The humans stood aboard the spaceship in near darkness shuffling nervously as they waited. Captain Kelly stood next to one of the UN representatives: She was a stern woman with a stiff resolve, but she was clearly very uncomfortable aboard the alien spaceship. This would have been her first venture off world. She hadn't even visited Mars yet

As of that current moment they had been waiting in the ship for almost two hours. They had been told that Lieutenant Vir was being shipped in, one his way from the medical facility, and would be there within the next few hours. The aliens had wanted to wait until all the humans were together before allowing them onto the central planet.

Turns out there was another important reason for Vir's contribution to alien science. As expected, diseases could be carried over from planet to planet. To allow them onto the planet, the entire population would have to be inoculated against human disease, and in turn, they would have to be inoculated against alien diseases. Vir would have received his at the medical facility, they received theirs earlier in the day. It was a little disconcerting knowing that the vaccines had only been tested on one human, but members of the Galactic Assembly had assured them that, out of necessity, they had become very proficient at creating vaccines.

Either way, no one was experiencing any adverse effects, yet.

One of the soldiers slumped down in the darkness to rest his legs.

The tension remained for another thirty minutes before a door in the side of room hissed open and a human figure stepped into the room. A stream of decontamination fog spilling around him. The youthful face of lieutenant Vir peered at them through the gloom blinking, "Who turned the lights off." He wondered.

Members of the crew got up to greet him breaking the tense silence with some friendly teasing.

"Look its alien boy, finally got to live your dreams getting probed by aliens."

The lieutenant rolled his eyes brushing condensation form his skin, "I've had army physicals more invasive than getting probed by aliens." He leaned against the wall as the rest of the soldiers crowded around him. The kid seemed rather excited to be getting all of the attention, and despite herself, Captain Kelly moved closer to listen as he talked animatedly about his lone experience with the aliens.

"What did they want?"

"Mostly like specimens and stuff, skin, hair, saliva. You should have seen them freaking out over stomach acid. Looking at me like they thought I was going to melt into a puddle on the floor. Oh also, they totally think we are nasty. Apparently the amount of bacteria and vaccines they had to synthesize was.... Uh.... What did they say.... Unprecedented. "

The UN official moved forward to listen in, "Really, I never assumed..."

Vir shrugged, "Well we always knew that there was more bacteria on the human body than there are cells of human in the human body.

The crew murmured in surprise, but just then, another decontamination door opened up and one of the aliens stepped in.

It was a Rundi; that much Kelly knew. She was only beginning to learn all the new species names, and was still slow on the uptake. She was sure that lieutenant Vir already had their names, genetic phylum and species memorized. He was like that, the kid was like a sports geek collecting baseball cards, accepted he collected aliens. She walked past his room once, and the entire place was plastered in sketches and drawings of the aliens that they had already cataloged.

The Rundi greeted them with a bow of its insectoid head, "The inoculation has been complete. The atmosphere should be compatible for you."

The UN woman adjusted her suit, "We thank you."

The creature bowed at them again, and then scuttled across the room stopping by the far wall before pressing a button. Vir had moved forward towards the front of the room eyes wide with curiosity.

A burst of sunlight flooded through the cargo bay, and the humans lifted their eyes against the light. The Alien seemed rather confused at their reaction. The blinding light took longer to wear off for her than anyone else, she heard the gasps of shock and wonder before finally blinking her eyes open exposing her face to a waft of hot air.

Her eyes widened in shock and surprise.

Exposed as they were to a glittering white city and hundreds of aliens staring at them from a ten meter radius.

***

The strange creatures stepped from the ship and into the light of their Starr, they were tall, and walked on ONLY TWO LEGS. The entire crowd shifted back in mild anxiety upon spotting their eyes. They were forward facing, and pared with two rows of sharp glittering teeth. The eyes rolled around in their head tracking up and down the crowd with those slimy white orbs. The small dots within widened and shrank as if their brains were targeting systems set ready to kill.

Though they waked on two legs, their bodies moved with a fluid, and perfectly balanced grace. Whey they stopped, they still managed to balance even despite their completely unusual distribution of weight. The endo-skeleton allowed the crowd to watch as the muscles moved beneath their skin.

