The crew looked at that beautiful image, frozen in pause on the computer screen, for several seconds before Mark said, "I think we should make plans to be ready for another storm in about, oh, ten days."
The ponies, changeling and dragon all nodded silent agreement.
"Tracking lost eight minutes after launch," Mitch Henderson reported. "Acceleration cut-off came at seventy-three seconds. The last twelve seconds or so showed a slight decay in acceleration— about ninety-six percent of peak performance when it cut off. Course is slightly down-range and velocity slightly slower than projected; those stabilizing fins they cut must have been slightly out of true."
"It worked perfectly," Venkat said. "It worked absolutely perfectly."
"I wish you hadn't said that," Mitch muttered.
"Why's that?"
"Usually the first time you try to launch anything, it blows up on the pad," Mitch said. "Or there's some other in-flight glitch. But everything went right in the test. So what's going to happen next time, when they do it for real?"
Venkat sighed. "Thanks a lot, Mitch," he said. "I was just running short of nightmare fuel. Thanks very much for topping me off." He shook his head. "Where's it going?"
"Slightly better than we anticipated," Mitch said. "The test vehicle will pass within about three million miles of the Sun's surface on a tight parabolic loop. Materials says that at that distance pretty much everything, even quartz, will vaporize before it gets anywhere near anything else. And since the launch inclination was about nineteen degrees, it's not coming anywhere near anything we care about anyway."
"Well, that's good," Venkat said. "So, how are you spending Thanksgiving? Going to see the family?"
"What family?" Mitch asked. "NASA is my life, you know that. I have a brother in Cleveland and a sister in Gainesville, and they'd be happy if they didn't see me again until my funeral." He adjusted his tie slightly. "No, I'll be on my shift in Mission Control as usual. Just another work day for me."
"Well, I'm going to take the afternoon off," Venkat said. "I doubt I can leave for a full day. But I have a wife and family, and they're forgetting what I look like."
"Just tell them Daddy's getting the nice cute ponies down off of Mars so they can come and visit," Mitch said.
"My daughter told me I'm gone so much she thinks Daddy's on Mars with the rest of them," Venkat said. "She wants to know if I'm bringing one back with me next time I go."
"Huh." Mitch thought about this, then said, "Which one's her favorite?"
"Starlight Glimmer," Venkat said. "Because unicorns are the bestest, she says."
"Well," Mitch said, a little cautiously, "I know we're not supposed to be promoting non-licensed manufacture, since Hasbro won the bid to make the NASA-approved toys, but I know someone in Friendswood who makes better alien plushies than what's on sale in the visitor center gift shop."
Venkat couldn't help goggling at Mitch. "You know someone outside of JSC?" he asked.
"Hey!" Mitch's tone went fully defensive. "I have friends, you know."
"I never doubted you had a friend, Mitch. I'm just shocked at the existence of the plural."
Author's Notes:
This actually felt like a Changeling Space Program snippet. You can spot the footnotes, if I were doing footnotes in this story.
I get my van back tomorrow, just in time so I don't have to borrow someone else's van for Mechacon in New Orleans. See you there (assuming there are NOLA area readers not doing Bronycon).
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Sol 378
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 384
ARES III SOL 378
[08:03] JPL: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Just a few quick bits of news that might interest you.
Holiday shoppers will have to wait a week for the Magic Cave Farm Playset from Hasbro, the top-ticket item from the first run of licensed toys featuring the six castaways of Ares III and PSA Friendship. Pre-orders of the toys have bid up as high as two hundred dollars for a fifty-dollar MSRP deluxe playset. Retailers are breathing a sigh of relief, as they feared violence during Black Friday sales if the playset had shipped on time.
A fossil skull of an ancient pygmy rhinoceros discovered recently on a Siberian island north of the Arctic Circle has been named Elasmotherium inlustris in honor of the unicorn astronaut Starlight Glimmer. Inlustris is Latin for "starlight." There is some dispute as to whether the skull is of an actual pygmy species or merely a juvenile of the more widely recognized Elasmotherium sibercium, but the scientists proposing the name said, quote, "It was either name this after her, or else a species of beetle."
Speaking of insects, a CNN poll shows Dragonfly as both "bravest" and "most evil" of the alien castaways currently sharing the Ares III Hab with astronaut Mark Watney. Cherry was voted "favorite" and "cutest" and tied for second behind Fireball for "coolest". Spitfire won "sexiest", but due diligence requires I report that over 60% of respondents refused to answer that particular question.
