Chapter 18

Bakke squealed in frustration and turned his shuttle toward Upper Bowog Bay.

It didn’t make sense! He’d fired his disruptor at the alien twice. Twice! And he hadn’t hit him either time! Okay, maybe he’d been overconfident with that first shot. The guy had been a sitting cephalopod! Or a standing one, anyway. But his second try had been dead-on—dead-on!—and yet, impossibly, the blast had curved around him. At least, he assumed it had curved around him. If it had gone through him—which was how it looked—he’d be an ex-pain-in-the-patook, right?

As he sped over Ferenginar’s rustic uplands, he attempted again and again to contact his mother and brother, to no avail. Their lack of response could be due to any number of natural phenomena, like solar flares, or an onslaught of ravenous polar toads. But the likeliest (and most aggravating) explanation was that they’d gone inside the nearly completed entertainment dome, which was specially shielded to prevent unmonitored communications from coming in or going out. Bakke had argued against installing security shielding at the facility; it seemed an unnecessary expense. But Yrena had insisted. “Our clientele will appreciate the extra sense of entitlement it will provide,” she’d pointed out. “There’s no practical reason to let the outside world—or the FCA—listen in on private transactions.”

She’d prevailed, of course.

“Computer,” he tried one more time. “Contact Mother.”

“Mother is unavailable,” the computer’s electronic voice responded.

“Contact Brother.”

“Brother is unavailable.”

“Oh, lizard lobes!” he cursed.

“Lizard Lobes is not—”

“Disregard!” he shouted angrily.

If he’d had hair on his bulbous head, Bakke would have pulled it out by now. Lacking that option, he expressed his mounting frustration by pounding his fists against the shuttle’s companel and emitting every colorful metaphor he could muster.

Pushing the small shuttle’s abated impulse drive to the limit, Bakke ignored the craft’s engine-monitoring device as it flashed dire warnings about pushing the drive to the limit. He had worse things to worry about. He was certain he would receive yet another clout on the head when he finally found his mother and broke the news that Smooth-face was still alive. Fortunately, Smooth-face couldn’t possibly know who he was. Or where he had gone. That, he hoped, would prevent Yrena from delivering a real pounding.

Still, time was of the essence. And he’d have been there by now, he told himself, if she’d allowed him to get a shuttle with warp capability. Or even one with full impulse capacity, instead of that wimpy “abated” drive. Then I wouldn’t be facing the risk of burning out the drive and crashing into some icy swamp in the middle of nowhere.

But luck was with him, and he finally saw the lights of the construction site ahead. Flying to his usual landing spot, he saw Yrena’s much larger shuttle parked nearby, right where he’d hoped it would be. He pointed the nose of his craft down and landed next to it. When the door panel slid open, Bakke leaped out. Three sets of footprints, barely visible in the accumulating graupel on the ground, told him what he needed to know. Ducking his head into the frosty wind, he followed the indentations to the entrance to the dome and hustled inside.

As Quark had suspected, the entertainment dome had a huge kitchen, where, Yrena promised, the very best chefs in the quadrant would be employed. Her description of some of the meals she intended to serve made Quark’s mouth water. He hadn’t eaten Gamma Trianguli Boa Alfredo since . . . well, actually he’d never eaten it, but he’d seen holopix of it in Gourmet Galaxy, and it looked amazing.

At the moment, however, Quark didn’t see any chefs, nor, for that matter, any foodstuffs. I’ll bet there’s nothing in those big refrigeration units over there, either, he thought. Without question, he was feeling quite peckish after his lengthy internment.

“Stay with your cousin,” Yrena said to Rascoe, and she walked away, toward the door under a sign that was flashing the word REFRESHER.

While she was gone, Quark strolled over to a bar area, which, he had to admit, was extremely inspirational. The barstools were situated in a way that would encourage ordering, while at the same time discourage dawdling at the bar. The better to get customers back to the gaming tables, he realized. Very smart.

Feeling on familiar ground, Quark scribbled notes on the padd Yrena had given him. Maybe I’ll incorporate some of these elements back home, he thought. Assuming I ever get there. He also noted several refinements that he knew would boost Yrena’s profit margin. That done, he wandered through an open door, and found himself in a large L-shaped room with a high ceiling, its walls covered with shelves. Long empty shelves.

Wow, he thought. What a great pantry.

“What’re you doing in here?” came a gruff voice from behind him.

Rascoe.

Quark wasn’t surprised. The lout had been shadowing Quark since they landed.

“I’m fantasizing that there’s something in here to eat,” he said, turning around to face him.

“You’re not too bright, are you?” smirked his shadow.

