CHAPTER
        1

THE UNIVERSE was about to make sense.
    Quark stood behind the bar and anxiously studied the
display screen above the replicator. His body was rigid with
tension, motionless but for his eyes as he scrutinized the
data before him. He held his arms folded tightly across his
chest, as though trying to insulate himself against a cold
wind.
    Gripped by both expectation and apprehension, Quark
felt isolated, although all about him, his establishment was
awash in the sounds and sights and scents characteristic of a
busy night. Conversations overlapped everywhere, glass-
ware rang as customers were served, footsteps fell noisily on
the deck plating and up and down the winding metal
staircases that rose to the second level. Reds and greens and
indigos gyred around the walls as the spinning dabo wheel
reflected the ambient artificial lighting. And the odors of the
occasional exotic drink floated through the air--as did the
odors of the occasional exotic alien.
    But Quark was aware of all this only in a peripheral way,
his focus was the display. He examined the various readouts
as tiers of white digits adjusted themselves on the dark
screen, as costs and prices fluctuated according to innu-
merous and often unpredictable economic factors, as
months of his intricate planning and manipulation ad-
vanced toward a conclusion. Every few seconds, one
complicated set of matrices replaced another, causing the
display to emit a soft electronic hum, and Quark's mind
hummed along with it.
    It~ going to happen, he thought: monetary values would
slide the way he had foreseen, he would arrange the final
transactions in this elaborate financial dance, and it would
be done. Soon, he would be one step closer--one significant
step closer--to being able to purchase the moon he had
long dreamed of owning.
    On the display, one of the numbers brightened, its hue
shifting from white to a vibrant orange as it jumped past a
threshold Quark had earlier defined. The value decreased
for an instant, but then climbed once more, causing a
staccato color change: orange, white, orange again.
    If it did come, Quark knew, this would be one of those
moments that rarely happened by chance. In truth, at least
in his own experience, it would be the type of moment that
seldom occurred even when painstakingly planned. How
many times had he attempted a gambit such as this? How
often had he scoured the business world for just the right
set of circumstances upon which to found his financial
future? Uncounted times, too many times, to be sure. True,
there had periodically been a measure of accomplish-
ment--Quark certainly felt justified in considering him-
self a successful businessman--and yet the level of his
achievement had never attained the scope of his ambition.
By Ferengi standards--and by his own as well--Quark
knew that he so far had been only a marginal player in the
thoroughly capitalistic system in which he had been raised.
But now, at last, after months of labored and complex
machinations, and after a lifetime of effort, lines of com-
munication and intention--his intention--threatened to
converge.
    Quark's mind devoured the ever-changing numbers on
the screen in front of him, willing them to achieve the
values necessary for the fulfillment of his plans. He re-
mained fixed in place, waiting nervously, until the heavy
shuffling of feet directly behind him prompted him to move.
In a single swift motion, his hand darted up to touch a
control on the smooth surface of the display, blanking the
data, and he turned to find out who had come within
eyeshot of his work.
    It was only Morn, Quark was relieved to see. He watched
as the lumbering figure dropped onto a seat on the other
side of the bar and set down a tall, cobalt-blue glass. The
sole menace Morn posed, Quark mused, would be if he were
to end his patronage here; because Morn had been a regular
in the bar for almost as long as the place had been open,
Quark had come to regard the monthly payment of his tab
as a long-term business asset.
    "You need a refill," Quark said, nodding toward the glass,
and he was surprised to find that he felt momentarily
Unburdened as the simplicity of bartending replaced the
relentlesshess of his high-risk dealmaking. He reached for
the glass, but Morn pulled it away and pointed a finger
inside. Quark peered over the rim and saw a small amount
of a bright-yellow liquid. "Oh, you don't want that," Quark
said in a tone he had cultivated over the years to imply
sincerity. "There's no flavor left in it." He reached forward
again, more quickly this time, and took hold of the glass just
above Mona's gloved hand. Quark tugged, and after a
moment, Morn relented.
    "You're really going through this stuff," Quark com-
mented. He bent down behind the bar and quickly found
the right bottle: short and bulbous, transparent, not even a
quarter filled with what Morn had been drinking. An
import hologram decorated with the circular ensign of the
First Federation was wrapped about its squat neck. "I'm
going to have to order another case of tranya from my
supplier," Quark added as he stood and emptied the bottle
into Morn's glass. He placed the exhausted container on a
shelf, adding it to a motley collection of other discards.
Later, he or one of his employees would dispose of these
using the replicatot, recycling their matter into stored
energy.
    While Morn picked up his glass and sampled his replen-
ished drink, Quark took the time to scan the rest of the bar',
after all, his vigilance at the display had left him standing in
a manner he ordinarily avoided--with his back to the rest
of his establishment. When filled with people, Quark's
demanded attention. Ears open, eyes wide, went an old
Ferengi saying, reflective of the wisdom that taught that
customers should be trusted precisely as much as employees
should be--which is to say, not at all.
    Quark gazed about, concentrating on picking out indi-
vidual sounds amid the clamor of the bar. He heard the
odd admixture of sibilant and rasping speech of a pair of
Gorn huddled somewhere on the upper level; the voices
sounded to him like air escaping the station into space
while somebody complained angrily about it. A lone
Otevrel--evidently an outcast to be this far from home
and in no apparent hurry to return--sat quietly in a far
corner, one slim tendril tracing the lip of his glass with a
slight, silky tone. Closer to the bar, Lieutenant Command-
er Dax was down from Ops to provide her amusing,
sometimes biting commentary of the weekly dart match
between Chief O'Brien and Dr. Bashir. Intermittent
flashes of light and bursts of high-pitched peals also
emanated from that direction, produced by the board as
darts struck it and points were scored.
And somewhere, Quark was fairly sure, Odo lurked.
Upstairs, he thought. Perhaps near the entrance to Holo-
suite Three. If the station's constable was still in the bar, he
was stationary at present, but earlier, Quark had heard the
shapeshifter come in, had heard the strange liquid rushing
sound Odo made whenever he moved quickly, no matter his
form. The sound, though nearly subaudible, was unmistak-
able to Ferengi ears. Quark had never let on to Odo that he
could sometimes hear the internal flow of the changeling's
fluidal anatomy. Having taken advantage of the ability on a
couple of occasions, though, he thought it likely that the
constable suspected the truth; of late, it appeared to him
that Odo was careful to move more slowly whenever he
wished to go undetected.
    Quark strained for a moment to listen specifically for
Odo, without result. He was about to return to monitoring
the status of his deal, but the sudden cry of"dabo" stopped
him. He looked past Morn and over at the gaming table; it
was ringed with people, many of them smiling and laughing.

Quark glanced up at a pair of inconspicuous convex mirrors
strategically positioned to allow him to observe the entire
surface of the dabo table. The ample quantities of gold-
pressed latinum in the house's coffers were evidence that
the house had been winning tonight, but the dabo girlma
lithe Bajoran named M'Pellamwas now disbursing some of
those funds to one of the players. The victor was a young
Starfleet officer, Quark saw, one of those on leave from the
U.S.S, Ad Astra, which was presently docked here at Deep
Space Nine.
    "Starfleet," Quark grumbled to himself. "Worthless. Value-
less." He looked at Morn. "They're always more than willing
to take my money at the dabo table," Quark said, as though
the two had been in midconversation, "but they never want
to drink anything." Quark briefly considered this, then
added, "And when they do drink, it's usually only synth-
ehol."
    Beside M'Pella, the young officer took two handfuls of
latinum and held them up as though they were trophies. The
lustrous ingots caught the light and scattered golden reflec-
tions throughout the room.
    "Of course, what should I expect from customers?" Quark
complained. There were fifty-seven separate words for cus-
tomer in the Ferengi language; the one playing through his
mind right now had the secondary definition "river sludge."
    "I'll tell you what I should do," Quark said. "I should
close this place to Starfleet officers." Even though he was
looking directly at Morn, Quark was really talking to
himself. He did this out of habit, knowing that Morn was a
talker, not a listener.
    As if to confirm this, Morn shrugged--as best Quark
could tell, his answer for everything that did not directly
involve him--and went back to his drink. Absently, Quark
began to clear the empty bottles from the shelf and place
them in the replicator. He had grabbed the tranya bottle in
one hand, and the curving, tapered neck of an amber
Saurian brandy bottle in the other, when another thought
occurred to him. He looked back over at Morn.
    "You know, what I should do is just close the entire
place down." The idea probably did not sound like a
genuine suggestion, Quark suspected, certainly no more
than it had any of the times in his beleaguered past when
he had voiced similar notions. On those other occasions,
though, the words had merely been a means of venting his
frustrations about some unsatisfactory aspect of his life.
But now... now he found that the idea suddenly held real
appeal.
    "I could do it," Quark told Morn earnest13,, talking to
him now, his hands waving the empty bottles about as he
spoke. "If the deal I'm working on right now proceeds the
way I designed it to, I should have enough assets to make a
successful transition to a new business." Quark felt a flash
of heat reach up his neck and across the back of his bare
head at his own mere mention of the deal. Disquiet and
fear mixed together in the four lobes of his brain. Before
now, Quark had not told anyone anything about the deal
he had been trying to engineer, not even of its existence.
He had spoken of it only to the principals involved--
discretion had been required from the outset--and even
they were only aware of their isolated roles. Quark had
diligently avoided doing anything that might even re-
motely jeopardize this potential masterpiece of his finan-
cial acumen.
    "I could do it," Quark said. He put the bottles down in
the replicator and pressed a control; they dematerialized in
a cornscation of red light. "I could start a new business,"
Quark continued telling Morn. "It would take some time
to prepare, and I'd have to find the right situation, but I
could do it." It was a revelation: the profits he hoped to
earn today would create not just a single opportunity for
him, but many. For the first time in a long time, abandon-
ing the bar for another, better venture would be an actual
option. He would no longer be trapped by circumstance in
this often troublesome corner of the universe.
    Morn raised his glass, threw his head back, and downed
his drink in one massive gulp. The movement seemed
unrelated to anything Quark had been saying. It was diffi-
cult to know if Morn had even been listening; he had such
small ears.
    Morn brought his empty glass down and pushed it
forward; it left two thin trails of liquid behind as it moved
through a tiny puddle on the bar. Quark automatically took
the glass, grabbed a rag, and wiped down the wet surface.
Then he bent beneath the bar and exchanged the rag for
another bottle of tranya. He broke the seal with the edge of
one blue fingernail and removed the stopper.
    "Why don't I just leave this here," Quark suggested as he
poured another drink. He corked the bottle and placed it on
the bar. Morn smiled and nodded his agreement, then lifted
his glass in a mock toast.
    "As I was saying," Quark went on, undeterred, "what do
I need this place for anymore? It's always been more
trouble than profit." Morn gazed askance over the rim of
his glass.
    "What?" Quark asked, reading the doubt in Morn's
expression. "You don't think I would do it? You think I
need this place?" Quark swept his arm out in an arc to take
in his entire establishment. "I don't need this. Not for much
longer, anyway."
    Quark's voice was beginning to rise in volume, his words
beginning to come faster. It was not what he was saying, he
realized, but the anxiety and concern he felt about his deal
that were surfacing. He was very worried that this business
would not take place, even after all of his effortsmor
worse, that the deal would transpire, but not in the way he
had planned. Still, apart from all that, who was Morn to
tell him that he couldn't move on from here to a better
livelihood?
    "I'm not just a bartender, you know. I'm not even just a
bar owner." Quark leaned forward over the barmpalms flat
on its surface, his elbows akimbo~to emphasize his point.
"I'm a businessman. There is a difference."
Morn continued to regard him without saying anything.
"Fine," Quark told him. "Keep staring at me like that. It
won't change things, won't--" Quark gestured broadly
again with his arm. This time, his hand struck the bottle of
tranya, sending it skidding toward the edge of the bar.
    Quark lunged. So did the usually sluggish Morn, who
somehow managed to get there first; Quark's hands landed
atop his, which in turn had wrapped around the bottle and
prevented it from crashing to the floor. The gloves Morn
wore on his hands felt papery and rough.
 "You must really love this stuff," Quark said, looking up
from where his upper body was stretched across the width
of the bar. "I don't think I've ever seen you move that fast."
Morn opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a
sound drew Quark's attention. Quark straightened quickly
and spun toward the display screen.
    The sound was a repeating pattern of tones, pitched so
low that it was beyond the abilities of most humanoid races
to hear. Quark stepped over to the screen and touched a
finger to the control section. The alarm ceased.
    Quark glanced around and saw Morn still holding the
bottle of tranya. Out on the floor, several of Quark's
employees were looking in the direction of the bar, evi-
dently curious about what they had heard. Quark gestured
to them with both hands, his fingers moving in an outward
sweeping motion, an obvious signal that they should get
back to work.
    "Morn," Quark said, "why don't you sit back down and
enjoy your tranya. I've got work to do."
    As Morn eased onto his chair, Quark returned to the
display and brought the arrays of data back up on the
screen. In the background, he heard a dart thump into
the board, causing a raucous electronic siren to play. From
the disappointed words of Chief O'Brien, the winning dart
must have been thrown by Dr. Bashir. Quark pushed those
and all the other sounds around him away, once again
immersing himself in the business at hand.
    He scanned the readouts. Symbols representing dozens of
different currencies--Ferengi, Bajoran, Bolian, Yridian,
and others--decorated the screen. Latinum conversion
factors competed with production assessments for impor-
tance. Treasury inventory quantities, pecuniary exchange
rates, and tallies of monies in circulation aligned them-
selves in rows and columns. As before, numbers were
spelled out in white digits and changed values several times
a minute, some with even greater frequency. But now, five
numbers were displayed in bright orange instead of just one;
having attained specific values, it had been these which had
prompted the alarm to sound. Quark had instructed the
computer to emit the tones should all of the financial
conditions he required finally develop.
 For a short time, the reality of the situation failed to
impress itself upon Quark's awareness, even though he only
moments before had been anticipating this very event.
Initially, there was no joy as he surveyed the numbers and
applied to them only the general fiscal meaning he normally
would. But by degrees, the significance of what he was
reading crept into his mind. His mouth opened in prelude
to a smile, revealing his sharp and irregular teeth, but a
cynical disbelief born of experience prevented it from fully
materializing. Cautiously, he allowed himself to recognize
that the successful culmination of his labyrinthine scheme
might possibly be at hand. A slight tingling began in his
earlobes.
    Quark glanced furtively around to assure himself that
he was not being watched. Even though the bar was filled
with people, nobody seemed to be paying him any atten-
tion. He listened for any movement by Odo, but he heard
nothing.
    Quark's fingers skittered across the controls. He entered a
command protocol and one of the readouts changed to
produce a directory of his personal files. He keyed in an
access code and retrieved a file he had set up previously; it
was his confirmation of the individual transactions compos-
ing the overall deal. He reread the file while his hand
hovered above the TV, ANSMrr button.
    Quark hesitated. Once he approved the transactions,
there would be no turning back. Everything would have to
proceed, and if he had failed to consider some hidden
aspect of the deal, or if he had erred in any of his
assumptions or mistimed any one of the many actions he
had initiated, he would wind up insolvent. That thought
alone made him draw back his hand.
    No, Quark insisted to himselfi This is your best chance,
the best deal you've ever put together. It will work. He
repeated the 62rid Rule of Acquisition in his head: The
riskier the road, the greater the profit. He jabbed the button,
transmitting the file to a financial institution located on
Bajor through which he had filtered all of the arrangements
in this enterprise.
    He waited. He felt incapable of moving his body. His eyes
locked on the display. He was so intent on his own actions
that he felt physically segregated from everybody and
 everything that formed his surroundings. The many voices
 and sounds of the bar did not remain distinct as they
 reached his ears, but blended together in an incomprehensi-
 ble cacophony.
    Failure now would destroy him, Quark knew that, and
not just financially. When he had first conceived this plan
and then devised its blueprint, he had told himself that
victory was not only possible, but inevitable. He discerned
now, though, that he had never truly believed his grand
design would climax as it now appeared it might, in what
was nearly the deal of a lifetime for him. Nearly, because
the ultimate deal would be the one that provided him the
ability to acquire the moon for which he had so long
yearned.
    The moon, Quark thought, and very specific images were
conjured in his mind. His cousin Gaila owned his own
moon, and Quark's memories of visits there provided a
basis for his fantasizing. He recalled the luxurious estate
from which Craila ruled his natural satellite, the ultramod-
em facade of the structure contrasting both with the lush
countryside in which it was set and with its more traditional
Ferengi furnishings. The only contemporary section of the
interior was the office, where sophisticated equipment
allowed inspection and control of the mining operations on
the moon; a communications console also permiRed moni-
toring of three different financial exchanges. Standing in
that office, Quark recalled, had felt like being at the hub of a
personal commercial empire.
    For years, Quark had privately aspired to Gaila's stan-
dard of achievement. Even in public, he had revealed
the purchase of his own moon to be a long-term goal of
great moment to him. But his inner voice, speaking to
nobody but himself, identified ambitions surpassing more
than just the possession of some inconsequential rock in
space.
    Over time, Quark's brother had come to share in his
vision, or in what he must have believed that vision to be,
anyway. Whenever the subject arose, Rom would visibly
take delight in discussing it, frequently entreating Quark to
describe the moon and the home he intended to have
constructed on its surface~ Ram would even offer his own
 details of life there, talking about "his room" and about
 what he would do there, mentioning such activities as
 raising small animals--cotton-tailed jebrets and treni cats
 and the like--and planting a garden. It was never clear to
 Quark whether his brother proposed to take up permanent
 residence on the moon, but he assumed that would be the
 case; after all, Quark knew that Rom was not fully capable
 of taking care of himself without his help.
    But the tranquil picture Rom painted of life on the moon
bespoke his view that Quark would retire there. And
whenever Quark verbalized his desire for his own moon to
anybody else, they always appeared to infer that he wanted
to settle there in order to live in leisure. But Quark had no
intention of dwelling in retirement. The moon was an
objective, but it was not an end in itself. Quark was, at this
point in his life, to one extent or another, what he had
always wanted to be: a businessman. Business was not only
his livelihood, it was his recreation as well. Success in the
world of commerce would not motivate him to leave that
world, but to climb to another stratum within it. What
reason would there be to excel in a way of life you enjoyed
if, in doing so, you were forced to abandon that way of life?
Had Zek attained the office of grand nagus for the sake of
the office itself?. No, of course not: money begets money,
and power begets money, and the nagus, while serving in
his official role, also used the influence and resources of his
position to continue engaging, with great success, in his
own business ventures. On his moon, Quark would do the
same.
    Gaila's survey of the financial exchanges and his mining
operation merely hinted at what Quark planned for himself.
Quark's communications center would not simply track the
three most important indexes, but all the interstellar finan-
cial data available in the Alpha Quadrant. Utilizing his
connections on Deep Space Nine, on Bajor, and on the other
side of the wormhole, he would also keep abreast of
business opportunities in the Gamma Quadrant. He would
not build and manage mining facilities, which would neces-
sarily incur high overhead, but would instead peddle the
rights to mine his moon to the highest bidders. He also
envisioned endless rows of cheaply constructed warehouses
sitting on the horizon of his little world, storage installa-
tions for rent to the traders near whose routes he would
settle. He would also provide landing rights for the many
ships that would use Quark's as a way station. Maybe he
would even open up a bar.
    Quark could not refrain from smiling at the irony of that
last thought. As he did so, two words began to flash on the
display: ISCOMINO V~a~SMlSSION. The thoughts of the moon
in his future were eclipsed by the business in his present. He
thumbed a control and the brief contents of the incoming
message spread across the readout. There were acknowledg-
ments of all but one of the separate pieces of his confirma-
tion file, which meant that only a single transaction
remained to complete the deal.
    Quark felt exhilarated and terrified at the same time. His
lobes buzzed now as though with an electric charge. Con-
tracts had been written and agreed to, monies had been
spent and received, inventories had been purchased and
sold, all as a result of his foresight and maneuvering. Like
the proverbial wise man, Quark could hear profit in the
wind; it sounded sweet.
    Barely able to curb his excitement, he manipulated the
display controls to gain access to his primary account on
Bajor. Numbers danced across the screen. His gaze traveled
to the bottom line of the report. A long string of digits,
representing his net worth, was displayed there in red.
    Right now, Quark was deeper in debt than any individual
in the quadrant.

