Drive, eat, read, write, game, sleep, repeat. You might not believe it, but it does get a little tedious. Sometimes I'm so bored I even forget to be terrified out of my mind at the hundred million ways this fucking planet could still kill us. That lasts about a few minutes.
Today it was my turn to walk Spitfire. She insists she needs to exercise to regain her health, and Cherry Berry won't let her run off alone without someone beside her to pick her up and rush back to the trailer if her patched-up suit springs a leak. I have patch kits, of course, but they only work if the hole is less than nine inches wide. The wing flaps cut out of the sides of her suit are a lot bigger than that, so if one of those unravels all at once I suspect I'll get to find out if the ponies have an equivalent of CPR.
But it didn't happen today. All that happened is that Spitfire gave me a lot of dirty looks when I refused to even so much as work my way up to a jog. There are reasons for that, the biggest one being that I still don't know how to run properly in a space suit in Martian gravity. It comes out as huge leaps and bounds, and I'm scared shitless that I'll trip over something and hit face-first, shattering this fucking idiotic safety-glass visor (again). So I took it slowly, she trotted orbits around me for half an hour, and we went back into the ship with our suits still holding pressure.
I wonder when Spitfire will figure out she could use someone else's suit out on these little trips. If she doesn't think of it herself, I might suggest it to her, if Cherry ever annoys me at some point.
Anyway, it's almost bedtime. I mentioned we turn in early. Well, that's not quite accurate. We lie down early, but we spend as much as an hour talking after we turn the light off. It reminds me of a TV show my parents told me about called The Waltons. They watched it with their grandparents when they were little. They showed me a few episodes, and I thought it was pretty dreadful. (Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was a 1970s TV show, so why didn't Lewis have it in her collection of shitty TV?)
The reason our nighttime routine reminds me of The Waltons is this; at the end of every episode, just as the huge Walton family is going to bed, the family members hold conversations through the paper-thin walls of their house. We don't see them doing this; all we see is the house with one or two lit windows and a lot of voiceover. And they talk about whatever the episode was about, not saying much of anything important, like families do if they live in old houses with zero soundproofing.
We do that too. Granted, we have an excuse, because we're in the same room— hell, we're in the same pile. We gave up even trying to sleep separately weeks ago.
But some of those conversations can get pretty weird.
Not saying how... just saying that they do. I don't intend to record any of them, so the secrets of our lights-out conversations will go to our graves.
The habitat deck lights went out with the merest flicker of magic from Starlight Glimmer's horn. As usual, Mark and Fireball were on the bottom of the pile, with Dragonfly wedged between them and Cherry, Starlight and Spitfire sprawled on top of them. A couple of goodnights were said, and a couple of bodies shifted, seeking a slightly more comfortable position in the pile.
And then, as Mark had known it would, the first question got asked— one of those questions that never occurred to anyone to ask during daylight, when there was tons of nothing much to do.
"Mark? Tell me again how long your world has had space rockets." This time it was Starlight Glimmer. Usually it was Dragonfly or Cherry Berry. Mark had started it a couple of times, asking about bits of pony culture he ran across during the day. Spitfire and Fireball never started it, but for all their complaints about the conversations happening at all, they contributed as often as not once it got started.
"Hm... rockets that make it to space? Ninety years. Rockets that can take a person? Seventy-five years, give or take. Why?"
"I was just thinking," Starlight said. "You humans in the TV shows we see, you're always in a hurry to get places. Cars, airplanes, all sorts of stuff. But we never see you use rockets to get around. Why is that?"
"Well, why don't you?"
"We ponies aren't in a hurry like that most of the time. But you humans live faster lives! A rocket flight is as fast as you get, without magic!"
"It's also dangerous," Mark said. "And expensive as shit."
"That didn't stop my queen," Dragonfly buzzed from the depths of the body-pile. It tickled.
"That's because, pardon the insult, your queen is crazy," Mark said. "But SpaceX was going to do it, at one point. What became Red Falcon was originally going to be a suborbital transport system. Get from one side of the globe to the other— literally one side to the other— in less than two hours. But it was too expensive and dangerous. Only a couple of countries, not including the USA, would license it for commercial passenger flight. They couldn't fill up fifty seats for the first flight at a million bucks a head, not with a three percent landing failure rate. And then Project Ares suddenly took up SpaceX's full production capacity, and the idea kind of faded away."
