Quark's Emporium

Nhu Tran

Quark reconsidered the problem of Blip. He should have been making money. The Tellurian miners had no other place to shop. It was the perfect illustration of the perfect business situation: Monopoly, Monopoly! Monopoly! -- Acquisition Rule #5.

Quark pulled his lobes in the Ferengi gesture of disgust. Blip had promised to take care of everything in return for 40% of the profits. Blip. If he weren't a brother-in-law's cousin, Quark wouldn't have bothered with him. But he had to honor Acquisition Rule #1 57: "Keep assets in the family or you'll pay later." Putting Blip in charge of a small shop on a small mining moonlet had seemed harmless - at the time. It kept him busy and off-world so he couldn't interfere with the main family enterprises on Ferengar, secretly run by his a female, his mother. The thought of a female acquiring profits, his own mother, was so disgusting he pulled his lobes even harder. Well, somehow Grand Nagus Zek had taken a romantic interest in her, so she was getting away with it so far. Grand Nagus Zek obviously had a thing about clothed females, the allure of the forbidden, no doubt.

Once at Nor Damal, Quark booked a hovercraft to Quark's Emporium. Surprisingly, the mining settlement had grown. Everywhere he looked, competition loomed in the form of shops and slidewalk merchants. He experienced a growing sense of shrinking profits. But still, if Blip had switched to competitive pricing and cornered the market on Chunga, the planetary beverage of choice of every loyal Tellurian miner ... What could possibly have gone wrong?

After paying the hovercraft robo server, Quark hopped out and stood in front of Quark's Emporium. It looked empty. "Where were all the shoppers?" he mused. It was primetime business hours. The place should have been packed. He noted only two hovercars in the parking lanes. He strode inside shouting, "Cousin Blip! Cousin Blip!" Two nervous Tiaxian clerks popped up from behind a screen. "Bring me my cousin!" he ordered. "By the way, where are all the other clerks?"

"They, they were told to find other jobs. Business was too slow here," stammered the taller Tlaxian.

"What!" roared Quark. "Get Blip out here at once! And tell him to bring the finan-corder. I'm

going to get to the bottom of this right now!"

The clerks scurried into a back room. After a few moments, a beaming, smiling Cousin Blip emerged.

"Why Cousin Quark, how nice of you to drop by," oozed Blip as he placed the bottoms of his palms together, fingers spread, in a traditional gesture of respect.

"Never mind the formalities, Blip. I want to see the transactions reports on the finan-corder. The Revenue Board of the Ferengi Commerce Control sent me a sub-space message about not receiving its share of the profits from this profitable operation, or at least it was profitable when I left you in charge."

"The FCC wants to see you? Whatever on Ferenganar for? I can't imagine why, although business has been a little slow of late. Surely you passed all the new shops and markets on the way here. You don't really want to see the finan-corder, do you? Wouldn't you rather go to your quarters and rest?" Blip tried to palm the 'corder from his pocket to up his sleeve, but Quark noted the surreptitious move.

"Don't play dumb as a Vulcan gnor with me! Every good Ferengi always has his finan-corder on him. Rule of Acquisition #187 states: 'Keep the finan-corder close.' Or have you forgotten how to be a Ferengi during your stay here? Give me that finan-corder!" With a sudden lunge, Quark snatched the corder out of Blip's hands.

He entered his personal access code with swift, practiced strokes. "Aa-a-ugh! What have you done! Profits down every quarter! Merchandise unordered!"

"I can explain everything, Cousin, I can explain! Just give me a chance," pleaded Blip.

"What chance? All you had to do was continue this operation in an effective and efficient manner according to Nor Damal regulations, and of course, the Rules of Acquisition!" A few kickbacks here and there would have helped. Then the profits would have kept rolling in!" All I asked you to do was keep sending me those sub-space f;lnan-,-epo,-ts. WAS THAT TOO HARD?" shouted Quark into Cousin Blip's left ear. The insult was not lost on Blip.

"I, I, I'll have the complete register of transactions sent to your quarters right away. I just got too busy to send them. You'll be staying in the penthouse office, I presume?"

Quark nodded assent. Later that evening, he decided to have a replicated meal of Tibble grubs washed down with his favorite beverage - Cardassian Kanar. As he chewed, he thought, "I really should go find a place that serves genuinely prepared foods in real time. Replicated meals, though a boon in terms of saving time, don't quite have the same flavor and texture as the real thing. Hoo-mahns, though, swear they can't tell the difference. Of course, Hoo-mahns also have no culture to speak of."

