Chapter Twelve

An Elation of Profitable Mindset

Lying flat on his back, Quark was already asleep on one bed… or meager cot, more like when Bashir returned to the room. In a sad, almost dejected sort of way, Broik glanced up from where he was lying on the opposite cot. Then he turned to the window next to which he was closer.

"Did you both immobilize?" asked Bashir professionally.

"Yes," said Quark, despite having been snoring just a second before.

"Alright. Then we'll set the alarm for three and a half hours and switch it for you both again, alright?"

"Sounds good, doctor," said Broik quietly.

Thus Bashir took to the chair. It was more comfortable than trying to sleep on that damp floor. He was not sure how much sleep he was going to get before an hour before dawn anyway, but he did his best. His head hung over the top of the chair, being low and made for the stature of a Ferengi, but he was lean enough that if he curled up, he could get himself comfortable in the width of the back made to cushion the large shape of a Ferengi's head.

No.

The window sill would be better than this, he decided.

Taking the pillows and the chair cushion, he made it all as comfortable as he could. As into a hard and solid hammock, he laid himself. He recalled a time when he was very small, in fact, when there was a low large sill with a seat within it similar to this one, except without being curved like this. It was a room in the study at his old house on earth. When he could not sleep, he would sometimes sleep in it and listen to the night crickets on the other side of the window, and the hum of the air in the quietude of that study.

With teddy bear under one arm and the other touching the window gently, young Julian would find the two parallel sounds rocking him to sleep as on the rocking of a little boat on a gentle sea. Even if he had had no words for such things then, he understood the gentleness of water and watching things float upon it.

If he squinted just right at the moon over this alien mere at present, it was not too much different from a tropical park that could be seen from that study window long ago. Maybe that was one of the reasons why this scene was so eerie anyway. So familiar and yet so foreign, like a phantom place of dusty ghosts, especially with that dark looming domed tower on the other side of the "mere", for some Ferengi business or other. But he kept his vision lower than that. Soon he closed his eyes entirely. He was almost beginning to smell the sandalwood extracts and other pleasant aromas that accompanied that house he once knew, when the first alarm pinged.

The faint and stale smell of beetle snuff replaced all that had been homey and familiar rather quickly. He moaned, wiped away a touch of drool and went to check on his patients who were dead asleep. When he had done with them, he fell back to sleep almost instantly, but it was a dreamless blackness that he entered. As if in a moment's blink, he opened his eyes to Quark's face hovering above his.

"Ah!" he cried.

For a few seconds he thought that he missed a tone and Quark had been usurped again ready to gag him, but it had not been the full hours according to the Ferengi clock, and Quark seemed plenty himself.

"C'mon, it's just before dawn. Let's go, let's go. Pel's already at the door."

#

The busy streets of Ferenginar City, the greatest of all cities in the Ferengi Alliance, were quite the same as Quark remembered them in the sense of the skyline. Great beautiful domes glimmered above all the wealth and prestige of a millennia's worth of Ferenginar's power and grace under the Grand Nagus. It was the prow of the Ship riding the Great River, which led all things towards prosperity for the Ferengi. Back when the Grand Nagus' sole purpose was to make sure every Ferengi had the opportunity to gain his fortune for himself for the next life along with his entire family until sons were of age to start their own and their own business. It was a life cycle that had continued for so long that only a few short years could not destroy its integrity.

But as the transport lowered down into the city to the street-level, there were a few differences Quark could not help but notice.

Women wearing clothes and having the ability to shop and make money at street corners selling silly things like flowers and honey grubs was not exactly a problem to him. Signs promising good wages and fair benefits flickered in his heart just a little. How could he help it? That money back guarantee sure got under his skin and shook him to the foundation of his being, but what bothered him most was the propaganda.

It was psychological warfare at its best. Caring more about nature than the profits of one's children, caring more about a woman's career than a future generation between mother and father… No one was raising the fewer children being born as it was, and those fewer children were going to some school to be taught the "New Course" that was somehow worse than a Federation-run school. All Ferenginar was doomed. That was what was enough to make him puke his soul right up.

But he could not think of that now. As they descended into their transport station, the view of the city was gone again, and he could bring his mind back to more pressing things.

Despite the ungratefulness of his race to go along with all that was changed and continued changing for the worse, Quark was on a mission to save his people. Perhaps the noblest undertaking he had ever endeavored upon that had nothing to do with traditional profit, and he had done many noble things of such magnitude in the past— often against his will. This was about his own race, though. Maybe it was even a good opportunity to turn the tables back to the way 9000 years of Ferenginar history proved best, because of all the damage being done by the parasites under the reign of the "New Course".

Here they were in front of the great Tower of Commerce as their transport landed just outside of the Sacred Marketplace. As they passed through the doors, he turned with a deep wry smile to Bashir who was trying very hard not to look uncomfortable. Quark could tell he was, as the rare sunrise over Ferenginar City shone brightly through the clear dome and the great windows looking out.

"Dr. Julian Bashir! Behold, the heart and soul of Ferenginar!" he said.

And indeed as they stepped out they were met with the highest quality of everything. The automatic runway moved them forward through a magnificent indoor causeway over the swamp beneath them. It was gentle to start and almost unperceivable when it stopped along every shop, every stand, every restaurant. The smells of food, aromatic spices, oils and everything nice were glorious.

