That, however, had been before spending almost exactly a year eating hay, hay, hay, hay, hay, hay, potato, hay, hay, potato and hay with a side order of hay. Today the smell comforted, but it tempted not in the least.
Today the magic field session had been cut short— as short as Starlight dared keep it while allowing Dragonfly the minimum she needed. The regular batteries would recharge in seventeen days in the cave if let alone, but for safety's sake she worked on the twenty-day estimate— five percent per day. In theory the thirty normal batteries they now had would fill three empty batteries every two days. One battery could run a magic field projection for thirty-eight minutes, which seemed to provide enough of a magic environment for the health of the Equestrian members of the crew.
But today she'd pushed all the power she could into the fifteen giant-sized batteries with their repulsor enchantments, filling them up and, in the process, depleting the remaining batteries to a critical level. At least twenty-one of those batteries needed to be full— the seven for the Sparkle Drive and fourteen others for emergency use on the trip— before they departed.
Once they left the farm, the recharge rate, based on the six castaways and their meager output of magic alone, would be less than two percent per day— substantially less, because that recharge rate had been in the first days after the crash, when Dragonfly still had a magical surplus. Now, though no longer critically deprived of magic, she still soaked up enough of the trace magic field produced by the others to lower the whole considerably. The result would be an ongoing battle between recharging the smaller batteries and using them to keep the big batteries, which couldn't recharge from the crew, at full strength. And, of course, they'd need to burn a little daily to keep Dragonfly healthy— well, functional, since healthy wasn't going to happen until they got back to Equus— as much as possible.
For that reason Starlight had declared a moratorium on voluntary magic use. The batteries, from this point until launch, would be strictly for the most necessary and urgent needs, and even those kept to dead minimum. Furthermore, to ensure at least twenty-one full batteries no matter what, the magic time had been cut from half an hour to an amount that could be powered by one-fifth of the current daily production— ten minutes a day. And if anything happened that required magic to fix, that would be slashed further, to five.
The others, thankfully, had accepted this without complaint or even comment. It wasn't as if the logic behind the decision hadn't been obvious to everypony. And it wasn't as if they hadn't been struggling to scrape together five minutes per day of magic three months before. But her efforts to scrape together extra batteries for the last bit of their stay had, in a way, spoiled the others with half-hour recharges, or even ten-minute periods of concentrated magic that felt like being home again. After even a short period with those options available, a ten minute regular field felt like penance in comparison.
And, in fact, Starlight had at least one rebel— one she simply couldn't rein in. Cherry Berry insisted on using magic time to fiddle with that broken branch she and Mark were keeping in the hand mister. Starlight's fur practically rocked back and forth with the tug of war between Dragonfly's body sucking at the magic field from one side and Cherry's earth pony magic demanding more from the other side.
"Mark?" Cherry asked, as Starlight was considering the situation and wondering what, if anything, could be done about it. "Do you think these roots are long enough yet?"
Mark took a quick look. "Damn, I wish you could have done this for all those alfalfa cuttings that didn't take."
"I tried," Cherry said. "I wasn't motivated."
"You sure are now." The human took a close look in the slightly grubby water of the mister can. "I'd rather they were a bit longer. We need to pot Groot as soon as we can, so the roots can settle into the soil properly before we transfer him to the Whinnybago."
"Groot?" Starlight asked.
Cherry looked up. "Hasn't Mark told you that story?" she asked. "Here, ask him to tell it again while I work a bit more with Groot."
Fireball cleared his throat. "You know we not supposed to add weight to the MAV, right?" he asked.
Cherry didn't hiss like a changeling or growl like a dragon, but the glare she shot Fireball worked just as well to shut him up at once. Once satisfied that the question would not be repeated, she walked off with the edge of the mister bottle neck in her teeth, the leaf-covered branch rubbing her nose.
"Oookay," Mark said quietly. "Well, now hear the tale of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of aliens thrown together in the name of adventure. One of their number was an outcast from a species of tree-like aliens. Although wise and patient, he had a language barrier problem, so that the only thing any of the others could understand was the phrase, `I am Groot.'"
Mark went on to briefly describe the noble sacrifice of Groot and the birth of his seedling/offspring, as it had played in the theaters during his college days.
