Sol 302
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MISSION LOG — SOL 302
We have a trailer.
It took all of about ten minutes, using magic and a bit of hands-on fine guidance, to put what remains of the pony ship onto the Rover 1 chassis. It then took a total of eleven hours of EVA over Sols 299 and 300 to make sure it stayed there. Three people crawling over each other in a trench made to hold maybe one, reaching up with socket wrenches with every extension attached, fumbling around every time a nut failed to thread and fell down in the trench with us... oh, and did I mention the spacesuits? Yeah. Spacesuits.
There are now forty-four separate places where we've improvised a bracket or clamp and bolted it down tight around a member of the rover chassis. But we had to do it. The details on Sirius Tandem Rover Procedure 5-E say that we should reuse or install fresh "as many mounting points as possible," and NASA is absolutely right when they say that. We need them all and probably more.
Even empty, with everything we can strip out of it yanked, and even with close to half the ship cut off, Friendship weighs at least sixteen tons. Every bump, every wobble, every tilt of the chassis is going to put stress on those attachment points, and if they fail on the trip, we're fucked. We can't make it lighter— in fact, every step from here on adds more weight to it. So our only choice, short of welding the two together (which we might do, if Starlight has the spell and we can find something for filler), is recycling every fastener for which a hole already exists on the bottom of the pony ship's hull and looping it around bits of the rover chassis.
Which we did. Fortunately the rover chassis is a big open mesh frame, which makes it easy to fasten things to. Unfortunately that requires threading socket wrenches through the frame while wearing spacesuits, which is why it took two sols to install forty-four mounting points.
By comparison, yesterday's chore was dirt simple— finishing the connections that unite the towhook assembly, with all the linkages to Rover 2's life support, and the pony ship. I'd already installed the mounts in the ship's pressure vessel, complete with their self-sealing-in-vacuum valves. So all I had to do, with Starlight Glimmer's and Dragonfly's help, was rig a few new hoses for the few inches between the towhook and the rear of the ship (the ship being mounted backwards on the chassis, remember), then going into the ship to connect the life support system from Rover 1 plus auxiliary lines to the place where the big life support box will be mounted.
That required a bit of tinkering. The life support box's original home was in the engineering compartment, which breached on landing and which now is so much scrap metal awaiting our need for more bolts. The air lines on the pony ship automatically seal if any one compartment loses pressure, but we needed to salvage those lines to make the linkages between the box and Rover 1's old life support. That meant patching two more holes in the pressure vessel, which required precision-cutting and threading two plugs and screwing them into place, with changeling goo as a thread gasket.
Putting in the plugs was the easy part. The hard part was moving the hay we're storing in the ship for the third time so we could depressurize the habitat compartment and remove the pipe sections we wanted. Moving the hay took twice as long as all the other EVA tasks combined.
But we got it done, and now the only thing left to do with the trailer life support is to put the box in its new mount and connect the air hoses plus a water faucet. We even had EVA time remaining to install the lighting strips and get some real light in the ship again. The ponies were down to one bulb per compartment and no spares left.
The next step is moving as many solar panels as possible onto permanent mounts on top of the ship. That takes planning, because (among other reasons) it's a long way down from the top of the ship— even more than before, since the rover chassis stands a lot taller than the old rear landing gear.
That's fine by me. There are only two action points left on the procedure for the trailer, and then four for Rover 2 (since I already decided Pathfinder isn't coming along). We could be finished by Sol 320 even if we take it easy. And since the tests require steps that commit us to shutting down the cave farm, I don't want to do them until at least Sol 420. So there really isn't a hurry. We can take it easy.
I especially want Dragonfly to take it easy. It's nice to see her around, and she's filling out a bit now that she's out of that cocoon. But she still looks like a bug-pony chemotherapy patient. She's nowhere near as energetic as she was pre-cocoon, and as much as she tries to hide it, she gets tired easily. Recovery for her is going to be a long, slow process— which is the main reason I'm in no hurry to decommission the farm.
Tomorrow, after a stop at the cave farm, Starlight and I will go a bit further east for a new salt-gathering site. We're scraping the box now, after using so much on the homemade baked chips we had for the party. Then we'll see what we can do about safety gear for me being on top of the ship bolting solar panels onto the roof. After that, we'll spend a day just moving the panels close enough to the Hab to make it easy.
Actually, come to think of it, I need to rebuild the power converter I cobbled together so it can include a socket to plug the solar panels into. There's another reason to postpone trusting my life to the skill of a unicorn whose magic has this unfortunate habit of flickering out without warning. I can't possibly imagine why I'd have misgivings about that.
So, yeah. We're going to take it easy. While Mars lets us.
Author's Notes:
Pretty much as it is.
I'm a bit at sea at this point, in no small part because Andy Weir skipped 150 sols, jumping right over all of this. Also because I've solved most of the problems Weir gave Mark at this point.
Not that I don't have a couple of things left, but I want to save them a little while longer...
BTW, tonight (Wed) is the first half of my educational comedy music playlist, or "Edymacashun"; next week will be more of the same, and the week following is Anti-Christmas (I play my Christmas music when nobody else does, so I don't have to play it when everybody else is).
dementiaradio.org
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Sol 303
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 307
ARES III SOL 303
"We're here."
Starlight Glimmer looked up from the computer screen, where an image of Dragonfly's now unoccupied cocoon sat in front of what seemed like an aura of rainbow light rendered in crystal. "Oh?" she said. "Sorry, I was just thinking."
"What abou— oh," Dragonfly said, looking over the unicorn's shoulder at the screen and seeing the pic. "Tired of me already?"
Although the tone was teasing, Starlight Glimmer felt a shiver through her body at the words. "Don't you ever think of going back into that thing," she snapped, closing the image viewer. "And no, I wasn't thinking about that."
"Young ladies, don't make me turn this car around," Mark said. "Really, don't. I may have to swap batteries anyway, so I want to make this trip worth the trouble."
They had come ten kilometers east-northeast of Site Epsilon, to another volcano or hill or something— this one with two peaks, each considerably taller than the squat mound of Site Epsilon. Mark had parked near the base of the volcano, Rover 1's battery back in its saddlebag for this trip, the RTG providing a surplus of heat for the interior of the rover. The side of the mountain sloped up gently ahead of them.
"Which way to the best source of salt?" Mark asked.
"I know a gem-finding spell, Mark," Starlight said. "But no pony I ever met had a talent for finding salt in the ground. Sorry."
Mark shrugged. "Eh," he said. "Let's just drive a bit farther, then, and see what's on the other side."
The rover crawled slowly but steadily up the side of the volcano, aimed directly at the saddle between the peaks. It took only a couple of minutes to reach the crest of the slope. The ground rolled away, and then the rover lurched as Mark slapped on the brakes. The ribbed wheels of the rover dug in to the loose dirt and rocks, slid a little, and then ceased all motion.
"Whoa," he said.
"Not funny, Mark," Starlight said.
"No, seriously," Mark said. "Suit up. We need to go out and see this."
Ten minutes later the three of them stood on the mountain, staring eastwards.
Unlike the gentle slope on the western side of the hill, the eastern face dropped away fairly steeply not far from where Mark had stopped. Below and before them extended a large bowl, interrupted by a tongue of plainsland jutting into the bowl from the south, a small mesa jutting up from the tip like a sphinx almost totally worn away by winds.And beyond this, beyond the bowl, beyond even the horizon, a long curved ridge rose in the hazy distance; the rim of a massive impact crater.
And in this one vista Mars appeared to be throwing its entire limited range of colors at the eye. The twin peaks of the mountain shone almost white with light-colored material that could be ejecta or could be ice. The mountain slopes were the reddish gray that dominated Acidalia Planitia. The bottom of the bowl, on the other hand, lurked in a shadowy near-black that not even the distant but bright noonday sun could lighten. The wind-gnawed mesa on the outcrop, by contrast, practically glowed rust-red in comparison, and the distant crater rim, softened by distance and the pathetically thin air, shaded into the pink.
And from a point just below the southern rim of the bowl, between the outcrop and the southern mountain peak, something sparkled.
Mark held out the arm with the camera on it, refocusing it to maximum magnification, watching the output projected onto the inside of his helmet. "Oh my God," he gasped. "Holy shit. I can't believe I'm seeing this."
"What is it?" Starlight asked, her eyes following the line of Mark's stiff arm. "More quartz?"
"Oh, it's rarer than that," Mark said. "What temperature do your suits say it is?"
"Um..." Starlight refocused her view inside the suit, to the readouts just below the faceplate. "One degree above freezing."
"That's what I thought," Mark said. "The conditions have to be absolutely perfect for this to happen. Temperature within a one or two degree band. Air pressure near absolute peak for this planet. It must be a lot higher down there than it is up here." His voice sped up and dropped as he continued, becoming a rapid-fire mumble.
"Mark, what is it, please?" Starlight asked.
"It's water." Mark's pointing hand extended a finger. "We are witnessing something that no other astronaut is likely to see here for centuries— natural running water on the surface of Mars."
"Is that really a big deal?" Dragonfly asked. "We could probably create a spring if we wanted."
"From a scientific standpoint, not so much," Mark said. "We've known about the probability of liquid water flows when conditions were right. When humans first made a serious effort to map Mars using space probe photos, they chose for an arbitrary sea level the altitude at which average air pressure would be high enough to allow liquid water under perfect conditions. And then we learned about perchlorates and their antifreeze effects, and saw water-triggered landslides on satellite photos. We knew it could happen.
"But this is a special moment. Everything has to be exactly right for this to happen. Not enough pressure, and water can't stay liquid. Too cold, and it stays frozen. Too hot, and it boils away instantly. And here we are, at the right time, with everything perfect, to witness a waterfall on Mars." He patted his arm with his free hand and said, "Which is why all of this is being recorded."
Starlight shuddered hard enough for it to be visible through her space suit. "If water is as rare as that," she said, "this really is a terrible planet."
"Oh, I dunno," Dragonfly said. "I mean yes, it does want us all dead, but this part of it reminds me a little of the Bad Lands-" she said it with emphasis on lands— "back home, where our hive is." She stepped a little closer to Mark. "We gonna go investigate closer?"
"No," Mark said, shaking his head. "The slopes are too steep. I'm not putting the rover at risk any farther than this. Besides, by the time we got there it would probably be over." Indeed, the glittering seemed to be diminishing far more than the slow movement of the sun in the sky could explain.
The human dropped his arm, flexing it a bit to relieve the stiffness from holding it in place for so long. "You know," he said, "this is the sort of thing I signed up for."
"Being stranded on a desert planet with five aliens?" Dragonfly asked.
"Well, not that part," Mark admitted. "But think about it. We're the first to see anything like that on this planet. Hell, we're the first to stand on this spot, to see this view, to look over that horizon. Everywhere we go, we're the first there. The first to touch that rock. The first to dig that soil. The first to see, the first to do, first, first, first!" He patted his arm and added, "And now we just have to get home with the news of what we found. That's what being an astronaut is about."
Starlight snorted derisively. "Yeah," she muttered, "and I'm responsible for the first spaceship from my world to visit another world... accidentally."
"Take your firsts where you can get them," Mark said. "When you get home you're going to be a hero for all of time, you know that?"
This time Starlight's snort was even louder, more of shock than derision. "Me? A hero? For getting us stranded here?"
"For getting us un-stranded," Mark said. "For giving us a chance to live long enough to be rescued. Without you and your magic there would be no cave farm, no food, and three dead ponies about a hundred fifty sols ago. Without Dragonfly you'd all be confined to the Hab or trying to make do with the spare Ares suits. I got the farm started, and Cherry got it really going. Without Fireball's strength we couldn't have moved the dirt or the crops. And without Spitfire watching over everyone, one or more of us would probably be permanently injured.
"We're surviving, Starlight. We are going to survive this motherfucking planet. And just because we survived this planet for a year and a half, all of us are going to be heroes as long as memory lasts."
"One thousand years is the traditional pony number for such things," Dragonfly added.
Starlight flopped back on her spacesuited flanks, head down. "I don't feel like any hero," she said. "Cherry, sure, she got us down alive, and I don't think anybody else could. And back home Spitfire's all kinds of hero. Even Dragonfly here is a hero among the changelings."
"Too true," the changeling in question modestly admitted.
"But I'm a buck-up," Starlight continued. "Yes, I've done a few things, but I cause more problems than I fix. We wouldn't even be here if not for me— you'd be home with your crew, and we'd be doing, oh, I don't know what. And I'm just scared all the time, trying to save myself, and trying to think of ways to keep everyone alive a little longer."
"Which you're pretty darn good at, all things considered," Dragonfly replied.
Mark knelt and put a gloved hand on a pressurized shoulder, leaning into it so Starlight could feel it. "Heroes don't have to be fearless," he said. "They don't have to be extraordinary. I'm not Neil Armstrong. I'm not even Chris Hadfield. But a hero keeps going. A hero survives things that would kill most people. That's all it takes: don't die. People are going to look at you, and they're not going to say, `That Starlight Glimmer, she sure screwed the pooch a lot, didn't she?' No. They're going to say, `How did she survive a year and a half in another universe? On an almost airless planet? Growing her own food? Building her own escape vehicle? I could never do that.' That's what they're going to say about you."
"Really?" Starlight Glimmer picked herself off the dirt. "And what are they going to say about you, Mark Watney?"
"They're going to say, `Is that Mark Watney? I thought he'd be taller.'"
Pony and changeling snickered appreciatively.
"But seriously, I've been thinking about that," Mark continued. "How do ponies treat their heroes?"
Starlight Glimmer shrugged. "I live with the six biggest heroes of our time," she said. "One of them is a princess, and even now half the ponies on the street don't stop to look at her most of the time. If it's not Sun-princess or Luna-princess, we don't seem to get excited."
"It is so different with humans," Mark said. "The problem with becoming a human hero is, you can never stop. Do a heroic thing once and you're a hero for life. That name I mentioned, Neil Armstrong? Huge introvert. He talked to machines more than he talked to people, given a choice. Very private, very mysterious. He was the first human to walk on the moon. And he never had a moment's privacy after that until the day he died. He wasn't allowed to do anything, to be anything else. He was First Man on the Moon, forever."
Mark stood back up, dusting off the knee of his EVA suit. "And I think about that a lot. NASA is spending hundreds of millions of dollars and putting five lives in jeopardy just to get my worthless ass back to Earth. I owe them, and they're going to collect. Test subject for life for space medicine. Spokesperson at any astronaut event they want. Teacher of the next generation or two of astronauts. I've got a job for life whether I want it or not.
"And that's just the NASA side of things. Then there's the public. When I get back I'm going to be known as the first guy to colonize Mars. My alma mater actually pointed that out to me in an email— that if you live there and grow crops there, you've colonized a place. I'm going to go through the rest of my life as the first Martian. And because of that, every Tom, Dick and Harry is going to think I owe them my time, my ear, my handshake, my endorsement. And they're not totally wrong."
He looked out over the bowl. The kilometer-distant waterfall had ceased, the water already vanished completely. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot. Ever since I really began believing we'd get out of here."
A hoof touched his suited thigh— Dragonfly's. "And how do you feel about being a hero?" she asked.
Mark took a deep breath. "I think it's better than the alternative," he said. "Now, aren't you owed some magic-field time? And let's see how much salt you can find on top of a mountain."
The answer was: very little. They ended up going back down the mountain and halfway back to Site Epsilon in order to fill the salt box using Starlight's gathering spell.
Author's Notes:
I wanted to fit in a reference to Log Horizon, but couldn't manage it.
Even in the book, Mark wasn't always down about Mars. Yes, he hated the planet with a passion, but he enjoyed the moments when he could be what his vision of an astronaut was. Not enough to want to go back, mind you, but...
And yes, liquid water is possible on Mars— but just barely possible, and not for very long at all, and not on most of the planet. You need a low-altitude spot like Acidalia or Gusev Crater (or, come to think of it, Schiaparelli). You need very high (for Mars) air pressure (which you'll only find in the aforementioned low altitudes). And you need temperatures just a little above freezing, because at those pressures the range of temperature in which water can remain liquid is very, very narrow.
That one short film, shot on shaky-cam at distance using a suit cam on maximum magnification, would be worth the entire cost of Ares 3 plus the rescue operations by itself. That's how rare flowing water on Mars is. It exists— we've got satellite pictures after the fact— but it's damn rare. And Mark appreciates the moment, even if his companions don't.
PS — in other news, I got the fixed computer for my aunt and uncle today and finished getting them set up. That is now over, for given values of "I just volunteered myself as technical support for life."
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Sol 305
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 309
ARES III SOL 305
"You break one of those," Fireball said, standing between Starlight Glimmer and the rainbow crystals, "over my dead body."
"Will you just move over? Seriously." Starlight snorted as she worked her way past the self-appointed guardian of beauty. "I need to get a close look at them. Besides, it's not like they're going to run out. According to Mark's photos, they're spreading."
That was true. Careful examination of Mark's photos of the rainbow crystals over the previous three or four days had shown that, somehow, whatever caused the shimmering colors that rippled through the crystal was spreading through the rest of the crystal— at a rate, more or less, of a row of crystals converted every three days. It wasn't an even growth; large crystals, the size of Starlight's barrel, took several days, but crystals the size of Mark's thumb or smaller seemed to change overnight, possibly faster.
Mark had taken another photo just before Starlight activated the magic field projector for a three-minute dose of ambient magic. He'd take another photo afterwards to see if any crystals had changed visibly from the exposure. In the meantime, Starlight needed to probe the crystals to see if there was some sort of enchantment in the things, and time was running out. They needed to rebuild power in the batteries too badly to run over schedule on the projector.
Starlight gently pushed the cocoon aside so she could get right up next to the crystals. She noticed that the cocoon had left a sort of shadow of unaffected crystals behind it, although it had obviously shrunk since the day of the magic blast that created the rainbow effect. The infection, or whatever it was, spread inward as well as outward.
She took a deep breath, concentrated, and focused her vision into and through a crystal, looking for an enchantment array, if one existed.
And... well, there was something there, but it wasn't any kind of array she'd ever learned about in her obsessive study of magic.
An enchantment array was above all orderly— usually a circle, but sometimes triangles or more complex geometrical designs were involved. Complex enchantments might have rings or layers of designs, intertwined or concentric, overlapping or entangled. But, if you were patient, you could see the sense of the design, and with knowledge you could work out what the thing was meant to do.
Staring at the enchantment within the rainbow crystals was like making sense of a restaurant-sized pot of spaghetti. Or possibly worms, since parts of it seemed to be moving just past the edge of Starlight's focus. And when she looked at another crystal and then back to the one she'd been looking at before, it'd be all different.
It made no sense. Absolutely, positively, no sense.
And then the sight was taken away from her, as the magic field was shut down. She refocused, concentrating her reserves, and looked again... and the spaghetti lines were still there, mocking her with their disorganization, with...
... with their chaos.
"Hey, Starlight?" Mark's voice cut through her thoughts. "Mind moving out of the way? I don't think you want a photo of your ass in a scientific study."
Starlight didn't mind the crass comment. She had an epiphany and she was ready to use it. "Give me a suit," she said. "Time to call home."
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit SG for response, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: I need to talk to Discord, right now. Over.
ESA: Please repeat last message, over.
AMICITAS: SG — Repeating, I need to talk to Discord. Over.
ESA: TS — Are you crazy? You know we keep Discord as far away from any space center as possible!
DISCORD: And it's so impolite of you. I mean, here I am, one of your dearest and truest friends, and you won't let me help.
ESA: TS — How are you doing this, over?
DISCORD: Oh, Twilight, you really don't want the answer to that question. It'd only irritate you. And Celestia knows you've been so busy of late, with the launch of Angel Eleven. It's in all the papers, you know.
AMICITAS: Discord, there's this weird enchantment or something here. Have you kept up with the news from here? Over.
DISCORD: Oh, Fluttershy tells me this and that over our weekly teas, and then there's game night with Spike, Big Mac and Rainbow Dash, and of course the reforming tyrants support group with Queen Chrysalis.
ESA: TS — He made that last one up. Chrysalis is on Concordia performing retrieval duties for the Angel probes. Over.
AMICITAS: Fine. We blasted Dragonfly's cocoon with all the raw magic we had to energize her enough to come out. It more or less worked, but it turned the quartz behind her into these color-changing crystals, and the effect's slowly spreading. There's a really ugly enchantment that looks like all the crawling worms in the world turned to mana and took over each crystal. Know anything about it? Over.
DISCORD: Sorry, not my work or my knowledge. I can't even see the universe you're in directly— Twilight already asked. All I can tell is that where you are order and chaos are the same thing. Dependence on initial conditions mitigated by quantum indeterminacy. Dull, dull place, literally deathly dull. But I could...
ESA: TS — Discord? Could what, over?
AMICITAS: Discord, comms check, over.
DISCORD: Would you like a guess?
AMICITAS: Affirmative, over.
DISCORD: Ask your friend what he knows about "emergent properties". Not usually my field of chaos, but I do like to diversify now and then.
AMICITAS: Roger "emergent properties." Thank you, Discord, we appreciate the help. Over.
DISCORD: Oh, it is so delightful to be appreciated! It's something I get so very seldom. Well, must be back to my duty of spreading random acts and curious coincidences around the land! Ta-ta!
ESA: I think he's gone, over.
AMICITAS: No, he's not, over.
DISCORD: Yes I am. Over.
AMICITAS: Thanks to you both. Amicitas out.
"Dictionary," Starlight said as she pulled her suit away from the mud puddle beneath it. "I need to make sure I have this word exactly right."
Five minutes with the computer later, during which time the others sat and waited out of sheer curiosity, she said, "Chaos tells me to ask you about `emergent properties.' That is right, yes? Properties that come out of something?"
"Um." Mark shifted on his feet. "Where you come from there's a person named Chaos?"
"It's hard to explain," Starlight said. "It's more like there's a person who is chaos. Chaos isn't the right name, but one of his titles is `Lord of Chaos.' He makes impossible things happen at random around him— really, really impossible things."
"He's evil," Cherry Berry said, looking frightened. It occurred to Starlight, idly, that Cherry didn't let herself look afraid that often during their stay on Mars.
"He's a pest," Spitfire grumbled.
"He's scary," Dragonfly whispered, crouching as if she expected him to come out of thin air at any moment.
Fireball shrugged. "Not meet him," he said.
"Ooooookay," Mark said, looking around him in total confusion. "But how much do you know about chaos as a force of nature?"
"What? Chaos isn't nature!" Starlight insisted. "Chaos is... opposite of harmony? Chaos is broken! Ponies try studying chaos, and it drives them mad! Chaos even carries around little cards warning ponies not to study him anymore!"
"So, that'd be nothing," Mark said. "Okay. I'll try to keep this simple. Humans are the only species on my planet that can express abstract thoughts in the form of language and pass them down from generation to generation. There are a lot of other animals that are close— whales, some squids, elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, parrots— but they don't quite get there. And for decades, human scientists wondered why.
"Then we figured out that, contrary to everything we'd expected, our brains weren't specifically designed to be intelligent and self-aware. Conscious thought is a by-product of the complexity of our brains. Even now, we're totally incapable of pointing to a cluster of neurons and saying, `That means he thought X.'"
"Okaaaaay... so are you saying the crystals think now?" Starlight asked.
"No, no, no," Mark said. "I'm saying that consciousness and the ability for abstract thought are emergent properties. They're unexpected products of an incredibly complex system. You can't predict them based solely on the pieces of the system itself. It's how the system works together that creates them."
"I don't see the point," Starlight said.
"Let me give you an example," Mark said. "About, oh, forty years ago, some scientists took a bunch of little robots with the ability to rewire their own internal circuitry— don't ask me how, I'm not a roboticist. The robots also had a radio receiver. If the robots could accurately detect a broadcast at a certain frequency, it got a reward. But the scientists didn't tell the robots how to do it. They just stood back and let the robots start guessing. The ones who came closest became templates for the next generation of robots, and so on. And by one hundred robot generations— they made new robots every other day or so.— the robots had become able to detect that signal ninety-eight percent of the time, without confusing it for another signal or detecting it when it wasn't there.
"But here's the thing. They looked at that last generation. The robots had about a dozen different ways to do the same job. Absolutely none of them were the way any human designer would have done it. A couple of them, so far as the scientists could tell, shouldn't have worked at all. And for half of them, the scientists simply could not tell how it worked. The robots had created a solution by pure random chance— several solutions, all of them the product of guesses and misfires and junk program loops and a tangle of circuits and code nobody could figure out."
Mark shook his head in frustration. "I'm mangling the story," he said. "I haven't heard it since college. But that's emergent properties in action. Randomness leads to order, depending on how you look at it. But even the simplest of rules, allowed to run, can produce unexpected results. In fact, all life on my world comes from simple rules allowed to run for a very long time."
The ponies all shifted their weight on their hooves enough for the sound of scuffed soil to crackle through the almost silent cave. "Are you saying," Starlight asked in a shocked whisper, "that humans— that your whole world— is based on chaos?"
"I told you," Dragonfly said, "a Free Forever universe."
"Well, it's based on a lot of things," Mark said. "Chaos is just one way we explain it." He cocked his head and added, "But what does that have to do with anything?"
Starlight told them what she saw in the crystal.
"Aaahhh," Mark said, when the explanation was complete. "Your friend Chaos was explaining how the rainbow crystals work. Your blast must have accidentally laid a random enchantment on the crystals. And at least one of those enchantments is self-replicating."
Starlight looked at the crystals again, a bit horrified. "They're... they're alive??"
Mark considered this. "Starlight, I don't know about ponies, but humans have been discussing it for hundreds of years, and we've never been able to come up with a definition of life that satisfies everybody. But the crystals obviously aren't alive. No respiration, no eating or excreting, no reproduction. The enchantment might qualify, but only if computer programs are alive." He brightened and added, "We have sci-fi stories about that, y'know."
"That doesn't make me feel better!"
Mark shrugged. "The question is, will it do any harm?" He pointed to the light sources in the ceiling. "What happens to the sun lamps when the rainbows get up there?" He pointed to Fireball. "Can he eat rainbow crystals safely?"
"Not gonna try," Fireball said firmly. "We go back deep in cave, cut all crystals I need through launch, take to Hab soon. After that, not a problem."
"And finally," Mark said, "will the rainbows have an effect on the plants? We know they don't actually glow by themselves, at least not in the visible spectrum..."
Starlight nodded. "I see where you're going," she said. "This is a job for science."
"Yep," Mark nodded. "Magic science."
Author's Notes:
For those who asked about Discord, now you know.
I no doubt botched the explanation of emergent properties. The example I mention is in one of the volumes of The Science of Discworld, the first three of which are worth the read... the fourth, sadly, demonstrates the decay of Sir Terry's powers in his last years, plus a lack of coherent scientific theme.
But no, we're not done with the sparklies, oh no indeed.
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Sol 307
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Venkat's phone rang in the middle of a paragraph, as it usually did. Venkat's time was generally divided between reading reports (or, not nearly often enough, papers exploring the theoretical possibilities of magic, if humans could ever get it to work) and writing letters thanking, pleading, or ordering somebody to do something on behalf of Project Ares. It was all important, but no matter how important it was, there were dozens of people with his office phone number who thought their issues were more important. A few of them were even correct.
He checked the caller ID. Bruce Ng. Well, Bruce never wasted Venkat's time with trivialities. Bruce never had any time of his own to waste.
"Hello, Bruce," he said as soon as he picked up the line. "And how are things in sunny California?"
"I know there's a sun in theory," Bruce said. "Not by direct observation. I've been working for over a month to find some way to make the MAV landing stage work as a booster. I'm calling you to tell you it can't be done."
Venkat leaned back in his chair. "I'm listening," he said. "Tell me why a step that's absolutely indispensable to Mark Watney and friends making a direct rendezvous with Hermes is impossible."
"It comes down to weight and timing," Bruce said. "The whole point of keeping the landing stage on and running the pony engines on it is to gain surplus delta-V to make up for the weight we can't shave off the MAV. We'd need to reduce a craft that weighs twelve and a half tons empty by over five tons to achieve escape velocity on internal power alone. We haven't been able to find more than two tons without taking steps that render the MAV nonviable for long-term habitation— that is, we have to put a hole in the hull to make it lighter. That would take away the Sparkle Drive option as a backup system."
"Yes, I understand all that," Venkat said. "But that's what the landing stage and the engines off of Friendship were meant to overcome."
"And we've tried it in every configuration possible," Bruce said. "We've tried launching it fully fueled, on the assumption that the ponies can find a way to transmute or synthesize hydrazine. We've tried ripping out absolutely everything and just using the descent stage as a framework to hang the pony engines on. And, of course, we asked Starlight Glimmer to make larger batteries that could run the engines for a full three-minute burn instead of the one minute we originally planned.
"But it all fails in the sims, Venkat. Nothing we try gets more than a thrust-weight ratio of 1.3. A three minute burn just barely gets the ship to the height of the Schiaparelli Basin rim, when you factor in gravity and air resistance. The sims routinely show a failure rate of fifteen percent attempting to decouple the landing stage, ignite the first ascent stage, and reorient the craft. And by failure, I mean surface impact before the procedure's complete. And even the eighty-five percent of successful flights yield only an average delta-V gain of two hundred meters per second. That's out of over five kilometers per second we need."
"Okay," Venkat said. "So what happens when you move the pony engines to the first ascent stage?"
"No improvement," Bruce said. "Without any way to decouple the engines and their batteries, they stay on as dead weight after they burn out. If we cut the pony engines to fifty percent thrust we might be able to stretch them through the whole first stage burn, but the efficiency losses mean they don't quite get us to where we need to be. And we lose the most efficient portion of the ascent burn to that added eight tons of engine and batteries."
"Bruce," Venkat said, marshaling his thoughts carefully, "I don't need to tell you how bad this news is. You know better than anyone. But I'm not hearing much in the way of potential solutions."
"We're... still working on it," Bruce said. "But we're at the point that we need some input from the ponies. Is there any way to lighten their engines, or to modify them so they produce more thrust faster? And I know we've turned off the email exchange, but I wanted to ask for a waiver so I could send them the work we've done so far through Pathfinder."
For a second Venkat lost the power of speech. When he recovered it, it still spluttered like a car with a bad injector. "Wha-bwuh-wha... Bruce, you are two thousand miles closer to the Pathfinder relay than I am. You have a team who knows intimately the problems we're having just getting a signal. The data stream's been getting parity check errors on data packets for the last two days. You know why we decided to shut down everything but the bare bones. And if you thought we could still send your data, you wouldn't ask me for confirmation. You'd just do it."
Venkat heard Bruce's sigh over the line. "I know," he said. "And you're right, we can't load up the link with a ton of data when it's barely good enough for emergencies. But the alternative is that we lose more than a month. A month in which we could work the problem."
"Well, continue working it from your end," Venkat said. "I'll try to drop the problem into the morning check-in, but no promises."
"Thanks," Bruce said, and cut the connection.
Author's Notes:
Yes, it's short. But that's all there is for this sol...
... and by the time I go to bed tonight, there will be a chapter in the buffer again.
I did a run-down of all the ways the MAV could or couldn't save weight or add thrust about a month ago. And it boiled down to the descent stage booster doing very little even under ideal conditions.
So, obviously, something else will have to be thought of...
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Sol 308
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 312
ARES III SOL 308
[08:31] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[09:36] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:10] JPL: Well, as you see, Mark, we're beginning to have problems even at this low bit rate. Explanation will have to wait. For now, don't bother making the cargo brackets for the alien engines. Put it off until later.
[10:42] WATNEY: How come? Did Bruce Ng and his boys run into a problem? Anything we can do to help?
[11:37] SYSTEM: ERROR — Destination reports Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Message Not Sent
[11:39] WATNEY: I see the problem. Roger wilco.
Spitfire frowned as Mark worked his way through the end of the chapter, delivering Smeagol's lines in the weird voice he used for that character. It was a terrible voice, a wheedling, whining, rasp-edged voice that got on Spitfire's nerves... which, of course, made it perfect for Gollum. Spitfire liked it a little better than Mark's normal voice for one reason; doing the Smeagol voice forced Mark to slow down a little as he read, which made it easier for her to figure out what was being said.
"I don't get it," she said. That was one of the English phrases she'd memorized whole, mostly because she found it so useful so often. "We know Gollum betray... will betray them. Now he look nice for, for, for little time, and Sam, he, he, he make it bad?" Faust alive, but she sounded like Rainbow Dash right after she slammed into a mountain headfirst at speed... twice in a row. Which was a thing she did sometimes. "Why writer show this?"
"Maybe Gollum is changing," Cherry Berry said. "He is a hobbit, or he was one. And Gandalf said hobbits resist the influence of the Ring. Maybe he's fighting it off?"
Smoke rose from the snort Fireball gave at that. "I bet he already did betray," he said. "Maybe he feel bad about it. He's loco, you see that."
"I think he's changing his mind," Starlight Glimmer said. She was fussing over something by the color-changing crystals, squinting at one and then another. She hadn't taken a turn reading this time. "Or anyway, that's what I want to believe. I listen to Smeagol's bits, and I keep thinking how easy I had it, how generous Twilight Sparkle was to me. And the good part of Smeagol isn't having it easy at all."
"Is no good Smeagol," Spitfire insisted. "Is bad Smeagol and Gollum worse. This cheap writer trick."
"I think it's a good moment of... um... right and wrong," Cherry said. "The ring made Gollum do all sorts of evil, but there's still a little part that resists. And it takes control for a minute, and Sam swats it down with bad temper. Suspicion."
"Good." That, unexpectedly, was Dragonfly. "Smeagol isn't to be trusted. I'm sure he's already sold out the hobbits, but to what I don't know."
"But it's the Ring doing it to him," Cherry insisted.
"Nope," Dragonfly insisted. "First rule of mind control: you can't directly force someone to do something against their will. At least part of them has to want to do it."
"Actually," Starlight began, "that wasn't how it worked when... never mind." Spitfire couldn't help smirking as the unicorn took an extreme interest in the rainbow crystals again.
"As I was saying," Dragonfly continued, "the Ring couldn't have done a thing to Smeagol by itself, not without making him into a total puppet. Which obviously it didn't do. Look at his history. Gandalf said he killed his brother, or cousin, or whatever, for the Ring. He snuck around, poked and pried at things, listening for secrets, stealing little things. That's how he was before the Ring— that's how it got him. Bilbo, on the other hoof, didn't want anything for himself. He was kind, generous, brave, and loyal. The Ring couldn't do much with that. That's why it kept slipping off his finger— it wanted a new host."
"But Bilbo couldn't give up the Ring by himself," Cherry protested. "It had hold of him enough to make him protect it."
"Sure," Dragonfly said. "It's a gold ring that makes you invisible. Not hard to persuade someone to want to keep it. But Bilbo actually wanted to be rid of the thing. He wanted to give away the Precious, think about what that took! And it wanted to be rid of Bilbo, is what I think. That's why I think it let Bilbo drop the envelope."
"We're getting away from Smeagol here," Starlight said. "What makes you think Smeagol isn't reforming?"
"Because Smeagol doesn't want to reform," Dragonfly said. "He wants his treasure back. That's who Smeagol is. That's who Smeagol always was. The Ring didn't create that, it just made it worse, took away whatever good things he might have had in him. But you just can't make someone do something they really don't want to do. You have to first persuade them they want to do it. You have to start a crack. Smeagol was vulnerable already when he first saw the Ring."
"Dragonfly," Mark said slowly, "is this first-hand knowledge? The mind control, I mean"
The changeling looked Mark directly in the eyes and said, "Yes. Yes, it is." She looked at the others, continuing, "Before the invasion I had a lot of infiltration roles, usually as a pegasus courier. Fastest changeling in the hive means a pretty fast pegasus disguise. My job was to read the messages and pass on anything useful back to headquarters. And yes, that meant hypnotizing a lot of ponies so they'd give me certain jobs or let me look at something I wasn't supposed to see. I know exactly what I'm talking about."
Dragonfly looked at Mark again and added, "And the last time I used that ability, you were half-unconscious with a badly burned arm, and I was burning magic like, like, like something that burns really fast, to keep you awake and driving and get yourself and Starlight back to the Hab." She stomped another hoof. "If you hadn't wanted to live, deep down, it wouldn't have done a bucking thing. If you'd given up and decided to die, you would have died no matter how hard I tried to bend your mind. So don't expect me to apologize for knowing how to pull your levers when I really need to!"
This silenced the literary discussion so thoroughly that Mark needed a full twenty seconds before he could think of anything to get it going. "So, would you say that you feel sympathy for Gollum?"
"A little," Dragonfly said after some consideration. "When I lost control and drained you, it was because some part of me really wanted to. Have I mentioned lately you're delicious?"
Spitfire put her face in her hoof. This discussion kept finding new and previously unexplored worlds of awkward and uncomfortable.
"So I know exactly what it's like to give in. Except I don't think Smeagol ever really fought it." She sighed. "No, if I understand the word sympathy right, then I feel sympathy for the Ring."
"Explain." Mark only said the one word, but it was one word more than Spitfire could muster.
"Pretty simple: mind-bending monster that wants to get home." Dragonfly shrugged. "And six years ago I could add, `so that it can help destroy or enslave the whole world.' That's how I was raised. That's how I'm made. The only difference is that I can decide that, although I definitely am a monster, I will not act like a monster. I don't know if the Ring has that choice, and I sure don't see any sign that it would choose to be nice if it could, anyway."
More silence, followed by Cherry Berry murmuring, "You know, the only other changeling I can ever remember referring to herself as a monster is Chrysalis. None of the others think of themselves that way, at least not out loud."
Dragonfly shrugged. "Maybe I've been around ponies too long."
Spitfire, having gradually got over her shock, ran through the conversation in her mind, came to a quick decision, and got to her hooves. No one had ever bothered to return the two-meter spare section of Hab support pole to its cabinet back at the Hab, and it lay only a few paces away. She trotted over, picked it up in her teeth, and then walked slowly towards Dragonfly. The others, guessing what was coming, scattered.
"Spitfire," Cherry Berry asked in a warning tone, "what are you doing?"
"That's what I'd like to-"
Dragonfly's comment was interrupted by the swoosh and thwack of plastic against chitin.
