The Martian

Chapter 6

Venkat returned to his office, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and collapsed into his leather chair. He took a moment to look out the windows at his scenic view of the Johnson Space Center.

Glancing at his computer screen, he noted 47 unread emails urgently demanding his attention. They could wait. Today had been a sad day. Today was the memorial service for Mark Watney.

The President had given a speech, praising Watney’s bravery and sacrifice, and the quick actions of Commander Lewis in getting everyone else to safety. Commander Lewis and the surviving crew, via long range communication from Hermes, gave eulogies to their departed comrade from deep space. They had another ten months of travel yet to endure.

The Director had given a speech as well, reminding everyone that space flight is incredibly dangerous, and how we will not back down in the face of adversity.

During preparation for the service, they’d asked Venkat if he was willing to make a speech. He’d declined. What was the point? Watney was dead. Nice words form the Director of Mars Missions wouldn’t bring him back.

“You ok, Venk?” came a voice from the doorway.

Venkat swiveled around. “Guess so,” he said.

“You could have given a speech.”

“I didn’t want to. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to, either. But I’m the director of NASA. It’s kind of expected. You sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” Teddy said, walking in. “Let’s get back to work, then.”

“Sure,” Venkat shrugged. “Let’s start with you authorizing my satellite time.”

Teddy leaned against the wall with a sigh. “This again.”

“Yes,” Venkat said. “This again. What is the problem?”

“Ok, run me through it. What, exactly, are you after?”

Venkat leaned forward. “Ares 3 was a failure, but we can salvage something from it. We’re funded for five Ares missions. I think we can get Congress to fund a sixth.”

“I don’t know, Venk…”

“It’s simple, Teddy,” Venkat pressed on. “They evac’d after six sols. There’s almost an entire mission worth of supplies up there. It would only cost a fraction of a normal mission. It normally takes 14 presupply probes to prep a site. We might be able to send what’s missing in three. Maybe two.”

“Venk, the site got hit by a 175 km/h sandstorm. It’ll be in really bad shape.”

“That’s why I want imagery,” Venkat explained. “I just need a couple of shots of the site. We could learn a lot.”

“Like what? You think we’d send people to Mars without being sure everything was in perfect working order?”

“Everything doesn’t have to be perfect,” Venkat said quickly. “Whatever’s broken, we’d send replacements for. The only thing that needs to work is the MAV. And we’d have to send a fresh one anyway.”

“How will we know from imagery what’s broken?”

“It’s just a first step. They evac’d because the wind was a threat to the MAV, but the Hab can withstand a lot more punishment. It might still be in one piece.

“And it’ll be really obvious. If it popped, it’d completely blow out and collapse. If it’s still standing, then everything inside will be fine. And the rovers are solid. They can take any sandstorm Mars has to offer. Just let me take a look, Teddy, that’s all I want.”

Teddy looked down, “You’re not the only guy who wants satellite time, you know. We have Ares 4 supply missions coming up. We need to concentrate on Schiaparelli Crater.”

“I don’t get it, Teddy. What’s the problem here?” Venkat asked. “I’m talking about securing us another mission. We have 12 satellites in orbit around Mars, I’m sure you can spare one or two for a couple of hours. I can give you the windows for each one when they’ll be at the right angle for Ares 3 shots—”

“It’s not about satellite time, Venk,” Teddy interrupted.

Venkat froze. “Then… but… what…”

Teddy looked down. “We’re a public domain organization. There’s no such thing as secret or secure information here.”

“So?”

“Any imagery we take goes directly to the public.”

“Again: so?”

“Mark Watney’s body will be within a twenty meters of the Hab. Maybe partially buried in sand, but still very visible, and with a comm antenna sticking out of his chest. Any images we take will show that.”

Venkat stared. Then glared. “This is why you denied my imagery requests for two months?”

“Venk, come on—”

“Really, Teddy?” he said. “You’re afraid of a PR problem?”

“The media’s obsession with Watney’s death is finally starting to taper off,” Teddy said evenly. “It’s been bad press after bad press for two months. Today’s memorial gives people closure, and the media can move on to some other story. The last thing we want to do is dredge everything back up.”

