Divyant's Space Adventure

"Aaah!!!!" Divyant screamed as he was running. Two aliens with guns were chasing him. ZAP! A shot from one of the aliens narrowly missed Divyant. He quickly took cover behind a nearby rock. The aliens were coming closer and closer….

Then, suddenly, a voice boomed on the planet. "HEY!!! WAKE UP, WILL YOU?! I CAN'T DO THIS ALL DAY, YOU KNOW; I GOT OTHER JOBS TOO!!!!" Suddenly, everything around him began vanishing. The rock disappeared, so did the aliens, and the ground vanished under his feet and he began falling and falling and falling……. but there was something wrong. He felt like…. like something was being thrown on his face. Something hard. "Ow!!" He cried. And he finally got up. A robot was hitting him with its metal arms. It seemed very angry and kept hitting Divyant. "Ow!! Ow!! Stop, will you! OW!! Okay!! I'M AWAKE!! I'M AWAKE!! STOP HITTING ME WILL YOU??!!" Divyant yelled at the robot. The robot stopped and gave an impatient huff. "It's 12:15! What happened to waking up at 7:00 a.m. like your grandfather, huh?!!" The robot said in a singsong voice.

"Uh, well, um you see, uh...-"

"Get up fast! Your mom and dad have already woken up!"

"But why did you punch me so hard?"

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry, now will you wake up?"

"Alright…."

He freshened up and went down to the living room. His mother and father were doing some work on a government project assigned to each of them, while Bob was washing the utensils. Divyant took some milk and cereal in a bowl and began eating.

The year was 2075. A lot of things on Earth had changed. First of all, fossil fuels were banned, and everything used to mainly run on solar, wind, or other renewable sources of energy. Spaceships were invented, and human beings had discovered many more planets in the Milky Way and nearby Galaxies, which were mostly inhabitable, or sometimes not. Aliens needed the right kind of documents to be citizens of Earth. Fully functioning artificial body parts were invented for the handicapped, and now people even who had lost both their legs in any injury could swim like professional swimmers! Even sometimes people who didn't need artificial parts replaced them with their actual body parts, either so that they could do different things more efficiently and speedier, or sometimes even for the fun of it! Soon, the world made it illegal, and thereafter only handicapped people used artificial parts. Divyant's father and mother both worked under the Government of India. Divyant's mother worked for ISRO, while Divyant's father worked in the field of robotics. Divyant's father had an artificial right hand; which was fitted to replace his actual one which he lost in a lab explosion. Divyant's father was the one who had built Bob with some scrap metal he found and from a few more things he bought from outside. Divyant had very few friends, so he usually played with the robot, whose official name was GigaBot 2.1.17 (but everyone just called him Bob for some reason) and sometimes called his human friends over to his house or went to their house.

 After finishing his bowl of cereal, Divyant went to his room and checked his mobile. He groaned. His school had given him so much summer homework! "Even though the summer vacation has just started, the school makes it feel like the term exams have just started." He thought. He sat in a corner of his room and started doing his homework. Soon, he had a doubt. "Hey Bob!!!" He called out. Bob came into his room. "What happened?" He asked.

"Who's King Ne…Burch…darn..nezzard 2 and what monument did he build?"

"It's 'Nebuchadnezzar'. He built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon." Bob replied.

"But why?"

"Let me tell you. After they were married, King Nebuchadnezzar's wife, Amuhia came to live with him in Mesopotamia. But soon, she felt very homesick, as where she used to live before, it was very mountainous and it was full of greenery. But Mesopotamia was a plain desert. So King Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife to relieve her of her homesickness." Bob said.

"But why did it give it the name 'The Hanging Gardens of Babylon'?" Divyant asked.

"Because, as the name suggests, it was built on a building." Bob replied.

"Then why didn't he name it The Building Garden of Babylon? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon sounds like it was a place where people were hanged."

"How will I know that?"

"Alright…..Anyway, thanks for clearing my doubt." Divyant said.

"You're welcome!" Bob said, while going out of the room.

Soon, Divyant finished his homework and went down to the living room for lunch.

During lunch, Divyant's mom suddenly declared, "I have good news for everyone!"

"What?" Divyant asked.

"We are going to-"

"We're going to a restaurant!" Bob guessed, as he loved chatting with the other robots who used to work in the restaurant.

"We're going to a robot museum!" Divyant's dad guessed, as he loved learning about how robots used to be before.

"No…….-"

"We're going to the video game shop!"

"No, No, NO! Can everybody please be quiet?" Divyant's mom thundered.

"Alright, can you tell us where are we going, Mom?" Divyant said.

"We're going to visit a planet which was discovered recently!" Divyant's mom replied.

"What?" They all cried.

"Really!"

"Hurrah!"

"And we're leaving tomorrow, first thing in the morning!"

"Wow!"

"Yeah!"

"But what about all the luggage? We didn't pack anything…" Divyant's dad asked, suddenly becoming worried.

"Don't worry…. I have already packed mine and your bags!" She assured Divyant's father.

"What about my bag?" Divyant asked.

"You will have to pack your own bag and Bob will help you too!" Divyant's mother replied.

"Alright!" Bob said.

They both got to work. It took longer than Divyant had thought it would and by the time they were done, It was time for bed. Divyant didn't feel like eating dinner, so he directly went to bed. "Bye, Bob!" Divyant said cheerfully, as he headed towards his bedroom.

"Bye! And don't forget to wake up early! I am too busy to wake you up tomorrow!"

Divyant climbed in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He thought about how the new planet would be. He had never ever been to another planet. He wondered if there would be aliens on the new planets. If they would be there, would they be friendly- or hostile? In the midst of thinking all of these things, Divyant finally fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, it was still dark outside. Divyant anxiously checked the clock in his room to see the time. He breathed a sigh of relief. In his excitement, Divyant had woken up early, well early before they had to go. He freshened up and went downstairs. Nobody had woken up yet. He switched on the light. He wished his parents would have brought one of those lights, which could switch on and off on a voice command. Bob was standing in one corner of the room, not making any movement. Divyant ate very little breakfast, as he felt very less hungry due to his excitement. Suddenly, there was movement in one corner of the room. Frightened, Divyant grabbed anything he could get his hands on (In this case, it was his spoon from which he was eating his bowl of cereal) and cautiously headed towards the sound of the noise. It was coming from the only corner of the room where it was dark. Divyant switched on the light. He dropped his spoon in relief. It was Bob, whose operating system was starting up. He was making weird noises and just when Divyant felt like something was wrong with Bob, Bob gave a yawn. He looked around groggily and saw Divyant. Startled, his robotic metal arm immediately changed into a gun, but when he saw that it was just Divyant, the gun changed back into his arm.

"I didn't know you could do that!" Divyant said, half shocked and half surprised.

"Ah, well, you never know what could happen, right? Your father put this feature in me if we were ever under danger or if our house was burgled. Many people want your Dad and Mom's inventions, you know. And, by the way, how on earth did you get up so early? I was going to go up to your room to wake you up." Bob said, still looking sleepy, thanks to the feature that Divyant's dad gave Bob, that he had feelings and emotions and that he could express them too.

"Did your Mom and Dad wake up?" Bob asked.

"Nope."

"Then let me do a few chores before they wake up. Shall I make breakfast?" Bob offered.

"I already ate some milk and cereal, and I'm not feeling hungry anymore."

"Oh, alright." Bob transformed his hand into a kind of vacuum cleaner and began cleaning the house.

Meanwhile, Divyant decided what to do. It was no use waking up his parents there was still plenty of time before they were leaving. So, he decided to send all his human friends where he was and when he would be back and went to his bedroom for his phone. Soon, he heard voices downstairs. He recognized his mother's voice.

"Oh, hey Bob, I didn't know you were awake. Has Divyant woken up?"

Divyant then heard Bob give a detailed account about how when he, Bob, woke up saw Divyant and got frightened. He went down to find his father also coming out of the bedroom. "Hey, Divyant, when did you wake up? I couldn't have ever thought that you would wake up this early one day!" He chuckled, patting him on the back. Divyant grinned. "What did Bob make for breakfast?" He asked.

"Oh, he didn't make breakfast. I ate milk and cereal for breakfast." Divyant replied.

"Oh, I see. What is he doing now- cleaning the house, I expect?"

"Yes. He transformed his hand into the mouth of a vacuum cleaner and began cleaning the house. And dad, where did you get that space gun you fitted on Bob?"

"Oh, that? You finally found out about that, did you?" He chuckled. "Actually, that wasn't my idea. The Government of India thought it appropriate, as there are many people out there who would do anything to get any of mine or your Mom's inventions and so to scare them away, they provided me with the space gun. I'm sure Bob told you this?"

