After a long and satisfying game, they had retired to a holosuite to relax. The setting was ancient Ferenginar, and there were mud baths and all the finest food they could eat. “I thought we were supposed to be meeting your so-called business contacts,” Brunt said.
“This is where they said to meet. They didn’t say we should starve ourselves or sit like Bajoran prylars while we wait.”
“Good.” It wasn’t long before two stunning Ferengi females approached Brunt and Gaila. They were as naked as the most traditionalist Ferengi female, and moved as seductively as the most alluring Risan hostess. It was a heady mixture, and Brunt found himself almost having to gasp for breath. Gaila sat up from his lounger, his eyes almost bulging out of his skull in some attempt to reach the females before the rest of him.
“What are the two most interesting arrivals to Risa in weeks doing playing around with holograms?” the first one asked. She sat beside Brunt, laying the softest, smoothest fingertips on the edge of his right ear.
The second female took Gaila’s hand in hers, guiding it toward her own ear. “Especially when there are real females who’ve been waiting here for you.”
“That depends—” Gaila squeaked, then cleared his throat and spoke more normally. “That depends on the rates of remuneration for … for . . .”
“Why? Aren’t you looking for something to invest your profits in?” the first female asked. “You’re businessmen, by the look of you, and with the lobes for success.”
“We are,” Brunt agreed, “but a successful businessman always looks for an investment that promises good returns.”
“Oh, we can guarantee that.” She tugged on Brunt’s wrist, and he found himself rising to his feet and following her. Gaila was doing likewise. “Returns and highly favorable bonuses.” The two females led them appreciatively and expectantly toward the exit, but before they got there, they stopped. “Oh, there is just one other thing.”
“What’s that?” Gaila asked impatiently.
“This.” The female with Gaila did something Brunt had never seen a Ferengi do before: the Vulcan nerve pinch. He was so stunned to see Gaila fall that he didn’t realize the same was happening to him. Then everything went black.
The blackness came and went a few times. Brunt felt himself return woozily to consciousness, and realized that he was being carried by burly men wearing gauntlets. Then there was the searing electric buzz of a neural stunner, and more blackness. He thought he felt the tingle of a transporter beam at one point, then came around as he was slammed roughly against a wall. Gaila was pushed in with him, and the two were squashed uncomfortably into a cramped space. Brunt could hardly breathe for Gaila’s weight against him.
Everything went black yet again. Brunt was almost getting used to it. He could feel movement, and was sure they were on board a ship in flight. After an hour or two, he felt a vibration through the walls and floor, and knew the ship had docked. The vibration felt the way he imagined a disruptor blast would feel, and he fully expected to be proved right at any moment, because people didn’t knock you unconscious, kidnap you, and stuff you into access panels just to give you a rebate.
The access panel was removed and allowed to clank onto the floor, and blinding light flooded in. Strong pairs of hands grabbed Brunt and Gaila by the lobes and dragged them out into the companionway, and then out of the ship altogether. On legs turned to jelly by the sensations coursing through their nervous systems from the painful grips on such sensitive areas, Brunt and Gaila were frog-marched through the main lounge of a private yacht. All the viewports were black with privacy filters, and a force field shimmered slightly just inside.
The lounge was filled with low tables covered in goblets of the finest slug juice, and platters of plump tube grubs. “Here’s an irony,” the thin-faced Ferengi sitting opposite them said cheerily. The thugs who had brought in Brunt and Gaila shoved drinks into their hands and forced them to sit in comfortable chairs. Perversely, this made the chairs uncomfortable. “A stalwart agent—no, actually more of a fixture, like the furniture—of the FCA now comes to me looking for help—”
“I do?” Brunt yelped. “I mean, I do, sir . . .”
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” He pinched his almost long nose between finger and thumb, stroking it. “Not a clue?”
“You’re … Gaila’s contact?”
“Well … yes and no. Actually, Gaila’s contact couldn’t make it tonight; he was unavoidably detained for the rest of his life.” Gaila paled, and Brunt swallowed, feeling a sudden near-fatal chill. “Ah, don’t be like that, boys; life for him was only a couple of minutes. Now, the most important thing is that all his projects, shall we say, passed on to me. You got me?”
“You?” Gaila managed to say at last.
“All right, let me introduce myself. I am Daimon Blud. And don’t make any fancy remarks about how that sounds compared to a similar word in Federation Standard.”
“Blud?” Brunt echoed. “The head of the Shadow Treasurers?”
Blud nodded gracefully, and Brunt was even more certain that he and Gaila were about to die horribly. The Shadow Treasurers were the bane of the FCA, even more so than Quark and his ilk. They were an organized gang of offworld bankers, thieves, money launderers—the underworld. Brunt couldn’t help the snarl of disgust that twisted his face. “If I was still in the FCA . . .”
“You’d have been left outside the ship,” Blud said. “You still might be, if I think you are still with the FCA.” He clapped his hands once. “You’re not drinking, I see. Are you trying to insult me? It’s not poisoned, I assure you. If I want you dead, my boys will blow your heads off. Poison’s too unreliable.” He added, more conversationally, “You never know if someone’s inoculated or immune, or what. A good point-blank disruptor blast to the head is really the only way to be sure.” He indicated that they should drink up.
