The Approach To Talwin

When traveling through space, the inside of a spaceship becomes very much a "cosmic environment," albeit an artificial one. If, like Dominic Flandry in A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER ELEVEN, you are a human prisoner/passenger in a Merseian destroyer, then the crew themselves become the most obtrusive part of your environment:

larger than human
green
hairless
spined
tailed
in foreign-cut black uniforms
with belted war knives
sharp, dry body odors
and dark whiteless eyes
practicing centuries-old ritual deferences

Pretty frightening to anyone without Flandry's training and experience? He converses politely in Eriau with appropriate salutes.

Approaching Talwin, he sees peaks that dwarf the Himalayas but are naked rock. An extensive swamp informs him that, in winter, the icecap extends to 45 degrees latitude and the glaciers flatten everything whereas, at midsummer, lakes and rivers boil. He travels with aliens towards a frightening environment.