Divyant nodded.

"But anyway, I already do have a gun fitted in my artificial hand, but still…." Divyant's Dad shrugged. "You never know."

While Divyant's parents freshened up, Divyant was sitting on the couch and playing video games. He stopped every five minutes to see if his parents were ready. Finally, everything was ready. Bob had cleaned the house so that it wouldn't become too dirty while their stay on another planet. They made their way down to the lobby by the elevator. Unlike the elevators during the early 2000s, these weren't attached to ropes or cables and moved up and down even faster and the ride was even smoother.

They zoomed down and reached the lobby in merely five seconds, even though Divyant lived on the 77th floor. There was a sleek, black car waiting for them. Unlike the cars in the early 2000s, this one didn't need any driver, and ran on solar energy (there were solar panels embedded onto the roof). There was very little chance of the car's onboard computer which navigated the car to its destination to crash, so the person sitting in the car rarely had to take control of the car. The car was also very efficient and also needed very little fuel and had a maximum speed of 610 kmh. Suddenly, Divyant's Dad's phone rang. He answered it.

"Hmm……. Alright, I'll do it. Yes. I'll test it. Ok." He said, and kept the phone back in the pocket.

"Alright, everyone, I have some-" He was suddenly interrupted by Divyant's mom.

"What happened, has your office assigned you some task? Will you have to stay over here?" She asked, anxiously.

"No! Let me complete my sentence. I have some really good news. My office did assign me on a task, and that was to test a new batch of robots on other planets, and see how they would do. Well, India has already sent robots on other planets, but these planets have different conditions which the normal ones wouldn't be able to withstand. So, we created a new batch of robots which will be able to operate on those planets. And guess what? He assigned me to go on the same planet we are about to visit!"

Everybody cheered. Divyant's mom breathed a sigh of relief. But Divyant had a question.

"But how will Bob be able to withstand the conditions on the planet?"

Divyant's father grinned. "Good question, Divyant. Actually, the type of robots I am talking about are used to gather more information about the planet on which it is activated. For example, the Mars Orbiter Mission satellite, which was launched by India in November, 2013." He paused for a moment." You must have learned about this in your History classes." He added. "These types of satellites are programmed differently and also have special equipment with them, which, as a matter of fact, I thought of adding on Bob too, but I refrained because it was too expensive. Now Bob here is a robot which is used to help people in their daily work, and most of these robots aren't too expensive, and can be found frequently in public places and so on. They are very different from the ones which are used to explore new planets, and the robots which are used to help people in their daily work need very less time, money and parts to be built. And there is also a lot of change in their operating systems, like I said before. That's why."

After Divyant's father had explained this to Divyant, they left all their luggage outside and got inside the car. A second later, a robot appeared out of nowhere, and as fast as lightning, it took all the luggage with it and then again disappeared. Divyant's father typed the destination into the mini-computer which was there beside the driver's seat, which was empty. The car gave a lurch and went forward.

Fifteen minutes later, they reached the spaceport. The car got into an empty parking space and they all got out. The robot again came back, and this time, Divyant realized that the robot had appeared from the trunk of the car. It was carrying all their luggage. It placed all their luggage on the ground and again disappeared inside the trunk. Almost as soon as the robot disappeared inside the trunk, another one came zooming towards them from the directions of the airport. It was rather humongous, and was the size of a small car. It took all the luggage and again headed towards the airport.

They made their way to the entrance. Just like a normal airport, there were many gates. They went through one named Gate 12A. There were guards who checked their universal passports (you would need one if you needed to travel anywhere in outer space.) and saw if they were genuine or counterfeit. When they were sure that it wasn't, they pressed a button and the gate opened and they stepped into the spaceport.

It was marvellous. Divyant had never been to the spaceport ever before. There was still a lot of security ahead of them, but after all that, they could see all the shops and stalls ahead and all the colourful banners too. The sun was now rising, and the spaceport was looking more beautiful than ever.

After a few minutes, Divyant, his parents, and Bob had made their way to where all the stalls and shops were and had passed all the security checks without any problems (the only downside was that Bob and Divyant's father had caused quite a row with one of the guards about the space guns fitted in their arm, but they allowed it when they authenticated and realized it was Government-approved). "So now what?" Divyant asked, full of curiosity. "Now, we wait. We still have another two or three hours for our spaceship to depart." Divyant's father replied.

"Can I and Bob explore the shops?" Divyant asked.

"Of course, and if you're feeling hungry, then come right over here." Divyant's father said, pointing at a place where there were a lot of people ordering food from different restaurants. "There are a lot of varieties of food available at the spaceport." Suddenly, Divyant felt really hungry and asked his parents could he eat now, as he had a really small breakfast.

"Sure!"

"Of course."

They went to the place where the people were ordering food which was called 'The Food Plaza' where there were a lot of shops of famous restaurants. "How many famous restaurants are there over here!" Divyant thought. There were literally all famous restaurants over there! McDonalds, KFC, Domino's Pizza… These were all very old brands, but were still very famous. There were also some new restaurant chains which were started several years ago but were not as famous as all the old brands, but still, there were a considerable amount of people ordering food from them. They walked over to the food plaza and decided from where to order food. It ended in an argument between Bob and Divyant. Divyant wanted to go to a brand new food chain which served all the normal fast food such as pizza burgers, etc and also served burgers which made your voice change for fifteen minutes, french fries that made your skin turn blue temporarily and other stuff like that. Bob wanted to go to McDonalds' after seeing that only robots served food there (even then, few restaurants had that feature). So Bob and Divyant's father went to McDonalds while Divyant's mother and Divyant went to the other restaurant, whose name was 'Science Foodz'. They ordered a burger which made your voice change and the french fries that made your skin turn blue. Divyant bit into the burger. It was very good. It tasted just like a normal burger with tomato sauce, only better. Divyant opened his mouth to the burger when he suddenly realized that his voice had changed.

"Hey Mom! Look at my voice!!" Divyant said to his mother and burst into giggles. His voice was now a bit like an alien. His mother took a bite and said "Hello!" 

Divyant laughed. His mother's voice too was now like an aliens'. 

Soon, they had finished all the food. Divyant's mother and Divyant's skin were a tinge of blue, and their voices sounded a little different than their normal ones, as the effect of the burger and french fries was now wearing off. Divyant saw his dad and Bob coming. Bob had a big smile on his face. "All the robots were really surprised when they heard that I had a gun placed in my arm. They all wished that they were like me too!" He said happily. He gave a giggle after seeing Divyant.

"What happened to your skin? You look a bit like a blueberry!"

"Oh, all thanks to the food I ate." Divyant replied coolly.

"What's with you-"

"I know, my voice is different too. Also thanks to the food I ate. It will wear off." 

Soon, they sat at a place where there were a lot of chairs and people (and aliens) sitting on about a quarter of them. They picked a place where 4 chairs were empty and sat there.Divyant's father got up and explained that he was going to confirm whether the robots had reached the spacecraft properly or not and then walked away.

 The chairs on which they were sitting looked very queer to Divyant. They also had a set of buttons on the armrests. Divyant decided to press them, but refrained when he saw what happened to Bob, when he decided to press one of them. He pressed a blue rectangular button, and his chair suddenly jerked ahead and he was squashed by the backside of the next row of chairs, which made many people turn in their direction. "Oops." Bob said, hastily getting back into his seat. Unfortunately, he had kept his arm on the set of buttons, and he ended up pressing them all, even though he didn't mean to, which had a very surprising chain reaction. First, his chair jerked ahead again, but Bob was ready for that, and barely hung on to the chair. Then, the chair began playing rock metal music on full volume from its inbuilt speakers, much to the anger of the people and robots surrounding them, as many of the people were trying to sleep. After that, the chair did a 360 and Bob was flung in the air. Finally, the chair made a sound like a bell and a robot arrived at Bob's seat, saying "How may I help you?" 

So, that's how Bob ended up 2 rows ahead, his head stuck in some poor lady's handbag and the robot which the chair had summoned trying to pull him out. The people around them grumbled and shot dirty looks at Divyant and his mother. So, Divyant's mother decided (so that Bob wouldn't cause much destruction) that it would be better if Divyant and Bob went to explore the shops. Divyant and Bob had totally forgotten that they wanted to explore the shop in the first place, and they (Divyant and Bob) were pretty much fine with the idea. So off they went, Divyant's mother and Divyant's father- who had just arrived- apologizing to everyone around them (including the lady in whose purse Bob's head got stuck in).