    The ninety-seven minutes following Quark's financial
ruin were among the most difficult to live through in his life.
He struggled to act normally, struggled not to entertain
thoughts of bankruptcy, of the forfeiture of all his property,
of a future plagued by litigation and garnishment. But
walking through the bar, taking orders and serving drinks,
he remained distracted by all of these fears, so much so that
he found himself deaf to many of the conversations taking
place around him. He interacted with customers, entered
their orders and accepted their payments on the personal-
access display device he carried with him, but it was as
though he were watching and listening to somebody else
 performing these tasks. In his mind, there were great
 patches of silence that simply overwhelmed his abilities to
 process the input of his senses on anything more than a
 superficial level.
    It will work out, Quark tried to convince himself. Every-
thing is happening just the way you planned it. Except he did
not really know whether that was true. Apart from the final
transaction, yes, everything Quark had done had concluded
successfully, producing exactly the results he had expected.
But without the successful completion of that final transac-
tion, he would gain nothing. More than that, he would lose
everything.
    The image of the red number denoting Quark's net worth
haunted him. His debts not only surpassed his assets, they
dwarfed them. He had known this would happen, had
prepared for it, but still, it was painful to actually experi-
ence it. He had to continue to remind himself that this was
really the foundation upon which his entire plot had been
built.
    The great sums Quark owedinto financial institutions, to
governments, as recompense for monetary maneuvers he
had orchestrated in the exchangesmall of that had gone to
fund a single purchase. The commodity was one not typb
cally available to individuals, both because of the nature of
the merchandise and because of its immense price. But
Quark had been in the right place at the right time, hearing
early rumors of the impending sale. He had immediately
understood the potential to reap substantial profits by
setting himself up as a middleman, by buying and reselling
the merchandise himself. But the amount of cash necessary
as earnest money, let alone for the full purchase, had far
exceeded Quark's resources.
    That was when Grand Nagus Zek had docked his new
vessel, Wealth, at Deep Space Nine.
    The nagus spent three days on the station preparing for a
trade expedition to the Gamma Quadrant, and Quark took
advantage of his proximity to the fiscal leader by doing what
he always did in like circumstances: he spied on him.
Quark's intimate knowledge of DS9's internal systems,
coupled with his copious supply of security-defeating hard-
ware and software, permitted him entry to many otherwise
protected areas of the station's computer. In that way, he
was able to access the companel in Zek's quarters and
monitor his on-line activities during his stay.
    Unfortunately, as Quark would have expected of any
good Ferengi businessman, the nagus erected barriers
against such surveillance. When he did not require Deep
Space Nine's superior computing facilities or its communi-
cations link to the other side of the wormhole, Zek con-
ducted his business aboard Wealth. And whenever he did
need to use DS9's computer, every bit of information he
entered or accessed was encrypted. All of his work also
carried a destabilizing virus to prevent recording, a virus
Quark was unable to neutralize in the short time the nagus
was on the station; Quark therefore had to perform his
observations in real time.
    For two and a half days, Quark tracked each use of the
corem panel in Zek's quarters. He forsook sleep as needed.
He kept the bar open, but left it in the hands of his new
manager, Broc, whenever the low-frequency alarm
sounded, signifying that the nagus was using the station's
communications or computer functions. In his own quar-
ters, Quark stared at the comm panel for hours, studying
Zek's handiwork as it was echoed there. The elegant,
branching structures of the Ferengi language cascaded
across the screen, its beautiful symbols and rich vocabu-
lary rendered unintelligible by ciphering. Quark ran de-
cryption algorithms, visually searched for patterns, pored
over the notes he took.
    His break came during the final fourteen hours of Zek's
stay. Weary from his efforts, Quark was debating whether or
not to continue when something in the scrambled data
swimming across the comm panel drew his attention. He
stared at the screen, but whatever it was had already been
swept away in the currents of Zek's activities.
    If only I could have recorded it, Quark thought, frustrated.
Confident that it had been the key, he tried to replay the
sequence in his mind, then sought to reproduce it on his
padd, but he could not quite grasp what it was he had seen.
All he could do was wait and watch and hope that it would
happen again.
  Forty minutes later, it did.

    It was nonspecific, not exactly a pattern in the code,
more a motif. Quark adjusted his decryption programs
and put them back to work. The strings of characters
transformed into something more recognizable, but not
fully deciphered. Quark nudged his procedures and set
them running again. Suddenly, the account codes and
financial endeavors of the grand nagus were completely
revealed. What he saw was unbelievable: Zek was losing
money at an incredible rate.
    Quark felt his eyes widen as the sense of that thought
penetrated his awareness. He was unsure how to proceed.
The financial leader of the Ferengi, the acknowledged
authority of all commerce, the man after whom Quark had
patterned his business life, was failing miserably, the deteri-
oration of his business skills making itself plain. Just in the
brief span he had been on D$9, the nagus had incurred
astronomical debts.
    It took more than ten hours of rigorous effort for Quark
to assemble a sketch of what Zek had done. It was astound-
ing. The methods, the decisions, the strategies, were far too
complex for Quark to completely understand, especially
since he had only been able to observe a portion of the
entire plan. But he eventually understood enough of the
broad strokes of the design: the nagus had floated obliga-
tions in currencies other than those in which they had been
covenanted; had borrowed on time; had bought and sold on
margin; had hedged his already considerable financial situa-
tion; and had promised, although he could not actually have
done so, to be able to monetize vast debts at any time within
a one-day period. It was impressive, it was brilliant, and it
was even legal, though just barely.
    But more was involved than that, Quark was certain.
Even though he realized that there were subtleties he had
doubtless overlooked, there also seemed to be something
vital missing, the bargain or the piece of knowledge or the
contact that allowed Zek the opportunity to do what he had
done.
    Basically, the nagus had re-created more than half of his
personal fortune--and far more than all of his liquid
assets--out of essentially nothing. That money--or more
accurately, that illusion of money--had been invented at
 the expense of tremendous debt, and the debt was a time
 bomb armed to detonate in one day if the nagus was unable
 to clear it. Even using the influence of Zek's office, what had
 been done could not be undone without hard currency to
 make good on the money he owed.
    The nagus departed Deep Space Nine and took Wealth to
the Gamma Quadrant. Quark awaited the ship's reappear-
ance with a growing sense of unease. He tapped into the
station's sensors so that he would be alerted as soon as
Wealth emerged on this side of the wormhole. Within a
day, the ship returned, but it bypassed DS9 and headed
directly for Ferenginar. Quark attempted to view the
accounts of the nagus, hoping that the access codes he had
purloined had not yet been changed. They had not, and
Quark marveled at what he saw: pure profit. The nagus had
constructed an apparition of value, had utilized it to fund
a deal, and then had recovered his imaginary investment
quickly enough to dissolve the monetary ghost before
anybody had a chance to uncover its want of substance.
And he had produced a net gain for himself. An ample net
gain.
    Quark studied what he knew of Zek's audacious plan for
weeks. He constructed time lines and business plans,
checked and rechecked the financial exchanges, ran simula-
tions. The genius of the nagus became more and more
apparent as Quark was forced to admit that what he had
witnessed was on the borders of his knowledge and abilities.
Even if he entertained the idea of imitating the nagus's
plan, he still did not fully understand the circumstances
under which it had been made to happen; such circum-
stances, he was convinced, were not only rare, but unlikely
to present themselves when they did occur. Quark was wrong.
    As he sat at the comm panel in his quarters day after day
and studied the tactics and strategies the nagus had em-
ployed, he was led repeatedly to the Bolian Credit Ex-
change. Finally, he saw it: a flaw in the trade rules of the
Exchange, a crack so slight that it was nearly undetectable.
The crux of Zek's bold work, the fault had probably been
virtually invisible prior to his actions, which had widened
it; if others exploited the weakness, it would widen further.

