Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Lengends of the Ferengi

by Ira Steven Behr

  And then one day, the plains rumbled like thunder, and a panic came upon the wooly slugs in their millions. For they could sense the coming of their doom, the coming of … the dreaded snailosaurus.

  Now most people thought that snailosauri had died out some five hundred years ago. Their fossilized shells were used as line camps by the roving slugboys. So the last thing anyone ever expected to see was a live rampaging snailosaurus thundering across the lush plains of Splort. Okay, so maybe rampaging is a bit of poetic license. And maybe thundering is overstating things for the sake of a good yarn. But it was big. And mean. And hungry. And faster than a speeding wooly slug. Maybe not a lot faster. But tell that to a wooly slug. They died by thousands, sucked into the gaping slimy maw of the snailosaurus. And more than a few slugboys went down with them, Ferengi hors d’oeuvres complementing the wooly slug feast.

  Nix was powerless to do anything except watch his profit margins shrink slowly into the sunset. Desperate, he offered a reward to whomever could slay the ravenous snailosaurus … the hand of his first-born daughter in marriage. With an offer like that, Nix kicked back and waited for a stampede of eager, sexually frustrated snailosaurus-hunting slugboys to come knocking at his door. No one showed. And the wooly slug population continued to plummet.

  And then one day, from out of the North strode a squinty-eyed, leather-lobed high plains slugboy named … well, no one ever did learn his name. They just called him … the Slugboy With No Name (“NoName” for short).

  NoName was a man with a plan. He told Nix what he needed. A thousand wooly slug hides, seventy seamstresses with seventy high-speed sewing machines, three tons of Grade A slug steak, and several gallons of Eau d’Snail, which at the time was the most popular perfume in all of Ferenginar. The supplies for NoName’s plan cost Nix a small fortune, but with his back against the wall, he had no choice but to cooperate. NoName took the seamstresses and all the supplies and locked himself into one of Nix’s warehouses. For five days Nix waited for NoName to emerge. On the sixth day, Nix finally lost patience. He entered the warehouse only to find that NoName, the thousand wooly slug hides, the seventy seamstresses, the seventy high-speed sewing machines, the three tons of Grade A slug steak, and the several gallons of Eau d’Snail, not to mention the entire contents of the warehouse, were all gone. All that was left was a gaping hole in the floor and a note.

  The note read, “Thanks. I needed this stuff a lot more than you do.” Three days later, the snailosaurus choked on the thighbone of an especially burly slugboy. Nix’s ranch was saved. But that’s not the end of the story. Eight months later, in the city of Binx, half a world away from the plains of Splort, a new clothing designer opened his showroom for business. The soon to be famous “Clothing by ?” began the planet-wide craze for wooly slug sweaters, scented with Eau d’Snail. Buy one, get a Grade A slug steak for free. What Ferengi could pass up a bargain like that?

  Suffice it to say the Slugboy with No Name had remembered the Forty-First Rule of Acquisition,

  “Profit is its own reward.”

  Nothing typifies the pursuit of profit quite like an agent (Jeffrey Combs) of the Ferengi Commerce Authority.

  RULE

  #44

  Now when Nix (last seen in Rule Forty-One) got older, he retired from the wooly slug business. It’s said he never could sleep soundly again while on the plains of Splort. To him, the nightly keening of the Splort winds sounded like a snailosaurus ceaselessly chomping on poor innocent wooly slugs. So he left the plains and spent the rest of his life indulging in his secret passion, breeding Sleekback Racing Beetles.

  Before long Nix owned a stable of the fastest racing beetles on all of Ferenginar. And his pride and joy were two twin … what do you call young beetles? Beetlekids? Beetlefillies? Beetlelets? Whatever. They were fast, and they were named “Wisdom” and “Luck.” Now Wisdom was an even-tempered beetle, mild, obedient, and true. She responded immediately to the merest urging of her beetlejockey. But her sister Luck was a vicious, evil, disobedient beast. Beetlejockey after beetlejockey was thrown from her sleek shell and trampled by her many legs. But if Wisdom was fast, Luck was faster. When she ran, none could catch her.

