When they finally did arrive, the planet they found themselves orbiting looked anything but inspiring. It was an unpleasantly yellowish color, with patches of bile green where one might normally expect there to be oceans or at least lakes. M-class seemed a bit of a reach.

"Are you sure this is a Minshara-class planet?" Archer asked T'Pol rather doubtfully.

T'Pol narrowed her eyes slightly in what would be considered outrage in a human. But, of course, that was Reed projecting human ideas onto alien species. Vulcans didn't get emotionally offended by someone questioning their abilities. Or so he'd been told.

"My scans indicate that it is," T'Pol said impassively.

"It doesn't look very hospitable," Archer persisted.

"To human eyes, perhaps," T'Pol replied, and then launched into one of her patented 'The Human View is a Particularly Narrow One' speeches, at which point Reed stopped paying attention.

When you'd heard one of T'Pol's 'Human Ways of Thinking' speeches, you'd heard all of them. He had better things to occupy his attention, such as the scan information being displayed at his own station. As the records of the Vixlettes had indicated, there was no real sign of civilization down there, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything to explore.

It wasn't all about meeting new civilizations, though that was the part Captain Archer liked best. And Reed didn't mind it sometimes either. He had a particular fondness for looking at buildings. Alien architecture was a passive hobby of his, one he didn't have much time for. Though of course his first passion was always the tactical situation, not just what weapons had been invented, but who they planned to use them on, why and how. Not just out of concerns with the security of Enterprise. The subject genuinely fascinated him. Earth's military history was his strong suit, education-wise, and he was rapidly assimilating information about the military history of various alien cultures.

But today it looked like they were going to be looking at this planet to see what natural resources it offered, and whether or not it might one day make a planting ground for a colony. Which, Reed was told by the members of the crew whose main job that kind of exploration was, was just as exciting as meeting a new sentient species. Reed didn't much care for the look of this one, and hoped that he might miss out on it… but he doubted there was much chance of that.

Someone had to command the mission down to the planet surface if Archer decided to send a team, and it was unlikely Archer would go himself on this occasion, even though he'd hounded T'Pol for over a week about it. He would rationalize it that he couldn't have all the exploration fun to himself, but Reed privately thought Captain Archer didn't like visiting any planet without people on it to meet. And this one didn't look like a good place to walk the dog either, which was probably a major disappointment, though not exactly a surprise, all things considered.

Anyway, this planet being what it was, Archer was likely to leave the away team leadership position open. Commander Tucker would take one look at this place and bow out, on the grounds that it was 'too damn dry.' T'Pol would go if she was sent, but she would not volunteer for it. All of that tended to amount to Reed being told to go. Hopefully he'd get to select his own team.

Not that he minded. Some time away from the ship would be welcome, especially if he didn't have to worry about doing any First Contact type socializing. He had enough trouble dealing with other humans. He wanted nothing to do with the responsibility of trying to apologize to an alien species that was offended by the sight of people eating. Technically uninhabited M-class planets were where he did his best work, exploration-wise… primarily because he let the research people do their thing and stayed out of their way, confining himself to giving Enterprise regular updates and making sure nobody wandered off and got lost, or eaten by some type of terrestrial predator.

T'Pol finished her spiel about human ways of thinking, and Archer launched into an inquiry about what might be on the planet that would be interesting to study or take samples of. The conversation had already been had before Archer ever set Enterprise on a course for the planet, but he liked to go over things one last time before committing a landing party. He also probably wanted to be sure T'Pol's scans of the planet matched what the Vixlettes had told them. A reasonable precaution.

Anyway, T'Pol began coming up with a list of what sorts of deposits she was getting readings of. Reed knew, as the rest of them did, that often it wasn't the deposit you scanned that was of interest, but what the deposit composition indicated might also be there, either in too small an amount to register from this distance, or perhaps too far beneath the surface. He listened with divided attention to this part, looking for materials he recognized the potential application or other relevance of. A few minor minerals and chemical compounds that would be interesting to the geologists, and what appeared to be some sort of life form living within the pools of sulfuric acid on the planet surface that would be of immediate interest to the biology departments. Archer wouldn't pass on sending someone for a quick look around. Not when they'd spent a week getting here in the first place.