“So what do we do, then? He’s not going to decompose. He’ll be there forever.”

“Not forever,” Teddy said. “Within a year, he’ll be covered in sand from normal weather activity.”

“A year?” Venkat said, rising to his feet. “That’s ludicrous. We can’t wait a year for this.”

“Why not? Ares 5 won’t even launch for another five years. Plenty of time.”

Venkat took a deep breath and thought for a moment.

“Ok, consider this,” he said. “Sympathy for Watney’s family is really high. Ares 6 could bring the body back. We don’t say that’s the purpose of the mission, but we make it clear that would be part of it. If we framed it that way, we’d get more support in Congress. But not if we wait a year. In a year, people won’t care any more.”

Teddy rubbed his chin. “Hmm…”

Mindy stared at the ceiling. She had little else to do. The 3am shift was pretty dull. Only a constant stream of coffee kept her awake.

Monitoring the status of satellites around Mars sounded like an exciting proposition when she took the transfer. But the satellites tended to take care of themselves. Her job turned out to be sending emails as imagery became available.

“Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering,” she grumbled to herself. “And I’m working in an all-night photo booth.”

She sipped her coffee.

A flicker on her screen announced another set of images were ready for dispatch. She checked the name on the work order. Venkat Kapoor.

Posting the data directly to internal servers, she composed an email to Dr. Kapoor. As she entered the latitude and longitude of the image, she recognized the numbers.

“31.2°N, 28.5°W… Acidalia Planitia… Ares 3?”

Out of curiosity, she brought up the first of the 17 images.

As she suspected, it was the Ares 3 site. She’d heard they were going to image it. Slightly ashamed of herself, she scoured the image for any sign on Mark Watney’s dead body. After a minute of fruitless searching, she was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

She moved on to perusing the rest of the image. The Hab was intact; Dr. Kapoor would be happy to see that.

She brought the coffee mug to her lips, then froze.

“Um…” she mumbled to herself. “Uhhh…”

Quickly bringing up the NASA intranet, she navigated through the site to the specifics of the Ares missions. After some quick research, she picked up her phone.

“Hey, this is Mindy Park at SatCon. I need the mission logs for Ares 3, where can I get ’em?… Uh huh… uh-huh…. Ok… Thanks.”

After some more time on the intranet, she leaned back in her seat. She no longer needed the coffee to keep awake.

Picking up the phone again, “Hello, Security? This is Mindy Park in SatCon. I need the emergency contact number for Dr. Venkat Kapoor… Yes, the Director of Mars Missions… Yes it’s and emergency.”

Mindy fidgeted in her seat as Venkat trudged in.

“You Mindy Park?” He asked, looking mildly annoyed.

“Yeah,” she quavered. “Sorry to drag you in.”

“I’m assuming you had a good reason. So?”

“Um,” she said, looking down. “Um, it’s. Well. The imagery you ordered. Um. Come here and look.”

He pulled another chair to her station and seated himself. “Is this about Watney’s body? Is that why you’re shook up?”

“Um, no,” she said. “Um. Well… uh.” She pointed to the screen.

Venkat inspected the image. “Looks like the Hab’s in one piece. That’s good news. Solar array looks good. The rovers are ok, too. Main dish isn’t around. No surprise there. What’s the big emergency?”

“Um,” she said, touching her finger to the screen. “That.”

Venkat leaned in and looked closer. Just below the Hab, beside the rovers, two white circles sat in the sand. “Hmm. Looks like Hab canvas. Maybe the Hab didn’t do well after all? I guess pieces got torn off and—”

“Um,” she interrupted. “They look like rover pop-tents.”

Venkat looked again. “Hmm. Probably right.”

“How’d they get set up?” Mindy asked.

Venkat shrugged. “Commander Lewis probably ordered them deployed during the evac. Not a bad idea. Have the emergency shelters ready in case the MAV didn’t work and the Hab breached.”