  Now Nix’s still-unmarried daughter, Duwain, loved the racing beetles almost as much as her father. But if she loved the beetles, she loved the beetlejockeys even more. Many a night she would stay up late with the jockeys, drinking fermented wormwine and walking among them indecently clothed. The night before the annual Latinum Mandible, the greatest stakes race of the entire racing beetle circuit, Duwain held one of her notorious parties. The beetlejockeys drank late into the night, and many gallons of wormwine were consumed.

  The next morning, the morning of the great race, Koob, Nix’s best jockey, awoke bleary-eyed and worm-headed. He went down to the stables to saddle up his mount. Now Koob knew he was scheduled to ride Wisdom, Luck being too mean-spirited and unpredictable to ever be trusted in a high-stakes race. But even on his best days, Koob was not the brightest of jockeys. And this was not one of his best days, not after a long night of wormwine, moonlight, and Duwain. That’s right, you guessed it. When Koob rode out of that stable, he had his feet firmly planted in the stirrups of the wrong beetle. He left Wisdom behind and put his fate and his backside on Luck.

  On the first lap, Luck took the lead. On the second, she was ahead by two lengths. By the third lap, no one could catch her. But on the fourth lap, Luck turned. No one knows why. Maybe she got bit by a beetlelouse, maybe she got a speck of dust in one of her compound eyes, or maybe she just got tired of being chased by all those other damned beetles. But whatever the reason, Luck spun around on her hind legs and, with Koob holding on for dear life, charged headlong and red-eyed into the pack, colliding with the other beetles at nearly fifty kilometers per hour.

  In moments what started out as a pleasant afternoon race was turned into a scene of horrific carnage. Beetles and their riders lay strewn about the track, their many limbs tangled and broken. Duwain rushed down to the field, searching desperately for her fallen lover. She found him, lying mangled and imbedded in the shattered carapace of his steed. And as Duwain cradled Koob’s head in her lap, he croaked out his last words … “Wrong beetle.”

  Too late, Koob had learned one of life’s essential lessons, the Forty-Fourth Rule of Acquisition,

  “Never confuse wisdom with luck.”

  There are all kinds of wisdom, and all kinds of luck. Know the difference.

  RULE

  #47

  They still talk about him, in the little town of Shnoo. The stranger who came to town on the four-fifteen floater. Eyewitnesses say it looked like a plasma storm was stepping down the boarding ramp. But that was no plasma storm, that was Flus, wearing a suit of live, genetically engineered electric eels. No one had ever seen anything like it. The whole town gathered around him, marveling at his writhing glow. It’s said the good-natured Flus stayed up all night drinking with the inhabitants of Shnoo, letting them marvel at his prismatic coat of light. Finally, just before dawn, the bleary-eyed townspeople shuffled off to bed, still muttering in awe at Flus’s finery.

  They awoke late in the day, only to find their homes looted of every last slip of latinum. Flus was nowhere to be seen. It took months, but the investigators finally realized what had happened. The live eels in Flus’s coat had wriggled off his body, slipped into the homes of the sleeping Shnooites, swallowed their hard-earned latinum (everyone knows that latinum is indigestible to eels), and slithered back to their master. Flus merely had to wait for them to excrete the latinum in order to become a fairly wealthy man.

  Not long thereafter, a visiting Bolian got off the four-fifteen wearing a suit made entirely of form-fitting energy fields. The Shnooites took one look at his eye-catching outfit and set upon him in a demented frenzy of revenge. The innocent Bolian was beaten severely about the head and torso and spent the next four weeks in the hospital.

  The people of Shnoo had learned the hard way that there was gr
eat wisdom in the Forty-Seventh Rule of Acquisition:

  “Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own.”

  They used to say, “Beware Romulans bearing gifts.” Nowadays it’s “Beware exiled members of the Obsidian Order (Andrew Robinson) who offer to hem your trousers.”

  RULE

  #48

  Every culture is faced with the necessity of teaching its children about the dangers of real life. In most societies, these lessons are taught by telling horror stories featuring some nightmarish figure, the “Bogeyman” of Earth, the Klingons’ “Keeper of the Dishonored Dead,” or the “Nameless Traitor” of Cardassia. On Ferenginar this figure of supernatural dread is known as the “Smiling Partner.”