In the more serious portion of the poll, 82% of Americans surveyed support the effort to rescue Mark Watney and his guests, and 74% support bringing all six back to Earth.
And finally, Tonga became the one hundred and eightieth nation to officially invite the crew of Friendship to visit their nation. Thus far only four nations have announced unwillingness to host the alien crew; Afghanistan and Iran have stated their hostility to demons, New Zealand has requested the ponies comply with their quarantine and immunization protocols for imported livestock, and Nauru report they simply don't have the space on their islands to handle the crew and the crowds they would draw.
That's the news on this Thanksgiving Day on Earth. Here's hoping you can spend next Thanksgiving here with us.
[08:32] WATNEY: Hey, guys, whoever's still in the office, thanks for the news report, but how about the weather? Any storms popping up that we might have to worry about?
[09:04] JPL: No storms, Mark. No clouds anywhere on Mars for the last two days. In fact, based on photos taken of Mars since your test launch, the atmosphere is more clear now than it's been in five Earth years. Weather satellites around Mars report higher than normal temperatures during the daylight hours and slightly cooler than normal temps on the night side. We don't know if there's any direct connection to your test, and we have no idea how long these conditions will continue. Enjoy it while it lasts.
[09:33] WATNEY: Roger. We shall spend Thanksgiving reveling in meteorological paranoia, wondering when the other shoe drops.
We'll also spend it trying to ignore the sounds coming from the toilet. Five of us are celebrating by opening a couple of my meal packs and adding them to the usual hay and potatoes, but Dragonfly is cramming stale hay and taters down her gullet as fast as she can to produce the material for the expanded rover saddlebags. Memo for when we get back; we owe her a ton of green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. She doesn't care for turkey.
[09:55] HERMES: Hey, Mark, is the bug blowing up the bathroom like you do after Jimmy Changa's?
[10:18] WATNEY: On the advice of the pink pony commander, I decline to answer that question on the grounds that it might serve to embarrass me.
[10:41] HERMES: Lewis here— tell Cherry Berry nice try, but it's years too late for that.
Author's Notes:
I meant this to be a lot longer, but I just had more stuff to do than I realized. I'm still going to be packing and loading for a couple hours in the morning before I can leave for New Orleans.
But at least I have my van back.
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Sol 380
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 386
ARES III SOL 380
The castaways gathered around the worktable for the all too usual breakfast of alfalfa and potatoes, in various proportions.
"So," Mark said, "I'm thinking that, over the next couple of days, we start migrating food for the trip over to the trailer. The food packs and stuff."
"I'm not talking to you," Dragonfly announced, out of the blue.
Mark twitched. "What? Why not?"
"You mentioned food." The changeling, after an effort that might be called heroic if ancient legends ever told tales of epic accomplishments in the realm of disgusting things, had produced enough rope and patches to weave the cables required for the heavy-duty rover harness that would carry the jumbo batteries. She'd spent the previous day sick as a dog, and this morning she held one of the hab's two magic batteries in a full-body hug and hissed at anyone who came too close.
Mark shrugged. "Anyway, how should we do it? We've got the last hay harvest a week from now, and that needs to go in the back to be used last thing before launch." He looked at Cherry Berry. "It's your ship. What do you think?"
"I'm not talking to you either," Cherry Berry said.
"What?? Dragonfly I can understand, but why you?" Mark asked.
"I just worked it out last night," Cherry said. "With the booster system we could have re-launched our ship. With new batteries we could have powered engines, used Sparkle Drive on low power. We would be on the way to Earth right now, if you hadn't had us cut the engine room off the ship."
Mark sighed. "Cherry," he said, "the ship was compromised. The engine room had a huge hole in it. Half the outer skin was missing, and we ripped the rest off so we could salvage your cooling system for the farm. Your ship was never going to fly again, even if we'd thought of the booster system before we cut the tail off."
Cherry Berry looked at Starlight Glimmer. "Starlight, tell the ship-destroying ape what the words `not talking to you' mean."
Starlight waved off this duty with both forehooves. "Oh, no," she said. "I'm not getting in the middle of this one."
The corner of Cherry's mouth turned up. "So you're not speaking to him, either?"
"I... um... buck!" Starlight blushed.