Soon, Divyant and Bob came across a shop which sold alien food. The owner who was sitting behind a desk was an alien which Divyant would have thought was a human, but it had 3 heads and its skin was a little blue. "And how may I help you today?" The alien said in a weird accent, giving them big smiles on all the three faces. The alien had a very long and confusing name which Bob and Divyant couldn't pronounce properly.

"So, what alien foods do you sell here?" Bob asked.

"All zee alien foods you can theenk of!"

"Hmm…..Do you sell any kind of alien candies or ice cream or something?" Divyant asked, hopefully.

"Yes! I have a lot of varietieez!" He said, removing an armful of big packets of ice-cream and toffees of all shapes and sizes and placing them on the desk. After he was done placing all the ice - creams he had, Divyant and Bob could barely see the alien's three faces.

"So…..uh which one do you recommend?" Divyant asked, standing aside the big pile of candies and ice cream the alien had kept on the table.

"What do you mean by reecomeend?"

"Which one do you think is the best?" Divyant explained.

"Oh,why deedn't you say so! I reecomeend zees ice - cream." He said, pointing at a big cylindrical shaped ice - cream packet.On it, in big bold letters, was written- 'Rainbow Ice - Cream' Below it, in a smaller font, was written, 'The No.1 ice - cream in the galaxy!'

"Hmm….. what's so special about it?" Divyant asked.

The alien gasped. "You aazk what eez spezial about theez?" He cried out, apparently offended. "Theez eeez ze best ice - cream in ze whole galaxy! Why don't you see for yourzelf?!" he said slamming a cup half-filled with the ice- cream on to the table, half-spilling it.

"Uh…..alright...um, yeah" Divyant said, taking a spoonful of the ice - cream and shoving it in his mouth. The alien was right. One moment, the ice - cream was vanilla flavoured, then, it was chocolate! Then it was butterscotch, and so on! 

The alien was right- the ice-cream did taste good. No - not good, awesome!

Seeing the expression on Divyant's face, the alien gave a grin and said "How eez eet?"

"You're right- it is very good!"

"See! I told eet was ze best ice creem in the whole galaxy!" The alien said, grinning at them with all three heads again.

"So, will you buy eet?" He asked, a trace of eagerness in his voice.

"Yes- let me bring my parents!" Divyant replied.

"Alright! I weel wait!"

Divyant and Bob sprinted to where his parents were sitting. His father was sitting and watching people around them and his mother was reading a magazine. His father saw Divyant and Bob coming and gave them a cheery wave.

"Wonder why you came back so-" Divyant's father was interrupted by Divyant.

"You have to come with us! We have-" Divyant was interrupted by his mother now.

"What happened? You didn't get into trouble again did you?"

"No! We want to buy something." Divyant said.

"What?" Divyant's parents chorused together.

Divyant quickly explained to his parents what had happened in the past 10 minutes and asked them if they could buy the rainbow ice - cream.

"Ok, Divyant, you can buy that ice-cream; but first let us see which one are you talking about." Divyant's parents assured him.

"Alright! Let me take you to that shop." Divyant replied cheerfully.

Divyant and Bob sped away to the shop, followed by his parents. Soon, they reached the shop and entered it. The alien was selling some candies (which were probably alien) to a little boy accompanied by a man. The boy seemed to be jumping with excitement. When the alien saw Divyant and his parents (one head was focused on Divyant and his parents, and the other two were still taking to the man and the little boy, who looked like he would burst any moment), he gave them a grin and then again looked at the child and the man with all three heads. Divyant and his parents stood behind the man and the child and Divyant's parents began booking around the shop.

A few minutes later, the man and the child left with a packet of candies (the child was looking longingly at them) while leaving, the boy looked back and gave the alien a wave, which the alien cheerfully returned. He then looked at Divyant and his parents with his usual jolly grin. "Hello! You must be heez pareents!" He said cheerfully, pointing at Divyant.

"Yes." Divyant's father said, removing his hand, which the alien shook vigorously.

"Divyant said he wanted to buy an ice - cream from you?" Divyant's mother asked.

"Yes! Yes! He wanted to buy zis ice - creem!" He replied, removing the packet of rainbow ice - cream.

Divyant's father picked up the packet of ice - cream and examined the ingredients closely.

"So, can we buy it?" Divyant asked eagerly.

"Hmm…… It seems pretty healthy to me; but don't eat it much, alright?"

"Hurrah!" Divyant said, jumping up a foot in the air. The alien grinned at him with all three heads.

"Oh, wait! I almost forgot to ask! Which planet are you from?" Divyant's mother said.

"Me? I am frum planet Erilade! And do you know? I arrived here lazt week!" The alien replied.

"Wait… Planet Erilade? That's where we are going!" Divyant's mother exclaimed.

The alien seemed to get very excited after knowing this. "Really? Then you shood meet my fameely!" The alien said. "They run a hotel over there! Eet eez really good! You shood stay there for sometime!"

"Can we stay there Dad? Please?" Divyant pleaded.

"Of course!"

"Hurrah!" Divyant exclaimed, jumping even higher in the air. The alien grinned at them as usual.

"Come on now, Divyant, otherwise we will miss our spaceship!" Divyant's mother said suddenly.

"Ok, mom!" Divyant said, and they headed outside; Divyant waving to the alien till he disappeared out of sight. Divyant looked ahead. "So, where are we going?" He asked, cheerfully.

"We have to go to our gate now. Our spaceship will depart in..." Divyant's father paused to check his watch. "20 minutes."

This excited Divyant; as he had never travelled by spaceship before.

They kept walking ahead. As they walked, Divyant saw some tunnel type things which were connected to spaceships, and people were walking into the tunnel. Above each tunnel, its Gate number was written. They kept walking until there were fewer people going into the tunnels, and, finally, stopped at one, which was completely empty, as far as Divyant could see. As there were no people bustling into the tunnel, it looked very creepy and lifeless, even though the tunnel looked much better than the other ones they had passed by. For some reason, it also gave Divyant a feeling that it was very lonely, and longed for people to walk inside it. There was a woman standing beside it behind a desk. Above the tunnel, it was written, in big bold letters, Gate 34 - Government Spacecrafts. As they approached the tunnel the woman grinned. They handed their passports to the woman and she again checked them thoroughly. After getting back their passports, Divyant was about to run into the tunnel when the woman shouted, "Wait! I have to open the barrier!"

Divyant wondered for a split second what was she talking about when suddenly he realized. Just as he was about to enter the tunnel, he was knocked down by what felt like a hard wall, when he looked at the tunnel again, it again looked as though anybody could pass through it.

"Wh-what was th-that?" Divyant stammered, still in shock.

"That was the barrier. Only a special batch of people at the spaceport who are trained to handle it operate it." Divyant's mother replied, rushing to see if Divyant got hurt. 

"It is very hard to operate it you know," The lady joined in. "It took me two years to learn to operate this."

"But how did it stop m-" Divyant was interrupted by the lady.

"It is very hard science." She said, grinning. "It is basically impenetrable; not even a rocket can break this barrier; but before, a few alien species could pass through the early versions of barriers, but now nobody can pass through it."

"Oooh! Can I try again?" Divyant asked.

The lady gave another smile. "Sure."

Divyant slowly moved his hand ahead. But just before it could enter the tunnel, it was stopped by something hard, like a wall, and the wall began changing its colour over the place where Divyant was touching it. "Ooh!" Divyant said, getting excited. "It's good!"

"Divyant, we should be going now." Divyant's father said, tapping him on the shoulder. Then his father looked at the lady and said, "Open the barrier, please." The lady did as she was told, and Divyant would have fallen if Bob hadn't caught him in time; as he was leaning on the barrier at that time.

"Thanks, Bob!" Divyant said.

"Your welcome." Bob replied, grinning.

They made their way to the end of the tunnel. There were windows at equal intervals, and through them, they could see the spaceport terminal which they had just exited, and the taxiway, the runway, and the hangar which was a little far away. They could see a spacecraft taking off. It was twice as large as an aircraft in the early 2000s. "That is a passenger aircraft. It can carry a lot of people, and also a lot of luggage.!"

"Come on, Divyant! We have to go!" Divyant's mother said.

Divyant walked down the tunnel. 

After they had reached the spacecraft, Bob, Divyant and his parents got into their seats. There were only around 15-20, but they were pretty posh. Divyant's parents got into the front ones, while Divyant and Bob decided to get into ones at the back. Divyant sat into the window seat, while Bob sat on the seat beside him. That's when Divyant noticed a TV fitted into the back of the seats. The screen was of a considerable size, but was a little away from Divyant's eyes, probably to avoid straining. There was also a wireless video game controller placed in the corner of the seat, which Divyant noticed after he felt something hard at the corner of the seat. Bob had also noticed the video game controller and was holding it in his hand , a grin plastered across his face. "Wanna play?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah."