Quark glared. “I suppose you have a way to magically wish food into existence.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Rascoe said, pointing to the far wall.

Quark walked to the end of the pantry, turned the corner, and found himself staring at a newly installed, state-of-the-art industrial food replicator!

“Be still, my heart!” the hungry Ferengi gasped in delight. But as he moved closer to inspect it, Rascoe’s large hand locked on to his shoulder.

“No one gave you permission to play with the toys,” he said.

“Oh, Rascoe,” Yrena said as she entered the room, freshly powdered and rouged. “Our guest is familiar with the operations of those things. I’m sure he’s aware that this replicator won’t let him do something stupid, like, for instance, create a weapon.”

“Me?” said Quark, effecting his most innocent look. “I’m just hungry.”

In truth, his only thought had been to program a bowl of tube grubs—but now that she’d implanted the thought of making a weapon of some sort, well, that seemed like a pretty good idea as well. Maybe something that would do double duty, like a meaty Antarean sausage. When rendered correctly, the meter-long delicacy, consisting primarily of ground Antarean tree beetles encased in targ intestine, was so dense it could be sharpened and used as a spear (which is why it had been a favorite Klingon field ration for decades).

Yrena, however, was thinking in a different direction entirely. “Let’s inaugurate the equipment by programming a little snack, eh? Let’s all have tea!”

“Tea?” both Quark and Rascoe uttered at the same time.

“Yes!” Yrena said cheerfully, punching buttons. “A nice pot of slimy peat tea and some finger food, like algae puffs, foraiga, groat cakes, some little Altair sandwiches, and—ooh—sea snail brûlée for dessert. I’m just addicted to that!”

Quark eyed Rascoe, who looked as dubious about the menu as he was. But food was food, and he was starving. As soon as Yrena piled the completed items on a serving tray, he took it from her and carried it to a table in the bar. Rascoe followed with another heaping tray, and Yrena brought the teapot.

“Well now, isn’t this nice?” she asked them as they all sat down.

“Yes, very civilized,” Quark responded, while thinking, Just so it’s not my last meal.

“I love a refined repast!” the fe-male said while reaching for a spoonful of aphid aspic to spread on her groat cake. “Dig in.”

With no further prompting, the trio began to devour everything on the table.

“I have some additional . . . mmpph . . . ideas about your menu—” Quark said between bites.

“Write it down, write it down!” Yrena said, slurping in her third brûlée.

Quark was downing the last drop of his tea, and wondering what tactics he could use to delay an impending demise, when Bakke came racing into the building.

“We’re in trouble!” he shouted, nigh hysterical.

Yrena and Rascoe froze, still holding their teacups. “What are you talking about?” his mother asked, looking calm in spite of the tension that had flowed into the room along with the icy wind.

“That funny-looking guy I told you about. I tried to get rid of him! I blasted him—and I’m sure that I hit him! But he didn’t go down! It’s like he was shielded or something! I couldn’t blast him again, because I was drawing attention.”

“So you came here,” Yrena said, her voice chilly.

“You dope!” Rascoe said. “You never did learn how to shoot straight. And I’ll bet anything the guy followed you here.”

“No!” Bakke said, defending himself. “He was on foot, and I flew out of there so fast, nobody could have followed me!”

At that, Yrena stood and walked toward the entrance. Her sons followed. Quark, feeling he had nowhere else to go, tagged along. As they stepped out into the frosty, wet Bowoggy atmosphere, she looked around. Nothing, it seemed to her, looked amiss.

“Perhaps you have escaped undetected,” she stated, “But that . . . person . . . will be looking even harder now. We have to be prepared in case he finds something that will lead to us.” Turning to Quark, she hissed, “Sorry, Nephew. It seems that we’ll have to terminate our plans while we take care of an impending problem.”

All previous tea-cozy compassion left her eyes. She jerked her head toward Quark and said to her sons, “Lock him in the construction shed.”

“Wait!” Quark yelled, attempting to back away. “I thought we were working together—”

“Partnership terminated!” she responded, leveling an energy weapon at his head.

Quark raised his hands. The bullies grabbed him and dragged him over the slippery ground. Rascoe unlocked a nearby tool shed, and they unceremoniously tossed the ambassador inside. As Yrena turned to go back into the dome, she called out, “When you’re finished with that, boys, come in here. It’ll be warm and dry, and we have a number of things to talk about.” Then she disappeared inside.

Rascoe glanced back at the shed and said, “I think we should kill him now, don’t you?”

“Be patient,” his brother answered. “I believe Mother wants him held in reserve, just in case. We can use him for target practice when she’s finished.”