“Is that unusual?”
“Not for a Ferengi,” Nog said. “And not even for a twentieth-century human, but it just doesn’t ring true. Vic didn’t care about such things. He lived to sing, to entertain people. He didn’t care about the acquisition of wealth.”
Candlewood sat down across from Nog. “I hate to bring this up again, but this program ran in the simulation tester for two years. Maybe Vic’s matrix degraded and he’s no longer the character he once was.”
Nog did not respond right away. Candlewood could see that even the chance that the operations chief had essentially lost his friend troubled him. Finally, Nog said, “I hope that’s not the case, but I have to admit that it’s at least a possibility.” He gazed back down at the papers on the table. “There’s something else that’s bothering me, though.”
“What’s that?” Candlewood asked.
“It’s me,” said a woman’s voice. Candlewood hadn’t heard the door to the other bedroom open, but when he looked in that direction, he saw Ulu standing there. “You don’t trust me.” She walked over to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
Candlewood waited to see whether Nog would confirm or deny Ulu’s assertion, but he did neither. Instead, he dropped the flat of his hand to the center of the table, atop several of the documents laid out there. “Where did you get these?”
Ulu took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, as though deciding whether or not to answer the question. At last, she said, “I got them from account files here, at the Shining Oasis casino.”
“But how would you know to search for these there?” Nog asked. “How would you know to search for them anywhere? Why would you think that these would be in Vic’s account?”
“I didn’t think they would be in Vic’s account,” Ulu said. “I don’t even know if Vic has an account at the casino.”
“Then whose account did you take all these documents from?” Candlewood asked.
Ulu looked from Nog to Candlewood and back to Nog before answering: “Morn’s.”
ii
* * *
“Morn?” Nog said at the same time as Candlewood. He heard the same confusion in the science officer’s voice as he did in his own. Lani simply nodded.
“Hold on,” Candlewood said. “Are we talking about the same Morn? The bulky, bald Lurian who was more of a fixture in Quark’s than the barstools? Who owned a shipping business and could take two hours to tell one story? That Morn?”
“I don’t know about him being a fixture in Quark’s because I wasn’t there back then,” Lani said, “but yes, that Morn.”
“I don’t understand,” Candlewood said. “Why would there be legal documents with Vic’s name on them in Morn’s casino account?” Nog asked himself the same question. He could think of several reasons, none of them good.
“I can only tell you what I know,” Lani said. “I’m not supposed to say anything to anybody, but because you employed an expiring, one-time back door to reenter the program, circumstances have changed.”
Nog snapped his head up toward Lani. “How do you know we used a back door?” he asked, already knowing the answer. Lani cast her gaze downward, reinforcing his belief. She said nothing, and so Nog replied to his own question: “You spied on me even outside the holosuite and the bar. You heard my conversation with Felix.”
“I’m sorry,” Lani said softly. With her head bowed, her long red hair hid her face.
He threw up his hands, then pushed back from the table, his anger and disappointment making it impossible for him to keep still. Nog issued a disapproving grunt, moved out from behind the table, and marched across the room toward the front door. He had no particular destination in mind, only the drive to get out of the suite. He had his hand on the doorknob when Candlewood spoke up.
“Nog,” the science officer said, “if we’re going to help Vic, we need to learn everything that Miss Ulu knows.”
The desire to put distance between himself and Lani remained, but Candlewood was right. She might have information that could help them save Vic.
Nog let go of the doorknob, then walked over to the sofa and sat down heavily on it. A pillow flopped over and slipped to the carpeting. He left it there. “Tell us,” he said.
“You both served on the original Deep Space Nine, and you knew Morn,” Lani said, “so I’m sure you know that he liked frequenting Vic’s lounge to listen to him sing.”
Nog did know that, and apparently so did Candlewood. “I didn’t visit Vic’s very often,” the science officer said, “but Morn was there most of the times I did.”
“He loved the sound of Vic’s voice,” Lani said.
The statement seemed strange to Nog, and speculative at best. Unless—
“Morn also enjoyed gambling in the casino,” Lani continued. “He did so quite often, using the small sum the program supplies to users. He could never win, though; in the end, he would always lose everything, and he would have to exit the program so that his funds would reset.” The on-hand cash provided to users of Bashir 62 marked one of the few details within the holoprogram that would reinitialize upon reentry.
“Of course he always lost,” Candlewood said. “There’s a name given to the stochastic process that describes betting games like those in the Shining Oasis—like those all over Las Vegas, I’m guessing. When the probability of a player with a finite stake winning any individual round is less than fifty percent, it’s called gambler’s ruin, and the outcome in the long run is assured.” Nog understood the science officer’s description. On Ferenginar, they dubbed the mathematical process bettor’s folly, and it served as the underpinning for the wagering rules of dabo.
“Over time, Morn got bored playing for low stakes,” Lani said. “So he opened an account at the Shining Oasis and deposited the small sum the program provided. Then he went back every day for months, each time adding to his account. It still didn’t amount to all that much, but it eventually allowed him to make larger bets. He continued adding to the account each time he entered the program. By the time he lost all of those funds, he’d established a basis for credit with the casino.”