Mark rolled his eyes. "Spitfire?"
"If commander not talking to you," Spitfire said, "I not talking to you neither."
Fireball crunched his last flake of quartz and rumbled, "I'll talk to you, Mark."
Mark smiled. "Thank you, Fireball. I appreciate it."
Fireball nodded. "You an idiot, Mark. Stupid. Complete dipstick. If you looked up in a rainstorm, you'd drown."
"Never mind," Mark grumbled, and ate a potato with slightly more disgust than usual, if that was possible.
[09:06] WATNEY: Venkat? Commander? Guys? You're still talking to me, right?
[09:29] HERMES: What did you do now, Mark?
[09:33] JPL: What did you do now, Mark?
[09:55] WATNEY: I didn't do anything! It's just apparently all my guests woke up on the wrong side of the bunk this mor
[09:58] WATNEY: In stereo? Gee, thanks, guys. Your faith in me is touching. Never mind.
By the way, still no storm. Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be a Hab-shattering kaboom?
[10:21] HERMES: Sorry, Mark. Just a little joke.
[10:27] JPL: Don't question gifts Mars gives you. The normal dust distribution is beginning to reassert itself, but no signs of any major wind or thick dust clouds. The sky should be properly pink again in a day or two. We'll let you know if any storms come up anywhere on the planet. In the meantime, go sit in the corner and think about what you've done, whatever it was.
[14:11] WATNEY: I really didn't do anything. And the Hab hasn't got a corner.
[14:38] JPL: Improvise. You do it so well.
Author's Notes:
Things I did today:
7 AM — Awaken
8:00 — Finish loading van, shower
8:30 — Feed cats, refill hummingbird feeder, wash dishes
9:15 — Depart
9:45 — Hardin County tax office, pay back property taxes on a quarter-share in two utterly worthless plots of land in a flood plain
10:00 — Mail packages
10:30 — Haircut
11:15 — Drive-thru brunch. Hit the highway for New Orleans
4:30 PM — Begin unloading van
5:30 — Park van in garage, return to work on setup, grab hotel gift shop sandwich for dinner
9:30 — Too tired to continue, leave booth to finish setup in the morning
10:00 — Arrive my hotel
11:00 — $1 tray of noodles eaten for supper, begin actually writing
That's why this is as it is.
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Sol 383
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"Randall," Venkat asked, "what's going on with Mars's weather? I thought you said the dust was coming back. Watney tells me the sky's still as blue as the first Viking photos— and those were a color balance screw-up."
"Clouds," Randall Carter replied. He handed Venkat printouts of some satellite photos from Mars's more distant orbiters. "Normally we get a lot of cirrus clouds— high-level clouds made of tiny water ice crystals— this time of year, when Mars is farthest from the sun. Technically the time for that was a couple months ago, but they're back, and they're growing."
"What's causing it?" Venkat asked. "Nucleation around dust particles?"
"That's a possible cause," Carter agreed cautiously. "But more to the point, the higher than normal temperatures in the zone between the equator and latitude 30 have probably caused a lot of water ice just under the surface to sublimate and enter the atmosphere. More water in the atmosphere means more clouds. And every time a water crystal forms in the air, it traps the dust particles it uses for nucleation points, effectively clearing the sky." He tapped a photo of the edge of Mars's planetary disc, clearly showing the bright blue band of its upper atmosphere. "And without the dust in the air, you're left with ordinary gas molecules and the same Rayleigh scattering effects we see on Earth. So that's what Watney sees— blue skies."
"All right, sounds pretty harmless," Venkat said. "How long will it persist?"
"My guess is, roughly a month," Carter said. "Maybe less. As Mars gets closer to the sun again, those cirrus clouds tend to sublimate again. The water vapor either gets broken up by UV rays into oxygen and hydrogen that escape the atmosphere or else gets circulated to a lower layer of air and condenses back onto the surface." He pulled out one more bit of paper and added, "The thing is, I don't think this trend is harmless."
Venkat looked at the paper. "Randall, I'm a physicist, not a meteorologist," he said. "I see these temperature and air pressure readings, but I haven't got a background to interpret them."
"They're too high," Randall said. "This is northern summer on Mars, and Mars is just beginning to swing back in towards the sun. Right now carbon dioxide should be freezing out of the air in the southern hemisphere, causing air pressure to drop. It's not."