"OW!"
"Stop feeling sorry for self," Spitfire grunted out around the stick. English was hard enough; English with your teeth clamped down on something was just annoying.
"I wasn't feeling-"
Thwack.
"OW!!"
"Stop talking about be monster. Not let monster in space."
"Would you like to tell that to my qu-"
Thwack.
"CUT IT OUT!"
"Stop bragging about be evil. Not thing to be proud about."
"I wasn't rooting for the-"
Thwack.
"That's really annoying!"
"Next time you asked what you think about book, say, `I hope Frodo wins.'"
Dragonfly didn't say anything.
Thwack anyway.
"What was THAT for??"
"Am I understand?"
"Yes, I got it!"
"Yes, what?"
"Spitfire," Cherry Berry said, her tone making it clear that the farce was now over, "give me that stick. After you say yes, ma'am."
"Yes, ma'am." Ears drooping, Spitfire let the commander take the plastic pole away. For a moment she'd felt back at home... and forgot where she was.
"Thank you," Dragonfly said, only to get another thwack to the noggin.
"Don't try to out-Chrysalis Chrysalis," Cherry said. "I put up with it from her because she almost never tries to do the stuff she talks about. I don't have to put up with it from you. Understood?"
Dragonfly stood to rigid attention. "Ma'am yes ma'am!" she replied crisply.
"Thank you." Cherry extended the pole to Mark, who grasped it in one hand. "Please put that away somewhere."
"Um... sure." Mark set the pole beside him, then added, "What the hell was all that just now?"
"Percussive medicine," Spitfire replied in Equestrian. She wasn't even going to try to render that into English, and to her relief, Mark didn't press the point.
"Maybe we could read a mystery book when this is done," Dragonfly said, rubbing her head. "Fantasy is hard on the head."
"I said, no feel sorry for self."
Dragonfly, for a changeling, could do a very good disgusted pony snort.
Author's Notes:
Let's talk about evil for a minute. Evil is, of course, in the news and discussions of late, but I am not going to bring in any current events into this. (I have very strong opinions about said events, but this is a refuge from the rage, not a platform for it.)
One of the common phrases used in the wake of World War II was "the banality of evil." This is a useless phrase to most Americans, because for most Americans "banal" is not a word. Nobody uses it in ordinary conversation. It means: "something so ordinary as to be obvious or boring; unimaginative."
Evil is not always banal, although it tends to repeat itself— greed, hate, fear, self-love can only be expressed so many ways. But evil is very, very ordinary.
Consider frontier Americans, especially pre-Civil War, when settlers were still clearing out land east of the Mississippi. A typical letter from a militia soldier home would go something like this:
"Camped under the stars, saw some beautiful fireflies. Night before last some boys with instruments played music and sang songs, it was so beautiful. I miss everyone at home. How's the baby? Are you taking care of my dog? I can't wait until I tell you where my land claim is so you can come join me. By the way, I saved you a couple of baby Indian scalps from today's battle as a memento of our glorious victory. Yours sincerely, etc."
It was just that simple. Here were men, most of whom you'd all think were quite nice people if you met them on the street, friendly, courteous, charming... if you were white. If you were black, you better not make eye contact. And if you were a native American, you were in deadly peril of your life— even if you were a woman or child. (To be blunt, especially if you were a woman or child.)
Because at that time the consensus was, Indians didn't really count as people, so it was okay to kill them. In fact, it was better than okay; it was a duty to kill them or drive them out, to fulfill Manifest Destiny. And almost nobody questioned this, much less recognized it as evil.
I could go on in detail, but my point is this: a person can be nine-tenths good and decent and one-tenth horrible, and often that person will not recognize it in themselves. Usually they can't, because nobody wants to think of themselves as a monster, so we humans will justify away any monstrous conduct by finding some kind of excuse.
Evil is ordinary. We all have it. We all have the potential for it. And most of the time we don't know we're doing evil at the time.
Hence Dragonfly, who allowed herself the changeling (and other cartoon baddies) flaw of blabbermouth. She has a definition of monster in her head, and under certain conditions she recognizes she qualifies. But, at the same time, she refuses to admit that the really sketchy things she did on Chrysalis's orders back Before Space were wrong, because she also thinks of herself as a good and dutiful drone and subject. She is highly unusual— not just among changelings, but among people— in that she's actually tried to look at herself and see the evil. It's a work in progress at best.
That's why Spitfire violates several items in the Code of Conduct to apply corporal punishment percussive medicine on Dragonfly. For all that it's not the right way to do it, it has the advantage of closing the issue and making everyone else see that it is closed. They can (mostly) pretend Dragonfly didn't admit these things, move on, and continue to work together.
So the next time you're talking to someone, and they let slip that they've done some horrible thing and don't particularly regret it— or even recognize there's anything to regret— don't ask how they could do that. They do it because they're people. People are like that.
But don't hit them over the head with anything, because Cherry Berry isn't going to back you up, and your target might not be as forgiving as Dragonfly.
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Sols 309-310
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 313
ARES III SOL 309
[08:03] JPL: Daily check. Solar activity subsided a bit, so maybe comms will be better today. We estimate Sol 318 will be LOS day, after which Hermes will attempt to acquire Pathfinder's signal every day until it works. With luck that'll be Sol 328. Hope all of you are all right.
[08:42] WATNEY: We're fine, but it's bugging me why you told us not to build the engine carriage mounts on Rover 2. You have a reason. If data loss is the problem, just keep resending until it gets through. In the meantime, we're staying busy doing science to magic, or magic to science, whatever. Waiting on your answer. — Mark
[09:41] SYSTEM: ERROR — Destination reports Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Message Not Sent
[09:42] WATNEY: system_command: REPEAT
[09:42] SYSTEM: Last message resent.
[10:41] SYSTEM: ERROR — Destination reports Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Message Not Sent
[13:19] WATNEY: system_command: REPEAT
[13:20] SYSTEM: Last message resent.
[14:18] SYSTEM: ERROR — Destination reports Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Message Not Sent
[14:19] WATNEY: system_command: REPEAT
[14:19] SYSTEM: Last message resent.
[15:30] WATNEY: About fucking time.
[16:28] SYSTEM: ERROR — Destination reports Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Message Not Sent
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 314
ARES III SOL 310
Starlight Glimmer shut off the field projector, looking with pride at the six new ordinary-sized mana batteries she'd made. With Mark's people not explaining why carrying the three Amicitas main engines to Schiaparelli was no longer a priority, she'd decided not to make the four jumbo batteries originally scheduled for today. Besides, skipping those meant she could spare a little juice for experiments on the rainbow crystals.
Over the past few sols she and Mark had devised and carried out several experiments with the accidental enchantments in the crystals. The results both comforted and baffled her, for various reasons.
Experiment #1: Did the rainbow crystals store mana? According to Dragonfly's thaumometer, yes, though even the ones in the center of the cluster, those which couldn't infect other crystals anymore, didn't store much. They were vastly less efficient than the purpose-enchanted batteries, if the average readout was an indicator.
Experiment #2: Did a crystal have to be growing out of the wall to be infected? Answer: no. Five crystal chunks cut from Lunch Buffet had been set in places where they could sit on top of certain rainbow crystals; all but the smallest had been enchanted within two days of being put there.
Experiment #3: Did a crystal have to be touching an infected crystal to be infected? Answer: too soon to be conclusive about it, but the crystals set a ponylength away, out in the open, hadn't been infected in four sols of sitting there.
Experiment #4: Was there a size limit for the enchantment? Answer, based on observation: yes. Crystals smaller than Mark's thumb remained in the field of rainbow crystals which hadn't been altered. Possibly the enchantment couldn't all fit. With careful examination (squinting) Starlight could make out a few random-looking traces of magic, but not the strange random patterns of the full enchantment.
Experiment #5: Would an already enchanted crystal be infected? Answer: apparently not. Starlight had laid the battery enchantment on a hoof-sized crystal and stuck it between two larger rainbow crystals. It still sat there, unaffected, three days later. More observation was warranted, but it looked like the batteries and the solar relays were safe. (It had occurred to her that she could probably think of ways to make a viral enchantment that would attack the batteries and sun crystals. It also occurred to her that Mars was not the place to even consider trying it.)
Experiment #6 (today): Would a rainbow crystal take an enchantment? Answer: surprisingly, yes, though with difficulty and with much reduced efficacy. Starlight had enchanted two of the rainbow crystals with a standard lighting enchantment. Now they glowed, if only feebly.
Experiment #7 (also today, using one of the infected crystals from Experiment #2): Could a rainbow crystal be dis-enchanted? Answer: not completely. As with any enchantment, bits of it tended to persist. But the portion of the random tangle of enchantments Starlight had broken had apparently broken the whole thing; the crystal was still a rainbow of colors, but the pattern hadn't shifted.
Experiment #8 (begun today, incomplete): Would the enchantment affect non-crystalline rocks?
Experiment #9 (also begun today): If you enchant a rainbow crystal, would the added enchantment propagate along with the random one?
For this experiment the remaining three cut crystals Starlight had allowed to be infected were placed in small sample boxes Mark provided. One was filled with other cut crystals; this would be the control. One was also filled with cut crystals, but the infected crystal had the light-producing added enchantment. The last infected crystal was placed in a box of random non-crystalline surface rocks collected midway through the rover drive out to the cave that morning. In two or three days, they'd know the results.
Mark took the last photo of the post-magic round for today, charting the continued expansion of the rainbow crystal field and documenting the start of the three experiment boxes. "Do you want to write up the results?" he asked. "Or should I?"
"I'd better do it," Starlight said. "I'm the one who's been translating our concepts into English for your scientists. And I also have to send reports home."
"Suit yourself," Mark said. "Just let me know when you're done so we can do the reading for today. It's the last chapter of The Two Towers."
Starlight shuddered. Spitfire and Dragonfly had turned out to be right on the money with their predictions, but the giant monstrous spider had come out of nowhere. She had nothing against spiders— the star spiders that hung around the half-restored Castle of the Two Sisters were cute and unusually friendly for denizens of the Everfree— but she drew the line at giant pony-eating monster spiders.
They discussed the final chapter of The Two Towers on the rover drive home, after renewing the previous day's agreement that Dragonfly keep her big mouth shut.
In Starlight's opinion there was too much Shelob, which is to say, there was some Shelob. But at least she hadn't won. On the other hoof, Samwise hadn't won, either...
"I feel so bad for Sam right now," she said. "I've felt like that so many times— so many days when it seems like every decision I make is wrong."
"Welcome to Planet Fireball," the dragon rumbled ruefully.
"Welcome to Aragorn," Spitfire added. "Remember the boat place? The orc attack?"
"But that came out okay in the end," Starlight said. "Sam's all by himself, Frodo's a prisoner of Sauron's orcs, and Gollum's around somewhere getting ready to kill them. What can Sam do to make that right?"
"It'll be a while before you find out," Mark said. "The last book of the story, Return of the King, begins by going back to Gandalf and Pippin."
"Oh, come on!" Cherry Berry protested. "Another switch? I don't even remember what they were doing!"
"Riding to Gondor," Starlight muttered. "But the thing is, I can't see what Sam could have done differently. Letting Frodo get taken was the wrong move in hindsight, but if he'd stayed and tried to fight a whole squad of orcs? That would have been worse."
"Sometimes you don't have good choices," Mark said quietly. "And nobody knows the future." He paused. "Er, do people know the future? Where you come from, I mean?"
"Some say Sunbutt does," Fireball said. "All those pony future stories come from someplace, yeah?"
"Sunbutt?" Mark asked.
"He means Princess Sky-and-Stuff," Starlight muttered. "In a very crude and insensitive way."
"It part of my charming personality," Fireball said primly.
"Hint, Fireball," Starlight replied, "don't take charm lessons from Mr. Furley."
"Starlight, why don't you just use her pony name?" Mark asked. "You don't call me Dedicated-to-Mars anymore."
"For us names have meaning," Starlight replied. "Many ponies change their names once they know what they're going to do with their lives. For us a name tells other people who we are."
"All right," Mark said. "So what does `Starlight Glimmer' tell us about you? That you're almost invisible on a moonless night?"
"Er... um... look out for that rock!"
It was the same rock the rover drove over without so much as a scraping sound every day, so Mark didn't bother to look. "Fine, the meanings of names are important to ponies," he said. "But not to humans. So why not just use the pony version?"
"We did a couple times, remember?" Starlight said. "You can't pronounce it." And if you shift the vowel sound you can't pronounce, depending on which vowel you substitute, you either get nonsense, the word for a strong aroma, or the word teat. And knowing you, Mark, the minute you got to Equestria it'd be Princess Teat this and Princess Teat that, and Celestia would be very disappointed in us all...
She tried hard not to imagine how much Luna would laugh about it, and failed.
Before the conversation could continue its concussed wandering, the rover arrived back at the Hab. Inside, there was a message waiting for them on the main computer chat window, one the castaways had been expecting since dawn.
[06:41] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[07:44] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[08:47] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[09:51] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:54] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[11:57] JPL: All right, Mark, here's the short version. Our work on modifying the Ares IV MAV has hit a roadblock. Turning the MAV descent stage into a zeroth ascent stage doesn't work— the built-in engines are just too weak. Even with your friends' engines running full blast, it wouldn't do more than get you about a kilometer off the surface, and there's a significant chance of plowing back into Mars during staging.
We considered putting the engines on the first ascent stage, but they'd burn out less than halfway through its burn, which means they're practically negative delta-v unless you can make them disintegrate on command. We could throttle them back to half power and give up some efficiency, but that doesn't give the ship the push it needs to break away from Mars.
We need to know: is there any way to make the engines lighter? Is there any way to increase thrust, even if it means burning out sooner? Is there any way to decouple or, if all else fails, destroy the engines and batteries once they're used up?
Please ask your friends to study the problem. If we can't use the pony engines, then we'll either have to use the Sparkle Drive in atmosphere or scrap the Drive and go for a really risky all-or-nothing Hermes rendezvous. I can't tell you how much we dislike either option. So please, give us something to work with.
This chat is having serious trouble with the solar flare activity just now. Thankfully Hermes isn't in the path of any CMEs. Respond tomorrow via the pony radio— we want to see if the signal's any clearer. We'll be listening from 0830 hours Hab time.
By the time Starlight finished reading the chat message for the second time, the others had taken off and put away their suits, except for Dragonfly. The changeling had kept her suit so she could tap out a report home via the suit water spigot.
Starlight considered the problem. Mana batteries required some orderly molecular structure— ideally crystals. And those crystals had to be able to withstand a lot of punishment, if they were going to ride a rocket. There weren't going to be any weight savings there. Yes, the batteries in the Sparkle Drive's power array had crumbled to dust, but only under a massive sudden power demand. Maybe she could figure out a way to do that deliberately, but she didn't think so.
As for making the engines lighter— ha! It had taken years to get them as efficient as they were. It was nearly impossible to create an enchantment for telekinesis. The spell, that most basic spell, practically required a mind to guide it. And anyway, the spell required both a point of origin and a target. Of course, a unicorn with magic to burn could make the two points the same and self-levitate, but experiments in that direction had been almost lethally unsuccessful. Yes, it made the enchanted object ballistic, but nopony had figured out how to control the direction... or how to turn it off before it hit a wall and, if you were very lucky, shattered into uselessness.
The three experiments that had decided to go up might keep going forever...
It had been Twilight who'd decided to focus on converting magic into thrust. That used a variant of a repulsor field spell, much like the forcefields that protected the Crystal Empire. The engine contained the spell, twisted just so inside its coils, and the twisting produced exhaust that could be directed using engine bells or nozzles. Of course, using an ordinary repulsor spell, either a field or a beam, wouldn't work, because the ship would need something to push against, and space didn't have a lot of those...
Push. Push. Push.
Dr. Kapoor had used the word. That was what a rocket did, really. The explosion in the reaction chamber pushed outward in all directions. But there was engine bell and rocket in the way in certain directions, and no resistance in other directions. Net result: the ship got pushed in the direction you presumably wanted to go.
But something about the word push gripped Starlight's mind. There was an idea there, desperate to get out.
Suppose... a repulsor spell wouldn't do much good in space, but the MAV wasn't in space yet. And various force field spells and enchantments made it clear that, although you didn't get telekinesis without a living mind, you could enchant something to kick other things away just fine.
What if... what if we used repulsor spells... to push the MAV away from Mars?
It could actually be more efficient than the engines. A lot more.
"Dragonfly?"
"Sssh," Dragonfly said. "Composing message."
"Break off. Send stand by," Starlight said. "I have an idea."
AMICITAS: Disregard prior signal, stand by, over.
ESA: Is something wrong, over?
AMICITAS: SG — urgent request you test following hypothesis: that repulsorlift spell with large mana battery can lift and launch spacecraft. Urgently need to know maximum distance of effect, whether lift efficiency is stable or degrades over distance, etc. Could potentially save twenty tons on escape rocket weight, over.
ESA: TS — good idea. Do you know how to enchant repulsor spells? Over.
AMICITAS: SG — affirmative. Over.
ESA: MD — I think the spell will lose strength by the square of the distance between caster and target. Really inefficient. But we'll try it. Over.
AMICITAS: Thanks. Thanks. Out.
The instant she'd finished tapping the sign-off, Starlight leaped back to her hooves. "Mark!" she shouted. "We're going back to the cave after lunch!"
"What??" Mark asked. "What for?"
"I still have four batteries to make!" Starlight said. "And with the work I have to do, there's not a moment to spare!"
She'd have to drain eight of the remaining batteries to make it happen, which would mean no expansion of magic field time for quite a while, but she didn't care.
She wasn't going to miss doing the right thing this time.
If necessary, Starlight Glimmer would do all the things.
Author's Notes:
Well, this didn't really work out how I planned. I would cut out a big chunk of the middle, but the experiment list just kind of sits there like the lump of exposition it is without something to lead into... no matter how lame it is.
Dragonfly was originally going to make the Sunbutt crack, but I decided that she'd only say that at this point, knowing how thin ice she's on after her excess revelations, if she honestly wanted everyone to start hating her. Fireball, on the other hand, has no such concerns.
I cannot think of any magic object in the cartoon, in canon, that automatically picks things up and moves them without a pony controlling them, except possibly the Tree of Harmony. But we have multiple examples of forcefields that expand and hurl things away, so repulsion is where I've decided to go with explaining the new plan.
Someone commented, "YOU MUST BUILD MORE PYLONS."
Well, yeah.
But let Twilight Sparkle design them properly first.
More on that another chapter.
Anyway, this took more writing and more effort than I'd planned— a total of almost 2800 words of writing today— but the buffer's got a whole chapter again.
And finally... I thoroughly regret bringing up the subject of good and evil, comma, the banality thereof. Bad idea. Won't do it again.
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Sol 311
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 315
ARES III SOL 311
TRANSCRIPT — RADIO TELEGRAM FROM ESA AMICITAS TO NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER VIA DEEP SPACE ARRAY
AMICITAS: Friendship calling Earth, Friendship calling Earth, Friendship calling Earth. Operator Starlight Glimmer. We are exploring an alternative boost system which would not repeat not require Friendship main engines or batteries on MAV. Request calculation for three engines thrust for three minutes plus normal MAV liftoff. Also ask Rich Purnell if his theories cover Mars atmospheric decay of magic over distance. Will discuss in greater detail after comms blackout ends. Will repeat this message every two hours if no acknowledgement is received. Over.
NASA: Message received. Thanks. Good luck. Out.
The film flickered.
Angel Eleven had been the first of the Angel series to include a movie camera that would run for the minute or so of a full-length dimension-hop survey. Five of these films had been collected from the probe, returned to Equus, developed, and spliced together into this one silent reel. Now Twilight Sparkle and the available senior staff of the world's united space programs watched the film, noting the magic numbers on the top of the screen that showed the level of magic drain from the batteries and the time elapsed since the probe arrived in that universe.
Chrysalis, of course, wasn't there. She was still on Concordia, tending to the little probe between its jaunts. Thus far Angel Eleven had made twelve trips, three of which were aborts. In none of the nine non-abort worlds so far had the agreed-upon beacon signal been detected, so the probe kept going back out, and likely would until it met the same fate as its ten less-advanced predecessors.
Whatever else the effort to rescue the Amicitas crew was or wasn't accomplishing, it was teaching the space programs how to build a better space probe.
On the projection screen, in a field of black, a glowing disc came into view. After a moment it resolved into familiar features— the continents and oceans of Equus. The camera continued to pan across the planet, making a full rotation of three hundred sixty degrees, then stabilizing itself for the trip back to its home universe. Obviously an uneventful, uninteresting world.
The film flickered, and the cycle repeated. This time, however, the continents were different. The oceans were larger, the coastlines completely different. Not Equus, but a world in the exact same time and space as Equus in this world. Thousands of detected radio transmissions scrolled across the bottom of the screen, faster than the enchantment that burned them into the film had been able to keep up with. But aside from this, nothing happened.
Flicker. The blue-green planet was visible in the initial frame this time, but distant, much farther than the first two, so much so that it looked more like a flaw on the screen than a picture. No one could make out the continents. And then, as it rotated, the camera caught first the rounded edge, then the whole of a giant glowing pockmarked sphere— the moon, far too close for comfort. It looked like the back of Equus's moon— it was obviously between the probe and the planet, so it must be the back— and it had begun to noticeably get larger in the picture when the film flickered again.
This time the planet was closer than the third time, but farther than the first two. The continents could be identified, at least in part, as matching the second one. Another vast flood of radio signals flooded the crawl on the bottom of the screen. And then, as the camera began to turn away from the planet, for just a couple of seconds, the viewers saw what looked like an alien spaceship— angular, streamlined in places, armor-clad in others, oozing steel-gray menace— fly past the probe.
Then the probe's lens turned away, facing out into space, making its fifty-second-long rotation. The screen filled with blackness... and then, suddenly, it filled with gray, not in the shape of a spaceship, but in the shape of some kind of metal biped...
... with, Twilight Sparkle recognized in shock, a vaguely human-like face. It had a chin, a nose, and two glowing reddish-purple eyes. The face was framed in a sort of bucket helmet, the sort of thing that gladiators wore back in the days before the founding of Equestria. So far as she knew, she was the only one in the room who'd actually seen humans, and she certainly hadn't expected to see anything like them while on this side of the mirror...
The probe continued to turn. The camera passed over the metal figure, which seemed to study the probe with interest... and, after a moment, with a most unpleasant smile. (What, Twilight thought idly, did a metal creature need with teeth?) The planet drew back into view as the timer ran out for the scan...
... and then, as the probe was charging up the Drive for the hop back, the camera saw a truly immense hand, gleaming black metal against dull black nothing, reaching for the interloper. It became obvious, in the last second, that the hand was large enough to enclose the entire probe... and that it would have done so had the probe remained in that universe half a second longer.
The new scene was no improvement. What appeared to be magic bolts lit up the depths of space. Radio signal detection again flooded the data crawl, but at a slower pace than before. The slow rotation of the camera brought into view a world more or less like the second and fourth, but one that seemed the worse for wear.
Another giant metal biped appeared, soaring out of the darkness on jets, then coming to rest next to the probe. This wasn't quite as large as the one from the prior universe, but it was immense; a gray, squat-looking thing carrying some kind of firearm in its hands, a single glowing eye sweeping back and forth in its otherwise expressionless face as it scanned the area. Then the eye focused on the probe, and again a giant metal hand reached for it...
... only to be stopped as bolts slammed into the thing, sending up an explosion in its jets and blasting holes through its armor. The blasts and shrapnel barely missed the probe, which continued turning, unconcerned for its fate.
And to her horror, just before the colossus was lost to view, Twilight saw a limp human figure floating half-extended through one of the holes caused by the blasts. The robot— for obviously that's what it was— had had a pilot. The others in the room saw, and almost to a one they gasped in shock at the sight.
And then the camera saw another robot flying into view, this one white and gold and black, bearing a gigantic shield on one arm. Its face had two tiny eyes rather than the first robot's one giant glowing one, but that was the only way it resembled a human face at all. It too braked to a relative stop to the probe, firing one-handed with a huge blaster rifle at something the probe couldn't see. Its blaster went dead, and in a flash of motion it dropped the giant gun, reached behind its back, and drew out what appeared to be a sword made entirely of lightning, lightning caught and forced to hold a saber-like curve.
And then the sword whipped up just in time to parry an axe made from red energy coming down—
— and the film ended.
Someone switched the lights back on in the Cape Friendship conference room.
Occupant, the changeling who ran the Changeling Space Program these days, hissed, "Is that what our probes have been going through all this time?"
"For all we know," Moondancer said, "it could be."
The buck-toothed changeling in the white vest shivered. "Dimensional travel is scary," he said.
Twilight Sparkle certainly couldn't argue with that. What if any of those robots had been touching the probe when it made its hop home? Would the Drive have failed to function? Or would they have come to Equus along with the probe? If they were hostile, what could Equestria possibly do to stop them? The astromares currently on orbit would be sitting ducks for certain...
I will be so glad when we rescue our friends, she thought. Then we can be done with universe-hopping once and for all. One universe is more than enough to explore. The danger involved with these other worlds just doesn't bear thinking about...
Author's Notes:
Buffer holds at one.
This chapter exists for two reasons: (1) to give the ponies an even more blatant reason than ten lost probes to regard dimensional exploration as Bloody Dangerous, and (2) I wanted to give Megatron a cameo. (Transformers Prime version, both because it's my favorite version of Megatron as a character and because that Megatron, if the Hub was to be believed, might not actually be as obnoxious a visitor to Equestria as others... at least he seems to have a soft spot for musical numbers.)
The other robots were generically Gundams. Well, a Zaku and a Gundam, anyway, but you know what I mean.
MLP: the Maretian... A FAMILY SHOW!!
Buffer remains at one.
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Sol 314
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"Are you telling me," Teddy said carefully, "that the aliens might have accidentally set up a gray goo Doomsday scenario on Mars? And they're not telling us about it until now?"
"No," Venkat said, "I'm saying the exact opposite. Something weird happened, they performed some experiments, and they're fairly sure it's not a gray goo event."
It had taken three iterations over three days, but the report had come in over the Pathfinder chat from Starlight Glimmer, who had sent it— or the abstract, anyway, since a proper report would be much longer— one line at a time, with the lines numbered, thus:
[08:15] WATNEY: (1) Starlight Glimmer here. Posts are numbered; reply with any numbers not received and highest number post received so I can re-send only those missing.
[08:17] WATNEY: (2) The method used to successfully revive Dragonfly had an unexpected effect. We became curious and began an investigation.
[08:19] WATNEY: (3) It seems I accidentally produced a strange random enchantment in the crystals behind Dragonfly's cocoon, and it appears to be self-replicating.
And so on. There were forty-seven lines in the initial report, not all of which related to the rainbow crystals described on lines 6, 7 and 8. Two-thirds of the lines made it through the increasing solar interference on the first pass, but three lines persistently got eaten and required a total of six repetitions before they got through— by which time Starlight had added seventeen lines of follow-up report, all without any response by NASA aside for requests to repeat lines not received.
"The rainbow crystals go inert in the absence of magic," Venkat said, repeating a point he'd made in the presentation to Teddy. "And apparently, since our universe doesn't have a magic constant higher than zero, magic doesn't propagate well through solid objects. It tends to either be absorbed or reflected away. And the enchantment requires crystals above a certain size threshold to function. So it's safe to say that the enchantment is confined to the crystal cave. Which, of course, is already contaminated all to hell with Earth bacteria, plant life, and our castaways."
"But the fact remains that it was a possible global catastrophe," Teddy said, "and the crew didn't see fit to tell us until now."
"Bear in mind it's getting impossible for them to tell us anything," Venkat replied. "And anyway, if they had told us, what could we have done? We know nothing about magic beyond what we read in Starlight Glimmer's reports. But there on Mars we have a magic expert plus Mark Watney, a trained and experienced scientist. They saw the problem, tackled it systematically and scientifically, and their preliminary report is that it's a non-issue. Absolutely harmless."
"All right," Teddy said. "What does this absolutely harmless enchantment do?"
"It stores magical energy," Venkat said. "It uses that energy for two things; duplicating the enchantment in crystals in physical contact, and changing the colors of the crystal without changing the chemical composition. According to Starlight, you can add at least one enchantment to it, and the new enchantment will replicate with the old, but the new enchantment will function a lot more weakly than if it were placed on a clean crystal."
"So," Teddy said, "not particularly useful?"
Venkat shook his head. "Starlight used a line of her report to make clear that a purpose-made enchantment would be an order of magnitude more efficient than the random one. The main curiosity is that, according to her, it follows none of the ponies' known rules about enchantment design. She doesn't know how the enchantment does anything that it does, only that it does it."
"I see," Teddy said carefully. "Are there any long-term consequences from this?"
"Only one, at least as far as the wild crystals go," Venkat said. "Any enchantment is difficult to remove once laid on. It's always easier to destroy the enchanted object than to clear it of spells. The wild enchantment is easy to break, but almost impossible to clean completely. So any infected crystal becomes almost useless for future applications in pony magical technology." Venkat allowed himself to smile just a little as he added, "However, a pre-existing enchantment immunizes the crystal from the rainbow infection."
"So you're saying they can contain the infection."
"It'll probably contain itself," Venkat said. "It's spreading at about a meter every five sols. At that rate the first chamber of the cave might not be completely converted by the time Ares IV lands on Mars years from now. And that's assuming the farm doesn't die when Mark and the ponies leave, which it almost certainly will without the heat and air cycling provided by the pony life support system. Without the farm, the crystals won't have any magic, and the enchantment will shut down."
"All right. Good." Teddy nodded. "I'm still disappointed that they waited until now to present this to us, but I can see where the decision came from. And, for once, this doesn't actually present any problems for the rescue plan."
"Well," Venkat said uncomfortably, "yes and no."
"Yes and no?" Teddy asked. "Explain, please."
"One of the last experiments they did with the rainbow crystals was to see what they'd do outside," Venkat said. "They already knew the crystals wouldn't infect ordinary rock or sand or even small crystal pieces. But even surrounded by crystals, outside on the surface of Mars they did nothing.
"But that made Starlight curious about something. They assumed that their magic batteries recharged faster when close to life and not at all away from it, but they hadn't really questioned whether the batteries could recharge on the opposite side of a wall from life. So they conducted two experiments, with controls. In one case they compared a battery in the Hab with one immediately on the other side of the Hab canvas— even giving it a stand so it wouldn't be blocked by the Hab flooring or internal components. In the other, they compared a battery sitting just outside the cave airlock with one of the ones charging normally inside the cave.
"The results were really clear-cut. In both cases, the battery outside didn't recharge at all. In fact, both batteries actually lost a tiny bit of charge."
"What?" Teddy asked. "Lost charge?"
"The battery casings have readouts on them," Venkat said, "to show charge level. Also control systems to balance load and charge levels. It's a very tiny power draw, but it's not zero. In their home universe that's not a problem, because the universal magic constant would more than cover the loss. There the batteries function more like power collectors and regulators than actual storage units. But on Mars, in our universe?"
"No recharge," Teddy said glumly. "And that means any batteries carried on the outside of the Sirius tandem rover won't recharge at all."
Venkat nodded. "Starlight says that once they get moving, magic use will have to be reduced to emergencies only. The big batteries for launch— however we do it— will have to be fully charged at the start of the trip and topped off from other batteries right up until launch." He took a deep breath to steady himself, then continued, "That means any procedures we suggest during the trip will have to be based entirely on non-magical resources. Mark and his equipment, basically."
"Let's hope they won't be needed," Teddy said, and then winced a second after he'd said it. "And I just guaranteed they will, didn't I?"
"Look on the bright side," Venkat said. "This is Mars we're talking about. It's not like it was ever going to go easy on us."
"Mike, I have a problem," Rich said.
Mike tried not to roll his eyes. Rich now had an office bigger than Mike's. The only reason he didn't get Mike's job was that he didn't want it (and, also, both Director Sanders and Dr. Kapoor saw Rich was not supervisor material). Those things which Rich Purnell wanted, he got more or less instantly. It was a tribute to Rich's innate decency— or, at least, his extremely narrow personal vision— that he showed no inclination to abuse that power... or, for that matter, no awareness that the power even existed to be abused.
"What is it, Rich?" Mike asked.
"This job from Dr. Glimmer," Rich said, handing Mike a piece of paper. "I don't have the pony baseline for air resistance to coherent magic. I could assume that their homeworld's atmosphere has the same properties as ours, but I still need the baseline before I can calculate what it would be on Mars. And I don't want to get you in trouble again for asking her directly."
"Thank you," Mike said. "Well, this job is top priority, so I'll go straight to Dr. Kapoor with it. But I warn you, our comms with Mars are pretty ratty right now."
"Solar conjunction," Rich said. "Yes, I know. I thought I'd go home while I was waiting." He leaned a bit closer and said in a quieter tone, "I noticed today I don't smell very good."
Mike pretended not to hear the soft single beep that sounded from somewhere in the Astrodynamics cubicle hive. Just as he'd pretended for some time now that he knew nothing about the Rich Purnell Hygiene Betting Pool. If he did take notice, he'd have to shut it down, and that would hurt morale more than allowing it to run, no matter how cruel it was to Rich.
But he'd have to talk to Rich again about the subject sometime soon... once he figured out a new way to say a thing he'd tried to tell the man about a dozen times with no success. In fact, he might have to just start ordering him home again every so often, blessings from on high or not.
"That's probably a good idea, Rich," he said. "Other people don't like being around people who smell."
"Thanks," Rich said. "I'll try to remember that." And, without any further leavetaking, Rich walked out.
The hell of it is, Mike thought, he sincerely means it when he says he'll try to remember it.
Shaking his head at some of the strange personalities you met in government work and in space flight, he checked over Rich's note, found it complete without being too verbose, and got up to take it to the admin building and Dr. Kapoor.
As he stepped out the same door Rich had left by, he heard someone— he carefully didn't recognize the voice— call out, "Okay, who had five days, four hours, and twenty-two minutes?"
Author's Notes:
I figured it was time to have a peek at Earth again. It felt more interesting to deliver rainbow-crystal experiment results this way.
Tonight's KWLP (9 PM Central, dementiaradio.org) is Anti-Christmas— not in the sense that I oppose Christmas, but that this is the opposite end of the calendar from Christmas. I don't play Christmas music in December because I'm one of those who gets oversaturated with it pretty quickly... but I do like some Christmas music, especially the comedy, so I play it in the summertime.
BTW, I highly recommend that any of you who enjoy my streaming-radio thing join the Dementia Radio FB group. That lets you vote for your favorites of the songs I play each week, and it also keeps you up to date on the other live shows the little organization has each week.
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Sol 316-318
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 320
ARES III SOL 316
[08:35] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[09:36] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:37] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[11:38] JPL: Yesterday's message about magic resistance received. Today's AOK message received by Morse. All looks well from here.
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 321
ARES III SOL 317
[08:35] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[09:36] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:37] JPL: Today's AOK message received. No changes here.
They allowed Mark to read the entire chapter this time. None of them— the ponies, Fireball, not even Dragonfly— could bring themselves to take a turn. They listened from the beginning, as the Lord of the Nazgul left the smashed gate of Minas Tirith, to the end, and Mark's sonorous, rhythmic chanting of the list of the dead.
Dragonfly felt her own sadness, and that of the ponies, and even of Fireball, who normally had no real problem with the violence and death in human stories. She was shocked that Mark didn't feel the same way; to him this was just a story.
She was more shocked that she was shocked herself.
After waiting a minute for the ponies to volunteer their usual post-reading comments, and getting choked silence and a couple of sniffles from Starlight Glimmer, Mark said, "For most of his adult life the writer was a professor of linguistics and ancient literature. He specialized in the writings of his ancestors from a thousand years before— what little survived, that is. And most of it was like the chant at the end there, celebrating glorious death in battle and then mourning the fallen."
"Who— could— cel-e-brate— death— in— battle?" The sentence obviously took every ounce of concentration Spitfire could muster, but every word came out like a punch to the gut.
"My ancestors," Mark said. "And Tolkien's. He based the Rohirrim on a people called the Anglo-Saxons. They eventually became the core of the nation called England. And my family is descended from English settlers. And the Anglo-Saxons practically worshipped war. In fact, they were part of a greater culture that taught that the only honorable death was in battle. If you died from disease or old age, then you would be forced to join the forces of evil in the Last Battle at the end of the universe."
"That," Fireball said with authority, "is messed up."
"The Battle of Five Armies wasn't this bad. Helm's Deep wasn't this bad. Even the Battle of Hogwarts wasn't this bad," Cherry Berry added.
"And he wrote it this way because he liked war?" Dragonfly asked.
"No. Very much the opposite," Mark said. "He was writing to create a myth like the ones he studied, but he also wanted to make the war as terrible and disgusting as he could at the time. You see, when he was a young man— about half my age— there was a great war, in which countries from all over the world took part. Tolkien's schoolmates and himself all volunteered for the war. And Tolkien saw horrible things, and then was wounded— I don't remember how, but he spent over a year in a hospital recovering. And out of all his schoolmates, he was the only survivor."
The choked silence after this revelation lay thick enough to suffocate the farm, or so it seemed to Dragonfly. She managed to volunteer, "You know, when we were thrown hundreds of kilometers back into the Badlands by the power of love, it always surprised us a little that none of us actually died. We lost a few deserters, and a few of us had broken bones or wings from impact, but no death. And of course we took care not to kill any ponies. That would have been wasteful." She raised her hooves and waved them at the computer Mark had been reading from. "But this? This?? All those men. And even the orcs. How many of them chose to be there? And how many had a whip at their back?"
"She has a point," Starlight said. "No species is all evil. Though Dragonfly makes us wonder sometimes."
"Hey! I'm working on it! Has Fluttershy overcome her fear of crowds yet?"
"Before this goes any further," Mark said, "I'll point out that Tolkien was dinged by future generations about the whole idea of races being inherently evil. A lot of authors even wrote books specifically to create orcs or goblins or whatever who weren't all murderous backstabbing bastards. But to put things in context... well, remember my explanation of Sanford and Son? That show was made twenty years after these books were published. And Tolkien was almost sixty years old at that time. So he came from a generation with... hm, let's say blind spots."