“Established a basis for credit?” Candlewood asked. “By depositing money and then losing it all? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Nog?” Lani prompted.
“It makes perfect sense, especially for a casino,” Nog said. “Morn demonstrated the capacity over time to produce capital, as well as the predilection for eventually losing it all at the gaming tables. For the Shining Oasis, what could have been better?”
As Candlewood shook his head in apparent disbelief, Lani continued. “Morn opened a line of credit with the casino, which finally allowed him to gamble for high stakes. He had a great deal of fun, and for a while he even won more than he lost, but it didn’t last. When he ended up losing everything he’d borrowed, with no means of repaying the debt in anything approaching a timely manner, he was faced with being banned from the Shining Oasis—or possibly even being charged with a financial crime.”
“Okay,” Candlewood said. “Being banned from a holographic casino or being charged with a crime in an illusory world seem like problems without genuine repercussions.”
“Not in the real word, no,” Lani agreed. “But Morn would not have been able to enter the program without being escorted out of the Shining Oasis or being arrested, even if all he wanted to do was listen to Vic sing. Also, all of the other establishments in Las Vegas—even in the holographic Las Vegas—shared information about what they called deadbeats. Morn would have been prohibited from entering any of the hotels and casinos.”
“I guess that’s unfortunate,” Candlewood said, “but what does it have to do with all of this?” He waved his hand over the legal documents covering the table.
“Morn didn’t want to stop visiting the program,” Lani said, “so he convinced Vic to cosign on his line of credit. Th
at allowed him time to pay off the debt.”
“But how could he pay it off without the funds to do so?” Candlewood asked, but Nog already realized what had taken place.
“With the increased line of credit,” he said, “Morn thought he could win back what he already owed.”
Lani nodded. “And instead, he lost it all.”
Nog stood up from the sofa. “So the Shining Oasis not only held Morn responsible for the debt, but also Vic.”
“What does that mean?” Candlewood asked. “Vic vouched for Morn, and then Morn lost holographic funds in a holographic casino, so Vic was in danger of . . . what? Being sent to a holographic debtor’s prison?”
“Vic would have been fired from his job, barred from similar employment anywhere in Las Vegas, and would likely have been charged with fraud or a similar financial crime,” Lani said. “Morn didn’t want that to happen, so he had to make good on the funds owed to the Shining Oasis.”
“But how could he do that?” Candlewood asked. “I know a lot about computers and mathematics and the physical sciences, but I don’t have much of a handle on antiquated financial systems.”
Nog walked back over to the table, though he didn’t sit. “There were a lot of things he could have done,” he said. “Almost none of them leading to a positive outcome.”
“Morn hired a forger in Las Vegas to produce real-estate water-rights documents and records of the transactions that provided corroboration of those instruments,” Lani said. Nog peered into her startlingly green eyes as she spoke about finance; she’d never seemed sexier.
“Why would Morn have fake documents created?” Candlewood asked. He sounded befuddled. “Wouldn’t that just make things worse?”
“It could,” Nog said, jumping ahead, “but he probably just wanted to buy some time.”
“That’s right,” Lani said. “He gave the documents to Vic so that he in turn could produce them for the casino as a demonstration of his solvency. The Shining Oasis would then allow them enough time to repay the line of credit before attempting to sell the bogus rights.”
“What good would time do,” Candlewood asked, “if neither Morn nor Vic had the capital to pay off the debt?”
“It gave Morn time to amass the funds,” Nog concluded. “But how did he intend to do it? Surely not by gambling again?”
“Not exactly,” Lani said. “Morn believed that he could rig the slot machines in holographic Las Vegas. He intended to build a device from the materials available in the program and use it all over town.”
“If he won enough,” Nog said, “that could also get him barred from the casinos.”
“He knew that,” Lani said, “but he still wanted to relieve Vic of the burden he’d placed on him. If he couldn’t craft such a device, then he thought that he could borrow the cash from the criminal element in Las Vegas. That also would have made it difficult for him to return to the program, but at that point, he cared only about helping Vic out of the bad position he’d put him in.”
“So which of those things did he do?” Candlewood asked.
“Neither,” Lani said, “because Deep Space Nine was destroyed.”
iii
* * *
Nog saw Candlewood gaze up at him, and the two shared a silent, sober look. “What does that mean?” the science officer asked.
“It means that Vic was in trouble with the Shining Oasis when the program was executing normally, in a holosuite,” Nog said. He sat back down at the table. “But since the program’s been running in the simulator, without Morn to help him out, his problems have somehow shifted to Bugsy Calderone.”
“What did Vic do?” Candlewood asked. “Did he try to sell the rights to a mobster?”
“That doesn’t sound like a recipe for a long life,” Nog said. “Vic’s not stupid. He wouldn’t try to sell something he didn’t genuinely own—especially not to a dangerous criminal.”
“He didn’t know,” Lani said.
“Who didn’t know what?” Candlewood asked.