After the meal, Quark settled in to read the finan-corder and the daily business journal for the emporium. He discovered violation after violation of the Rules of Acquisition. It was like reading one of those holo-horror novels.

First he noticed that profits were not put back into the business for upkeep and re-stocking of merchandise. He queried it to be sure to ask Blip about it tomorrow. "Where were the profits going?" In reading the inventory lists, he discovered that merchandise was being sold for under wholesale prices. "What was this all about?" he wondered. Next he noticed that merchandise that came in that wasn't sold, wasn't in the inventory anymore. It were as though it vanished into a Black Hole. "Was it being stolen after being unloaded from the star freighters? If it was, at what point was it being stolen?"

Several hours later, in the wee hours of the Nor Damal's sunrise, Quark finally finished reading the finan-corder and reviewing business operations. Cousin Blip had a lot to answer for. It looked as though the emporium had been losing money for some time, unbeknownst to Quark. He shuddered at the ramifications. If the emporium went into bankruptcy, the Revenue Board would revoke his business licenses and confiscate his holdings, even the bar on Deep Space Nine, and anything held by his relatives. Brother Rom worked as a technician for Deep Space Nine. He had nothing to lose. Nephew Nog was a Federation ensign, uninterested in business. He had nothing to lose. That left Moogie! The thought of his mother losing her carefully planned profits wasn't so bad. Females weren't supposed to make profits anyway. And perhaps Grand Nagus Zek would protect her, or at the very least, give her a nest egg to start again with. But himself, his bar! What would he do? Where would he go? He couldn't expect any help from Grand Nagus Zek. In fact, the Nagus would probably distance himself from Quark and his family.

Even the whisper of bankruptcy was enough to cause Ferengis to go into self-imposed off-world exile forever. And that meant never entering the Divine Treasury after a long life of earning profits. Instead, his spirit would be consigned to Taxation Hell, where he would undergo eternal Revenue Board audits until a family member earned enough profits to buy him out, cleanse him, and send him on his way to the Divine Treasury. He couldn't think of anyone in his family who had enough latinum to buy him out of Taxation Hell. He quickly calculated his profits from the bar on Deep Space Nine. Even projecting revenue increases, he couldn't buy his way out of Taxation Hell before the FCC Confiscation Proceedings began.

He had to do something to avoid this disgrace. But what?

After a breakfast of Knaf, Quark summoned Cousin Blip. Entering Quark's quarters, Blip genuflected, placing the bottoms of his palms together, fingers spread. "A profitble day to you, Cousin Quark!" beamed a smiling Blip. "Cut the formalities, Cousin Blip. I've finished all the reports. Now I know why you didn't send any sub-space reports. Things have lurched from bad to worse. Do you realize what you've done? I'm ruined! As head of the family, I'm disgraced if this ever gets out that the business is about to go into bankruptcy. The FCC will confiscate all our holdings, revoke our business licenses, and we'll all end up in Taxation Hell! It's bad enough that Rom and Nog aren't businessmen, but you too?"

"Cousin Quark, I can explain everything. I haven't been here myself of late. I turned everything over to Hluxm because I had to..."

"Don't tell me what you had to do. I paid 4 strips of latinum to find out what you were doing. Dabo girls! You've been wasting the proftis on Dabo girls! And you hired a ninny for a manager while you were out carousing with the Miss Nor Damal winner. That ninny orders products for wholesale while selling for below wholesale. Of course you have a deficit, you Ptak! And when the shipments come in, the employees help themselves before products ever get onto the shelves. And since you aren't around, the deliverers have any employee sign off on non-delivered goods, which they are keeping and selling at a profit elsewhere. And I see you fired all the help and hired the relatives of your Dabo girlfriends. Are you totally stupid? I'm going back to Deep Space Nine tonight. I have to get away to decide what to do."

On the passenger liner Tark, Quark settled into his seat, fuming at the thought of Cousin Blip. What to do? What to do? He would go see Moogie. With her connections to Grand Nagus Zek, maybe the whole thing could be covered up until he could remove Blip and shut the operation, or sell it or put a new manager in place. Yes. That's what he would do. He leaped out of his seat and headed for ticketing. "Ferenganar, here I come," he thought.

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