by Zulu, Arthur
There were two things, though, that negated the suitability of the mountain for Eden.
The first was that there were openings in both the East and the West. The original Eden had only an exit in the East.
The second was that the center of the mountain had no vegetation. The middle of the Bible Eden was rich with trees.
Mr. Hunter and his team members started to theorize: Could it be that the Flood made a second opening in the west? Could it also be that the Deluge destroyed the trees in Eden? They would find out.
So they decided to spend more days exploring and excavating the site. If any trees were buried, the archaeologists and botanists would find them. They dug and dug.
And the Chinese surveillance satellite was watching.
Tahiti is a paradise. It is a picturesquely-situated island on a rich coastline with fruit trees. No wonder paradise seekers had longed for it.
Cheung and his team believed that they would find the tree of life among the many trees of the island. They had not been misled. That forbidden tree must be it!
Tahitians had heard of the Medecins Sans Frontieres, as the French islanders call them since they first landed in the Maquesas Islands. Cheung and his team, therefore, were welcomed by crowds of happy smiling faces on arrival. They would do their best to meet their medical needs. There were many poor and sick people in the islands needing medical care.
It was not long before they exhausted their stock of Chinese herbal supplies. So they started exploring the Tahitian forests for more herbal products.
A Tahitian old man took Cheung and his team to the secluded forest where the Forbidden Tree was.
“You see this tree, everything about it is good, except its fruits,” the old man told them. “We use the leaves, bark, and roots to cure our sicknesses but we don’t eat its fruits. It is forbidden in these islands. I am showing you this because you have been kind to our people. Look to the tree, perhaps you can make more medicines out of it to cure our people,” said the elderly man leaning on his walking stick.
“Thank you, Old One. We will harness the tree for more health products for the islanders,” replied Cheung. “But why are the fruits forbidden?”
The old man closed his eyes and replied: “I do not know. It is a custom passed on to us by our grandfathers. We do not eat the fruits.”
“Do you have many of these trees growing in Tahiti?” asked Cheung.
“No,” replied the old man. “They are few. It is the oldest tree in this island. You can only find them in this area. If you count you will not find more than seven. They have been seven since I was born, and my father said he met seven. But as you can see, it bears many fruits and you may not be able to move beyond this point because of the huge pile of fruits on the ground over the ages.”
The Chinese looked at the huge trees heavy with round reddish fruits and the thick layer of fresh and rotten fruits that had fallen to the ground.
The world is full of weird customs. How can part of a tree be forbidden while the other parts are good? This must be a primitive race.
“Does the tree have a name?” Cheung asked.
“Yes, but it is forbidden for us to call the tree by its original name. So we call it the Forbidden Tree,” said the old man.
These people are really primitive and superstitious, too.
“Do you know the name of the first man?” the old man asked.
Cheung thought hard.
“Captain Samuel Wallis who first visited the island in 1767, you mean?”
The old man shook his head.
“I don’t mean the white man. I mean the first man on this earth.”
“Adam!” exclaimed Cheung.
The old man nodded.
“We name this tree after him.” he said, and left looking sad as if he had let out a guarded secret.
“We thank you Old One. We now know its name.”
However, the man was already gone.
This was Adam’s tree!
Mr. Cheung and his team celebrated. This was their Eureka moment. They had found the tree! This was the tree of life, not Adam’s tree. The natives were seized by an even more sense of superstition not to call it by its original name—the tree of life—the very fruit of the tree that would have restored life to Adam and Eve in Eden after they sinned. Cheung sent a message to Beijing: “We have found the tree of life!”
And Beijing celebrated, too.
The Chinese quickly set up camp around the tree. A herbal factory was also built. The forbidden fruit must be researched for its medicinal value. This was what the Chinese know best!
So the freshly-fallen fruits were gathered, cut open, and analyzed. To their amazement, the juicy fruit was potent. Further examination proved that it was more powerful than the medicinal values of all its other parts combined!
A decision was made: a juice to be called Tahiti juice was to be made out of their fruit and tested on the sick islanders.
There was a secret: the natives were not to be told the source of the juice. The site was now fenced off—it was out of bounds for the islanders.
Three weeks later, a trial version of Tahiti juice began. The tasty bottled juice was taken by the Chinese and given to sick Tahitians to drink. The result was wonderful.
No matter how serious the ailment was, the patient was healed instantly and began running about like gazelles after taking the juice.
The efficacy of Tahiti juice was so astounding that not so long, news about it spread to all the neighboring islands. Distribution centers for the juice were set up all over the islands.
The islanders were grateful to these God-sent doctors. They called the juice, Wonder juice.
The Chinese now began to grow seedlings out of the seed of Adam’s tree. This was the hard part. The seed did not germinate easily, and if it did, it died after sometime.
Nevertheless, they kept trying. They needed seedlings, which would eventually become trees in China. They had a plan—the tree of life was to be found in no other land on earth than China!
Chapter 12
“We are shipping the fruits home tomorrow.”
That was Cheung’s last message to Beijing.
They had a measure of success. The natives were healed by the juice made from Adam’s tree—the tree of life.