 Before long, the fissure would be as great as Terekol Chasm
 on Ferenginar, and as easy to see. When that happened, the
 Bolian regulators would seal the loophole.
     Until that time, Quark could act. He recalled the upcom-
 ing sale, its demand for massive monetary commitments,
 and its potential for producing large profits. He began
 devising his strategy and then executing it. Unlike Zek,
 whose personal fortune buttressed his financial credentials,
 Quark had relatively little to reinforce himself. In the end,
 what his maneuvers obtained for him was a two-hour
 window in which he could resell the commodity he had
 bought. If he was able to close the deal, he would be able to
 cover his debts; if not, he would be destitute.
     In one regard, the value currently representing Quark's
 net worth was erroneous, since Quark now owned merchan-
 dise which, if he was able to sell it, would offset his
 obligations and provide him with a handsome profit. But
 because Quark's purchase had been clandestine, and be-
 cause the merchandise was practically unsalable, it retained
 no value whatsoever without a buyer.
    The list of potential customers was a short one. The black
market, a usually reliable outlet for almost any commodity,
was not an option: few would be able to pay at cost, much
less at a reasonable price. If the buyer Quark had lined up
reneged--very much a possibility with this type of dealq
he would probably be unable to move the goods within the
two-hour time span. His creditors would not be under-
standing.
    Trying to keep his emotions level and his thoughts
positive, Quark continued to wait on customers in his
establishment, snaking through the tables in a practiced but
mindless way. Each time he returned to the bar to make
drinks, he checked the display. There was nothing. He
probably should have set another alarm to sound when a
transmission did arrive, but he could not bring himself to
do so; he was hoping for good news, but he was dreading
bad.
    Back to the bar again, this time to mix a Finagle's Folly
for Dr. Bashir, Quark saw the words INCOMING TRANSMISSION
flashing on the display. His earlobes grew cold from fear,
heat slipping from them like water spilling down a drain. He
punched the RECEIVE button and the message printed on the
screen. Quark read it twice, then a third time, just to be sure
he did not miss or misread any details. He checked the
chronometer: ninety-seven minutes since he had received
the first set of confirmations. He had another twenty-three
minutes yet to make good on his debt.
    Twenty-three minutes. He smiled, It had not even been
dramatic.
    Quark worked quickly at the display. He made the
necessary transfers of funds and confirmed them. It would
be several minutes before the transactions would be posted
to his account on Bajor.
    While he waited for that to take place, he turned back to
the bar, which now suddenly came alive to him. The din
became a mixture of discernible voices once more, the
crowd a set of recognizable individuals. Quark noticed Dr.
Bashir gazing in his direction. He motioned that he would
be right there, then took out a glass and began preparing the
drink the doctor had ordered. A shot from this bottle, a
splash from that one; Quark's arms flew vigorously about, a
frenzy of mixological 61an. He felt thoroughly energized.
    Quark delivered the drink to the table where Dr. Bashir
sat between turns in his dart match with Chief O'Brien. The
doctor thanked him and sipped from the glass. A startled
look materialized on his face, accompanied by a throaty
COUgh.
    "Is it my imagination, Quark," he asked in his distinctive
British accent--Kwahk, he pronounced it--"or is there
more alcohol in this than usual?"
    "Don't be ridiculous," Quark responded, but he did not
stay to debate the matter. Time enough had passed. He
headed back to the display behind the bar.
    Nervous, Quark failed at first to accurately specify his
account information. The second time, his fingers played
more carefully across the controls and he gained access to
his account on Bajor. His net worth came up in black; it did
not have as many digits as when it had been drawn in red,
but there were enough to indicate that the deal had been
very profitable.
    He had done it. He had completed the most lucrative deal
of his life, had managed to navigate the complexities in
making a deal with the Ferengi Alliance itself. Now, finally,
Quark had seed money. From here, he could really start to
deal, really begin to build up his finances to the point where
he could afford the moon and its accoutrements.
    A pleasant rush of heat suffused Quark's lobes, and he
smiled broadly. He turned to face the rest of the bar, raised
his arms above his head, and said loudly, "Everybody,
drinks are onto"
    --the house, he had been about to say. But he was
interrupted by the financial planner in his head, who
wanted to know why, just because he had successfully
concluded a deal, he was about to behave so foolishly.
About half of the people in the bar looked at him, waiting
for him to finish. Morn sat straight up in his seat and gazed
at Quark with an expression of what could only be inter-
preted as joyful expectation.
    "--sale," Quark said. "Drinks are half-price for the next
quarter-hour." There was a murmur among some of the
customers, and several either held up their glasses or moved
toward the bar. Morn slumped back down in his chair, his
body language conveying his obvious disappointment that
free drinks would not be forthcoming. Still, he picked up
the bottle of tranya and held it up for Quark to see,
indicating that he too would take advantage of the transient
bargain.
    Nobody said anything directly to Quark, though. The
smile left his face, and under his breath, more to himself
than to anybody else, he said, "Don't bother to thank me."
And he thought: I really should give up this place.
    But as Quark considered just how he could leave Deep
Space Nine, about how the realization of his deal actually
made that possible, he found that his resolve could not
stand on its own. Leaving this place--and these peoplem
would be nice, and Quark eventually would. But not yet.
    Being here at the mouth of the wormhole, on the very
edge of the frontier, had permitted him to make this first
sizable deal, and with his newly acquired wealth, being on
D$9 would now provide him with many more opportunities
to make such deals. Quark had lived unappreciated--and
even disdained--by the Starfleet and Bajoran officers on
the space station for years now. For the sake of profits--for
the sake of his moon--he could take this place and these
people just a little bit longer.
    Turning once more to the display, Quark reexamined the
number spelling out his net worth. The smile returned to his
face: the figure was still black, still sizable, and he knew it
would remain that way. He closed the access to his account.
    This makes sense, Quark thought. This is how the universe
is supposed to work,

0

CHAPTER
       2

THE CONFLUENCE OF space and time and thought sat inside a
small box atop a table in the anteroom.
    The box--unlike the object it contained--was unre-
markable: a rounded, truncated pyramid, barely a meter
around at its base. Simple designs had been fashioned in the
dark wood that composed its exterior. A pair of hinged
doors, closed at the moment, were set into one side. Even
illuminated by a single, narrow shaft of light, as it currently
was, the box did little to draw the attention of the eye.
    In a corner of the octagonal room, Grand Nagus Zek
stood leaning on his cane, his ancient, gnarled hands
clasped around the great ornamental knob that decorated
one end. Zek used the walking stick to get around, but it was
also a conceit: he had long ago had the knob crafted in his
own likeness from gold-pressed latinurn. Such a wanton and
ostentatious exhibition of ego and wealth was just one
symbol of his great success as the ranking officer of Ferengi
commerce.
    From his vantage across the room, the nagns regarded the
old wooden box. He had chosen the plain case because of its
contrast with what it contained. Sealed up as it was, the box
hardly seemed impressive, but Zek smiled widely as he
contemplated how much profit he estimated its contents
would bring him.
    The nagus gazed around, verifying that arrangements
were complete. Devoid of people but for himself, the room
was quiet and still. Furniture of a decidedly Bajoran design
currently lined its eight-sided periphery, and complementa-
ry artwork decorated the walls. The entrance to the tooram
a single-paneled door that slid horizontally into the wall to
allow access and egress--stood closed on one side. A
second door, also closed, was set opposite the first; it led
into a large meeting chamber adjacent to the anteroom.
    There were no windows here, although there appeared to
be one. It was in a side wall, two meters wide and half as
tall, divided into four identically sized panes. Beyond it,
seemingly, lay a tranquil scene: the tree-covered hills of
Zhentu Province sloping away to an open meadow, a blue
sky above beginning to fade into the striated reds and pinks
of a Bajoran sunset. But the vista was no more real than the
window itself.
    Zek walked across the room, leaning only lightly on his
cane. The grating scrape of his shoes shuffling along the
wooden flooring alternated with the thin tap of his cane. He
sat down in a stuffed chair that would have been comfort-
able had its seat been lower, but Ferengi and Bajoran
anatomies being what they were, the nagus's feet dangled
above the floor. Never believe anybody taller than you, his
father had once warned him, and it had proven to be
judicious counsel, given that the average Ferengi tended to
be shorter than the members of most humanoid races.
    Zek surveyed his surroundings from his new point of
view in the chair, wanting to be sure of every detail. As
always, he had ordered the room prepared to specifications
he had researched himself, but he usually found it necessary
to make adjustments once things had actually been set up.
He started to see that some minor changes would be
required now.
     For his own tastes, the environment that had been re-
 created here was lackluster: there were no sounds to speak
 of, the colors were too muted, the air too stagnant. And yet,
 even .now, Zek loved this room, this and the seven others
 like it that surrounded the meeting chamber. The ante-
rooms demonstrated a clever synthesis of business and
technology. Environmental controls made it possible to
adjust the temperature, the gravity, even the composition of
the atmosphere, to comfortably support members of virtu-
ally any species. By means of holographic imaging and a
transporter system, furniture could be modified to accom-
modate any type of physiology, and artwork--and myriad
other accoutrements, such as windows--could be made to
reflect countless styles and tastes.
    The ostensible purpose of the anterooms was to provide
people with a place to wait before entering the meeting
chamber, where business would then be conducted. In
practice, though, the rooms served a business tactic: to force
potential customers and trade partners to tarry in whatever
setting would best bend them in the direction of completing
a deal. The rooms and their furnishings could be molded in
such ways as to soften people, or disarm them, or even make
them uncomfortable, if that was what was needed.
    The chameleon-like rooms had been Zek's innovation,
one facet of a minor revolution he had introduced into
Ferengl trade practices. The prevailing and seldom-
questioned sentiment of his predecessors had been not to
conduct business with outworlders on Ferenginar itself.
Previously, when attempts to transact business on Ferengi-
nar had been made, they had generally been unsuccessful.
The inconvenience of the planet's location, combined with
its intemperately wet climate, had apparently poisoned the
spirits of potential customers and partners. The program-
mable anterooms had proven to be at least a partial cure in
some circumstances. While doing business on Ferenginar
with outworlders was still not widely practiced, there were
occasions when it was not only done, but it was an asset.
 This occasion, Zek believed, was such a time.
 "Computer," he said into the stillness of the room. He
 detected a slight echo, obviously the result of a floor that
 was uncarpeted, and walls that were bare but for a few small
 paintings. "Eliminate the glass from the window." There
 was a shimmer in the space on the wall where the window
 was being simulated, though it was impossible to tell from
 where Zek sat that the glass was no longer there. "Now, I
 want a light breeze. Warm. And sweeten it with the scent of
some popular native flowers." At first, there seemed to be no
change in the room, but then the air began to circulate
gently. Zek felt the thick hairs in the centers of his ears
quiver in the shifting currents.
    That's better, thought the nagus, believing that the breeze
would have a calming effect on the people who would soon
be passing through here. The anteroom had been configured
for the imminent arrival of a delegation from Bajor led by
their minister of religious artifacts, a vedek named Pralon.
The Bajorans were vigorously seeking to obtain the object
that now sat in this room, in the box sitting on the pedestal
table: an Orb of the Prophets.
    The Orb was one of only nine such objects known to
exist. Each had been discovered in or about the Bajoran star
system during the past hundred centuries. At one time,
every known Orb had been kept on Bajor; they had been
public objects of worship and spiritual contemplation,
enshrined in ornately jeweled cases and cared for by Bajor-
an monks. But when the decades-long Cardassian Occupa-
tion of Bajor had ended, several years ago, all but one of the
objects had been seized by the departing conquerors.
    Zek had come into possession of his Orb--the Ninth
Orb, the so-called Orb of Wisdom--through a contact on
Cardassia III. The Bajorans were currently negotiating with
the civilian arm of the Cardassian government, the Detapa
Council, for the return of the Orbs. The Ninth Orb, though,
had somehow slipped away from the Council during the
recent unrest in the Cardassian Union, and Zek had taken
advantage of the rare opportunity and purchased it himself
on the black market.
    The nagus stood up and walked over to where the Ninth
Orb sat. He reached forward to open its case, but then
pulled his hand back sharply, as though he had touched
something that had burned his flesh. The nagns had once
experienced a powerful vision while inspecting his Orb, a
vision that had temporarily altered his mind, and he had no
wish for a recurrence of that incident.
    The Orbs were curious artifacts. Hourglass-shaped and a
vibrant green in color, they glowed from within and had
been known to defy gravity. Other, more spiritual powers
had long been rumored--to which Zek could testifyrebut
as far as Zek knew, they had largely gone undocumented.
Examination of the nagus's Orb by his scientists revealed
only that it appeared to be an energy vortex of some kind,
drawing in spatial, temporal, and mental forces. If the
Bajorans or Cardassians had studied the Orbs--and the
nagns was sure that they hadmwhatever they had learned
remained a mystery. Zek suspected, though, that they had
been able to uncover nothing more than his scientists had.
No, the nature of the Orbs was unknown, and perhaps
unknowable.
    Despite their enigmatic nature--perhaps even because of
it~the Orbs were a vivid symbol of the deeply held
religious beliefs of the Bajorans. The strange objects were
accepted by them to be manifestations of their gods, sent to
teach them and guide their lives; they were thought to have
originated in the Celestial Temple. The discovery of the
wormhole, along with the aliens who had constructed it and
lived within it, had not shaken the faith of the Bajorans, but
had instead served to strengthen it. That the Celestial
Temple could be explained scientifically as a wormhole, that
the Prophets could be identified as alien beings, only
underscored the plausibility of their beliefs. Could the
Bajorans construct a wormhole themselves, they reasoned?
Could the Federation, or the Cardassians, or anybody else?
No; only the Prophets could. And like the Orbs, the aliens
who lived within the wormhole--the Prophets residing in
the Celestial Temple--were fundamentally unknown, and
perhaps unknowable.
    The Orb was the type of commodity that the nagns loved
to peddle, because many factions were compelled by differ-
ent reasons to possess it. There were those who sought it
because of its intractable and potentially powerful nature.
Others pursued it for its scientific mystery, still others for
the political weight it would lend them with the Bajorans.
And of course, there were the Bajorans themselves, whose
campaign to acquire the object was born of possibly the
most compelling reason: its great religious significance to
them, a significance heightened even more now with the
possibility of the return of all the Orbs but this one.
    Zek had initially thought that he would merely sell the
Orb directly to the Bajorans, but after some other business
dealings, he had seen that there was another way to maxi-
mize his profit. After bringing it back to Ferenginar, he had
made his ownership of the Orb known in all quarters,
although he had not immediately accepted any offers for it.
Rather, he had let demand build.
    As Zek had anticipated, for no group did that demand
increase as much as it did for the Bajorans. For months,
they launched one diplomatic sally after another. In a series
of unprecedented visits, various functionaries of the Bajor-
an government--from the ambassador-at-large to the sec-
ond minister--met with the nagus on Ferenginar. Bajoran
religious leaders, including several vedeks, journeyed to
Ferenginar as well They asked, cajoled, demanded. Zek put
them off, maintaining that there was other business he
needed to conduct before he could even concern himself
with the sale of the Orb. He knew that they did not believe
him, even though there had been at least some truth in his
words.
    Eventually, the nagus had received an impassioned letter
signed by both the Bajorans' highest governmental official
and their religious leader. In the letter, the first minister and
the kai argued that because the Orb had originally been
found in their star system, and also because of its revered
place in their religion, it truly belonged to the Bajoran
people. Recognizing the role of the nagus as the current
possessor of the Orb, though, they pledged to pay a reason-
able price for it. Further, the subtext suggested that they
might even be willing to pay an unreasonable price, if that
was what was required of them. Simply stated, they had to
have the Orb.
    Zek had expected the letter, or something very much like
it, and he used it as the impetus to begin the process--an
auction--that would lead to the eventual sale of the Orb.
He solicited secret offers from many potential buyers. The
Bajorans objected to the auction through official channels,
renewing their claim that the Orb legally belonged to them.
But Zek categorically denied that claim. With no other
recourse, the Bajorans had entered the bidding.
  What else could they have done? Zek thought now.
    The nagus stepped away from the encased Orb and
headed for one of the doors, which glided open to reveal the
meeting chamber beyond it. He turned in the doorway and
scanned the room a final time. It was too quiet, he decided,
even for people such as the Bajorans, whose sense of hearing
was not nearly as sensitive as that of the Ferengi.
    "Computer," Zek said, "generate some background noise
consistent with a meadow on Bajor. Leaves rustling in the
breeze, birds singing, that sort of thing." Immediately, he
heard the lilting chirps of several birds, underscored by the
sough of a mild wind slipping through trees and grasses.
    Zek looked over at the box in which the Orb sat. During
the past several months, the nagus had reviewed a consider-
able number of tenders for the inscrutable object. He had
narrowed the field of bidders in stages. From scores of
initial offerers, only seven now remained. With the arrival
today of those seven on Ferenginar, that number would
ultimately be reduced to three, after what the nagus knew
would be several weeks of his drawn-out consideration
about the relative worths of the offers.
    Zek wondered what the Bajorans would bid for it today.
There seemed little question that the amount would be
sizable. It might even be a sum that would strain the
financial reserves of their world.
    In the empty waiting room, Zek burst into a reedy cackle.
Sometimes, he was taken with his own brilliance. Whatever
amount the Bajorans bid, he knew it would not be enough.