"Huh. Only a million bucks?" Dragonfly shifted position under the pile. "The queen charges fifteen million bits for a tourist flight. Of course we actually give them full orbit, not just a ballistic shot. And for forty million bits you get a night on the space station."
"That just shows Chrysalis is crazy but not stupid," Fireball muttered.
"I go crazy," Spitfire warned, "if you all not go to sleep!"
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
"Yeah, okay."
"But," Starlight pressed, ignoring the warning, "there are enough rich people for all those airplanes, right? Those big jets must cost a lot of money to ride on."
"Mmm," Mark grunted. "Week's take-home pay for a low-end worker. Less if they get a bargain deal."
"A week's pay??" Starlight gasped. "Only a week's pay? Why, anybody could fly for that, at least once a year!"
"How much do you get paid anyway, Starlight?" Cherry Berry asked.
"Well, I... um... actually, I don't," Starlight admitted. "I just get whatever I need from Twilight by asking. If I want something special I help her reorganize her books or something like that."
"You're her chief assistant and you don't get a paycheck??" Cherry asked.
"You think she too poor, give some of yours," Spitfire growled. "I know you make three times my leader pay. Now go to sleep!!"
"Go to sleep what?"
"Go to sleep, ma'am."
"That's better."
"I don't get paid either," Dragonfly said. "The queen does give us spending money from time to time. I usually spend it on video games."
"Really?" Mark asked. "I thought you said you didn't have home consoles in your world."
"We don't. I buy big cabinets. Fourteen so far. Last I bought was `Unicorn of Ur.' Plays great as two-player."
"Unicorn of your what?" Mark asked.
"Huh?"
"You said `Unicorn of Your.'"
"When we get to Earth," Starlight Glimmer said decisively, "I'm going to buy a jet plane ticket."
"I pay," Spitfire snarled, "if it just shut you up!!"
"All right, all right. Good night, Spitfire."
"Night, Starlight."
"Night, boss pony."
"Good night, Dragonfly."
"Night, Cherry."
"Good night, Fireball."
"G'night, John-boy," Mark mumbled.
Beat.
"Whaaaaaat?" four voices asked.
"Good night everybody!" Spitfire, the lone dissenting voice, had the last word.
Author's Notes:
Today I put the desktop in the repair shop and took one of my cats to the vet for an ear infection.
Tomorrow I find out just how impending, if at all, is my future heart attack.
In the meantime, have some sillies.
(And no, I haven't got unlimited faith in the vision of Elon Musk.)
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Sol 496
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 505
ARES III SOL 496
TRANSCRIPT — AUDIO EXCHANGE BETWEEN ESA AMICITAS AND NASA EXPLORATION VESSEL HERMES
HERMES (Martinez): Hey, Mark! This is Martinez! Man, you're really hustling across Mars these past few days! A guy might almost think you were in a hurry to get off the planet!
NASA wants me to tell you to keep heading straight east for the next two days. Most of that is gonna be flat and level ground except for some sand dunes... but at the end of it you'll be out of Meridiani Planum. From there the ground will get rugged again, and the closer you get to Edom Crater and what you call the Entrance Ramp, the quicker the terrain rises.
Right now you're about eleven hundred meters below zero level, where you've more or less been for the past week. The crest of Entrance Ramp is two hundred meters above zero, and you'll gain half of that in the last two sols. And be careful once you start down, because in less than forty kilometers you drop almost five hundred meters elevation. That's about a 1.5 degree grade if it were level, but you and I both know it won't be.
So there you are, Mark— don't say we didn't warn ya.
Okay, enough with that— it's time to get down to business. Could you put Commander Berry on? I'll stand by until I hear her voice. Over.
AMICITAS (Watney): Thanks for the heads up. On the one hand, Meridiani is spoiling us. On the other, the mostly flat land is getting a bit hypnotic. Last night I dreamed that there was no Earth, no pony world, no outer space, just an infinite plane of Mars, and I was cursed to wander it like a Mad Max knockoff.
