Dante forced open the study door to unveil one of the most unkempt rooms Lectes had ever had the misfortune of encountering. He ground his teeth, following Dante as they picked their way around literal mountains of books and soiled paper. Beginning with the desk, rummaging through the drawers, removing and reorganizing the contents before replacing them as he went without even realizing what he was doing. Lectes couldn’t stop himself, even if he wanted to, anyways.

Dante on the other hand, when Lectes noticed, tossed things around without a second thought. He immediately threw himself to the floor, redundantly scraping together piles of discarded work that would inevitably be kicked around sooner or later. Among the discarded sheets was one with a suspicious amount of lines, it was some sort of invention. Even if he couldn’t make heads or tales of Earth’s languages, it was something and he desperately needed his wormhole-spawner to work again. From then on, Lectes saved all the papers that contained anything that resembled some sort of drawing and stacked them on the corner of the desk, praying they’d be spared.

Looking past the disaster, the room was quite homely. The wall panels were made of carved hickory wood, the desk smooth and varnish black. A whole wall was a built in bookshelf, though a shameful two-thirds of the thing was being used at the moment. It would most certainly look better filled in and arranged alphabetically. Someone should really teach these people how to take better care of their property or transfer it all onto a digital platform of some sort.

Dante said something, forcing Lectes to pause and turn on the translator. I’m going to kill this guy, Lectes vowed.

“Aha! Portalite, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s quite common on...” Dante went pale. “Venus.”

Lectes hadn’t read much about any of the planets in this solar system besides Earth, he at least knew that Venus was a hellscape. “I assure you, my ship’s shields are fully repaired, acid rain and molten rock won’t be a problem.”

“Not that, scientists found ways to combat that too, it’s Aphrodite Syndrome.”

“The disease,” Dante went on to explain, “First arose in Death Valley, people’s brains went haywire: throwing themselves into violent fits of rage, running circles, wedging themselves into impossible positions. Anyone who came in contact inevitably fell ill with it. The victims first came down with, what at first, seemed like a common fever, paired with a headache, until they began hallucinating and refusing to swallow food and water. Dante had described it as something straight out of a horror story. The quarantine did little to slow the spreading, the victims constantly broke out of containment quite easily. The world leader grew desperate, the Mars colonies barred any panicked refugees from entering or leaving the red planet, and Earth’s population plummeted toward extinction every passing day. Then, along came Sir Allistair Kirk MacFarland, who offered the world salvation. He was willing to sacrifice his research station on Venus, newly colonized, for the sake of Humanity’s survival.

“The military was dispatched, tasked with locating and capturing the broken husks of infected Humans, then shipping them off to Venus in hopes the heat and pressure would exterminate them. Alas, it was all for nought, they still roamed one planet, uncured and flourishing in the unforgiving landscape.”

“That's nice and all except,” Lectes directed Dante to the stack of drawings he’d congregated on the desk. “We can’t do much with a broken ship. Let me know which one of these could be given to an engineer to help them fix my ship.”

“You want to see a mechanic? No, we can’t do that.”

“Care to tell me why that's not an option?”

“I don’t think introducing you to Earth like this is wise. Besides,” Dante selected a few drawings. “We can fix it ourselves, Following instructions isn’t difficult.”

“You forget, I can’t read any of your languages.”

“I’ll help you through it.”

“You mean, you’ll use the translator while I do all the work.”

Dante nodded.

“Alright but I’ll still need help harvesting the portalite.”

“Hell no! I already helped you, do it yourself.”

“Anope suffered a similar plague a hundreaded generations ago, I could give you a sample of our vaccine in exchange.”

“You’re just now telling me this? I’ve been trying to cure Aphrodite syndrome for god knows how long - it already took my father and he exposed my mother to it - I need that cure to save her before it takes her too.”

“I really need that portalite or I can’t go home to my family.”

“But it’s on Venus!”

“And I thought you wanted to cure your mother.” Lectes mocked.

“You’re cruel.”

“Some might call it tough love.”