Archer turned, scanned the Bridge, and settled his attention on Reed.

"Malcolm, how do you feel about heading up a mission to check out the planet's surface?"

"I'm beginning to think Captain Archer doesn't like me very much," Travis said as the team disembarked from the shuttle pod.

"Oh? And why's that?" Reed asked, coughing as the acrid smell of the air hit the back of his throat.

The planet was hot, and it reeked of sulfur where they'd landed. But there wasn't exactly a better spot. Not within range of what Ensign Marissa Souci, who was here in her capacity as microbiologist and ecologist, wanted to take samples of anyway. She was already off near one of the steaming yellow pools, taking readings with her scanner.

At least the air was dry. So dry, in fact, that it felt like the air was trying to pull moisture directly from his skin. Still, Reed preferred it to the alternative. Not only did he fear drowning, Reed was like one of those plants that died from over-watering. Put him in a humid environment, and he just couldn't handle it. Not for long at any rate. It had actually been rather interesting to find that many of his physical problems growing up went away when he moved to drier climes. He'd assumed so many of his issues were just the way he was built… and they were, kind of. But put him in dry conditions and he was much more competent, coordinated and efficient about his work. He just wasn't built for the wet.

"Well, I hardly ever get to go to populated planets," Travis was saying, "Just planets like this. I was sent here to collect rock samples."

"Captain Archer knows you have an interest in geology," Reed said, "That's probably why he selected you for this landing party."

"I have an interest in rock climbing. That's not the same thing," Travis corrected firmly.

"Well..." Reed offered rather fumblingly, "Perhaps you should inform the Captain of that."

"Oh yeah? When?" Travis wanted to know.

Reed sighed. Despite having given his word that he wouldn't put it off again, Archer had once more rescheduled breakfast in the Captain's Mess with Travis. Reed would like to never have to endure that awkwardness again, but he knew Travis was looking forward to it, and felt a sting of disappoint with each delay, and Travis was becoming increasingly convinced it was because of him.

You couldn't just make a big production out of eating breakfast with each member of the crew at least once, and then continually reschedule with one of them. Especially once you started running up against having scheduled breakfast with other crew members interfering with having breakfast with that particular one. He started to feel left out, ignored, and began to suspect it was on purpose. Reed wasn't good at socializing, and didn't much care for it, but if you were going to do it, you ought to do it with a little more organization and purpose to it. Otherwise…

Reed sighed again.

He didn't particularly want to try his hand at being reassuring just now. He wasn't very good at it, and Travis was likely to feel more patronized than comforted, especially since Travis knew that the threat of breakfast with Archer had hung like a guillotine over Reed's head for a year as he ducked and dodged and avoided it using every trick he knew. So anything Reed said now would be met by Travis with a rather pointed remark (or even more pointed silence) that this was something Travis looked forward to, albeit with decreasing optimism with each passing day, even if Reed would rather have died in the vacuum of space than have to go through it again.

"You don't wanna talk about this, do you?" Travis guessed.

"Sorry," Reed offered, rather lamely.

"You still can't get that balance of casual socializing and professionalism, huh," Travis said, he nodded understandingly and straightened up, "Okay, sir. How about we get to work?"

An immeasurable flood of relief, "Yes. I think that's an excellent idea."

The yellow-green pools sunk into the sand and rock of the planet's surface were hot enough to cook breakfast, and acidic enough to burn through hull plating. Periodically, the waters would burble and then belch forth a cloud of yellow smoke into the air which reeked of sulfur, but probably wasn't.

