JMJ

Chapter Six

Fire and Water

"I thought Pelipans believed in the old Human maxim, 'Early to bed, early to rise,'" remarked Bashir.

Mr. Aploos turned from the window with a nod; Bashir had seen his ear twitch back towards him long before Bashir opened his mouth and had long known of his presence. The Pelipans and the Ferengi had one thing going for their relationship that would be clear to anyone. They would not be able to sneak up on one another easily. In fact the Pelipans, with their revolving ears, had the advantage.

"'To refreshing skies, before the flies' as Pelipans are apt to say," said Mr. Aploos in humored spirits. "I wasn't aware that you were staying here too?"

They were in the residential guest hall or the apartment suite level of the Tower. Bashir had just said his goodnights to the Grand Nagus and his wife after his goodbye to Pel. He had missed Quark, but Quark lately had been a bit of a workaholic more than usual lately. He may mention it to Quark at some point that, Ferengi or not, he could not keep this up forever.

As for the question on hand, Bashir was not sure why he had not left the Tower for his apartment in the city. He kept feeling like he forgot something. Or something had gone missing. One could never be too careful when missing something on Ferenginar, but he knew he had everything physically accounted for. Was it something lingering from his mind flashes? In the future he will have forgotten something in this hall? He laughed at himself.

"I'm not," said Bashir still smiling. "I was leaving soon. Is your wife alright?"

"She went to bed with the grace of Papa and Son," said Mr. Aploos affectionately. "I was simply going about a little on my own without a Ferengi chaperone."

Mr. Aploos winked a long-lashed eyelid, which was a very subtle gesture in Pelipans as they performed it with fluid and unforced ease so that one might take it for a simple blink if not paid attention to.

"So, what do you think of the Ferengi?" asked Bashir.

He glanced briefly behind him to see if there was any sign of Ferengi about.

"That's not part of my mission to tell you, Dr. Bashir," said Mr. Aploos. "It's my mission to ask you what you think of them."

"Quite true," said Bashir.

"You're a trusted friend of the Grand Nagus. We're taking our own precautions," said Mr. Aploos. "I was asked specifically because they seem to think I know the value of 'hear all and trust nothing', but I said 'yes', because my wife can read the fine print no matter how tiny."

Bashir laughed.

"Seriously, though," said Aploos, though he did not look too much more serious than before as much as he looked more canny. "I can say that the High Mayor likes what he hears about the Ferengi Alliance these days, but, of course, when it comes to Ferengi one cannot be easily sure…" he paused. "The young racer Pel alone is a fine charmer for any race, from what I understand."

"Well," said Bashir. "I do know for a fact that the Grand Nagus and the First Clerk are trustworthy in their intentions. They were surprised by your initiative."

"Are you sure?"

"Let's just say once you understand them well enough, they're easy to read."

"Then I'd like to see you gamble with one," said Aploos with full good humor.

"In a way I'm sure I must look like I'm always gambling with them."

"It seems to me that you more than outdid yourself in order to know them well. I doubt if anyone has taken such an interest in them before for any reason other than playing them at their own games, but here you have obviously adapted yourself to live among them with an understanding far below the surface of gold-pressed latinum churned up by self-panning. It's obvious this is more than a position for you to have been stationed here."

"Well…"

"The Grand Nagus said to me that you know more about them than they do about themselves, which I thought was a funny thing to say. So, I suppose you'd be the one to ask more than anyone as an outsider with insider's view."

"There is some instability, as has been conveyed to you," Bashir admitted, "but they are honored to have you here. I don't know if I truly have more to tell you as a whole."

"Are you a citizen of Ferenginar?"

"No."

"Of Earth? Or at least the Federation."

"Yes, that's right, is there something wrong with that?" asked Bashir, though he knew perfectly well what Mr. Aploos was hinting at.

"I think what I find the most interesting about you, Dr. Bashir, is that you are not representing your own people or your Federation or even Starfleet while you're here."

"That's not entirely true," said Dr. Bashir.

"But then you are in a conflict of interests, wouldn't you agree?" But Aploos laughed and shook his head; it was a strange horsy sort of laugh, almost humorous if one was not a professional among other races, and for the fact that Bashir had usually found himself more comfortable among aliens than people of his own race anyway.