“Now, what does a treasurer do?” Brunt and Gaila exchanged a look, each mentally willing the other not to use words like terrorize, blackmail, or murder. “Looks after latinum,” Blud said. “Banks it, invests, borrows, lends, and so on.” He pointed at them. “That’s why I’ve allowed you to come here. I’ve thought about your plan, Gaila, and it’s interesting.”
Gaila brightened immediately, though Brunt could still smell the stink of fear on him. Brunt decided that Gaila would tell Blud whatever he thought Blud wanted to hear. He doubted that he himself would do any differently; imminent death had that effect on most Ferengi.
“You see, like yourselves, we—I mean, my friends and I—have had our disagreements with those irritating creatures who inhabit the Urwyzden system.” He took a sip of his drink. “Oh, wait, I’m sorry, did I say ’disagreements with irritating creatures’? I’m always doing that.” He laughed lightly. “I meant to say that the sooner those SOUL-SUCKING MOTHER-CREDITORS ARE ALL DISEMBOWELED AND SERVED TO THE SLUG FARMS, THE HAPPIER I’LL BE!” He took a long, shuddering breath, and a drink to soothe his undoubtedly strained throat. “Sorry.”
Brunt’s ears were still ringing, but he knew better than to be less than respectful to someone who could kill him—or worse, bankrupt him—on a whim. “You are clearly a man of great feeling.”
“That he is,” Gaila agreed. “And it’s so understandable.”
“We have had dealings with the Urwyzden before,” Blud admitted. “Well, when I say ’had dealings,’ I mean we’ve offered to have dealings with them, and they’ve replied by insulting me. I sent the prime ministers of all three planets a hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum each. They sent it back. I killed their best friends, and they actually had the gall to complain to Grand Nagus Zek. This was a couple of years ago.
“So, if you’re going to make a profit out of them, I’m willing to invest, for a forty percent cut of the dividends.” Blud held up a hand to stave off any haggling. “Don’t try to negotiate. I like you, and I hate having to disembowel people I like. But it doesn’t stop me doing so.”
“Forty pe
rcent,” Gaila echoed, mortified.
“I’m glad you agree. Now, enjoy your drinks, and then go and show those twisted little dwarves what a real financial power can do. We’ll teach them a lesson about messing with the Ferengi!”
Five Months Ago
The same procedure as at Kalanis Major?” Brunt asked.
“Same procedure as every deal,” Gaila confirmed. Daimon Blud had arranged the rental—at a surprisingly reasonable rate—of a holoship, a vessel dedicated to holosuites for training purposes. This smaller vessel had been slaved to the Golden Handshake’s helm. Brunt and Gaila walked through the empty holodecks. “The prime ministers of Urwyzden Alpha, Beta, and Gamma will be brought here in that order. They’ve already had deliveries of their drones, but we can use an inspection tour for each as an excuse to make our pitches.”
“Let’s hope Bijon knows to wait between appointments this time.”
“Just to be sure,” Gaila said grimly, “I’ve made the arrangements for three different days. And to be doubly sure, one of Lok’s troops will beam them directly to the holoship.”
As they walked, Voloczin stretched his tentacles down and descended from the hologrid. “How does it look?” Gaila asked.
“Like gold-pressed latinum,” Voloczin said cheerily. “All the goodies on offer to each bunch are detectable by sensors we can sell to the other. I gave each planet’s gear a different casing and color.”
“Perfect. Let’s do it.”
“I think I’ll stay a moment,” Brunt said, “and get a feel for our products.”
“You’ll enjoy them, I’m sure,” Gaila promised. With that, he called back to Lok, and he and Voloczin beamed away.
Left alone, Brunt selected a Klingon disruptor and hefted it. The last time he had held a weapon in anger, things had not gone well. There had been Jem’Hadar then, and a Vorta, and he had intended to fight. Well, more accurately he had intended to escape, but if that meant shooting a few Jem’Hadar, then that was what he would have had to do.
It had all been the fault of Quark’s family, of course. His mother had let herself get captured by the Dominion, and Brunt had been willing to help rescue her for a share of fifty bars of gold-pressed latinum. Except that this had been on Quark’s promise, and that was hardly trustworthy. It had even been Quark’s fault that Brunt’s own star had sunk so low that he had had to accept such a demeaning job just to hope to earn some profit.
At least Gaila had, on that occasion, proved himself the most redeemed of Quark’s family, by trying to shoot Quark. Sadly, he had not proved himself any more competent than the rest of Quark’s discount-rate kin.
It always came back to Quark, Brunt thought. Quark’s schemes, and Quark’s impossible luck that haunted Brunt and drove him to penury. If only it had been Brunt who had been quick enough to fire a shot at Quark on Empok Nor. The loathsome welcher would have been as overcooked as hew-mon food.
