The Golden Fruit

“Finally,” old man Tex said, his voice full with quivering delight, “They said I was fool, a fool, didn’t believe me…” he continued murmuring with trembling excitement standing in front of a large metal door, a metal unrecognized and shiny, even when several roots and small plants had found ways to grow up on it.

“We… we did it,” Ashley was also trembling, delightful edge in her voice and tear in her eyes. Behind her Merlyn stood, her face awed and gleefully looking at the huge door.

It was two years ago when old man Tex, a space observer and a scientist, as he called himself, had pointed out that the meteor falling on a mountain of Himalayas was not merely a meteor, but a space object. Of course, nobody would believe him, meteors fall everyday. It took him two long years to point and organised the means to reach the position of impact. And here he stood in front of an alien spaceship, with his niece Ashley and assistant Merlyn.

“Now”, he cleared his throat, “how to get in?” he opened the bag in Merlyn’s hand took out a huge axe. Without thinking twice, he raised it up and stroked powerfully on the metal door. His hand recoiled and he flew back hitting Ashley on the ground. “Ow,” he groaned. He got up and stared at the point where he’d struck the door, it hadn’t had a single scratch.

“Look there is something beside the door,” Merlyn pointed towards the right. 

“A scanner of sort,” Ashley took a careful look. She placed her hand on the black square. Suddenly a click sounded, and a voice echoed in the wintry forest, “HUMANS CONFIRMED.” The door rumbled and began to open.

All three of them stepped inside hesitantly, as soon as the lights inside the ship began to lit up. Soon they reached the interior and stared at the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. In middle of the ship stood a huge tree or rather trees, they were not sure. The tree had five trunks in a circle, all trunks shining brilliant brown illuminating the entire room. Though the tree had five trunks, its branches seems to have merged and spread far and wide with thick, small golden green leaves reaching everywhere. And, in the center of the five trunks, five branches from each trunk merged, and a small fruit hung at their intersection. The fruit was round, a perfect round, and a deep golden blinding light emerged from it, making it difficult to look directly at it. It was, beyond doubt, an alien fruit.

A rich female voice suddenly echoed in the ship – “Welcome humans. We’re creatures from a different a galaxy extending a gesture of peace and friendship towards you. This ship holds a small treasure for you, a token of friendship. But, to prove your worth, for claiming this treasure, a riddle is to be solved. The treasure holds to one who solve this riddle,” the female voice announced at once without any sound of emotion, and then the riddle echoed through the ship, “If you look deep enough in the woods, you’ll find the treasure. What is the treasure?”

Tex shook a little at the riddle. He was sure that the treasure was the shining golden fruit. But the riddle said the treasure was in the woods. He looked closely at the trunks.

“I thought the fruit was the treasure,” Ashley murmured behind him, “it’d be great if we found the treasure. We would make a lot of money for our researches,” she chimed. All three of them intently watched the tree.

“Money,” Tex whispered after a long minute, “watch woods… trunks …beauty… alien tree…” he kept whispering for a long time. Suddenly his eyes widened in revelation. “The answer is wood themselves. They are beautiful and extra-terrestrial. We can sell them at high prices and they could also be used as research materials,” he whispered to both of them. Ashley nodded in amazement at Tex’s answer. She knew he was right.

“But,” Merlyn objected.

“What else can be the answer?” Tex shouted annoyed. Then he turned and spoke to nobody, shouting, “The answer is the woods of the tree.”

All three of them waited but no voice echoed. Assuming his answer to be right he picked up the axe again and positioned himself to struck at one of the trunks, muttering, “time to claim the prize.”

As he was about to struck, a sharp lightning hit them, knocking all three of them to the ground and a voice echoed again, “Danger to the ship. Termination of the humans.”

Tex got up frantically, his eyes in horrified. He knew what ‘termination’ meant and what was coming. A deep rumble echoed in the ship.

“Wait,” Merlyn suddenly shouted, “the answer is beauty of the tree. The treasure is tree’s beauty.”

The rumble died out and the voice echoed again, “Answer confirmed.”

Merlyn and Ashley got up and suddenly, in centre of the five trunks, a hologram appeared. The hologram imaged a beautiful lady, dressed strangely, but was definitely a human. She turned to Merlyn and spoke, “We live 16000 light years away in the Serta System. Our planet’s history was much like yours, similar conditions and climate. But we blinded ourselves in what we considered our evolution and development and over exploited our nature. It was too late when we realised. As a result, our atmosphere turned poisonous and every living being, plants and animals began to die. We somehow managed to create technologies to sustain ourselves. But our nature was destroyed.

“The fruit hanging here,” she pointed at the fruit, “is a container, containing the last eight seeds of the plants used to grow on our planet. We request you to plant these seeds across your planet at the places pointed in this map.” As soon as she said this, a paper materialized in the hands of Merlyn showing the map of earth and pointing to eight places.

“These seeds are our gifts to humankind, a remembrance of our planets life forms and a reminder to humans what the exploitation and misuse of nature can bring forth.”

Merlyn suddenly walked towards the hologram and lifted her hand to hold the golden fruit. As soon as the fruit touched her hand the hologram disappeared and the tree started to disintegrate. Merlyn stood there for some time watching the tree disappear. Then she turned towards the other two, who were watching awestruck towards her. Looking at her face Tex and Ashley composed their expression. 

Merlyn walked towards them and held out the map in her hand. All of them pondered the map and smiled, knowing their next destination.