When they weren't preparing to unleash smoke clouds, the surface of the pools were utterly still, offering a perfect reflection of the cliffs and mountains that was marred only by the rainbow pattern caused by the oily surface. The dusty, crumbling ground around the edges of the pool would betray any careless step, and send the unwary plunging into the boiling depths and a quick death.

Too close to the pools, the air was toxic, especially near ground level, though the heat alone should have been enough to keep any sane creature well clear of them.

A couple of hours on the planet was sufficient to make Reed miss the eight days of travel it had taken them just to reach it in the first place. The heat was intense, the smell unbearable, the wind strangely biting. Nothing sufficient to require an EV suit, but enough to make him consider that maybe they should have worn the suits anyway. Especially given a little time to get familiar with the local conditions. Not that it seemed to bother Souci, though she was closer than any of them to the pools.

Souci was one of those people who became absorbed in her work and focused on it to the exclusion of all else. In this case, that meant scans and samples from one pool, and then moving on to the next, pausing only to take stock of any curious life she found outside the pools. Reed had been forced more than once to order her to stay back away from the pools. She didn't seem to notice the caustic, heated air. Reed had asked earlier if she would be ready to leave soon, and she had begun to list off the potential scientific value of all her samples. She believed there were medical advancements to be made that were incalculable at this time. Though not a medical doctor, she had enough grounding in the subject to recognize useful compounds that could later be studied more closely aboard Enterprise by the likes of Dr. Phlox and his team.

Reed had tried to pay attention, but the language she used was not for the layman, and it was far beyond the scope of his abilities to comprehend. So he dropped the issue, and agreed to endure a little more discomfort for the sake of scientific advancement. He might not have understood what she was talking about, but that didn't stop him from realizing the value of medical advancement in a dozen different fields. Not understanding how it worked didn't mean he couldn't see what it was good for.

Meanwhile, Travis was scouting around, less interested in the composition of the surrounding rocks than he was in traversing them in the first place. Reed got the impression Travis was having more fun than he would like to admit, and probably not doing a great deal of work either. Reed checked in with him on the communicator periodically when he disappeared from sight, but the reports were cheerfully and irritatingly devoid of useful information.

At one point, Souci found a plant that struck her fancy.

The only plant life in sight grew well away from the pools and generally in isolation from other plants of the same kind. From a distance they were small, thorny looking lumps of dark green. On closer inspection they revealed themselves to be more a wad of tangled spikes than anything, in the center of which was a delicate white flower. The spikes were tipped with a neurotoxin according to scans, likely blocking anything large enough to eat the flower whole from doing so, and forcing it to pay a heavy toll if it tried to ignore the warning spikes.

"Assuming, of course, that the creatures here are vulnerable to the same toxins we are," Souci pointed out, taking some closer readings, "Though really it's often the small things that do the most damage. Caterpillars and their equivalents, for instance. The flower's so small that… ah, I see."

"See what exactly?" Reed asked.

"The flower petals have toxins as well."

"What's the point of that?" Reed wondered, "If it's so deadly, what does it need the spikes for?"

"Well the flower's probably not actually deadly. Any leaf eating nymph-like creature would probably stop before consuming enough of the toxin to get sick or die, because the flower is so minimally toxic. But it tastes bad, I imagine. Still, you see that faint yellow edge along each petal? That's where this thing stores its pollen, rather than in the center like the flowers you'd typically see on Earth."

"So some caterpillar comes to eat, gets into the pollen, gets a stomach ache and leaves?" Reed wondered, "But then what's to ensure it ever goes near a flower of that type again? It would have to, for pollination purposes."

"I thought I was the ecologist," Souci said with a flicker of evident annoyance.

"Sorry."

Souci waved a hand dismissively, "I'm kidding. Most everyone knows that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm not sure that's how the pollen of this thing works. I think it may reproduce asexually."

"Then why-"

"We're not going to get answers all at once about everything, Lieutenant," Souci interrupted, "But I have a feeling it won't end well for the bug, given that the toxin is also in the pollen."