  Ferengi children lose many a good night’s sleep cowering in fear at the thought of this terrible creature. Though the stories vary, its modus operandi is always the same. The Smiling Partner pretends to be your friend. He offers you a fair and profitable deal. He’s generous, likable, and sympathetic to your needs. And of course, he always smiles. But then, the moment after you sign the contract, those smiling teeth turn into razor-sharp blades that crunch down on your lobes and tear them from your head. And as you lie there, blood pouring from the stumps of your ears, the Smiling Partner … laughs.

  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

  It’s no wonder that no Ferengi child ever forgets the Forty-Eighth Rule of Acquisition:

  “The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife.”

  Doesn’t this grin just melt your lobes?

  RULE

  #52

  The following posting was made on the Ferengi Commodities Exchange in the Desiccated Collectibles Market.

  OFFERED:

  THIRTY-FIVE DISKS OF VACUUM DESSICATED FLYNK!!!! Famous holo-performer, dead at fifty. World renowned star of the wildly popular SWAMP KING series found dead in notorious Kefkan accommodation house of beetle snuff overdose. Grand Nagus Zek declares DAY OF MOURNING for actor voted seven years in a row SEXIEST LOBES on Ferenginar. Winner of the GOLDEN LOBETM for his performance in PRIVATEER OF THE SWAMPWAYS, the first of the SWAMP KING series. Credited with giving the SWAMP KING both his swashbuckling style and his famous catchphrase … “Never ask when you can take.” Please note: Due to his indulgent lifestyle, there is an extremely LIMITED SUPPLY of Flynk available. Regretfully, much of his mass was to deteriorated to withstand proper desiccation. SO BUY NOW while there’s still some Flynk left! And you too can be … a SWAMP KING!!!!!

  Caution: Due to unusually high levels of wormwine, beetle snuff, tuberessent oil, dextramethametroheblezine, and other contaminants present in his remains, Flynk is highly combustible. Please keep disks away from open flames.

  Flynk may be gone, but his most famous line has been immortalized as the Fifty-Second Rule of Acquisition:

  “Never ask when you can take.”

  There’s no moment quite so special as when a Ferengi child first utters the word, “Mine!”

  RULE

  #57

  A TRIBUTE

  M … “M” is for morning. Each and every morning he stands outside my door, big soulful eyes waiting for me to arrive and open the door to my oasis, so he can slake his mighty thirst. Honor him.

  O … “O” is for overindulgence. No matter how much he drinks, how much he eats, how much he gambles, it’s never enough. His vast appetite knows no bounds. He is secure in the belief that if some is good, more is better. Bless him.

  R … “R” is for resources. And his are seemingly endless. Where all his latinum comes from, I never ask. After all, it’s not my business, is it? All I care about is that he spends it. And spends it at Quark’s. Which he does. Cherish him.

  N … “N” is for nice. In all my years of knowing him, he’s never exchanged an unpleasant word with another customer. He’s never started a brawl, thrown a beer mug, or missed a payment on his tab. He’s a gentle, sweet-tempered man, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. True, he did once eat another customer’s pet spiderpoodle, but to be fair, the spiderpoodle was left on the bar unattended, and he mistook it for an hors d’oeuvre. He was very sorry afterwards and has never eaten a spiderpoodle since. Forgive him.

  M … O … R … N …. Put them all together, and they spell “MORN.” Best customer, truest friend. Love him.

  As you can see, I am proud to practice the Fifty-Seventh Rule of Acquisition:

  “Good customers are as rare as latinum—treasure them.”

  You could all stand to take a lesson from Morn (Mark Shepherd).

  RULE

  #58

  Now, Ferengi may not care much for sculpture, they may not care much for paintings, and they definitely don’t care about books … but music … that’s another story. If you don’t believe me, check out Rule Twenty-Two. Nothing makes Ferengi lobes vibrate like a good song.