"I do," said Bashir gravely. "But I'm simply representing my friends tonight. I feel that what's in the best interest of my friends here is more important than appearances."

"Your devotion is encouraging," said Aploos. "But even still that suggests that you do not think the Alliance to be worse than the Federation."

"At this point, I think that the Alliance has the potential to bring something of a balance to the universe if nurtured in the right direction."

"So evasive… but that is our thoughts exactly. On Pelipa everything is run locally and stems outward, and we believe that is the path to true love. Despite what others may see in us as wild, true love is the most desirable core of our people. As a couple has children and outward respects the cousins and outward more seconds… The Federation, if this doesn't offend you, pulls all inwardly in contrast, and we have ever seen it as a black hole."

"Despite the good it has done?" asked Bashir innocently.

Aploos saw through him, and smiled dangerously.

"We have remained apart from everyone. Aligned with no one— not because we are not willing to assist people, which the Federation well knows and has respected us for, but because we trust no one to help us. We are not tame. We are wild. We are free. Anyone who would try to bridle us would be bucked or we would fight until our breaths run dry and our hearts have ceased to beat."

Bashir nodded.

"As I briefly explained to the Grand Nagus, one of the things which interests us on Pelipa is that the arrangement of this Ferengi Alliance is and always has been about trade and service, and although, none's a fool enough to claim that the Ferengi have truly fought in war physically, I understand that they did come to the rescue of the planets in the Alliance in their own methods even if only to save their trade arrangements. The other planets likewise. Nor have the Ferengi even in the worst of times forced non-Ferengi to adhere to their beliefs in forced-conversion. A political leader and/or religious leader of any of the planets is free to exercise their power how they will among their own people, except during this brief period of their New Course at the helm. They pushed violently for their new beliefs to be adhered to by everyone in the Alliance perhaps more than the Federation does of theirs. Even their own children were taught that their own Rules of Acquisition were too intolerant to speak in public. Now they have revoked all that again for the most part. At the moment our interests align like stars that have not for over a millennia, and we are as the Ferengi say, taking advantage of that window of opportunity. They are a very passionate race, determined, loyal to fault to whatever cause they have clung to, and if I will tell you a secret, I would, if it remains in a good light, like to see them as our allies."

"Yes, they are passionate," said Bashir. "This slow take on your new relationship is the best course of action."

"We seem to be treading on the remains of a volcanic eruption," agreed Aploos teasingly much like a horse prancing mischievously over vast grasses only it was his tongue prancing over the air between his teeth. "The island it's created still hasn't quite formed its shape, and the lava remains dangerous and volatile still in some spots for tramping recklessly. But that is why, like an expedition, we want to see it firsthand to know for sure before the secrets become hidden again and harder to weed out of the knotted undergrowth."

"That's quite the analogy."

Aploos shrugged. "It's hardly a unique— more of cliché, really, but a befitting one, I believe, for a people like the Ferengi who think in terms of the power of water, which always has its relationship with fire."

"You can't have one without the other." Bashir nodded "But which are you then and which are the Ferengi?"

"The Pelipans are fire, that's all I know!" laughed Aploos again.

"Then you might be put out," warned Bashir.

"Water goes where it will and it will always be water unless it's steamed away and frozen into motionlessness, but fire when is hot enough can overcome anything."

And while Aploos laughed, Bashir found his gaze slipping out the deep round window for a moment, looking down to the city of Ferenginar below. The lights of towers and advertisements through the sprays of rain almost could be the glow of volcanic coals. And the island it was going to create could become either a true haven on the Great Material Continuum or a place of hazard— shipwrecks and deception for all involved. Not to mention a lingering and still festering threat of those leaches Ferenginar had carefully cultivated for generations…

It was more than a year ago since Bashir had had his otherworldly experiences which saved Ferenginar. Although he could not doubt the results and importance of that rescue even within the veins of the pulsing universe, sometimes he found himself wondering if he truly had experienced what he thought he had. But then if he had not what were the proofs around him in the Keeoopii, in the history of this planet, of Pel? Was Quark's own inner peace brought to him in a way that no one in the universe could have without the intel and the right way of putting it, false? Could a Human literally read the mind of a Ferengi, much more his soul, to truly get through to him otherwise?