“Yeah, um,” Mindy said, opening a document on her computer. “This is the entire mission log for Sols 1 through 6. From MDV touchdown to MAV emergency liftoff.”

“Ok, and?”

“I read through it. Several times. They never threw out the pop tents.” Her voice cracked at the last word.

“Well, uh…” Venkat said, puzzled. “They obviously did, but it didn’t make it in to the log.”

“They activated two emergency pop tents and never told anyone?”

“Hmm. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, no. Maybe the storm messed with the rovers and the tents autodeployed.”

“Um,” Mindy stammered, “So after autodeploying, they detached themselves from the rovers and lined up next to each other 20 meters away?”

Venkat looked back to the image. “Well obviously they activated somehow.”

“Why are the solar cells clean?” Mindy said, tears forming. “There was a huge sandstorm. Why isn’t there sand all over them?”

“A good wind could have done it?” Venkat said, unsure.

“Did I mention I never found Watney’s body?” She said, sniffling.

Venkat’s eyes widened as he stared at the picture. “Oh…” he said quietly. “Oh god…”

Mindy put her hands over her face and sobbed quietly.

“Fuck!” Director of Media Relations Annie Montrose said. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Teddy rubbed his forehead. “How sure are we of this?”

“Nearly 100%,” Venkat said.

“Fuck!” Annie said.

“Not helping, Annie,” Teddy said.

“Do you have any idea the magnitude of shitstorm this is gonna’ be?” She retorted.

“One thing at a time,” Teddy said. “Venk, what makes you sure he’s alive?”

“For starters, no body.” Venkat explained. “Also, the pop-tents are set up. And the solar cells are clean. You can thank Mindy Park in SatCon for noticing all that, by the way.

“But,” Venkat continued, “his body could have been buried in the Sol 6 storm. The pop tents might have autodeployed and wind could have blown them around. A 30km/h windstorm some time later would be strong enough to clean the solar cells but not strong enough to carry sand. It’s not likely, but it’s possible.

“So I spent the last few hours checking everything I could. Commander Lewis had two outings in Rover 2. The second was on Sol 5. According to the logs, after returning, she plugged it in to the Hab for recharging. It wasn’t used again, and 13 hours later they evac’d.”

He slid a picture across the table to Teddy.

“That’s one of the images from last night. As you can see, Rover 2 is facing away from the Hab. The charging port is in the nose, and the cable isn’t long enough to reach.”

Teddy frowned. “She must have parked it facing the Hab or she wouldn’t have been able to plug it in,” he said. “It’s been moved since Sol 5.”

“Yeah,” Venkat said, sliding another picture to Teddy. “But here’s the real evidence. In the lower right of the image you can see the MDV. It’s been taken apart. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have done that without telling us.

“And the clincher is on the right of the image,” Venkat pointed. “The landing struts of the MAV. Looks like the fuel plant has been completely removed, with considerable damage to the struts in the process. There’s just no way that could have happened before liftoff. It would endanger the MAV way too much for Lewis to allow it.”

“Hey,” Annie interrupted. “Why not talk to Lewis? Let’s go to CAPCOM and ask her this shit directly.”

Venkat looked to Teddy knowingly. After a few moments, Teddy sighed.

“Because,” he said. “If Watney really is alive, we don’t want the Ares 3 crew to know.”

“What!?” Annie said. “How can you not tell them?”

“They have another ten months on their trip home,” Teddy explained. “Space travel is dangerous. They need to be alert and undistracted. They’re sad that they lost a crewmate, but they’d be devastated if they found out they’d abandoned him alive.”

Annie looked to Venkat. “You’re on board with this?”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Venkat said. “Let ’em deal with that emotional trauma when they’re not flying a spaceship around.”

“This’ll be the most talked-about event since Apollo 11,” Annie said. “How will you keep it from them?”

Teddy shrugged. “Easy. We control all communication with them.”

“Fuck,” Annie said, opening her laptop. “When do you want to go public?”

“What’s your take,” he asked.

“Mmm,” Annie said, “We can hold the pics for 24 hours before we’re required to make them public. We’ll need to release a statement along with them. We don’t want people working it out on their own. We’d look like assholes.”