“Vic didn’t know the documents were forgeries,” Lani said. “When Morn gave him the water rights as collateral for the debt, he passed them off as genuine.”
Lani’s statement seemed to bolster Nog’s earlier intuition, but he wanted to be sure. “How do you know all this?” he asked her. “Not from my uncle.”
“No,” Lani said. “Morn told me.”
“Then he’s alive,” Nog said. “My uncle’s been looking for him.”
“I received instructions from him just before I entered this program,” Lani said.
“Instructions?” Candlewood asked.
“I work for Morn.”
“I thought you worked for Quark,” Candlewood said.
“When the new Deep Space Nine began operation,” Lani said, “Morn hired me through a mutual acquaintance on Bajor. He wanted me to take a job at Quark’s on the starbase to find out about Vic for him. Morn didn’t think there would be problems loading Vic’s program into the new holosuites, but when I reported that there were, and that you—” Lani looked up at Nog with her beautiful green eyes. “—were working to fix them, he asked me to follow your efforts. Quark also hired me to keep an eye on you, which was very convenient.”
“Why didn’t Morn just do all of this himself?” Nog asked. “My uncle would have welcomed him back.”
“Morn is . . . busy.”
“Busy?” Candlewood asked. “Doing what?”
“After the first Deep Space Nine was destroyed,” Lani said, “Morn couldn’t stop thinking about Vic. He knew he’d given the singer worthless paper to prop up his outstanding debt, and he worried that, while the program ran in the simulator, Vic would pay the price for that. He waited anxiously for Quark to install holosuites in his place on Bajor. Morn wanted to reenter the program so that he could warn Vic about the counterfeit documents and find a way to pay off his debt to the Shining Oasis.”
“But when Quark installed the holosuites half a year later,” Nog said, “they were older models that couldn’t accommodate Vic’s complex matrix.”
“And because the program was continuing to execute in the simulation tester,” Lani said, “Morn knew that he’d put Vic’s freedom in danger. If either he or the casino attempted to liquidate the water-rights holdings, the fraud would be revealed and Vic could easily end up in prison.”
“Is that why Morn left Bajor?” Candlewood asked. “Because he couldn’t face that?”
“He left Bajor because of the situation he’d put Vic in,” Lani said, “but not because he couldn’t face it. He went in search of a means of saving Vic.”
“Why didn’t he just steal the tester and install the program in some other holosuite somewhere?” Candlewood asked.
“Morn doubted he could find a place that would allow him the dedicated time he would need in order to build the device for the slot machines and then acquire enough wealth to resolve Vic’s situation,” Lani said. “He also worried about Quark’s security.”
“My uncle typically rigs his equipment to fail the instant it leaves his property,” Nog said. “He had to disable it on the simulator when he evacuated the station, but he would have reset it afterward.”
“So what is it that Morn’s doing to try to save Vic?” Candlewood asked.
“For one thing,” Lani said, “he’s got me helping you.”
“But what is he doing?” Candlewood asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lani said. “I only know that he’s been working on finding a way to save Vic ever since he left Bajor.”
“For almost two years?” Candlewood said. “That sounds like an obsession.”
Lani nodded. “I think it is,” she said. “It’s all he talks about. Morn seems very single-minded about it. As best I can tell, he’s dedicated his life to this endeavor to the exclusion of just about everything else. He also
seems extremely depressed.”
“My uncle thought he was suffering from survivor’s guilt,” Nog said. “I know he lost a lot of friends on the original Deep Space Nine.”
“I think that’s why he’s fixated on saving Vic Fontaine,” Lani said. “Vic is a friend who survived the destruction of the station, and somebody who Morn might be able to help.”
“But help how?” Nog asked. “He can’t bring funds or a device to cheat the slot machines into the program. What is it he’s doing?”
“I don’t know,” Lani said. “But he’s definitely up to something.”
iv
* * *
Kira sat on a bench, near the end of one of the two long tables that lined the refectory of the Shikina Monastery. The polished marble of the tabletop perched on rough-hewn pedestals and felt cool beneath her touch. The early cloud cover over Ashalla had yet to burn off, leaving a chill in the midmorning air.
Kira speared first one and then a second alva with a fork and lifted the small fruit to her mouth. She had waited to eat breakfast until after the resident monks had completed theirs. She and Altek Dans had the dining hall to themselves.
The previous night had seen the news of Kira’s emergence from the Celestial Temple, and of Altek’s arrival from the past, dominating the Bajoran comnet. While a few strident voices cast doubts about the veracity of the kai’s announcements, most commentary centered on the astounding nature of the events. That morning brought the first mutterings of partisan arguments, with mainstream believers pointing to the return of Kira—herself an adherent of traditional faith—as an act by the Prophets to confirm their divinity. By contrast, several Ohalavaru leaders noted Kira’s part in making public the Ohalu texts, implying that her sudden reappearance supported their opinions about the Endalla falsework and the alien nature of the Prophets.
“All of this conflicting talk has me off-balance,” Kira told Altek, who sat across from her. “If there was one thing during the Occupation that held Bajor together, it was our shared faith.”
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