The First Steps

"How was it?" asked an anxious voice.

"It sucked," said the man blandly. He reclined with his eyes closed.

"That's it?" asked another anxious voice.

The man on the floor nodded.

"You're gonna have to be more specific," said the first anxious voice.

"Bah," said the man on the floor. He opened his eyes, and looked around the small landing module. It was crowded, three men was more than enough, especially since he was lying down. He looked over his own body, torn cloths and blue and ivory splotches on his skin. Resting his head back, he thought. After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth to speak.

"It was like," he paused for dramatic effects. "Being forced to circumcise your own erection, with a pair of safety scissors." He opened his eyes to see how his description was received.

It wasn't as funny as he thought it was.

One of the two men he looked at was already circumcised, so he had no idea what kind of pain that would bring. The other simply didn't find it funny.

"That doesn't help," said the man who's humor wasn't quite in tune with the man on the floor's. "You're the first man to step onto a truly alien planet, how could you say it was bad?"

"Listen," said the man on the floor, while getting up. "And look at my body. My cloths are all torn up, my skin bruised all over. Like a giant hicky!" He waved his arms to show his cloths, and his bruises. "How could you say it didn't suck!" he sat with his back to the main hatch, facing the other two.

"That doesn't make any sense," said Jason Sullivan, the not circumcised one. He stood up and twisted to look at some instruments behind him. "According to these, this planet should have almost the exact atmospheric conditions as Earth. We should be perfectly fine out there."

"Well it isn't," Said George O'Grady, the man on the floor. "And I wasn't." he rested his head back on the hatch again.

"So, what does that mean?" Asked the circumcised man. His name was Phillip, Phillip Branson, but he grew to have the nickname Billip, and everyone called him by that.

"I don't know, Billip," said O'Grady, "You're the one with a major in meteorology and the other useless crap someone needs to know out here, you tell us?"

Billip was taken back by the out lash. Being the medic on the ship, he suggested sedative for the man, he refused, then apologized for snapping.

"Listen guys, all I know is that as soon as that fucking hatch opened, I was sucked out, like a vacuum cleaner. Luckily I was able to hit the emergency button before it was to late, the door shut almost with me in it. I blacked, and you guys got me. That's all I can piece together." He stopped, and waited for someone else to talk, when no one did, he went on. "And personally, I vote we send a report back saying we walked on the fucking planet, and decided it wasn't worth it. 'Cause honestly, it ain't."

Billip spoke:

"Did you see outside of the hatch, even for a second?"

"Yeah," said O'Grady, "It was screwed up. The sky was totally black, no stars, no nothin'. But the ground, it, it was like a fucking evergreen meadow." He sighed.

"It doesn't make any sense," he added. "A black sky, no sun, no nothing, but this perfect green, hilly, pasture. Going on and on. It's fucked, that's my conclusion."

Sullivan tried to lighten the mood, "So, George, when do ya wanna go again?"

O'Grady perked his head up, "Not funny Jason, not funny."

"Totally black?" Asked Billip, "Not even a hint of clouds?"

O'Grady shook his head, "I told you everything, and oh, did I mention how much it fucking hurt?"

The other two were quiet.

Billip spoke again:

"We have the suits, why don't we just use 'em? I mean, that's why they gave them to us, isn't it?"
"Yeah Billip," O'Grady said standing up, "Knock your self out, I'm getting changed." He squeezed between the two, and used a small latter system to pull himself up and out of the compartment. After a moment, he shouted down.

"How the hell do I get back up to the ship?"

"You can't, George," pointed out Sullivan in the middle between as shout and a conversational voice. "You can't go until we all do."

A four letter word was shouted back down at Sullivan.

"Sorry," he shouted back. Something was kicked, and everything was quiet.

"I'll go, out I mean, I'll go outside. I don't think O'Grady will want to, and I'd rather have you at the controls than me so…" Billip trailed off.

"Okay Billip, if you're sure."

Billip nodded, stood up, and opened the small door to the compression chamber.

After putting on the slightly cumbersome two piece aero-suit, and slipping on the thin gloves and helmet, he gave the thumbs up. There was a hiss, and the room was decompressed.

"This is weird," said Sullivan, "Everything reads normal, there shouldn't be a pressure shift, something's wrong." He continued to mumble to himself in a similar manor. Billip was gone for fifteen minutes, and came back. They all sat in the small landing module. Billip and Sullivan sitting and talking, O'Grady hanging from a latter run.

"It was a paradise, or as best a one we could hope for, guys. Trees, fields, sun, clouds, it was amazing." He talked on and on. "Like earth," he finished.

"Yeah," said O'Grady, "Before we fucked it up." Nosily, he sat down near them.

"If it was so earth like, Billip, how come you didn't take your helmet off, huh?"

Billip shrugged, "Slipped my mind, that's all."

"I'm sure." O'Grady stood up. "We should just leave, really, it's a paradise, but a paradise in a vacuum. So, we can't get to it. End of quest, lets go home."

"Home to what?" Sullivan stated absentmindedly.

"Some place bigger than this joint!" O'Grady almost punched a panel, then decided that if he did, he might not be able to get home. He looked around, then went back to the upper room.

"Billip, maybe we should go home, maybe he's right," agreed Sullivan, "I mean, there are hundreds of other ships out there, all doing what we're doing. And all we need is one planet, if this one's a bust, its no biggy."

"I still wanna know why," Billip said sadly. "I really want to know why its so beautiful, but in a vacuum." He sat and thought.

They both sat and thought, something was kicked upstairs. At that same moment, something was kicked into Billips head. He stood up,

"Hey! Get the….infa…infra….infrared camera!" he quickly looked at all the panels and boxes in the room for the camera.

"Why?" Asked Sullivan, still seated.

"I don't know why, er, well, I think I have an idea. Its one of those 'Just crazy enough to work' ones." Billip was more talkative, now that he had a good idea.

"Oh," said Sullivan, still very confused.

"No, listen, we really wanted to find another earth, right?" Explained Billip.

"Does Billip got an idea?" said O'Grady from up stairs, he was told yes and then shushed by both other men.

"Anyway, well, what if this planet, some how, wants us to think its perfect!"

"Then it'd look exactly like earth," answered Sullivan. He was seeing better.

"Right! Now, whether it's a predator using hypnosis, or just gasses, I don't know. But out there is really a harsh environment, and somehow we're seeing a paradise."

"What does the infrared have to do with it?" asked Sullivan, standing behind the alighted Billip.

"Watch," said Billip, in a hushed voice. He pointed to a small, eight by eight screen in front of him. The image was scrambled at first, then slowly came in. "It isn't our eyes, and we can't even see infrared, so it's the real deal," explained Billip a second after Sullivan put it together himself.

"Hey guys," started O'Grady, he was promptly shot down by the other two men.

The scene was a bleak one, sloping barren hills, and a waste land as far as the eye can see. It was like hell, but worse, it was much more boring.

"Wow, is that what outside really looks like? Damn, what a bore, talk about pissing on a birthday cake…" blabbered O'Grady, the other two didn't listen.

"Well," said Billip, "I guess that means one down, an billion left to go."

"Yeah, so much for a large step for man." Connected Sullivan

"And it screws over man kind," added O'Grady, he just had to get the last word in.