A few minutes later, while Bob and Divyant were still immersed in the video games, the air hostess along with the robot came to their seats. "Do you want anything to eat?" The air hostess asked.

"What?" Divyant asked, still concentrating on the video game.

"Do you want anything to eat?"

"Hmm….What all do you have?"

"Chips, Lemonade, Cold-" She was interrupted by Divyant.

"Give me a lemonade. BOB THERE'S A ZOMBIE BEHIND YOU!!!"

The other robot took a bottle of lemonade from the tray and gave it to Divyant. Divyant quickly took it and placed it beside the seat, and again began to play the video game. "We'll come back after an hour to serve lunch. Oh, and your mother told me that by that time you should stop playing video games." The air hostess said, carrying the tray back into the pantry. The robot didn't follow instead, it snuck a quick look at what Bob was doing. "Hey!" It said, suddenly getting excited. "Is that Minecraft?"

"Yes, it was something named Minicraft or something." Divyant replied coolly.

"Can I look?" It implored.

"Sure." 

The robot did a little dance of happiness and sat on the seat between Bob and Divyant. "My name's Larry. Oh, and you're supposed to hit zombies with swords, they do more damage than axes."

"How do you know how to play Minicraft?"

"It's 'Minecraft'. Many people who fly on this plane like to play it. I learned by watching, and also once, a person had bought his kid too, and he also taught me a bit."

Divyant raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were supposed to be helping the air hostess with other jobs."

"Well, yes, but not really. Actually, they did try putting only robots as air hostesses, but it was a very big problem, as many people would lose their jobs, and the passengers also did get bored of always having robots as air hostess."

Half-an-hour later, they got bored playing video games, so they began to give dares to each other. They stopped doing it when Bob dared Divyant to go in the pantry room and steal a packet of chips (Larry strongly disagreed), and the air hostess caught him red-handed and gave him a scolding (she didn't scold him a lot, she just told him not to do it next time, otherwise they would have to land on a nearby planet and make him get off). Then, it was almost time to eat lunch, so Larry went into the pantry to serve lunch, while Divyant and Bob patiently waited. Soon, Larry and the air hostess came to serve lunch. It was very good, and Divyant asked for second helpings of everything. Divyant also asked the air hostess when they would reach, and she said during dinnertime. 

After having lunch, Divyant had two scoops of the rainbow ice - cream he had brought from the alien with three heads, and then he and Bob looked through Google about the planet they were going to visit. It was really interesting, even though there was very little information, as they found out that it was inhabited by three-headed people who lived in different places around the planet. The planet had an atmosphere nearly the same as that of Earth, but the only strange thing about the planet was that it also had forests of red trees too, which made the planet look strange. The part which Divyant liked most, was that the planet had oxygen too, so they wouldn't have to walk around in uncomfortable, suffocating spacesuits. (Adults had a reinforced one, but they hadn't worked out one for kids, as their immune system was weaker and still developing.)  

After searching more about the planet (he couldn't find much more as it was recently discovered, remember?) but in vain, Divyant started looking out of the window and Bob went to the other side of the plane to see out of the window. Divyant hadn't paid a lot of attention to what was going outside the window at all. When he glanced out of the window, he saw many stars, planets, and so much more! Once in a while, they even ran into a spaceship, and once a spaceship passed by so close to Divyant's spaceship, that he actually waved to the person sitting in the passenger seat; a human coming back from some other planet. After a while, when Divyant was still gazing out of the window, sipping his lemonade, Larry came and sat beside him. Divyant turned his head away from the window to look at Larry. "Haven't you ever looked out of the window to observe the universe?" He asked, curiously.

"Well, when there is free time, I do that, and the view never gets old, as I keep going back and forth to different planets which I have never visited before." Larry replied.

"Ooh, sounds good. What were you doing now anyway?"

"I was serving snacks to the pilots. They can't eat full meals, as they need to keep monitoring the spacecraft, and must be ready to take over if the onboard computer crashes, and of course they can't do that while eating lunch or something like that, so we give them quick snacks like sandwiches, and they gobble it all up very quickly and get back to monitoring the spacecraft. But mostly the computer never crashes, so on most passenger flights there are no pilots or anything. But even if the computers crash, we," He pointed one robotic finger at himself, "are trained to manoeuver the aircraft too, so if the computer crashes, the spacecraft doesn't get lost in space. It is hard work to keep the crowd calm, too" Divyant could detect a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "Mostly we manage, but sometimes there are some dumb fellows who totally lose it," his voice grew louder. "And then wreck up the whole plane, why, last week I was stationed on a passenger spacecraft and we had some technical issues, so the spacecraft stopped abruptly, and some man went all paranoid and demanded us what was happening and told us that he would rather be..." Larry droned on and on. Divyant's eyes were slowly drooping….and he fell asleep.

He was woken up by Larry, who, thankfully, wasn't banging him with his metal arms like Bob yesterday morning, but was shaking him saying "Divyant, get up, it's time for dinner and then we will land!" repeatedly. Divyant woke up instantly. "We are going to land?" He asked excitedly.

"Well, we still have to eat dinner, and I have to go now to serve dinner!" Larry replied, and made his way to the pantry again. Almost as soon as he disappeared, along came Divyant's father, grinning broadly. "Hey Divyant!" Divyant's father said, still grinning. "Is everything all right? I came here to check on you." He looked behind him and then again fixed his gaze on Divyant. "Where's Bob?"

"He's sitting in the row ahead of me." Divyant pointed where Bob was sitting. He had seemed to have dozed off (Divyant didn't know Bob could do that).

"Is he sleeping?" Divyant asked, incredulously.

"Yes." Divyant's father said, unable to understand why Divyant was so surprised.

"I didn't know he could do that!"

"Oh…." Divyant's father said, acting like it was nothing. He fumbled for something in his pocket and removed it. It was a book. He threw it at Divyant. Divyant caught it and examined every inch of it. The title said 'GigaBot 2.1.17 Official Instruction Manual'.

"Ooh, it sounds interesting! I will read it. Thank you Dad!"

His Dad grinned and made his way back to the front where he was sitting. Divyant was just about to open the book when Larry arrived, with dinner, so Divyant kept the book shut and gobbled up all the food, and almost choking himself, he finally opened the book fifteen minutes later and kept flipping the pages rapidly. He came to the index and looked at the topics….How to Operate...no that sounded boring until a subtitle under the 'How to Operate' caught his eye. "Yes..." He thought. "Funny Easter Eggs sounded good…." He opened the book to the specific page. It said:

EASTER EGGS

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT KNOW WHAT AN EASTER EGG IS: These are things added by developers and programmers into software just for laughs. E.g: Go and search 'Do a barrel roll' on Google (you could do it right now). 

Under this, there were many keywords which made Bob do interesting things. For example, if you said 'the clock has stopped' in front of Bob, he would do a backflip. Divyant gave a giggle and went to wake up Bob. "Hey Bob!" He said, shaking him violently, or at least trying to. "Wake up!"

"Ugh!" Bob cried. "What happened? Have we reached?" He asked eagerly.

"Nope."

"Then why did you wake me up?" He asked, clearly annoyed.

"The clock has stopped."

"Wha-" Bob's voice was replaced with a scream as Bob did a backflip and landed headfirst on the seat. Divyant tried not to laugh and looked in the book again, and said, "vomit smells putrid."

Bob yelled, "Divyant WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE YOU DOIN-" he was interrupted again as he un-intentionally did a triple-backflip and then did a somersault, crashing down on the aisle.

"Divyant I'M WARNING YO-"

"Chocolate ice cream with a side of banana!" He said, and tumbled on the ground with laughter. Bob's head was now spinning very fast and he was slowly floating into the air.

"Divyant…..DO…..SOMETHING!!!"

It took a while for Divyant to find the phrase which would make this all stop, and as soon as Bob was back on the ground, and his head stopped spinning, he lunged for Divyant, who as quick as a mouse got aside, and Bob went flying down the aisle.

"IF YOU DO THAT EVER AGAIN-"

"What's going on here?" Larry said. He was carrying the dinner tray along with him and was looking at them both.

"Oh...nothing."

