Wesley remembered to lower his voice when he spoke to Shrev. He had found that the forced whisper made it easier to affect the extreme politeness that Zhuiks found normal. It's almost like being an actor in an intense role, he thought. When I'm "in character," it's almost impossible not to be hyperpolite. "Might I intrude upon you?" he asked.

"I would welcome your presence, Wesley." Shrev sniffed delicately. "Your meal has a pleasant aroma."

"As does yours, Shrev." He bent his head slightly and raised his eyes to look at her. Even though he had no antennae to focus on her, he had a hunch that this position would seem attentive; to Zhuiks, humans probably looked as though they were staring off into the s.p.a.ce above someone's head.

She smiled. "You have studied our ways since we last met."

Wesley nodded. "It seemed polite, and I wanted to understand what I saw on the holodeck."

"What you saw did distress you," Shrev said in alarm.

"Only my ignorance distressed me," Wesley said. He had rehea.r.s.ed that line carefully, and he was glad to see how it soothed Shrev. "But now I think I know why you did it. Among your people, behavior is closely linked to genetics. A mutation can reveal itself as a change in behavior."

"And we are far more vulnerable to mutation than most species," Shrev said. The Ten-Forward lounge had excellent acoustics, but Wesley still had to strain to hear Shrev over the dinner chatter of the other patrons. "Our genetic material lacks the stability inherent in yours. If we did not purge our hives of mutants, then within a few generations we would slide into decay and extinction. Hence we accept our killings."

But it's unusual for a Zhuik to kill a mutant even once in a lifetime, Wesley reflected. Zhuiks with obvious birth defects were killed in childhood, usually by their parents-a custom not unknown in some backward human cultures, as more than one text had reminded Wesley. Shrev had killed over a dozen of her people on the holodeck. "It also means that bad manners must upset you," Wesley said. "And you must find life among humans a continual display of rudeness."

"My reaction to bad manners is genetic," Shrev whispered. "But I can make allowances for non-Zhuiks. And I find it relaxing to deal with you. Your manners are impeccable."

"I'm glad to hear I'm learning, Shrev." Wesley remembered his sundae and took a bite. "And I'm glad you can work off the strain on the holodeck."

She smiled. "You are kind, and knowledgeable. The killing relaxes me; my people feel zh'hs'hzs, the ... instinctive need to kill under certain conditions. Through it I also rea.s.sure myself that I still recognize good and bad manners, that I am a proper person. But did you recognize the rudeness in the people I killed?"

Not even once, he thought. "I was often puzzled, Shrev."

"Well." She took a lick of her nectar. "The woman who asked about iron was insulting my choice of friends. Our blood uses copper and yours uses iron, you see?"

Wesley hesitated. "Among humans, we seldom fight to the death over insults."

"But among humans, rudeness is not a genetic failing." Shrev took another spatula of nectar. "I hope I will not offend you with my frankness, but some of my people feel that aliens contaminate our culture, by expecting us to conform to their morals. While we give this topic much debate, the woman was rude to mention it so bluntly in front of an outlander."

"And as a proper lady, you could not allow her insult to pa.s.s unchallenged," Wesley whispered, lifting his words from one of the texts he'd studied. "Might I ask about the woman who requested directions to the surface?"

"She showed a lack of direction," Shrev told him. "Most of my people have an inborn knowledge of our hive's pathways, but a mutant does not know which way is up-"

Wesley laughed loudly. "Sorry, Shrev," he said, then lowered his voice again. "That's a human joke. When someone acts confused or stupid, we say they don't know which way is up."

"An interesting point." She smiled. "It would be rude of me to say that I am suddenly reminded of certain Academy instructors."

"I believe I could name them," Wesley said.

"Indeed?" With her eyes and antennae focused on him, Wesley found her smile sly. "I most especially recall Klarten, whom I shall not deny is an excellent instructor in personal combat."

Wesley winced, recalling Klarten's habit of taking anyone who erred in his cla.s.s and demonstrating judo holds and throws with his or her body. Klarten maintained, loudly, that no cadet could fight worth beans. "He's good, all right," Wesley said.

"And you will be under his expert tutelage for three more years," Shrev said.