PART i

The 2nd Rule




CHAPTER
       3

MAJOR KIRA Nrmvs strode into Quark's near closing time.
Because of the lateness of the hour, only a handful of
customers remained in the bar. A few sat scattered at tables,
pulling slowly at their drinks. Two older Bajoran gentlemen
huddled about the dabo table, intermittently squawking
their displeasure as their long night of gaming dwindled
along with their reserves of latinurn. And perched upon his
customary seat, as if he had been born there and would
likely die there, was Morn.
    Quark usually hated this time of night in the bar, it was a
time when revenue faded, but overhead did not. For that
reason, he had already sent all of his employees home, but
for one of the dabo girls--Leeta--and Broc. And if he
could have fully trusted Broc to close up, Quark would
himself have headed for his own quarters. With so few
customers, he was not only failing to make much of a profit,
he was also thoroughly bored.
    Occasionally, on a night such as this one, Quark would be
able to dispatch the nocturnal doldrums by picking up some
valuable morsel of information. As the night deepened and
closing time approached, some customers would grow tired
or intoxicated--or both--and lips would be loosened. A
crumb of useful rumor might be given voice, or a succulent
tip let slip. It happened only rarely, but it did happen.
    The possibilities tonight had seemed limited to a pair of
Frunalian traders sitting at a table on the upper level. They
were second-rate peddlers who had stopped on the station
before, whose wares had never seemed worth enough even
to pay for their travels, but the two had somehow stayed in
business together for several years. They had been discuss-
ing their impending trip to the Gamma Quadrant and
drinking kiriliona--a strong Frunalian liquor--since the
middle part of the evening.
    Quark had attempted to eavesdrop on the traders' con-
versation for hours, but he had been unable to do so
effectively from his position on the lower level. He had
picked up provocative words like delivery and latinurn and
profit, but nothing more than that. At first, it had been
because the rough voices of the pair had dropped frequently
into whispers, and Quark had patiently waited for the
alcohol they were drinking to become his ally. But as their
states of inebriation had deepened and their voices had
risen, the traders' speech had become slurred and difficult
to understand. Still, if they possessed information of any
value, there would have been no better opportunity to
uncover it.
     Quark had climbed the winding stairway at the end of the
 bar, carrying a small handheld sterilizer as his only cover.
 Once on the upper level, he had pressed the power switch on
 the device, which had clicked beneath his touch. The device
 had beeped once and then begun operating with a soft whir.
 He had set to wiping down tables, his ann sweeping out
 across their surfaces in wide circles.
     As he moved from one table to another, Quark's proximi-
 ty to the traders had rendered everything they said, even
 drunkenly articulated, plainly understandable. The details
 of their plan had rapidly grown clear.
     It was as Quark cleaned a table next to the railing that he
 noticed Kira enter from the Promenade. Quark always
 noticed Kira. He had done so when she had first arrived on
 Deep Space Nine as a Cardassian slave worker--her formfit-
 ting outfit had been particularly flattering that day, he
recalled--and he had continued to notice her, albeit in a
less conspicuous manner, even after she had rebuffed his
advances.
 "You want something, Quark?"
    Quark turned from peering down at Kira. Both of the
Frunalians were looking at him. Quark recognized the voice
as that of Crimmon, the taller--and less friendly--of the
two traders.
    "MET" Quark answered. "No. I'm just getting ready for
closing time." The sterilizer in his hand continued its
electronic purr, although Quark had for the moment
stopped moving it across the tabletop.
    "'Closing time'?" asked the other trader, Wyra. He
checked a timepiece. "But it's only--"
    "Sorry," Quark interrupted. "Captain Sisko enforces a
strict curfew on all the businesses on the Promenade."
    Wyra looked disappointed, but Crimmon's expression
was clearly one of disbelief--and with good reason, Quark
knew, since he had been lying about Sisko's rules. But
Quark had no desire to stay open past 0300 for the paltry
number of customers still in the bar. Nor did he need to
ingratiate himself with these two; he had already gathered
enough from them. The speculative venture for which they
were taking their freighter into the Gamma Quadrant had
been orchestrated based on hearsay, second- and thirdhand
data, the origin of which was itself in doubt. Everything
Quark had so far learned was either something he already
knew, or something he knew to be untrue. There was no use
in pressing Crimmon and Wyra for more information; he
could not hope to strengthen his knowledge of commerce
and opportunity in the Gamma Quadrant--and he cer-
tainly could not possibly hope to find his own next deal--
based upon anything this pair knew.
    Quark glanced over the railing and saw Kira standing
at the bar, talking to Broc. She had entered the bar by
herself, Quark realized. That was uncharacteristic; she al-
most never came in unaccompanied by at least one of her
friends.
    "There must be time enough for one more drink," Wyra
commented, even though the glass sitting before him was
nearly full.

