’s why he made my bar the embassy, it’s why he stayed behind on the station when the Dominion took it over when he should’ve gone to safety on Bajor, it’s why he let Nog go to the human school and attend Starfleet Academy.”

  He walked over to the replicator. All this speechifying was making him thirsty. “Slug-O-Cola,” he said after placing three slips in the slot. The green beverage materialized with a hum. Quark undid the top, looked under the cap to see if he’d won a prize—he didn’t, of course, he never did—and took a sip of the refreshingly slimy soft drink.

  Then he fixed Ro with a serious look. “If Prinadora was still Rom’s legal spouse when he became Grand Nagus, she would be entitled to all the benefits of being the nagus’s wife, and there is no way Rom would deny her that. So I want you to take that contract and put it to every test you know how to put it to, and then I want you to make up a few tests, but you’re going to exonerate my brother.”

  Ro chuckled. “Is that an order, Mr. Ambassador?”

  Quark shrugged. “You’re my bodyguard—you’re supposed to do what I tell yo
u.”

  “You just keep thinking that.”

  “Quark?”

  He turned to look at his mother, who was now staring at him with wide eyes, her head bowed, and her voice quiet. It was the most properly female she’d been in his presence since she gave back her illegally obtained profits to Brunt five years earlier.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard you say about Rom.” Then she broke into that know-it-all smile that drove Quark insane. “You know, Quark, I may not like you all that much—but times like this remind me why I love you.”

  She pressed her nose to his, and despite himself, he returned the gesture.

  “Now let’s go and save Rom,” she said, putting her arm around him.

  Bindu was whistling the Slug-O-Cola jingle as he paid the fee to use the aircar shelter. It was another beautiful day on Ferenginar, with the rain vinkling down on the city, causing beautiful rivulets in the walkways that flowed in lovely patterns.

  It was a good day to be a Ferengi worker.

  This day had been like any other. He had woken up, had his usual arachnids for breakfast, watched the morning newsfeed from Ferengi Commercial News, then headed off to the aircar stop.

  As usual, Joq was there. They always took the same aircar to work, since they both had offices in the Zalp Building, just down the street from the Tower of Commerce.

  Joq was a bit shorter than Bindu, though Bindu mostly attributed that to the fact that he was always stooped over, where Bindu had excellent posture.

  “See FCN this morning?” Joq asked.

  Bindu sighed. Joq always asked that, and his answer was always the same: “Of course. I watch FCN every morning, you know that.”

  “So you heard about the Grand Nagus.”

  “I saw what FCN reported about the Grand Nagus, but I don’t believe it for a minute. I mean, really, you can’t trust everything you see on FCN.”

  Joq snorted. “FCN reported that Zek was retiring, and predicted that Rom would be made Grand Nagus.”

  “They also proclaimed that the Dominion was weeks away from victory over the Federation after the attack on Earth, which was several months before the Dominion lost the war. They declared Eelwasser the new winner in the cola wars, and that Slug-O-Cola would be out of business within a year.”