The lighting was bright, cheery and gentle, while still leaving enough window space so that no one could feel the slightest bit claustrophobic with the view of the swamp trees now in full bloom with their green and yellow hairy blossoms. Swamp birds flew to their perches on branches or beneath eaves. Sometimes they caught fish in between where the commercial fishermen of this grand city were fishing out all the best freshwater crab and fish into their hover barges. Right on the boats themselves, the creatures were cleansed of anything that might be a pollutant. The songs of their machinery could be heard faintly through the cylindrical hall— one of many that led towards the center of the capital where the Sacred Marketplace was awaiting them like the veins all a being leading to and from a thriving, pulsing heart.

And there weren't just Ferengi by birth here. It was the whole alliance whether their race was officially part or only honorary, of which there were many— even some people from federation planets were present.

Deep down everyone's a Ferengi, Quark thought with the most-heartfelt relish.

The sounds of buying and selling and money being jangled was everywhere. The calls of service and the showing off of beautiful things was everywhere. The sound of all his people doing what they did best, wearing their finest, working their hardest with the pure pleasure to be there eased his aching head, his weary heart. His troubles were all melted away. He was in seventh heaven— near ecstasy, and truly what Ferengi called in very loose translation an "elation of profitable mindset", except that it would be even more fully realized had he something there to sell himself.

Of course, he also did not take the automatic runway as they were in a hurry and had no time or money to spend loitering about. In fact, Ferenginar preferred one to move about his business if he had nothing to buy or sell.

He almost laughed as he turned to Bashir already having told five or six people that he had no money and being yelled at by every single one of them.

So up the shaft to the second storey causeway they went, and walked above all.

Of course, there were still adds everywhere, and they all had to pay a toll to reach the seconds storey.

So much for their last slivers. He only had enough for a transmition call now, and every one of the foursome was on the same boat aside from Bashir who had nothing as usual.

"If Starfleet's not reimbursing me, that stupid Grand Nagus sure will," he promised himself out loud to Bashir.

"We don't even know if he'll be able to receive us as himself," Bashir reminded him.

"Well, that's why we have your immobilizer," Quark said with a wave of his hand. "Then we'll be able to talk."

"But he only has one," said Pel.

Broik nodded with deep concern. Then he looked warily at his boss.

"I'm the Grand Nagus' brother," said Quark with a proud sniff as he held up his suit jacket with pride from the collar. "They'll have to receive us, and now that we're here, we can play our cards. Bashir's from Starfleet. We can boast that they're on their way if they won't cooperate. We have weapons…"

"Only one," said Pel patting where under her tunic coat she kept her gun from her ship.

"Two," said Bashir, meaning the phaser that he apparently salvaged.

"Okay, see?" said Quark. "But they can't all be under the control of the parasites. Someone would have noticed. I see no wanted posters flashing about. I see no one coming after us for anything other than what should be except for all this saving nature and

woman's restitution. So, not everyone in the capital can be controlled, alright?"

"We don't know that," said Bashir indicating a lower tone of voice with his hand beneath the din of music, machinery, and money exchange.

He stopped too and Quark was forced to do the same with some annoyance.

"People even in this causeway could be controlled. You acted normal until we showed up at your bar, Quark. You thought you were in control. We don't know how thorough they are. If we didn't know ahead of time their plans, your whole planet would have been usurped and none of you would ever have known."

Quark frowned and shook his finger, "Yes, that's another thing. How—"

"I'm pretty sure that's why they chose you," Bashir sharply cut in.

"Cuz you think we're stupid?" Quark demanded, his feeling of elation quickly vanished, but it was not disgust as his tone implied so much as fear, because he knew the answer.

"No, because of all this, and they, like the Aavara, like you, focus on profit above all things."

There was a disgruntled pause.

He could feel Broik half behind him glaring heavily at Bashir. Pel was on the other with a sigh.

"But this is what we came here for," said Quark, choosing to say nothing about what Bashir was implying by mocking his very existence again, only sacrilegiously some yards from the Sacred Marketplace itself! "Now we're here and you're giving up?"

"Is there a way to reach your brother by seeing as few people as possible to reach him?"

"Well, we could call him, but if he's under their influence then even if he does allow us an audience with my VIP status, he'll be surrounded by guards and won't let us near him. We could contact his First Clerk, but again, same thing. We go up to the desk, like my plan is, though, and Broik and I say that we're here to bring the Grand Nagus the prisoners who know too much for interrogation."

Pel stiffened.

Bashir hesitated.

Even Broik looked suspiciously at him.

"What?" Quark demanded, perhaps a little too loud for comfort even for himself. He checked his voice and then said quietly, "We have the immobilizer."

He almost had to convince himself that everything was alright.

"Why didn't you say anything before?" asked Pel.

"I thought it was obvious," said Quark, crossing his arms, and trying to hide the fact that it simply had not crossed his mind to do so, which was making him more uncomfortable.

Could the parasite still be influencing him?

Don't be paranoid, he told himself, that's not going to help anything.

"Well…" said Pel looking like she was deciding whether or not to share some vital information.

Did she know how Bashir knew? Did Bashir know because of something Pel knew in the first place? And why couldn't they tell him?

He glowered.

"I know a place where we could lie low until we decide what to do. Maybe we could even get a transport off this planet."

"Who on Ferenginar?" asked Bashir with some surprise.

"Someone who owes me a favor. A friend of mine," Pel said, her voice regathering its usual resoluteness.

Quark knew that this friend had nothing to do with her secret she had been debating about sharing. He glanced at Broik. Broik looked back with what looked like a similar sentiment, and Quark suddenly felt much more camaraderie with him rather than with either Bashir or Pel.