"I still say your species needs some immortal princesses," Starlight muttered in response.
"I want to talk about Eowyn for a minute," Cherry Berry broke in. "She was Dernhelm all this time? She chose to ride into battle? She deliberately chose to do that?? Why?"
Mark considered this. "Well, it's explained a bit in the book," he said, "but you wouldn't get the cultural parts. Put it this way. First, she was a noble of Rohan. But since the Rohirrim are a warrior culture— and one in which warrior is a males-only job-"
This got a snort out of Spitfire big enough for a horse.
"-yes, I know, but that's how it was in my culture for about two thousand years," Mark said. "Her brothers and other kinsmen— emphasis on men— got to ride out and do great deeds and be remembered. She got to stay home and watch her uncle go senile under Wormtongue's spell. When she died, Eowyn wouldn't even get her name on a tombstone unless two men fought a civil war to marry her. But she wanted to be great, just like them. Especially since, as it seemed at the time, their people and everything else good in the world was about to go under."
"Messed. Up," Fireball repeated.
"No, not messed up," Dragonfly said. "This is just like changelings."
"Really?" Mark asked. "How's that?"
"In the hive the elites become infiltrators," Dragonfly said. "Not every changeling can go and really blend in with ponies, after all— only the smartest and sneakiest. I just barely made it, and only because I was fast enough to be a courier. Sure, you need bugs to do the other jobs— guarding, taking care of the larva, maintaining the hive, and all that— but there was always this feeling that you weren't a real changeling if you weren't out there stealing love from ponies."
"I'm pretty sure," Starlight said, "that if Rohan was made up of love-eating insect people, Mr. Tolkien would have dropped a hint about it by now."
"It's not a perfect comparison," Dragonfly said. "But think about what it's like to be raised as one of the top changelings, strong, smart, good at disguises and voices, and then being told you have to stay home and take care of a senile queen or defend the old drones and larvae while everyone else goes off to crash a wedding. I know I'd find a way to go on the raid if I thought I could get away with it.
"And Eowyn? She's one of... lemme count... yes, three— ONLY THREE! Three female characters with an actual NAME in this whole story!" She paused. "Wait, no, four, I keep forgetting Bilbo's cousin-in-law, what's her name. But anyway it's obvious she wants to do something important, something people will remember, and nobody will let her! Nobody will give her a chance!" She turned to Cherry and said, "And I know you understand that one, boss!" She pointed to one of her own wings, which didn't look as shriveled as they had when she first came out of the cocoon, for emphasis.
Cherry nodded. "So she went to war," she said, a tear running down her muzzle. "Poor girl. She's going to die in the hospital, isn't she?"
"Now we're getting into spoilers," Mark warned.
"I knew it! She IS going to die!"
Dragonfly decided to shut this down before their commander went into soppy romantic pony hysterics. "Nah, no way," she said, making her tone as callous as possible. "I bet she's stuck in a hospital bed next to one of the wounded soldiers— maybe that Faramir guy, the writer sure played him up— and they'll spend time together and fall in love, because that's what people in a hospital do."
It worked. Cherry's crying jag aborted mid-launch, as the pink earth pony stared at the changeling in total disbelief. "What?" she asked. "Where did you come up with a... a... a stupid-stupid idea like that?"
"From my queen's collection of bad romance paperbacks," Dragonfly replied. "When we get home, don't tell her I stole them."
Not that Dragonfly believed a word of her own proposal. No, she figured Eowyn was done for, and there'd be a tragic bedside scene in the next chapter or two as she faded from life. That seemed the properly melodramatic boo-hiss-war thing to do.
After all, if Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks didn't get their happy-ever-after, in a book series written for little kids, why should this war-obsessed suicidal nut?
"But it can't be Faramir," Starlight pointed out. "Isn't he dying? Isn't Denethor about to cremate him?"
"What is-"
"Burn to ashes!"
"Hey, no need be personal!"
Mark interrupted before misunderstandings could escalate. "We get back to Pippin next chapter," he said. "And I think that's a good place to stop, suit up, and head back to the Hab for lunch."
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 322
ARES III SOL 318
[08:26] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[09:27] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:28] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[10:42] SYSTEM: ERROR — Loss of Signal — Probe in Acquisition Mode
[10:48] SYSTEM: Signal Acquisition — Chat Restored
[10:50] SYSTEM: ERROR — Loss of Signal — Probe in Acquisition Mode
[11:00] SYSTEM: Session Timeout (LOS Error, Reacquisition Failure 600 seconds)
Author's Notes:
The idea of mares not being allowed to go out and fight is pretty alien to the Equestrians. It'd be even more alien if not for the mostly-male Royal Guard, but as we all know they only exist to look pretty and to sneak cake to Celestia.
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Sol 320
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MISSION LOG — SOL 320
You know, Superman wasn't the first man to fly without wings. There were some saints back in the Middle Ages who could fly. Of course the only record we have of it is in the paperwork the Vatican of the time put together to justify their sainthood, so take that with a clump of magically harvested Martian salt. The story is the same in all cases: they flew for no other reason than that they were happy about being holy, or something. They didn't do anything with it like, I dunno, rescue orphans from cathederal spires or anything like that. Just a couple laps around the ceiling and `yay God,' and that was all.
Of course, those saints might be just as fictional as Superman for all we know today. The only reason I bring them up (besides the fact they're practically all I remember from my Comparative Religion class in college) is that, if we discount those stories as myth, that makes me the first human being to fly through the air on a non-ballistic trajectory without the use of any mechanical aid whatever. I can say that because a unicorn is not a machine, and Starlight Glimmer is nobody's idea of a mechanic.
What I'm talking about is, we decided to go ahead and tackle mounting solar panels to the roof of the trailer today. Dragonfly and I worked together and made me a tether belt that would allow me to hook on to two of the mounting points that used to hold Friendship's outer skin to the pressure vessel. That way, if I slipped, I'd have at least one hook to keep me from falling all the way to the ground.
And to get me up and down from the roof of the ex-ship, Starlight levitated me up at the start of the job and then down at the end. To tell the truth, it freaked me out— a lot. It's one thing to know I'm safely in the magical grip of a unicorn with a full battery under her hooves. But in the back of my brain is my monkey ancestor, the one who knows nothing about magic, the one that a couple million years of evolution taught: if you're out of the tree, you fall. And that monkey screeched the entire time my feet weren't firmly on either regolith or steel.
But aside from that, it was a good EVA. Starlight lifted the panels up to me, I used the existing stake holes to bolt them onto the ship's mounting points, and Fireball plugged each wire into the harness we'd already set up to run through the ship's charging point and its electrical system. That's already connected to the Hab, so it's as if the panels never left the Hab's solar farm. It went like clockwork, mostly because we took our time, didn't rush, and were very careful.
We quit when the CO2 alarm went off in my suit, indicating the current filter was saturated and needed replacing. In four hours we mounted twelve panels, which means it'll take another five to six hours to finish covering the top of the Whinnybago with solar cells.
All in all, a productive enough day. It kind of fills in for the loss of communications with Earth, which I'm missing a lot more than I ought to. I mean, for the last couple weeks we could barely say anything at all, and in another month or so we should have a clear connection again better than before. But for some reason I feel cut off and alone anyway.
Maybe I'll ask Starlight or Dragonfly to work their water telegraph and let me chat with their bosses. I don't think I've ever spoken directly to them yet. Now might not be a bad time to try it.
Well, not now-now, now. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight Starlight Glimmer has promised a new campaign. She's decided to try making a homebrew adaptation of the D&D rules we have for pony characters.
That's right. I'm going to roleplay a talking horse.
Because hey, if you haven't noticed, my dignity left this planet along with my crew and the Ares III MAV. So why not?
"The Tree of Harmony, its branches limp, its colors dull, deposits the shards of the Elements of Harmony at your hooves."
"How does it do that?" Mark asked. "It's a tree, isn't it?"
"Ssh," Spitfire said. "Magic thing."
The two of them looked at Starlight Glimmer, who glared at them for a moment before resuming her opening to the adventure. "The five of you gathered here, in the very shadow of Nightmare Satellite's castle, made your way across Dark Equestria, avoiding the patrols of the Shadow Storm Troops, to arrive here. And in this holy place, the one place the Nightmare's power has not yet touched, you have been entrusted with the mission of restoring harmony and peace to this accursed land."
Her horn lit up, and a line drawing in light of a rampant mare wearing helmet and armor appeared above her head. "Nightmare Satellite, who returned from a thousand years of exile, destroyed the Elements and imprisoned her sister, Princess Celestia, in the same moon that once held her. Now she rules from the castle just two hundred hooves above where you stand in the gorge, ruling a land that never sees the sun with an iron hoof.
"She rules through seven mares she has brainwashed, seven exceptionally talented and dangerous ponies. Her vizier, the meticulous Dawn Rays. Her chief enforcer, Monochrome Wave. Her chief of intelligence, the unstoppable Pinkie Spy. Her chief of the secret police, Commonplace. The mighty mare-mountain Applecrack. The mistress of the creatures of the night, Fluttermoth. And, second only to Nightmare Satellite herself, the wicked sorceress Garlight Slimmer."
This last name was too much for the others, and they all broke down laughing, even Fireball.
"Hey!" Starlight shouted. "I forgot to put in a real name, all right? That was supposed to be a placeholder."
More laughter, with Mark interjecting, "Whatever you say, Garlight." That set the others off again.
"So hey!" Dragonfly said. "What's her master plan? `Bow to me or you'll loose ten to fifteen pounds in a month while eating what you normally eat?'"
The laughter continued for a moment, then cut off at the sound of one of Starlight's magic-carved crystal dice trundling atop the worktable behind the computer screen.
"What are you rolling for, Starlight?" Mark asked, no trace of amusement in his voice.
"Nothing," Starlight said innocently.
The others looked at each other, then went silent.
"All righty," Starlight said brightly. "Continuing. Only one hope remains to restore Equestrian freedom. The four sacred horseshoes of Celestia lie broken and scattered in the four corners of the kingdom-"
"How do we know?" Cherry Berry asked. "Who's telling us? Isn't it just us and the tree?"
"Rrrgh! You just know, okay? Magic mystic harmony knowledge thing!" Starlight took a deep breath. "You must retrieve the four sacred horseshoes and then bring them all to the Dragonroost to be reforged in the hottest flames of the world by the hottest dragons-"
Mark failed to suppress a snort of amusement. Struggling mightily to not make it two snorts, he covered his mouth and waved away Starlight's furious stare.
"-reforged so that Princess Celestia may be released from her prison. Along the way you will face all of Nightmare Satellite's minions, who must be released from the spell of the Nightmare so that the five Elements whose dust you now hold will be restored. Only then will the sixth element reveal itself, and only with all six elements can Celestia's power be restored and the Nightmare and her evil sorceress overthrown for good."
The five players looked at each other.
"Er," Starlight Glimmer added, a little uncertain, "that's it. You can interact now if you want."
Cherry Berry pushed her computer forward. "I wanna re-roll my character," she said. "I want a hobbit."
"How about we steal airship, turn pirate?" Fireball asked. "Go to that city south of the Burning Sands."
"Pirate is good," Spitfire agreed.
"Does this city in the south have a Thieves' Guild?" Mark asked.
"What I hear," Fireball said, "whole city is thieves."
Cherry Berry looked interested in this. "Do we steal the ship here, or do we go to the city and steal one there?" she asked.
Starlight Glimmer moaned and tapped her forehead against the edge of the table.
Author's Notes:
Classic beginner-DM mistake: drop a sixteen-ton plot hook on top of low-level characters and expect them to defy all common sense.
Yes, Starlight finally found the name Celestia... and she used it as a FAKE name for her Celestia-parallel NPC. Connection not yet made. Might or might not revisit this later.
I read about the flying saints in a 1980s era "Mysteries of the Universe" book; it was in the school library, but I have to wonder how, since it was one of those Time/Life TV-ad mail-order books. I remember absolutely none of the names, but I remember that flying was apparently #3 on the "rubber stamp a Middle Ages saint" miracle list, #2 being stigmata and #1 being the classic, speaking in tongues. It felt like about a quarter of the book was stories of saints, with precisely one "historical" source per saint. (It's worth noting, for those Catholics reading this, that the saints in question were none of the major ones— they were all local priests or monks of one kind or another, not a single martyr in the bunch.)
Wrote about 1800 words today in two short chapters, so the buffer now stands at 2.
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Sol 322
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 327
ARES III SOL 322
TRANSCRIPT — WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit SG for response, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Mark wishes to speak to Twilight Sparkle and/or Chrysalis, over.
ESA: QC — lucky you, I just splashed down four days ago. Princess Egghead is busy designing new system for Angel Twelve. Put him on.
AMICITAS: Greetings and salutations from Earth, oh glorious Queen Chrysalis. I am Master Mark Watney, astronaut and explorer. I salute you on behalf of my people, over.
ESA: QC — What did he really say, over?
AMICITAS: No, that was all Mark, over.
ESA: You're putting me on, over.
AMICITAS: DF — He said it, my queen. He says, "Never spoke to a queen before, and I wanted to do it right." Over.
ESA: Hello, Mark. How is my subject? How is my pilot? Tell me what the ponies won't. And leave out the diplomatic talk, I only get that on letters from Canterlot complaining about dumb things like bills, subpoenas, drones running up hotel bills, like that, over.
AMICITAS: "Dragonfly's slowly getting better physically. She still creeps us out sometimes. And Cherry Berry can't make a Streetwise roll to save her neck." Over.
ESA: Don't infect me with your nerdiness, Mark. As for Dragonfly, good to hear she keeps you guessing. Over.
AMICITAS: "How can you be an astronaut and not be a nerd?" Over.
ESA: It's a burden being the one with common sense, but I bear it well. Over.
AMICITAS: "No, seriously. Even Martinez (human crewmate) has a degree in systems engineering. You have to learn tons of stuff to fly. Nerd is how you get to be an astronaut." Over.
ESA: Or you can be the one writing the nerds' paychecks, over.
AMICITAS: "That works too. But if that's the case, why do you fly? It can't be for the science or the adventure." Over.
ESA: You don't have to be a nerd to enjoy being in space. I get to look down on all the little people. What got you out into space, then? Over.
AMICITAS: "Astronauts were always my heroes. And when the Mars missions began, I figured if people were going to Mars they needed to learn how to grow crops there. I was more right than I thought." Over.
ESA: What does that have to do with you?
AMICITAS: "I'm a (scientist of farming). Growing things is my career. Well, was. Now my career is Not Being Killed By Mars." Over.
ESA: Not much chance of promotion there, over.
AMICITAS: "It has more of a future than the alternative. I get to turn forty-two in a few days, so that's something." Over.
ESA: You're having a birthday?? (note: remainder of transmission was too rapid-fire for anyone to decipher, but it went on for quite some time)
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, comms check and get Pinkie Pie away from the life support, over.
ESA: TS — Taken care of. Pinkie asks me to tell you all your backlog of birthday parties will be made up once you arrive safe at home, Mark included, over.
AMICITAS: Amicitas copies birthday parties for all, over.
ESA: TS — Sorry, but we have to go now. Chrysalis says Mark gave her something to think about. That worries me, over.
AMICITAS: DF— That's my queen! What progress on rescue, over?
ESA: TS — No progress without another big spell on your end. Experiments on booster idea show promise, over.
AMICITAS: SG — Will let you know if we have plans for another big spell. Until then we're trying to moderate use of magic to save up battery charge, over.
ESA: Understood. Keep us informed. Out.
Author's Notes:
It's short, but this is all there was for that sol— Mark trying to stave off boredom by chatting up Chrysalis.
Maintaining buffer at two.
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Sol 325
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MISSION LOG — SOL 325
You know, I thought yesterday was a bit subdued because of the book reading. Yesterday was Volcano Day in Lord of the Rings. There was a bit of discussion about whether or not to feel sorry for Gollum's death, but nobody's heart was in it. The attitude was summed up by Cherry, who said, "Well, I wasn't expecting that." Apparently nobody else did, either. In particular Dragonfly didn't say a word about it, and that seemed pretty weird at the time.
Well, now I know. They were quiet because they were plotting and planning. And here's the result (photo attached)— a birthday cake! Yes, they looked it up on the computers and found out that today really is my forty-second birthday. Starlight and Dragonfly must have mentioned it to the others after my chat with Dragonfly's mom.
Quick tangent here— no, Dragonfly is not a princess. If she was there would be tens of thousands of princesses. Apparently changelings can mate without one of them being a queen, but the queen is mother to most of the drones under her rule, or so Dragonfly says. And in any case, Chrysalis doesn't really encourage family bonds. Nobody calls her "Mom" to her face. All this is what Dragonfly tells me, and it sounds like there's a ton more family dysfunction just under that blanket that I don't want to get involved with— especially considering how shit-her-nonexistent-pants terrified she looked when I called her "Princess Dragonfly" as a joke. I won't do that twice.
But back to cake. You see the photo— it's a lovely thing, isn't it? Fancy yellow and red and blue icing that spells out HAPPY 42 MARK in three languages. (Yes, three. You see those stars, rainbows, horseshoes and things around the perimeter? Those aren't decoration. That's actually Ancient Pony pictograms or somesuch. I wonder how you write O THE DIABETES in Ancient Pony?)
Anyway, yeah— beautiful cake. But I knew damn well we had nothing for cake-making. So after congratulating the kids on their work (it's cake!), documenting it for posterity (it's cake!), and singing the pony version of the birthday song (it's cake!), I got them to admit the horrible truth (it isn't cake).
My forty-second birthday was celebrated with a cake sculpted out of mashed potatoes.
To be specific, the ponies microwaved about ten potatoes again and again until they were total mush, removed the skins, mixed in a bunch of salt so it wouldn't be absolute misery to try to eat, sculpted the pile into a cake shape (two layers), stuck it back in the microwave for one more pass, then used magic to seal up the fault lines and to change the color on the surface so it looked like it was iced. And, waste not want not, they took the potato skins plus some more sliced potatoes and used them to make chips like we did at the party a couple weeks back.
But there was one bright spot. Between the two layers they spread a layer of mustard— they found some mustard packs stashed somewhere or other, the last Earth-produced condiment in the Hab, and they used it up to give this alleged cake a flavor other than dreadful. Now mustard isn't my favorite sauce in the world, but it tastes a hell of a lot better than plain mashed potato, so all in all it was a success.
So we ate "cake" and chips, played games (but not Pin the Antenna, because Spitfire's result deserves to stand as perfection for all time), and discussed birthday traditions. As you've read, ponies have birthday parties like our kids do, but there's no shame in playing what we humans would call kiddie games. If it's fun (and won't cause trouble if done in public), they do it, because what's so great about growing up anyway?
(Note: Cherry mentions one big birthday party where everybody got to take rides on what sound like baby hippos. My brain just does not want to process that image.)
Dragonfly tells me the hive didn't even track birthdays until the space race began, but the custom is beginning to catch on with the prosperity of her hive these days. Changelings don't throw parties, though; it's a simple, quiet, private exchange of gifts and maybe a trip with a few friends to do something fun together. (Note to self: must get a better description of this "Fun Machine" Dragonfly mentioned. Her first attempt to explain was something like a Marvel fan explaining the first Avengers movie to someone who's never seen it.)
Fireball says dragons don't do birthdays because they have this condition called "greed growth." If they get too many things too fast, their hoarding instinct goes wild, which affects their magic and turns them into, if I understand him right, Godzilla. He knows one dragon who gets birthday presents, but it's usually stuff he doesn't really care for.
Who knew it sucked so much to be a winged fire-breathing lizard?
Anyway, Starlight is finishing up a second batch of chips now. We're going to polish off the tater cake (because as successful as it was, none of us wants it for leftovers tomorrow), munch chips, and enjoy a TV rerun marathon. After a bit of discussion, we decided that Dukes of Hazzard was our favorite. (In all honesty, the ponies vastly prefer Partridge Family, even now that they understand the words, but they're having mercy on me because it's my birthday. And I'm having mercy on them and not subjecting them to Kolchak or Barney Miller.)
Tomorrow it's back to work. We can't finalize the design for the new saddlebags until we know for sure what we are and aren't hauling in them, and the engines might not make the trip either. So the only action item left we can do without NASA input is adding two of the Hab's hydrogen power cells to Rover 2. We'll tackle that tomorrow. It'll mean losing the passenger bench, but I think we can still haul our harvests in the remaining space. It just means Fireball will have to ride on top and Starlight inside while the others trot alongside.
After that? I dunno. Hab maintenance, probably. Possibly assist Starlight with more experiments on those funky lava-lamp crystals.
Speaking of, here she comes with the chips. Time for flying cars, cutoff jeans, and a celebration of cringe-worthy borderline-racist hillbilly culture.
Author's Notes:
Yes, most of them have run out of things to do, or nearly so.
The producers of Dukes of Hazzard realized after the first season, "You know, we've got an all-white cast in the South. This is a problem. We need to drop some black characters in here and there, and they can't be comedy characters or else we'll catch hell for it."
This resulted in a few black one-episode characters, usually heavies— like the FBI agent investigating Boss Hogg once, for example— and one occasionally recurring character, the black sheriff of the next county over. (That's right: a black sheriff in Georgia in 1980. Not impossible, but certainly not how I'd bet.) Unfortunately, not only did this character almost never get any dialog, but the only character development we ever get is that he's just as corrupt as Roscoe... but more competent.
And then, of course, there's the thing with the rebel flag on the roof of the car, etc.
Anyway, enough justifying the last line. I need help. I know that at one point I wrote up a description of all the chambers of the Site Epsilon crystal cave... but I can't find it. And I need it to move on with the chapter I was working on today. I assume I posted it somewhere that you all could read it, so I'm hoping someone remembers and can find it for me. Otherwise I'll have to make it up all over again, and I'm sure one of you would find it after I posted that.
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Sol 328
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 333
ARES III SOL 328
"Well, look at the bright side," Cherry Berry said. "No one's died yet."
"Death would be a relief," Fireball rumbled, but quietly.
The four of them— Cherry, Fireball, Mark and Spitfire— sat or leaned by The Stump, watching from a distance as Starlight Glimmer focused her full concentration on enchanting the seven remaining jumbo mana batteries. Dragonfly, as usual, stayed as close as she could to the battery projecting the magic field required for the operation, soaking up all the magic her still-weakened system could absorb.
Spitfire growled softly and said, "Don't know how long I can take this."
"I don't know about you," Mark said, "but I'm enjoying myself. I'm learning so much about your home world with every game session."
"But it so stupid!" Spitfire protested. "Go to pirate town, there Rainbow... I mean Mo-No-Chrome. Stupid name. Go to sea-ponies, there Pinkie. Go to griffons, there Rarity. Go to big city, give up quest, get regular job, and Zoe the Great and Powerful, not Tricky oh no of course not, shows up and burns city down. No escape!!"
"Like I said," Mark said, "I'm learning so much about your world."
"Death would be better," Fireball said. "So she never lets us die. She embarrass us all every session until we do what she wants. Remember the changeling pirate ship? How many things broke?"
"Dragonfly and I were winning that one until the canopy ropes snapped," Mark said. "Starlight couldn't break things fast enough."
"The sea-pony synchronized swimming initiation thing?"
Mark blinked. "You remembered how to say synchronized swimming?"
"The shame is burned on my soul forever," the dragon replied darkly. "And the day of work she put us all through?"
Mark and Cherry Berry both looked blankly at Fireball. "What about it?" Cherry asked.
Fireball looked a little confused. "All the stupid customers... the bad, horrible, rude ponies... the boss abuse..."
"Hate to break it to you, Fireball," Mark said, "but low-end day jobs are all like that."
"The job in the game was better than several I really had before the space race," Cherry said. "Let's just say Ponyville isn't always the bright, shiny, smiling friendly face the tourist board makes it out to be."
"Oh," Fireball muttered. "I'm so glad I'm dragon. No day job."
"That game put my retire off five years," Spitfire struggled to say.
"But she's just not getting the message," Cherry said. "I'm not going to order her to make a new campaign, but you'd think she'd get the idea that we don't want to do a campaign with ponies we know as the bad guys!"
"All right," Mark said. "I admit she's building plot rails faster than a bullet-train company. But she's not bad enough to justify going Old Man Henderson on her."
Four ears and a pair of scaly eye-ridges popped up. "Old Man Henderson?" Cherry asked. "Who's he?"
"Ooooooh, no no no," Mark said. "I am not giving you Old Man Henderson to use as a weapon against Starlight. Old Man Henderson drove the DM he was used on out of the game, it was that bad. We have to live together for the next two hundred and twenty sols. No Old Man Henderson for you!"
Spitfire and Cherry Berry slumped in disappointment, but Fireball grinned. "Old Man Henderson character who wreck game?" he rumbled. "That gives me idea."
"Oh, no," Mark muttered. "Oh, no, no, no. Don't do this, guys, whatever it is."
"Dawn Light stands between you and the statue," Starlight Glimmer said, unconsciously wiping sweat off her forehead. "`I shall not let you unleash the demon of the past,' she says. `My queen shall reign FOREVER!' And she surprises you all with a magic blast. Roll to dodge, everyone."
"Seventeen."
"Twenty-one."
"HA!" Fireball bellowed. "Natural 20! I duck past Dawn Light and stand next to the statue!"
"Wha-bu-but you can't!" Starlight gasped. "Dodge doesn't work like that!"
"Also tell me," Fireball said, grinning a most draconic grin, "how much chaos does it take to let Entropy out of statue?" He leaned forward and added, "What die roll?"
"Um... er... let me check my notes..." Starlight scrolled frantically through the document on her own computer, finally finding the notes she'd made on the strange statue in the abandoned garden of the former Royal Palace of Skykeep. "Um... critical success for those trying to revive him, critical fail for those trying to keep him sealed. Nothing else."
"Grm." Fireball looked at the others. "Don't think I get another natural tonight. You?"
"What about bonuses?" Cherry Berry asked. "Isn't there some kind of ritual we could perform to improve our chances?"
"What? No! No, no ritual!"
"But this is Entropy! Chaos! Disorder!" Cherry insisted. "If we make more chaos, he must get stronger, right? He has to!"
"But he's held in place by the Elements of Harmony!"
"You mean the piles of dust we carry in our saddlebags?" Dragonfly asked. "I don't think they're holding anything anymore."
"Quick, we need a ritual!" Cherry Berry said. "Something, anything, so wacky, so stupid, so nonsense that it can't help but break the seal!"
Mark had been mostly silent up until now, having been outvoted three to one (and then four to one when Dragonfly had been brought up to date) on the whole plan. But, as the other players looked to each other in vain hope of inspiration, he began to smile, as an old, old song popped into his head. Without warning he slapped the table four times— whap whap whap whap!- and begin singing on the fifth beat:
I told the unicorn we had to defeat you (whap whap whap whap!)
I told the unicorn your evil days are through (whap whap whap whap!)
And with this simple spell we're gonna make you blue
And his voice jumped two octaves into a horribly strained and pinched falsetto as he sang:
Ooo, eee, ooh ah ah
Ting, tang, walla walla bing bang
Ooo, eee, ooh ah ah
Ting tang walla walla bang bang
The others pitched in at once, singing the "Ooo-eee" chant through again as Starlight's jaw threatened to knock a hole in the tabletop. Then, with four more sharp beats to the table, Mark delivered another lyric:
I told the unicorn it's time for Entropy
I told the unicorn we'd wake him, wait and see
To beat the unicorn everybody sing with me (here we go)
The players jumped up from the table and began dancing around, stepping lightly through the Hab's potato plants and chanting the silly, squeaky witch-doctor chant twice more, before Mark shouted, "Now the bridge!"
You know that you're railroading us just like you were a choo-choo
And I admit we are not very brave
But if you keep on going then we'll have to make it silly
Because we have another world to save
I told the unicorn the world is at an end
I told the unicorn she'll need a new campaign
But because it feels like fun let's sing the chant again
The players didn't need to go through the sixth repeat of "Ooo, eee," and so forth before Starlight's magic made a tiny holographic white flag appear over her head, but they did it anyway, because it was fun.
And then, after a bit of laughter and some words about how a D&D campaign had to be fun for everyone involved, Mark told them the legend of the sixth force of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force, magic, and Old Man Henderson.
Starlight listened, and took the lesson to heart...
... but she also took notes.
Author's Notes:
Starlight is making ALL the newbie DM mistakes, right down to Giving Your Players Ammo to Use Against You and Admitting You Have Notes of a Thing You Suddenly Don't Wish to Have In Your Notes.
Re: the pirate airship: so many things spontaneously broke that it could have been the ride for an airborne version of Barrett's Privateers. And it still wasn't enough for two engineers who have spent three hundred plus days marooned on Mars. Better luck next time, Starlight.
All in all, I think Starlight Glimmer needs some parchment so she can write a letter that begins Dear Princess Celestia, Today I learned...
I had to do some inventory today, and the tendons in my right arm kept flaring up, so no writing got done today. I'm glad I got the buffer in when I had a chance. I should be able to rebuild it tomorrow, since I now have nothing to do but clear away things in the house, load up the van, and head out Thursday to Kansas City for Sausomecon.
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Sol 330
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 335
ARES III SOL 330
"'They've cut it down!' cried Sam. `They've cut down the Party Tree!'"
Spitfire squirmed on her sleeping roll. Normally she was glad for Dragonfly's turns at reading. (Truth be told, she was glad for anyone else other than herself to take a turn.) But the longer Dragonfly went into this section about the aftermath of the Battle of Bywater, the more stilted the changeling's reading became, as if, for some reason, she was suddenly having as many problems with Mark's language as Spitfire did. And that couldn't be right.
But there she was, squirming and squinting and stammering her way through the very last act of the War of the Ring. Was there something wrong? Was this some side effect of Dragonfly's two months in that cocoon?
"There was a... surly... hobbit... lounging... over the low wall of the mill-yard. He was grimy-faced and... black-handed. 'Don't 'ee like it, Sam?' he sneered. 'But you always was soft...'" After a second of silence Dragonfly pushed the computer away, muttered, "Excuse me," and trotted away, heading for the back of the cave with increasing speed.
"Dragonfly!" Mark was on his feet almost instantly.
"No, you keep reading," Spitfire said. "I go talk." After all, she was the fastest one there, and the only trained fighter, if this was Dragonfly about to go buggy again. She couldn't fly much better than a chicken in the haze-thin magic of the farm, but with her suit off she could use that tiny bit of magic plus her wings to catch up to Dragonfly.
By the time Spitfire was past the farm and galloping along the water runoff trench, Dragonfly had ducked behind the curtain of insulation that covered the entrance into Tangled Hallway. Getting through the cluster of crystal shafts wasn't as hard as it used to be, since two of the biggest had been sliced neatly out for the giant battery project, but it still forced her to slow down for a minute, until she could work her way into the more open Lunch Buffet.
When she got there Lunch Buffet was empty, but Spitfire could still hear a faint sound of hooves from deeper into the cave. She galloped on, the magic of the farm a bit fainter but still enough to give her wings a bit of boost. It took seconds to cover the length of the Buffet, and then it was through the Crack and into the Orb.
Starlight had made multiple solar relay crystals for the Hallway and Lunch Buffet because of their frequent trips to mine for battery crystals or Fireball's meals. But the ponies very seldom had any reason to go through the Crack, and so the Orb, with its flattened almost-sphere shape and its irregular bands of every color imaginable— the single largest space without crystal pillars in the cave— had only one light. And this far away from the sources of heat and magic, Spitfire began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, pulling in her now-useless wings and slowing her running speed a bit.
Still no sign of Dragonfly.
Then it was into the chicane of Toothpaste Tube, the third narrow part of the cave. For a moment Spitfire was reminded of the hidden passage into the heart of the Lonely Mountain— five feet tall and three may walk abreast— but it wasn't like that in the least. The passage was taller but also narrower, constricted by some truly ancient collapse and reopening of the lava tube when it was still forming, creating a double-S-curved hallway studded with little crystals, so that you couldn't see more than five ponylengths ahead.
And then the final chamber, the Bed of Nails. A remnant of the deep Martian chill that had once ruled the cave lingered here, in the very back, dispelled only a bit by the single shining crystal immediately above the outlet from Toothpaste Tube.
Here Spitfire came to a stop. There was no point to continuing. Only a few steps from the entrance the tips of quartz crystals jabbed through the surface of the cave's dirt floor. The dirt ceased completely, at least to pony eyes, about thirty meters into the long, somewhat narrow chamber. And then, about eighty meters beyond that, there was a place where no crystals reflected light back from the lone light source; the gray rock wall that marked the end of the cave after Starlight had permanently sealed off the granite rubble that lay at the heart of Site Epsilon.
No hoofsteps. No movement. No changeling.
At least, no visible changeling.
Shoot.
For a moment Spitfire considered conducting a systematic search by herself. Then she shook her head and turned back, a bit more slowly than she'd come, to go get the others for a proper search.
She spotted Mark as she re-entered Lunch Buffet, sitting on one of the fallen, broken shafts that tended to line the edges of the Buffet and the farm. She picked her pace up again, rushing over to him. "You Mark?" she asked, adding in quick Equestrian, "Or am I going to have to fetch a stick?"
"Me Tarzan. You... very much not Jane," Mark replied, adding in a mutter, "Damn, but I'd like to meet a Jane around here."
Spitfire's confusion froze her in place for a second. She shook it off, grumbling, "You Mark, yep. Dumb no-sense... er, nonsense... joke. Okay." She took a deep breath, then yelled, "Why you back here alone??"
Mark shrugged. "Got curious. Also, you are back here alone."
"I am..." She'd never liked the Wonderful Lightning work-around, or any of its cousins, for Wonderbolts. She settled on, "I am military! This my job!"
"If one of your subordinates went running off by themselves to search for a lost comrade," Mark said, "what would you do to them afterwards?"
Spitfire shuffled her hooves. "I... would... smile," she said. "Hug. Say all right. Make them cake. A REAL cake," she added in a louder voice, because a blatant lie can only be improved with volume.
"If you say so," Mark said. "Why don't you go back and see how big a cake Cherry Berry has for you?"
Spitfire couldn't help flinching at that reminder. Darn it, she'd spent too long being at the top of the command chain. Even after a year on Mars, she kept forgetting to subordinate.
"Go on," the human continued, giving the pony a gentle shove to the shoulder. "I'll be right here."
"No, you go back," Spitfire said. "Get others."
"I don't think that'll be necessary," Mark said. "I'll be fine right here. But you could ask Starlight to rig another battery for a few extra minutes of bzzt-bzzt."
Spitfire didn't argue, but she didn't go farther than just behind the first couple of shafts in the Tangled Hallway, either. She stopped, carefully took a few steps in place to mimic the sound of a pony walking away. She hadn't even finished when she heard Mark justify her paranoia.
"How long are you going to stay a crystal?" he asked, his voice carrying out of the Lunch Buffet chamber. "It wasn't hard to spot, you know. I've come back here often enough to know how many of these fallen crystals there are. And there's definitely one too many on this side of-"
"Mark," Dragonfly's voice interrupted, "I'm over here." The last word was accompanied by a soft whooshing sound, like a rather large gas stove being ignited and then immediately shut back off.
"Oh! Um." There were a few soft, crunching footsteps, and Spitfire used them to ease as close to the entrance to Lunch Buffet as she could get. "Doesn't that burn a hell of a lot of magic?"
"Yeah." Dragonfly sounded despondent, defeated, resigned to whatever came. "But I thought I only had to do it for a few seconds at a time. But you wouldn't leave." A deep, heartfelt-sounding sigh. "Can't I be alone for a few minutes?"
"That depends on what you want to be alone for," Mark said. "If you're making Cocoon Number Two back here-"
"I'm not." Another deep sigh. "Look, today's chapter, and the one before. The good guys won, yippee. Everything wrong is being made right. But then the hobbits get home, and it's all bad," Dragonfly said. "It's all terrible. All the happy, cheerful stuff that makes the hobbits sound exactly like ponies is being wrecked, just because it's fun to wreck things. That's not right."
"Well, no, it's not," Mark said. "But that was Tolkien's point. War changes the home front, even if home isn't on the front lines. And Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin all changed, too."
"I guess," Dragonfly sighed. "But I listened to all the stuff about tearing down, burning, spoiling things, locking people up, all the nastiness... and I began thinking..." A long pause, and Spitfire had to focus her ears very carefully to catch the bug's next words: "What would have happened if our invasion had succeeded all those years ago?"
Mark waited for quite some time before asking, "What do you think would have happened?"
"Changelings would have been changelings," Dragonfly said. "We would have terrorized ponies because it's fun. We would have sucked them dry, because why not? We'd have locked up or enslaved the ones that put up any fight. And we would have stolen anything we liked and smashed the rest, because why not? We didn't make it. It was all just pony junk."
Another sigh. "And I would have joined in. I would have been proud to join in. Victorious changeling warrior. Beat the ponies. No more hiding. Food forever. Do what you like, because it's all free."
"You think you'd act like those orc-men," Mark said.
"I know for a fact I would have," Dragonfly said. "Fair dues, right? Rules of war. Too bad for ponies." A sniffle. "That was before I knew ponies for anything other than food or targets. I hadn't met Cherry then-" A soft gasp. "Faust, I hope I didn't meet Cherry then." Prolonged silence, followed by, "I don't really like myself right now."
"Uh-huh. That settles it." Quite a lot of dirt-crunching happened before Mark resumed. "I'm staying right here. The last time you were in this kind of mood alone, you canned yourself for two months. Or else we both go back together. We should probably do that anyway, since Spitfire and the others are taking a FUCKING LONG TIME TO COME LOOKING FOR US."
"How did you know she was there? I mean, I knew, but how did you?"
Spitfire blushed, nose to hoof.
"Just as I said— they were taking too long. Either she never went and was listening, or else they were all listening. I'd guess the first, since I don't seem to do a very good job of acting like me."
Changeling snort. (She did that really well.) "Liar."
"Maybe." Soft soil-moving sounds. "Look. In a couple weeks you should be able to email Dr. Shields again, and she can talk you through this better than I can. But here's the facts." Pause. "Yeah, you're pretty terrible."