    "Of course," Quark said, turning to the two traders.
"What can I get the two of you? Another pair of kirilionas?"
    As he waited for their answers, Quark looked downstairs
again. Broc was pointing up toward the second level, he saw.
K_ira followed the gesture until she spotted Quark. She
made eye contact with him and then, unaccountably, she
smiled. Quark shivered involuntarily; he was only slightly
less wary of people who smiled than he was of people who
made promises.
    "Yeah, a kiriliona," replied Wyra, evidently after some
thought--or at least after an attempt at thought. His eyes
were glassy.
    "I want a margarita." Crimmon seemed to offer this as
more of a challenge than a request.
    "A margarita?" Quark asked, shifting his gaze away from
Kira. "We don't get call for many of those. Let me see how
much tequila I've got on hand."
    Quark turned off the sterilizer with a click and set it down
on the table, then drew a padd from an inside breast pocket
in his jacket. He stole a glance back down at the bar, but
Kira was no longer in sight. He quickly worked the controls
of the padd and consulted the readout.
 "Here we go," he said. "Plenty of tequila. Ice? Salt?"
 "Yeah, ice. No salt."
    "All right then. One margarita and one more kiriliona,
coming right up."
 Crimmon grunted his acknowledgment.
    Quark keyed in the order and returned the padd to his
pocket. He retrieved the sterilizer, then headed for the
stairway. As he did so, he heard the ringing sound of boots
on the metal stairs. Since the narrow staircase could accom-
modate only one person comfortably, Quark waited for the
person coming up to reach the second level: it was Kira.
    "Hello, Quark," Kira said, and there was that smile once
more. Even worse than a smile in general, Quark thought,
was a smile on the face of somebody who never even so
much as grinned. Well, who never even so much as grinned
at him, anyway.
 "Major. What can I do for you?"
 "How are you?"
 Quark blinked.
    "How am I?" he asked, unable to keep a note of shock
from his voice. This was going to be worse than he thought.
"Major, what do you want from me?"
    "What makes you think I want something from you?"
Kira evaded. Her tone made her sound anxious.
    "Call it 'Ferengi intuition,'" Quark explained, sidling
past Kira and starting down the stairs. "We always know
when our pockets are about to be picked," he finished over
his shoulder. Behind him came the hollow sound of Kira's
footfalls as she followed him back down to the first level.
    "I heard you completed an amazing deal not too long
ago," Kira offered as she trailed him toward the bar.
    So that was it. Quark had completed the deal seventeen
days ago, and while he had not divulged the precise details
of his business to anybody--for several reasons, including
that he knew that the Starfleet personnel would not ap-
prove-he had still managed to tell several of the station's
residents a rousing tale about it. So it was hardly surprising
that Kira had learned of it. If she had mentioned it without
some ulterior purpose, that would have been surprising. But
Kira's undeclared motive seemed clear to Quark. He
stopped and turned to face her.
    "Yes. I made a wondrous deal a while ago," Quark told
her. "It was masterful, and lucrative, and just barely legal."
Quark held up his hand, thumb and forefinger only a
centimeter or so apart to demonstrate just how close to
unlawful his actions had been. "But you know what, Major?
I didn't break any laws. I didn't cheat anybody. So go back
to Odo and tell him you couldn't find out anything from me
because there isn't anything to find out." His voice had
become louder as he spoke, easily filling the nearly empty
bar. Quark glanced around and saw that everybody in the
place was looking at him; even Crimmon and Wyra were
eyeing him from upstairs.
    "Last call," Quark announced. Morn produced a sour
look when he heard this; it was the same sour look he always
put on his face when the bar was about to close. Quark paid
him no attention. Instead, he moved behind the barmKira
following slowly in his wake until she was standing across
 from him--took out his padd, and set both it and the
 sterilizer down. He consulted the readout of the padd, but
 only in a cursory fashion; he knew what the Frunalians had
 ordered. He opened a compartment beneath the bar and
 moved some bottles around, but he could not find the one
 he needed.
      "Broc." Broc was leaning one elbow on the bar, his chin
 resting in his hand, listening to Morn.  "Yes, sir?"
  "Go get a bottle of tequila from the storeroom."
  "Tequila?" Broc seemed uncertain.
     "Tequila," Quark repeated. "A human alcohol." He
 pronounced the word hyoo-mon, distinctly separating the
 two syllables. Quark punched up the inventory on his padd
 and held the device out so that Broc could see it. "There
 should be three bottles of it down there," Quark explained
 as Broc came over to peer at the display.
     "Yes, sir." Broc took the padd and moved out from
 behind the bar, passed Kira, and made his way toward the
 stockroom.
  Kira? Why was she still here?
  "Something to drink for you, Major?" Quark asked.
    "No," Kira said. Her mouth only approximated a smile
this time.
    "Is there something else on your mind then?" he asked.
"Because if there's not, I'm getting ready to close for the
night."
  "Actually, there is something," she said.
 "Imagine my surprise."
    "I was wondering," she started, but then she hesitated.
She looked tired and troubled to Quark. She sat down at the
bar before continuing. "I was wondering if you would do
something for me."
 That was a surprise.
    I can't believe my ears, Quark thought. And that~ saying
something.
    Kira behaved in many ways Quark did not appreciate--
she was rigid, strident, thoroughly Bajoran--but she was
not hypocritical, which meant that she did not typically ask
for favors--acts of friendship--from people she did not
like. And although she had become less vocal over the years
 regarding her feelings of antipathy for Quark, she neverthe-
 less left no doubt about how she felt toward him. If she was
 seeking his assistance in some matter, then that matter must
 be very serious, and Kira very desperate.
     "That would depend on what the something is you want
 me to do," Quark said. "So what is it?"
  "How well do you know Grand Nagus Zek?"
    Quark felt the fleshy ridge that ran from ear to ear above
his eyes involuntarily raise high on his forehead. He was
nonplussed by Kira's question. The nagus was a well-known
figure outside of the Ferengi Alliance, in the same way that
the president of the Federation and the first minister of
Bajor were known to Quark. And like all the inhabitants of
DS9, Kira must have known that Zek had visited the station
on several occasions, and that he had had dealings with
Quark during those visits. On one of the more memorable
of his stays, the nagus had named Quark to be his successor;
although Zek had done this in order to subsequently fake
his own death and test the mettle of his son, Krax, it still
demonstrated a relationship of some sort between Zek and
Quark.
But why wouM Kira want to know about that relationship?
"The nagus?" Quark asked her. While he was suspicious
of Kira's motives--it was in his nature to be suspicious of
everybody's motives--he saw no reason not to answer her
question. "Well, I'd have to say we have a rapport."
 "What does that mean, exactly?"
    "It means he likes me," Quark further explained. His
brother maintained the reverse, that Zek actually despised
Quark, but what did Rom know?
     "He likes you," Kira repeated. "Are you certain? Because
I really need to know." Her tone was imploring.
 "Why, Major? Why do you need to know?"
 "I thought you would have guessed."
    Quark thought this over. Absently, he picked up the
sterilizer, activated it, and began cleaning the top of the bar.
He wondered what he could have possibly known that
would interest Kira. What could have provoked her to
pursue his aid? He did not know.
 "I'm deaf to whatever it is you're saying."
 "The Orb."
     "The Orb of the Prophets? Which one? The one the nagus
 is auctioning off?"
     Kira's eyes grew suddenly cold. It was a look with which
 Quark was not unfamiliar.
     "Yes," she responded, her voice dropping portentously.
 "The Ninth Orb, the one he won't sell to Bajor."
    Finally, Quark understood. Kira was deeply committed
to her religious beliefs, the greatest tangible symbols of
which were the Orbs of the Prophets. If she believed that the
nagus would not sell the Orb he possessed to her people, she
would have been roused to action, to do whatever was
within her abilities to see that the mystic item was returned
to what she felt was its rightful place. But Quark knew of no
reason why the nagus would not sell to the Bajorans for the
right price.
    "Of course he'll sell the Orb to your people. All they have
to do is make a high enough bid. Surely the people of Bajor
are willing to pay for something they so desperately want."
    "We are willing to pay," Kira barked at him. "But that
doesn't seem to matter."
    "Paying always matters," Quark insisted. He flicked the
sterilizer off and put it down on the bar. "In fact, that ought
to be a Rule of---"
    An unexpected thud drew Quark's attention away from
Kira. She also turned her head toward the sound: Broc had
returned from the stockroom and placed an unopened
bottle of tequila on the bar. Quark had been so focused on
Kira that he had not heard Broc come back.
"There's still one more bottle in stock," Broc said.
"Did you adjust the inventory accordingly?" Quark
asked, turning off the sterilizer and sticking it beneath the
bar.
    "Yes, I did." Broc smiled broadly at what he must have
considered an achievement for himselfi
    "Good. Now get on that order." Quark hiked his thumb
up toward the second level. "Those two Frunalians up there
are waiting for their drinks."
    "Yes, sir." Broc's smile faded. He rechecked the drink
order Quark had entered on the padd.
 Quark turned back to face Kira.
"Now then, as I was saying, I'm sure that if the Bajorans
just commit enough of their resources--"
    "The nagus expelled Bajor from the bidding for the Orb
earlier today."
    Quark had not heard that. If it was true, then it explained
why Kira was here talking with him. What it did not explain
was why Quark had not heard about it. He thought his ears
were always open for such information; it was vital to his
future business interests that he keep himself constantly
well-informed.
    "Why would they be expelled from the bidding?" he
asked.
    The sounds of glass against glass, of liquids being poured,
drifted to Quark's ears from where Broc was mixing drinks
for the Frunalians.
    "Seven factions bid," Kira explained. "Four were sup-
posed to be eliminated, leaving three to bid in the final
round."
    "And Bajor didn't make the cut," Quark concluded.
Kira's only visible response was the setting of her jaw as she
clenched her teeth. Quark could easily see a fierce anger in
her eyes, an emotion she was evidently attempting to hold
in check. "I'd heard about the multiple rounds in the
auction, and the lengthy periods between the rounds,"
Quark continued. "Very unusual, particularly in Ferengi

commerce. Of course, I'm certain the nagus has his rea-
sons." Quark considered this for a moment, but could not
immediately determine what any such reasons might be.
    "There was no justification not to sell the Orb to Bajor."
Kira's words were delivered through her still-clenched
teeth, her voice sounding like the growl of a dangerous
animal.
    "Well, there was obviously one reason," Quark said.
"One good reason. Why didn't the Bajorans bid enough?"
    "We bid all that we could," Kira snapped back, rising
from her seat, her temper flaring. She glanced over at Broc
and Morn, who were now staring back at her, then took a
breath and settled herself back down onto her seat. She
proceeded in a level voice. "Our treasury would have been
gutted to pay for the return of the Orb."
 That did not sound quite right to Quark. The Bajorans
were certainly not the best businessmen in the galaxy, but
they were also not that bad. As important as the Orbs of the
Prophets were to them, he could not believe that they would
bankrupt their world simply so that they could possess one
of them; after all, they had lived without all but one of the
Orbs ever since the Cardassians had withdrawn from their
occupation of Bajor. Still, Quark had expected that the
Bajorans would have tendered a handsome offer for their
lost artifact; with their planetary resources and the in-
creased commercial base the wormhole provided, it had
seemed reasonable to conclude that Bajor would win the
auction with ease.
    Quark looked over at Broc, who was just finishing mixing
the margarita for Crimmon. He had already prepared
Wyra's kiriliona. Broc started to put away the bottles from
which he had been pouring, but Quark stopped him.
    "Broc, forget about cleaning up right now; get those
drinks out. Our Frunalian friends have been waiting long
enough."
    "Oh, yes, right away." Broc put down the bottles and
lifted the two drinks onto a tray. A very light gas emanated
from the kiriliona, dissipating just above the rim of the
glass. Broc picked up the tray with both hands and headed
for the two traders on the second level.
    Quark walked over and started to shelve the bottles on
the bar. Without looking back at Kira, he knew she was
watching him; he heard the slight sound of the skin of her
neck scraping against her uniform collar as she swiveled her
head to do so.
    "Well, Major, this is all very interesting," he told her,
"but I'm not exactly sure why you're telling me. Clearly
there's nothing I can do about it." "Are you sure about that?"
    The question stopped Quark. He was holding the bottle
of kiriliona in one hand, the bottle of tequila in the other.
He turned to Kira, who returned his gaze without blinking.
    Remarkable, Quark thought. She really thinks I can help
her. But he had been serious when he had told her there was
nothing he could do. Quark put the Mriliona and the tequila
in their places beneath the bar before answering.
 "Actually, I'm quite sure about this." He picked up the
other two bottles on the bar. "If the nagus has made a
decision--"
 "--Then you can speak to him," Kira interrupted.
 Quark walked over to Kira, the bottles still in his hands.
 "Speak to the nagus?" he asked.
 "He likes you," Kira reminded him.
    Quark found that he could not stop from smiling. She
grinned back at him. It was all very disconcerting.
    "And what is it you think I can do?" Quark asked. He
moved away from Kira again and shelved the last of the
bottles, then came out from behind the bar and sat down
next to her. "You can't possibly believe I could change the
nagus's mind?"
    "Why not?" Kira wanted to know. "You can be very per-
suasive."
    "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I can be. But should I be in this
case?"
    Kira jerked her head back as though she had been
slapped.
    "All I want you to do is urge him to reinstate us in the
bidding."
    "Grand Nagus Zek is the highest financial officer in the
Ferengi Alliance. For me to try to change his mind..."
    "I would try to change Shakaar's mind about something
important like this," Kira argued.
    "Yes, well, I'd say your relationship with the first minister
is considerably different than mine is with the nagus." Kira
had fought by Shakaar's side in the Resistance during the
Occupation, and when they had recently been reunited, the
two had entered into a romantic relationship.
    "It doesn't matter, Quark. You can still talk to the
nagus."
 "Yes, I can. But should I talk to him?"
 "Of course you should: it's the right thing to do."
    "That's your opinion, Major; it's not necessarily a Ferengi
opinion."
    "You mean it isn't your opinion, don't you, Quark?" Kira
accused.
    "I don't know," Quark admitted. He stood from the seat
and paced slowly back and forth beside Kira. "You haven't
given me enough time to think about this."
    "You don't need to think about this," Kira said gently.
When Quark continued to pace, she stopped him by saying;
"Quark. Look at me."
 Quark stopped and met Kira's eyes.
    "You do not need to think about this," she told him
again. "I am asking this favor of you." It seemed to Quark
as if the effort Kira was making in treating him like this--
like an equal, if not like a friend--was costing her. And for
some reason, he wanted to help her. He was not sure why;,
he had lusted after Kira, but he did not really feel that he
liked or respected her. Perhaps he simply appreciated being
treated by her as if he possessed at least some degree of
value. But he was fairly certain that Kira did not know the
difficulties involved in what she was asking of him.
    "Major, we--the Ferengi~we have rules about these
sorts of situations." He sat back down on the seat, facing
Kira.
 "Yes, I know that."
    "And the second Rule of Acquisition is: 'The best deal is
the one that brings the most profit.'"
    Kira fixed him with what she must have believed to be her
most earnest look. It was definitely the most earnest look
Quark had ever seen on her face.
    "The Orbs of the Prophets are religious artifacts, Quark,
religious symbols. They are extremely important to ns as a
people... historically, socially, spiritually. Allowing the
Bajorans to purchase the Ninth Orb so that we can bring it
back to our world is the fight thing to do. We're not
demanding that the Orb be given to us; we're willing to pay
for it. We're willing to pay well."
    "I understand your perspective. Try to understand
mine."
    "I don't." She paused, looking for other words, Quark
was sure. "Quark, I know that you and I have never realJy
gotten along." She looked almost apologetically at him.
Quark supposed it was easy to see the error of your ways
when you wanted something.
    "On the contrary, Major. I have always gotten along with
you."
    "Yes, well... we are not friends, but I'm nevertheless
asking a favor of you. I'll ask more plainly. Will you please
try to convince the nagus to reinstate the Bajorans in the
bidding for the Orb of the Prophets?"
    Quark wanted to say yes, wanted to tell Kira that he
would gladly be on her side and do what he could to help.
But as best he could tell, the nagus had acted properly. Even
if Quark could convince the nagus to grant him an audi-
ence, how could he possibly hope to get him to reverse a
perfectly executed business transaction? At the same time,
how could he possibly make Kira understand the situation
she was asking him to face?
    "Major, would you ever attempt to get Kai Winn to
change her beliefs?"
 "I've argued loudly and often with the kai."
 "Would you try to change her religious beliefs?"
    "What I'm asking of you has nothing to do with religious
beliefs."
    "You're wrong. What you're talking about concerns the
tenets of business, and business is the most important thing
to the Ferengi. The acquisition of profit is as meaningful to
us as the spiritual life is to the Bajorans."
    "I know the point you're trying to make, but if I thought
the kai was wrong, if she had somehow misinterpreted our
sacred beliefsre"
    "And what if you believed the kai was right? Would it be
possible for anybody to coax you into changing her mind
then?"
    "Are you saying that the nagus is right in refusing to sell
the Orb to Bajor?"
     "For just a moment, think like a businessman. What goal
drives business?" "Profit?"
    "Profit. This is true in business in general, but it is true
most especially for Grand Nagus Zek. The nagus is not
merely a businessman; he is also a symbol, virtually a
religious symbol--" Kira opened her mouth, apparently to
protest Quark's use of the word religious, but he continued
to speak, not allowing her to interrupt. "--of financial
acumen for the Ferengi. As you've explained the situation
to me, the offer the Bajorans made for the Orb was not one
of the three highest tendered. Since the rules of the auction
declared that only the three highest bidders would be
permitted in the final round, the nagus's only option was to
eliminate Bajor from the auction. There were no other
alternatives open to him. And for me to attempt to change
his mind about that, to even suggest that he should consider
reversing his decision and taking some other course of
action, well, I would be inviting censure and a fine. And I
would be wrong to do it." Kira simmered.
    "Can't you at least try to understand what I'm saying?"
Quark asked.
    "Oh, I understand: Your people are greedy. You are
greedy." Kira stood from her seat and stared down at
Quark. "Profit is more important to the Ferengimto you,
Quark--than the spiritual needs of an entire population."
    "Major Kira, you want me to help Bajor, and to get me to
do that, you're trying to get me to see your point of view, to
understand and even agree with your beliefs. But you're not
even considering my beliefs. Perhaps if you could do
that--"
    "I don't want to do that," Kira interrupted. "I would
never want to do that." Kira turned and slammed into Broc,
who had returned from delivering the drinks to the Fruna-
lians. Both stayed on their feet, but the tray Broc was
carryingmand the empty glass on it--flew through the air.
Broc looked stunned, but Kira still looked angry; the sound
of the glass shattering as it struck the floor seemed to Quark
the perfect accompaniment for her mood. He watched her
as she strode quickly around Broc and out of the bar.