Wesley saw where she was leading the conversation; she obviously had a very human urge to get even with Klarten. "I would welcome the chance to surprise him," Wesley said. "And I saw your expertise on the holodeck. Could I impose on you to teach me how Zhuiks use the knife?"

Shrev smiled again. "That would please me no end, Wesley." Her meal was almost done; her spatula sc.r.a.ped the bottom of the bowl. "Well. I have thought on our last talk. As you said, what the Ferengi do is expensive and time-consuming, and not in keeping with their customs."

"I still can't explain that," Wesley said. "I must be missing something."

"Perhaps we have tasted the wrong flowers. The nectar we seek may be elsewhere." She licked at the spatula. "What if the Ferengi are working for someone else?"

"Yeah ..." Wesley said. "They'll do anything for money. But who has a reason to develop a backwater planet like Megara?"

"That question I cannot answer."

"Same here-wait, maybe I'm going at this backward," Wesley said. He looked up at the lounge ceiling; he had kept his head bent forward so long that his neck had begun to stiffen. "Who can afford to do it?"

"There are many possibilities." Shrev put her spatula aside. "Romulans, Tholians, Carda.s.sians, Orion pirates, Gorn, renegade Klingons."

"Megara has a good strategic position on the Federation's border," Wesley said, "and there are a lot of unclaimed planets in the sector. Any of those people would jump at the chance to have a base on Megara."

"That is logical," Shrev said. "Now we must search for facts to support or deny our logic."

Chapter Six.

THE TERROR had faded years ago, but Odovil Pardi still felt nervous around the Ferengi. It did not help that Ri'vok was talking about problems with her operation. "Two shipments in the past sixday have contained octahedral crystalline patterns," the little man said. He sat behind Odovil's desk, forcing her to stand in her own office. "It made the metal worthless. It screwed up the production quotas at two different factories. You're all lazy and stupid here, not checking the quality of your product."

"Our best we do," Odovil said. Pride would not let her remain silent, although facing up to the alien made her queasy. She felt cold sweat inside her baggy gray coverall.

"Your debt-ridden best," Ri'vok sneered. "If I were you, I'd kick out the lazy overdrafts responsible for this problem. Take away their work permits; that's an order. Then you people will learn to do your best." He raised his hand, and for a moment Odovil thought he was reaching for the glowing blue whip coiled around his shoulder. However, he touched one of the ornaments pinned to his vest, and shimmered as be dematerialized.

Odovil sat at her desk and waited until she stopped shaking. Each time she saw one of the outworlders she was reminded of her education. She had been ordered to report to the mayoral hall in Kasten Darr, where she had gone into a small room. A man-a real man, not one of these wizened, rateyed horrors-had placed a glowing helmet over her head, and that was the last thing she had known for three days; the treatment had cast her into a feverish daze.

It had taken Odovil weeks to regain her health. As she recovered she had found that she could read, write, manipulate numbers and remember in precise detail everything she heard and saw ... and that a nameless fear shadowed her mind, leaving her with an urge to hide in the corner of a small room. In time she learned that the Ferengi education-machine had ugly effects on certain people, and when she saw the madness that afflicted other people she felt she had been lucky. The Ferengi had not cared; when she was healthy again they had tested her and told her what job she would perform for them.

Eventually Odovil left the plastic hut that served as her office. The metal-processing plant, her plant, covered an area the size of a small town. Flying cargo bins brought ores from around the world. Smelters and separators extracted metals from the ores; processors and ovens turned pure metals and other substances into alloys; mills and forges cast the alloys into plates, beams and other shapes. Ozone and the smells of glowing metal filled the air.

The plant employed over two thousand people. Some of them nodded or tipped their caps to Odovil as she walked past them. Odovil pretended she didn't see them. The outworlder had suggested she discharge a couple of these people, her people, and the Ferengi never joked about that. Twice before they had ordered her to fire workers, once to end a strike and once to punish a quota shortfall. Odovil had done as ordered; managers who disobeyed such orders were fired themselves, along with many innocent people. Resistance was hopeless.

