It was a horrible sight. Unruly trees, with their roots trying to leech every part of soil they could. Their pale green leaves clinging to the branches with all their lives, grasping it down along with its own weight so that they can both end up in the never ending spiral of death. Sour sounds could be heard from the things called birds, having a sharp pointed beak, with huge damp feathers feeding a large live worm to its young ones who looked hungrily at the poor worm. A forest was a specimen of utter barbaric ness of the nature. Open shittings, dead carcasses and worst of all the scavengers eating the dead. Small miniscule blood sucking insects were roaming around trying to get a chance to suck their blood, but they weren’t going to get any chance. A strong repugnant smell emanated from their bodies, which warded of the flies away. Here and there he could swift and slimy things which resembled the deers, having tentacles for their horns. He knew that they used it for fighting each other in order to win over a mate! A waste of energy and unnecessary spoilage of blood, where there were more effective methods to do the same. The forest was as such filled with eerie silence, as they were far away from the usual drone of machinery with which they were acclimatized their whole lives. Their barracks designed on the outskirts of the artificial climates, also had the usual drone of the machinery with which they were used to. Many of his men were coughing furiously, as they were not used to breathe oxygen directly from the air. So they had to wear oxygen masks where plenty of oxygen was available. He himself was feeling uncomfortable. This was yet another part of what they would be unable to know. At the sole remaining space station revolving around the earth where they had undergone training, every situation was simulated. But those fellas had assumed that they would have no problem of breathing as the nature was constituted according to their own oxygen cylinders, or the oxygen reactors on their planet which prepared the over all 21% oxygen. Queer, these guys breath in the same air as they were, still they were having problems.

“How the hell is possible that oxygen is there in ample without the support of the reactors?” A lad remarked somewhere behind him.

It was the same question that Ramesh was musing over. He decided to make his opinion audible. “It was said, if you have been attentive in your training that these trees are responsible for sucking in carbon dioxide and dumping out oxygen when they prepare their own food. And basically it had been by chance that the oxygen was in just the right amount to support life. It was of course possible by super nova explosion of very large stars, gas was emitted from it, which was responsible for the formation of sun and clutches of planets around it. So it seems that earth was formed by chance, and so were we.”

“But it seems very improbable that our ancestors were depended on this highly unpredictable planet where it would rain anytime or shine.” A large bulky officer remarked.

“It is not only improbable but also unlikely that humans were depended on it. It seems that nature cannot be so intelligent to decide just the perfect proportion of the gases. It must be more like escaping from the other planet at the time of its death, humans found an entirely desolate planet called earth, and decided to inhabit it. So it created experimentally created smaller ingenious reactors which grows from smaller seed pods, which regulates the air as well as our food supplement, as they considered that once the reactors had placed usual amount of gases, they can do away with their costs by creating natural reactors which grow themselves and at no cost to humans. Trees.”

“It’s good that we have scrapped its use. They are the monstrosity themselves.” Another one said.

They were traveling at a good pace, but it was some time before that they would reach their residing place.

“Well we developed better reactors, can also be one of the factors. I hear these trees take up huge amount of sunlight and soil minerals, and make the land wasteful.” Another one opined.

The robots were walking impassively. They seemed to have no concern on the ongoing subject. Ramesh had ordered all their holes to be welded. It of course took about an hour, but it was worth it. That culturist had chosen just one of those sights where he could strike, and as a result mar its circuit.

“Ouch.” One of the soldiers barked. They suddenly stopped and started to huddle around the pain stricken soldier. Ramesh ordered one of the soldiers to come at the point where that soldier was hurt. He was horrified that inspite of all the precaution, some sort of injury seems to happen to them on this horrid place. He ordered the soldiers to clear out. The soldier was nursing his wound. It seemed to become bulbous red in the midst of the pale leg of the soldier. He seemed worried.

“Shit, it can be poisonous.” Ramesh exclaimed. The soldiers suddenly exchanged expressions of frission. He asked the robot to scan the surroundings.

“I think it is best for you to return to the barracks. There the doctors will treat you for this gruesome wound.”

Beep. Beep.

Ramesh looked towards the robot. His white beams of light were fixated on a particular area of ground. Ramesh looked there.

Every other soldier in the surrounding positioned their eyes at the same point.

“Oh, holy Sirius, there are suckers every where. It is a very rotten world. I don’t want to continue this mission. Place me in front of thousands war computers but I want to get out of this place.” One of them wailed.

They were all horrified to look into the hole of large number of red tube like tiny creatures. Nowhere in his practice, was he informed about their existence. Those blasted didn’t know a thing about what they were going to face. He should have interrogated with that culturist. Those guys practically lived here when they were on sabbatical from their usual government protest. It was not that they did not make the people aware about what they considered as that exotic tribal life, but they had not considered it important to mention about these ground leeches. How many of those unimportant things were they going to face!

“No one will leave this place. We are on a humanitarian mission, which is to save those poor tribals. If they leave now, they will be placed in perfect isolation for the rest of their lives. No insubordination will be tolerated.”

The soldiers looked flabbergasted at this order. They did not know the dangers involved while signing up for this mission. They tried to protest, but they knew their punishment. So they kept their mouth shut.

Ramesh steeled his heart. He had just 12 hours to do the job. And he had to already let go of an injured man and a perfectly oiled robot.