Once this was done, Dragonfly said, "So what you're saying is, you named that Groot because he's a little seedling?"
"Yep."
"Dumb pony idea," Fireball snapped. "You think that cherry branch going to save us or something on the flight?"
"Well," Mark drawled, "it won't throw itself on a grenade or anything like that. But considering what it and its relatives have done for the sanity of the person who's going to fly our ship..."
The five others looked over at Cherry, who was talking to the seedling and walking it around the larger relatives as if they also were part of the conversation.
"Smart pony plan," Fireball said slowly. "Very smart pony plan. Very smart. What can we help?"
"Wait." Spitfire spoke up, pointing to the seedling. "We take on MAV? How much mass?"
Mark considered. "Seedling, pot, soil, water? Ten kilos tops. Probably less."
"We all get ten kilos too," Spitfire insisted. "Thing to remember by. Science sample. Stuff. Ten kilo each."
"Okay, fine," Mark said, shrugging.
Starlight never said a word. She kept looking at her suit chronometer, watching for the ten minute mark to come around. But she considered adding a minute more for the sake of Cherry Berry's mental state... and wondered what would be the most important twenty pounds or so of stuff from this world to take home.
Assuming NASA would allow sixty extra kilograms on the ship, that is.
Author's Notes:
Keeping the buffer up. I forgot to bring all my extra laptop batteries, so I can't really spare time or power during dealer room hours for writing.
Another reminder that taking away the cave also means taking away most, if not all, of their supply of power for new magic. Starlight is worried about this; after all, it's her job to worry about magic consumption.
And as for the wisdom of adding however many kilograms to the MAV, two points. First, with the booster system there appears to be a small margin; and second, all space and no cherries make Cherry Berry something something...
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Sol 434
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 442
ARES III SOL 434
[09:13] HERMES: Morning, Watney. Lewis here. How's your morning?
[09:30] WATNEY: Good morning, Lewis. Things are just delightful here. I'm enjoying actual food again and sharing bits of it with my friends, so only half my meals right now are potato. We've got everything loaded except the batteries at the cave, Sojourner, and Cherry Berry's new little mascot, which is already sprouting roots. Have I mentioned lately that what they call `earth pony magic' is an absolute miracle to a botanist's eyes?
The only cloud right now is that Starlight has cut magic use completely. She intends to leave here with twenty-one normal magic batteries plus the fifteen jumbos all 100% full. So Dragonfly gets only three minutes a day of magic field time, Spitfire doesn't get flying time anymore, and the rest of us have been told where we can stuff any special requests for spells.
Today we're going out to the cave for an hour to check on things, and then I come back for last inspections and diagnostics on all the rover equipment and the gear from the Hab installed in the Whinnybago. It's make-work for two weeks, really.
So we're relaxing and enjoying our elbow room while we have it. On Sol 449 we shut down the Hab and transfer to the cave. On Sol 450 we do the final loading, and just before dawn on Sol 451 we begin about fifty sols of driving. Once we start out, we'll be crammed cheek to flank at least until launch day. I doubt it'll be much better once we get on Hermes.
[09:43] HERMES: I'm sorry to add an extra cloud, Mark, but NASA just spotted what looks like the first dust storm of the normal Mars storm season. It's early, and it's currently in far eastern Arabia Terra, but it appears normal so far. No destructive winds, no electricity, just more dust in the atmosphere than usual.
[09:55] WATNEY: Believe me, Commander, I'm not going to complain if Mars wants to be only normally malevolent for a change. Is the storm moving or growing?
[10:07] HERMES: Barely any movement— a few kilometers a day. Too early to tell if it's strengthening. We'll keep you updated. Once you turn off Pathfinder we'll need you to use the alien radio at least once per day to let us know you're all right and to receive new information as we have it.
[10:19] WATNEY: Roger. Once we're rolling, the radio will be on from one hour after sunrise to one hour before sunset. We'll make at least one transmission per day after we've camped for recharging.
By the way, since you bring up the Pathfinder link, Cherry Berry wants to know if there's any update to the flight sims for the launch? She wants to train as much as possible before we leave, considering that we have free time.
