The shore of San Salvador smelled like disappointment to Admiral Christopher Columbus. Three months at sea to find this? A pathetic strip of sand on what was clearly not Japan, not China, and certainly not the spice-rich Indies he had promised Isabella and Ferdinand. His men were restless, the locals suspicious but pliant. Small trinkets had bought their cooperation so far. Glass beads for gold? The savages didn’t understand value. Columbus snorted, fingering the golden ornaments in his leather pouch.
“Admiral!” The shout came from Rodrigo, one of his lookouts. “Light in the sky!”
Columbus squinted upward, annoyed at the interruption of his calculations. How many more trinkets would it take to strip this island bare? The calculations were delicious.
The light grew, a burning emerald tear in the fabric of dusk. Not a star. Not a comet. Something else.
“Ready your weapons,” Columbus called, though his voice cracked slightly. “But hold until my command.”
The tear widened, and from its maw emerged a vessel unlike any Columbus had ever seen—no sails, no oars, just sleek metal gleaming the color of a dying sun. It hovered above the beach, making no sound except a faint hum that Columbus felt in his teeth more than heard.
“Dios mío,” whispered Rodrigo.
“Hold,” Columbus repeated, his hand moving to the crucifix at his neck.
The vessel settled onto the sand, sending the natives scattering into the tree line like startled crabs. A portion of the craft’s hull suddenly disappeared—no, not disappeared, Columbus realized, but retracted—and three figures emerged.
They were tall, impossibly thin, with skin the color of the Caribbean sky at noon. Their eyes—all six of them, three arranged in a triangle on each face—glowed like embers. They wore no clothes but were covered in what appeared to be living metal, shifting and adjusting as they moved.
“Admiral?” one of his men whispered. “Are they from the Orient?”
Columbus squared his shoulders. “No. They are from somewhere… else.”
Captain Zk’Thal of the Mercantile Fleet of the Seventh Dominion of Proxima Centauri wiped three of his six eyes with a finely articulated appendage. Floating before him was a visual representation of the aliens they’d encountered on this primitive planet they’d cataloged as “Dirt-3.” The translator algorithm was still processing their barbaric sound-language.
“Report,” he gurgled to his science officer.
“Primitive bipeds,” Science Officer Mreeah replied, her gill-slits vibrating with barely contained excitement. “Pre-spaceflight. Pre-electricity. Pre-everything, really. But they have gold.”
At the mention of gold, Zk’Thal’s interest peaked. The Seventh Dominion was experiencing a shortage of decorative metals. Gold was worthless for any practical purpose—too soft, too reactive—but the Proximan elite had developed a fashion for golden ornaments this season. Prices were skyrocketing.
“Can we trade with them?”
“Already analyzing their possessions,” Mreeah said. “They carry primitive cutting tools, navigation instruments, and…” She hesitated. “Captain, they appear to have significant quantities of processed carbon.”
“Carbon? As in…?”
“Diamonds. Uncut, but definitely diamonds.”
Zk’Thal’s skin rippled with excitement. Diamonds! The most valuable industrial material in the Dominion. Essential for quantum stabilizers, FTL drive components, neural network substrates—the backbone of their civilization. And these primitives just carried them around like pebbles!
“Prepare the trade goods,” he ordered. “The ones we use for developing planets. And get me that translator working.”
The first meeting was awkward. The translator device the aliens carried performed adequately, though it occasionally substituted “potato” for “treaty” and “maritime adventure” for “cosmic genocide.” Columbus managed to convey that he represented the mighty monarchs of Spain, while Captain Zk’Thal expressed that he was an authorized trade representative of “people from beyond the stars.”
“We seek gold,” Columbus said bluntly. “We will trade these.” He held up glass beads, tiny bells, and cotton caps.
The alien captain’s six eyes blinked in an unsettling rhythm. “We seek these small stones.” He pointed to the pouch where Columbus kept his flints and fire-starters—including several uncut diamonds he’d acquired in Portugal, considered valuable but not nearly as precious as gold or spices.
Columbus struggled to keep his face impassive. These star-people wanted rocks? Not gold? He could barely believe his fortune. If these aliens were so easily fooled…
“I could part with some of these worthless stones,” Columbus said carefully. “Though they are valuable to us for making fire.”
Zk’Thal’s translator rendered “making fire” as “quantum stabilization,” which made perfect sense. These primitives had discovered some rudimentary use for diamonds in energy production. How quaint.
“In exchange,” the alien captain said, “we offer you this.”
From a compartment in his living metal skin, Zk’Thal produced a small cube. He pressed its surface, and it unfolded, transforming into a gleaming statue of pure gold—a perfect replica of Columbus himself, down to the haughty expression.
Columbus nearly choked. The statue was solid gold, at least ten pounds of it.
“One statue for one handful of your… fire stones,” the alien said.
Columbus felt a laugh building in his chest. These aliens, advanced as they might seem, were fools! A handful of diamonds for ten pounds of gold? He’d give them every diamond in his possession and still come out wealthier than the King of Spain!
“We have an accord,” Columbus said, extending his hand.
Back on the ship, Science Officer Mreeah approached her captain.
“Sir, are you certain about this exchange? We’re giving them synthesized gold—a practically worthless element we can produce in limitless quantities—for industrial-grade diamonds. Each one is worth a small moon in the Dominion.”
Captain Zk’Thal’s skin rippled with amusement. “Those primitives don’t understand value, Mreeah. They’re obsessed with shiny yellow metal that serves no practical purpose. Meanwhile, we’re acquiring the very building blocks of our civilization for practically nothing.”
“But the Prime Directive—”
“We’re not interfering with their development,” Zk’Thal interrupted. “We’re simply engaging in trade. They think they’re cheating us. Let them believe that.”
By sunset, Columbus had garnered nearly two hundred uncut diamonds in exchange for every gold statue the aliens could provide. His men had to build a separate enclosure just to store all the gold. The aliens seemed pleased with the transaction, which only confirmed Columbus’s suspicion: they were fools, cosmic travelers or not.
As the alien vessel prepared to depart, Columbus approached Captain Zk’Thal one last time.
“Will you return to trade again?” he asked, thinking of the diamond mines of Africa he could access with a fraction of the wealth he’d acquired today.
“Perhaps,” the alien captain replied. “There are many worlds rich in these fire-stones. But few with beings as reasonable as you, Admiral Columbus.”
Columbus smiled, patting the golden statue nearest to him. “You honor me with your generosity.”
As the alien vessel rose silently into the darkening sky, Columbus turned to his men.
“Make note in the ship’s log,” he announced. “Today we have encountered beings from the heavens themselves—and they are just as susceptible to poor bargaining as the natives.”
One hundred light-years away, as the Proximan trading vessel accelerated to FTL speeds, Captain Zk’Thal composed his report to the Mercantile Fleet.
“Located primitive world rich in industrial-grade diamonds. Native species unaware of true value. Exchanged worthless synthesized gold for priceless quantum stabilizer components. Recommend regular harvesting operation disguised as trade mission.”
He paused, then added: “Native leader believes he cheated us. Recommend maintaining this illusion for maximum extraction efficiency.”
Back on Earth, Columbus watched the emerald tear in the sky close and disappear. He weighed a golden statue in his hands, already calculating how many ships he could commission with this wealth, how many more voyages to these lands.
Both believed they had found fools ripe for exploitation. Both sailed away convinced of their superior cunning.
And the universe, ancient and uncaring, continued its cold expansion, indifferent to the self-satisfied creatures crisscrossing its vast emptiness, each believing they had somehow conquered it.
My Other Car is a Robot 
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