The men were briefed about the colony
That did exist, if one could call it that,
On Perurere F, so far from home.
A hundred years the light took, and a score,
To journey there from gleaming orbs on Earth.
The air was hot, the atmosphere was thick
And humid almost to absurdity
Where man and woman like in suffering
Would bake and lose all moisture to the sky,
The unforgiving hide of the basalts
Rejecting all their pitied pleas for grace.
Good Fortiss was, by happenstance, assigned
To make his rounds with one Goodfellow lad,
Who hailed from Ganymede, ’round Jupiter,
The moon that had its own magnetosphere.
Young Goodfellow had been here for some time,
And showed Fortiss the fetid citadels
They oft patrolled, essaying to stop crime.