A minute later, Divyant was eating dinner, while looking out of the window, while Bob and Larry were sitting on the row ahead playing video games. Divyant could hear the sounds of the video games from there, and occasionally heard Larry giving tips to Bob or Bob trying to warn Larry about a zombie behind him or the opposite. Suddenly, there was a sound as someone cleared his/her throat and said something. Divyant recognized the voice as the air hostess' and stopped eating to hear what she had to say. "Attention passengers, we will be landing soon. The temperature at Erilade is warm ("But not too warm," she added) at a 27.4 degrees celsius with light showers. The time is 8:46 p.m. Thank you for flying with us." She said, and came back again a moment later. "Oh, and Larry come over here, I need your help." Divyant saw Larry go in the direction of the cockpit. Divyant looked out of the window. They had approached a planet, looking a lot like Earth. It looked exactly like how it looked in the pictures he found on the Internet, only more spectacular. The planet was covered with mostly blue, with a third of green, which was land. Divyant also saw small spots of red all over the planet, making it look like Earth with a bad case of chickenpox. They slowly ventured closer and closer, until Divyant felt a little lurch and the spaceship went ahead a little too fast, and then it again stabilized its speed. "Just the gravitational pull of Erilade; nothing to worry about." She assured them. They ventured near the planet with more speed, and soon, it looked as though the windows were on fire, and he was unable to make out anything outside now. "That's the atmosphere, not to worry. Now you might feel as if your hands feel heavy and you may also have trouble walking properly once we land, it isn't a major problem, but if it is very serious we do have a tablet for it..." She said again over the microphone. Soon, Divyant was feeling exactly as she had mentioned over the microphone. His hands felt like they weighed more than his whole body and his legs felt funny. Divyant was hoping they could land fast and get it all over with. The feeling was starting to grow and now Divyant could feel as if his hands would drop to the floor any second now. Divyant looked ahead at his parents. They were talking to each other, and looked as though nothing was happening, except Divyant noticed that they seemed to be sometimes jerking their hands very abruptly. He then looked at Bob who grinned and whispered, "It must be feeling strange, the way you are acting."

"Why are you whispering?" Divyant asked.

"I don't know, but it feels right."

Soon, the feeling started to slowly go, and they were slowly able to see out of the window again. They were soaring through a typical city (Divyant could tell from a few skyscrapers that were surrounding them that they passed occasionally) Now, they were approaching another spaceport. Parts of it were still under construction. Divyant could now see the runway. There were very few spaceships visible on the ground, so there was plenty of space to land. Divyant had his face pressed against the window, trying to take in every detail of the view he was seeing. They were getting closer and closer, and Divyant suddenly got a jolt as the spaceship touched the ground, quickly losing speed. The air hostess' voice again came. "We have landed."

And, the spacecraft, which was slowing down since the last one minute, came to a sudden halt. 

Divyant looked out of the window again. He could see the spaceport, which, from here, looked complete. The air hostess said again "You may exit the spacecraft. Thank you for flying with us." Divyant was going to take his bottle of lemonade, when he realized that he had finished it and so he made his way down the aisle. Bob also got out and went ahead to exit the spacecraft. The air hostess was standing at the exit, with a smile on her face. The pilot and the co-pilot were also standing there, both smiling. They waved and smiled at the pilots and the air hostess, who smiled back, and Larry said "Bye!" and waved. They stepped out of the spacecraft. It was night, and the planet's moon was shining brightly, perhaps even more brightly than Earth's moon, thought Divyant. They had to walk to the terminal which was a little far away. They finally reached the terminal, which was very bright and lively. There were aliens selling exotic fruits to people and other aliens, and so much more. Divyant looked around him in awe. All around him, there was a strong smell of fruits. They made their way ahead, where, Divyant saw, with a pang, there were more tests of security.

"But why do we have to do all of this again?" Divyant asked, with a groan. They were standing in a line of aliens waiting to get their universal passports checked(the passports used to get anywhere in the universe). When they were getting their checked,after the alien had finished examining Divyant's mother's passport, the alien suddenly said, "You are here frum Earth?"

"Yes." Divyant's mother replied.

"Ok…." The alien paused for a moment. "There is car waiting for you outside. Your luggage eez loaded on it and ze robots are taken to a lab arranged." She then gave Divyant's father a small token. "Put this token in one of ze machines kept near ze exit. Ze car will come then."

After doing all the security checks, and collecting their luggage along with the robots which Divyant's father had to test, they made their way out of the spaceport, and Divyant got a breath of fresh air. As the alien had said, there was a small machine with a small slit in the middle near the exit. Divyant's father put the token inside. A robotic voice suddenly said, "Please wait. Your vehicle will come shortly." It then described how their car looked and then its number plate and then went on to repeat it in a dozen other languages. A minute later, a car appeared, which looked exactly like the voice had described. There was a three headed alien sitting in the driver's seat. They got into the car. "Where do you want to go?" The alien asked, smiling.

"We want to go over here." Divyant's father said, passing the alien his phone, which showed a location. The alien observed it closely and then gave the mobile back to Divyant's father. "Alright!" he said, and so they made their way to the hotel. After half-an-hour they reached the hotel. As they stepped into the hotel lobby, two aliens took their luggage and explained that their luggage would be delivered to their room. There were many aliens bustling from the lobby to other rooms. There was a large desk at the other end of the room, and aliens were standing in queues at the desk. They also stood in one of the queues.    They didn't have to stand in the queue for a lot of time, the queue became very short quickly, and finally, it was their turn. "Hello!" The alien Yes let's see….you booked room number 35 and 36 on ze seventh floor! Yes...Connecting Suite…...Very good choice. Here you go!" She said, handing them a card, still beaming. "Oh, and I am Mrs. Smielle. My husband and I run ze hotel! You must have met my son, he works on Earth "

They made their way to the stairs, while Divyant was talking to Mrs. Smielle about how he and Bob had purchased a pack of Rainbow Ice Cream from Mrs. Smielle's son (Divyant still hadn't figured out how to spell his name correctly). At the mention of the ice cream, Mrs Smielle beamed. "Oh, zat! Yes, we made zat recipe ourselves you know..."

"So," Divyant's mother said, "You run this hotel all by yourself?"

"Yes, yes, dear, all fameely memberz."

"All family members?" Divyant asked, shocked.

"Yes! My husband and I run ze hotel, zen my brother along with heez kids cook all ze food, my sister eez the head of housekeeping, her kids handle ze luggage," At this, Divyant remembered the two aliens who had taken all their luggage. By the time she had finished telling who did what in her family, they had reached their room. "...And my mother and father do ze zanitor's work, even though we tell them that we could manage it! Ah..." She completed her sentence and unlocked the room and gave them a whole tour of the room, and at the end, Divyant had to accept that the room was pretty marvellous. It was a connecting room, that means there was a door connecting two rooms, and Divyant realized that he and Bob had one room and Divyant's parents had another. Their room was good, with a fridge full of snacks, along with a fruit bowl on top of the fridge, a large tv ("Thank you so much!" Divyant said.) and a desk with a big, comfy chair. As soon as Mrs. Smielle left their room ("Enjoy!"), Divyant went into his room and flopped on the bed, which was very fluffy. 

"Ah…..-"

"Hey Divyant!" Bob suddenly said. Divyant looked at what he was doing. He was crouched in front of the fridge. It was full of snacks, and cold drinks. "Want one?" He said, grinning. But Divyant was already asleep.

Divyant woke up very early next morning. He looked around. Bob was standing in the corner of the room, not making any movement. He got out of his bed. He felt very uncomfortable, as he was still wearing yesterday's clothes, so he freshened up. While combing his hair, he heard Bob stir. "Good morning."

"Huh?" Bob replied, groggily.

"Good morning."

"Oh, yes, good morning. You got up earlier than me again?" He sighed.

"Yes. Now will you get a move on?"

A few minutes later, Divyant went into his parents room. His father was sitting on the bed, while his mother was combing her hair. "Hi Divyant!" Divyant's father said, waving with his robotic arm. Divyant waved back.

"You got up all by yourself?" Divyant's mother asked, who had finished combing her hair.

Divyant nodded.

"That's great!" Divyant's mother congratulated him.

"Where are we going today?" Divyant asked.

"It's a surprise!" Divyant's father said mysteriously.

Divyant tried to guess where they were going as he ate breakfast. He was sitting in a large hall, where aliens were dining. There was the smell of food in the air, and three-headed waiters were bustling around, delivering food, to tables. The bouquet was delicious and had popular (human) foods such as noodles, cereal, and so on, and then it had weird foods such as a type of juice which also had a vegetable which Divyant had never heard before as an ingredient. Divyant had taken a bowl of cereal, and was thinking where they were going today. Even after breakfast, he hadn't managed to guess where they were going. He kept telling random places to his parents, but in vain. They still had some time before the driver came, so Divyant read a brochure that was kept on a bookshelf which told all about the planet.

"Hey Bob, do you know that aliens over here mostly travel by ger-geruls! It is supposed to be an animal which can swim and also walk on land at a lot of high speed. It's max speed is some 200 kmph! Whoa!" Divyant said, still reading the book, and also half-hoping that one of the places mentioned in the book was where they were going.