  And no one ever vibrated Ferengi lobes like “Success.” Four impoverished young Ferengi from Kidneypond, Success became the best-selling recording act in Ferengi history, playing sold-out concerts all over the globe. Amongst their most famous recordings were “I Wanna Hold Your Moneybelt,” “Pay, Pay Me Now,” and “Luki in a Floater with Latinum.” And who can forget their chart-busting ballad “Never Ask When You Can Take” a.k.a. “Ballad of the Swamp King” from the compilation album A Tribute to Flynk: Twenty-Seven Artists Get Together to Make Money off a Dead Star?

  But perhaps no event better defined the impact of Success than that fateful evening at the Isle of Grub Festival. Billed as “Five Days of Music, Oo-mox, and Merchandising,” the Isle of Grub Festival was attended by almost a million rabid Success fans, all awaiting the arrival of their idols. But as fate would have it, Grymi Success, the group’s popular lead windsqueezer, decided to spend that day sitting wrapped in a tube grub harvesting sack with his new wife, Pino. (Don’t ask why. Pino was a Bolian performance artist and liked to do these kinds of things.) Without Grymi to lead them, Success had no choice but to back out of the concert, and left immediately for a vacation on Risa.

  So, when on the fifth night, after over a hundred hours of frenzied anticipation, the mecho-accordian band “Sound of One Lobe Flapping” took the stage instead of Success, close to a million furious fans forgot all about Music, Oo-mox, and Merchandising and stormed the stage in a frenzy of destruction. Every structure on the Isle of Grub was burned to the ground, over a hundred thousand rioting Success fans were injured, and all seven members of Sound of One Lobe Flapping disappeared without a trace.

  Shortly afterwards, Success put out an album entitled In Memory of the Fallen, a Tribute to the Tragedy at Grub, featuring the hit single “Grymi Says He’s Sorry.” It sold a hundred million copies.

  Which just goes to prove the Fifty-Eighth Rule of Acquisition:

  “There is no substitute for success.”

  Make no mistake; if there’s profit involved, a Ferengi can party with the best of them.

  RULE

  #59

  Now I’d like to take this opportunity to answer a few of the letters I received after the publication of my runaway best-seller (still available in bookstores) The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. Here’s a typical example:

  Dear Quark,

  You are such a wise man. I was hoping you could give me some advice. I’ve inherited several thousand bars of latinum and don’t know what to do with it. Can you help me?

  Signed,

  Pockets Full of Latinum

  Dear Pockets,

  My advice to you is simple. Hire me as your investment broker. For a tiny fraction of your profits (not to exceed fifty percent) I will manage your entire portfolio. I do this because I am a kind man, and you are very, very … deserving of my help. I guarantee by the time I’m done, you will never have to worry about your latinum again.

  Yours in profit,

  Quark

  Dear Quark,

  I am dating a beautiful and insatiable Betazoid woman. No matter what I do, and I do a lot, it never seems to be enough. I
love her very much, but I don’t seem able to satisfy her. You showed so much wisdom in your best-selling book The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (still available in bookstores), that I am confident you will be able to advise me in this matter. What should I do?

  Signed,

  Unlucky in Love

  Dear Unlucky,

  I feel your pain. Enclosed please find a prepaid ticket to Deep Space Nine. As soon as you receive it, give it to your girlfriend and send her to me. Don’t wait. Do it now!

  Okay. Is she gone? Good. I await her. I promise you, she will not leave this station without achieving a state of complete and utter satisfaction. No matter how long it takes, no matter how much experimentation is required, I will find a way to end her suffering, and yours as well. Rest assured, she’ll be in good hands.

  Your humble servant,

  Quark

  Keep those cards and letters coming. What better way for me to illustrate the Fifty-Ninth Rule of Acquisition:

  “Free advice is seldom cheap.”

  Hew-mons say talk is cheap. If only they knew …

  RULE

  #60

  Sometimes people ask me, “Quark, why are the Rules of Acquisition so important to memorize?” I usually just say, “That’s a pretty stupid question.” But for you dense hew-mons perhaps I should just give you an example of what can happen when you forget to follow an important Rule.