[10:32] HERMES: I don't know anything about that. Out of curiosity, though, how does everybody rate? I know you barely scored adequate on the most simple scenarios when we were training.
[10:43] WATNEY: Starlight never took the sim. Fireball completed the basic sims— control recognition, etc. Spitfire and Dragonfly have successfully completed the flight-rated sim package. Cherry Berry has completed all the standard and advanced missions.
[10:44] JPL: Sorry, Mark, but we're still tweaking the MAV modification procedures, and probably will be right up until Sol 500. Also, we want to keep Pathfinder open for last-minute updates before your departure, so no more big data transfers.
Speaking of, be sure to bring all the video and high-res images you have on storage media. The MAV comms check out perfectly, and the triple-redundant system will provide plenty of bandwidth to send all of it to us long before launch.
[10:55] HERMES: Standard and advanced? How many do-overs on the advanced sims?
[11:06] WATNEY: No idea. Probably a lot. There were some days that Cherry lost her English after two hours of sitting in the MDV.
[11:09] WATNEY: Roger. In fact, since we have time, I'll get some more footage of all the Hab systems and the cave. Beck, Vogel, sorry about this, but I'm clearing your personal drives for extra storage.
Quick question: do you want us to leave early? We could be on the road in four sols if you think an early start is justified.
[11:20] HERMES: We understand. Vogel says all his family pictures are backed up in his Hermes account anyway.
[11:32] JPL: No, keep to your schedule of Hab shutdown Sol 449, cave departure Sol 451. If the storm intensifies quickly we'll just have you stay there and write off the Hermes intercept. If the storm remains as it is, we should be able to guide you around its leading edge with no trouble. But our worst nightmare is having it blow up into a 2018-level global storm with you stuck halfway between the cave and the MAV. We don't think an earlier departure reduces the odds of that enough to make it worth the increased risk and discomfort.
[11:54] WATNEY: Well, that's a cheery thought to end this conversation on. But I have another. Follow along with my logic, okay?
As we know, the US is signatory to international treaty that says nations can't claim territory outside of Earth. That means the whole of Mars is legally international waters, except for temporary installations like the Hab or ships like the MAV. When we leave the Hab, we'll be in international waters for the entire trip to Schiaparelli.
Now, there's no one in the MAV to give us permission to board. Technically you could, Venk, but you're millions of miles away. So in practical terms I would still be boarding and taking control of a ship in international waters, without the consent of the owner and against the original intent of those who launched her.
By my reasoning, that makes me a pirate. A space pirate! Arrrrr!
[12:05] HERMES: Watney, my commission in the United States Navy is still active. It would be my regrettable duty, under standing orders from the Department of the Navy, to arrest you for piracy. And if I'm not mistaken, those orders still allow for summary execution if communication with higher legal authority isn't operational. I'm pretty sure the mount for Hermes' cooling vanes counts as a yardarm...
[12:16] WATNEY: You take the fun out of everything, don't you?
[12:18] JPL: I'd explain to you how stupid that idea is, Mark, but now I kind of want to see all the aliens wearing eyepatches and peg legs...
Author's Notes:
Uh-oh.
Buffer still at 1, BTW.
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Sol 437
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MISSION LOG — SOL 437
Over the last couple of sols I've pulled out the video camera and done a ton of documentary shots of the Hab and the cave. Today I went one step farther-, or, rather, ten kilometers farther.
Without the 4.5 tons of Mars rocks we used to simulate the jumbo batteries for the test runs, and with the two Hab hydrogen batteries installed, Rover 2 has enough range to get from the Hab to Site Epsilon and Trans-Epsilon (the mountain ten klicks the other side of Site Epsilon) and back. This time I took Cherry Berry with me, partly because she hasn't seen the valley on the other side, and partly to get her out of the cave farm for the day.
Since we had the juice, after we drove up to the Beauty Spot and took some footage, we drove a couple kilometers around the south rim. The valley is a spot where one of the gullies that criss-cross Acidalia widens and deepens for some reason. I suspect the gradual effect of the rare water seeps like the one we witnessed the first time we came here. We didn't get to see running water today, but we still got some pretty pictures. It looks a bit like some of the flatter parts of northern Arizona.