"Mmm." Bob said, not catching a word of what he said.

A few minutes later, someone knocked on their connecting door. Divyant went to open it. Divyant's parents were standing behind the door. "We have to go now! Come on, now you will get to know where we are going. Oh," Divyant's father added, "You may find it pretty boring, but it's actually good!"

They made their way down to the lobby (Mr. Smielle greeted them a good morning). The same three headed alien who had driven them to the hotel yesterday was standing at the entrance, with his car. "Good Morning!" He said, and motioned them to get in the car.. They all got into the car. The alien got into the driver's seat and started the engine. The car gave a powerful roar, and they began their way down the street. There were a lot of geruls on the street, and very few cars. They drove for quite a lot of time, the driver whistling cheerfully. Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into a parking lot. It looked very strange, as there were only rows of cells in which there was a gerul. They drove ahead, and they came to a tiny space where a few cars were parked, and there was a lot of space to park. The alien parked the car and they all got out. And made their way across the rows of cells. At the end, there was a building. There was a large automatic door fitted at the entrance. They walked in. There were a lot of counters and queues behind them. They too got into a queue. Five minutes later, they approached the counter. A smiling three-headed lady was standing behind the counter. "Ticket for how many?" She asked. "Three adults, one kid and a robot."

The alien typed something on a computer and gave them five tickets. Then, they made their way to a door at the corner of the room. They pushed the door open and walked out. That's when Divyant realized where they had gone - a zoo! But it wasn't any normal zoo. Divyant barely recognized the animals in the enclosures. There wasn't any roof to the zoo, instead, it was open-roofed, probably so that the animals got a breath of fresh air. There were many paths surrounded by enclosures on both sides, with sign posts after a certain distance to guide people (and aliens) to where they wanted to go. "Wow!" Divyant cried. "It is really good!"

They set off in a direction, which had a lot of interesting-looking animals. They came across a lot of interesting animals, such as a triadunk, which was an animal which used to live on trees in Erilade, and used to eat the leaves and , sometimes the big ones used to eat small branches too. It looked like a monkey, but with sharp pointed ears. It didn't hurt humans, though. Then there were blue lions, which, like the name suggests, were lions which had blue fur, blue eyes, and when they were angry and they roared, blue fire used to come out of their mouths! One strange thing about them was they were herbivores, and used to eat grass, and sometimes they also used to eat fruits which had fallen from the trees. They looked stunning, sitting on the ground of their cages, and the cubs kept playing with each other and doing funny things. Once, a cub climbed on another lion's back, and the lion gave the cub a full round around the cage! They passed a lot of animals like this, and also drank a few glasses of juice which they had bought from an old, three-headed lady who had made the recipe herself, and was good for the body. Sometimes they also passed animals which were there on Earth too, such as parrots, chimpanzees, and even bears.

Five minutes later, while the driver was telling them how once a blue lion had came into his house, they passed an entrance to a place where there was a lot of seats placed at a height, and many people were sitting on them and then, at the bottom, there were two aliens standing, and between the aliens and the audience, there was a large stretch of water. The waters kept moving in the pond for some reason. "Hey! What's that?" Divyant pointed out.

"Oh zat! Zat is ze dolphin show. You want to watch? Eet eez good!" The driver replied.

"Sure!" Divyant cried. Everyone nodded.

They went and sat on one of the higher seats. There were many aliens selling food, and Divyant felt really hungry for some reason, so he brought a chocolate ice-cream and a packet of chips, waiting eagerly for the show to start. Suddenly, there was a loud blowing of a trumpet. Divyant looked up, the aliens were waving at everybody. There was a large round of applause. One of 

The aliens took a mike and said something. "Greetingz, everyone! Today you are going to see a very marvellous performance of zis dolphins, which are imported frum Earth! Stay till ze end; I am sure you will like eet! And now without further ado letz start!"

The show was spectacular. The dolphin did all kinds of tricks, like, for example: The alien (on closer inspection Divyant realized that he was wearing a swimsuit) jumped into the water, and disappeared under the surface for a moment, only the top of his head visible, but then a moment later, he was gliding song the surface of the water! The crowd cheered. After that, he said "Now, the dolphins are going to dance for us!" And five seconds later, three dolphins jumped out of the water and into the air and danced for 2 seconds in the air and went back into the water. It did this several times, and then it disappeared under the water for a little to long, and then it went out of the water, and began doing an odd dance on the floor, and then one of them slided up to an alien and gave him a lick and sidled back into the water. The crowd went wild and began another round of applause. The dolphins kept doing more tricks and the crowd cheered loudly every time.

Half-an-hour later, they all left the stadium, Divyant and Bob both clutching balloons shaped like a dolphin. "Hey! Can we go there now?" Divyant asked, pointing at a sign which was placed before a path, labelled 'Underwater Section'. "Sure!" Divyant's mother replied, and they all set off on that path. Their path then widened out to form a large circle, with a lot of tanks made of glass, which were filled with water and had different fishes in them. Divyant and Bob ran around each tank, looking at the signs stuck on the corner of each tank, which said more about the fish and then looked at the fish. There were mostly normal fishes which were also present on Earth, such as Goldfishes, Angelfishes, and also some fishes which weren't present on Earth, such as one which Divyant couldn't pronounce its name properly. Its head was swollen up like a balloon, making it look very strange. They had a lot of fun in the zoo, and brought things such as souvenirs, keychains, and stuffed toys while going from the zoo.

By the time they had reached the hotel, it was already dark. They bid goodbye to the driver, and went inside, where Mr. and Mrs. Smielle wished them a good evening, which they happily returned. They went to their room and Divyant jumped onto the bed.

"That was good, wasn't it!" Bob said happily.

Divyant grinned. "Yes."

"Hey, do you think we will be going anywhere now?" Bob asked.

"Hmm….I don't think so." Divyant replied. Divyant removed his shoes and socks, and climbed up on the bed and jumped. "Hey!" He exclaimed. "This bed is really bouncy!"

A moment later, both Divyant and Bob were jumping on the bed and having fun with it. They kept jumping for about fifteen minutes, until Divyant's mother came in, and asked them (rather sternly) to clean the bed. So, they spent the next half an hour cleaning the bed, until Divyant's mother again came in and said that they could do the rest of the cleaning afterwards, and now they were going down for dinner. Divyant wore his shoes and socks hastily and they went down for dinner.

The dinner was even better than breakfast, but Divyant thought that it must be because he didn't have a proper meal since breakfast. Divyant took a little more time to finish dinner than breakfast, as he took second helping of everything this time, and they were nearly the last people to go. It was really quiet this time as they made their way to their room, as everyone was probably sleeping this time. When they reached their room, Divyant changed into his nightsuit and then went into his parents room and wished them good night, and while leaving, Divyant's mother reminded Divyant a little sternly that he still had to clean the stain on the bed, along with Bob. Divyant grimaced and, without replying went into his room. Then suddenly, Bob said, "Hey, why didn't I think of this before! Hey Divyant, we don't need to clean the bed!" Divyant's sadness faded a little. "I have an in-built scrubber which can remove any stain in my hand!" Saying this, he transformed his hand into a scrubber and began scrubbing the part of their bed which was brownish-black. It made very little sound, and a few minutes later, Divyant couldn't even recognize where the stain had been in the first place! "We can watch the cartoon now, after all!" Divyant exclaimed. Divyant grabbed a fruit from the fruit bowl and settled down on the bed. Bob sat beside him. They watched for an hour or so and then switched off the TV and Divyant slept while Bob went in the corner and went to sleep mode.

Divyant woke up early again next morning, but this time, when he woke up, Bob was already awake and was watching a movie. "Got up before you today!" He yelled when he saw that Divyant had woken up. Divyant grumbled and trudged to the bathroom, and after freshening up, he was about to go into his parents room when somebody knocked on the connecting door. Divyant hastily opened it. His father was standing behind. He looked around the room. "So you're already awake? Good! Come, let's go down to breakfast."

They all went down to breakfast. Today, somehow a blue lion had come into the hall, and kept going to different tables for titbits. The aliens didn't seem to be bothered, and when the staff saw that they didn't have any problem with the lion, they refrained from catching it and setting it back into the wild. The waiters and aliens kept giving it titbits, and once it even came to Divyant's table, nudged Divyant, hoping for titbits and he got such a shock that he almost dropped the plate of noodles he was eating! Bob laughed heartily at this and teased Divyant all the way to the room. Divyant and Bob were just about to switch on the TV when the one of his parents again knocked on the connecting door. Divyant groaned. "We have to go now? Why are we going so quickly today?"

"Today, we are visiting a village." Divyant's mother, who was at the door, said, calmly.

