Jeff Larson had always been a peacemaker. Back in school, all those years ago, he had broken up fights between classmates when a teacher wasn't around. He never threw a fist he threw a more powerful weapon: words. Words that would soften the anger between his classmates. Words that would slow their hatred. Words that saved his own face many times because he couldn't fight well with his fists.

Once he grew up somewhat, he used his skills more and more often, his soft monotone quenching the thirst of land that sprung up in his life. He was there when China added tariffs on products imported from the US. His words had calmed the war-lust of the American and Chinese ambassadors. In this way he earned his current reputation.

Now his small, non-intimidating frame carrying his extremely empathetic mind were needed again. This would change his historical standing from noted diplomat to the one man who stopped the ultimate war... or failed to.

His thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of a non-descript woman in a flight attendant's uniform. She stated simply "Your flight is ready Mr. Larson." Then she motioned to the door he was to follow her through. He stood stretching to reach a height of barely 5 feet and continued through the door.

Once through, he was in a hallway of some kind of flexible, yet firm, plastic stretched before him. He slowly stepped his way down the hallway to the slightly convex doorway on the other side. He reached for a doorknob that his hand did not find. Glancing down, he found that there wasn't one to find only a dark square of plastic on the metal door. A delicate tracing of a hand gave him the idea that it was a fingerprint sensitive lock. Trying the idea, he found that it worked. The door jumped open, sliding into the wall to the left of it. He walked through it, allowing the door to slide shut behind him.

His first glance of the room showed it to be a small bedroom of sorts, complete with a simple be with one blanket and no pillow, a desk with a lamp atop it, a red light that was currently off and a strange, gray, padded chair.

"You will arrive at your destination in 18 hours, Mr. Larson. Be sure to get some sleep between now and there. When the red Alarm Light turns on, you have thirty seconds to get in the chair before the engines come on. It's recommended that you don't try to sleep until we are at our cruising speed. If you are not in your chair when the engines turn on, you could be tossed around the room with nothing to stop you." The flight attendant proceeded to give him directions on how to buckle the safety harness on the chair. Then she left, quite quickly, of the door he came in.

Jeff resumed looking around the room. Nothing caught his interest except this odd chair. It seemed to be a quarter of a hollow sphere of steel with a brownish shaped padding on it to keep a chair-like shape on the interior of the sphere quarter. He touched the padding. It was velvety and firm with a quite unpleasant stiffness. He sat in it. Padding tuned to stone, the chair felt as if here sitting on a boulder with a strangely shaped chip out of the side. The discomfort of the chair got the best of him just in time for the red Alert Light to flash on. He stayed in the chair, quickly fastening his safety harness.. Being thrown around the room appealed to him slightly less then sitting in that stone-fabric chair.

A gentle roar of the engines began, quickly escalating to a growl of thrust contained. Finally, with a violent jerk of sudden acceleration, the room moved in the direction that Jeff was facing. He recovered from the jerk to feel the increase in speed seem to melt the padding. Once stiff stones melted into butter, flowing around him gently pushing him forward as the incredible acceleration thrust him into the chair. Despite the pressure on his body, his mindbegan to relax from the bliss of the chair. This wa shis first flight on such a ship.

A while later, still in the chair, feeling comfort in the extreme, Jeff's mind started to wander. Somewhere he had heard that motion was relative. He wasn't moving forward, but sideways. He was facing the side of a room that was acceleration to the side. Better yet he was lying on his back in this chair of liquid, feeling the strong gravity of some other planet. Another planet, what a dream. Dream.

He drifted off to sleep.

* * * * *

"Mr. Larson. Mr. Larson!"

Jeff slowly lifted one eyelid, then the other. "Uhhhhnn? Wha' isi? What time is it?"

"Mr. Larson! We have arrived!"

This startled Jeff out of his drowsy state instantly. He tried to jump up, but the safety harness shoved him back in to the chair., hard again with the lack of acceleration. He hastily fumbled with the latch to open the harness.

"Mr. Larson, before you do that you should..." before the voice of the attendant behind him could finish, he opened the harness and floated away into the air!

"Whaao! I forgot where I was." He floated to and bounced off the flat wall he had been facing during the flight. He floated near the Alarm Light, and grabbed hold. The attendant walked along the dull metal floor and handed him some shoes. He noticed that she wore very similar shoes.

"They're magnetic. The floors, walls, and ceiling contain iron, so you can walk wherever you please with them." She placed them on the wall, and they stayed, much like refrigerator magnets. "Please hurry to the meeting room."

He began to put on the shoes. "Miss, where is the meeting room? I've never been on such a ship before."

"Oh. Here." She walked to the wall opposite the one he had entered and touched the wall in a certain place. It opened, exactly as the first one had done, to the left of one who was entering. After she had opened the door and disappeared into it, the door closed behind her. Jeff finished donning his new shoes, and walked down the wall to the floor. After a tricky maneuver he crossed the corner of the wall and floor, and followed the floor to the door.

He entered the interior of a cylinder by so doing. The curved door had been on tone side of a tube. Doors not only appeared on the left and right but on the top and bottom of the hallway as well. Directions did not exist as readily in space.

His mind wandered to the upcoming negotiations. So little was known about these people it would be almost impossible to reach a decision that was popular with the common American people. He would have to keep his decisions popular with the people in power and most importantly, avoid war at all costs. This would be his most difficult negotiation session ever.

He followed the hall until he reached a door that was blue, not white as his and all the others had been. This was the meeting room. Negotiations would take place behind this door. All of America, all of the United Nations, would hold their breath as he entered this door and negotiated peace with the first ever non-human intelligent life form ever encountered. This would either be his greatest moment, or his worst tragedy. This negotiation would separate Science Fiction books' interpretations of first contact with an extraterrestrial species with the real thing. This was his one and only chance to save two intelligent species from the horrors of war. This was the biggest responsibility of any one man in the history of either species.

This is what legends were made of.

Jeff placed his hand on the dark plastic surface of the door. It opened. He slowly inhaled, held it for two seconds, and exhaled.

Then, slowly, he walked in.