Intergalactic Negotiations
by Joshua Fagan
"The first rule of diplomacy is to know what the other party wants better than they do."
In my head, I could hear the voice of my old professor, and his advice had served me well in the past. Knowing the Alpha Centuarian psyche stopped them from destroying Earth. Normally, aggressive alien civilizations wanted money or precious gems. There was one civilization that just wanted a recording of Beethoven's Fifth. Once you know what they want, you can drive a hard bargain. But the Plumarans were different. We gave them mountains of gold and priceless works of art, but their rampage did not relent.
I could not speak their language. No solar system could, except for whatever strange corner of the universe they came from. They wanted something different from every planet. Fighting them was impossible, for they could create breaks in the fabric of spacetime, traveling back in time to counteract your plan before you thought of it. From most planets, they wanted something obvious, like technology or wealth. From others, they wanted dyes or silks that did not exist anywhere else in the world. But what they wanted from Earth was uncertain.
There was no time to waste. With every passing day, they vaporized another historic landmark. One day, it was the Empire State Building. The next, it was the Eiffel Tower. In a burst of rage, I erased everything I had written on my whiteboards. It was all no good. The boards tumbled down, and as they smacked against the hardwood floor, my sleep-deprived brain snapped into focus. I stared at the empty whiteboards, my scowl slowly transforming into a smirk. Grabbing a marker and a whiteboard, I raced toward the alien starship, moving so fast that I forgot my labcoat.
When I encountered my fellow scientists, I told them of my plan. It was so simple that I couldn't believe no one had thought of it before. "Do you think it'll work?" Carey asked. "It seems so easy."
"It's the only chance we have," I told her before asking everyone to run faster. In twenty minutes, it would be midnight, and the aliens would destroy another monument.
