Author : Roger Dale Trexler

They found it. In the most impossible spot, in the most unlikely location, they found it.

And the scientists were baffled.

On the edge of explored space, Henry Frisk stared out the porthole of the survey ship. The nearby star was just close enough that its light shone on the insanely improbable object. It reflected for parsecs. It was easy to find because it shone so brightly.

A hand touched his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” the intruder said. He turned to look Trudi Maines in the eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes that shone brightly, but not nearly as brightly as it did.

“It’s all right,” he said, smiling. “It just fascinates me, that’s all.”

“Me, too,” she said. “Have they found out anything?”

He shook his head. “Not a thing,” he told her.

“Why do you suppose they did it?” she asked.

He chuckled lightly. “What?”

“They….whomever they were….put a perfectly round hundred mile wide sphere of gold—pure gold—in the middle of an asteroid belt….why do you think they did it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You have to have a theory? You’re the authority on extraterrestrial life.”

Frisk let out a laugh. “That’s like saying someone is an authority on God,” he said. “It just isn’t possible.”

He looked into Trudi’s troubled eyes. “Listen,” he said. He turned and pointed. “Whoever made that, whoever took the time and made that, wanted it found. They wanted us to find it.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“Because,” He said. “It has a message.”

“A message?”

He nodded. “Carved in the gold.”

“Carved in the gold?” Trudi backed away a step. “I don’t understand?”

Frisk let out another chuckle. “No one does,” he said. “All the great minds of Earth have pondered it. They are as dumbfounded as I am.”

He paused, then added: “But, I do have a theory.”

“I knew you would,” Trudi said. She took a step forward again.

There was a long silence between them as they stared out at the glistening ball of gold. “All right,” she said. “Tell me.”

He nodded. “Imagine,” he said. “Imagine those ancient astronauts that everyone says helped build the pyramids and Easter Island and gave the Mayans their advanced science. Imagine that they saw mankind’s bloodlust. Imagine how simple, how petty we looked to them.”

He turned to her. “That’s why the left. They knew that we were unworthy of their assistance. They weren’t like us. They were civilized.”

Trudi let out a disappointed gasp of air. “But what about U.F.O.s?” she asked. “What about alien abductions?”

He shook his head. “Who knows? Maybe they were just checking in, hoping we had changed?”

“And we didn’t?”

Frisk shook his head again. “It’s our nature.” He chuckled again and pointed out at the golden sphere. “That sphere,” he said. “They put it here because they knew we would find it. They knew we would find it, and they wanted to see what we would do with it.”

He turned to her. “It’s pure gold. The purest gold ever known to man.”

“It must we worth…..”

“Its worth is incalculable,” he told her. “And that’s why they put a message on it.”

“What does the message say?” she asked.

He shook his head again. “They haven’t translated it yet.” He drew a deep breath. “But, I know what it’ll say.”

“What?”

“That money isn’t everything….Love is.”

He turned to her. “I love you, Trudi,” he said. “I always have….and I always will.”

Then, he bent forward and kissed her in the golden light of the orb.