“Ok,” Teddy agreed, “put together a statement.”

“This is so fucked up,” she said.

“Where do we go from here?” Teddy asked Venkat.

“Step one is communication,” Venkat said. “From the pics, it’s clear the comm array is ruined. We need another way to talk. Once we can talk, we can assess and make plans.”

“All right,” Teddy said. “Get on it. Take anyone you want for any department. Use as much overtime as you want. Find a way to talk to him. That’s your only job right now.”

“Got it.”

“Annie, make sure nobody gets wind of this till we announce.”

“Right,” Annie said. “Who else knows?”

“Just the three of us and Mindy Park in SatCon,” Venkat said.

“I’ll have a word with her,” Annie said.

Teddy stood and opened his cell phone. “I’m going to Chicago. I’ll be back later today.”

“Why?” Annie asked.

“That’s where Watney’s parents live,” Teddy said. “I owe them a personal explanation before it breaks on the news.”

“They’ll be happy to hear their son’s alive,” Annie said.

“Yeah, he’s alive,” Teddy said. “But if my math is right, he’s doomed to starve to death before we can possibly help him. I’m not looking forward to the conversation.”

“Fuck,” Annie said, thoughtfully.

“Nothing? Nothing at all?” Venkat groaned. “Are you kidding me? You had 20 experts working for 12 hours on this. We have a multi-billion dollar communication network. You can’t figure out any way to talk to him?”

The two men in Venkat’s office fidgeted in their chairs.

“He’s got no radio,” said Chuck.

“Actually,” said Morris, “He’s got a radio, but he doesn’t have a dish.”

“Thing is,” Chuck continued, “without the dish, a signal would have to be really strong—”

“Like, melting-the-pigeons strong—” Morris supplied.

“—for him to get it.” Chuck finished.

“We considered Martian satellites,” Morris said. “They’re way closer. But the math doesn’t work out. Even SuperSurveyor 3, which has the strongest transmitter, would need to be 14 times more powerful—”

“17 times,” Chuck said.

“14 times,” Morris asserted.

“No it’s 17. You forgot the amperage minimum for the heaters to keep the—”

“Guys,” Venkat interrupted. “I get the idea.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry if I’m grumpy,” Venkat said. “I got like 2 hours sleep last night.”

“No problem,” Morris said.

“Totally understandable,” Chuck said.

“Ok,” Venkat said. “Explain to me how a single windstorm removed our ability to talk to Ares 3.”

“Failure of imagination,” Chuck said.

“Totally didn’t see it coming,” Morris agreed.

“How many back-up communication systems does an Ares mission have?” Venkat asked.

“Four,” Chuck said.

“Three,” Morris said.

“No, it’s four,” Chuck corrected.

“He said back-up systems,” Morris insisted. “That means not including the primary system.”

“Oh right. Three.”

“So four systems total, then,” Venkat said. “Explain how we lost all four.”

“Well,” Chuck said, “The primary ran through the big satellite dish. It blew away in the storm. The rest of the backups were the MAV.”

“Yup,” Morris agreed. “The MAV is, like, a communicating machine. It can talk to Earth, Hermes, even satellites around Mars if it has to. And it has three independent systems to make sure nothing short of a meteor strike can stop communication.”

“Problem is,” Chuck said. “Commander Lewis and the rest of them took the MAV when they left.”

“So four independent communication systems became one. And that one broke,” Morris finished.

Venkat pinched the bridge of his nose. “How could we overlook this?”

Chuck shrugged. “Never occurred to us. We never thought someone would be on Mars without an MAV.”

“I mean, come on!” Morris said. “What are the odds?”

Chuck turned to him. “One in three, based on empirical data. That’s pretty bad if you think about it.”

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Annie said. “We have an important announcement to make. If you could all take your seats,”

“What this about, Annie?” A reporter asked. “Something happen with Hermes?”

“Please take your seats,” Annie repeated.

The reporters mingled a bit, argued over seats for a short time, then finally settled down.