Hesitantly, one of the creatures approached the barricade. The crowd pulled back in worried tension. The creature stopped, "Uh.... I'm not going to hurt you."

The other creatures jiggled their heads in an odd motion before agreeing with the first.

The crowd finally allowed the strange predators to approach, moving around them like they would ravenous desert lurkers.

***

The first problem they encountered when dealing with the humans happened a few hours into the day, it was hot and the humans were beginning to lag in their energy levels. They had been meeting many very important people throughout the day, and they were all hot and tired, this planet ranged about eighty to ninety degrees throughout the day. They had met up with another member of the council who had attempted to greet them in a human fashion, Moments after their hands made contact, the creature's arm burst out into a horrible purple rash, apparently very painful.

The UN woman looked down at her hand as medical personnel pulled the representative away holding his arm out in front of him in horror. Humans and aliens staring alike, they all noted no such rash on the woman's hands. They were quarantined for almost half the day after that incident while they attempted to identify the bacteria that had done the damage. Turns out they found some sort of chemical irritant.

By the tie they came into test, the humans had cooled off, and, once her hand's had been swabbed, no chemical was found. It was a complete mystery, so the humans were finally let out into the sun, which had only grown more intense.

Soon the heat was growing oppressive as the humans desperately looked around for a water source.

Eventually they made it towards the Galactic assembly entrance, and one of the humans spotted something the assembly hoped they would overlook. It was a dihydrogen monoxide pit quarantined by a high wall and multiple caution lines.

By this time the humans were practically sagging under the sun. The aliens didn't know what to do for them, they didn't understand what they needed. Were they about to keel over and die, was there something in the atmosphere. What was happening?

And then the humans saw the pit, and the worst thing imaginable happened, one of them responded, "F*** it, I'm dying." And broke into a run towards the pit. The aliens screamed confused by the translation.

The human had chosen to die!

They tried to stop him, but he leaped over the caution lines setting off alarms before pitching himself over the wall and into the burbling pit of poison. Screaming all around, security officers raced from the building running as close to the edge as they dared expecting to watch as the human shriveled up as it's juices were sucked into the water.

But, instead, they found the human floating on his back in the substance ducking under before coming back up gasping a serene look on his face. A couple of the humans joined in unable to contain themselves.

The one named Captain Kelly and their leader stayed behind both looking oddly sick and envious as they watched the other humans frolicking in the deadly liquid.

"What is the meaning of this?!" One of the officers demanded

The UN woman raised her hand playacting, "It's just water.... I don't."

The security officer jabbed an appendage at the water, "Dihydrogen monoxide is a deadly poison to some of the species on this world, you can't just play in it."

Knowledge was beginning to dawn on Captain Kelly, "I.... our world is covered 2/3s by water. We need it to survive. Our bodies are over 60% water, and the heat is dehydrating us. If we don't get water soon we will get sick."

The officer stared at her incredulous.

"You're not serious."

"Yes we are, please they're just thirsty. It's the one thing we need before everything else." Captain Kelly was growing desperate now. She was so thirsty.

"You drink poison?" The guard asked again.

"Yes, yes we do....." She paused, and then it dawned on her, "I, yes and it comes out of our skin to keep us cool in heat, that's what happened earlier, the council woman's hands were sweaty and that's why the representative broke out."

All around them the alien creatures paused in surprise and confusion. They hadn't even considered that.

***

A couple minutes later, Captain Kelly had retrieved her unit from the poison pit, and made them to stand out to dry before bringing them inside. Once there, a hazmat team came bearing bowls of water. Members of the Assembly looked on in horror as the humans downed what must have been gallons of poison. Bowl after bowl was brought to them until they seemed satisfied.

There were going to have to be laws and precautions put in place for this. As it turned out water made up pretty much everything in the human body, making them toxic to a small minority of Gamma class species. The two would be able to interact on a small time basis assuming the human wasn't sweating, but in a climate like this that was almost impossible to secure.

In short, humans drank poison and could be toxic.