"Thanks."
"Hey, don't blame me. You've spent a lot of time trying to make yourself look terrible to us. Well, guess what? We agree. You're a vicious evil little cuddlebug, and we don't care, because we can see you're more than that. You're trying to not be evil." More dirt noises. "You would not believe how many people there are who act evil, revel in acting evil, and then demand that they be loved for it."
"I'd believe it. Look who I have for a mother."
"But you aren't her." Scuffle. "Though I can't blame you for looking up to her. She's always got a comeback, hasn't she?" Shuffle. "But the thing is, you didn't try to take us all over— well, except once. You tried to keep things the way they were. Hell, you even tried to make us all get along even better, even when you had to have known we knew what you were doing."
"Changeling survival, first day of school."
"Nope. No sell. See, you aren't just trying to get yourself off this rock. You want everybody out of here safe. You actually care about us. Would your mom care?"
"Well... look, could you call her my queen instead? `Mom' feels... weird."
"Okay. So long as you don't dodge the question."
"Okay. My queen would want me off this planet. Probably Cherry too— they're kinda friends, I think. A really weird kind of friendship, even by our standards. But Starlight? Fireball? Spitfire? You?" Pause. "Well, maybe you, because you honestly are delicious. The others could stay here forever as far as my queen cared. Not that Cherry would let her abandon them, but, well, you asked."
"How would an ordinary, no-wings, no-horn pony make a changeling queen do anything?"
"I did just say it was a really weird friendship they have."
"Well. Anyway, you're not her. Maybe once you were. Maybe you were really just a bug who would help destroy pony civilization. But somewhere along the line, that changed. Now here you are questioning what you believe because a book gave you a little hint of what it might be like to be on the wrong end of a changeling swarm. A book made you see something new. That usually means it's a good book."
"Is it a good book? I mean, do humans generally think so?"
"It's regarded as one of the great classics of English literature. Not because it's the best written thing ever. Big chunks of it are dry as toast, you know that. And we're not doing the Silmarillon, because the best part of that is still worse than all that crap about Aragorn's coronation. And only Tolkien could take not one, not two, but three epic love stories, and deliver them as dry as a newspaper obituary."
"So what makes it great?"
"It's great for what it is, and what it was at the time. It was the first major fantasy story in centuries to not be a little kiddy story. It was the first fantasy story, well, ever, to portray war as inglorious or tragic in any way. And it was the first fantasy story to put a major effort into building a world that wasn't Earth, with geography and languages and cultures and traditions and everything.
"But mostly because it was very nearly the first story, of any kind, that said you could be brave without being a fearless killer. For the first time English speakers could read a story about the heroism of mercy, generosity, gentleness, and simple endurance. The hobbits didn't earn that through wading a river of blood. In the end they won— and they were heroes— because they were simple, humble, nice people. Which is pretty much bass-ackwards from every fictional hero humanity had up to then— and most of the real ones too."
"Now who's bragging about being evil?"
"Quit distracting me. Back to my point. You don't need to be the badass bug. You don't need to scare us. You don't need to show your loyalty to Chrysalis every five minutes. Just be you. And if you don't like who you are, tomorrow you can choose to be a little better you— not all at once, but a little at a time.
"But from where I sit, for something that might have been designed on purpose as a cuddle-toy for Sigourney Weaver's grandkids, you're all right."
Changeling snort. "You were going good until the obscure cultural reference."
"Trust me, if you ever visit Earth, you'll find out real quick it's not obscure."
Spitfire tried to crunch as little of the dirt under her hooves as possible as she made her way back through Tangled Hallway towards the farm. She didn't need to worry anymore, and to be honest she shouldn't have listened to as much as she did. She'd been afraid and suspicious, and if she brought it up now Dragonfly would probably say something about how she ought to be and undo whatever good Mark's babbling had done.
It might not be a bad idea, she thought, if I spent a little time thinking about who I'm going to be tomorrow, too.
Author's Notes:
The buffer this morning, what with one thing and another, was the first four hundred words of this.
There may have been other stories of heroes whose heroism came from being gentle instead of violent (I mean besides religious figures), but I can't think of any in pure fiction. In order to be a hero (rather than merely a protagonist) you had to be fearless, courageous, and pretty damn bloodthirsty. Indeed, there was nothing particularly noble about the original Greek heroes; the word just meant "someone who does the things you wish you could, but can't." This definition does not always produce healthy role models.
The original backlash against The Red Badge of Courage was because its main character was a coward— a Civil War deserter. People were pissed that someone would dare publish a novel starring such a contemptible creature, because they wanted heroes who feared nothing, heroes who charged right at the rebel lines rather than skulking to the rear and spending almost the entire book feeling sorry for themselves. It, like Lord of the Rings, is taught in classes today because it, too, is a first of its kind. But it does not celebrate kindness; it celebrates heroism in its old form, as kill-lots-of-the-enemy-and-take-his-stuff heroism. I honestly can't think of any original English-language literature that does what The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings did.
And that's just one (if the most important) of the many, many wonderful themes Tolkien put into that series.
I admit it's not an easy read, but the Lord of the Rings series really is a thing more people should read.
And screw Peter Jackson and his crappy movies. Seriously.
In the meantime, I write on.
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Sol 331
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The testing team was half and half— half pony, half changeling. The pony half, in turn, was also half and half— unicorn and pegasus, with only those unicorns Twilight Sparkle could muster who were good at long-range teleportation.
The tests were simple: set up the test vehicle on the launch pad, with its array of fifteen enchanted pylons, trigger the enchantment, and get the heck out of the way of ten tons of rapidly rising (or falling) metal.
"Test Fourteen at T minus thirty seconds," echoed the call from the dozen or so loudspeakers scattered around the little island well off the coast of Horseton Space Center. "All personnel prepare to evacuate. T minus twenty-five seconds..."
Well offshore, on a small barge that rocked gently in the slow swells of the Celestial Sea, one unicorn after another popped into existence with a flash of light (and, in one instance, with a splash of water, having unexpectedly been bumped aside by the spell's failsafe when another unicorn arrived at the chosen destination a split second earlier). Some pegasi and most of the changelings followed at a more normal flying speed, while the four fastest pegasi and the two fastest changelings, plus one alicorn princess, hovered and watched for whatever was about to happen.
The princess in question, Twilight Sparkle, wore one of the new wireless headsets, and as she counted down every word echoed over the little island launch pad. "... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one!"
What happened next, in tests one through eight, had been the sudden appearance of a magical blast wave, a force dome that rapidly expanded and left trees standing while carrying the test vehicle— and usually a lot of things that hadn't been intended to become test vehicles— up into the air along with it.
Test Nine had been the first test to see if less of the dome could be generated. Subsequent tests had reduced the dome into a more or less round magical plate— or, rather, a trampoline, since what it did was essentially bounce whatever was above it into the air at tremendous speeds.
But, as with the prior tests, Test Fourteen proved that the spell had extreme difficulty discerning which things it should toss into the air, and which it shouldn't. The mock-up spacecraft caught only the edge of the field, which was still enough to lift it in the air a bit before it slipped out of the forcefield's effect and almost immediately plunged back to the ground.
The launch tower, on the other hoof, went almost straight up and kept accelerating, driven swiftly through the sound barrier by the fifteen pylons that generated the spell.
"Forget the capsule! Track the tower!" Twilight called out over her headset. "It's still valid data!"
Inside the earphones of her headset, an imperious and grating voice snapped, "I don't care if it's data or not, it's heading directly for my space center!!"
"Pssh," Twilight scoffed. "It's still accelerating upwards. I can follow it and prevent it from-"
Far, far up in the sky, the launch tower, already not at all well from having been ripped up off its foundation by the spell and then accelerated to over three times the speed of sound, gave up what structural integrity it had remaining, turning from one slightly mangled object into over a hundred smaller, but still very destructive, ballistic projectiles of tremendous weight. The spell lost its focus, and without its target it shut down.
"My space center, princess!" Chrysalis demanded over the radio.
"Shoot. Hold on one moment."
Twilight Sparkle had heard the occasional joke about her being the Alicorn Princess of OCD, but even her detractors would have to admit that a miles-distant telekinetic grab of almost a gross of different objects, collectively massing about seven tons, followed by a mass teleport that left the metal neatly stacked in careful rows next to the launch pad for reassembly, was a feat not even Celestia would have been able to perform.
"There. All sorted out. What did we get?"
"Tracking reports maximum speed at breakup of twelve hundred sixty-two meters per second," came the response from the minotaur chief scientist of the Changeling Space Program, Warner von Brawn. "Altitude approximately fourteen thousand, five hundred meters. Rate of acceleration had dropped by fourteen percent below launch estimate, with numbers inexact due to not tracking the tower for the first six seconds of flight."
"Perfect!" Twilight Sparkle cheered. "Mares and gentlecolts, we have proof of concept!"
"What?" Chrysalis wasn't having it. "Did it escape your attention that the actual capsule flew about two hundred meters, came down, and exploded on the pad? Or that we still have no way of actually steering the thing without a unicorn controlling the spell in person?"
"Oh, those? I solved those problems a week ago," Twilight said, her voice too chipper to be smug. "The only question was whether or not the same kind of projectors that Starlight Glimmer will have available, at her much reduced power levels, would be able to produce sufficient force to be worth bothering with! Today's experiment shows that, if anything, the spell might be slightly overpowered!"
"There is some truth to that," the minotaur rumbled over the radio. "The estimated G forces for the tower's launch would severely inconvenience a changeling and would pose lethal danger for practically anyone else."
"Why didn't you tell me you solved the other problems?" Chrysalis asked.
"Aren't you going to ask how I solved them?" Twilight asked, pouting a little.
"Would I understand it? No. And I have no need to understand— not the theory, anyway. All I need to know is how to make it go in the right direction."
"I'll show you when I get back to your space center," Twilight said. "I need to call Rainbow Dash, anyway. Test Fifteen will require a live pilot."
"Tell her to stay home," Chrysalis replied. "I'll fly Fifteen."
"Aren't you two weeks overdue to relieve Concordia?" Twilight asked.
"Concordia is in good hooves," Chrysalis said.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles overhead, the current officer in command of CSP Concordia looked sternly at her subordinate and said, "I don't care if you can teleport here in one go, I've told you, you're not allowed to visit Mama when she's at work."
"But Mama!" Flurry Heart whined.
"No buts," Cadance replied. "Now go sit in the corner and think about what a dangerous thing you've just done."
"Isn't a corner, Mama."
"Fine. Over by the ladder, then."
"An' can't sit in zero-G."
"Improvise."
As the overpowered alicorn child floated past one of the changelings on duty on the half-ship, half-space station's bridge, she asked, "Can Mr. Changeling play with me?"
"No," Cadance said, but her glare was reserved for the drone whose crimes were (a) Being a Changeling Who is Not Thorax, and (b) Being Here.
The changeling, remembering that his current commanding officer had once launched himself, his queen, and tens of thousands of his friends hundreds of miles at ballistic speed, bent back to his console and thought small thoughts.
Author's Notes:
Cadence is really regretting "keeping an eye on things for a day or two." And she holds one particular grudge a very long time, especially when her daughter is in close proximity. But the two changelings currently on crew regret it even more. She gets tetchy when you say "Princess of Food" in her hearing...
KWLP tonight is the July 4th show. First thing tomorrow I hit the road for Sausomecon, up by Kansas City airport. Vacation is over; time to get back on the road. I'll have tomorrow's chapter finished before I sack out tonight.
Oh— and by the way, here's my favorite Martian post-Mars fanfic. It's a shame the ponies act as kind of a curb on Mark's more manic side, because this writer really gets Mark: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879638
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Sol 332
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 337
ARES III SOL 332
TRANSCRIPT — WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, this must be urgent, what's up, over?
ESA: We are testing a solution for your ascent vehicle boosters. If successful we will send performance data and design guidelines. This will require very long messages in next couple of weeks, over.
AMICITAS: Good to hear. We'll be ready, over.
ESA: Basic plan: enchant three durable crystals, current estimate 100 kg each, and mount them on underside of first ascent stage above engine bells of ascent vehicle. The enchantment will link all three crystals to each of fifteen repulsion field projectors which will draw power from the oversized batteries you have made. The link will ensure that the ship, and only the ship, is lifted by the full, focused power of the enchantments. The enchantment will be set to "away" without directional input, so steering of the craft must be done using chemical rockets on board. Over.
AMICITAS: Good idea. Any preliminary numbers?
ESA: System not yet tested with target blocks. Prior tests without blocks show lack of control but minimum potential acceleration of over 1200 m/s of a seven ton object in under one minute, over. We expect final system to be much more efficient.
AMICITAS: That's groundbreaking! Development of this system would vastly reduce weight and cost of launch vehicles! Excellent! Over.
ESA: We still need to do more tests. We don't want to send you up on a single test. But we can give you a head start based on what we learn from the first test, over.
AMICITAS: Very happy to hear! We'll be waiting! Amicitas out.
HERMES — ARES III MISSION DAY 466
The shutters remained down on all the portholes around Hermes, as if the largest spaceship ever built by mankind was about to undertake an aerobraking maneuver. No such maneuver was on the schedule for another year or more, of course. Today, and for many weeks prior and many weeks to come, the shutters held out a force more potentially deadly than air at hypersonic velocities, a force more unavoidable than micrometeorites, space junk, or any other merely physical obstacle.
The shutters held out the sunlight.
At a mere ninety-five million kilometers away from the Sun, Hermes currently absorbed two and a half times the solar radiation— light, heat, and even nastier stuff— that it would ever encounter in Earth orbit. Most of the photons in the visible and infrared range reflected off the reflective white paint and the silvery cooling fins of the ship, but enough remained behind to strain the cooling systems on board to their absolute limits. The cooling pumps remained at their top speed almost constantly, despite the ship rotation that both provided Mars gravity in the habitat ring modules and, as a bonus, provided a passive thermal control, or PTC as it was called in the Apollo days— or, more popularly, the "barbecue roll."
For harder radiation, Hermes had the lining of its hull plus an experimental electromagnetic field generator which, in deep space, generated a bubble much like that of the Earth in miniature. Twin slightly offset poles, one just below the vehicle airlock at the nose of the ship, the other just above the exhaust ports of the VASIMR engines. Here, in theory, charged solar wind alpha and beta particles would be grounded, relatively far away from the astronauts. If Hermes had had an atmosphere the auroras would have been fantastic— and frightening— but in the near-vacuum of space, nothing showed from outside of this extra (theoretical) layer of protection.
And, of course, there was the final defense: in case of a solar storm powerful enough to endanger astronaut health beyond the safety margins set by NASA, the crew would evacuate the rest of the ship and retreat to the chamber most securely sealed from radiation and best provided with redundant cooling systems... the reactor room.
Watney and Martinez had both laughed and joked about the irony of getting as close to the little reactor as possible to get away from the products of the really big reactor outside, when they were first briefed on the procedure. That had been over three years before. Now Watney was on Mars, and Martinez no longer felt like laughing— not merely because the danger-room scenario was a serious possibility, but because getting fried by one of the Sun's little temper tantrums ranked maybe fifth on his list of things to worry about today.
Number four was his bunk. He'd noticed two weeks before that he was sweating at night. When he was awake he didn't feel particularly warm— hey, not compared to his time at Edwards AFB— but sweat glands didn't lie. There was something wrong with the cooling system near his cabin. He'd have to talk with Johanssen, maybe Beck too, about it.
Number three was training for the MAV launch. All MAVs could be remotely piloted; after all, that's how every MAV had been put on the ground except for the very first. But NASA hadn't decided yet whether Martinez would fly the ship remotely or if the pony commander, Cherry Berry, would fly it manually. And more to the point, NASA hadn't nailed down the final parameters for the modified ship, which made it impossible for either pilot to fly simulations. Martinez wanted to get started training, and the sooner the better.
Number two was Mark Watney in general, with his friends somewhere far back down the list. Oh, the aliens were cool, but Mark was his crewmate and friend. They'd spent years training together, only to be split apart by a chain of freak accidents. Now they were on their way to get him back, and not a day went by that Martinez didn't pull out the rosary he'd made to replace his lost crucifix and say a silent prayer for the continued well-being of his buddy.
Normally Mark would be on top of the list, but yesterday something new had bumped it out of the way. Now Martinez sat in the pilot's seat on the bridge, trying not to jump up every thirty seconds and look over Johanssen's shoulder at the controls for Hermes's radio systems. Since yesterday the Hermes computers had tried to establish contact with Pathfinder. Not only was Hermes well ahead of Earth in orbit around the sun, it was three light-minutes closer to Mars. Thus it only made sense to resume the communications relay through the ship... if, that is, Pathfinder still functioned at all.
Johanssen wasn't even on the bridge at the moment. He was alone. Johanssen was doing diagnostics on the reactor. Lewis and Vogel were in the lab performing their scheduled experiments— NASA wasn't going to waste extra time in deep space— while Beck was in his bunk-slash-sickbay checking samples taken from the crew for signs of radiation exposure.
So, when Johanssen's console beeped, it took a moment for Martinez to realize that he needed to attend to it... and another moment to realize that it was the thing he'd wanted to attend to for a day and a half. The data link to Pathfinder was re-established. Pathfinder was still up and running... and, if the sun would settle down, they could talk to it.
Martinez opened the ship comms. "Status update," he said. "We have signal acquisition of Pathfinder. Repeat, we have signal acquisition of Pathfinder."
"On my way." Lewis's reply came immediately— no hesitation, not even a gap between Martinez's last syllable and her first.
In less than a minute they were all there— all five of them— huddled around Johanssen's terminal. Not that it made any sense— they all knew that any message they sent wouldn't bring a reply for almost an hour, best case. But they still all wanted to be there as Johanssen sent the command to initiate chat and the simplest possible message:
[13:21] HERMES: test
And they waited, making the occasional bit of small talk, for the fifty-one minutes before any response could arrive, but mostly waiting in silence.
Then the responses came— or tried to.
[14:16] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[14:18] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[14:19] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
[14:20] WATNEY: Frodo lives!
[14:22] SYSTEM: ERROR — Signal Corruption Exceeds Recovery Threshold — Unable to Display
The first message bounce produced groans. The second, surprise— they hadn't expected multiple replies in quick succession. But the last message bounce barely registered.
"Frodo lives?" Vogel asked. "Does this have some special meaning?"
"I read about it," Lewis said. "But I thought I was twenty years too young to have seen it firsthand."
Martinez couldn't help grinning. "Better hope the signal clears up pretty quickly," he said. "If that's the last signal the Hab sends in the clear, the conspiracy kooks are gonna get a lot more mileage outta that than `Croatoan'."
"I think we should look on the bright side," Vogel said.
"What's that?" Beck asked.
"Only two words made it through," Vogel said. "And neither one was `fuck'."
Author's Notes:
Five out of six castaways sent a message in reply to the test message.
I don't know who didn't send a message.
I don't know who sent the message that got through (though I suspect Dragonfly).
And I don't know any of the others apart from the first, which was Mark saying, "Received. It's really damn good to hear from you guys again."
I am in Kansas City now. I didn't quite get to finish unloading the van because of the massive black ant infestation (the infestation was massive, and so were the ants) I discovered once I got down to the gridwall layer. So before I checked into my hotel I went to a grocery store, bought some ant spray (foaming stuff— didn't see that on the label) and applied liberally.
Sausomecon, by the way, is at the KCI Events Center on Ambassador Dr. on the opposite side of I-29 from the airport, just barely south of 635. Basically, if you see a bunch of cheap airport hotels and a dinky convention center in land which otherwise hasn't been touched in about thirty years, you're in the right neighborhood... assuming you're in Kansas City, that is.
In fact, this is so far out, and so thinly populated, I'm not entirely sure it IS in Kansas City...
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Sol 333
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 338
ARES III SOL 333
"Book reports?"
Starlight Glimmer rolled up another small bale of sweet-smelling freshly cut alfalfa in her magic. "That's what I said," she replied, levitating the bale over to a sample bin for transfer to the rover. "I've been reading some of the other books NASA sent while we were working our way through the Ring story. And any of you could have done the same thing-"
"I did," Dragonfly spoke up, and Mark nodded agreement.
"But that's not fair!" Cherry protested. "Story time is special! It's something we can all share!"
"I had to catch up with the rest of you," Dragonfly said. "And besides, you already said you didn't want to read the murder mysteries."
"Anyway, we need to decide what the next book— or book series— for story time is going to be," Starlight said. "I've already talked to Mark about this, and he wants us to make the decision. So each of you get a book to read. Dragonfly, you get the hardest one: Foundation by Isaac Asimov."
"Bless you," Fireball said.
"Isaac Asimov is a human name," Starlight ground out. "I know you know that."
"Who wants to read books by a guy whose name is I-Suck?"
Starlight raised an eyebrow. Fireball was getting better at English than he pretended, to make a pun like that just for the purpose of being annoying. "You get to read one by a man named Stout," she said. "There's a whole series of murder mysteries by him, and you get to read one called The Golden Spiders."
Fireball shrugged. "Whatever."
"Cherry, you get to read Ringworld by Larry Niven. No murder."
"Okay."
Starlight noticed Spitfire cringing. "And Spitfire, I'm giving you the easy one," she said as gently as she could. "More fantasy— more magic. It's about witches. It's called Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett."
"Why we still do this?" Spitfire asked plaintively.
"Because we don't know how long we might be in this world," Cherry Berry said, in the tone of someone who'd said a thing too many times. "We have to act as if we take the long way to Earth and then wait a long time before Twilight rescues us. That means we need to learn the language."
"But I'm not getting any better!"
"That's not true," Mark said. "You're hesitating less on your words, I've noticed. And your grammar's improving."
"Doesn't feel like it," Spitfire muttered.
"Anyway, read the books, or as much as you can, and we'll talk about them after the potato harvest." That came five days after the hay harvest. "After everyone talks about their book, we'll have a vote, and we'll all read that book together."
"What if everyone hates their books?" Fireball asked.
"You won't," Mark put in. "Some of you might, but all? No chance."
"Okay," Fireball asked. "But what do we do for story time until then?"
"Well, you haven't told any stories about your home in a good long while," Mark said. "How about a few of those?"
"We've told you all the big stories," Cherry Berry said.
"All of them that aren't secrets," Dragonfly added.
"They don't have to be big stories," Mark said. "What about small stories? Stories about people you know."
It was Spitfire who spoke up. "I have story. We tell you how Twilight Sparkle and her friends all got cutie marks the same day? But they didn't know for years?"
"Yeah, something about a... what did you call it, Starlight?"
"A sonic rainboom," Starlight Glimmer said. "A powerful enough pegasus can, in theory, push past the point where magic can't overcome air resistance. When that happens there's a thaumic shockwave that leaves a polychromatic image behind, like a rainbow. Rainbow Dash is the only pegasus in living memory to have done it— and the only one outside of legend to be able to do it on demand."
"She not always able to," Spitfire said. "You know how she did it the first time. Now I tell you the second time. Listen."
Rainbow Dash come from pegasus city in clouds. Made of clouds. Named... what named?
Cloud Valley.
Really? Fine. English only language where you call a city two miles in the air valley. Anyway, she live in Ponyville now, but she born and raised Cloud Valley. And every year we have Best Young Fliers... what's the word?
Contest.
Best Young Fliers Contest, where we see talent of ponies who just come of age. Is biggest flying contest we have. And not long after Princess Luna return, Rainbow Dash enter. She had big routine plan, big stunts, end in sonic rainboom. One problem— she couldn't do it. Oh, she could do all the rest of her routine— Rainbow Dash is best pegasus flyer in all Equestria, even me. But she didn't know how to do the rainboom again.
I didn't know Dash then— I been... rrrgh... team leader about a year then. I learn this from her later. But I was there at the contest. Best Young Flier gets to spend day with... RRRRGH... our team... so we can see, is she, um, er...
If she's got what it takes to be one of you.
Yeah, that. So, I there in the stands, and I know the rumors. All Cloud Valley know— knew a little girl say she make sonic rainboom. And we all knew somepony had done it. So we looking for that little girl at contest, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait.
Finally, last two contest-ponies.
Contestants.
Whatever. One was unicorn with big butterfly wings. Pretty to look at, but no flier. Shouldn't have been let contest.
That was Rarity. I wasn't there— I was too busy with my obsessions-
Let me tell it!
I just wanted to say I heard the story from Twilight Sparkle much later.
Now you hear it from me! Right. With Rarity came— you sure it was Rarity?
Positive.
I thought Rarity had more smart.
The wings turned her head a bit.
Must have turned a lot. With Rarity came Rainbow Dash. I think my team and Dash's friends and family only ones watching her. Everyone else watch butterfly wings in sun. They stare at stupid dancing unicorn while Dash's routine fall apart. She so nervous she make basic mistakes. I was thinking, poor kid, should have waited, not ready.
Then the butterfly wings go poof. Spell fail?
The spell uses morning dew and spider webs as catalysts. The wings were very fragile and light-sensitive. And it was late summer.
Spell fail. And without wings Rarity flies like a brick. We see her fall straight through stadium, going fast, and the three of us go after her. But Rarity is... is... too scare to think? What's the word?
Panic. Panics. Panicked. Has panicked. Will panic. Panicking.
All that and a couple more. Waving hooves everywhere. One two three, punches us out cold. I'm wake up and see ground get really close really fast, and then YANK I'm not falling anymore. Rainbow Dash caught all four of us. All same time. And she do sonic rainboom to do it. She swoops up back to Cloud Valley, and I see ring of rainbow, I see rainbow trail behind Dash, I know she did it.
Princess... what you call her in your railroad game?
I used the name of some goddess or other I saw in an adventure module— Celestia, that was it.
I like it. More respect than Sunbutt.
But the princess has nothing to do with bells!
So Princess Cel-Ess-Tea-uh say Dash wins, which is fine to me because she the reason I'm not a hole in the dirt. We spend day with her, she total, what's the word... what, nothing?
I didn't hear this part, so I don't know what you mean.
Can't stop talk. Lose all cool. She so happy to meet us her head shut down. We see it every air show we do, but Dash was really bad.
Fangirl? Fan is short for fanatic. Rainbow Dash sounds like she was a fan of yours, and she was acting like a complete fangirl.
Fan. Yes, I know about fans. Anyway, she was so fangirl. Not mature enough, we think. Got the talent, but needs to grow up. And she did... took her long enough, though. But that's another story. I talked enough.
"Wow," Mark said. "I'm more amazed that the five of you survived a rapid change in vector like that. Like Superman catching a falling Lois Lane."
"I thought we were never going to watch that stupid cartoon again," Cherry Berry said.
"Other side of sonic rainboom, physics goes weird," Spitfire said. "Dash's magic is really strong. Really, really strong."
"Sounds like it," Mark agreed. "Do you have any other stories about Rainbow Dash?"
"Well," Cherry Berry said slowly, "I could tell how half the town woke up one night because Dash tried to steal a book from the hospital library."
Spitfire's jaw dropped. "She what?"
"She did," Cherry said. "I heard about it from Carrot Top, and she got it from..." She looked at Starlight, making an outline of a large hat on her head with her forehooves.
Starlight sighed. "Apple Cider," she said. "I think. The translation spell kept wobbling around that one. Almost as bad as..." She bit the bullet and accepted the better-than-the-alternatives name. "... as Princess Celestia."
"Anyway, Rainbow Dash was practicing tricks, and she had a Bad Day," Cherry Berry said. "Broke her wing, got a week in the hospital. And she was really, really bored, until Twilight Sparkle said she should try reading one of her favorite books..."
The stories continued for an hour, ending with how Rainbow Dash held the pony space program together long enough for her to become the first Equestrian to spacewalk. Starlight enjoyed Mark's horror at the brief and almost disastrous ESA Flight Five and then his amusement at some of the antics of ESA Flight Six.
Yes, she thought, this will do for a stop-gap. Until we get our new book picked.
Author's Notes:
I had plenty of time (too much) today for writing, but not the concentration, especially not when the noise picked up and I had to keep a close eye on my booth. By the time I got to my hotel room about an hour and a half ago, I had only the first 450 words of this. Lame stuff, no hook, nothing. I considered dumping it all and starting from scratch, and I considered jumping forward five days to portray the results.
And then I came up with what you see here.
So there are going to be a couple days of filler, with Mane 6 presented from the points of view of our heroes. (Future bits will either be lifted from seasons 1-5 or made up whole cloth.)
By the way, a "celeste" is a hybrid xylophone and piano— looks like a toy upright piano, sounds like a glockenspiel. Starlight's confused because she stopped short of typing out the full "Celestia" and let auto-fill lead her astray.
And "dale" means "mountain valley."
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Sol 334
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 339
ARES III SOL 334
So, yesterday we talked about Rainbow Dash. Who should we tell stories about today? Twilight Sparkle?
Mark's heard plenty about Twilight Sparkle. Let's pick someone else.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right... what about Fluttershy? We haven't talked about her much.
No, you haven't. You hardly even mention her.
Well, that's because Fluttershy has the least to do with our space program. You see, Twilight Sparkle got all her closest friends to help when the pony space program began.
But she thought that only pegasuses could be good pilots, so she made Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy her pilot candidates. She wouldn't even consider me, which is why I ended up working with the changelings.
Worked out fine for us!
Anyway, Rainbow Dash is a born flier. Fluttershy isn't. In fact, she's one of the weakest and most timid fliers ever. They ended up using her entirely for ground and equipment tests. And when Flight Five almost crashed, she bowed out completely for a couple of years. She finally went up once for a day-trip to the space station to make sure some lab rats were doing well, but that was less than a year before we left, and she came right back down next day.
She almost was on our flight. Princess Twilight wanted unicorn, pegasus, earth pony on flight. But Fluttershy... how to say...
Fluttershy takes care of a lot of animals. They really depend on her. She can talk with them. She hates to be away for very long. It would have been tragic if she'd been with us.
Yeah. So I here and not her. Fluttershy rotten flier, but much better medic.
Wait a minute. Why was it important to have one each of all kinds of pony? Is there some sort of prejudice involved?
Prejudice? Hm... well, in a way, yes. The tribes intermarried after pony land was founded, and I know of an earth pony couple whose children are a pegasus and a unicorn, so it's not like they're at war. But there's still a major cultural gap. A lot of towns are predominantly one tribe or another. And nobody likes it when ponies like them are left out of something really big. So it's always important to remind ponies that we're united, working together, all as equals.
Starlight, can we get this back to Fluttershy?
Oh, right! Anyway, that's why you haven't heard much about Fluttershy. Scared of heights, hates to fly, can't talk to strangers, but she absolutely loves animals.
And she most beautiful pegasus anyone knows. Makes me feel like goose chick beside her, and I'm hot.
Oh yeah! There was this time Fluttershy had to ask ponies to help look after her animals because she'd got dragged into a... a job, I guess the word is? Wearing clothes and having pictures and, um, stuff for sell thing...
Advertising? Commercials? Wait, you mean she was a model?
From what I hear, for a couple of months she was the model.
Yeah! She offered to help Rarity by wearing clothes she made for our best picture-taker—
Photographer.
— and the what-you-said ignored the clothes and dragged Fluttershy off to, um, Manehattan?
Hat Hair City. I think.
Anyway, she was on everything— magazines, posters, newspapers, even banners pegasuses towed! Everybody wanted to see her, to meet her, to get her to help sell their stuff!
And a painfully shy pony did all this?
Oh yes! And she HATED it. Totally hated every second of it.
You see, Fluttershy thought Rarity would be sad if she didn't use the chance to become rich and famous. And Rarity was jealous as a cat about it, because she wanted to be where Fluttershy was, but she didn't say anything because she wanted Fluttershy to be happy. She thought Fluttershy was lucky, but Fluttershy was miserable and wanted out, and it took forever before they actually talked to each other about it.
Of course, once Fluttershy found out that Rarity only wanted her to be a model because she thought she'd love being a model, she quit right on the spot! And ever since, the only times she lets her picture be taken is when she's modeling Rarity's clothes. But she was the first of Twilight's friends to get really famous.
Who cares about pony famous? Why don't you tell about the important stuff? This is Fluttershy. She so scary she makes dragons cry!
What? I'm sorry, but what?
I hear this from cousin. This dragon, not going to say name, you can't pronounce it, he moved his hoard and all into a cave in pony lands. Way up on top of a mountain, so he thought, no pony going to bug me here. And he settled in for a nap, might last a year or three, he thought, no trouble to nobody.
But that dragon spread smoke all over middle of Pony-land!
Yeah, he snored. But he didn't know that. Nobody tell you these things, you know? Anyway, next thing he knows, one pony after another keeps waking him up. One of them tried to steal some of his hoard, and another kicked him right in the snout. Well, you get tired of that real quick. So there he was, about to kick them all off the mountain—
Wait a minute. This was Twilight Sparkle and her friends, right? Princess Twilight Sparkle?
Guess so. Story I heard didn't name anyone but Fluttershy.
It was. But Twilight was only a unicorn then, not a princess. A pretty strong unicorn, but not an alicorn.
Yeah, anyway, alla sudden there's this little yellow thing in front of his face, and then all he see are these two angry eyes. And by the time the pony was done talking he was crying in shame. Dragon almost as big as the Hab, crying and bawling like a hatchling, all because of one pony.
So he pack up and moved back where he came from, and he told other dragons. Word got around. Don't mess with yellow pegasus with pink hair.
And I tell you that story so I could tell this one.
Uh-oh.
One of those, huh?
Shut up. After Rainbow Dash first walk in space, Twilight Sparkle ask all astronauts come to her space center to train for space walk. I was only astronaut for dragon space program, so my boss order me to go. About twenty astronauts there, all different species, ponies and changelings and griffon and I don't know names. And me.
Train for EVA is hard, you know that. I had trouble. Kept get turned around. Train building takes away, um, things you look at to tell you where you are and where you going.
Reference points.
Huh?
Reference points. A point you can refer to that tells you where you are.
Thought reference was when boss calls your friend, says, What kind of worker is he? It a thing Jim Rockford don't have.
It has a lot of meanings.
Dumb language. Anyway, real easy to get mixed up. I'm fail test after test. And I'm thinking, "Don't wanna be here anyway, just give up, maybe boss will let me quit this time." But don't wanna be quitter or failer either.
Then this pony I don't know talks to me. Real quiet voice, almost whisper. Asks me what's wrong. I say get lost, but she asks again. So I say, I'm no good at spacewalk. And she looks me in the eyes and says, "I know it's hard, but I believe a smart dragon like you can do anything he sets his mind to."
That sounds like Fluttershy, all right. And a very good translation, Fireball.
No way! I was there too, and I never saw her!
I didn't see her there either.
It was the first time she came back to the space center since Flight Five. She was really pushing herself. We found her on her side, rigid, right outside the EVA training building. We took her to the infirmary until she woke up, and then we had a couple of pegasi fly her home. She wasn't there half a day. The next time she set hoof on a space center grounds after that was when she visited you lot for the joint development of... of the first successful space probe.
Yeah yeah yeah, listen. Anyone else, especially any pony else, I blow it off. But when she said it, it felt like she was right. I knew she was right. When she look you in the eyes, it's like... well... no pony, no dragon. Just soul and soul. Sounds mushy, but that's how it is. She told me a couple hints to do better— one helped, other two didn't— and then wished me luck, walked away.
Well, that explains the unconscious part. She must have had a bad reaction from meeting you.
Not fair to insult me, boss pony.
No, it's not an insult. Didn't you know? Fluttershy is scared to death of dragons.
That's right. Phobic, except for Spike. Twilight and her friends dragged Fluttershy up every inch of that mountain to face your dragon friend-of-a-friend. Add to that her normal social anxiety and her night terrors about Flight Five... you say she spoke to you first? You didn't say hello to her or anything?
I didn't even see until she spoke, and then— whoa! Right there in front of me. And you say she afraid of dragons?
Like some ponies are afraid of heights, or shadows, or the number five. Absolutely involuntary. Though come to think of it, Fluttershy is also afraid of heights... and shadows... don't know about the number five, though.
That really weird, even by pony standard.
I know— Fluttershy's got all these fears, but she loves even the biggest, wildest animals. I mean, she even made friends with Chaos!
Aren't you Chaos's friend too?
In a way, I guess. But Fluttershy was his first and closest friend.
I heard she even stared down a, a, I forgot the word, chicken-snake-thing! Like a basilisk, only not! Instead of turning to stone, she made it release her friends that it had turned to stone!
What? Are you saying she stared down a cockatrice?
That's the word! And that's what I heard from Kevin!
Who's Kevin?
Oops! I wasn't supposed to say that. Forget that name. There is no such changeling as Kevin.
You can't give us that! Tell!
No, seriously, everybody, let it go. The maddest I ever saw Chrysalis was when I asked her who Kevin was. Let's not get Dragonfly in trouble.
Changeling Chrysalis hates that much? I wanna meet.
Guys, please, who is this Fatass you're talking about?
Oh, Mark...
Author's Notes:
An experiment. Also a stalling tactic, since I can't get to my copy of the book our crew will choose until I get home from the current trip.
By the way, I'm staying over in Kansas City Sunday night, so I might be available at 8 PM or so to say hi to, assuming you didn't go to the convention (Sausomecon).
I might have to go into CSP and alter a couple of things for this one, but for now I'm saying that Fluttershy did try to come back to help, and it didn't go well for a long time.
EDIT: Experiment failed big time, so tomorrow I get to add about 400 more words to turn this into a standard chapter instead of just dialog. Which is a shame, because it was fun to bounce conversation back and forth without said, said, said.
EDIT: Color text restored at the request of someone doing a hard-copy version.
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Sol 335
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 340
ARES III SOL 335
"So," Mark said, as Starlight shut down the magic field and the others gathered around the cleared area by the life support system, "who do I learn more about today?"
"I was just thinking," Starlight Glimmer said slowly. "I sat down with the dictionary today and went through everything beginning with "apple". I finally found `applejack,' which is another name for apple brandy. It also refers to `jacked,' which apparently means `really strong,' which fits. So now I have a better name than Hard Cider for her."
"Did you find the breakfast cereal?" Mark asked.
Starlight settled for giving him a look. She went on, "So let's talk about Applejack today. I've known Applejack for a few years now, but I don't really have any stories about her. What about you, Cherry?"