No.

Bashir may not have been able to hear like a Ferengi, but he could feel the ease of Quark's peace of mind and soul and see it wreathed around him like a ship remastered to better than its release date. He did not need to be psychic either or know his detailed thoughts about it to be aware. Bashir knew that the others around him, including his own brother felt it and likely heard it too in the ease of his brother's vitals. Rom felt rather shabby in comparison, which Rom should not. Ishka still said Quark was making up his conversion to undermine her work, but even she, Bashir knew, felt unsure around her son. She was afraid of his change which was more than simply his change of rhetoric.

"I'm glad that we've spoken," said Aploos then interrupting Bashir's thoughts.

"Me too, Mr. Aploos!" said Bashir holding out his hand to shake.

Aploos looked at it, nodded, and took it as one unused to the gesture, but with the enthusiasm to perform the action with the best he had.

"I hope we see each other tomorrow," said Aploos. "You seem to be of a very stout heart."

Bashir laughed.

"I like that!" Aploos warned with a friendly nudge of his shoulder to Bashir's, which was apparently a gesture of friendship among the Pelipans; for extra measure, he winked again in that Pelipan way. "But I think I'm going to turn in now, if it's all the same to you."

#

The rain was light enough to form a fog. Dense as a white wall, it was like passing into another world on the outskirts of Ferenginar City. It may well have been a world of madness. Right through the smoky sea erupted a beautiful ship turned upside down. It would have been a different matter had the ship been crashed and looked so, but as if the ship had been right-side up it gleamed like new. It was as well kept as it was propped. One would only think it was to show off its underbelly, and as Ferengi were apt to mind their own business when it came to anything on the planet that was their own, no one ever bothered about it, except on occasion to ask if it was for sale, but as it was rather out of date, people did less and less, and these days people knew why it was upside down anyway.

It was part of the strange ways of the Hidden Profiters.

And here was Bashir almost as though he had been on the planet his entire life. Still often he rolled his eyes and wondered what had become of him. Sure he was more at home with aliens more than Humans and had been all his life, save his own parents, but this was something entirely different. He still had been unable to face O'Brian since he looked him straight in the face and told him he wanted to stay on Ferenginar. That look of disbelief— that look of confusion and probably some disgust, but only with the concern of a friend…

Well, what could Bashir say?

He could not explain himself, except to those who understood, and all of those individuals who understood happened to be Ferengi. He had not even told O'Brain about supporting the Alliance, but how could anyone outside understand that most of his support of the Alliance had nothing to do with politics. It was the fate of this secret grove.

This rare flower blooming and almost extinct was more precious to Bashir now than anything else like a environmentalist saving some rare bloom with every fiber of one's being no matter how silly such zeal looked to others. It was delicate and beautiful— a treasure more than the hardest Ferengi's love for latinum or the staunchest Human's for knowledge and perfection. It was a light in a vast canvas of blackness, and his vision could not stray from it.

Was he obsessed?

Was he diseased?

He was in love— as madly and jealously in love as a man out of his wits with it. In love with simplicity and humility that knew not hatred, greed, lust for power, or a stuffy sense of pride. Here it was in the most unlikely place in all the universe. Most treasures were or else they would not be treasures. Hidden and untouched in the middle of a swamp that was the revulsion of the universe and the fool's capital that all the Federation certainly abhorred. Even the swamp itself was not sure of its value and knew little of it as it shifted all around it watching like a cat unsure if a shadow or a gleam of light was prey or predator or something else altogether— pawing it from time to time but never figuring it out. The shaking of the planet was the only thing that revealed its pristine beauty now, but the thought of its unveiling being its undoing made Bashir fear to part with it.

He stepped inside the doors which opened to him and revealed the dry space beyond filled with the scent of the best spices and incense of the universe. He was met by a shelf of cool pooled water, known as the River aqueduct. The sound of it trickling was gentle and soothing after the stifling fog and soggy plopping drops of rain outside. His footsteps echoed as the doors slid shut behind him and blocked out the sound of outside elements and distant ships going to and from the capital. Low lights in the form of ancient Ferengi lanterns that resembled jellyfish plumed ethereally with the light of real fire within them, and here Bashir sat down before the first light.