CHAPTER
       4

KIRA WAS IN QUARKS when the Bajorans retaliated.
    She was sitting on the floor, with her back against an
outer bulkhead, her head just below a window. A large book
was propped open on her knees. The volume was old and
worn: its textured, crimson cover was faded, its spine
cracked, its gold-inlay title almost completely rubbed away.
A sour but not unpleasant scent drifted up from the dried,
yellowing pages; it was the smell of age.
    The book had been a gift to Kira many years ago, given to
her in her childhood by a woman she had barely known.
Kira remembered only the given name of the woman--Kly-
ta--and she was unsure even of that. She recalled the
woman's plain face, her short brown hair, and the way her
eyes had filled with tears when she had presented the book
to Kira, but all other details had faded with the years.
    Later in her life, it was explained to Kira by her father
that the great crimson tome had been passed on from one
generation of Klyta's family to the next, from mother to
eldest daughter. But Klyta had had no children of her own,
nor any siblings, and after she had suffered a serious injury
while on a raid against a Cardassian garrison, it had become
 apparent that her family's lineage would likely end with her.
 Determined to preserve her heritage in some fashion, she
 had chosen to give the heirloom to her closest friend's only
 daughter: Kira.
    As Kira opened the book now, its often-handled cover
smooth against her fingertips, she thought of Klyta, and she
regretted that the family name of her father's friend had not
fixed in her little-girl's mind. She felt it unbefitting that such
a gift did not carry along with it the surname of the people
to whom it had so long belonged. Kira would have liked to
have researched the archives on Bajor to learn more about
Klyta and her kin. Perhaps she might even have been able to
identify surviving relatives, if there were any. Still, despite
the paucity of Kira's knowledge about Klyta, she had always
treasured the book as the profoundly meaningful gift it had
been.
    Kira turned to the table of contents, the brittle pages
crackling beneath her touch, the sound like that of flames
consuming dead wood. She ran her hand across the familiar
chapter headings--"Home in the Firmament," "Bajor
Rises," "Prophecy," and others--and found consolation in
the simple contact with this most treasured and important
of her possessions. The text was one of Kira's favorites, an
historical work punctuated with ancient tales, spiritual
interpretations, and the auguring of things to come. It had
been written centuries ago by Vedek Synta Kayanil, a heroic
and beloved figure from Bajor's past, and it was now
considered a major canonical work of the Bajoran religion.
Kira had always found it both poetic and insightful.
    Entitled When the Prophets Cried, the narrative included,
among its many stories, accounts of the discoveries of the
seven Orbs known at the time of its writing. At the time
Vedek Synta had penned the great book, the Orbs had been
known solely as the Tears of the Prophets--they were still
sometimes called that, even now--an appellation derived
from the belief that the Orbs were constituent parts, small
but significant, which had fallen from the Prophets to the
people when direct contact between the two had somehow
been lost. The Tears, it was held, were the last physical links
that connected Bajor to the Celestial Temple.

     The book was the lone object Kira retained from her early
 childhood. She had carried it with her through her many
 travels: through her youth during the Occupation, through
 her efforts in the Resistance, and now through Reconstruc-
 tion and her time on Deep Space Nine. It was in so many
 regards a guidepost for her; it tethered her to Bajor's rich
 history, to the legacy of a family she had never really
 known, to her own father, and to a spiritual bedrock. So
 often in the course of her life, Kira had retreated to When
 the Prophets Cried in search of solace, or inspiration, or
 enlightenment. Most often, she had sought guidance among
 the words and ideas contained in the old pages. Remark-
 ably, after all this time and after so many readings, Kira still
 managed to gain fresh insight from the venerable work.
  It was guidance that Kira sought right now.
    It had been three days since the leader of the Ferengi had
announced that the Bajorans would no longer be permitted
to bid for the Orb of the Prophets he possessed. Kira had
grown furious with Grand Nagus Zek for his actions, and
with that rodent Quark for his insensitivity and his unwill-
ingness even to try to help Bajor. The Ferengi were little
more than vermin to her, admittedly greedy, no better than
thieves most of the time, and for them to stand in the way of
the proper return of the Ninth Orb to Bajor was profane.
    Kira also found herself angered by her own people. So
many who now led Bajor, though they had fought coura-
geously during the Occupation to expel the militarily supe-
rior Cardassians from their world, continually battled each
other in their quest to bring about their society's rebirth.
Such infighting, Kim felt, was not only internally detrimen-
tal, but also rendered the Bajoran leaders ineffectual in
matters beyond their world; their inability to bring the
Ninth Orb to Bajor demonstrated that clearly. Oh, there
had been official condemnations of the nagas's actions, by
both civilian and religious leaders, and there had been
public outrage, but nothing had really been accomplished.
    As these thoughts filled Kira's mind, her eyes lifted from
the book and stared unseeing into the shadows of her
quarters. When she looked back down, she found that her
hands had tightened into fists. With an effort, she relaxed
 them, her fingers opening like the petals of a flower.
 Crescent-shaped indentations lined the bottoms of her
 palms where her nails had bitten into her skin.
    Potent emotions such as anger and frustration and rage
were not new to Kira; she had lived with them virtually all
of her life. She had always decidedly been a woman of
action, and she had often used such feelings as motivating
forces. But Kira was also deeply religious, and as she had
matured, she had come to understand that a life filled
exclusively with violent passions held little room for genu-
ine spirituality. Her adult life had been blessed by the
presence in it of two exceptional people--Kai Opaka and
Vedek Bareil--who had helped her see the need to cultivate
peace within herself; they had also aided her in discovering
how to make that inner journey. Both Opaka and Bareil
were gone now, but Kira felt that their influences would
never leave her. She reached out to those influences now as
she struggled to tame her rage.
    Kira paged through the antique volume until she came to
the chapter called "The Third Tear." She had read this
particular section of the book enough times that she could
very nearly recite it verbatim. But this recounting of the
finding of the Orb of Prophecy and Change, of the Orb's
subsequent loss for scores of years and its eventual rediscov-
ery, was what she needed at the moment; she needed to
understand that it was all right for the Bajorans not to take
custody of the Ninth Orb right now, that if it was the will of
the Prophets, the Orb would one day be brought back to
Bajor.
    Kira had read five pages of the story and was already
feeling more at easereit helped that she knew just how the
tale would progress to its conclusion--when the door chime
sounded.
    "Come in." Her words were expressed more as a question
than as a statement; she had not been expecting any visitors,
especially this early in the morning.
    The door to Kira's quarters slid into the wall to reYeal the
Emissary standing beyond it. He leaned in from the corri-
dor, holding on to either side of the doorway to maintain his
balance. He peered left and right into the room, obviously
not seeing Kira in her spot on the floor.

  "Major?"
     "Captain," Kira answered, closing the book and rising to
 her feet. Though she believed that she sounded natural, it
 required a deliberate effort for her to invoke the title of
 captain--or any Starfleet title--with regard to Sisko. She
 had served on Deep Space Nine as Benjamin Sisko's first
 officer for almost four years now, and in all that time, the
 basic process of addressing him had never become instinc-
 tive. Yes, he was her commander, but it was in the position
 he occupied in the Bajoran religion--as the Emissary--in
 which Kira foremost thought of him.
    "Come in, Captain. Please." As Kira walked toward the
door, she saw the beginnings of a grin play along one side of
Sisko's mouth. She felt her face flush; she was embarrassed
to have been found sitting on the floor. Thank the Prophets
that she had already changed from her nightclothes into her
uniform.
    "Thank you." Sisko stepped over the raised threshold of
the doorwaymKira had never understood the Cardassian
notions of convenience and amenity~and into her quar-
ters. "I didn't realize the station was all that comfortable,"
he said, pointing to the spot along the bulkhead where Kira
had been sitting and reading.
    "Oh, well, it isn't, really," Kira stammered. "I just... I
don't know .... "Her voice trailed off. She felt silly.
    Sisko laughed loudly, his lips parting and forming into a
wide smile. The whiteness of his teeth was striking against
the rich, dark color of his skin. Sisko had recently chosen to
shave his head, and to allow the facial hair around his
mouth to grow; now m~re than ever, he was an imposing
figure.
    "It's all right, Major," he told her when he stopped
laughing. "Me, I sometimes stretch out on the grass when
I'm watching a baseball game in a holosuite."
    Kira smiled, appreciating Sisko's attempt to put her at
ease, and then she began to chuckle at the image in her
mind of the captain lying on his side out in a field, his head
propped up on his hand so that he could observe the
holographic program he was running. Sisko was in many
ways an odd man, Kira thought. His love of a centuries-old
Earth game seldom played anymore, his bursts of humor at
 unexpected times, the staccato rhythms of his speech, his
 command style that varied from informal and almost
 playful to serious and rigid... so many things about him
 were unusual. But then, he was the Emissary; how could he
 be anything but singular?
     "Are you laughing at me?" Sisko asked, suddenly very
 stern.
     "No, no, not at you," Kira said, immediately fearful that
 she had hurt his feelings, but then she realized that his
 sudden sternness had been reigned; he was joking with her.
 "Well, you have to admit that lying around out in a field is
 not exactly captainqike behavior," she teased back.
     "No, I guess not," Sisko agreed, and he smiled once more.
 "But then again, I'm not always a captain, now am I?"
    "I thought Starfleet liked its officers to be Starfleet at all
times."
    "You'd be surprised," Sisko countered. Then he glanced
around without moving his head, his eyes darting from side
to side, and leaned in close to Kira as if about to confide a
secret to her. "What would you say," he whispered, appar-
ently very serious, "if I told you that I once saw Admiral
Nechayev dancing in a nightclub on Mars?"
    "Nechayev?" Kira asked, mimicking Sisko's solemn de-
livery. She had difficulty visualizing the staid Nechayev
even being out of uniform. "You're kidding. I thought she
was born an admiral."
    "Evidently not. I think she was even enjoying herself."
Kira and Sisko regarded each other in their mock-serious
manners for a moment more before both began to laugh.
    When she had first come to D$9, Kira remembered, such
an exchange with Sisko would not have been possible. It
might not have been possible even a year ago. One of the
reasons for that, she knew, was that she had been a very
different person at the end of the Occupation than she was
now. But another reason was that Sisko was a person who
was not easy to get to know well. Part of that undoubtedly
had to do with the loss of his wife almost seven years ago,
she was sure, but there was also a strange depth to the man,
and a means of thinking which did not run straight and
true. She had witnessed Sisko act on intuitions and insights
which would never even have occurred to another person.

 And he was a man of convictions, strong, honest, and
 forthright. He was a good man, and Kira was pleased that
 she could now think of him not only as the Emissary and
 not only as her commanding officer, but also as a friend.
"Would you like to sit down?" Kira motioned to the sofa.
"Thank you," Sisko said, and took a seat. Kira set her
book down on the small table in front of the sofa and sat
down in a chair across from him. She saw him glance at the
gold-flecked cover of the book, the insubstantial traces of
color the only remnants of what had once been letters
spelling out the title. "When the Prophets Cried?" he asked.
 "Yes," Kira said, surprised. "Do you know it?"
 "I've had occasion to read some of it, yes."
    Kira suppressed a smile, but it pleased her to hear that
Sisko was familiar with the ancient writings. It was just one
more indication--and she had seen more and more of them
of late--that the Emissary was interested in the Bajoran
culture, and that he might someday come to embrace his
role in it.
  "I was looking for some direction," Kira told him.
    "The Ninth Orb?" he asked. She nodded. "I can under-
stand that. The nagus getting hold of it was unexpected."
    "Yes." Kira sighed in frustration and stood from her
chair. She paced over to the oval window and looked out
into space. She tried to pick the pinpoint of light that was
Bajor out of the background of stars, but she could not find
it; it was probably on the other side of its orbit.
 "Why him?" she asked softly, still gazing out the window.
 "What?"
She turned to face Sisko, her hands coming up to her hips.
"Why him? Why the grand nagus of the Ferengi? Of all
the people the Orb could have found its way to?" She
paused, suddenly realizing the tension in her muscles. She
dropped her arms to her sides, then moved to sit opposite
Sisko once more. "Why not the Klingon emperor, or the
Romulan praetor, or even the Orion chancellor? We could
have dealt with one of them."
    "One can typically deal with the Ferengi," Sisko noted.
"It's what they do."
    "But not in this case. Bajor would have paid hand-
soreely."
    "'The will of the Prophets is sometimes elusive,'" Sisko
quoted. He held his hands apart, palms up, indicating that
he had no other answers for her.
    "How can this be the will of the Prophets?" Kira wanted
to know.
    "I don't know," the captain admitted. "Frankly, I'm
more concerned about Bajor."
    "This is hard for the people to accept," she said, "espe-
cially after the Detapa Council agreed to discuss returning
all of the Orbs to us."
    "It is that lack of acceptance which concerns me," Sisko
said gravely. He leaned forward and picked up When the
Prophets Cried from the table; he held the book between
both hands. "Major, I'm sure you're acquainted with the
account of the Third Orb."
"Of course. As a matter of fact, I was just reading it."
"Good. Then you know that it was lost to the Bajoran
people for nearly a century. And in that time, the world did
not fall to pieces, people's faith did not vanish."
    "NOD" Kira agreed, although she was not sure of the point
Sisko was trying to make. "But those were difficult times on
Bajor. Perhaps if the Orb had not been lost, things would
have been better."
    "Perhaps." The captain seemed to weigh this thought
before continuing. "But even given that possibility, would
the mere chance of possessing the Orb have been worth
fighting for?"
    Kira did not answer, but only looked at Sisko. She had the
feeling that he was saying more than she was hearing.
 "Would it have been worth dying for?" he went on.
 "What is it you're trying to tell me, Captain?"
    Sisko placed the book back on the table. He let out a
breath, then wiped a hand first across his face, and then
across the top of his bald head.
    "The official Bajoran response to Grand Nagus Zek's
actions has just been issued," he revealed.
    "And you're telling me that it's not just a simple protest?"
Kira asked.
    "That's right, Major," Sisko intoned. "It's quite a bit
more than that."

