The Star-Shiekh

He arrives standing upon an anti-gravity platform, clad in a fine thawb and keffiyeh like an Arab sheikh, but black as night, shot through and accented in silver. His skin is pearlescent gray and his neat beard pure white. In perfect Arabic, he describes himself as a “Star-Sheikh,” come from a distant world to bargain as a peer with the King of the most noble land of Saudi Arabia, offering advanced technology in exchange for a substantial portion of the kingdom’s petroleum resources.
Naturally, the world community is deeply concerned, both by the possibility of losing vast amounts of oil to an extraterrestrial and also of the Saudis gaining access to alien technology. The world holds its breath as delicate negotiations look to prevent what could turn into an all-out war or preemptive strike against the Star-Shiekh, the Saudis, or both while the stocks and commodities markets plunge wildly out of control.