Okay. Time to start writing the holonovel.

Just basic setting stuff for now, and maybe that program he used when the staff was being unreasonable with a few tweaks.

Actually, this is the best situation for placeholders in holoprogramming. It should outrage the "Bureau" just the right amount if all of the furniture was Ferengi-style furniture from the reign of Grand Nagus Smeet. He'll just have Holo-Quark give them a tour, and explain all of the reasons why he obviously needs records access, and there'll be a lot of fake books and art pieces, in an authentic Vulcan landscape. Shouldn't even take him more than an afternoon before he has a draft to send to the Archivist.

Quark receives a prompt response, and about thirty pages of commentary. The archival assistant assigned to his proposal feels it lacks a nuanced understanding of Vulcan culture and would benefit from greater focus, with the selected vocabulary excessively vague and thus failing to establish...

It seems like they have perhaps not understood his artistic vision.

Indeed they did not!

How could they miss it?! There was even a version of him available to slowly walk them through it!

Of course he doesn't have a "nuanced understanding of Vulcan culture" that's why he wants access to their records!!

Wait, no it's not.

He wants access to the records for the three bars of latinum he's getting from the Cardassians. The holonovel does not matter.

He would rather not actually need to write a full holonovel. It would be a bad idea to put more time and effort into this acquisition than he absolutely must.

Buuuut, maybe it's time to bring some latinum into the equation. If he wants the proposal approved, (which yes, both his cover story and the real plan do require the proposal being approved) he needs to pay some archivist enough that they will actually explain themselves coherently. He'll send a request for the rates for various archvists' time.

The Federation, of course, looks down upon the use of "money" when handling routine or essential transactions. The average resident of Earth, famously, never handles currency in their daily life, with alternative systems in use even for inherently-scarce resources like nondeveloped land.

The rest of the Federation doesn't go to such efforts, instead using Federation credits for anything that would be inconvenient to allocate inefficiently, or that relies on the time of highly-trained professionals. Interstellar food shipments are denominated in credits, even if meals are too cheap to meter on the planetary level, and a combination of copyright law and excessive computing requirements mean that a holoprogram license is the most expensive thing most Federation citizens ever buy. Other specialized professionals can charge similarly, based on the rarity and value of their work. The local value of labor, obviously, is heavily dependent on what others are willing to pay for similar labor.

Vulcans, unfortunately, really like history. The dedicated attention of a fully-trained archivist costs about a bar of latinum per hour, in credits.

No.

Just no.

That's more than he'd pay for an hour's advice from the Nagus, and with an hour's worth of advice from the Nagus he could do a lot better than 3 measly bars of profit. He wouldn't even need to write this worthless holonovel!

Buuuut....

When you consider Quarks' case specifically:

The loss of profit from the bar when he's away, the cost of travel to Ferenginar, and the fact that the Nagus still seems really invested in personally exploiting HIM...

He probably won't even need a full hour with an archivist, and that's still at least 2 bars of profit. Plus bonuses and holonovel sales.

He could always talk to someone between the lowest-priced assistants and the most-experienced archivists. Though in the other ear, of his two interactions with the Academy, only one has been comprehensible to people who aren't actually Vulcan historians.

Right, there are plenty of people he could be bribing here, but since it's a secretive alien organization, best to go straight to the top with just a few questions. Five minutes of that Archivist's time should come to a little less than 2 strips of latinum, which is still absolutely extortionate, but everyone knows how good monopolies are for business. With five minutes, he can ask which of her staff can actually answer questions coherently and get a decent list of who he should be bribing.

"Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to" (Rule #3) means a lot of different things depending on the circumstances, but right now it means that he shouldn't be gradually increasing what he pays one slip at a time, blindly hoping that the next bribe will solve all his problems somehow, like Rom would.

Quark is paying for something he knows will work. "Knowledge equals profit," (Rule #74) and maybe this is even the sort of information he can sell in the future. He isn't the first Ferengi to try this after all.

Oh! A new revenue stream for this project!

Not a huge one, sure, but marketed correctly, a guide for the application process could net him enough to cancel out the bribery expenses from this stage.

Quark sends a request for five minutes of the Head Archivist's time.

Quark will shortly receive a call in response, and Archivist T'Mai will once again appear (or not, given the lack of video).

"Chief Executive Quark. I understand you wish for my assistance with your application for an artistic merit exemption for your work 'The Arduous Journey of T'Lana on the Road to Enlightenment'."

"I suspect only a very small amount of your personal assistance will be necessary, Archivist T'Mai. The assistant who reviewed my first proposal seems inexperienced in dealing with artists of other species. Given my personal circumstances, I would find a level of expertise in that area quite valuable. Could you recommend a list of your staff who have worked on applications from aliens before?"

"Yes. Stand by."

There's a pause of about fifteen seconds, before Quark receives a notification of an incoming data packet. In the meantime, the screen pops up with a running timer, to assist Quark in limiting the conversation to five minutes if he so desires.

"I have sent you a list of staff with access to the relevant materials who have previously assisted with applications submitted by non-Vulcan artists. Most primarily have experience with human submissions. Archivist Sorraan and Assistant Archivist T'Ral have prior experience with Ferengi submissions in particular. Though, not successful submissions. In the interest of brevity, I recommend Archivist Sorraan. Your proposal had greater potential merit than the last Ferengi work he assisted with, and his competence is sufficient to limit the risk of rejection to artistic inadequacy."

Wow, the timer is very considerate, on Ferenginar he would be expected to pay extra for it, or to provide his own. Although, - at these sorts of prices, the timer should be included.

"Excellent, I'll take a look at this," he has a lot of questions, but if he ends the call right now, it won't have cost him a full slip, and he now has a list of people it's cheaper to bribe, "I believe that's all I need for now Archivist, I'm sorry I overestimated how long this would take."

She isn't going to charge him for the whole scheduled time, right? He absolutely does that for anything that requires an appointment, but there's a difference between holosuite reservations and bribes for personal meetings.

Quark isn't really in a line of business where he gets bribes for meetings though.

"Understood. I will remain available for the next six hours if you contact this line again. Archivist Sorraan will be available in approximately two hours if you choose to contact him directly. Goodbye."

As it turns out, the fee (listed in Federation credits) has been rounded up to the nearest thirty seconds. His contract translator may be aware that this is the Vulcan standard, intended to reduce the need to carefully limit opening and closing pleasantries without eliminating the option of short, compensated communications. Older Vulcan legal records use an increment of twenty seconds, but the period was increased a century ago after persistent lobbying from other Federation member species.

Yeah, that sounds like one of those pesky footnotes that Quark usually manages without. Just look at him managing!

Excellent, under budget and ahead of schedule!

He'll bring a pad with the list to the bar for the evening. Business has been slowing down lately, as the Bajorans have been filtering down to the planet to do some complicated voting thing, and people have been worrying about the Klingon war again, and he'd only just started to recoup the losses from the time of cleansing, the timing on the staff's pay raise could be a lot better, but at least he should have time to read it over while tending bar.

Probably he'll end up going with Sorraan, but it is important to inspect the merchandise before making a deal.