However, they could not wait long enough to determine if the fruit could cure death. Or if the patients would die afterward.
They would administer the juice on the Chinese and wait to see the result.
The news of their success was spreading fast. They would have to depart before the news spreads to America.
Only one seedling of the fruit sprouted and grew into a small plant after all their cultivation effort. Well, one was enough, they thought. The plant would continue to grow in China. And more would be planted.
The growing plant was transferred into a flat plastic container with the sandy root part sealed so that it could float on water, and labeled Adam’s flower in Chinese. Soil sample was obtained for comparison with matching China soil.
The Chinese plucked all ripe and unripe fruits in the trees. The plucked fruits and heaps of fallen ones were to be shipped to China along with the growing seedling.
The islanders, sad though that the doctors were leaving, happily helped them to transport the fruits to the loading ship at Papeete, Tahiti’s capital.
Why would they not be happy? The island was being rid of forbidden fruits!
After all the fruits had been moved, the Chinese boarded the loaded ship amidst a cheering and waving crowd. The ship’s consignment was registered as gold on the departure port at Papeete and began the Pacific cruise to Shanghai while the Chinese air force plane flew home.
Attorney General Lawman received another load of surveillance photos.
The Americans did not find the tree that they were looking for at Elazig. The archaeologists and botanists in the team had worked hard. They would have to leave this two-gated mountain and proceed.
; Mr. Hunter spoke with the Attorney General. Hunter was informed of the Chinese ship cargo of Tahitian fruits headed to China. He laughed and told the AG that the Chinese were deceiving themselves. He and his team were getting leads. They almost found Eden in Elazig!
They moved to the next two towns: Erzincan and Erzurum. They were told to look out for a forbidden forest on their way.
That must be it.
Adam and Eve were forbidden to re-enter Eden after their eviction. They were not to eat the fruit of the tree of life. The tradition must have been passed on to the natives, the Americans reasoned.
The tree of life must be in the forbidden forest perhaps without a mountain, which might have been destroyed by the Flood.
It has to be a rare specie of tree. It need not be guarded by cherubs with flaming swords. Because when the Americans asked the locals if they knew of any tree in their land that was guarded by angels with swords, they shook their heads and laughed very much.
God must have been definitive about His death pronouncement, but Americans would reverse it. That was the mission of Hunter and his team in Turkey. So they packed and continued the search.
Back in Washington, the President Godsend had concluded a meeting with his cabinet at the White House. They had been discussing the question: Should we sink the Chinese ship?
The demerits of doing so outweighed the merits. Besides, reports from the Hunter team in Turkey showed that the U.S. team was on the verge of finding Eden. The Chinese might just as well be chasing shadows. So the president overruled sinking the vessel with its passengers and cargo of fruits.
“Ten billion dollars, boys! Ten billion dollars! I say,” repeated Commodore Sea-Devil to the armed pirates sitting on their vessels around him waiting and peering across the ocean with their telescopes. “A Chinese vessel loaded with gold from Tahiti. Total value of gold, ten billion dollars! No pirate worth his salt in all the seven seas must miss that. Not Commodore Sea-Devil!” He raised his gun and bit it.
“But why are they keeping long, Commodore?” asked one pirate.
“Yes, maybe bad weather or slow ship. Never mind, we will get it.”
“Is the information you received correct, Commodore?” asked another pirate.
“Yes, my source is always right. The Chinese ship is loaded with gold, sailing from Papeete to Shanghai. That is what my contact at the port called and said to me. They should be passing between the Philippine Sea and the Japanese Volcano Island at Cancer to reach Shanghai. Never mind the cold, boys. They will meet us here at the Philippine Sea. We will capture the ship. Think of ten billion dollars! Let’s sail back to Volcano Island.”
The cold and shivering pirates began sailing from the Philippines north north-east toward the Tropic of Cancer in their different boats.
Why wouldn’t they? This will be their largest loot since the last seizure of a Japanese-bound oil tanker. That catch yielded a paltry six hundred million dollars. They would die for ten billion dollars!
Perhaps that was the problem with the Pacific. It is the calmest ocean in the world but the worst too because of pirates. They are the lords of the seas—from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa.
Commodore Sea-Devil and his group of pirates had been continually crossing their territory in vessels since they got wind of the advancing Chinese ship. The commodore knew that the ship had not been intercepted by other sea lords. There were many lords in the Pacific and they work in concert. Sea-Devil was sure that if the ship eluded the other pirates, they would not cross his path unnoticed.
The Chinese ship had been sailing smoothly in the Pacific. The team looked the happiest people on earth. There was a drinking spree on board.
Cheung was updating Beijing at every island of the ocean.
“We are now at American Samoa.”
“The ship is now in West Samoa.”
“We have reached Wallis and Futuna.”
“Approaching Tuvalu.”
Suddenly, they looked up and saw an American plane. It had been trailing the ship. The drinking company did not know perhaps on account of the cloudy sky or the noiseless aircraft.
The Chinese were afraid. The merry making stopped. What were the Americans about? Had they been found out or did the Americans suspect they were pirates? Were they about to be bombed?
Cheung did not know the message to send home. They just kept sailing and the plane continued following.