"A village?" Bob said, disbelievingly

"Yes. It's not like any normal village either, you know, millions of aliens visit it every year, and there are also all kinds of aliens there."

As Divyant got into the car, he still wasn't fully convinced that he would have a good time at the village. They kept driving for a lot of time, until all the buildings around them disappeared and they were surrounded by open fields and forests. After some time, huts made of mud started reappearing on the road, and five minutes later, they reached the village. It looked just like a normal village in India; there were mostly huts and very few buildings, and everybody was riding a gerul, and there weren't any cars at all. Many aliens stood and gawked at the car in which they were travelling, as it was probably rare for cars to pass by the village. Divyant also heard the driver mutter to nobody in particular "I should have taken a gerul..."

They stopped in between and parked the car at the side of the road and got off. The driver said, "We weel have to park ze car here." He said, apologetically. They walked around the village, aimlessly, observing everything around them. Then, they came across an alien who was giving free rides and also races on a gerul, so Divyant, Bob and the driver sat on one gerul while Divyant's parents sat on another. The alien gave a loud whistle and both of the geruls at once ran as fast as lightning, Divyant who was sitting in front, couldn't even say anything, because of the wind rushing across his face. Once or twice he even almost got blown away, but he always managed to hold on at the last moment. They kept riding around different parts of the village. Divyant felt all the food in his stomach bouncing around, and his stomach gave a final lurch as the gerul stopped, and Divyant, hastily got off. He had thoroughly enjoyed the ride, but he still felt queasy for some time. Just a few seconds after their gerul came back, the one carrying his parents came back too. They also looked a little green, or was it Divyant's imagination? They thanked the alien, who smiled back and then again kept walking. On the way, they bought a few snacks, and then they came across a part of the village, which was very different from the rest of the village; as the rest of the village had trees which were green, while this part of the village was red. Except the grass, all the plants were red, and there were even more trees surrounding the houses this time, so it was very hard to figure where houses were present and where they weren't. "Why are all the plants there like that?" Divyant asked the driver, stunned.

"Oh, zat?" The driver asked, acting as if it was nothing. "Well, you see some parts of ze planet, these plants started growing. At first, zere were only one or two een one place, but zen their number started to grow, causing zis." He said, pointing at the trees.

"Oh….Come on, let's go over here!" Divyant said, excitedly.

There were more people in here than in the other part of the village, but they were trying to not make any sound for some reason. There were a lot of noises coming from the trees, which Divyant thought were probably made by animals. Once or twice, they passed a triadunk, which was trying to get up a tree. It all looked very beautiful. After some time, they saw an alien who was offering people to give them a tour of the part of the village that was covered in red trees. They all accepted it at once. They sat on geruls, (Divyant's parents and the guide on one, and Divyant, Bob and the driver on another.) and they set off. They were moving slowly, as to not make any sound, and the guide was also whispering. First, he started off by telling why he was whispering, and told them that was because on the red trees a lot of triadunks used to live, and they like to live in quiet spaces.

The tour was a great success and Divyant enjoyed it thoroughly. They learned a lot of things, such as the trees were very rare and there were large clusters of it all around the planet, so Divyant realized why the planet had red dots all over it when he looked at it from the spaceship. He also learnt that the trees and plants were home to at least 15 animals, which used to depend on the red trees for shelter. They also passed a blue lion, which looked even more majestic in the forest. It was eating a fruit which was (of course) red in colour, and was filled with golden liquid, which was smeared all over the lion's face. The guide also told them about stories about the red forest and the animals that lived in it, which Divyant enjoyed a lot.

After the tour of the part of the village that was in the red forest, they again wandered around the village, observing everything around them. They then ate food at the village headman's house, who was a three-headed alien- the oldest person in the village and was very wise, after that Divyant and Bob played with the kids in the village for some time, till then, it was already dark, so they went to the centre of the village, where every night all the aliens of the village used to light a campfire and gather around it, and the people of the village told stories to each other (mostly the elder people in the village told stories to the tourists and other people) and also sing songs, before going to sleep. Divyant had a wonderful time here, hearing all the tales the elders had to tell, and listening to the songs they used to sing. Finally, it was time to go. Divyant was very sorry to leave, but the delicious dinner that must be waiting in the hall cheered his thoughts.

They reached the hotel, all tired and exhausted. They didn't go to the room, but directly to the hall to eat dinner. The blue lion was sleeping in one corner of the room, not minding all the sound in the hall. Divyant grabbed a plate and put large helpings of steaming-hot red pasta on his plate and went to sit on the table where Bob was sitting, observing the blue lion curiously. After some time, the blue lion got up, and again began going to tables for titbits, which the aliens were ready to give. When Divyant didn't feel like eating the rest of his pasta, he went to where the blue lion was sitting; in the same corner where he was first sleeping, trying to eat a piece of the carpet and emptied the pasta in the bowl which the waiters had kept specially to put food for the lion. The lion gave him a big, wet lick as thank you and gobbled up the pasta in one mouth full. By then, his parents had finished eating dinner, so they went back up to their rooms. Just before entering their rooms Divyant's father said, "Now have a good night's sleep, Divyant as tomorrow afternoon we're leaving." Divyant apparently didn't take this news too well.

"What?!" He said, dumbfounded.

"Yes. Didn't you know?"

Divyant didn't know, and was very sad to hear that they would be going tomorrow. "Come on, let's watch that cartoon." Bob said, trying to cheer him up.

"Alright." Divyant said, his spirits lifting a little.

Divyant grabbed two alien fruits from the fruit bowl and settled down on the bed. Bob switched on the TV and sat beside Divyant. They watched the cartoon for a little longer than usual, until Divyant fell asleep; so Bob switched off the TV and went back into the corner and went into sleep mode.

Even tomorrow, when Divyant woke up, Bob was sitting on the chair on the balcony and looking out.

When he saw Divyant was awake, he smiled and waved at him.Divyant woke up and trudged to the bathroom, and was there for a little longer than usual. After freshening up, he switched on the TV and began watching it. Bob also joined in. Five minutes later, Divyant's father opened the door, smiling. "Come on. We have to go down for breakfast."

The blue lion was still there during breakfast, and had learnt over the night that if he stood on two legs and put his mouth into one of the 'metal pots' kept at one side of the room, he would get a lot of food, and now was trying the same. His head was bent under the pot containing red pasta and he was also standing on two legs, taking support from the table on which the buffet was kept. There were also loud slurping noises coming from the pot. Divyant gave a smile and went to the table where Bob was sitting, holding a bowl of cereal. He began eating it, observing everything around him, as Divyant thought with a heavy heart, it could also be the last time he was doing the same. After eating breakfast, they went back to their rooms, and Divyant was just switching on the TV when there was a knock on the door. Thinking that they couldn't be going this early, Divyant opened the door. His father was standing behind. "Hey Divyant, I just remembered, I have to go test those robots! And, there are a few hours left before we have to go, so I will test the robots during this time a little far away from here. During that time, you can watch TV or do something else and make the most of it, because as soon as I come back, we're leaving."

"But Dad, " Divyant said suddenly. "You said that you were testing the robots because the normal space ones which were used for collecting information about the planet couldn't withstand the conditions of the planet. But, this planet is a lot like Earth! So why don't the normal space robots work over here?" 

Divyant's father smiled. "Good question. Yes the space robots can withstand this condition, but, it can't withstand the conditions in the red parts of the planet, because, you see, one of our satellites which are used for finding new planets, when it found this planet, it sent a normal space robot to the planet to observe the conditions of the planet. Well, when it went to explore one of the red forests, its server crashed and it went offline. That's why I was assigned to test this new batch of robots."

"Oh.." Divyant said, understanding everything now.

"Bye now!"

Divyant waved back to his Dad, until he disappeared out of the main door.

Divyant went back and sat on the bed, his spirits lifted. 

20 minutes later, when Bob was sitting in the balcony and Divyant was writing about his experience about the planet, there was a little whine outside the main door, and then there was a sound as though something was scratching the door. Divyant and Bob went to see what it was. Outside, the blue lion was standing, a piece of carpet in his mouth. After seeing that the door was opened, he licked Divyant's leg and sauntered into the room. They quickly closed the door, and went inside. The lion was sitting on the bed, licking himself and chewing the piece of carpet. Divyant gave Bob a look and hurried off, trying to get the lion off the bed. At the end, he did manage to do it, but unfortunately, the blue lion was now interested in the mini fridge, and was trying to get it open. Divyant tried to forcefully pull it away from it, but it merely shook him off and again began his attempts to open the fridge door, and succeeded. Divyant grimaced and closed his eyes, and heard a sound like a can being crushed under a truck. Divyant opened his eyes. There was Coca-Cola all over the carpet, and some on the lion's body. The lion shook itself like a dog, drenching Divyant and Bob in Coca-Cola. Bob quickly converted his hand into a scrubber and cleaned up all the mess; while the lion was now trying to chew the can, again making a sound as if a can being squashed under a truck. "Shhh!" Divyant said worriedly, hoping that his mother won't hear the sound. The lion seemed to understand what he was trying to say and dropped the can and sat at his feet, still chewing the carpet. Divyant bent down to stroke it. "Do you ever feel like they understand every word they say?" Divyant suddenly asked, looking at Bob.