“This is a short, but very important announcement,” Annie said. “I won’t be taking any questions at this time, but we will have a full press conference with Q&A in about an hour. We have recently reviewed satellite imagery from Mars, and have confirmed that astronaut Mark Watney is, currently, still alive.”

After one full second of utter silence, the room exploded with noise.

“I’m getting sick of daily press conferences,” Venkat said.

“I’m getting sick of hourly press conferences,” Annie countered.

“Sorry I’m late,” Teddy said, entering the crowded press room. Managers from every department stood shoulder to shoulder in the back, while reporters crammed the pit.

Teddy pulled some flash cards from his pocket, then cleared his throat.

“In the nine days since announcing Mark Watney’s survival, we’re received a massive show of support from all sectors. We’re using this shamelessly every way we can.”

A small chuckle cascaded through the room.

“Yesterday, at our request, the entire SETI network focused on Mars. Just in case Watney was sending a weak radio signal. Turns out he wasn’t, but it shows the level of commitment everyone has toward helping us.

“The public is engaged, and we will do our best to keep everyone informed. I’ve recently learned CNN will be dedicating a half-hour segment every weekday to reporting on just this issue. We will assign several members of our Media Relations team to that program, so the public can get the latest information as fast as possible.

“We have adjusted the orbits of three satellites to get more view time on the Ares 3 site, and hope to catch an image of him outside soon. If we can see him outside, we will be able to draw conclusions on his physical health based on stance and activities.

“The questions are many: How long can he last? How much food does he have? Can Ares 4 rescue him? How will we talk to him? The answers to these questions are not what we want to hear.

“I can’t promise we’ll succeed in rescuing him, but I can promise this: The entire focus of NASA will be to bring Mark Watney home. This will be our overriding and singular obsession until he is either back on Earth, or confirmed dead on Mars.”

“Nice speech,” Venkat said as he entered Teddy’s office.

“Meant every word of it,” Teddy said.

“Oh, I know.”

“What can I do for you, Venk?”

“I’ve got an idea. Well, JPL has an idea. I’m the messenger.”

“I like ideas,” Teddy said, gesturing to a seat.

Venkat sat down.

“We can rescue him with Ares 4. It’s very risky. We ran the idea by the Ares 4 crew. Not only are they willing to do it, but now they’re really pushing hard for it.”

“Naturally,” Teddy said. “Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble. What’s the idea?”

“Well,” Venkat began, “It’s in the rough stages, but JPL thinks the MDV can be misused to save him.”

“Ares 4 hasn’t even launched yet. Why misuse an MDV. Why not make something better?”

“We don’t have time to make a custom craft. Actually, he can’t even survive till Ares 4 gets there, but that’s a different problem.”

“So tell me about the MDV.”

“JPL strips it down, loses some weight, and adds some fuel tanks. Ares 4’s crew lands at the Ares 3 site, very efficiently. Then, with a full burn, and I mean a full burn, they can lift off again. It can’t get back to orbit, but it can go to the Ares 4 site on a lateral trajectory that’s, well, really scary. Then they have an MAV. This would require a massive design and construction effort, but JPL says they can make it happen.”

“How are they losing weight?” Teddy asked. “Don’t they already have it as light as it can be?”

“By removing safety and emergency equipment.”

“Wonderful,” Teddy said, “So we’d be risking the lives of six more people in a very dangerous landing, re-liftoff, re-landing process.”

“Yup,” Venkat said. “It would be safer to leave the Ares 4 crew in Hermes, and only send the pilot down with the MDV. But that would mean giving up the mission and they’d rather risk death.”

“They’re astronauts,” Teddy said.

“They’re astronauts,” Venkat confirmed.

“Well. That’s a ludicrous idea and I’ll never ok it.”

“We’ll work on it some more,” Venkat said. “Try to make it safer.”

“Do that. Any idea how to keep him alive for four years?”

“Nope.”

“Work on that, too.”

“Will do,” Venkat said.

Teddy swiveled his chair and looked out the window to the sky beyond. Night was edging in. “What must it be like?” He pondered. “He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”

He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”

How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.