"I've known her almost my whole life," Cherry Berry said. "And the only stories I know are a bit embarrassing. Like the time she caused a bunny stampede-"
"A what?" Mark asked.
"— or when vampire fruitbats invaded her farm and she ended up getting Fluttershy turned into a vampire pony."
"A what??" Mark asked.
"And, y'know, I don't want to tell those stories," Cherry Berry concluded, "because it's not fair to her. She's a really good pony, not an... um... Enos, yeah. Not Enos. Definitely not Cletus or Roscoe."
"I know what you mean," Starlight said. "She's strong, she's brave, she stays calm, and she's always there, but she doesn't really have adventures on her own, does she?"
"Yeah, that's it!" Cherry Berry said. "She's always there for everypony. It's amazing, too— she runs the biggest farm in Ponyville, and she still has time for so many other ponies."
"That was what got her in trouble with the rabbits," Starlight said. "I read Twilight's book about how Applejack was so tired from working on her farm and helping everyone else out too, she got totally loopy. She wouldn't even sleep nights, she was working so hard."
"Yeah. She was the only pony one year to go to... um... big snooty pony party in capital? She went there to work. Could have met ponies, had fun, but no, she wanted to support her family."
"I remember that," Spitfire said. "My lieutenant bought a pie from her. Said best pie ever. But there was big table of free food there. She wasted her time."
"Er..." Cherry Berry shifted uncomfortably on her hooves, exchanging glances with Spitfire. This was another little anecdote that made Applejack look like an idiot. "Well, her heart was in the right place."
"Maybe you could start by telling me who she is," Mark said. `Maybe a story will come up that way."
"I only know her from the briefings," Dragonfly said. "Applejack, Element of Honesty. Easily fooled so long as you tell no direct lies. Incredibly strong and talented earth pony farmer. Skilled rodeo performer. De facto leader of the Apple extended family, with members in every corner of Pony-land and beyond. If you're fighting her and you end up directly behind her, you're about to take a prolonged and involuntary nap— her kicks are brutal. Her lariat skills are even better."
"Wait a minute," Mark said. "How does an earth pony even make a lasso, never mind use one?"
"I don't know," Dragonfly said. "I'm not a rodeo pony. Anyway, skilled and experienced monster fighter. Almost never gets rattled. Extremely competitive and stubborn. Senior mission control flight leader, pony space center."
"That more than I know," Fireball said. "I only know her from sometimes talk on radio when I was on space station."
"I don't know much either," Spitfire said. "Most of what I know Rainbow Dash tell me."
The conversation, which had been rather sickly for a while, now died altogether. "So," Mark said, attempting to defibrillate the patient, "monster hunter, huh? What kind of monsters?"
"Well, us changelings for one," Dragonfly said, and promptly got a smack on the head from Spitfire. "Ow!"
"What I say about bragging about being evil?" the pegasus warned.
"Well, let's see," Starlight said. "Since I first met her she fought a, um, mix of bear and insect bigger than both... a, um, I saw one in your books— chimera, that's the word, tiger-goat-snake mix... sea monsters, manticores, hydras, carnivorous plants, and, um, wild dogs made of wood infused with dark magic." She shuffled her feet. "And, um, me."
Spitfire stood up and walked over to Starlight, who immediately covered her horn with her forehoves.
"Sit down, Spitfire." Cherry Berry wasn't going to have this sort of thing spread, one way or another.
Spitfire glared at Starlight, pointed her hoof at her face and then at the unicorn in an I'm-watching-you gesture, and went back to her spot.
"Oooookay," Mark said. "Wild dogs... wolves? Made of wood?"
"That's right," Starlight said. "Applejack's family farm backs onto the Forever Free Forest. Every once in a while monsters come out of it, especially wood-wolves, and Applejack fights them off."
"That's right. She does it all the time. I remember one time...
This was back when Applejack and I were just out of school. My family had learned that I couldn't be trusted to harvest cherries without eating myself sick, so they sent me to, um, Applejack's father's mother, named for a good sour baking apple. Applejack put me to work, even though they really didn't have enough money to pay me. Farming is like that; if you have a good harvest prices are so bad you make nothing, and if prices are up it's because nobody has a crop and you've got nothing to sell. Farming takes a lot of very hard work to live by.
Anyway, zap apple time had just been. Zap apples are a magic fruit. Applejack's, um, grandmother makes a jam from the harvested zap apples that sells for big money all over pony-land, and that's mostly what keeps the farm going. All the other crops only about break even, from what I hear. But zap apple time is also wood-wolf time. When we hear them howl at night, we know zap apples are coming.
So we were in tending some regular apple trees when we heard growling and smelled something like the poo box. Wood wolves are made of rotten tree limbs and moss and vines and like that, so their breath stinks.
Wait— magic wood needs to breathe?
Wood-wolves do. So we had about two seconds warning before two wood-wolves came out of the Forever Free, coming straight for us. A wood-wolf is six times the length of a pony and almost three times as tall. They can be deadly, and they can't be tamed, can't be reasoned with. They're not like manticores or even hydras. They're just evil. And these two wanted to kill Applejack and me so the forest could take back the zap apple trees.
Well, of course we ran. But as we ran under a low-hanging branch, Applejack wasn't beside me anymore. She swung up on the branch, over, and down— WHACK!— right on top of the first wood-wolf's snout. It went down, and Applejack went with it, lining up her rear hooves and kicking it straight in between the eyes. That was it for that one— it fell apart right off.
But the second one was right on top of her after that. I thought she was a goner. I screamed for her to run, but instead she found a piece of the dead wood-wolf that had a vine attached to it. She tossed the piece of wood into the second wolf's mouth, and it jammed there— wood-wolves don't like to let go of something once they bite. And then she grabbed the loose end of the vine and ran with it around the wolf's rear legs. The wolf tried to pull her back, but the vine just pulled tight and ripped those rear legs clean off.
The second wolf tried to twist around to bite her, but she wasn't there. It couldn't find her, and it turned around again just in time to see her rear hooves coming right at it. And that was that.
We spent the rest of the day picking up the bits of wood and hauling them off to be burned. You have to burn wood-wolves. Otherwise the spell comes back after a day or so. And it's rotten wood, so you need a lot of good wood to get it started.
So we got almost none of our work done that day. And when we went to see her grandmother, Applejack didn't brag about killing two wood-wolves. She apologized for not getting her work done!
And that was only, hm, about three years after we got our cutie marks. Still just kids, really. And even then she was like she is now; doesn't brag, doesn't even like to show off. But give her a job and it's as good as done, so long as all it needs is honest hard work.
"Whoa! You mean she saved your life when you were still kids?" Mark asked, incredulous. "Where the hell were your parents while this was going on?"
"My parents had their own farm," Cherry said. "A lot smaller than Applejack's, so we earned extra money sometimes helping with my aunt's farm down south. But Applejack's parents died when she was pretty young. Her little sister was just a baby. So now it's the big brother, the little sister, and AJ, and their grandmother, and whatever help they can get from friends and family come harvest time."
"Oh. Whoa. That's rough," Mark said. "Is that why she's named Applejack? Does she drink a lot?"
"No more than— oh wait, you mean, does she get drunk a lot?" Cherry asked. "No. Her family makes cider, but she only drinks a mug with friends. She's not like my cousin Berry Kick."
"They make applejack too," Starlight said quietly.
The thing you have to remember is, the Apple family pride themselves on their cider, soft or hard. They only offer it for sale for a short season in mid-fall, after the leaves change. Other farms use windfalls and half-rotten fruit, but the Apples insist on quality. They have part of the farm specifically for growing apples for cider. Ponies line up for days to get one drink.
Dash told me once. I think if sea were made of cider, Dash would grow gills.
Er, moving along... But the Apple family doesn't sell apple brandy of any kind. They do keep a few barrels of cider every year and age it, and you have to be a very close friend of the family to get even a sip of that. But if you mention apple brandy, you'll get the door slammed in your face. They don't sell it, and they don't even admit it exists.
But... well, Twilight Sparkle worked really hard to teach me how to be a better pony. I'm still learning. But there were times that I thought it was a lost cause. It just all seemed so tough, so... well, impossible. And one time I screwed up bad. I'm not going to give you the details, because... well, to be honest, because it embarrasses me, but it might also give your friends ideas if and when you learn how to use magic. Let's just say it took a lot of cleaning up and apologizing.
That night I was staring at the stars from a balcony of Twilight's castle— this was before the school. I was wondering if I was cut out for this, if it wouldn't be better for everyone if I just lived in a cave in the mountains for the rest of my life. I even had the perfect cave picked out.
Then Applejack comes out and asks me what's wrong. I say, "Nothing's wrong, I'm all right." And you don't do that to Applejack. You can misdirect her, you can fool her, but you can't lie to her face, because she knows.
She shook her head, then pulled this little pottery jug out of her saddlebags, uncorked it, and poured me a little bit— about, oh, twice as much as one of your test tubes, Mark. "Here," she said. "Have a sip and go to bed. Everything will be better in the morning. Well, afternoon, I mean, but you know."
I took a sniff. "What's in this?" I asked.
"Apples," she said. "Well, mostly apples. It's a family secret. We don't talk about it."
It smelled good and it tasted better. I can still remember the smooth apple flavor and how warm it made me feel inside. Unfortunately that's the last thing I remember before waking up in my bed the next morning with a killer headache and a pot of fresh coffee and two pain pills on the nightstand next to me. By the time the hangover cleared I felt much better about everything. Which led to another buck-up, but that's another story.
Cherry Berry stared, slack-jawed, at Starlight Glimmer. "You've tasted the Holy Appleshine?" she asked in Equestrian. "I thought that was only a legend! I thought that was a thing grandmas and grandpas told about Granny Smith's parents to show how much better the old days were when Ponyville was being founded!"
"Cherry, calm down!" Starlight replied. "It was only the once. Applejack's never offered again, and I sure never asked again. The Apples really don't talk about it! Besides, English!"
"Er, is this cider really that big a deal?" Mark asked. "I tried apple brandy in college once. Didn't much care for it. I like beer much better."
Starlight and Cherry turned glares on Mark that could have frozen him colder than the air outside the cave farm. "Beer," they sneered.
Dragonfly looked at Spitfire. "So, I guess a welcome-home drinking party in Ponyville is out of the question?"
Spitfire gave the changeling another tap on the noggin, then asked, "Commander, may I hit the changeling for saying dumb thing?"
"Don't ask permission after you've already done it!" Dragonfly snapped.
Author's Notes:
This was harder than I expected, and I'm not happy at all with ending this on a booze joke, but my head and back hurt, I'm tired, and I need a good night's sleep before the all-day drive home tomorrow. So this is what there is, right down to me stealing a lame gag from Log Horizon to wrap it up.
Going through the episodes, a few things come out about Applejack. First and foremost, she is not a thinker. She is perfect backup or muscle, but any episode that features her will make her look foolish in one way or another— stubbornness, anger, overprotectiveness, jerkass-mode honesty, etc.
As far as the cartoon is concerned, you can rely on it— any decision Applejack makes based on thought is certain to be the wrong decision.
Of course, this is why people refer to Applejack as Best Background Pony. She stands out by not standing out— by always being there when needed and providing her strength, skill, and common sense to a group. It's when she goes it alone that things inevitably go wrong. But, as a consequence of this, none of the stories in the cartoon that focus on Applejack are in any way complementary to her.
(Which is a shame, because the ending to Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 5000 is my favorite moment in the whole damn show.)
So, instead, you get two stories of Applejack that are about her courage, strength, and kindness— even if the kindness takes the form of, "Have a delicious Mickey Finn, it'll all be better in the morning." I admit it's a very easy way out and plays on fan headcanon (since, of course, there is no actual liquor in the cartoon), but it's all my brain can produce tonight.
Further edits on yesterday's chapter will have to wait. For now my back is screaming at me, and I'm to bed to watch YouTube until I pass out (which won't be long).
Incidentally, if any of you are interested in T-shirts, fourteen days remain on my 2018 Kickstarter. My publicity efforts have failed multiple ways on this, so I probably won't try this again, but here's the link anyhow:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869505034/wlp-shirts-2018-summer-shirt-lineup#
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Sol 336
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Changeling Space Program Mission Forty-Nine hurtled through the upper atmosphere in a cone of superheated plasma, the rocket being pushed to the very edge of survivability by an array of enchanted crystals hundreds of miles behind it. Inside the control capsule, its sole occupant repeated a single word, for no other reason than to remind the ponies on the ground that she was still alive and conscious.
"Okay!"
It was less a word than a grunt, but Chrysalis managed to get it out regardless, somehow keeping her hooves on the controls despite eight times the normal force of gravity pressing hard on her entire body.
"Okay!"
This, beyond all doubt, was the worst ascent she had ever piloted, worse than her first flight, worse than Mission Five, which more than one book had called "Chryssy's Bad Idea", worse than anything.
"Okay!"
Her muscles really, really ached. It took the kind of willpower that (in her own mind) made her the perfect ruler of her fractious subjects to keep one hoof on the engine throttle and the other on the joystick. But if she let her forehooves drop, she'd never be able to lift them to the controls again while the current acceleration lasted.
"Okay!"
With this kind of monstrous acceleration, it seemed madness to add to it by firing the sole engine on the short, single-stage test vehicle. But the engines were required to turn the flight from a purely vertical flight into a shot to orbit. The capsule reaction wheels, mighty as they were, would only put the ship on its side; the fifteen magical repulsor pylons would continue pushing the three comparatively small crystals tucked behind the engine bell directly away from themselves, regardless of which way the ship was actually pointed.
"Okay!"
By itself, the ship might just be able to lift itself off the ground on a half-full tank. With the addition of the enchanted ring of rocks on the ground far, far behind her, Chrysalis was now bound not just for orbit but for a rendezvous with Concordia and her long-overdue shift on station there. Her three-person capsule (the other two seats currently empty) would replace the one that would take Cadance and a certain stowaway back to Equus.
"Okay, six point five gees and falling," Chrysalis said, getting something more closely approaching a deep breath for the first time in three minutes. "On course ninety by fifty, fuel at sixty percent, all systems nominal." All ship's systems, that is. The pilot's systems felt like she'd just been popped out of the cardboard in some pony toddler's activity book. She could be her own drogue parachute.
"Horseton copies, Forty-Nine." Chrysalis forced herself not to frown at the sound of Rainbow Dash's voice. Yes, it was joint operations these days, and yes the little showoff was the second most senior pilot remaining on the planet, but it just felt wrong to have any pony other than the pony as capcom for what was, at least in name, a Changeling Space Program flight run from Horseton Space Center. "Twilight confirms you are go for orbit and Concordia rendezvous, repeat go for Concordia."
The acceleration was tapering off rapidly now, and Chrysalis checked her speed indicators, then opened the taps on her chemical rocket engine a little more. For a moment she'd wondered if those stupid enchanted rocks would let her stop at Concordia, or if their creator had decided to surprise the changeling queen by making her commander of Equestria's first permanent moon base, population one.
"Forty-Nine, ESA speaking." Ah, and speak of the pony herself. The idiot genius must have taken the headset from Rainbow Dash. "If we restrict the mana flow a little more, the extra weight of the NASA ship should reduce acceleration even more, making the system safe for the Amicitas crew to use for escape. I think we're almost ready to send them the specifications and await results of their own local testing."
That made Chrysalis smile. As much as the perfect pony princess of Putting Her Nose Into the Private Business of Evil Masterminds annoyed her, it felt good when Twilight Sparkle's plans worked... because when she failed she tried again, and when she succeeded she literally knocked the ball out of the park.
Yes, she could live with Twilight Sparkle's plans, so long as they weren't pointed at her.
"Sounds good to me," she said. "Hurry up with the bookwork, and let's bring our people home!"
Author's Notes:
Original plan: leave Kansas City about 8 to 8:30 AM, get home 9 PM, write another "tell me about X" chapter.
Detour after detour in Kansas (closing down a dozen miles of a major north-south highway with a twenty-mile detour in either direction? GPS sending you down roads they're just now closing because they're maintaining the railroad crossings? Turnoff doesn't exist?) cost me at least two, closer to three hours of driving time.
So this, what I can do in half an hour, is what there is for today. (I got home at just before 11 PM, after leadfooting it through the Ozarks of eastern Oklahoma.)
Chryssy's "Okay!" is directly inspired by Alan Shepard's call during the first Mercury flight's re-entry, during which he pulled over seven G's of deceleration.
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Sol 338
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 343
ARES III SOL 338
Despite having spent the morning harvesting potatoes in the Hab and the early afternoon harvesting or replanting the surviving potatoes in the cave farm, everyone rushed to bring out the computers for the book reports. The confused, faltering efforts to tell stories about the current heroes of Equestria had proven one thing: storytelling was hard.
"All right," Starlight said once everyone was gathered. "Dragonfly, why don't you go first?"
"Fine by me," Dragonfly said, looking "I didn't make it all the way through Foundation, and I'm in no hurry to finish it. When I read the description I was expecting empires, space ships, huge battles, big darn heroes. And what did I actually get?" She tapped the top of her computer. "Math. Math and books and talk, talk, talk. Hardly anything really happens at all! Or if it does happen, it happens way over there somewhere so that it won't bother anybody. If this is what Isaac Asimov is like, I hope he didn't write very many books."
"Only about four or five hundred," Mark muttered.
"All right," Starlight shrugged. "So we won't go there. Fireball, what did you think of The Golden Spiders?"
"It was fun," Fireball said. "But a little confusing. Had to look up what `displaced person' meant. Then looked up immigration. Did you know humans don't want to let other humans move from one place to another? Make it hard to do so? Dragons not put up with that for long. Stupid idea."
"Preach it, brother!" Dragonfly cheered.
"Be quiet, you," Spitfire said. "Your queen number one argument for, wossword, in-meague-ray-shun."
"Spitfire, leave Dragonfly alone," Cherry Berry said quietly.
"Anyway," Fireball continued, "I figure out blackmail just fine. Know some dragons who do it. Nice roof you got, fresh straw, burn nice, too bad if someone sneeze, and not getting lots of gold make snout itch. So I got the idea. But what made it a good book was two main characters. Character who tells story is funny, smart. I like him. And his boss, the fat human, I think I like too. I want to know what makes his head run. I like the book lots. Is there more?"
"NASA sent over forty books by Rex Stout," Starlight said. "I think they were looking for long series or prolific authors or something." She turned to Cherry Berry. "Now for Ringworld. Cherry?"
Cherry had been blushing deeper and deeper as her turn approached. "Mark," she said quietly, "are all humans this obsessed with sex?"
"Um..." Mark shifted a little uncomfortably. "I didn't think Ringworld was all that-"
"A device that triggers sexual bliss on command?" Cherry asked. "A world where sex is used to seal every bargain? What kind of imagination comes up with that?"
"An imagination that wants to sell a fuckload of books?" Mark suggested.
Cherry blushed even more deeply. She reminded Starlight a bit of Big MacIntosh for a moment.
Mark apparently got the hint. "Oops. That was unintentional. My bad."
Cherry Berry coughed and moved on. "Most of the book is really interesting. Radically different aliens— like us— gathered together to explore a bizarre new world. Crash-landing on that world. Relying on each other to find a way home. It had action. It had big thoughts about luck and design and stuff. It had emotion. But it also..."
Starlight wondered why Twilight Sparkle wasn't here now to rescue them. Cherry's blush had to be visible across at least a few dimensions...
"Look, the ri-ri-the sex stuff is really distracting, that's all I'm saying!" the commander finished. "And there's no way I could read this book aloud without thinking about what's in it!"
"How about we trade books?" Dragonfly asked. "And maybe I could translate that one for my queen when we get back. You know she loves the racy books."
"I did not need to know that," Starlight said. "Moving on. Spitfire, how did you make out with Equal Rites?"
Spitfire tapped her computer. "This story," she said, "is home."
"Home?" Starlight leaned closer. "How do you mean?"
"More like, it home if we had humans run things instead of princess," Spitfire continued. "Some stupid stuff. Why can't boy or girl be wizard? Or witch? But then I think. Back home I know unicorns built in Cloud Valley, earth pony in capital. I think of pegasus want to teach magic. I think of earth pony who want to fly." She looked straight at Cherry Berry as she said this. "So girl want be wizard, is, um, like earth pony want fly. Thing."
"Metaphor," Starlight said.
"Whatever. So I understand that part. But the rest of it is... not like Hogwarts. Not like Middle Earth. Real people. Magic that breaks sometimes. Weird things happen just because. Monsters. Laundry. And pr-eye-vee. Had to look it up too. Means outhouse. Harry Potter only go bathroom to talk to Myrtle. No outhouse in Middle Earth at all." Spitfire smirked, saying the next sentence with great care and even greater amusement: "No one in Middle Earth ever goes to the bathroom."
"Or on the starship Enterprise either," Mark muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing, go on."
"Anyway, big adventure, big thought, and it feels like home." She paused a moment then added, "If home were flat and on giant turtle."
"I'm glad you liked it," Starlight said. "So we have two books left to choose from. Rex Stout's Golden Spiders, and Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites. And since I'm getting enough magic from working on the final enchantment for the new Sparkle Drive and the new repulsor system, my vote is for the murder mystery."
"Me too," Fireball said.
"I don't want to hear more about how mean people can be," Cherry said. "I definitely don't want a story with blackmail in it. I vote for the other one."
Spitfire tapped her chin. "You sure no Ringworld?"
Cherry the Red Faced Earth Pony made a return appearance. "Affirmative."
"Then yeah, I stick with mine," Spitfire said nodding. "I like mystery, but I like feeling home more."
Everyone looked at Dragonfly, who tapped her chin with a hoof. "Promise to stop bopping me on the head?" she asked Spitfire.
"No promise," Spitfire replied flatly.
"Spitfire, I told you to cut it out!"
Dragonfly shrugged. "Plenty of action in both books, right?"
"Gunfight," Fireball said.
"Magic duel," Spitfire added.
The changeling shrugged. "Then I'm good either way," she said. "Sorry, but I abstain. Let Mark break the tie. It's his books, after all."
Mark, feeling every gaze turn to him, shrugged. "Actually I've never read The Golden Spiders before," he said. "I was never much into mysteries. But there's a book a little later in the Discworld series which has tons of action, a bit of magic, and a murder mystery. Plus politics, heroism, and romance."
"And blackmail?"
Mark shrugged. "Well, yeah, a little bit," he said. "But if it helps, it's not exactly a person doing the blackmailing."
Cherry Berry's eyes made an attempt to imitate those of a certain mailmare. "How?"
Mark grinned, pulling the computer from Spitfire and scrolling through the library for a different title. "They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they wanted to."
The others drew closer as Mark began to read of dragons ("No dragons ever be that close together without a fight," Fireball complained), of a drunk watchman in a gutter, and of the effect of books on spacetime ("That's right! Twilight's told me about that many times!" Starlight said). The aliens listened, and commented now and then, and laughed at the silliness of the cultists and the lantern-jawed innocence of the six-foot-tall dwarf boy sent to the big city alone.
All in all, it was a good beginning— and a lot better than bickering about what it was like being around Equestria's greatest heroes.
Author's Notes:
I may go back at some point, if I'm really blocked for the day's entry, and make a stab at Rarity or Pinkie Pie Story Time. (The latter will be difficult, since the First Rule of Pinkie Pie is, "Do not talk about Pinkie Pie if you value your sanity.")
I read Foundation as a teenager, and liked it much more than Dragonfly did. However, I've never felt a need to re-read it afterwards, partly because... well, Asimov was one of the best short-story writers ever, but his novels tend to wallow. He either writes badly padded short stories or a cluster of short stories with a vague overarching plotline. That said, he still deserves better than Dragonfly's reaction, but this is what to expect when you ask an adrenaline junkie to read high-concept hard sci-fi.
I first read Ringworld when I was five. The sex stuff sailed straight over my head; all I cared about was spaceships, floating castles, monomolecular indestructible wire, and weird aliens. Again, the book deserves better than Cherry's (reader-inspired) prurience.
I own the entire Nero Wolfe series (well, the Rex Stout written ones— the Goldsborough pastiches are markedly inferior) and reread them frequently. I'm not fond of most detective stories, mostly because the detective characters tend to be one-note cardboard cutouts. And although Rex Stout does use a lot of cardboard in the supporting cast, Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe constantly produce unexpected depths to their outward personalities. I highly recommend the series as a whole, with The Golden Spiders and The Doorbell Rang being my picks for the two best books in the series, with Some Buried Caesar a close third.
I'm fairly sure I don't need to explain Discworld.
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Sol 340
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 345
ARES III SOL 340
"Mark, tell me: do you think we'll have any cherries for the trip?"
Cherry Berry knew the answer, but she had to ask anyway. She'd coddled and cared for the saplings, urging them to grow taller faster than anything on Equestria. But, despite it all, they were still only months old, not the two or three years it took an Equestrian cherry tree to begin bearing fruit. And that was in Equestria, a land lousy with magic, and not a cave on an otherwise totally unmagical barren wasteland of a planet.
But age was only one of the problems, as Mark pointed out. "Not unless Starlight gets her transmutation spell going without punching a hole in the rover," he said. "I know you've put your heart into them, Cherry, but facts are facts. The plants are too young. If they're all the same kind of cherry, the odds are good they won't be fertile with one another. We haven't got any bees, so we'd have to hand-pollinate every last flower. And it would have to happen in the next fifty sols."
"Fifty sols?" Cherry asked. "We have a hundred and ten before we leave, right?"
"We need time to test the finished rover and fix any problems that pop up," Mark said. "In order to test the rover-trailer combo, we need to pull the life support out of the cave, at least for a sol or two at a time. Once we start doing that, the cave will cool down in a hurry. That will hurt the plants. So whatever we're going to grow, we have to be done before we get serious about testing the rover. The next harvest will be the last one."
Cherry looked through the airlock window into the cave interior. The cherry trees now brushed the ceiling, limbs mostly running up the ceiling towards the solar relay crystals. In the long term— if there was going to be a long term— that would mean trouble for the sun-loving alfalfa. Once a week Cherry carefully plucked enough fresh, healthy leaves from the trees for a couple pots of cherry leaf tea, which she prepared with all due care and caution to give everyone a change from drinking plain water. She'd have to figure out a way to dry the leaves properly for long-term storage for the trip...
She absent-mindedly wiped away tears with a hoof. "Could we move your machines from the Hab here to the cave?" she asked. "Just leave it running?"
Mark shook his head. "Part of the atmospheric regulator has to be outside for it to work properly," he said. "And it and the oxygenator both work to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The plants need CO2 added every so often. The water reclaimer won't automatically water the plants, even if we figure out some way to pump water from downstream to replace what it puts out. And I don't think all the heaters in the Hab put together would be enough to keep the cave warm enough for plants to grow."
Cherry blinked. "You didn't even have to think about that."
"Because I've been thinking about it for months," Mark replied. "I'd love to have this farm go on forever as a lasting fuck-you to this goddamn planet. But I don't see any way of doing it that doesn't risk our own chances of getting out alive."
"I understand," Cherry said. And she did. She just didn't like it. "Could you ask Dragonfly and Spitfire to step in here, please?"
As Mark opened the inner airlock door and left, Cherry looked through the open doorway at Starlight Glimmer, who stood by the life support box holding a broken piece of antenna in her magic and writing things in the dirt as she watched the indicator lights flash. It looked like a second all-day session on the water telegraph getting the details straight for the new Sparkle Drive main crystal, which Starlight had decided to enchant two days from now rather than make more batteries that they probably wouldn't be able to haul with them.
Cherry hated to interrupt her now, but between the Sparkle Drive and the new booster system, Starlight would probably be tied up with that for days. Anyway, Cherry had another bit of business to take care of.
When Spitfire and Dragonfly walked up, Cherry motioned them to shut the airlock door behind them. "What's up, boss mare?" Dragonfly asked. "I hope this isn't an order to walk the plank or something."
"Dragonfly," Cherry began, "I don't think you've ever asked me to get Spitfire to stop hitting you on the head."
The changeling froze, which Cherry had half-expected. So did Spitfire, and Cherry hadn't expected that. "Er... I figured you'd stop it yourself," she said, almost convincingly.
Cherry looked at Spitfire. "And I'm pretty sure I've told you to cut it out once or twice."
Spitfire lapsed into Equestrian. "Just look at her! Isn't that just the most hittable face?"
Dragonfly grinned. "It's true. Five hundred royal guards can't be wrong!"
Cherry cleared her throat. "I'm not laughing, you two," she said in English. She looked at Spitfire. "This is an order: no more hitting Dragonfly." She looked at Dragonfly even harder. "This is an order: quit goading Spitfire into hitting you."
Dragonfly cocked her head, doing a very good job of pretending to be confused. "You think I want to be hit in the head?" she asked.
"I think you're deliberately being annoying," Cherry said. Looking Spitfire right in the eyes, she continued, "And I think you're playing along."
Spitfire shrugged. "Makes me feel better."
Dragonfly nodded. "It makes everybody feel better, too."
"Not me," Cherry said. "I mean it: cut it out. If you two want a running joke, come up with something else."
Dragonfly slumped. "The queen would let me get hit over the head."
"Only if she held the stick," Cherry said. "Anyway, she's not here, thank Faust. Now let's go make the plants happy..." She couldn't suppress a sad sigh at the thought. "... for a little longer."
Author's Notes:
I ran out of writing time, or else this would be longer.
Tomorrow I go to Houston (just down the road) and set up for Delta H Con.
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Sol 342
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MISSION LOG — SOL 342
Today NASA decided the new communications link via Hermes was stable enough to resume our email accounts. Our bandwidth is only about six hundred bits per second— Hermes is closer to us than Earth, but not that much closer, and it's going to be pretty close to the sun for at least another month. So NASA is limiting us to thirty emails total— the most urgent in-house messages plus whatever they think is most interesting from the weeks we spent without email.
Four of us, of course, are glued to computers, reading and replying to messages from the outside world. But not Starlight, and not me. We both have homework, which means our emails have to sit on the computer a while longer.
Today Starlight actually rigged up four magic field projectors to run at once so she could make a new core crystal for the Sparkle Drive. She wasn't taking any chances on it being underpowered. In order to make it, she covered both the whiteboards with notes, used up all the remaining sample labels, and even transmuted some of the really old hay into a sort of unbleached paper that smells a lot like hay, just so she had something to write on.
Then, once the enchanting was done and she'd shut everything off, she examined the crystal until she keeled over from exhaustion. (She hasn't done that in a while, so I know she was really working hard on it. Starlight got good at making a little magic go a long way since she arrived here on Mars.) She says the enchantment matches the final designs she and Twilight Sparkle came up with. Unfortunately, that's not the same thing as saying "we did it, it works." We won't know that until we test it.
And by test it, I mean "switch it on while in deep space on a trajectory to nowhere, assuming we live even that long." We can't do a ground test, because when you switch on the Drive, it and anything physically attached to it moves. We'd either have to go along for the ride or else wave goodbye as it achieves Warp One and departs for the Klingon Neutral Zone without us. And, as Starlight has repeatedly warned me, the spell is a little vague about the difference between "attached to," "sitting inside," and "standing on top of." The odds are pretty good the Drive would take a large chunk of Mars along with it if we used it for a ground launch.
So follow along with me: our escape plan, if absolutely anything goes even marginally wrong with our launch, requires that we use a totally untested magical rock to correct the problem and get us either rendezvous with Hermes or a rapid Earth intercept. As you might expect, NASA is less than thrilled by this, which is why they're working overtime to give us the best odds of getting a rendezvous without using the Drive.
Which brings us to Starlight's homework. With the Sparkle Drive replaced, Twilight Sparkle is now pouring out a river over their magical water telegraph giving her details about the extra enchantment she has to make. This one is much simpler, though: adding a spell that, when triggered, tells the enchanted rock to push hard against a particular other enchanted rock. In theory, nothing much to it.
There's a funny story about this. The spell is older than dirt, so to speak. It was invented before the pony tribes united into the modern pony nation. Seems the unicorns wanted a city in the sky to match ancient (according to the spell this is actually a name) Pegasopolis. So they made a small crystal forest, enchanted it, and used its power to lift a large chunk of continent into the air about five thousand feet. Voila, flying city... until some earth ponies came along, saw some pretty crystals, and mined the enchanted boosters away. The unicorns couldn't get the earth ponies to leave their enchanted rocks alone, so they had to land their flying city in a hurry before it landed on its own, and that more or less ended that. There's a lot more to the story, mostly about unicorns trying to get the earth ponies and pegasi back for their humiliation and how this helped bring on the Go Windys, but that's where Starlight left off..
Anyway, there's one problem with the current design for the magic punkin' chunker, as I like to call it. There's currently no way to turn it on remotely. We don't have any radio-controlled switches we can use. We'll have to figure out a way around that before Launch Day, or else someone's staying behind.
For the record, not it.
Did I say one problem? I meant one major problem. There are also a ton of minor problems, such as getting magic power from the super-sized batteries to the chunker enchantment, regulating the power output so it doesn't unload all its push at one shot and turn us into chunky salsa, things of that nature. And that's kept Starlight glued to the water telegraph again, all afternoon and evening, hashing it all out with Twilight. I'm about to pull the plug for the evening; the auxiliary tank on the water reclaimer is almost full, again, which means we'll have to start dumping excess water out the airlocks, again.
Speaking of airlocks, it's now about three times as long since Airlock 1 blew out as between the assembly of the Hab and the blowout. Tomorrow I'm going to ask Starlight, Spitfire and Dragonfly to help with a thorough check for incipient flaws in the Hab canvas. It's been over a month since we last did one. I don't expect to find anything, but that's exactly why we do the check. It's the shit we don't expect that kills, and we're getting too close to getting off this rock for me to literally blow it now.
Why not tonight? Well, that's because of my homework. Cherry Berry asked Starlight for ideas on how to keep the cave going after we leave. Starlight says she has some ideas, but she needs to know exactly what's required to keep the farm healthy and growing once we're gone. So she handed that off to me.
Which is why I'm spending this evening calculating oxygen and carbon dioxide cycles between aerobic bacteria and plants. I'm calculating water consumption and respiration. I'm making an educated guesstimate at heat losses for the cave based on past data (from the Cave Fart and its aftermath). I'm seeing a need to measure current insolation through the solar relay crystals so I can make an educated guess on what the rate will be during the Martian winter roughly three hundred sols from now.
But there's one problem that no amount of magic or tinkering will solve: bees. We don't have any.
Here's the thing. If we can somehow create a self-maintaining environment suitable for plant life, the cherry trees will live a very long time— possibly fifty Martian years or until they outgrow the cave, whichever comes first. And the potato plants can theoretically keep sprouting new plants from buried tubers, so there will be potatoes in the cave for years, possibly decades.
The limiting factor is the alfalfa. Alfalfa plants live for about five to seven years if left to grow continually, but eventually they get old and die. Alfalfa doesn't bud like potatoes, and cuttings require human care and tending to get started. And without animal life with animal digestive systems to fix nitrogen and provide certain amino acids, the alfalfa is the only thing that will keep the soil from playing out within a couple of years.
We're out of seeds after the replanting we did after the Cave Fart and the sinkholes and the anaerobic bacteria plague. And in three hundred plus sols of growing hay on Mars, we've yet to see a single bud, let alone an actual flower, on any of the alfalfa plants. And if we did see a bud, we'd have to fertilize it by hand, if that's even possible, because there are no bees on Mars.
Without bees, alfalfa doesn't produce seeds. Neither do potato flowers (of which we have seen a few) or cherry blossoms (the trees are way too young). No seeds means no new alfalfa.
If NASA proceeds with Ares IV landing at Schiaparelli on schedule— which will require a really fast refit after Hermes makes it home— and if Ares V is redirected to this site for a follow-up picking through our garbage, they'll get here about eight Earth years from now. By that time the cave farm will be plenty sick if not totally dead, for lack of soil nutrients. And I just don't see any way around that.
Eh, maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe Starlight can make little crystal bees out of magic. Maybe the alfalfa will spontaneously mutate to reproduce by parthenogenesis, like in Jurassic Park, only without the bloody murderous pack predators.
(Come to think of it, what would alfalfa hunt? How much tactical knowledge do you need to sneak up on loam?)
I'm getting punchy. Time to put this aside and pull out my other homework: campaign building. Starlight's too busy to try making a new campaign for D&D, and we've played all the pre-gen adventure modules twice, so she asked me to work on a Discworld campaign setting.
If I do this right, they'll never get out of Ankh-Morpork...
Author's Notes:
Offhand, can't think of anything that needs explaining here.
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Sol 346
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 351
ARES III SOL 346
"A-HA!"
Spitfire jabbed her hoof at the computer screen. "Starlight always talk `need to know how to talk write proper.' So humans understand. But here a human writer, writes bad. On purpose!"
They were midway through Guards! Guards! On the screen, Watch Captain Samuel Vimes had engaged in the traditional police procedural device of writing down facts in the hopes of making a connection. But since the book was a fantasy book and involved a dragon that appeared and disappeared by magic, the policeman's notes were written in a bad Ye Olde Langueuage. (Though, admittedly, not using any actual bad language.)
"Look! Look at this! He even can't find word! `I-Time: The drag-gone was not a Mechanical devize, yettie surely no wiz-zard has the power to create a beas-tee of that mag— mag — magnight— size.' What he trying say anyway?"
"Magnitude," Starlight Glimmer muttered. When that got a blank look, she said in Equestrian, "Magnitude."
"Oh. I don't use that word even in Equestrian, let alone English." Spitfire shrugged and shifted back to English and back to her point. "This proves you don't need perfect English! Not when humans get it wrong!"
"Spitfire," Cherry Berry said quietly, "do you ever read the Wonderbolt-" she used the Equestrian name— "-records from about, oh, four hundred years ago?"
"Yes! When I must!" Spitfire replied. "Annoying! Ponies not know spelling then! Words all... weird! Make me nuts reading..." The light dawned, and Spitfire looked down to the computer screen, then back at Cherry Berry. Borrowing a phrase she'd heard Mark use several times, she said, "I see what you did there."