Having just had it laboriously explained to him what prolonged exposure to an allergen could do, Reed didn't need Souci to tell him what that same exposure to something poisonous would do.

"What a lovely little planet we've discovered," Reed muttered sarcastically.

"I think it's fascinating," Souci replied.

Before he could respond to that, his communicator chirped.

"How's it going down there, Malcolm?" Archer's voice asked when he opened it.

"We're collecting a lot of samples that should keep the science department occupied for some time to come," Reed replied, "Or so I've been told."

Souci gave him a sharp glance, irritated that he would doubt her findings, but he ignored that.

"And how much longer do you think all that collecting is going to take?" Archer wanted to know.

He was impatient again. He'd seen the planet from orbit, hadn't liked the look of it, and wanted to go look at something else now. Find a new species to get acquainted with, ideally. The Captain was all for scientific advancement, but he preferred developing technologies and cultural relations. The mundane art of putting liquid in test tubes to look at under a microscope later was a very old science, and one that didn't really capture the imagination. Reed couldn't blame him for thinking that way. Reed himself wasn't finding this little tour of the sulfur pits terribly enlightening... or enjoyable either.

When he looked to Souci for an answer, she told him, "I can't say. These pools may all look the same, but they contain different chemical mixtures, some of which I've never even seen before."

"Looks like we'll be here awhile yet," Reed relayed.

There was a pause, Archer resisting the urge to sigh loudly no doubt.

"Alright. Well… keep me informed on your progress."

"Yes sir," Reed answered, just as if he hadn't already been doing that.

There were times, though fewer lately, that Reed wondered why he'd signed on for this mission in the first place. This was definitely one of those times.

It felt somehow like he was in opposition with his Captain's wishes, even though Captain Archer had sent him here to begin with. And it felt like Reed was making them stay here even though he was actually aligned with Archer in personally wanting to leave. At the same time, Souci kept shooting him those annoyed looks whenever he indicated that he'd like to get off this rock sooner rather than later, like it was unreasonable to start feeling ill after a few hours getting the steam of acidic sulfur pools all over him. Yet, whether Souci liked it or felt ready, they'd eventually have to clear out or they really would be sick. Assuming what was here was really worth it, they could always come back or send another team. There wasn't really a time crunch… yet somehow it felt like there was.

Travis came jogging briskly back into view, but slowed as he drew closer to the pools. Wherever he'd been, it was clearly less unpleasant than here. Maybe the air was clearer up on the ridges. Maybe it was even cooler. But, of course, the pools and their content were what had Souci so interested, and she was the expert here to collect data, so they had to go where she wanted.

Why had Reed ever agreed to this?

"Find anything interesting, Ensign?" Reed asked, hopeful to have some excuse to leave this area for one that was a bit less markedly hostile.

But Travis merely shook his head, "Just more rocks, Lieutenant. I'm afraid we're not in for much fun."

"Speak for yourself," Reed said, with a nod towards where Souci was once again trying to get herself killed by the toxic air around the nearest pool, "Ensign Souci is having a wonderful time."

This provoked another one of her sharp glances in his direction.

"I think she likes you," Travis whispered with a smirk.

They both knew Ensign Souci was about as interested in Reed as Commander Tucker was in using the transporter. In fact, they'd all be using the transporter every single day of their lives well before Ensign Souci showed any interest in any of the men on board.

"The air must be getting to you," Reed replied, "That joke was wholly inappropriate."

"You gonna write me up?" Travis asked, grinning.

He knew Reed better than that by now, and was quite certain that he'd get away unscathed on this one.

Feeling any semblance of authority crumbling under him, Reed said resignedly, "Maybe next time."

Maybe on another ship, under a different captain. But Captain Archer encouraged informality and fraternizing. Sometimes Reed got the feeling Archer thought he was running a free floating frat party, and not an organized vessel serving Star Fleet. But… it undeniably worked for him, making it difficult to argue with, even if it had been Reed's place to do so. Which it wasn't.