by Meghashri Dalvi
Emanuel Josh had a gift. He could negotiate for hours, days, and weeks. Without getting a single strand of his dark hair out of place.
His deep blue eyes showed no emotions, and his wide jaw never clenched even slightly. Those broad shoulders never hunched, the lower lip never quivered. The hands were always steady, and the rimless glasses always balanced over the sharp nose.
The other party mostly got overwhelmed by the appearance alone. Then came the deep bass of the crisp talk with which the offers were discussed, and the consequences were deliberated. The threats were veiled just so gracefully, and the rewards were dangled just so delicately.
Emanuel Josh never lost. He was the master negotiator. The perfect choice in tricky affairs. Oil emergencies, hostage crises, impending environmental disasters – the government always wanted him to get the most and the best out of thorny situations.
That’s why they got hold of him as soon as they took the two aliens into custody.
The aliens had traveled the massive interstellar distance, and they obviously had a sophisticated technology for that. Their spaceship was just sufficient to carry those two. It was constructed with a magical material that appeared thin and light, yet apparently capable of withstanding the harshness of space travel. The powerful and long-lasting fueling system was evidently a result of some cool technology.
Thankfully, a similar cool technology took care of the language so that the negotiations could begin.
Emanuel Josh put forward his proposal to the first alien.
“Give us the details of your expedition and technology.”
“You mean?” The alien’s voice was coarse, but the words came out clear.
“Share your technology with us.”
“Why would I do that?” Not only had the alien grasped the human language quickly but also had picked up an attitude.
“Well, you have two options. Stay quiet and face death. Or reveal your knowledge and go free.”
“That’s silly. I choose neither. I want to go back home – with comprehensive information about you.” The alien was actually smiling. The equivalent of smiling, whatever their anatomy allowed.
Emanuel Josh did not smile. He had trained himself not to smile. A smile has so many interpretations, so many undertones. It had no place in negotiations.
He ignored the alien’s odd smile.
“You can go home, too. Provided you cooperate and tell us everything.”
“I don’t understand. Why should I pick up any option you give? They are such weird options. How does this really work? I mean, what if I take none of the options?”
“See, if you and your buddy both keep quiet, then you both stay in our prison for one year. If you share everything with us, and the other one keeps quiet, he dies and you go home. Absolutely free and right away. On the other hand, if he shares everything and you don’t, then you die and he goes home.”
“What happens if we both share everything we have? Our superior technology and smart pico computing?”
“Then we set you free, happily.”
“Hmm. So if I keep quiet, and my colleague cooperates, then I die?”
“Yes.”
“So my benefit lies in sharing everything with you. If my colleague keeps quiet, I go home. If he also shares, again I go home.”
“Right.”
“But why should I risk my colleague’s life? After all, he is my closest friend.”
“Yes. But he might be just willing to bet on your life.”
The alien brooded for a while and then declared, “I don’t want to cooperate.”
“Are you sure? What if he cooperates? You certainly face death then.”
“True. But I’ll take that chance.”
Emanuel Josh could not believe it. The alien chose the wrong option. How could this happen? When he negotiated, they always chose the right options. They always cooperated. That was the only fool-proof option. Nobody ever took any other option.
Or did the alien communicate with the other alien before choosing? Brain-to-brain? Could they? But how could they? There would be too much noise. Or do they set up individual channels?
Emanuel Josh hurried to get electromagnetic radiation detectors installed all around the aliens. He closely monitored if any waves originated from them.
He got none.
With renewed confidence, he approached the other alien. But it completely shattered him when the other alien also chose to remain silent.
How could Josh lose? How? If the aliens don’t communicate with each other, how could they take this decision? How?
The government was certainly not happy. Emanuel Josh had failed for the first time. And the first time happened to be the worst time. How could humans let the aliens simply go without giving away their stuff? Even when they remained imprisoned for one year, they would not talk.
“We can do whatever we want.” Josh pleaded. His eyes begged. “After all, we gave them a fair opportunity and they did not use it.”
“It’s no use. Now we must honor our word.” The President and the rest of the people’s representatives were absolutely firm on that.
After one silent year in the prison, as the aliens waved grinning goodbyes to earthlings, they specially asked for Josh.
Emanuel Josh had been one sorry person through the year. He had spent sleepless nights searching the reason of the fiasco. If these two didn’t communicate, how did that decision happen? From both of them? Countless hours at the detectors and innumerable hand-drawn analytical charts had not helped either.
Reluctantly, he appeared before the aliens.
The first one greeted Josh with that odd smile. “Hello. You played Prisoner’s Dilemma by keeping us apart, right? Pure strategy, Nash equilibrium, and all that. Didn’t you?”
Josh kept still.
“But note – just as the Euclidean Geometry does not work everywhere in the universe, the Game theory does not work everywhere either! How could it? It is based on the human behavior, and we are not humans!”
The other alien burst out in a laugh.
“As a matter of fact, our brains do talk to each other. Directly. We don’t speak, ever. The voice box was activated only for you.”
Josh could not believe! His eyes betrayed him for the first time.
“Then how did the electromagnetic detector missed our brainwaves?” The alien was spot-on. “See, you humans can see only three dimensions. You can imagine a few more dimensions. But in reality, many more dimensions exist. Many more. And we transmit our brainwaves through those higher dimensions.”
Both the aliens laughed in Josh’s face.
“Well, I am not going in deliberate the details and the technology of this communication. I’ll leave you to figure that out. But remember this next time you try any negotiations with other aliens!”
Dr. Meghashri Dalvi consults in strategic and marketing communication when she is not writing science fiction or teaching management. She has published 150+ Marathi and 40+ English science fiction stories. Her English science fiction stories have appeared in numerous publications and webzines. Her stories are included in the Written Tales and The Writer’s Notebook anthologies. Two collections of her stories have also been published.