Depriving a Megaran of his or her work permit was a punishment more diabolic than execution. Without a work permit one could not hold a job, rent a home, even buy food ... not legally. People without a work permit were forced into the criminal underworld, or to find precarious, menial work in the black market. Others simply starved. And now she had to throw some of her people into that living h.e.l.l- Haragan Til supervised the main processors. The old man had grown up as a farmer on this land, and when the outworlders had established the metal plant they had drafted his family into its service. Odovil found him in a control shack, discussing the day's schedule with his a.s.sistant. "Crystals," Til said in disgust, when Odovil told him about Ri'vok's complaint. "Fluctuations in the initial cooling phase we must have. At once to it I shall see." Til left the shack.

The a.s.sistant closed the door. "Trouble we have had," he said. Odovil couldn't remember the young man's name. "The rateyes three of our best people took away. Two of them the magnetothermic ovens supervised. We their replacements still are training."

"Of this nothing I heard," Odovil said petulantly. She did not feel surprised at her ignorance. The plant had an efficient bureaucracy, but it often filtered out "minor" facts, such as the loss of a few workers. "Why the rateyes these people did take?"

"Why the rateyes did not say," the man said. He looked at the control shack's instrument panel and spoke as he adjusted a k.n.o.b. "Only this I know, that they our best people have taken."

Odovil left the shack and walked back to her office. She reflected that it was typical of the outworlders to create a problem and then blame it on someone else. But perhaps this would give her an excuse not to fire anyone. The trouble had come about because the new workers were not fully trained. Firing them would force her to train new people, which could only create more problems. Of course, the outworlders might simply order her to fire somebody else-but she could try.

Her secretary was waiting for Odovil on the gravel path outside her office. "You from the Vo Gatyn a message have," the old woman said. Her short hair was as gray as her coverall. "On your desk the letter is."

Odovil nodded. "Other business there is?" she asked. Her secretary had an expectant look.

"No ... only that, tonight in Kes Pa'kess a dance there will be. A relaxing night you might enjoy."

"No," Odovil said. The thought of going to a dance filled her with a dull horror. "No. Work I must, more trouble there is. Good people away the rateyes have taken."

"The oven operators and an expediter?" the secretary asked. "We replacements already have hired."

"Good enough they aren't," Odovil said. "The others back we need."

"Back they will not come," the old woman said.

"Something you know?" Odovil asked.

"Something from my cousin in Metari Leeg I have heard," she said. "A new school there the rateyes have built. People there the rateyes train, on their starship to work. And to Metari Leeg the rateyes these people took."

"Servants on their ship they need?" Odovil wondered. She couldn't imagine why the outworlders would train people to work in s.p.a.ce.

"Perhaps a new way to make profits they have found," she said. "Many talented people for this training they collect, or so I hear."

Odovil nodded silently and walked into her office. Talented people. If the Ferengi decided that they wanted her for this training-no, she couldn't let herself think about that.

She sat down at her desk and saw the Vo's letter atop a pile of requisitions and memos. It was a square of parchment-one of the many luxuries the Ferengi gave the Vo Gatyn-and it summoned Odovil to a business meeting tonight at the Vo's castle, where it would be the Vo's pleasure to discuss new ways to increase the power and wealth of her domain.

Odovil tossed the parchment into the disposer. Everyone knew that the Vo Gatyn was a Ferengi puppet. Her "contract" with the outworlders was a sham that allowed them to do whatever they liked. At least one and probably several Ferengi would be there, snarling with threats and demands ... along with a hideous swarm of people, loud, laughing, pressing, crowding ...

Haragan Til came to the office an hour later, and found Odovil crouched under her desk, her head cradled in her hands.

Megara was expanding rapidly on the main viewer. "Thirty seconds to orbit," Riker said. "Mr. Worf, sound red alert."

"Aye, sir," the Klingon said happily. The general alarm wailed throughout the ship. "All decks report ready for combat," he said.

Picard looked to Offenhouse, who leaned against the helm next to Wesley Crusher. "Satisfied, Mr. Amba.s.sador?"

"Lock on to the Ferengi ship as soon as you can," Offenhouse said. "Oh, yeah-Data, how much did that Vulcan probe cost?"

The android spoke without looking up from his station next to Wesley. "Five-point-seven-three-two million credits, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

"Call it ten million," Offenhouse said. "Even figures always sound more impressive."