"Oh, it's better than that," Starlight Glimmer said. "The character writing those notes grew up poor and on the streets in a place with no public education, not even a one-room school like Ponyville's."
"A one room schoolhouse?" Mark asked. "You still have that kind of thing? How big is Ponyville anyway?"
"Not important just now," Starlight said. "My point is, Captain Vimes has every excuse to have bad grammar, but he's trying. He uses archaic— that's very old— words and spelling, even though he doesn't talk like that, because he thinks that's how educated people write. And the author, Mr. Pratchett, knows exactly when and how to break the rules of grammar and spelling to make this effect work. That's what knowing a language can do for you!"
"Right," Spitfire scoffed. "Didn't mean to write book on Mars."
"Can we get back to reading the book now?" Cherry Berry asked.
"Just a minute," Mark said. "I want to go back to public education not being important."
Spitfire pulled the computer back to herself and began reading aloud— and very loud— until Mark gave up on any attempt to investigate the educational system of the ponies.
Author's Notes:
This seemed like a much more promising line of exploration when I decided on it for today's writing. But between distractions and work at Delta H Con, this is all that resulted.
Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.
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Sol 347
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 352
ARES III SOL 347
"I've been thinking— and don't make any stupid jokes about it, okay?"
Dragonfly and Mark had cleared a worktable and sketched designs for Rover Saddlebags Version 2.0 on the surface, having discovered that the dry-erase markers could also be wiped (mostly) clean from the tabletops. (Starlight Glimmer had made it clear that, for the duration, anyone who laid a hoof on either of the actual whiteboards would lose that hoof.) The new saddlebags required careful planning; they would be expected to hold as much as ten times the weight of the saddlebags Mark had used for the drive to Pathfinder, and they would have to do that job without crushing the lightweight rover pressure vessel.
"You've been thinking," Mark repeated. "About this?" He gestured to the sketched, half-erased plans.
"Yeah, but this is something else." Dragonfly leaned away from the table for emphasis. "Spitfire made a remark yesterday about not planning on writing a book while we're here on Mars. And I was thinking: why not? Someone ought to write a book about this."
"Not me," Mark said firmly. "I'm already doing mission logs when I remember to do it, and when I can think of something to log. And I'll be writing reports and studies until I die, once we all get home."
"Huh. Well, maybe I'll do it myself," Dragonfly said. "Not the official report, of course. Cherry and Starlight will write that. But maybe a romance novel like my queen likes. A book about how a beautiful young human girl fell in love with the alien she was stranded with."
"Human girl?" Mark asked. "Not knocking it or anything, but is that your personal preference?"
It took Dragonfly a moment to figure out what preference Mark was talking about. "Oh," she said. "Um, no. Changeling, remember? Shape-shifter. With us it's all about what puts love on the plate."
"Well, yeah, but you told me that the queen isn't the only one who reproduces."
"Yes, but most changelings never even think about mating for life or having a grub. And the larvae are raised communally anyway, so it's not like we have cozy little pony-style families."
"So..." Dragonfly could sense confusion boiling off of Mark like a stewpot left too close to the fire. "So you're saying, you don't really have a preference?"
Dragonfly sighed. "Mark, to be honest I find the idea of having a preference just as weird as you find my not having a preference. It's just that I think a book with Miss Johanssen on the cover will sell better in Pony-land than a book with you on the cover. Human females are just more visually interesting."
"Oh really?" Mark asked, raising an eyebrow. "And how do you justify that claim?"
"How often do you see Daisy Duke without half her clothes," Dragonfly asked, "and how often do you see either Bo or Luke Duke without half their clothes?"
"Errrr... maybe not a good example," Mark said. "But okay, whatever. I'm sure it'll be a good book. It'll rank up there with your story of how Chrissy left Jack and Janet not because her aunt was ill, but because she fell in love with Enos and eloped to Hazzard County."
"What?"
Mark shrugged. "Just a joke," he said. "About all the weird questions you always asked about what if this or that one of Lewis's TV shows met each other."
"Oh." That explained... come to think of it, it explained nothing at all! "Wait, what does that have to do with writing stories?"
"I thought that's what you were doing all this time— writing bad TV fanfic."
Dragonfly didn't bother to hide her blank stare.
"Fanfic. Fan fiction. Writing stories about someone else's stories."
"Oooooooh," Dragonfly said. "Well, it took you long enough to explain..." Connections continued to build in the changeling's mind around the new concept. "Wait, you mean you can DO that??" she asked.
"Millions of humans do it every day," Mark said. "The creators, or more likely the companies that pay the bills, they get mad if you make too much money doing it, but a lot of people do it for a hobby. And I hear a few of them have gone on to become creators in their own right."
"Really?" Dragonfly asked. "Because I know one time my queen tried to float a version of the Hearth's Warming legend that said there was a changeling there who fought the Go-Windies to a standstill because she wanted all that pony love for herself. And you would not believe just how mad the ponies got about that story! Why, you'd think we'd said the Creator was a changeling!"
"Er... is he?" Mark asked tentatively.
"She was an alicorn," Dragonfly said, correcting Mark. "Just goes to show, nobody's perfect." She pushed her stool away from the worktable and hopped down to the dirt-covered Hab floor.
"Wait a minute," Mark asked, "where are you going?"
"I'm going to get started writing fanfics," Dragonfly answered. "I have the perfect story, too— about Jesse Duke and Boss Hogg meeting the woman who destroyed their friendship years ago." Pause, grin grin #17 (Shameless and Triumphant). "Sue Ann Nivens!"
"Sue Ann Nivens? Who the— wait, you mean Mary Tyler Moore's Sue Ann? But she lives in Minneapolis!"
"People move, don't they?"
"Well, yeah, but— no, wait, you know what? Never mind. Not my problem," Mark said. "But can't it wait until after we work this out?" He tapped the tabletop meaningfully. "After all, you're the one who'll have to puke it all out."
"I only wish I was just spitting it up," Dragonfly muttered to herself in Equestrian.
"Sorry, I didn't catch all of that?" Mark asked.
"Nothing." Dragonfly hopped back up onto the stool. "Let's go down the list of everything we have to carry in them again..."
MISSION LOG — SOL 347
We've made a breakthrough with the plans for the Rover 2 mods.
One of the problems we've had is that we're trying to keep the extra weight in the trailer as low as possible. Even empty it masses about fifteen tons, on a chassis which was rated for an emergency load of ten tons. We can't make it any lighter without giving up solar panels or living space, and the whole point of the trailer is to provide a living space large enough for all six of us. But we don't want one ounce more than necessary back there.
Unfortunately, it turns out we have to put rather a lot back there. Once we leave the cave farm behind, the only recharge we get for the magic batteries is from our own life force, apparently— and that gets blocked by Hab canvas or anything with sufficient radiation hardening. So, at the very least, we have to carry inside the trailer, along with us, the seven batteries the Sparkle Drive needs plus a few extras for work and other purposes. If we take all nineteen of the regular batteries we currently have, that's a bit more than a ton— and also close to two-thirds of a cubic meter of interior space, which is almost as precious as load.
And then there's food. Cherry Berry, Spitfire and Dragonfly will be scouting ahead of the rover as we move to help clear the path and warn us of unseen obstacles, so they'll need a lot more than the kilo or so of hay and potatoes they're eating each day. One and a half kilos is our goal right now— closer to the calorie and nutrient load of a full astronaut ration. But that's one and a half kilos for four people for a hundred sols— six hunded kilos total. The potatoes can travel outside the rover in the saddlebags, but the alfalfa can't. As we've discovered, freeze-dried alfalfa tastes too foul to stomach.
So that's close to two tons, minimum, that have to ride in the trailer— along, of course, with us when we're stopped. The six of us together, with space suits, add about another half-ton or more. And we need to carry extra food for Dragonfly in case the space suits or something else needs to be repaired by careful application of bug barf. That's more weight. And, doubtless, we'll keep finding more things that absolutely have to travel inside, possibly including more batteries... unless we find someplace else to carry them first.
"But Mark," you say, "what about the interior of Rover 2?" And I say: it's already taken. My tools will ride in the interior cargo compartment. The passenger bench has been removed so we could install two of the Hab's hydrogen fuel cells for extra battery power. The RTG will ride along to keep the rover warm (the trailer will rely on air from the life support box). What little space remains inside the pressure vessel is probably going to go to the medical supplies and other useful things from the Hab that can't stand either vacuum or getting scattered randomly across the Martian landscape...
... plus, of course, the Sparkle Drive crystal, which isn't all that large, but is absolutely irreplaceable once we hit the road. We can't count on finding a second crystal cave.
So, what's riding in the saddlebags? Whatever potatoes we take along, of course. We can pre-bake some for the trip, and once we arrive at Schiaparelli we'll have plenty of electricity for the microwave. (Another fifteen kilos... sigh.) Extra hardware and scrap metal salvaged from the alien ship, in case we need it for modifying the MAV. We probably won't need it, with the new launch plan, but better to have it than not. The remaining food packs, including the seven packs per person I'm reserving for the MAV flight in case we need to make a run for Earth directly. Fourteen solar panels, to be set out after each drive and gathered up at the start of the next sol.
And, most of all, the fifteen jumbo batteries and the three target crystals for their repulsor enchantments. Each jumbo battery weighs two hundred and eighty kilos, and the three target crystals weigh forty-five kilos total, for a grand total mass of quartz of about four point three metric tons. To put it in perspective, everything else combined is less than one ton.
So— over five tons of cargo. And the cargo rack and bag on the rover roof was engineered for a maximum load of half a ton.
But the good news is, we don't have to have the roof bear the full weight of the saddlebags. Our original plan was to build carrier racks for the three pony ship engines (4.5 tons total mass) extending from the chassis under the rover's pressure vessel. Well, we no longer need to haul that particular 4.5 tons anyplace, but we can still build the racks. We can tie the saddlebags into the racks so that they take the bulk of the load. We'll still have straps across the roof for extra load-bearing and balance, or if something breaks, as it probably will.
We've got a good design for the load-reduction racks, and we're pretty sure there's enough scrap metal from the alien ship to make them happen. They'll add about two hundred kilos to Rover 2's total weight, but that's a small price to pay for not having the pressure vessel fail while I'm in my shirtsleeves trying to navigate Mars's first semi truck across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable.
I just mentioned this to Dragonfly, and she just said, "Whatever you say, Bear." Which just shows my place in the pecking order. It's a shame none of the crew were into Clint Eastwood movies. At least then I could hope to earn my way up to Clyde.
Author's Notes:
Was originally going to have this be Starlight's report on pony education, but I decided such a report would have absolutely nothing to do with the story, not even as filler. It'd be plain empty speculation on the canon-MLP world.
So I went here instead— with the first half of this, in much shorter form, being how I'd intended to end yesterday's chapter, if I hadn't had a conversation going on around me that made it impossible to continue writing.
Delta H Con is being extremely good to me this year, so I'm about to drive home for more stuff and to sleep in my own bed.
EDIT: Typing this bit from the front seat of my van, where I am waiting for a tow truck. Thank you SO much. wild hog that jumped out of the unmowed grass around the highway and did unknown but serious damage which means I have to borrow a van to get my stuff home tomorrow and then have the local dealership come get the damn thing Monday so it might be fixed in time for Mechacon at the end of the month...
... goodbye $500 deductible...
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Sol 349
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 354
ARES III SOL 349
[08:07] HERMES: Good morning, Mark and everyone else. A bit of news: the vice-president won the election last night, so we have four more years of an administration firmly committed to the Mars mission. He mentioned you in his victory speech— all of you, not just Mark, as an example of the future possibilities awaiting mankind.
NASA says they're sorry they didn't get you a ballot, but they weren't confident enough on the bandwidth so soon after the comms blackout to get you the legally required ballot file format. But between you, me, and Annie Montrose, I gather NASA was happier not taking a risk that your rescue might be even more politicized than it already is.
[08:34] WATNEY: No big deal. I didn't exactly have much chance to closely examine the issues. But I better get the chance to vote twice in the next election.
[09:01] HERMES: You're from Chicago, Mark. You vote at least twice in every election anyway.
[09:26] WATNEY: Hey! That's a cruel and hurtful thing to say to a person who's been horribly deprived of political speeches for over a year. Over a year with no bloviating, false promises, or toxic narcissism. A man could go mad.
[09:53] HERMES: A lot of words, but I don't see you denying it, Mark.
[10:19] WATNEY: No, but it's still hurtful.
"Election?" Cherry Berry asked. "You mean, like that time when Boss Hogg... well, whatever?"
"Don't you have elections in Ponyland?" Mark asked. "I mean, not for princesses, because you don't vote for princesses, but other offices?"
Cherry shrugged. "We have a... er... every once in a while every city and town in the land sends someone to the capital for a long meeting to discuss important stuff. There's a lot of talking, and then everyone goes home and the princesses do what needs to be done. And we have mayors, but usually nobody wants the job, so whoever has it is stuck with it."
"Nobody wants to be elected?" Mark asked.
"Mark, we don't have Boss Hoggs in Ponyland," Starlight Glimmer said. "Well, we kind of do, but not because they got elected. Mayors mainly do paperwork and perform ceremonies, and that's about all. Only a pony with a government cutie mark would be interested."
"What about the other races?" Mark asked.
"The griffons barely have a government at all," Starlight said.
"Yeah," Fireball rumbled. "It's mostly people trying to find other people to give them a bribe."
"It's not that bad anymore!"
"Heh. Dragons have a lord. You do what she says, or else. But mostly we keep to ourselves. No cities, no services, no government."
"That's all silly stuff," Dragonfly said. "We changelings have a nice stable democracy."
Three ponies and a dragon all snorted. "Democracy??" Spitfire gasped. "You know what word mean?"
"Yes. I'm surprised that you do."
"Picked it up from TV. But you have queen. Absolute ruler, power of life and death, sort of thing."
"But it's a democracy. If a queen gets too old, or when a daughter challenges for the throne, all changelings stand with one or the other. If the queen loses..."
"You're Chrysalis's daughter," Mark pointed out. "Looking for a promotion when-"
"NO!!" Dragonfly jumped away from the worktable where she'd been sitting. "Being the queen is hard work! Dangerous work! And not one bit of fun! You'd have to be crazy to want to be queen!"
"Bing-bong," Spitfire sang quietly.
"But all this ballots and office-holders and stuff?" Dragonfly said, waving a perforated hoof dismissively. "That's just wasted time and effort. Why would people go to all that trouble for a thankless job any idiot could do?"
Mark opened his mouth, closed it, and muttered, "Maybe it's just a human thing."
"Earth needs more princesses," Starlight Glimmer said.
"For the eighty-seventh time," Mark sighed, "it does not."
Author's Notes:
Got to bed at 1 AM last night, up again at 6, drive to Houston, work, load friend's van, finish unloading friend's van into house at 10:30 PM.
This is what I have time or energy for, but it's not quite pointless filler. I threw this in as a marker for time passing on Earth. And why not a mention of the election (although with zero details to speak of)?
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Sol 350
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 355
ARES III SOL 350
"I only wish it were that easy."
The last page of Guards! Guards! had been read, with two dragons soaring out of the Discworld and out into deep space.
"I mean, all we need is a magic library full of the most powerful spells known to pony," Starlight Glimmer groused. "Then we could just drop Fireball into it, tie a rope to his tail, tie the other end to the ship, and fly wherever we wanted."
"I think love had some to do with it, too," Cherry Berry said.
Fireball snorted, as eloquently as only a dragon can. Foolish pony notions deserved more snort than a mere pony snout could provide. And poor, deprived Mark, with that tiny nose of his— if he snorted you'd never hear it.
Unfortunately you couldn't say the same thing about his wisecracks. "It speaks," Mark said in response to the snort. "Come on, Fireball. I've been waiting the whole book for this. What did you think about the dragons in this book?"
"Yeah," Dragonfly chipped in. "I thought you'd be all like Starlight, `it doesn't work like that!' and stuff."
"I'm not Starlight," Fireball said. "This magic, in the books, not our magic. These dragons not our dragons. No big deal." He tapped the reading computer. "Swamp dragons, kind of sad. But big dragon? Almost like us. Almost like me."
"How's that?" Mark asked.
Fireball didn't exactly know how to say it, even in Equestrian. "Need to think," he muttered, and he went silent for half a minute while he did just that. "First is magic," he said, once he had a clear idea. "Not the summon thing. That stupid— no, wait, not stupid, that's wrong word. Summon thing is... interesting. Idea that, if you magic up a dragon, what you get reflects who you are? I like the idea. But it not fit me and mine.
"But rest of it? Our dragon lord's father is big as mountain. Flies just fine. I have little wings. I fly just fine, not as fast as many, but good enough. Dragon in book hovers, floats like cloud, flies just like me. Thinks some like me, too. I know lots of dragons just as bad as this one, except not so quick to kill."
Yeah, he'd thought that line would make the silence even deeper. But there were more thoughts to come. Thinking was like a pony train; get started, and it took a lot to stop it again.
"Harry Potter books, dragons just monsters. Not even real animals. All mean, violent, stupid. Ring books, only Smaug. He gloats like Boss Hogg. Not quite a person. Too... too... flat. But better than Potter dragons.
"But swamp dragons feel like real animals. Some angry, some old, some playful. And Errol really smart. I like Errol. And big dragon feel almost like people." Again he tapped the computer. "Spitfire was right. This book is home. I want to read more."
"Eh, I don't know," Starlight said. "I thought it was okay, I guess, but I thought Lord of the Rings had deeper themes. Though the Patrician's talk about the necessity of evil... well, it was completely wrong, but it makes you wonder about the kind of mind that could really believe all that."
"I do know," Spitfire said. "And this good book. Guard... Vimes and them... like if griffons have a guard. Felt right. Felt like writer knew."
"It did feel like being around Ponyville ponies," Cherry said. "If half of them were violent crazies. I liked Potter better. There if someone died, it was a big deal. Discworld..."
"I never thought I'd read a book where anyone meets the Pale Horse face to face," Dragonfly said. "But I like Death. If it really worked like that... it wouldn't be so bad." The changeling's face, which still looked a little drawn despite months of feeding up, lacked its usual grin. "I don't suppose Death ever gets his own book?"
"Several," Mark replied. "I'll have to check and see which ones NASA sent. They held back on Pyramids and Small Gods, and those two are among the best in the series."
"Don't care about Death," Spitfire said. "I want more Guard. Unless there's an army story."
"Have to get through a couple more Guard stories before the two Discworld books about war," Mark said.
"Okay. Then let's do the next Guard book!" Dragonfly said.
"More murder?" Cherry Berry asked, sensing herself about to become a minority of one.
"Even better. The next book focuses on the Assassins' Guild," Mark said. "Assassins are people who are specially trained to kill other people— one on one, not in an army or anything like that."
"Awww."
"Sounds good," Fireball said.
"Eh, all right," Starlight said. "I've been reading more of those books by Rex Stout. I like them better than Agatha Christie's books, except maybe Orient Express. But more Discworld sounds good."
"All right," Mark said. "We'll begin that tomorrow. Let's go back to the Hab and get lunch."
Author's Notes:
Saturday night, thanks to the van thing, I got slightly less than five hours sleep, followed up by driving, customers, packing, and more driving from 7 AM until 10:30 PM. After I signed off last night, I was hoping to sleep myself out.
So, naturally, at 8:01 AM, the dealership called and woke me up to tell me the tow truck was coming to get the van and take it to their body shop.
The tow truck finally arrived at quarter after 4 PM.
I got some other things done, including the really time-critical post-con stuff, but I've spent most of the day in a mental fog. This ought to have been twice as long as it is, but it was a struggle to focus on ANYTHING, never mind coherent dialog.
Having re-read Guards! Guards!, I have to admit that it's much lighter on themes than either the Potter books or Lord of the Rings. It's an early Pratchett work, and in all honesty the next book the ponies will tackle, Men at Arms, is closer to the point where Pratchett really began hitting his stride with social satire. As a consequence, the only thing the castaways would really have to react to, in the whole of Guards!, is dragons.
Time, of course, is passing, but I'm going to skip some more sols since I have this coming weekend off the circuit (conveniently, since there's no way my van would be fixed in three days).
And one more thing: I know I opened the door by having a chapter about election day and government structures, which is why I didn't delete any political comments to that chapter. But could they stop now, please?
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Sol 354
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 360
ARES III SOL 354
"Oh, yes, these books are home."
Spitfire's smile grew and grew as Starlight Glimmer's turn at reading Men at Arms got to the part where Sam Vimes, commoner bordering on commonest, was forced to attend a party of the city's wealthy aristocracy as part of the build-up to his marriage into their ranks.
Cherry Berry, on the other hoof, found herself squirming on her haunches.
She'd spent years in close proximity to a queen who, on her good days, showed brief and fleeting glimpses of something that might, in a good light, resemble a decent pony, but who on her bad days was only restrained from being worse than Tirek by her own paranoia. She was on greeting terms with three princesses and a reasonably close acquaintance (and sometime rival) of a fourth, and knew all their major foibles and failings. But despite it all, Cherry Berry had always had the faith of most ponies that Celestia and her ministers and nobles were wise and benevolent ponies who always sought the best for all Equestria.
So several pages of nobles being ignoble shook one of her fundamental views of the world to the core, even if they were fictional, even if they were on a world that rode on a turtle instead of her own. "Spitfire, I just can't see it," she said.
"You never went to Celestia's ball before Twilight and friends did, no?"
"Excuse me," Starlight muttered, "might I continue, please?"
"No, I didn't," Cherry Berry said. "I only went once, after the moon landing."
"I saw before Twilight broke the ball," Spitfire said. "Shake hooves with Prince Blueblood, pretend not see where he looks. Shake hooves with dukes and counts and rich ponies and don't see them turn up noses at working ponies. All so rich. All so... so good parents, good blood. And only a couple not greedy, petty dummies."
"I don't see it that way. The capital ponies I meet are just ponies, rich or not."
"There reason why changelings fly all joy-ride flights."
"Excuse me!" Starlight Glimmer said. "Do you want to end Story Time early today? No? Then stop interrupting! We can discuss this all at the end like we usually do!"
Spitfire took her usual short turn, and then Cherry Berry read the section about Vimes and Carrot in a murdered dwarf's workshop.
About midway through, Dragonfly spoke up. "You know, I kind of understand that. It always feels weird using a tool that belongs to somebody else."
"Oh really?" Mark asked. "Was that why you were so eager to mess with my tools the first couple hundred sols?"
"That's different!" Dragonfly protested. "I thought they might be all neato keen alien tools, with mysterious alien properties and functions." She snorted and added, "And all I got was your electric screwdriver and the sample probe. We have power drills back home."
"Well, forgive my species for not having improved on the hammer!" Mark said. "And I'm sorry that hydrospanners were too much trouble for NASA to ship up here! Speaking of, where's my half-inch ratchet wrench?"
"I told you," Dragonfly said, "it's in the tool box in Rover 2, because the only things that take your half-inch sockets are on the rover."
"I looked there."
"Excuse me," Cherry Berry protested. "Maybe you two could do this not during Story Time?"
"Sorry."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thank you. Continuing-"
"But it's just as weird having someone else using your tools as it is to use someone else's tools."
"Even weirder. It's like your hoof is on some other bug's leg, and you want to-"
"I said later!"
Silence, in stereo.
"Continuing. Rubbing his head with one hand..."
It was Mark's turn again when the book got to the visit of Detritus the troll and Cuddy the dwarf to the Alchemist's Guild, complete with exploding billiard balls.
"Now this," Fireball said with feeling, "feels like home. Feels like the job."
"I can't count the times I've walked into Twilight Sparkle's lab and had to duck the instant I opened the door," Starlight Glimmer said.
"It's like they took the changelings who work in vehicle assembly," Cherry Berry said, "and gave them chemistry sets and a budget."
"Except without the old griffon to keep them in line," Dragonfly said. "Do you think he's enjoying his retirement?"
"With as much as we paid him, he ought to be," Cherry Berry replied.
"Come to think of it," Starlight added, "these people remind me a bit of Sunburst, too. And Minuette, come to think of it. And, well, every experimental potion brewer I ever met."
"Leonard of Quirm," Spitfire struggled to pronounce the name. "Think he minotaur?"
"The way they talk about him, sounds like he'd fit in with our bulls," Cherry Berry agreed.
The conversation paused for a moment, and Dragonfly took the opportunity to ask Mark, "Aren't you going to ask us to shut up, too?"
"Why?" Mark asked. "For me this is much more interesting. For one thing, if your space programs are run like the Ankh-Morpork Alchemists' Guild, it would explain so much about how you got here."
"Hey, that's a bit mean," Dragonfly said. "Accurate, but mean."
"It not just space program," Fireball said. "All pony science and magic like that."
"All of it?" Mark looked at his visitors. "How do you still have a planet?"
"Immortal princesses," Starlight Glimmer said. "It really works, I'm telling you."
MISSION LOG — SOL 354
Finished the second bracket for supporting the rover saddlebags. We need eight in total for the load we're going to put in them. The jumbo batteries will ride in loops outside the brackets, so most of their weight will be borne by the brackets. The cold-resistant food and other stuff will ride in pouches between the brackets and the rover body. Based on our best estimates, the roof will bear about a ton of weight, or about double its rating on Earth. In Mars gravity, it's less of an issue, so long as we don't slam down off a cliff or something.
It's good to be working with my hands. Dragonfly and Fireball are assisting me on this, and I think they're glad of the work, too. Working with the plants ceased to be interesting for anyone except Cherry ages ago, and we've cut back D&D sessions to once per week to keep us from getting tired of it too quickly. The Whinnybago is almost done except for testing, which we can't do until we're done with the cave farm. We're almost out of the solvents and reagents for the chem lab, so geology science experiments are pretty much over. Boredom is beginning to be a serious problem, so any busy-work seems like a treat now.
Take Starlight Glimmer. She's waiting until Sol 360 to do the repulsor enchantment, because she wants to use the batteries she's reserved for making more batteries to do that job. We won't be able to take many more batteries with us than we already have due to weight and space issues, so using them to make the things that will throw the MAV hard enough for us to meet Hermes makes sense. But in the meantime she's got down time, so she's thrown herself into the Save the Cave project.
Today she made a bunch of new sunlight relay crystals in the deeper parts of the cave. The idea is that the sunlight channeled through also contains heat, so the more light the inside of the cave gets, the less dependent we are on running water.
Which brings up a question that, in retrospect, is so obvious I'm surprised you, historians of the future, haven't shouted it loudly enough for me to hear it here in the past: "Why didn't you think of this before? Starlight made all the other crystals with almost zero magic, so what took so long?" And the answer is, we didn't think of it, what with making batteries, sealing the cave, getting rid of methane, reviving Sleeping Ugly, and Starlight falling over and nearly dying half the time she casts spells. You know, petty unimportant little distractions like that. But we still should have thought of it, especially when we saw how efficient the original lighting crystals turned out to be.
We'll have to monitor the temperature inside the cave closely over the next couple of weeks. The ultimate goal, of course, is to shut off the water heating system altogether. We're nowhere near that point.
Of course, heat is just one of the many problems. But Starlight is exploring another avenue: the rainbow crystals. After all, we know two things about that random enchantment— it stores magic energy, and other enchantments can be added on top of it. That means, in theory, the rainbow crystals could be used to power other things, like for example a way of circulating water more reliable than condensation dripping off the cave ceiling. (Which it doesn't do, by the way; the cave roof is high, but not high enough for the temperature to be that different. Also, the life support box's air circulation keeps the humidity down quite a bit.)
About the only person who doesn't have something to occupy her time is Spitfire. She tends to hang around Starlight like a vulture, waiting for our adorable little four-legged power tool to blow a fuse again. She doesn't complain, but it can't be rewarding.
I wish I could think of something she could do to be useful. Maybe I could reactivate the MDV improvised flight sim. We disconnected its power after we stole a third of the Hab's electrical storage to install in the Whinnybago, but we might be able to spare the juice for some flight sim runs.
(Speaking of, it would be nice if NASA settled on the MAV modifications so they could send us an updated flight sim program before we leave here for Schiaparelli. Cherry Berry got very good at flying a stock MAV in the sims, but we're going to be riding to rescue or doom in the kludge from hell. It's not the same thing.)
Ah, well. The others have pulled out the computers for a network hearts tournament. Guess I'll join them. It beats watching more CHiPs. (And yeah, I know Ponch is meant to be a lousy cop with a heart of gold, but he's the only one in that department who doesn't have a giant redwood up his ass... )
Author's Notes:
If you didn't know, the nitrocellulose billiard ball was actually a thing on Earth at one point in the early twentieth century, when demand for pool balls outstripped the ability of humans to massacre wildlife in a brutal and wasteful fashion for their ivory. (I know, hard to imagine, right?) The Earth version of exploding pool balls weren't nearly as showy as the Discworld version, but I just wanted to remind those of you who are Pratchett fans that he got TONS of material from real life.
And for those of you who aren't fans: there's a part in a book where a group of alchemists test artificial pool balls. The result, according to the rule of billiards printed by Hoyle, is a miscue.
I really am producing a lot of filler here, but that's because the crew's life is filler right now. They're finding things to fill the hours while they count the days. I begin to have sympathy for Andy Weir making the 150-sol time-jump. And if I edit this down to a proper book, I might end up doing the same.
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Sol 360
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MISSION LOG — SOL 360
Hello to the people of Earth from the crew of the Pony spaceship Friendship. (That's not quite the right translation of the ship name, but it's close enough.)
We asked Mark to let us write today's log entry, because for us today is a special day. One year ago today we left our homeworld for what we thought was a five-day mission. One year ago tomorrow, of course, that plan crashed along with our ship.
Today we received a special message from the princess who rules the land most of us come from. We can't give a precise translation of her name, so we're going to call her "Celestia" here. This is the message, in full:
"Greetings from Ponyland. One year ago you went forth to expand the frontiers of all the speaking peoples of the world. Through a series of unforeseeable circumstances you ended up stranded farther from home than any of us can imagine. Today we send you our warmest hopes and wishes that you will soon return to us.
"Your courage and determination have inspired millions around the world. Despite being stranded on a hostile and lifeless planet, through the power of friendship you have not only survived but thrived. You have made contact with a new speaking race— more than made contact, made friends. Together you have defied the odds and found solutions to one problem after another. Your heroism proves to two worlds that nothing is impossible.
"And now two worlds are reaching out to you to bring you home. Rest assured that there will be no second anniversary of this date. One year from now you will be safe at home, receiving the honors you deserve. Until then, be safe, and know that you are loved.
"Yours very truly, Princess Celestia."
We are honored by Celestia's words, but we want to make it clear: we are not heroes. We did not sign up to spend a year from home. We never imagined that we would be here, in a place where the physical laws we took for granted are different and where life cannot exist without artificial habitats or suits.
This is not what we wanted.
We want to go home. We want to eat more than one kind of food. We want to go outside without helmets. We want to hear birds and animals. We want to sleep in proper beds in proper gravity without wondering if the thin shell that keeps the air in might rupture while we sleep.
We are not heroes. We are three ponies, a dragon and a changeling, a very long way away from home. We are tired, bored, and afraid.
We are very lucky that our ship crashed so close to a real hero— someone who spent years training to spend a year away from home, specifically to survive on this planet. Like us, he has been stranded here. He has shared his shelter, his food, his tools, and his knowledge with us, when he didn't have to.
And now his crew is coming back to get us. Five people who volunteered to spend as much as a year and a half more away from their homes and families, facing the dangers of space, just to rescue the six of us.
They are the real heroes— the people of the Ares III mission. They are doing things no one else could. We, on the other hoof, are just surviving— as anyone else would do their best to, in our position.
Whoever you are reading this, a year or a century from now, please remember that we were just ordinary people. The real heroes are those who go into danger deliberately— and if we make it home, it will be thanks to them.
Cherry Berry, earth pony, mission commander
Starlight Glimmer, unicorn, mission scientist
Dragonfly, changeling, mission engineer
Fireball, dragon, mission EVA
Spitfire, pegasus, mission pilot
MISSION LOG — SOL 360 (2)
They wouldn't let me read the log entry until they saved it, and I still don't know how to edit or delete entries, so I guess I'll just have to set the record straight.
I've mentioned all of this before, but it merits a reminder.
Cherry Berry has walked on two worlds other than her homeworld— three, now, counting Mars. She has double-digit launches and landings under her belt. In the early sols of our being stranded, she held her crew together and kept them focused on the immediate goal of survival. During moments when we all almost died, her cool head and focus saved lives. She is a hero.
Starlight Glimmer has repeatedly pushed herself to the point of collapse to make our continued survival possible. She learned English and then helped teach it to the others so that we could cooperate more closely. Her magic and her designs make our life here possible. She is a hero.
Dragonfly likewise risked her own life and health to save my life. Her knowledge of her ship's systems comes from years of training and dedication. She works harder than any of us to keep morale up and to prevent bickering and fighting among us, despite the intense stress we're all under. She is a hero.
Fireball never complains about hard work. His strength allowed us to accomplish the impossible by salvaging the crashed ship. Despite being well aware of his limitations, he is always the first to offer help with anything he's competent to handle. He is a hero.
And Spitfire, despite having never been in space before, has grown into duties which were completely alien to her before their flight. She's always alert for danger or for signs of sickness or injury. She constantly works hard, no matter how difficult she finds it, to expand her skills and make herself more useful to the crew. She is a hero.
And I'm really flattered that they call me a hero, but I don't think of it that way. I trained for years to do a job. I came here to do the job. And the job turned lethal, and yet by a fluke I didn't actually die. And for all the time since, I've persistently not died. That's all. That doesn't feel like heroism to me. Billions of people on Earth fail to die every day.
Yes, life on Mars is hard. But I came here with the resources of over a dozen nations backing me and my five crewmates. When they escaped, I was left with a secure shelter, a surplus of food, and plenty of tools and spare equipment that could be used to extend my lifespan. The ponies, on the other hand, landed with less than two months of food, a few tools, and practically no spares of anything, almost totally cut off from their home.
Sure, we worked together to survive. But they all provided their fair share of ideas, work, and goodwill. And I'm not gonna let them be bashful about it.
By the way, today was pretty much wasted. That message from their princess left everybody blue. (It also absolutely soaked the Hab soil, so we spent a lot of time getting rid of the excess water. Those are the limitations of sending long speeches by a telegraph that runs on water.) Hopefully tomorrow we all get over our homesickness and guilt and get back to our hard and rigorous schedule of wasting time until the last hay harvest.
We've got tons of nothing to do and not much time left to do it.
Author's Notes:
The pony one-year mark seemed like a thing they'd commemorate, whether or not they wanted to.
Mark's one-year-from-home day would have been somewhere around Sol 230 or so, by the way.
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Sol 361
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 367
ARES III SOL 361
Dragonfly leaned against the battery projecting the magic field, letting each rainbow-colored arc of magic ease the dull gnawing in every cell of her body.
Oh, she looked much better than she had when she first came out of the cocoon. Most of the wrinkles were gone. She'd put on weight. Her legs were now less hole and more whole, to make an English joke. So obviously the short daily doses of magic everybody got in the cave worked. She was, very gradually, getting better.
But.
Ninety sols from now, they would leave the cave behind, hopefully forever. After that the batteries that powered these brief recreations of a natural Equestrian environment would recharge only from the ponies themselves— not from the biomass of the cave. Even taking into account the difference between magic generated by thinking life and plant life, the recharge rate would be cut by two-thirds at least, and likely more.
Actually, certainly more, since part of the daily recharge would have to go to topping off the jumbo batteries, which couldn't ride inside the Whinnybago with them.
Hard times were coming, which is why Dragonfly stayed as close to any magic field projectors that happened to be running.
Sometimes too close. "Dragonfly," Starlight Glimmer said, "I know you need the exposure, but could you back a few feet away from the battery, please? You're absorbing too much of the field."
"Sorry." Dragonfly reluctantly stepped backwards several paces.
"In fact," Starlight continued, "could you fetch another battery? I don't think this one will last long enough to finish the enchantment on all fifteen batteries."
"I got it." Before Dragonfly could move, Mark got up and walked over to the row of idle batteries by the cave wall, currently cabled together to help balance the absorption of magic produced by the plants. That was fine by Dragonfly, who didn't like picking up a sixty-kilo battery in her forehooves. (Okay, it only weighed about twenty-five kilos on Mars, but she'd been sick a really long time.) Lifting it with her limited store of magic, of course, was right out.
Meanwhile, Starlight Glimmer focused her attention on the fifteen jumbo batteries. Each had enough spare space on the top of the crystal to jam in a secondary enchantment linking each battery to one of three forty-kilo slices of quartz. Each of these slices would have five batteries pouring all their power into pushing them away from the batteries at a particular rate of power consumption which, if their calculations were correct, would run about six minutes.
The plan was simple. Mount the slices of quartz around and behind the central engine bell of the first ascent stage of the MAV. The slices had been cut and shaped precisely according to the diagrams in the Ares mission protocols on Mark's computers to fit in those spots. The fifteen jumbo batteries would be raised in a henge surrounding the MAV descent stage, and by some means— they hadn't worked that out yet— they would be triggered to switch on half a second after the MAV lifted off the descent stage.
Based on the calculations from experiments back home, if all fifteen batteries worked, there would be fuel reserve in the second ascent stage for maneuvers . They could lose four and still make rendezvous with Hermes without having to use the Sparkle Drive. But that was based on the perfect conditions of Equestria, not the conditions prevailing in a cave on Mars, which was why Dragonfly hadn't said a word in response to Starlight's polite request to quit hogging the magic.
In fact... Dragonfly checked the battery charge indicator and said, "Finish this one and stop, Starlight. The battery's about to run out."
"Okay." Starlight had another magic battery under her hooves, and she channeled both that power and the power she could tap from the weak artificial field into crafting the enchantment as strong and deep as she could. The magic flowed from her horn and into the clear quartz, not flickering even for the brief acknowledgment of Dragonfly's warning. For twenty seconds the spell continued to burn invisible pathways into the stone, and then she cut it off, the enchantment finished. "Okay, shut it down and swap over."
Dragonfly always hated the moment, even if it was brief, when the Jacolt's ladder shut down and the magic field dropped. It no longer threatened her sanity when it happened, but it still felt like something which constantly lifted her up had been yanked away, replaced by a brutal, agonizing vacuum.