On the other hand, the Americans must have done them some good because the sight of the airplane had warded off pirates who would have attacked the ship in the Solomon Islands.
However, at Nauru, the American aircraft disappeared as fast as it came, never to be seen again.
They were relieved. The Americans would have confirmed that they were no pirates, just sailors.
Cheung updated China:
“Now at Nauru, the equator.”
They kept moving.
“Now at Caroline Islands.”
The journey continued.
“We have reached Guam, the Marianas.”
Meanwhile, the Tahitians were mourning the death of their forbidden trees, a veritable source of herbal medicine. How ungodly these doctors were. The trees withered and died seven days after their departure. The Chinese had poisoned them all.
The Tahitians wished the wicked doctors would perish in the ocean!
“Ship ahoy!” shouted Commodore Sea-Devil to the pirates, pointing and sailing toward the Chinese ship. They followed in their fast-moving boats on top of the ocean.
“Keep to instructions, boys. It’s ten billion dollars!” he was still shouting across the water.
The Chinese had sighted the pirates. They all came out huddled at the deck of the ship and there did not seem to be any help in sight.
None was thinking of fruits. Cheung was clutching the growing plant to his chest. He forgot to update Beijing. The only thing that they were thinking about was their precious lives.
“Stop or we blow up your ship!” Sea-Devil was shouting, gesturing to the sailors on the deck.
The ship stopped and was surrounded by the pirates.
“Don’t do anything stupid else we sink your ship,” Sea-Devil was still barking.
The pirates climbed onto the deck.
“Where is the gold? Show us quick or else,” Sea-Devil was telling the Chinese, his gun pointed at them. The other pirates with guns, too, had started rummaging the ship.
“We are not carrying gold,” Cheung answered.
“Why? Is this not the ship from Papeete going to Shanghai?”
“It is, but we don’t have gold with us.”
“Then it must be diamonds—that’s the best. Show us the diamonds. By the way, what flower is it that you are holding so firmly to your chest? Give it to me, fast!”
“It’s a love flower,” Cheung replied.
“Love flower?” Sea-Devil said, laughing. “There is no love in the ocean. Did you hear that? You don’t talk of love in the high seas. Talk of kidnapping, drowning, death, robbery, rape. That is what we know here. You must be some fool to think love in the high seas,” he said, flinging the plant into the ocean. “There goes your love flower; where is the gold?”
The Chinese stood with heads bowed watching the wasting of their labors. The disappointed pirates started coming out.
“It’s not gold, Commodore. They are fruits,” said one pirate who just emerged and heard the Commodore’s question.
“What did you say?” Sea-Devil shouted, alarmed.
“Fruits, Commodore.”
Sea-Devil turned to Cheung.
“Is that what you are carrying?”
“Yes, it isn’t gold. I know you won’t believe. So I let your boys search and see it for themselves. They are only fruits.”
“Shut up!” Sea-Devil said, slapping him across the cheek. “You changed the gold worth billions of dollars to fruits? Chinese are magicians. And mind you, these are not boys but millionaires—dollar millionaires. They
are on their way to becoming billionaires. Any women on board?”
“There is no woman, sir,” replied Cheung.
Commodore Sea-Devil slapped him again.
“Call me Commodore, not sir. I am not a gentleman. I am the Commodore of the seas.”
“Sorry, Commodore,” Cheung said.
“So there are no ladies on board for me and my boys? Of all the women in China?”
“None, Commodore.”
“Well, that makes your matter worse. Now, all of you get inside our boats. We have enough to take you all to the Filipino forest till we get our ten billion dollars.”
The pirates began pushing the terrified Chinese into their boats.
“Fast, my boys, and sink the ship with all the fruits afterward!”
The kidnapping of the Chinese and the sinking of their ship in the Pacific by the pirates hit the headlines. What a callous act, readers said.
After taking the sailors into their boats, the pirates dynamited the ship. Immediately, water started gushing into the ship through holes in the damaged hull. When the ship began sinking, the pirates raced away to the Philippines with the captives.
Safe in the Filipino bush, the first thing Commodore Sea-Devil did was to call China.
“I am Commodore Sea-Devil. Your people are safe with us in an unknown location. Just release ten billion dollars and we will hand them over to you.”
“What? Ten billion dollars?” exclaimed Mr. Bo Yong on phone.
“Yes, the value of the gold in the sunken ship. We sank it, did you know?”
“But it wasn’t carrying gold, only fruits.”
“You are magicians. What do you need fruits for? There are lots of fruit trees in China. Do your magic and get out your fruits from the bottom of the Marianas if you can. Do you know it is the deepest spot on earth?”
“I know,” answered Yong.
“Address me by my title. And thank your God this is a phone discussion, you would have collected two quick free slaps. I am generous on that. Ask your flower boy if he ever comes back alive.”
“I know, Commodore.”
“Right. Dive 35,840 feet into the Marianas Trench—I don’t know fathoms and metrics—and get your fruits if you are a man. Girls like you fear the deep waters, but we are sea devils. Even sea monsters are afraid of us. And that reminds me, we found no women in the ship.”