    Kira touched two fingertips to the signal panel set into the
wall. Beyond the door, the chime sounded. She waited a
couple of moments, then touched the panel once more.
There was still no response.
    Kira looked both ways down the corridor, almost expect-
ing Quark to round a comer and come walking toward his
quarters. But the corridor was silent and empty. Few of
Deep Space Nine's personnel were housed on this deck, in
this particular section of the Habitat Ring, Kira knew, and
so the lack of activity at this time of morning was to be
expected. On the other hand, because of the early hour, she
had presumed that Quark would be in his quarters.
    Where wouM he be at this time of morning? she wondered.
She knew that he did not usually open the bar until later in
the day. Still, perhaps he was there checking his inventory
or counting his receipts. She decided that it would not
surprise her to learn that Quark actually slept with his
profits.
    Kira made her way to one of the central turbolifts and
ordered it to take her to the Promenade. She paced in the
lift--two steps in one direction, two steps in the other, her
boot heels ringing on the metal floor--unable to remain
motionless even in the enclosed space; she was energized by
the news Sisko had given her. She did not know whether her
world's official response to the nagus's actions would result
in the Ninth Orb being brought to its proper home on Bajor,
but she was proud of the stand her people had chosen to
take. And if the deliverance of the Orb was not achieved,
she mused, then at least another, lesser problem would be
solved: she never did care much for the Ferengi.
    The Promenade was just coming to life when she arrived
there. The lighting was growing in intensity as the new day
progressed, approximating the rising of the Bajoran sun.
Some of the shops were just opening, while one or two were
already doing business. Many of the restaurants were busy
serving breakfast; the change of shifts was close at hand,
and Kira spied quite a few station personnel having their
morning meal before reporting to duty.
    The doors to Quark's bar were closed. As she had at his
quarters, Kira touched the signal panel a couple of times.
There was no answer. As she considered where next to look
for Quark--maybe he was in one of the docking bays,
receiving a shipmentwshe suddenly heard him. It had only
been for a second, and she had not made out the words, but
she was certain it had been his voice. She waited for a
moment, and then she heard it again.
    "Never mind how I came by it," Quark was saying loudly.
"But you want one, and I happen to have one." The words
were coming from the Replimat.
    Kira walked over to the self-service eatery and peered
inside. The small place was nearly filled with diners, most of
them wearing either Bajoran or Starfleet uniforms. Kira's
gaze moved from table to table until she spotted Quark. He
was near the back wall, having breakfast with somebody she
did not recognize, somebody clad in civilian clothes. The
stranger's light-blue skin and the bifurcated ridge running
down the center of his face identified him as a Bolian, no
doubt a trader on his way to or from the Gamma Quadrant.
    Kira slipped into the Replimat and weaved through the
morning diners. On her way past one table, she felt a tug at
her arm. She was moving with such purpose that she had
already taken another step before she was able to stop and
see that it had been Dax trying to get her attention.
    "Nerys," Dax said with a smile. "Join us for breakfast."
She was sitting with Worf.
    "I can't right now," Kira said hurriedly. "I have some-
thing to do." She started once more on her way toward the
back of the Replimat.
    "Listen," Quark was telling the Bolian as Kira ap-
proached the two, "Betazoid gift boxes aren't exported, so
their availability outside of Betazed is generally very low.
You couldn't find--"
    "Quark," Kira interrupted. He looked up at her, his wide
merchant's smile never faltering. "I want to talk to you,"
she told him.
    "Major," Quark acknowledged. "You seem to want to
talk to me a lot lately. Unfortunately, as you can see--" He
nodded his head in the direction of the Bolian. "mI'm in a
business meeting at the moment. If you would just---"
    "This won't take long," she cut him off. "I have some
news I'm sure you'll want to hear."
"I'm sure I will," Quark said in a manner that revealed he
was sure of no such thing. "But I don't have the time right
now."
    "That's all right," the Bolian interjected. "I think we're
done anyway." He pushed his chair back from the table and
stood up. Kira noticed that the Bolian had not been having
a meal; there were dishes only in front of Quark.
    "Wait," Quark said excitedly, jumping up from his own
chair. "I haven't even described the distinctive luxury
features of this particular gift box."
    "I've heard all I need to hear," responded the Bolian.
"Major," he said, politely bowing his head to Kira. He
started to leave.
    "Come by the bar later and I'll show you the box," Quark
called after the Bolian, leaning to one side so that he could
see past Kira. "It's quite a piece of merchandise."
    Kira turned and watched the Bolian exit the Replimat; he
did not look back.

    "Thank you, Major," Quark said sarcastically to Kira's
back. She turned to face him. "You may have just cost me a
sale."
    "Don't worry about it. I don't think he wanted to buy
from you anyway." Quark sat back down at the table and
picked up a half-empty glass of some clear liquid.
    "Even if that was true," Quark said after he had drunk a
couple of swallows, "I would have changed his mind." He
set the glass down.
    "It's your mind you need to worry about changingm
yours and the nagus's."
 "I already told you, there's nothing I can do."
    Kira smiled; it was an expression, she knew, that was not
filled with warmth. She sat down at the table opposite
Quark.
    "You'd better hope you're wrong about that," she offered
conversationally. "Because if you're not, then you'll no
longer have a home."
    "Really?. Well, then I guess I'll just have to go find myself
a nice peaceful moon somewhere." It was clear that Quark
did not take her suggestion seriously. He began to reach into
the bowl of noodles sitting before him.
    "Listen to too, Quark. Bajor officially responded this
morning to being removed from the bidding for the Orb."
    "And they decided that, because of what the nagus did
and the fact that I can't help you, I won't be allowed to live
on the station anymore?" Quark was rejecting, at least
outwardly, the notion that the Bajorans would take action
against him for what Grand Nagus Zek had done. But when
he pulled his hand from the bowl, Kira saw that he had not
grabbed any food.
    "What they decided was to demand that the nagus
reinstate Bajor in the final round of the auction within
exactly three days."
    "They demanded?" Quark seemed to consider this.
"Well, Major, I suppose I understand why your people
would do that, but I really don't see how that will change the
nagus's mind."
    "It might not," Kira granted. "But if the nagus doesn't
announce within three days that Bajor will be given another
opportunity to purchase our Orb--"
    "'Our Orb'?" Quark blurted. "I think you have your facts
wrong, Major."
    "If we're not given another chance to purchase our Orb,"
Kira continued, emphasizing that she had not misspoken,
"then all Ferengi will be evicted from Bajoran space."
 "Evicted? I can't be evicted; I have a business here."
    "Right now, you do," Kira said. "But three days from
now, that will all depend on Grand Nagus Zek."
    "Wonderful," Quark said. He seemed to deflate in his
chair. "Who am I supposed to trust to run the bar until this
pain in the lobes goes away? And what about my access to
the Gamma Quadrant? It will be extremely inconvenient if
I can't live on the station."
    "It won't matter where you live, Quark," Kira explained.
"No Ferengi will be permitted anywhere within the Bajoran
system, at any time. Nor will any Ferengi shipments. That
means you won't be able to travel through the wormhole, or
send or receive goods through it." Quark gaped at her; he
was obviously beginning to understand the practical and
very serious consequences for him in this situation.
    "But my business... so much of it depends on the
Gamma Quadrant .... "
    "Then I guess you'll just have to get there the hard way.
Let's see... if you take a ship at warp five, it should take
you--" She did a quick, rough calculation in her head.
"--oh, about three thousand years."
 "Thank you for your compassion."
    A surge of anger rose within Kira, and she felt her face
change: her eyes drew almost into a squint, her jaw set, any
trace of a smile disappeared.
    "Is it any less than the compassion you showed for Bajor
when we were told we would not be able to bring the Ninth
Orb home?"
    "I did have compassion for you," Quark argued loudly.
"But there was nothing I could do."
    "Well, I guess you'd better find something to do now."
She stood from the table. "And you won't have to find
somebody to manage the bar while you're gone. If the
deadline passes, your business will be nationalized and
made an asset of the Bajoran people--not that it's much of
an asset."
    "That's robbery," Quark yelled. He stared at Kira, his
eyes filled with venom.
    Kira met Quark's glare with her own. A slight movement
caught her attention then, and she looked at its source: the
bowl sitting on the table in front of Quark. She had thought
the bowl held short, stuffed noodles of some kind, but now
she recognized the meal for what it was: a serving of live
grubs. One had been bitten in half, she saw, and was oozing
a greenish ichor. Her stomach tightened at the sight.
    "You know, Major, this isn't fair." She raised her eyes to
look at Quark. "I didn't do anything."
    She was astonished that he could even begin to defend
himself.
    "No, you didn't do anything," she said. "But you should
have." She left without waiting for him to respond.




CHAPTER
        5

QrAmo's ~oEe. s dashed across the controls of the comm
panel in his quarters like the legs of a trained and hyperac-
tive spider. The display reacted to his movements, spinning
out webs of text in all directions. His hands paused briefly,
hovering, as his eyes sought to inspect the results of his
queries. Then, not satisfied, he dexterously operated the
panel once more.
    The chaotic readout buzzed electronically, blinked, and
changed. Quark leaned forward in his chair to examine the
new data, but his brother, standing beside the comm panel,
bent in past him and obstructed his view. Quark tried to see
around him, but Rom's nose was nearly pressed against the
display.
    "Do you mind?" Quark scolded. Rom turned to look at
Quark without managing to get out of the way.
    "What?" Rom asked. A look of confusion decorated his
features: his eyelids were half-closed, his mouth was haft-
open, his brow was furrowed.
    "As empty as your head is most of the time," Quark
upbraided his brother, "it's not transparent, and I'd like to
be able to see what I'm doing."

"Oh," Rom offered feebly. "Sorry." He straightened and
moved behind Quark's seat.
    Quark returned his attention to the comm panel. The
contents of the file he had just located and dumped filled the
screen. He began to peruse the data, but after a few seconds,
he was distracted by something he detected in his peripheral
vision. He turned his head to find Rom leaning over his
shoulder, peering intently at the display. The light glow of
the readout shined on Rom's face.
    Quark watched his brother for a few moments, expecting
him to register his further irritation and back away. When
that showed no signs of happening, though, Quark decided
to surrender the battle and resume his work.
    He scanned the corem panel. To him, the readout resem-
bled a visual puzzle: the irregular polygonal shapes and
circular sections of the station's so-called shatterframe
displays always looked like related pieces that failed to fit
together properly. Having spent nearly a decade on Deep
Space Nine--all the way back to when the Cardassians had
manned the station as Terok Nor--Quark had certainly
gained a facility in understanding and using the graphical
interface of the Cardassian-built computer, but he had
never grown to like it.
    Some of the splendid symbols and patterns of the Ferengi
language spread across the comm panel now as Quark
searched through the file he had just downloaded from a
database on his native world. The Ferengi text looked like
artwork, Quark thought, particularly when juxtaposed with
the relatively dull characters of Federation Standard also on
the screen. Unfortunately, even though the text was aesthet-
ically pleasing, Quark found as he scrolled through the data
that it did not contain the information he wanted. He
sighed in frustration and weariness.
    "What's the matter, brother?" Rom asked. "Can't you
find him?"
    Quark switched off the comm panel. The screen went
dark. In the glossy, black surface of the now-empty display,
he saw both his own reflection and that of his brother, and it
occurred to him that Rom almost never called him by his
name.
      "No," Quark answered, swiveling in his seat to face Rom,
 who backed up a step. "I don't think he's there."
  "Not where?"
  "On Ferenginar."
    "Oh." Rom seemed to consider this. "But where else
would he be?"
    "He could be anywhere, you idiot." Quark stood up,
brushed by Rom, and paraded over to the sofa.
    "Maybe you should leave him a message like you did for
the others."
    "I would leave him a message if I knew where to leave
one," Quark explained, aggravated with his brothefts en-
during inability to understand the simplest concepts. Rom
was family, and valuable in his own way--when he had
worked in the bar, he had single-handedly kept its electron-
ics up and running--but he was often an annoyance, and
sometimes even a burden.
    Quark let himself drop onto the soft cushions of the sofa.
It was late and he wanted to sleep, but even though he was
tired, he knew his mind would not rest until his fears had
been allayed. He felt optimistic that the nagus and the
Bajorans would arrive at a compact regarding the Orb, and
that his bar would therefore remain his, and yet without
actual confirmation of an impending agreement, he found
that his optimism fell short of certainty.
    "Maybe one of the others you left messages for will
contact you soon," Rom suggested hopefully.
"Maybe," Quark agreed, though without conviction.
Rom apparently had no response to that. He started to
wander aimlessly about the room, first over to the outer
bulkhead and the window there, then back over to the
comm panel. Quark watched as his brother made several
trips back and forth, eventually stopping by the comm
panel and pushing in the chair. Rom stared at the blank
display for a short time, then came over and joined Quark
on the sofa.
    The two sat together awhile without talking. The room
was dimly lighted right now, and relatively quiet; the deep
thrum of the station's power core was the only sound, and it
was barely distinguishable. Quark found himself staring at