But she'd had a lot of practice dealing with it, hiding it, denying it. And anyway, it was the work of less than two minutes to remove the kludged aerials from the spent battery, attach them to the full battery, and switch it from recharge to discharge. "How's it coming?" she asked as she performed this task.
"The three booster targets and ten of the jumbos are finished," she said. "The enchantments all look good. We'll have to add conductors to link the battery terminals to the receptor spots on the crystal. The original battery enchantment wasn't designed to power a second enchantment on the battery itself, not directly."
"Can you show me the places?"
"Sure. I need to drill a small hole into each of them to hard-mount the conductors, to make sure they stay in contact with the receptor spots in case the jumbos get shaken up by liftoff."
"We have some power tools."
"Nothing you or Mark has can cut quartz," Starlight said. "I won't be doing the drilling for another week at least, not until we get the charge back from today's work."
"Okay. If you're sure you're okay to do it."
"Believe me, it's a lot easier to put a two-inch hole in quartz than it is to add these enchantments. Ready with the new battery?"
"Yep."
"Okay. I should be done in another ten minutes."
"What did you think of the last part of the book?"
"Hm? Oh. Didn't I say during Story Time?"
"You didn't say anything. You let us talk."
"Oh. Sorry, my mind was on this task. And besides, since Mark keeps complaining every time I bring up his species' inferior system of government, I didn't think he wanted to hear me talk about how Carrot is clearly meant to be an alicorn prince."
"Oh, really?" Mark asked. "Because, y'know, ponies often have orange buzz-cut hair, stand two meters tall, carry swords using the opposable thumbs they don't have-"
"Switch the battery on, Dragonfly," Starlight sighed.
Dragonfly, having done her little bit to shake up things just enough to keep them interesting, complied.
Author's Notes:
I'd actually intended to have this referred to in passing, but this was the only thing I could think up to write today.
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Sol 363
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 369
ARES III SOL 363
[08:13] WATNEY: Good morning. I have a problem I want to bounce off the back rooms back at JSC.
Two sols ago Starlight Glimmer added the launch boost enchantment to the jumbo batteries. If all goes well, the jumbos will throw three pieces of specially enchanted quartz, and anything attached to them, completely off this planet. This should provide more than enough thrust, when added to the lighter load you'll give the MAV and the existing engines, to reach Hermes with a substantial fuel reserve in the second ascent stage.
There's just one hitch. The geniuses back in Ponyland who thought this system up (after Starlight gave them the idea) want it tested. And NASA being NASA, you want it tested too, because nothing makes a NASA engineer clench his buttocks tighter than the thought of sending a human being, never mind six people, up on a launch system that's absolutely never flown before.
We spent all day yesterday talking about how we could do it. The enchantments are specific and can't be re-tuned to a new target. If we use the enchantments Starlight made sol before yesterday, we lose those targets. Also, we aren't completely sure how quickly the jumbo batteries recharge, but we think it's slower than the regular batteries, so we don't want to use them for anything again until escape day.
So we decided, in a few days, that Starlight would enchant some new crystals and three new targets. We'll hook the new crystals up to the existing batteries and use them to launch something as a test. We considered rigging things to make the targets retrievable for future tests, but there's too much danger of dropping the whole test vehicle on top of our heads. We absolutely want to reach escape velocity. Ideally we want to launch at a time where the expected launch trajectory has the maximum chance of going straight up, leaving Mars's sphere of influence, and then dropping straight into the sun.
We've chosen to launch one of the pony ship's three engines. We won't be using them for anything, and we know the mass to within ten kilograms, so the data we get from the launch should be good. Future archaeologists will have to make do with the other two engines when we return to this site.
Our main problem with all of this is tracking. I'm sure we can pick a launch date and time when several Mars orbiters will be in view to watch the show, but cameras aren't as good as radio tracking. Right now the only thing we have that can broadcast beyond atmosphere is Pathfinder, and we're not launching that. Its ancient systems wouldn't survive launch vibrations anyway.
But we have two good remote weather stations and one half-operational one. They all have short-range radio transmitters. I could fuck up one of them so it sends a constant signal, and I could attach a heavier battery to provide extra current. Could we send extra juice through the transmitter to allow the orbiters to track the test vehicle for, oh, five minutes? If it burns out after that we don't care, but we really want accurate tracking for the first five minutes after launch.
We've still got plenty of time. The rover mods are essentially done, and we have about a month before we'd need to do serious testing and final prep for the drive to Schiaparelli. Get back to me when you've got some solid answers.
[08:39] HERMES: Ooooh, Mark, cosmic litterbug! Between this and how you're completely trashing Mars, Greenpeace is going to picket your apartment when you get home.
[08:46] JPL: Those are some good ideas, Mark. We'll get some systems engineers to work testing how much voltage the weather station transmitters can handle and if there are any other ways you can increase the gain using tools on site. In the meantime, I'll put the problem of tracking your launch in the hands of our very finest SatCom technician.
Mindy Park didn't notice she had a visitor until the mellifluous voice of her five-and-a-half-management-levels-up boss spoke from over her shoulder. "Good morning, Mindy. And how's my favorite satellite herder today?"
Mindy sighed, sitting up from her terminal and swiveling her chair around to face Dr. Kapoor. "About to get a whole lot busier," she said. "Am I right?"
Author's Notes:
The Sparkle Drive can't be tested on the ground. The booster pylon system, on the other hand, can...
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Sol 364
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 370
ARES III SOL 364
Starlight Glimmer poured magical energy in a by now familiar pattern into the fabric of the crystal cube in front of her. Of course, it had been months since she used this particular pattern— not since, come to think of it, shortly before the engine test and its consequences. That had been... five months? Five whole months lost to one emergency after another?
Well, it wasn't five months absolutely wasted. Dragonfly had been revived and put on a gradual road to recovery. The fifteen jumbo batteries had been made, although they'd been repurposed since. And, of course, there had been other issues as well.
But it was still five months with no increase in their magic generation capacity, and only three months remained until they left the cave. And the nineteen (well, eighteen and a half) batteries they had on hoof might not produce or retain enough magic to last the hundred days between departure and Escape Day. She wanted twenty-seven full batteries, fully charged— almost two tons, one whole cubic meter of mana batteries— for the trip. That meant she needed at least nine more, and then she needed spares on top of those so that last-minute magic usage wouldn't leave them short when it came time to go.
So here she was; three batteries powering a field projection, three more batteries for her personal use, and six blank batteries with salvaged casings ready to go. In two weeks she'd make six more. Two weeks after that, the final six. Thirty-six batteries— nine (and a half) above the required minimum. Those nine batteries ought to be sufficient power for their last month in Acidalia.
With one last quick surge of power, she completed the enchantment on the second battery of the day. She switched off the battery under her hooves, conserving the residual power, and shifted over to the next battery.
"Excuse me?" Cherry Berry had been standing behind her; Starlight hadn't noticed. (Well, she had, but she'd assumed it was Dragonfly, who always stayed within a couple of ponylengths of a battery in field-projector mode.) "I didn't want to interrupt you while you were concentrating, but something weird's happening with one of your bins of crystals."
Starlight's ears picked up. "Really?" she asked. "What kind of weird?"
"Water's trickling down the sides of it."
"Yeeeeesss!!" Starlight left the batteries, left the field projector— with three batteries backing it, it could run for over an hour— and galloped over to the trays of cut crystals she'd been using for her rainbow crystal enchantment experiments. Unlike the others, which were trays now filled with the standard randomly-enchanted crystals, the crystals in the bin on the end had a single straight, unchanging blue stripe underlying the rippling colors of the surface. And there, on one facet of the six-sided quartz shafts, the stripe broke through the surface and made a large, deep blue spot.
By design the crystals had been arranged to overlap the edges of the box. And yes, yes, tiny trickles of water were running down those overlapping crystals and down the sides of the tray. "It works! It works!" Starlight cheered, dancing up and down on her hooves with excitement.
"What works?" Cherry Berry asked.
"My enchantment overlay for pumping water back upslope to the top of the farm!" Starlight said. "Look, it's very simple." She scooped up one of the crystals in her hoof and held it under Cherry's nose. "The blue stripe is the enchantment— a conduit that passes water, and only water, and passes it in only one direction. Water comes out the blue dot. If it drips onto a crystal enchanted like this one, it gets sucked up and pushed up the line to the next crystal!"
"Okay," Cherry nodded. "But it'll be a lot of work making all of these and planting them in rows-"
"No, no, that's the genius of it!" Starlight grinned. "This is an overlay on the rainbow crystal enchantment! It self-propagates!" She glanced down at the pile of crystals, with most of the blue dots facing more or less up. "And it self-propagates pointed in the right direction! All I have to do is plant these every so often along each side of the farm area, and the rest of the water lines will build themselves!"
"Okay, that is good," Cherry agreed. "But you don't want every crystal to be one of these, or else you'll end up with constant rain in the cave."
"That's easy," Starlight said. "The rainbow crystals can't pass their enchantment on to a crystal that already has an enchantment. So all I have to do is enchant a continuous row of crystals along the upper and lower bounds of where I want the water lines to go, and the rainbow enchantment can't cross the line!"
"I see," Cherry said. "I guess you had this planned out."
"Well, yes," Starlight agreed. "It's a simpler variation on the enchantment we use for life support. It has to be— overlaying it on top of the rainbow crystal spell weakens it a lot. But with enough crystals, we should be able to recycle water from the cistern up to the airlock— in fact, if the enchantment reaches below the surface, it could tap the subsurface water that drains there from the back of the cave! We establish a magic-powered water cycle that requires no pony intervention!"
"We hope."
Cherry's skepticism took some of the wind out of Starlight's sails. "Well, yes," she said. "But this is what I can do with the time and resources we have remaining. We don't have a pump or water lines to do this mechanically. And if we don't do it, within a month or two of our departure, every plant in the cave will dehydrate and die."
"I know, I know," Cherry said. "But... we're never going to see this in full operation, are we? I mean, long term. We don't know what will change after we leave."
"All we can do is give the farm a fighting chance," Starlight said. "We've got light and water handled. We'll know before long if we've got heat. I just wish I could think of something for pollination." She looked at the crystal a moment longer before setting it back in the tray with its siblings. "Unfortunately, the rainbow enchantment doesn't work at a size small enough for a quartz chip to levitate itself."
"I'm not sure I like the idea of tiny bits of flying glass anyway," Cherry said. "Well, good luck. Let us know how we can help set this up."
"I will," Starlight said. "But I need to finish the batteries now, and then I have to make the boosters for the test launch. And then there's all sorts of other things I need to do."
"Actually, about that," Cherry Berry said. "Could you... um, could you make me a set of crystal dice like yours? I'm tired of the way the computer dice program keeps finding ways to dump me in Harry King's dunny wagon."
"Why exactly did you pick the Assassin character from the pre-gens Mark made, anyway?" Starlight asked.
"He wouldn't let any of us play wizards or witches," Cherry said. "Roof-jumping was as close as I could get to flying. But I don't understand why the computer dice keep failing me on that skill, and ONLY that skill."
"Well, it could be worse," Starlight said. "You could fall into the River Ankh instead."
"Ugh. Go make your batteries."
Starlight, still feeling pleased with herself and her genius, went back to do just that.
Author's Notes:
Starlight's the only member of the crew who actually has a lot of work to do— because she's the only one who can do most of it.
I don't intend to do much more in the way of pony lit-crit or RPG shenanigans, but I thought I'd drop a mention that such is still going on. The campaign is in Ankh-Morpork. Cherry plays an assassin noblewoman; Starlight plays a troll; Fireball plays a dwarf; Dragonfly is a member of the thieves' guild; and Spitfire, after laughing herself sick when Mark explained it to her, chose to play a member of the Guild of Seamstresses (hem hem!).
Mark's rule: no wizards, no witches, no City Watch, and no cousins of C. M. O. T. Dibbler. He's started them off in the middle of the adventures of The Light Fantastic, with red star cultists and high intrigue among wizards making it difficult to keep from getting it in the neck in the city. So far the crew have been winning small victories, but more to the point, they're having fun discovering the city in detail. Meantime, they're alternating between Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes on the book side of things, having as of Sol 363 got about ninety pages into Witches Abroad, with Feet of Clay to follow.
And hopefully I won't need to go back to those for filler chapters...
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Sol 366
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 372
ARES III SOL 366
"This is dumb."
"I'm not arguing the point," Mark replied, working the ratchet wrench while Fireball held the engine bell (one of those salvaged from the MAV descent stage) upside down on top of its normal mounting point on the Amicitas engine. "But if we don't want this thing to flip over in midair, we have to do it."
Fireball couldn't argue with that. They'd considered just sending the rocket motor up as is, all one point four tons of it. After all, Mars had so little air that wind resistance was a non-factor, right? Then Starlight Glimmer had passed on the numbers from the launch tests on Equestria, particularly the launch that sent Chrysalis up to the new giant orbiting spaceship. Mark had done some quick and dirty math and worked out that the test vehicle, being something like eight percent the launch weight of the vehicle used on Chryssy's flight, would leave the pad at something like seventy G's of acceleration...
... or, to put it in terms of meters per second, almost seven hundred meters per second per second if they used the same system. Even with the more restrained system Twilight Sparkle had recommended, the test vehicle would break the Martian speed of sound roughly two-thirds of one second after liftoff.
Fireball knew himself to be a dragon of only moderate intellect, but even he could see two things here. First, every bit of Mars's ability to throw the flight off course by air resistance would come into play practically immediately, and so the engine had to be made at least vaguely aerodynamic if they didn't want it to drop right on top of their heads in several uncomfortably heavy pieces.
Second, even with the aerodynamic shell they were bodging together, only an idiot would be anywhere close to the thing when it launched.
All of that was obvious. But putting the engine bell on a rocket motor backwards, so that the open end just barely fit over the guts of the motor, was just about like that one pony you always got at a party who thought it was the funniest thing in the world to put a lampshade on her head. Again.
Yes, it was a way of saving on scrap metal— not that that was as urgent as it had once been, since they weren't going to be strapping this rocket and its two siblings to the Ares IV MAV anymore, but you didn't need to be a dragon to see the sense of hoarding useful material on a hostile, unpredictable world.
And yes, the material the bell was made of had been specifically designed to withstand tremendous temperatures, air friction, and anything else ponies, dragons, or deranged changelings could throw at it.
All true, and yet it still looked dumb.
"Okay, that's got it," Mark said, giving the last bolt a final tug with his ratchet. "Let's go inside and make the cap and fins."
They'd taken the engine out to Site Epsilon, just east of the cave farm, for launch. It wasn't an absolute guarantee that moving east would prevent the engine from hitting the Hab in case of a mishap, but it helped. Any misfire of the launch system would need quite a bit of help to overcome Mars's rotational velocity.
As for the cave farm and Site Epsilon... well, it could take a direct hit better than the Hab could. Meters of dirt and rock beat a canvas dome for impact resistance any day.
Fireball and Mark wasted no time divesting themselves of their space suits once the airlock finished pressurizing. The interior temperature of the cave now matched that of the Hab, and the valve on the water heating system was being closed off bit by bit as the extra sun crystals throughout the cave did their work. Besides, it was more comfortable out of the suits than in.
"Hey, Starlight!" Fireball shouted. "We taking battery for two minutes of field."
"What for?" Starlight was studying the designs she'd drawn on the whiteboards, making sure she had the adjustments for the launch-test crystal enchantment clear in her mind. She didn't even look up at Fireball's shout.
Fireball almost used the Equestrian word, and then remembered the English, thanks to several episodes from entirely different series that mentioned or showed it being done. "Welding," he said. Thank you, stupid human television.
"Take one of the amethyst batteries," Starlight said. "I drained them day before yesterday. Less than ten percent charge. Two minutes is about all you'll get."
"Good." Most of the batteries were clear quartz, since most of the crystals large enough for the purpose were clear quartz, but a couple of large amethyst chunks had been trimmed and turned into batteries, and they were easy to pick out from the others. Fireball picked it up, ignoring how everything seemed a little heavier than it ought to despite Martian gravity, and carried it over to where Mark had laid out five pieces of pink-painted metal— originally pieces of Amicitas's thin outer hull.
"Okay," Mark said, taking a marker and drawing a not-quite triangle on one of the bits of metal, leaving a square bit on the end that could be bent and bolted to the engine. He then handed the last piece of metal to Fireball. "Are you sure you're up to this? I remember the first rover test."
"It won't hurt anything if not."
"Right. Let me get Starlight to cut these, and I'll be right back."
Fireball watched him go. Yes, Starlight's magic was more efficient, strictly speaking, at cutting. That was fine for the fins. But the nosecone required a little special work.
Fireball stuck the aerials on the battery terminals, switched the battery on, and felt pure magic radiating out from the battery with every sputter and buzz of rainbow sparks. He coughed a couple times to get his inner pilot light re-lit, and then puckered his lips as tightly as he could, breathed in through his nostrils, and spat his tightest, hottest flame directly at the scrap metal in front of him.
It wasn't as hot as the flame from that huge dragon in the Discworld book. No dragon had flame that hot. If they had, more dragons would have challenged Celestia for her throne, and no doubt there'd be a bunch of dragons on the moon or pretty dragon "sculptures" in the Canterlot royal gardens.
For that matter, he couldn't sustain a cutting flame for long even back home, never mind here. He had to move quickly. He cut a quick circle out of the metal— not perfect, but pretty close. He then cut a wedge out of that— like a large slice taken out of a pizza. This took about a minute.
Mmmmm... malachite and anchovy pizza. He'd order five of them the minute he set foot on Equus again. Charge them to Twilight Sparkle or Chrysalis or Ember, whichever was most convenient, just before he handed his resignation to all three.
No. Focus. Cutting is done, but you still need to weld the seam.
The outer skin metal was thin enough for a dragon to bend it easily by hand. Fireball did so, closing up the open wedge so the edges overlapped. Voila— a quick and dirty cone shape. He crimped the seam in a couple of places with his claws to give the seam a bit of a bite, and then he applied the flame again, not quite as hot this time but close. Carefully running the flame up and down the seam, he held the metal edges as tightly together as he could, slagging the overlapping edge so that it melted and bonded to the lower edge.
There. Two minutes and loose change, and he had a metal hat. It was irregular at the mouth of the cone, of course, and a bit wider than the open area on top of the inverted engine bell. That was on purpose. The overlap could be bent over the edge and then fastened onto the engine bell. So long as the weight was close to balanced, and so long as the overall shape was pointy enough to go more or less straight through the thin air of Mars, that was good enough.
If he'd actually been planning to ride inside the thing, he'd have been a lot more careful. Heck, he'd probably hand the whole thing to Starlight or Dragonfly or Mark, go find a corner, and sit on his claws unless asked to lift something. But this was just throwing a dumb object away. Nothing complicated about that.
"Huh. Yeah, that'll work." Mark had returned with four newly cut fins. Starlight now had her own field generator going as she began enchanting the nine small booster blocks and three little target blocks for the test launch.
Fireball switched off his— it had begun to sputter anyway, having run out of stored power.
"How do you get a flame that hot anyway?" the human continued, setting down his load of metal so he could more closely examine the nosecone.
"Think hard. Then make more pressure to breath," Fireball said. "More pressure means hotter flame. Big ball of fire, like show off, like car crash on TV show, not very hot. Little bitty flame, fast air and lots of it, that very hot."
"Huh." Mark gave Fireball a look the dragon couldn't interpret. He just hoped it didn't mean If you die, dibs on dissecting you. "Well, let's weigh all of this. Need to know how much weight we're adding to the payload, after all."
Fireball shook his head. That was humans for you. They'd find a way to take throwing a brick into the sun from two hundred million miles away, add math and science and junk, and make it boring.
He then considered the pony and changeling way of doing things, and then the dragon way, and how various combinations of those had got him here, and he decided he could stand a little boredom.
"I go get scale," he said.
Author's Notes:
No, they're not going to launch anything at 0.7 kilometer per second squared acceleration. There's a good chance the ship engine, even as bricky as it is, would shear apart even in Martian air. More details about how they step down the power next chapter.
Dragon flame in the cartoon is, well, plot-sensitive. Spike can't do anything about timberwolves, but he can spontaneously melt an iceberg wider than a football stadium. So I feel no shame about giving Fireball his moment of ego-reconstruction.
About twelve hours to go on that T-shirt Kickstarter I'm doing. It's just barely over the line, mostly because I did a crap job of publicizing it, but if you were intrigued by any of the designs, you've got until noon Central tomorrow (Monday 7-23-18) to pledge.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869505034/wlp-shirts-2018-summer-shirt-lineup
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Sol 370
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They gathered in Teddy's office: the usual group of Teddy, Venkat, Mitch, Annie, and (via teleconference) Bruce, plus Mindy Park from SatCom.
"So," Teddy said, once Bruce's call was connected, "how are the Hab crew coming on the booster test?"
"Ready to go on their end," Venkat said. "Mark completed the procedure we sent him to remove the short-range transmitter on the northern weather station and rewire it to boost its signal. Once he connects power, it'll transmit for two hours on the battery it has. The transmitter itself will probably melt in less than half an hour. But for as long as it lasts, the signal strength should be good enough for any orbiter on that side of the planet to pick it up."
"Um, yes," Mindy Park continued. She was the only person in the room not in a neat suit, and her bloodshot eyes made it obvious she didn't care what the higher-ups thought of her old Astrocon T-shirt and sweat pants. "On Sol 374 six of our Mars satellites will be in position to track the launch. I finished testing software updates that will let them track the signal and send that data to us. As soon as Dr. Kapoor gives me authorization, I'll upload the software patches and then go home and go to sleep."
"Our target time is two hours before sunset," Venkat continued. "It's a compromise between the optimal trajectory for a perfect sun intercept and the restrictions of communications. Hermes and Earth both drop below the Hab's horizon about thirty minutes before sunset. As nice as it would be to have one less piece of space junk to deal with, the important part of the test is to verify the numbers the ponies got when this system was tested on their homeworld."
"Yes, about that," Teddy said, picking up a piece of paper. "Did I read this correctly? Six G's of acceleration from the launchpad, rising to a peak of eight and a half G's after three minutes? For a vehicle that weighed twenty tons, fuel and capsule, at launch?"
"So Starlight Glimmer reported, yes," Venkat said. "And to be clear, their best estimate is that their world and Earth have the same diameter and gross mineral composition, so their one G is the same as ours. Also, they didn't get a solid rate of decay for the booster's effectiveness over distance. Their flight was an orbital launch, and the ship went over the horizon while the boosters were still about eighty percent effective. Again, their estimates."
"I understand the caveat," Teddy said. "Now tell me what it means for this launch. One G is nine point eight meters per second squared of acceleration, on Earth, right? So how fast is the test vehicle going to go?"
"Well, there are a lot of differences," Venkat said. "For one thing, after their last test the ponies decided to restrict the power flow to the boosters, both to lengthen the life of the batteries and to prevent the MAV passengers from being crushed. And for this test, instead of using the fifteen large batteries, they're only using nine normal batteries. They predict a net force reduction in the booster system of about sixty percent for the test.
"But the final test vehicle, according to Mark's measurements, has a mass of 1.62 tons." Venkat smirked as he added, "One point six two is a bit less than twenty. So even with only forty percent of the force on the target vehicle, the test vehicle's going to move a lot faster. If the pony test is accurate, we're estimating a launch acceleration of just under thirty G's."
Mitch lurched up from the couch. Mindy came wide awake. Teddy whistled.
"In English, please?" Annie said.
"A sudden and momentary acceleration of thirty G's causes severe injury in humans," Venkat said. "Sustained, it's lethal in seconds."
"Put it another way," Mitch said, "that rocket engine will be going faster than a civil war cannonball almost the instant it leaves its pad."
"Within about two seconds," Bruce chipped in over the teleconference. "According to Starlight, they expect their battery array to power the system for about seventy seconds. Assuming ideal conditions— a straight vertical trajectory with no divergence due to air resistance— at the end of seventy seconds the target would be going twenty kilometers per second relative to Mars, at an altitude of not quite seven hundred kilometers."
"Twenty kilometers per second," Teddy said quietly.
"That's right," Venkat said. "Our friend at astrodynamics said that doesn't quite get us a direct shot into the sun, but the resulting solar orbit will pass close enough to the sun to turn it into a fairly short-lived comet."
"Twenty kilometers per second," Teddy said again. "No fuel. No engine on the craft. Twenty kilometers per second. In just over a minute." He took a deep breath. "Have we asked the ponies why they haven't used this system before?"
"No, but I can think of several drawbacks from the start," Venkat said. "First, they can't steer the thrust. It just pushes its target away from itself. Second, once they're out of range of the booster, their ship still needs its own engines for steering, orbital adjustments, and the like. Finally, the system requires a planetary mass to rest on, or else you run into serious issues with Newton's Third Law. Try to make one ship push another, and you end up with two vessels getting accelerated apart on varying trajectories."
"Most likely they just never thought of it," Annie said.
Every eye turned to the press director.
"Oh, come on, you fucking geniuses didn't think of that?" she asked. "Look at it. They live in a world so lousy with magic that they barely developed magic batteries until they invented an engine that used magic faster than it could be drawn out of the fucking air. They didn't think, `we can't lift this thing, go get more batteries.' They thought, 'We can't lift this with magic, so let's fart around with a bunch of dangerous explosives and radical new ideas like electronics and radio and shit and see if that works.'
"But then some of them got dropped into our world, where magic is like rainfall in Yuma. And they didn't have any rocket fuel, or electronics, or any of the newfangled shit they were just getting used to, but they got lucky and found enough crystals for a New Age hippie wet dream. So then they thought, `We don't have rockets, but maybe we can use magic.' And so they stumbled across the fucking holy grail of space exploration— cheap, reusable surface to orbit launch— by complete fucking accident."
"How do you create a launch system by accident?" Mitch asked.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Annie grumbled. "Read your own goddamn history. I have to know ten zillion cutesy little anecdotes about the early manned space program so I can sprinkle them into my bullshit sessions with the press. More than half your major advances in rocket and capsule design almost didn't happen. We were originally going to the moon in a single fifty meter tall tail-lander with an enormous ladder until what's-his-name, Houbolt, jumped over three layers of management to push lunar orbit rendezvous as a fuel-saving mechanism. Because Wehrner von Braun assumed you couldn't rendezvous ships in lunar orbit. Think of how many damn things seem so obvious now, that weren't obvious when our grandparents got all this shit started!"
"Assumptions," Teddy said, nodding. "Thank you, Annie. I think a re-read of some of the books on my shelf is in order." He swiveled in his chair to look at the television screen. "Bruce, what does this mean in practical terms for the MAV?"
"The MAV weighs about twenty-eight tons fully fueled— that's the two ascent stages and the capsule," Bruce said. "With the reduction in force, the boosters will provide an extra three G's at launch, in round numbers— twenty-eight meters per second. A little more than a minute of that would be enough, by itself, to make up the difference between Mars orbit and the velocity required for the Hermes intercept— without a single modification."
"Well!" Mitch flopped backwards onto the couch. "I call that a win! Why not hold the crew back at the Hab a couple more weeks, then?"
"We're still going to lighten the hell out of the MAV," Bruce continued. "The goal is to get onto trajectory with the second ascent stage unignited. That stage can be relit several times, so we can use it for any fine-tuning required to reach Hermes. And even if this test goes perfectly, we can't put perfect faith in this system. After all, the Sparkle Drive had two successful flights before the one that landed our guests in Mark Watney's lap."
Everyone sobered in the face of this obvious truth.
"But the good news is," Venkat added, "we don't need to use the rebuilt Sparkle Drive for the ascent."
"That is good news," Teddy said. "But I want everyone to consider this. If we could duplicate this launch system, and create our own Sparkle Drive, the entire solar system is at our fingertips. If the cave farm can generate enough magic to launch the MAV almost by itself-"
"It could, almost," Bruce agreed. "With steering thrusters, at least. We'd have to choke down more on the velocity to spare the astronauts in the future."
"Then think how much power is generated every second by all the wild plants and animals around the Cape," Teddy continued. "We could launch entire space stations at once— no, entire starships. This technology, or magic, will revolutionize space flight. I cannot stress how vital it is now that we rescue the aliens, establish formal relations with their universe, and learn how to duplicate these systems." He looked around the room and said, "I know you're already doing everything you can for Mark and his friends, but bear in mind the sheer potential they represent. Four years from now we could be going back to Mars, not for another thirty-day mission, but to stay."
No one could say anything to follow that except, of course, goodbye.
Author's Notes:
Yeah. I sat down and did some quick and dirty math. I don't know how to do integrals anymore, if I ever learned, so I made estimates and used a spreadsheet...
... and yeah, the booster system Starlight thought up and Twilight implemented is, well, even more impressive than I thought.
And I'm sure absolutely NOTHING will go wrong with it.
Today's chapter inspired by comments, of course.
Tomorrow's chapter will be the launch.
And, finally, thanks to those who chipped in on the shirt Kickstarter! If you pledged, please check for your survey and answer, so I can make some decisions on production.
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Sol 374
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 380
ARES III SOL 374
The essential function of a switch is to touch two wires together to complete a circuit— but only when you want them to touch.
By that definition, what Mark had rigged using a small rock, two cables salvaged from Amicitas's discarded engine room, and a long piece of parachute rope too weather-decayed to be put to any more demanding use was a switch... of sorts.
Dragonfly thought it more resembled those box traps that idiot ponies built to capture rabbits (and other things, including changelings). Those things always annoyed her, because (a) they were so blatantly obvious any animal dumb enough to go for the bait deserved to be trapped, and (b) despite being blatantly obvious, they occasionally caught rabbits (and other things, including changelings).
But she had to admit, as dumb as it looked, it worked on paper. One cable, its terminus wire shaped into a hook, had been raised above the other (its wire shaped into a loop) and balanced there on a carefully chosen rock. Any little tug on the rock with the rope would cause the hook cable to slip off and land, hook down, on the loop cable. It didn't have to be a perfect ringer, though that would be ideal; any wire-to-wire contact would do. The system allowed the two of them, Dragonfly and Mark, to be about fifty meters away from the loop, or seventy meters away from the rock cairn built to hold the test vehicle above the enchanted repulsor crystals.
Seventy meters, or as Mark called it, "ten seconds head start."
So long as that hook remained above that loop, the nine batteries powering the launch could be safely switched on with no effect, and this Dragonfly had just finished. "Pad power hot," she reported over the comms. "Repeat, pad is hot. All batteries show full charge. Go for launch."
Mark, for his part, had removed the nosecone and was connecting one vital wire in the small transmitter cannibalized from the north weather station. "Ow!" he grumbled. "That's a strong signal, all right! Transmitter is live. Reattaching nosecone now."
Dragonfly trotted over and burned a little magic to start four of the bolts that kept the nosecone clamped around the reversed neck of the engine bell while Mark started and tightened the fifth. Once that transmitter went live, the clock had started. Pushing enough current through the transmitter to allow it to be tracked by the satellites circling Mars, most of which hadn't been built to track things other than Earth, would overheat the circuits. The Martian cold would only slow that process down slightly. They needed to get done and get out.
"Message sent to Pony Space Agency," Starlight said over the comms. She and Fireball were at the cave, she inside and Fireball just outside. Fireball would film the launch with Mark's hand-held video camera while Starlight, in the cave, would communicate with Equestria.
"Message sent to NASA; about to launch, stand by for data." Cherry Berry and Spitfire were back at the Hab. Cherry Berry stayed in the Hab to communicate with Mark's people (even though, by the time they got the stand-by warning, the launch would be complete). Spitfire sat in the old bridge of Amicitas, running the telepresence spell so that the magic-powered suit comms would reach across the eleven kilometers between the Hab and the flat ground well east of Site Epsilon.
Normally using tools in a spacesuit required care, planning, and patience. A year of being stranded on Mars had made both Mark and Dragonfly a bit blasй about such risks; Dragonfly could patch her suit, and Mark's suit had been built to withstand being used by troll babies with teething problems. The nosecone bolts were snug to a turn in under a minute. "Nosecone secure," Mark reported. "All go for launch. Pad crew now clearing launch area." Slipping the ratchet wrench into the small tool pouch on his suit, he turned to Dragonfly and said, "Engage de-assifying procedure."
Dragonfly liked Mark quite a lot— and not just because he was delicious and generous with his affection to a fault— but he wasn't as funny as he thought he was. "Excuse me?" she asked.
"I said run!" Mars's low gravity couldn't help but cause some muscle atrophy, but enough tone remained in Mark's legs to send him bounding over two meters in a stride at full gallop. Dragonfly, on the other hand, had learned like the ponies to gallop with minimum vertical motion and maximum horizontal motion, so she arrived at the end of the trigger rope in four seconds, leaving Mark to arrive three seconds later.
"Launch crew at trigger station," Dragonfly reported as Mark, having lost his balance in the effort to brake his momentum, picked himself off the regolith and grabbed the loose end of the rope. "Standing by for final go no/go for launch."
"Earth comms are go," Cherry said. "Suit comms?"
"Suit comms go," Spitfire reported.
"Water telegraph?"
"Water telegraph is go, Flight," Starlight reported.
"Ground tracking?"
"Go, Flight," Fireball reported.
"Roger. Satellite tracking is go. Launch systems?"
"Launch system is go, Flight," Dragonfly said.
"Ship systems?"
"We're Go, commander," Mark said.
There was a brief pause.
"Oh. Right. Yes." Cherry Berry continued on, "Command confirms all go for flight. Pad crew may initiate launch at their discretion."
Dragonfly looked at Mark. "How you wanna do this?" she asked.
Mark cleared his throat. "Counting down from ten," he said, squeezing the cracking, somewhat brittle changeling rope in his suit glove. "Nine. Eight. Seven." He carefully got to his feet, leaving enough slack in the rope to avoid a premature launch. "Six. Five. Four." He turned his back to the launch pad, facing the afternoon Martian sun and the flattened lump that was Site Epsilon half an imperial mile away. "Three. Two. One!"
He yanked the rope hard, pulling it taut, and ran with it for several paces. When he heard a rumble of thunder through Mars's tenous atmosphere, he dropped the rope and ran faster, trying to adjust his bipedal gait to better imitate the ponies. A second shadow flickered in front of him, despite the sun shining down.
Dragonfly, meanwhile, passed him like he was standing still, making a beeline for the cave farm's airlock.
Neither one looked back. Safety lay under meters of solid rock, and neither of them was confident enough in what the six of them had built to risk being outside if it came down.
Later on, they watched the video Fireball got, so that they could edit down the first couple of seconds of launch to send to Earth for a precise measurement of how fast the test vehicle left the cairn.
In the end they didn't send the video, because one frame the test vehicle was on the cairn, the next frame the cairn was hidden behind nine beams of brilliant magical light that triggered the automatic safety systems in the camera, and in the third frame the test vehicle and the top layer of rocks on the cairn were gone. The rocks would be found later, having fallen just a bit short of the repulsor spell projectors, caught up in some sort of wake.
Then Fireball had reflexively tracked up, finding the top of the pillar of light and, presumably, the small former rocket engine on top of it. He never actually caught sight of the test vehicle. He did, however, get a perfect shot of the ring of clear air that opened up around the repulsor spell in the wake of the vehicle, the shockwave driving away the fine dust that turned the Martian air pink and leaving a rapidly growing hole in the sky colored a perfect robin's egg blue.
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."
"Why not?"
"Too hot. At Mars's normal atmospheric pressure, carbon dioxide condenses at about negative 123 degrees Celsius," Randall said. "Normal peak lows in southern winter hit or surpass minus 150. We can see it happening in seasonal photos as the ice cap expands and contracts each Martian year. The growth and shrinkage is almost all CO2. But right now temps at the poles are only dipping below the freeze point for brief periods of time, and not in a very large area. So Mars's atmosphere is staying put."
"Fine," Venkat said. "But I'm not seeing how that affects Watney and the ponies."
"I don't see how it does either," Randall said. "But I'm sure it will affect them. As it is, the thicker atmosphere than normal plus the cloud coverage— did I mention it's growing? Mark will see the clouds before much longer. Anyway, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, though not in the league of CO2 or methane. The daytime heating isn't going to dissipate as rapidly at night. Mars is about to experience the closest thing it ever gets to a heat wave."
"How hot are we talking about?" Venkat asked.
"Double-digit positive Celsius highs at the Hab for the next two weeks at least," Randall said. "Still about minus forty at night, but during the day the atmospheric regulator external component is going to shut down due to excessive heat. It requires super-cold temperatures to help condense components of the atmosphere-"
"Yes, I know how it works, I'm not that uninformed," Venkat grumbled. "But the internal portion will still function, as will the oxygenator."
"I'm not too worried about the Hab equipment," Randall said. "I'm worried about what will be the next weather pattern after this one. This is weather we've never seen on Mars before, and it's damn near global. Global temperatures twenty degrees Celsius higher than normal, day and night. That's a lot of energy being stored up in the atmosphere. It has to go somewhere."
"Try to figure out where," Venkat asked.
"I already have one guess," Randall said. "But you're not going to like it."
"I like it better than no guess at all. Give."
"All right. Higher temperatures on Earth mean more giant storms— hurricanes, typhoons nor'easters, the big weather systems. They work as a means of transferring heat energy from the ground and lower atmosphere into the upper atmosphere, where it can radiate away into space. Mars doesn't have rainfall. The closest it comes to precipitation is the occasional dry-ice snowfall at the poles. So it has only one way to do the same thing: planetary dust storms."
"When?" Venkat asked. "This is urgent, Randall. We're about to send six people on a perilous journey across thousands of kilometers on solar power. And for reasons of logistics, we can't send them immediately. I need answers."
"I'll try to get them, Dr. Kapoor," Randall said. "But right now we're all guessing. We've got no baseline to use for predictions, not with this."
"That's the deal, is it?" Teddy asked.
"That's it," Venkat said. "I've thought about putting some people to work on a crash program to get the castaways on the road now, but I recommend against it."
"Give me the pros and cons." Teddy unconsciously straightened papers on his desk that were already perfectly aligned with the blotter.