I tell you, man, I am definitely in a hurry to get off this planet. So far as I'm concerned you guys can show up here the sol after we make it to the MAV. I don't care if the mods aren't done. I will learn to fly and fucking well PULL the thing into space if I have to. I am prepared to walk all the way back to Earth if somebody shows me the road.
Anyway, it's good to hear your voice. Chris? Vogel? You guys can feel free to talk any time. I'm getting a little tired of hearing just Johanssen and Lewis every day.
Anyway, here comes Cherry.
AMICITAS (Cherry Berry): Hi, Major Martinez! It's good to hear your voice! What can I do for you? Over.
HERMES (Martinez): Morning, Commander Berry! NASA just sent us the updates to the MAV launch software, including the flight simulator. They've also sent it to the MAV. When Mark activates the MAV, it'll automatically update. NASA wants you working on that simulator every sol you're there, and they want me to help walk you through it. They want to be sure you're fit to fly in case the automatic launch sequence fails and I can't override from Hermes, or if you have to fly direct to Earth on that warp drive of yours.
NASA said I had to make it real clear; they haven't decided who will actually fly the launch, you or me. They're not saying you will; they're not saying you won't. They're just not saying, comprende? But I'll do everything I can to make sure you're fit to fly, because I know if we switched places I wouldn't want my life in anyone's hands other than my own. We're gonna be a team, for this, you get me? Over.
AMICITAS (Cherry Berry): Thanks, Major! I worked hard to learn your systems in the MDV simulator. And you're right. I want to fly again a lot. Really, a lot. I learned good English just so I could be the one to fly the MAV. I'll make you proud! Over.
HERMES (Martinez): Okay, that's the spirit! Now listen: the system we use requires two people. The pilot watches what the launch program is doing and engages manual override if the program can't cope. Then we have the system operations crew member, or sysop for short. They monitor the systems and tell the pilot how they're doing. Sometimes they tweak things to improve chances for a successful launch. Up here that's Johanssen's job. We'll both be watching you all the way through launch, but you need a sysop on your end to be in the comm loop and give you instant updates.
You'll also need a third crew member to run your Sparkle Drive. NASA decided not to give the launch program authority to turn the drive on. Instead they made some control software which will, um... something about pulse frequencies. It's got a slider bar, is all I know. Your drive will still connect to a computer, but not the main MAV computer, and you'll have to decide if it's safe to use.
Okay? You're gonna have to pick these people out for me, Commander Berry. I can't do it for you. Over.
AMICITAS (Cherry Berry): Huh. I'm gonna have to think about that, Major. I'd like Mark to be sysop. He trained on this system for years with you. But he's going to be too busy with the MAV mods. So I think it'll be Dragonfly, if she's fit. She was our ship engineer, and she's an experienced pilot and capcom too. Spitfire will be her backup— she ran the MDV sims back at the Hab.
And of course Starlight Glimmer will run the Sparkle Drive! She made it! The only reason we don't call it the Starlight Drive is because she asked we not name it for her!
AMICITAS (Starlight Glimmer) (shouted off-mike, very faint): Not true! Twilight Sparkle did most of the work! I only made the final arrays!
AMICITAS (Cherry Berry): And who made the actual drives? All of them? Personally?
AMICITAS (Starlight Glimmer): (inaudible)
AMICITAS (Cherry Berry): Right. Sorry about that, Major. We'll let you speak now. Over.
HERMES (Martinez): Sounds good to me, Commander Berry! It's your decision, and you know your crew. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get in some sim time myself. I can't train you if I don't try it out first! Tell Major Spitfire I hope she's getting better! Out!
AMICITAS (Spitfire): Thanks, Major. I will fly again. You watch me. Out.
Author's Notes:
Another way-marker on the long drive to Schiaparelli.
If you're curious, as of the end of driving this chapter the Whinnybago is at roughly 1 degree N, 5 degrees E on the standard Martian map.
For those curious about my health, check today's blog post, and add "tendonitis flareup in right arm continuing".