Looking at the holographic target, Brunt didn’t even see it as a circular targeting matrix. It was Quark’s smug, leering face! He blasted it. Immediately another target was generated; Brunt saw Quark again, and was only too happy to oblige by firing again. Two more targets flashed in from the flanks. Rom’s and Nog’s faces spun wildly across the room, but Brunt got them both with a single shot each. And then there was Zek … Yes, sure enough, he could see Zek’s wrinkled jowls laughing at him on the surface of the next target globe, and he smoothed them out with a disruptor beam right between the beady little eyes.
“Simulation complete,” a computerized voice stated mildly. Brunt was surprised, and looked down at the rifle in his hands. He had actually enjoyed that, he realized, and much more than he had expected to.
“You’re a good shot,” Pel said from behind him. He jumped, almost dropping the disruptor. “I don’t think I could have hit all of those target globes, especially not those last two.”
Brunt was rather impressed himself; he hadn’t expected to hit them all either. He wasn’t going to tell her that, of course. There was always more profit in keeping your assets or debits secret and letting others draw their own conclusions. “It’s just about hitting what you see,” he said truthfully, and with not a little relish.
“I could see the targets, but . . .”
“Let’s just say I have good motivation.”
“I could never do that.”
“But you must have good hand-eye coordination to be a pilot?” If not, Brunt thought, he would never step into the group’s ship again until they got a new pilot.
“That’s true. It just feels different flying a ship, though. You’re not pointing at something; you’re having your whole self carried along. It’s like you’re using your whole body.” Brunt tried not to think about her whole body. It was difficult, what with its being so temptingly clothed and therefore invitingly mysterious. “I don’t like those Breen that Gaila has taken up with.”
“I know what you mean,” Brunt agreed. “Dominion soldiers. At least with a Jem’Hadar you could see his face, and what he was thinking.”
“You’ve met Jem’Hadar?” Pel asked admiringly.
“Yes,” Brunt admitted. He decided not to tell her that the meeting was in the context of trying to swap a Vorta for the Nagus’s mate—who also happened to be Quark’s mother.
“I’m impressed! What did they do?”
“They . . .” Brunt hesitated. On that occasion most of them had simply been withdrawn, and two had been killed, by Rom and Leck. “They died,” he said at last.
Pel nodded slowly. “So the famous Liquidator does have lobes, eh?”
Brunt looked at her. After the past few months, he had even stopped noticing that she was clothed. “Oh yes.”
“I never imagined I’d say that to a Liquidator.”
“We’re not all monsters. We try to be, but we’re only flesh and blood. Something shows through.”
“You’re actually a pretty decent Ferengi,” she admitted. “Strong, resourceful.” She was standing closer to him now. “Profit-driven.”
“We should keep out of the way of those Breen. I mean . . .”
“You mean you have a reputation to uphold?”
“I do? I mean, I do.” Brunt smiled nastily, suspecting that Pel might actually like that kind of expression. It would fit his reputation as the nasty FCA Liquidator, after all, and she had brought up that reputation. “I don’t like the way they look at me.”
“I don’t like the way they look at me either,” Pel admitted. “In fact, I don’t like the way they look at anyone other than Gaila and Voloczin.” She pulled herself up proudly to her full height, such as it was. “I especially don’t like the way they look at people talking together.”
“Then we shouldn’t let them look at us talking.”
Pel began to giggle, then stopped. “They’d probably assume we’re conspiring together against Gaila, or them.”
“I don’t trust any of you enough to conspire with you, about anything.” Not yet, anyway, he thought, and the thought surprised him.
“That won’t stop them,” Pel said. “I was one of the first females to earn profit, and I want to keep earning profit, but … I sometimes wonder if Gaila’s way of doing things is really … well, if it’s really the best way to get the maximum profit.”
“You don’t trust Gaila?”
Pel gave him a disbelieving look, then her expression cleared, and she laughed. “Oh, you were making a joke! Sorry. It’s a long time since I’ve seen irony or subtle humor. The Breen don’t laugh, Bijon only thinks people falling over is funny, and Voloczin . . .”
“Is just a little too different,” Brunt observed.
“You’re right. Of course I don’t trust Gaila; nobody trusts Gaila. Frankly, you’ve been his partner for seven months. That’s not a record, but it’s not that far off.”
“He’s always been a profitable man,” Brunt reminded her. “Everything he does is so beautifully geared toward increasing profit. Not just for himself, but for all of us.�
�
“I suppose it is, as best he can think of it. But, you know, sometimes I think he just does it for fun—or for practice. And profit comes second.”
Brunt shivered at the very thought of profit coming second. Yet he had seen Ferengi behave that way before. “Perhaps it runs in the family.”
“The family?”
“His cousin does that a lot.”
Three times, Gaila marched around the racks of supplies in the holoship, stroking a hand along the edges. He gave the same speech to each of the three prime ministers; it was well-rehearsed and carefully honed to sound off-the-cuff, heartfelt, and believable. “We have everything for the growing military defense force.” He paused and lifted a hand phaser from a row of them. “Hand weapons with variable stun and kill settings. Concealable, and ideal for enforcement and protection.” He moved to the next rack. “Sidearms for troops in the field. More powerful, with a longer-lasting power pack, which is easily removable for charging while in the field. Again, very reliable. Accurate up to over a kilometer, variable power, and can fire in pulse or beam mode.”
Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins Page 12