 the wall, his mind drifting. Again, he thought about sleep,
 and again, he dismissed the possibility.  
"Brother?" Rom finally said.
     "What is it?" Quark asked, still looking straight ahead.
 He knew what Rom was going to say.
  "I don't want to have to leave Deep Space Nine."
  Bull's-eye, as O'Brien or Bashir might have said.
  "Don't worry, Rom."
  "But I like it here."
  "Don't worry," Quark repeated.
    "I mean, I have friends here, and I'm on Chief O'Brien's
engineering team," Rom continued plaintively. "This place
is my home."
    "Stop whining," Quark snapped loudly, turning quickly
on the sofa to face his brother. Rom flinched away, as
though Quark had moved to strike him. "Listen," Quark
went on, softening his tone, "I told you not to worry about
this; we're not going to have to leave."
    "If you really believe that," Rom wanted to know, "then
why are you trying to contact all those people on Feren-
ginar?"
    "It's not 'all those people'; I've tried to contact four
people there, and one of them doesn't even appear to be on
the planet anymore."
    "But why are you trying to contact anybody on Ferengi-
nar at all?"
    "I just want to make sure that Grand Nagus Zek is going
to allow the Bajorans back in the auction for the Orb, that's
all. Once I've confirmed that, won't you feel better?"
    "Yes," Rom admitted, "but how can you be so sure that's
what he's going to do?"
"Because that's what makes the best business sense."
"You may think letting the Bajorans bid for the Orb is
good business," Rom said with obvious alarm, "but what if
the nagus doesn't think so?"
    Quark rolled his eyes and dropped his head into his
hands. This had certainly been a day of surprises; it had
begun with Kira telling him he might have only three days
to vacate the station, and it was now approaching its end
with Rom--Rom.t--challenging his financial acuity.
    That's like having a Klingon question your sensitivity,
Quark joked to himself. Unless you happened to be an
active volcano, the Klingon would have no basis to do so.
    "Rom," Quark began, lifting his head back up. "I know
you don't have the lobes for business, but even you can
understand this." Quark did not really feel like explaining
the situation, but neither did he feel like listening to Rom
fret about it. He stood up and paced over to the window. Off
to the left, he spied a lighted speck moving swiftly against
the static background of the stars. Quark watched it ap-
proach DS9 until it was near enough to recognize as one of
the station's runabouts, and then he turned to face Rom
across the room. "The holder of a simple auction," he said,
leaning back against the bulkhead and folding his arms
across his chest, "makes the most profit by selling his goods
to the highest bidder."
 "I know that, brother."
    "Good," Quark said, genuinely pleased that Rom pos-
sessed even that much business knowledge. "But the auc-
tion for the Orb is no longer simple, since the Bajorans have
placed conditions on its outcome. If the nagns sells to the
highest bidder now, he'll make an immediate profit, but
he'll also lose far more in future profits because he won't be
able to continue his numerous business ventures in the
Gamma Quadrant."
    "That's right," Rom said excitedly, getting to his feet. He
sounded as though he had just experienced a revelation.
"The nagns does do a lot of business in the Gamma
Quadrant."
  "Yes, he does."
  "But... ?"
    "But what?" Quark asked, somewhat harshly. It was
frustrating to think that he had calmed his brother's fears,
only to discover in the next instant that he had not. But
quelling Rom's anxieties and keeping him secure, Quark
had long ago realized, were among the most difficult tasks in
the galaxy.
    "The nagus could just get other people to ship products
into and out of the Gamma Quadrant for him," Rom
reasoned.

     "Yes, but employing intermediaries to act clandestinely
 on the nagus's behalf would be very costly; it would
 radically diminish, if not totally destroy, his profit margin."
     "Oh," Rom said noncommittally. Then, after mulling it
 over for a moment, he added, "You're fight." He actually
 sounded sure.
    "Of course I'm right." Quark turned in place and
propped his hands atop the curved sill of the window. The
metal composing the bulkhead was cool against his palms.
He peered out at the approximate place where the worm-
hole was visible when it was open. "Believe me, brother,"
he told Rom, "Zek needs the wormhole a lot more than he
needs the few extra bars of latinurn he might be able to get
from selling the Orb to somebody other than the Bajorans."
    Quark heard Rom's footsteps as he walked over from the
sofa. He stood beside Quark and gazed out the window with
him.
  "Thanks. I feel much better now."
  "Are you sure?"
  "Yes, I'm sure."
    "Good." Quark regarded his brother and saw what ap-
peared to be an expression of genuine relief on his face.
Abruptly, he was reminded of another time, back in their
youth on Ferenginar, when Rom had worn a similar visage.
    The incident that had led to that time had started for
Quark when Rom ducked through the short, circular door-
way into the front room of their family's home. Rom did
not even bother to shake the rain from his clothes before
coming inside. Instead, he scurried through the front room,
droplets of water falling from him and spattering the floor
in his wake. He ignored Quark and their parents, rushing
through the house to the bedroom he and Quark shared.
That was the first indication that something was not right:
the usually loquacious Rom never came home without
wanting to share the events of his day with the entire family.
    Father immediately followed Rom to his and Quark's
room; Quark and Mother trailed along behind. They found
Rom manic and distraught: he bounded frenetically about
the room like the ball in a dabo wheel. It took some time
before Father was able to coax him into sitting down on his
bed and keeping still, and even longer to persuade him to
confide his troubles. When Rom finally recounted the cause
of his agitation, his story came in fits and spasms, and it was
mixed with tears.
    Rom admitted that he had been transacting business with
other boys outside of school over the course of the past
several seasons. Such behavior was not atypical for a boy of
Rom's age and inexperience; learning the process of deal-
making was considered an important and necessary step on
the journey to manhood, and figuring it out on the street
was often more valuable than studying it in school.
    Quark thought he saw pride in their father's countenance
at Rom's disclosure, although Father hid it from Rom,
whose bearing remained grave. Their mother, smiling be-
hind a hand she raised to her mouth, also seemed pleased,
and understandably so; after all, she had been the one to
teach the Rules of Acquisition to both of her boys. And
Quark himself was gratified that his brother was at last
demonstrating the willingness and the ability to succeed at
the Ferengi way of life.
But then Rom confessed that he had not succeeded.
Some of the boys with whom he had done business were
older and more adept than he was, and one of themmBreek
or Breel, Quark thought now, unable to recall the boy's
name with surety--had maneuvered Rom into a desperate
position. A debt had arisen from the many deals Rom had
made, insignificant in its magnitude, but inescapable in its
terms. Breek-or-Breel had obtained this marker on the sly
and presented it during a brief period of time in which Rom
found himself completely without resources. Rom had been
left with no alternative but to offer remuneration in what-
ever manner his unexpected creditor would allow. Amid a
large group of boys from school, Breek-or-Breel insisted
that, as payment, he be given ownership of Rom's right
hand.
    Quark remembered how small and humiliated his broth-
er had looked as he had related his woeful tale. Rom had
resisted the outrageous demand, even though he had been
confident that Breek-or-Breel would never require him to
amputate his hand or do something with it he did not wish
to do. He understood that, for the older boy, the lawful
change of ownership of a part of another person's anatomy
was trophy enough, proof to himself and to his cohorts that
he had mastered the art of business manipulation. But for
Rom, the consequences would still be cruel. In the end,
though, there had been nothing else he could do but
acquiesce.
    As Rom finished telling his family what had befallen him,
his crying became uncontrollable, his whole body shaking
furiously as he sobbed. Father held him and rocked him
back and forth. Mother went to him too, trying to help calm
him.
    Quark observed all of this in silence from the doorway,
until he could watch the pathetic tableau no longer. He fled
to the main room of the house in order to escape his family,
but he could not escape his own thoughts. He regretted what
had happened to his brother, but at the same time, he
recognized that business deals created profit and loss; this
time, Rom had lost. Quark believed that Father should not
have been attempting to soothe Rom, but to educate him to
be a better businessman; Rom's need to learn the craft of
commerce was far greater than his need to have his tears
dried.
    That night, Rom dropped quickly off to asleep, evidently
exhausted from his emotional day, but Quark's own emo-
tions would allow him no rest. It was late when he heard
somebody leaving the house. He jumped up out of bed and
cracked the bedroom window in time to see Father making
his way purposefully into the street. Quark knew right away
that he was headed to confront or Breek-or-Breel's own
father. That, far more than Rom's business failure, dis-
gusted Quark: Rom had made a deal, and it was both
inappropriate and weak for their father to seek redress for
the lawful results of that deal. Breek-or-Breel's father evi-
dently concurred with that opinion, for Quark learned the
next day that he had refused to take any action to alter the
outcome of the business that had transpired between his son
and Rom.
    Appalled by his father's impotence, embarrassed by his
brother's incompetence, and giving no thought at all to his
mother--she was only a female, and therefore without legal
or financial power in Ferengi society--Quark felt the weight
of the responsibility to protect his family fall upon himself.
Under the pretense of tutoring Rom in business, he ex-
tracted from his brother a precise accounting of all the
business he had conducted during the past year. He also
began to covertly research the financial status of Breek-or-
Breel and his family. Eventually, Quark constructed and
implemented some deals of his own.
    It took nearly a year, but ultimately, Breek-or-Breel
suffered much the same fate as he had brought to Rom.
Quark managed to obtain a sizable number of specific types
of debts that Breek-or-Breel owed. These debts all h_ad
variable terms, with the highest margins for the creditors
coming with the passage of time. But Quark did not wait to
collect; instead, he called in each of the debts at the same
time. Breek-or-Breel, unable to immediately discharge all of
the obligations at once, was constrained to negotiate with
Quark. In short order, ownership of Rom's right hand
passed to Quark, and then on to Rom.
    The expression of relief that had appeared on Rom's face
all those years ago when Quark had presented him with the
title to the legally missing piece of his own body, Quark saw,
greatly resembled Rom's expression of relief now at realiz-
ing that they would not have to leave Deep Space Nine.
    He should have been relieved back then, Quark thought. I
charged him next to nothing when I sold him back his hand.
    "Brother," Rom asked, intruding into Quark's reminis-
cence. Quark took his hands from the windowsill and
straightened up. "What would have happened if we had
been forced to leave the station? Where would we have
gone?"
    "It doesn't matter," Quark told him, annoyed. He could
not tell whether Rom was merely speculating, or whether he
now doubted what Quark had told him and was once again
concerned about their immediate future. "It's pointless to
even think about it."
"I guess we would have gone to stay with Moogie, huh?"
"Absolutely not." Quark despised their childhood nick-
name for their mother, but his brother had never outgrown
using it.
    Quark looked over at the doorway to his bedroom.
Perhaps he should reconsider trying to get some sleep; Rom
was tiring him out. But no; fatigued as he was, he knew he
would only lie awake in bed. Ever since he had been a boy,
incomplete or uncertain business matters had afflicted him
with insomnia. Instead of heading for bed, he padded back
over to the sofa and flopped back down on it.
 "Brother?"
    "Will you trust me, Rom?" Quark said. "We're not going
to have to leave. I'm going to stay right here on the station
and use my connections in the Gamma Quadrant until I
earn enough profits so that I canto"
     "mSo that you can buy your own moon," Rom finished
for him excitedly. "Yes."
    "I can't wait until you have your own moon, brother."
Quark glanced over and saw Rom smiling widely, his hands
joyfully clasped together in front of him; he looked like a
child. Then, as Quark watched, the smile transformed into a
frown. "But what if---"
    "Stop it," Quark yelled, grabbing a pillow from the sofa
and throwing it across the room at his brother, it flew past
Rom, hit the window with a muted thump, and fell to the
floor. "It's not going to happen. Listen, ever since Sisko
blackmailed me into staying here and keeping the bar open,
everybody else has been trying to push me off the station."
Quark stopped, suddenly inundated by the memories of all
the difficulties he had abided since Starfleet had taken over
DS9. "Odo would love to throw me in the brig for all
eternity, Worf'd be happy to have me as an appetizer with
dinner some night, and Kira..." Quark trailed off without
finishing, suddenly not comfortable recognizing aloud all of
the animosity so often shown to him.
 "She doesn't like you," Rom noted.
    "Thank you, I know that." Quark stood up and walked
over to the window, bent down, and picked up the pillow.
"She continued to make that abundantly clear this morning
when she so gleefully told me that we might have to leave.
You know, I think she just hates Ferengi."
    "She wasn't mean to me when she told me. She even
seemed sorry about it."
    "She talked to you too?" Quark asked. He tossed the
pillow back onto the sofa.
"Yeah. I think she told all the Ferengi on the station about
the situation. She is the Bajoran liaison."
    "Well, she probably was mean, and you just didn't
understand it."
    Before Rom could respond, a signal from the comm panel
sounded. Quark and Rom glanced at each other as the
computer announced: "Incoming transmission."
    Rom arrived in front of the comm panel first, but Quark,
following, pushed him off to the side; he did not want his
brother visible to whoever was contacting him. He touched
a control to activate the comm panel, then another to
receive the transmission. The display came to life, revealing
the image of a formally dressed Ferengi. The man's jacket
was accoutred with the emblem of the nagus's palace, and
an impressive, bejeweled chain hung about his neck.
    "Quark, you one-lobed wonder," the man squawked. He
wore a broad smile on his face, his ragged dental work
erupting from his mouth at all angles.
    "Listen to who's talking, Zhrel," Quark retorted, also
smiling. "At least I don't have to wait for the nagus's hand-
me-down business tips to earn a living." Zhrel was one of
Zek's financial functionaries, holding a minor place in the
grand nagus's extensive commercial operations.
    "That's right: you can make bad deals on your own,
without any help at all."
    "If you only knew what I've been up to." On the surface,
Quark was playing with Zhrel, as he normally would, but he
also could not stop himself from thinking about his marvel-
ous deal of a few weeks ago.
    "How can you be sure I don't know what you've been up
to?" Zhrel asked.
    "You don't know