"Well, they do have brains, you know. A dog can answer commands and also do simple addition sums. A lion must be having about that much, I think." He replied. Divyant nodded. 

"Hey, do they eat chips?" Divyant asked again.

"I don't know, let me see…." Bob thought. "It isn't given in any search engine, but I think he will like it, just give him one and see."

Divyant took out a packet of chips, opened it, and kept one piece of chips before the lion, who was licking himself again. He realized that Divyant had kept something before him, and looked at it suspiciously, and kept observing it suspiciously for a few seconds, Divyant hoping that it would cause it no harm. A moment later, the lion gobbled it up and gulped it, looked at Divyant for a moment, and again went back to licking himself. Divyant sighed with relief. Suddenly, the lion made a strange noise. Divyant froze. It made that sound again, smoke coming from his nostrils and then suddenly, it gave a sort of noise which sounded like a muffled sneeze, and blue flames suddenly came from his nostrils. The lion didn't feel like eating anything after that, and jumped up on the bed, looking curiously at Bob. Divyant and Bob didn't mind, and Divyant went back to writing his experiences about the planet, the lion occasionally giving them a lick. Fifteen minutes later, his mother came into the room to say something, and was taken by shock after she saw the lion which had settled at Tim's feet. Divyant explained what had happened, but his mother said (rather sternly) that they should return the lion back to the hall. Finally, after a lot of pleading, Divyant's mom let him keep the lion in the balcony. Divyant didn't want the lion to be alone so he quickly finished writing and went to the balcony, where the lion was resting. Suddenly, his mother said, "Oh,I almost forgot. Divyant, your father will be coming here after an hour, so you better pack everything up." and went back into the other connecting room, closing the door behind her. Divyant nodded, patted the lion on his head, and gave him his piece of carpet to chew, and went back into the room, packing everything that wasn't in their bags. There was still some time after they had finished putting everything in their right place, so Divyant tried to give the lion something to eat, and that's when he realized that the chips packet he had given the lion before were barbecue n' chilli flavoured, and when Divyant tasted one, he felt as if his toungue was on fire! He hurriedly drank a glass of water, and removed another packet of chips. He opened the packet of chips and looked at the flavour. It was 'Classic Salted', which was good. He went to the balcony, where the lion was sleeping, the piece of carpet in his mouth. Divyant emptied a quarter of the packet in front of the blue lion, who opened his eyes, and when he saw the chips, he suddenly woke up and went two steps behind, startled. Divyant pushed the chips a little ahead, and the lion went even more behind and pressed his back to the wall. Divyant took a few of them in his hand, and tried to give it to the lion, who smelled it and gave a whine, as if trying to say, "I don't want it!". Divyant suddenly asked Bob something. "Hey, Bob, lions on Earth don't whine, do they?"

"No they don't.

"Then why is this one whining and making nearly all the sounds you can think of?" Divyant asked, puzzled.

"He's an alien species, genius!" Bob replied in a huff. "What should we name him?" Divyant asked thoughtfully, as the lion licked the chips suspiciously. 

"Hmm?" Bob asked, not paying attention.

Divyant rolled his eyes and sat down thinking and muttering names for the lion, while the blue lion still eyed the chips suspiciously, and took a small bite. After realizing that they weren't as spicy as the one he had eaten before, he slowly began eating it. By the time Divyant had kept a name for the lion, it had already eaten all the chips Divyant had kept on the ground for him, and had liked its taste a lot, so was now trying to eat some form the packet, and had taken the packet into his mouth trying to chew it, instead he ended up spilling all the chips on the floor, and then he happily settled down to eat the chips which were fallen on the floor. Divyant had by then decided to call the lion- 

"Fluffy! Because you are very cute and your mane looks very fluffy for some reason." He said to no one in particular, running his hands over the Fluffy's mane. Suddenly, the door opened and Divyant's father walked in, announcing, "The robots work, and I also found out why the other robot crashed!" He announced triumphantly, and then turned to look at Divyant. "Come on Divyant, we have to go now. Hey, how did that come here?" Divyant hastily explained what had happened and then said, "But I just named him now! Why do we have to leave so soon?" Divyant's father looked apologetically at Divyant. "Well, now I can't do anything. I told our driver to wait at the entrance for us. "The lion," pointed at Fluffy "Can come till the gate. Come on now. Did you pack your bags?"

"Yes."

They walked down to the lobby, Fluffy ambling beside them, hurrying to keep up to Divyant. Many people looked at the lion as they passed by. When they reached the lobby, a nervous looking Mrs Smielle suddenly asked, "Where zid you find that lion? We have been searching all over ze hotel for it!" Divyant quickly explained to Mrs Smielle what had happened. She smiled. "Oh! Ok." Her smile faded a little. "Are you leaving now? So early!" But Divyant's parents explained that they had already ordered the spaceship to come and they could not stay for longer, so they left five minutes later, Mr and Mrs Smielle waving to them. Divyant was holding a bag full of foodstuffs and other things that Mrs Smielle had given them, with Fluffy smelling the bag. She had made sure that even if they were going, they weren't going to go empty handed! Divyant got into the car. He waved to Fluffy till he almost disappeared out of sight, and then looked out of the window, feeling very sad at having to leave Fluffy. They reached the spaceport (even the driver gave them a very grand goodbye) and after doing all the security checks ("We have to do all of these again?!!" Divyant said, dumbfounded) and finally, after doing all the security checks, they sat down at a place where a lot of aliens were sitting, Divyant's father again going to check whether the robots had been placed on the spaceship properly again, as he still needed to deliver it to his office. The place where they were sitting was similar to the place where Bob had pressed all the buttons on the seat and had a big accident (Bob wasn't too keen on pressing any buttons this time). Divyant didn't feel like going anywhere or eating anything, as he was still missing Fluffy. But then something happened on the plane that lifted his spirits. When he boarded the plane there was Larry waiting for him inside, grinning broadly.

"Larry?!"

"Surprise!" Larry cried out.

By that time, even Bob had come down, and he too was looking at Larry astounded. 

"B-But h-h-how did-" Divyant stammered. He was interrupted by Larry.

"I wanted to be on the plane on which you were going to go back to Earth, so I asked the pilot when were you leaving while I was giving him food", and he told me, but I had to be on another plane that week, but I pleaded a lot with the person with the person whom I report to put me on this flight and he allowed me! And, voila! Here I am!" He exclaimed.

They had a very good flight back to Earth, during which Divyant, Bob played video games, and sometimes if Larry was free, he also came. They ordered a lot of food from the air hostess who had changed- a plump woman who was always ready to give them whatever they wanted to eat, and during mealtimes, gave them extra helpings of everything- Divyant also used the keyword which made Bob do a backflip while Bob was playing video games with Larry, which caused Larry to jump in fright, and Divyant to roll down on the floor laughing. Divyant mostly played video games, looked out of the window, or looked through Bob's manual for other interesting things. They finally reached Earth at 4 in the morning, and after bidding Larry a goodbye, (Divyant wasn't too sad now, because Bob could now contact Larry and vice versa anytime) they went to find the car in which they were supposed to reach home. After they had found it, they sat in it, and after all the luggage had been taken into the trunk by the robot and Tim's father had finished typing the location, they set off to their home.

They reached in about half the time they took to reach the spaceport, because there were less cars on the highway than before. Finally, they reached home, all tired and exhausted. After reaching home, Bob directly went to the corner of the room and went into sleep mode, Divyant's mother and father wished him good night, and Divyant's mother reminded him that next week his school was starting and went to their room, while Divyant also went to his room. He quickly bushed and changed into his nightsuit and flopped on the bed, and quickly fell asleep.

Several months later, Divyant was sitting on a bench in his classroom, reading his English exam sheet very carefully. A lot of time had passed by since his trip to Erilade, yet he still felt like he had just visited Erilade yesterday. He had almost finished his paper and was feeling pretty confident that he would get good marks. He read the last question-

Right an essay about a place that you visited. Write what all you had done there, and for what reason did you like the place.

 A smile crept on Divyant's face. He knew about which place he was going to write.

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