“We are landing sir. It’s NASA-129, can you hear me?”” said the computer.

“Yes, I can hear you! We had a safe landing,” said the astronaut.

“Is there any sign of the blue sparkling tree?” asked the computer again.

“I’m trying my best, we’ll find it soon,” said the astronaut. His name was William Hale and he had gone to Mars to find the cure to save people on earth from cancer. According to a new research, there was a blue sparkling tree, with miraculous healing properties, somewhere on planet Mars. When Hale was assigned the mission, he was excited and thought the mission would be easy, but the journey was quite challenging.

Astronaut Hale opened the door of the space shuttle; his feet trembled with excitement as he stepped on the surface of red planet. It felt weird. A vast empty land with craters and dunes all around.

“I better look for the tree immediately!” thought Hale.

Booooom! There was loud sound. The impact of the sound was so immense that Hale was thrown far away in one of the craters. His knee was hurt. He rubbed it while looking around and came to realise that it was not the crater he fell into, but a tunnel.

He looked around in awe and noticed some light at the other end. He got up, started to walk towards it and reached there. He was stunned to see the source of the light.

He was standing in front of the blue sparkling tree! He couldn’t believe he had found it so easily. He moved closer and examined it. It was a heavenly tree giving out blue glow. White sparkles covered all its branches. He pictured handing its branches to the doctors and then saving the lives of millions of people. He was staring hard at it when he heard a sound from behind him.

“Grrrr … grrrrr ….”

Hale turned around to see who it was. There was a creature staring at him. It was more like a giant worm with eight legs and such a big mouth that Hale could easily fit in it.

Hale could not think of anything else so he quickly plucked two branches from the sparkling tree and started running. Hale ran as fast as it was possible for him and, on reaching the end of the tunnel, he jumped up and struggled out of it.

At last, he was out, but he saw six white tall creatures, a bit like the typical aliens we see on the TV. But the ones standing there had red eyes and big claws. They were surrounding his space shuttle.

Now, Hale had two problems — the first was the giant worm chasing him and the second were these aliens in front of him, preventing him from reaching the safety of his space shuttle.

The worm was wriggling fast towards Hale. He kept thinking what to do. Just then he had an idea. He stood still. When the worm was very near and was about to catch Hale, he jumped to the one side and the giant worm saw the six aliens. Luckily for Hale, both the aliens and the giant worms on the planet were enemies and always fought whenever they caught sight of each other. So this time too, the giant worm charged towards them and attacked furiously, completely forgetting about Hale.

Taking the opportunity, William Hale sneaked into the space shuttle. He turned on the engine. The shuttle started and slowly rose. One of the aliens saw him and targeted his weird claw-like hand towards Hale and a red laser emerged from it. Just then Hale saw another giant worm wriggling towards the aliens and immediately gulped the alien who was about to fire at the shuttle.

The shuttle quickly gained speed and fled away. Hale was tired and feeling sick. He desperately wanted to get back to earth, but it took many months for the shuttle to enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Hale was also left with meagre supply of food, which he ate carefully to make it last long.

Finally, the space shuttle entered the earth’s atmosphere. Hale felt relieved and happy, thinking that the mission was successful for he had got the blue sparkling tree branches, which would save the lives of millions of people. By the time the shuttle hit the ground, the impact was so strong that Hale became unconscious.

A team of scientists and researchers gathered around the space shuttle and examined it. They saw Hale lying on his seat unconscious. They were happy to see him alive and were stunned to see the glass box containing the blue sparkling tree branches. All the scientists cheered with joy.

A few months later, a medicine was created using the branches of the tree from Mars and was tested on an old woman, who volunteered for the test. The treatment started and, just after a week, the scientists were left stunned that the results showed the patient was completely free from cancer.

Everyone hailed Hale as a hero, for he had risked his life to save millions of lives.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 4th, 2023