He leaned against the lantern stand coming up out of the ceiling of the ship, which now was the floor, and he felt himself in Wonderland with a Cheshire smile, but so much more than that.

He knew he was not alone, though, despite the fact that he did not look at first. The other came towards him.

"You came, after all?" asked Paik, the old uncle of Noi, with a slow shrug; his voice was never raised very loudly, nor did he ever sound overly excited about anything, but he was even more dull and monotone than ever when he was in here— at least in the tone of his voice.

"Yes," said Bashir.

Paik was as unmovable as an Egyptian pyramid even if he looked about as colorless in figurative expression. Contrastingly, his Ferengi coat was designed with so many braids, knots, and swirled figures of creatures that it might have been taken from the Book of Kells. When he was not performing his day job as a pest exterminator or helping those who might have been considered such pests had a liquidator been involved, he had sat here during the reign of Zek and sent curious buyers on their way. During the reign of Rom under Ishka's New Course, he had firmly stood his ground when New Coursers tried to tell him it was too large and important a piece to leave around for simply a trophy and should be sold to the government to share among the people or to tax it if he refused. Now retired from most else, never having been married and his brother Roola dead and buried in the swamp beyond in Hidden Profiter tradition, he remained there as near a resident unmoved and unshaken as a child from a house he knew would always be there.

"May I ask you something?" said Bashir

"Hmm?"

"Why do they turn the ship upside down?"

Paik shrugged in his slow old way. "It's flatter on the top. Plus it always made it look less saleable in that condition as though in need of repair, so it was less likely to get sales. Few Ferengi want to pay for an ancient ship that needs fixing when one can buy one half price that's only a few decades old, and ships like this are rarely seen as antiques."

"But for real?"

"There is no upside down in space," Paik muttered. "It can be disorienting to come into a planet from the wrong angle."

Bashir's smile broadened, but he shook his head. He closed his eyes and relaxed, allowing the aura to fill him. It was here always that he recalled his death the most, and far from being an unhappy experience. It was an experience he hoped to never forget in full, but tonight was not going to be one for repose in that way, for it was then that three others came from a room beyond the main bridge.

He did not have to be Ferengi to recognize the voice of one in particular.

Bashir lifted his head.

Paik nodded. "Company's late tonight," he muttered.

The trio was too engaged with what they were saying to hear Paik, and Bashir himself remained quiet to not attract their attention.

The hall echoed immensely, taking every sound and scattering it about playfully until it petered out. The best form of secrecy, in some ways better than a sound proof wall, but Bashir did make out something about marriage.

One of the three was a woman, and Bashir winced the more wondering why a marriage should be secret. Things were volatile to be sure, but not so volatile that the First Clerk should be afraid to speak of marriage. It did not take knowing Quark well to know that he loved the woman he stood beside. It was not his doting hand so much as his tone and his humbled posture. He deeply loved her, whoever she was.

He could not think of anyone but one person she could be. Bashir knew Quark's life too well not to be fooled. He would not love any Ferengi woman more than one alone. Still Bashir felt shocked. Almost horrified by such a concept as her return. Not because he thought it bad for Quark, but because it had come on so suddenly like some nightmarish flash of last year, but he was certainly awake and sober now.

Well, he scolded himself, you can't know everything about Quark anymore. You already know more about him than his own family does!

Actually, he felt most horrified of all exactly because he was violating Quark's private affairs yet again not of his own doing, but to say he invaded it again by accident was almost as mad as the ship's being upside-down.

So instead he put his heart into what was best for this reunion. He prayed it was for the best. Praying… Even on Bajor it had been awkward, but it was the most awkward now, because he believed it whole-heartedly, and it was almost enough to make him laugh.

Was it madness, or simply the rest of the universe that had it all upside-down, and that was the real symbolism of the ship?

He bowed his head in reverence of it all much more powerful than himself and he relented to it willingly.