More impressive than what? Picard wondered, as Wesley brought the Enterprise out of warp drive. The maneuver was neatly executed, and the starship entered a standard orbit around Megara. Wesley could not keep the pride out of his voice as he spoke. "On station, Captain. Ferengi battle cruiser bearing zero-mark-zero, range one hundred kilometers."

"All weapons locked on target," Worf announced.

"Hail 'em," Offenhouse said.

The Ferengi bridge appeared on the main viewer, showing alarmed men preparing for battle. "Keep your shields down!" Offenhouse roared at the Ferengi. "Which one of you sleazy wimps is in charge of that tacky peddler's cart you have the chutzpah to call a starship?"

One of the Ferengi snarled at the viewer, displaying a mouthful of sharp, conical teeth. "I am the Daimon Chudak," he said. Picard had to give him credit for his self-control; he seemed utterly unafraid. "Who are you to annoy me?"

"Quit sniveling," Offenhouse snapped. "Tell me, spendthrift, did you really think you could get away with it?"

Chudak bared his teeth. "What are you blathering about, you earless wonder?"

Offenhouse took two steps toward the viewer, and Picard saw him clench his fists. "Don't play stupid, you don't have the brains for it. I'm talking about the probe you destroyed. If you want to get out of this alive, you half-credit leftover from a garbage auction, you're going to pay the Vulcan Academy of Science the ten million credits you cost them-"

"That probe was worth no more than one million!" Chudak said.

"-and you're not going to bother us!" Offenhouse leered at the viewer. "We know what's happening on Megara, you hole in the change purse of the galaxy. Did you think you could fool the Federation forever? We know how you tampered with the last probe. What are you hiding here? A dilithium mine? Kevas? Pergium? Whatever it is, you are not going to hog the profits."

Picard saw the Ferengi's sudden befuddlement. "Tampered-we have never-that is-"

"I should kill you now." Offenhouse crossed his arms over his chest. "Ten years ago, you service charge on the great checking account of life, you fed false data into a long-range probe-or did your claw-handed flunkies tamper with the records at Memory Alpha? Either way, you almost fooled us into thinking that Megara was a primitive world. We can see that it isn't-"

Chudak's image vanished. "The Ferengi have broken the channel," Worf said.

"Naturally," Offenhouse said, suddenly calm and composed. "They'll need a minute to confer. Picard, I'll bet two bits that they agree to pay off the Vulcans, now and in full."

"It's no bet," Picard said. Offenhouse's rough diplomatic style seemed effective ... and it had been a pleasure to watch. "Is that important, Mr. Amba.s.sador?"

Offenhouse nodded. "It'll help confirm a hunch I have."

"Which is?" Riker asked.

"That these Ferengi have an unlimited supply of money," Offenhouse said. "And that the little tightwads will cough up to hide whatever they're doing here. Counselor, are you picking up anything from the Ferengi?"

Deanna shook her head. "Betazoids can't sense Ferengi mentalities. Their four-lobed brains are unreadable to us."

"a.s.suming they have something to read," Worf muttered. Ferengi did not number among his favorite people. "The Ferengi are hailing us," he announced a moment later.

"Put 'em on," Offenhouse said.

Chudak's image returned to the main viewer. "We deny that this Vulcan probe was worth ten million credits," he grated.

Offenhouse's hostility roared back to life. "Have you priced interstellar probes lately? You should have read the sticker before you blew it away. Ten million credits, Chudak, or I'll personally give you a five-fingered dental treatment." He smacked a fist into a palm for emphasis.

Chudak growled under his breath. "For the sake of a profitable peace, I shall pay for our understandable error-but you may not visit Megara. I have an exclusive contract with its government."

Offenhouse shook his head in defiance. "The Federation doesn't recognize any such contract. Never has, never will."

"The Vo of Megara recognizes my contract," Chudak said. "You! Picard! Since when does a civilian run your ship?"

Offenhouse laughed loudly before Picard could speak. "The Federation isn't a military society, chump. The soldiers work for the civilians. Like me. Got that? And I work for a profit."

Chudak glared at him. "The Megarans will deny you the right to land!"

"What's the matter, Chudak?" Offenhouse snickered at his opponent. "Are you afraid I can offer them a better deal?"