"Okay. Pro: the sooner they roll out, the more leeway they have to make Schiaparelli by Sol 551. Up to a point the time pressure is reduced. But that's the only pro. Con: more food would have to be packed into a vehicle that's already critically overweight. In case of a global dust storm like, for example, the 2018 event, we'd rather have them at the Hab missing the Hermes flight than somewhere in the middle of Arabia Terra. The Hab and the cave are more durable, should the global storm include wind events like the Sol 6 storm or electrical outbursts like the Sol 247 storm."
"So, we keep them in Acidalia if we see a dust storm forming on Sol 451?" Teddy asked.
"Not necessarily," Venkat replied. "Remember, we knew going into this that the drive to Schiaparelli would take place at the beginning of dust storm season on Mars. There was already a minor risk of being stranded by a dust storm, but it was just that: minor. Blackout global dust storms are almost a once-a-generation thing. There are some Martian years that don't even have a global dust storm, not even a thin one. But even so, the risks of the trip just aren't lowered enough by an early departure to offset the logistical difficulties."
"All right," Teddy said. "I'll leave this to your discretion, Venk, but please contact me if the meteorology staff comes up with anything more definitive."
"You'll be the seventh to know," Venkat said solemnly.
Author's Notes:
The color of the Martian sky, surprisingly, is extremely controversial, and not just thanks to Cydonia-face, fake-Moon-landing conspiracy nuts.
The fact is that the Viking lander cameras, those who sent us those first photos of Mars with a brilliant blue sky, didn't have proper color calibration. Subsequent Mars landers from Pathfinder on included a color chit on their bodies somewhere the cameras could reach that would allow for proper calibration. (It doesn't help matters that NASA releases color-enhanced or altered photos to the public. Yes, the color changes are there for good reasons, but they're not the SAME good reasons.)
And yet, there are a few shots which suggest an occasional blueness to Martian air— photos taken from orbit of the edge of the atmosphere, shots pointing almost straight up rather than at the horizon, and shots of haze-free days.
As Randall Carter explains, what gives Mars air its reddish tinge is the same dust layer that covers the planet. Sweep away that dust, and Mars rocks are grey, and Mars sky is... just possibly... blue. We won't know for certain, of course, until humans go there and spend quite some time on the surface looking up. No digital camera is a perfect imitation of the Mk. 1 eyeball.
Sales today were ROTTEN at Mechacon. Wishing I was at Bronycon. Or, for that matter, practically any other con at all.
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Sol 387
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MISSION LOG — SOL 387
Tomorrow's the last hay harvest.
On the one hand I should be happy about that (and even happier that the final potato harvest comes five days later). The rover mods are all finished except for loading the weight in, so we can go straight to field tests. I should be eager to get started. But I'm not.
No matter how sick I am of eating potatoes— and have I mentioned yet that I would like to take a time machine back to the first European explorer who brought potatoes from the New World back to Europe and kill him because there isn't a prayer of killing the first Inca or Maya or whatever who cultivated the goddamn things? I'm that sick of potatoes, and the ponies are that sick of raw hay, but we invested three hundred and fifty sols, give or take, into the farm— damn near an entire Earth year. That leaves a mark on a person.
Dragonfly says the farm wants to live. That's fair. So do I. But I don't know how we're going to arrange it. We've fixed the water issue, and it looks like the heat issue is also covered, but the biggest problem remains: air. The plants require a lot more carbon dioxide than the soil bacteria will ever provide. Without it they'll suffocate pretty quickly— maybe as slowly as a month, maybe as quick as a couple of days. I'm not sure. It depends on a number of factors.
I've thought of a lot of ideas for getting more CO2 into the cave, mostly bad ones.
1) Make hole for Mars atmosphere to enter the cave. This is primo grade-A stupid because (and follow closely here, the details are really technical) if we put a hole in the cave wall, all the air will leave. Take this, write it down on a piece of paper, and underline it: Breach hull, all die. (Well, all the plants. We'll be long gone. I hope.)
2) Move atmospheric regulator from the Hab to the cave. It'd be nice if that would work, but it can't. NASA never thought, "Hey, you know what problem our astronauts might have that we've overlooked? NOT ENOUGH CARBON DIOXIDE! We better fix that right now!" They've never thought it because it's a dumbass thing. Every aspect of the Hab's life support is dedicated to extracting CO2 and then ripping it apart in the oxygenator. It can't be shifted into reverse. And the programming for the atmospheric regulator is on non-programmable ROM chips. So, even if we could power it at the cave, it wouldn't help.
3) Use MAV fuel plant air compressor to pump CO2 from the outside into the cave. Okay, let's say we could do this without losing all the air inside. With a bit of thought that's doable. But here's the problem: without an atmospheric reclaimer or the ponies' direct line to their homeworld's atmosphere, the cave doesn't have any mechanism to regulate its internal air pressure. The MAV fuel plant would steadily pump compressed outside air into the cave, and the air would stay there, until either the fuel plant died or the overpressurized cave blew out. Breach hull, all die. Not an option.
4) Get Starlight Glimmer to make crystals that exchange molecule for molecule. This is my best idea, but I'm still troubled by it.
Here's why. Let's say you enchant a pair of crystals to move air in two directions between them, like the pony space suits and ship life support use. Further refine the spell so that, instead of a free flow of air, the spell detects when a molecule of carbon dioxide hits the outdoor crystal and exhanges it instantly with an oxygen molecule from inside. Simple, right?
Nuh-uh. A molecule of oxygen is two oxygen atoms, total atomic mass roughly 32 atomic units. A molecule of carbon dioxide is two oxygen atoms (dioxide, see?) plus a carbon atom, for a total atomic mass of 44. That's a net imbalance in the exchange of twelve atomic units— or, put it another way, roughly a third more mass would be entering the cave than leaving. And that's keeping it simple and not attempting to use the system to squeeze some scarce water vapor out of the air (atomic mass 18).
Now, almost all the carbon atoms will eventually go to making more plants, at a much higher material density than one atmosphere. But more plants take up more space, leaving less space for the existing amount of air. How long will it take before the imbalance causes a problem? And would it even provide enough CO2 fast enough to supply the needs of the plants? I have no idea.
I haven't floated this one to NASA because they've got other things on their minds, namely getting me home and my friends rescued on Sol 551. To them the cave farm is unimportant. It's only a side issue, one we can do without. When NASA returns, even the dead remains of the farm would have enough data for a generation of future botanists to write page after page about how Mark Watney screwed up or about how there were never any magical aliens, Watney had a psychotic break and made up the whole thing, including the alfalfa.
But it bugs me. It bugs me a lot. We can dump a bunch of water into the cistern before we leave and give the farm enough of a water cycle to last for years. We've already given them circulation for water and heating to survive on. But for the cave farm, air is the critical thing, and I wish I had a better solution.
Oh, well. I'll talk with Starlight about it tomorrow during the harvest and see if she has any better ideas.
Author's Notes:
Today was better for sales, but not good. I'm still in the red.
And I'll have to try to find something to write tomorrow, probably about the hay harvest itself.
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Sol 388
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MISSION LOG — SOL 388
Well, that might just have been the longest, loudest, and most acrimonious argument we've ever had since we all got stranded here.
We got the harvest in, and we cooperated enough to load it all into the trailer this afternoon. Considering all the cave farm's been through, it was a surprisingly large harvest— three hundred and forty kilograms, or a bit more than enough, by itself, to feed the ponies for the entire trip to Schiaparelli right up until Sol 551. We'll be taking along a bit more than that, because Dragonfly might need to goop us out of a jam somewhere along the way.
That's not what we argued about. We argued about how to maintain the atmosphere in the cave farm.
It began when I talked to Starlight Glimmer about my ideas, leading up to the magic option. And when I mentioned it, she totally lost her shit. I'm pretty sure she was blowing off some of the pressure she's under. She's obviously been anxious about her batteries and launch systems working right, and she's the only one who puts in a full eight hours of work every day, in the cave and at the Hab. But whatever the reason, she went absolutely ballistic, and almost entirely in pony-talk. I caught the words for "work hard" and "too much" and "why me", or things to that effect. Most of the rest of it sounded like Cherry Berry when she's really pissed off.
Speaking of, the rant attracted the attention of our intrepid pink commander, who wanted to know what was going on. Once she got half an explanation it was her turn to blow up, because she thinks about twice as much of those cherry trees as I do of my own genitals. It didn't take long for the conversation to degenerate into furious horse noises. Spitfire and Dragonfly had to break the two up, with Dragonfly conciliating Starlight while Spitfire lectured Cherry on the proper conduct of leaders in front of their crew.
After that Starlight and Cherry went to opposite sides of the cave, Starlight cutting hay while Cherry helped the cherry trees shed leaves. She's trying to give the trees a brief dormancy before we leave, she tells me, even though she's not totally sure she can do it. But cherry trees are cool-climate deciduous trees, not evergreens, and she says the leaves are tired and full of poisons and need to be dropped and re-grown.
(Side note: we can't use the fallen leaves for tea. Fallen cherry leaves are very toxic, because all the poisons that normally get cooked out in the tea preparation process are hyper-concentrated in old, fallen, rotting leaves. Cherry hopes to get fresh, new-grown leaves enough for a few brews just before we leave, but only if it won't harm the trees.)
Eventually Dragonfly got round to me to ask for an explanation, and we talked about the problem while hauling sample boxes full of hay to the airlock for transport to the rover. And it turns out Dragonfly had a solution for that— a pressure release valve.
Neither the Hab nor the rovers contain an automatic air pressure release valve. In the unlikely event that an environment becomes overpressurized, the life support systems simply pull air out and stuff it in tanks— the Hab via the atmospheric regulator and water reclaimer, a small air sump tank in the rovers. If that system doesn't work, it's expected that a human being will be on hand to turn valves manually. Thus, according to NASA mission planning, there's no reason to have an automatic pressure release. In fact, there's one strong reason not to have it— it's another hole in the pressure vessel that can fail and cause a breach.
So obviously I didn't have a spare one, and I don't have the carefully calibrated spring required to make an accurate one from scratch. But, as it turns out, the pony ship had such a valve, and Dragonfly has not one but two spares. Dragonfly doesn't know exactly why, except that it might be a fail-safe design, or possibly just recycling off-the-shelf parts for ship components. Both things play a huge role, she says, in pony rocket design.
The automatic pressure release valve is part of a manual system to allow for EVA if the airlocks aren't working properly. If a pony isn't leaning on the valve, it automatically shuts— unless the air pressure is more than 1.2 atmospheres. Dragonfly looked it up in the crumbling remains of the ship's freeze-dried manuals, and that's what the valve's rated for. And that's perfect for my overpressure issues, which I admit might be entirely unfounded, but I want to be sure.
But that got me thinking... Dragonfly's spare pressure valve solves the main problem with using the MAV fuel plant to pump in Martian air from outside. Of course, running it full-time would waste power, not to mention it might risk smothering the plants in the other direction. Plants need to breathe in oxygen at night when they can't photosynthesize.
But... but yeah, I think I see a way to make this work, with no magic involved. Just my tools, some leftover NASA pieces of equipment that were never meant to be put together, and a software patch courtesy of some big brains back on Earth.
Yeah, I think this could really work.
Now the question is, how do I explain my new idea to Starlight without pissing her off for real this time?
Author's Notes:
Written in haste. Almost time to start packing up. Not a disaster, but a lot less profitable than it should have been.
It's nice to find a way to show Mark being Mark. He's taken a back seat to the ponies a lot here, since so many of the solutions require magic of some kind.
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Sol 389
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 395
ARES III SOL 389
[09:08] JPL: You want us to do what so the what will what with the what?
[09:36] WATNEY: Okay, maybe I should fill you in a bit more. I plan to take one of the Hab laptops, install the rover control package on it, and plug in Rover 1's discarded atmospheric analyzer. I'll then fix another wire that can run through the cave airlock to the Ares III MAV fuel plant. When CO2 drops below one hundred parts per million in the cave, I want the computer to turn on the fuel plant, which I'm rigging to release CO2 from a storage tank into the cave. When CO2 rises above five hundred ppm, I want the computer to shut off the fuel plant. The ponies have a spare automatic air pressure release valve I can use to prevent air pressure from getting dangerously high inside the cave. This will replace the CO2 provided by the pony air exchange system once we're gone.
[10:03] JPL: Mark, I might mention it's extremely A. M. here in Houston right now. My bed thinks I'm having an affair with a sofa. I don't even want to know what my wife thinks.
[10:12] HERMES: Johanssen here. I can do it. Mark, I'll send you details on where and how to splice a spare USB connector onto the MAV fuel plant control board to make this work. The software patch will take about two hours plus debugging.
[10:23] JPL: Bless you, Beth. Mark, I hope you can be finished with this in equally rapid time. By the way, how's the weather today?
[14:18] WATNEY: Thanks, Johanssen. We all appreciate it. Expect a big pony hug from Commander Berry once we dock with Hermes.
The sky today is overcast, covered in vaguely pink-tinted cirrus clouds. The pink, I assume, means that the atmosphere has run out of condensable water vapor and that the dust is winning again. Hab power systems show solar cells running at about 90% efficiency, which will probably go back to full power once the clouds clear out.
We moved the fuel plant to the cave today and installed an air line through the cave wall. The seal is good. The Hab has one spare air circulation fan in stores; I'm going to install that on the end of the air line to provide some air mixing and circulation in the cave when we're gone. There are plugs in the airlock I can use to route the control wires for the fuel plant, and they check out.
Thanks, guys. Between this and the other work we've done, the cave farm has a fighting chance to still be alive when Ares V or whoever return here. I appreciate the help.
[14:38] HERMES: No problem, Mark. I'm writing the program to activate the analyzer at hourly intervals. You'll need to keep the analyzer away from the CO2 outlet line so it doesn't skew the results. I'll send the program by direct uplink, but it'll take most of a day to download at current bandwidth. Probably day after tomorrow.
[14:44] JPL: This is Dr. Kapoor's bed speaking. Why do you horrible people have to break up a happy home for your selfish, uncaring desires? We were so happy together, once. Can't you just leave us alone?
[14:46] JPL: Again, that was not me. Whoever it was is lucky I've had my third cup of coffee. Bruce, your people continue to tap-dance on the edge of destruction.
[14:48] JPL: Venkat, darling, come home. I've put on your favorite sheets, with the hospital corners you like so much...
[14:50] JPL: And I thought astronauts were the only adrenaline junkies working for NASA...
Author's Notes:
Sorry this is all I have. I have a lot of work to do before leaving Thursday for Amarillo, and I've not been feeling well the last couple of days. If it persists after the trip, I'll call the doctor and try to get an appointment. (I'm not doing it now because it takes weeks to get an appointment, by which time whatever it is might clear up by itself.)
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Sols 392-395
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MISSION LOG — SOL 392
The new air system is up and running in the cave— and just in time.
Johanssen's little program isn't exactly a software patch. It's a separate program that runs in the background most of the time. It does have a test sequence, because Beth Johanssen is not just a nerd but a super-nerd who understands the need to double-check everything, especially in space.
We made all the connections, and the system works great. The fuel plant released carbon dioxide, the pressure valve that keeps the air in the cave from escaping back out through the fuel plant opened up just enough to let the CO2 in, and the plant shut off exactly when the computer told it to.
For a triple-check I took a small oxygen bottle and ran it directly into the atmospheric analyzer. The computer (after seven minutes— running the analyzer non-stop would wear it out in short order) saw the lack of CO2, sent the order, and the fuel plant let loose more CO2. Ten minutes later, with the oxygen cut off, the computer saw the perfectly adequate CO2 levels and shut off the fuel plant again.
So, an almost purely mechanical solution to a problem works without a hitch. We'll need to transfer another of the Hab's hydrogen batteries and a couple of the handful of un-pillaged solar panels to guarantee enough power for all of this, but otherwise it's good to go. Score one for Earth!
And, as I said, just in time. Tomorrow's the final potato harvest. We're not going to keep more than a small number of the spuds. Most of them are going to be re-planted.
That's right, I said re-planted. And moreover, we're going to gradually move the Hab potato plants and the Hab soil (which is getting pretty worn out anyway) to the cave. Why? Because, at least in theory, more life equals more magic. The rainbow crystals Starlight diddled to circulate water will need all the magic we can give them. Also, if the sun crystals don't produce enough heat once the water heating system is shut off, we'll need to make some rainbow crystals with a heating enchantment to make up the difference. Those will need even more magic.
Of course, the tradeoff is less magic in the Hab, which means that any batteries we have there will recharge about half as fast as they have been. But we can't take plants with us to Schiaparelli. Every kilogram above the minimum means more electrical demand from the wheel motors, which means a shorter per-day travel time. The plants, and the soil they grow in, are a luxury we have to do without. So, if we can't take them with us, we might as well put them where they'll do the most long-term good.
With that in mind, when we harvest the cave potatoes tomorrow we'll also dig up the water pipes and rearrange them. Starlight is already arranging it with her people back home to dump a LOT of water as far back in the cave as we can manage. We'll reconnect the pipes to stretch almost all the way through Tangled Hallway, then use the scrap metal trench to get the water back maybe as far as the Orb. The water will seep through the uncultivated dirt floor and sink to the bottom of the sealed chamber. Part of that will become deep permafrost, but most of it will remain liquid, and the plant roots and enchanted water-pumping crystals will be able to cycle it up from there. The pony planet will monitor flow and shut off the valve on their end when we get as much water added to the system as it can take without risking a return of the black ooze, so we can just leave the tap running when we leave.
It's obviously not a perfect solution. Humans have never been able to make a perfectly sealed, self-contained, self-sustaining environment larger than a bottle garden, and absolutely never with alfalfa and/or potatoes and/or trees of any kind. Balanced complex ecosystems get exponentially tougher the larger you make them. But this is the best we can do to set up a system that, without anyone to maintain it, has a fighting chance to survive the six years until the next open slot for an Ares mission. I just hope it's enough.
MISSION LOG — SOL 394
We're about halfway done transplanting the Hab plants and soil. The ripe tubers have been cut and replanted around the edges of the original cave farm, while the plants (along with a number of alfalfa cuttings) have been planted in Lunch Buffet.
The rainbow crystal irrigation system is already beginning to work— at least, the one that runs from the well at the back of the farm chamber up to the front. Starlight has begun a second, smaller line— a pair of lines, really, to bring a bit of water up from below Lunch Buffet's soil and irrigate the plants we're putting there. In the meantime we'll spend our remaining cave time hand-watering those plants to give them a chance to root and survive.
But we'll be doing that using pony space suits. Our half-assed hydrological system has absorbed all the water the main life support box can give. So tomorrow we're going to pull the life support box and re-install it into the pony ship.
I wonder what Ares V or whoever will find in six years' time? Will it be a crumbling, freeze-dried plant graveyard after something rusts or breaks or cracks and lets the air out? Will they find a terrarium where the plants are surviving but half-starved and sickly? Or will they find a wildly growing jungle of alfalfa and potato plants, half-shaded by an enormous tangle of cherry tree branches?
Common sense bets on the first option, but I'm hoping for the last one. We all are. The farm served us well this past year, and now we're giving back what we can to give it a chance to live on.
MISSION LOG — SOL 395
I changed the Morse code rock message today: "SOL 395 — TESTING ROVER MODS, ON TRACK FOR SOL 451 DEPART." Not that I really needed to, since Pathfinder is working and we have the pony radio for when Pathfinder's no longer an option. But it had been over a hundred sols since I updated my rock blog, and it was overdue, and I felt like it.
After that we all got to work loading up the Whinnybago. From now on everything that's going with us gets stored on board. The food is in, along with my tools, all the spare parts we're going to take with us, and whatever personal items we might take with us. We're not loading the magic batteries yet, because we want to put as much charge on them as possible.
Since we're not taking the batteries with us yet, we have to add their equivalent weight in Martian rocks to the rig. That means going around the area around the Hab and the cave farm to gather several tons of rocks to make up the difference. Even Fireball was grumbling about a sore back by the time we got back to the Hab for the evening. It takes a lot of rocks— seriously, a LOT of rocks— to equal the weight of fifteen slices of quartz five feet long each plus all the smaller batteries.
We're going to take tomorrow off— entirely off. We've earned a vacation day. And then we're going to perform the first serious test of the combined Whinnybago— driving around within two kilometers or so of the Hab to see how far it goes on a full electric charge and how well it handles the little canyons that criss-cross this part of Acidalia. If it can't handle these, then there will be major problems getting up onto Arabia Terra, never mind across it.
Anyway, it's game night tonight. I'm anticipating trouble; Dragonfly asked if she could roll up a new character. I wouldn't worry, except that she asked for a template for a Nac Mac Feegle...
MISSION LOG — SOL 395 (2)
About-So-High Angus MacHenderson, the Nac Mac Feegle, got vetoed, and there was much rejoicing (except by Dragonfly).
But I want a copy of the character for future reference... assuming I make D&D a regular thing back on Earth, I'd like a way to express my displeasure if a DM is screwing us over in a Discworld setting...
Author's Notes:
Most of this was written either while waiting on my free wash and detail job at the dealership (which I drove to in a blinding downpour) or while waiting on the oil change. I wish I'd taken the laptop in to the doctor's office, but when I walked in I wasn't expecting to actually get an appointment for today. But they had an appointment for 12 PM, which meant I got to see the doctor at 1:45.
To be fair, the doctor spent almost half an hour with me. He put me on an acid reflux pill, sent an inhaler prescrip to my pharmacy (which wasn't ready when I had to drive to Houston on another errand), and "just to be sure" ran an electrocardiogram on me.
Which picked up an irregular heartbeat.
Probably benign, he says. 90% of the time it's benign. But I need to see the cardiologist anyway. So tomorrow morning I get to check and see if his referral is actually in-network on my insurance.
Fun times, fun times.
Anyway, sorry this is all Mark. I tried to think of interesting things that could happen during all this work, but nothing popped immediately to mind.
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Sol 396
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 403
ARES III SOL 396
If Fireball's knuckles hadn't already been white, they would have turned that color permanently.
Navigating the Martian terrain with what Earth called the "Sirius tandem rover" and what Mark called the Whinnybago had always been planned as a team effort. Mark and Starlight crammed into Rover 2 at the front, Mark driving the whole assembly and Starlight coordinating everyone else. Cherry, Spitfire and Dragonfly scouted ahead, picking out the most level route, moving smaller obstacles to smooth the journey, and warning the drivers of things too big to move. And in the trailer— the unholy union of Rover 1 and the gutted airtight remains of Amicitas— Fireball sat in the pilot seat and steered the modified nose gear that held up what was now the tail end of the whole thing.
Simple plan, in practice. But Sirius 5, the first proper test-drive of the whole mess under load, proved anything but simple.
The first problem, of course, was balance. The improvised trailer was a bit taller than Rover 2 with a vastly higher center of gravity. The suspension which might have helped keep that load level was taxed to half again its rated limit, leaving the lumbering trailer to rock alarmingly when going over any rock or uneven spot, no matter how minor. That ride alone made Fireball want to leave the pilot seat, go into the hab deck, find a cabinet, and crawl inside to cry until the moving stopped. Not that he would admit it to anyone.
The second problem was perspective. For reasons of stability and basic engineering, Amicitas had been mounted back to front on Rover 1, which meant Fireball's windows faced directly behind the tandem rover. He couldn't see a bucking thing. He had to rely on the chatter on the suit comms for guidance or warnings, and those warnings hadn't been timely most of the time. Mark was only slowly learning that he had to keep up a running commentary on his own driving for Fireball's benefit.
And the final problem was direction. Fireball had to steer the nose gear because the large rover wheels mounted on the stump of Amicitas's former landing gear wouldn't turn by themselves. There was just too much weight and too much mechanical gearing in the way for them to pivot loosely. However, since the cockpit faced backwards, the directions for the gear likewise got reversed. When Mark was turning left, Fireball had to turn right to keep the two rearmost wheels in the same arc as the other eight. When he got it wrong, the nose gear wheels would dig into the soil, and the whole thing would shudder and jolt from the drag.
Example:
"Okay, Fireball, prepare for right turn in three, two, one, right turn."
Fireball, not yet used to the reverse logic of his new piloting configuration, turned his flight yoke to the right.
The whole assembly shook like a volcano about to burp as the nose gear wheels dug in, and the Whinnybago ground to a stop.
"What the fuck, Fireball?" Mark asked. "I said I was turning right."
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. My bad." Fireball reversed the cant of the wheels. "Fixed it, go ahead."
"Okay." The rover very, very gradually began moving forward. "Straighten up." That was easily enough done, although Fireball's slight overcorrection caused a rocking in the trailer that made Fireball think, with no fondness at all, of one of his rougher rocket flights.
"Okay, Fireball," Mark continued, "get ready to turn slightly left."
"Left. Got it." Fireball wasn't going to get it wrong twice in a row, so closely together.
"Slight left in three, two, one."
Fireball eased the flight yoke to the right.
Drag, shudder, judder, stop.
"FIREBALL!" Mark shouted. "I said turn left!"
"I DID!"
"No, you didn't! I was turning right so I told you to turn left, but you turned right!"
"You said get ready for slight left turn!"
"That's not what I said!"
"Yes it was!!"
And so on.
After an hour of this, Fireball's nerves were shot. Every bump, every pebble made the rover feel like it was going to turn turtle and crush Fireball underneath it, despite the fact that he knew any pressure vessel that stood up to a belly-flop onto a rocky surface at close to three hundred meters per second wasn't going to just go squish from flopping onto its side. Two out of three attempts to turn the Whinnybago resulted in a bungle or a missed communication— they hadn't put two successful maneuvers together yet— and the confusion and frustration had the dragon's head swimming.
And then there was the temperature— a blazing 15 degrees positive Centigrade outside, sweltering for Mars, and pre-heated Equestrian air blowing from the life support unit inside, mixed with the heat from the RTG in the habitat deck. For Fireball it was fine, but he wondered what it was doing to the others. Hopefully at least part of the frustration, fear, and confusion was somebody else's fault. Blame the heat. Yeah.
"Braking." Slowly, carefully, the Whinnybago came to a smooth stop— nothing like the earthquakes caused by Fireball's accidents.
"Okay," Mark said quietly, "this isn't working. We've only gone fifteen kilometers, but we've used up forty percent of the battery charge. And until we learn how to drive this thing properly, we can't tell if that's because of the weight or because we keep fucking up directions."
"Yeah," Fireball agreed. "So?"
"I think I have an idea for the steering," Mark said. "But it'll take a day to implement, so we might as well go back to the Hab and recharge."
"Good for me."
"I figure we're half a kilometer south of the road to Site Epsilon," Mark said. "We'll turn north, hit that, and head home." Unlike the three crevasses they'd slowly navigated, the track the rover had made going back and forth to the cave farm had left ramps in and out of the gullies much smoother and more gradual from wear. On one ascent the nose wheels had threatened to dig in while the rear wheels of the Rover 1 chassis had left the ground entirely.
"Sounds good," Starlight Glimmer said over the comms. "Cherry, you copy?"
"I copy and agree," Cherry Berry said. "It'll take us a couple of minutes to get back to you."
"No problem. The ground here is clear enough to turn around." Mark paused, then added, "Fireball, I'm going to turn hard left. Be ready to turn hard right when I say so."
Fireball could have grumbled about how Mark was talking down to him again, but he didn't. Obviously a little talking down was necessary, considering how things had gone. Besides, they were headed back, and he wouldn't slow that down for anything.
"Roger," he said. "Ready I turn right, you turn left."
The remaining instructions were just as didactic and annoying, but they worked. The Whinneybago drove the five actual kilometer distance back to the Hab without any more juddering and with only the occasional drunken wobble.
Fireball spent the rest of the day by himself, saying nothing. If he talked, he might babble. If he babbled, he might admit to being scared out of his mind, angry beyond words, completely unwilling to get back in that seat.
And he couldn't do that. Steering the rear wheels was a vital job, and it was the only job he could do on the trip.
And Fireball was more afraid of being useless, and being seen as useless, than he was of anything the horrible kludge of a trailer could throw at him.
MISSION LOG — SOL 396
Sirius 5 aborted after one hour. It's obvious we need more practice driving.
One problem is that the trailer is too long. On a steep descent the nose gear at the back lifts off the ground. On a similar ascent it tries to strike oil while the trailer's middle wheels leave the ground and spin uselessly, leaving only six powered wheels to get twenty-plus tons of load up and out. There's nothing we can do about that except seek out the absolute shallowest path we can find and avoid any serious crevasses.
Another problem is the top-heaviness of the load on the trailer. It's not as bad as it feels— the wheel base on the trailer is considerably wider than the alien ship hull— but it still cuts down on efficiency when it rocks back and forth hard enough to make Rover 2's rear wheels lose traction. We're obviously going to have to be damn careful about quick turns, or quick anything to be honest.
But the biggest problem we had today was that Fireball and I couldn't agree on a comms protocol for steering this pushmi-pullyu monstrosity we've built. Fortunately, I have an idea to fix that, which I'll finalize once I've taken a look at the pony ship's flight controls to remind myself of how they're built.
If I remember correctly, the pilot flight yoke is mounted with a steering wheel, or sort of like one, that rocks back and forth. That's meant to steer the forward landing gear on the ground after landing. And since all the other control systems have either been stripped off or removed from the ship, that's its only remaining function. If that's how it works, then I have a simple solution.
Tomorrow we'll do an EVA with me on the ground outside while Fireball is steering the ship wheel. Beforehand I will mount a half-circle bit of outer hull scrap metal behind the wheel and make a pointer to show how far the wheel deviates from straight and square. Fireball will then turn the wheel, and while I measure how far the wheel deflects the landing gear wheels outside, Starlight Glimmer will mark the point on the half-circle so that the pointer will indicate which wheel positions produce what deflection. We'll then repeat the process with Rover 2 and its front wheels.
The genius here is this: on the pony ship end of things, everything left of zero (zero being wheels straight) will be minus such-and-so degrees, and everything right of zero will be plus such-and-so. But on the rover steering wheel, the gauge will show left of zero as positive and right of zero as negative. The one will be the mirror of the other.
No more fucking around with "My left! No, your left! No, your OTHER left!" I will call out a number, plus or minus, and Fireball will put the pointer on that number. Doing it this way, the rear wheels will line up with the quad-steer system every single time. It can't do anything different.
We'll have to practice again before we attempt another electric charge test, but I think this will solve our biggest problem.
I haven't told Fireball about my brainstorm yet. He's off by himself, sulking, and Dragonfly says he really wants to be alone. He'll probably be over his hissy fit by morning. That's soon enough to tell him.
(I shouldn't say `hissy fit'. `Hissy' is probably racist to reptiles.)
Author's Notes:
Mark misreads the mood.
Very long day today. Longer one tomorrow.
By the way, for those who missed the shirt Kickstarter, I've listed all the shirt designs on WLP's online stores for preorders. Not all of these will go into full production, but we'll print to fill all orders taken. Check it out at http://www.wlpshirts.com/ .
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Sol 398
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 405
ARES III SOL 398
Cherry Berry bucked hard with a hind leg, sending a rock that probably weighed over a hundred pounds soaring in a low arc above the Martian surface. The reinforcements Dragonfly had made to the rear boots of her spacesuit appeared to be working just fine, the heavily insulated metal plates allowing her to apply full earth pony strength without worrying about bursting the soles.
A short distance away, Spitfire and Dragonfly rolled other rocks out of the path of the rover, still half a kilometer away. Mars was covered with rocks of various sizes, but the smaller rocks could be ignored. The ponies were only interested in rocks large enough to cause problems for the huge rover wheels, and those were few and far between. The three of them appeared more than capable of clearing those rocks out of the way or, if they were too large to budge, finding a detour and then galloping well ahead of the rover again.
Sirius 5B was going well— much better than the previous attempt. The communication issues hadn't been entirely fixed by Mark's heading indicators, but at least the rover wasn't coming to a complete stop every time he and Fireball tried to turn. As Mark had explained, maintaining a steady top speed as long and often as possible was the key to stretching travel distance and battery life. Acceleration burned a lot more energy than cruising, and even though the rover wheels regained some power from braking, it wasn't remotely close to what was lost speeding back up again. Anything that prevented the rover from stopping was, by definition, a good thing.
Which led to the other half of the pony scouting mission. The area around the Hab looked smooth in the photos taken from high orbit, but the shallow crevasses that ran across Acidalia only became visible in high-magnification or super-low-altitude shots. The gullies were a pain and had been since the ponies had first left their wrecked ship to investigate the beacon on their suit navigation systems. The gullies were just deep enough, with steep enough banks, to be annoying.
And the one the ponies had just come up to, at this spot, had banks not so much steep as vertical. "Mark, Cherry," she called over the suit comms. "Stop the rover. We found a gully with no safe way down. I'd like to practice scouting for a detour."
"Okay," Mark said. "Fireball, braking."
"Roger."
Cherry looked at the other two. "Okay, Spitfire, you go left, and..." She took a second look. For a moment Dragonfly had been slumping in a position of apparent exhaustion, but she sat to attention the moment she realized attention was on her. "Dragonfly, switch to private channel. Spitfire, go."
The pegasus gave the two of them a glance, but she galloped off to the left of their position, looking for a shallower crossing of the gully. With her gone, Cherry switched her own comms to private and said in Equestrian, "Okay, Dragonfly, how bad is it?"
"How bad is what?" Dragonfly asked innocently.
Cherry Berry took a deep breath. "Dragonfly, I'm not in the mood for `am I pretending to pretend to not be sick' games. So don't give me those roadapples, all right? How bad is it?"
Dragonfly shrugged. "I'm not particularly hungry— no more than normal, I guess," she said. "But I still get tired so easily. I thought I'd recover more strength with our daily magic sessions, but..."
Cherry Berry's lips tightened on her muzzle. It had been four days since the last magic session. She wanted to get back to the cave to see how the improvised life support was working, but Dragonfly needed to get back. But that didn't seem to be the problem at the moment. "You were really sick for a really long time," she said. "Ponies don't get over things so bad so fast."
"Changelings do," Dragonfly insisted. "We're tough like that."
"Maybe back home," Cherry Berry said. She waved a hoof at their surroundings, the almost white sky above, the red and gray surface of Mars around them. "What about this looks like home to you? We can only give you a couple minutes of magic energy a day. That's not the same as spending all day, every day, in a proper magic field."
"You think this place cares?" Dragonfly asked. "Look, I'll be all right. All right for long enough, anyway. And we need everyone to pull their weight."
Cherry Berry sighed. Commanders weren't allowed to whine and say It's Not Fair, not even when alone. Of course it wasn't fair. Nothing about this horrible planet was fair. Fair, if it existed at all, had stayed in bed back in Horseton or Cape Friendship or Canterlot or Ponyville or somewhere in Equestria while the rest of them rode Amicitas off the pad to its date with catastrophe.
But she still wanted to scream It's Not Fair until they heard it on Mark's home planet without the use of radio.
It wasn't fair that she'd been without fresh cherries for over a year and without even highly preserved cherry-based desserts for months. It wasn't fair that Starlight had spent a year risking permanent crippling injury on the simplest of spells. It wasn't fair that Spitfire couldn't do the one thing she was born to do— fly fast, far and free in these hostile, barely-present skies. It wasn't fair that Fireball was here, full stop. And it wasn't fair that Mark had been stuck here by chance, accident, or possibly the hoof of Faust herself as if he existed solely to keep five Equestrians from dying horrible deaths on a horrible, horrible planet.
And it wasn't fair that Dragonfly, well, fill in the blank with anything. Whatever crimes and casual bits of unthinking evil she'd committed in the pre-space era when changelings were still hostile invading monsters, they didn't merit being turned into a shadow of her former strong, confident self by magical starvation.
But shouting Not Fair didn't make things any more fair, no matter how good it might feel to say it. If you wanted to make it fair, you had to do it yourself.
No, that's wrong; you had to do it together.
Cherry tapped the control box on the front of her suit, then made a show of switching her comms back to the all-call channel. Once the changeling followed suit, she said in English, "Dragonfly, stay here and coordinate. I'll take the other direction."
She hadn't gone far when Spitfire called out that she'd found a crossing spot. But that wasn't the point.
She couldn't make Mars fair. But she could help make it a little less unfair.
MISSION LOG — SOL 398
Sirius 5B ended up being more travel practice. I pulled the plug at twenty percent battery power, at which point we'd gone fifty-two kilometers. That's encouraging news by itself; fifty kilometers per sol would get us to the Ares IV MAV in about seventy sols, well within the deadline for launch on Sol 551. We could live with that, if nothing else went wrong, but we really want seventy kilometers per sol. The next time we take the rover out, it'll be for the performance run.
Fireball and I are still working out communications glitches. The turn indicators help a lot. Now the main problem is me, because I keep forgetting to warn Fireball what I'm about to do. It's hard work, because I have to be thinking about teamwork all the time while driving. It's like the old gag of two little kids driving a car by one steering and the other crouching under the dashboard and working the pedals.
(Come to think of it, doesn't that gag always end in disaster? Scratch that, it's a stupid simile and I should never have mentioned it.)
Anyway, we're taking a couple days off from testing after this. We need to get back to the cave and check on things. That means disconnecting the trailer, because there's zero reason to risk an accident with it if we're not testing its capabilities. We absolutely need the trailer intact for the Schiaparelli run. If we fuck it up, then Hermes goes back to Earth without us, and we think of something else.
Part of me still wants to push forward on the rover tests. Hell, part of me wants to just go to Schiaparelli right now. But we're not ready. We need a plan for getting there. We need to be sure we can make the trip. And, as Sirius 5 and 5B demonstrated, we need training to get there.
So it's better to be patient, and cautious. After all, it's not like the Soviets are going to beat us to the MAV because we waited to see if a chimp could drive before we tried it ourselves.
I hope.
Author's Notes:
Feeling Dragonfly here recently, though I haven't got the excuse of being on Mars or originating in a different universe.
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Sol 399
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"So, what have you got for me, Mindy?" Venkat asked.
Mindy brought up the online Mars map and focused on the location of the Hab. "Acidalia Planitia is fairly smooth, especially once Mark gets out of the fractured region around the Hab. He'll leave the last of the gullies behind by the third day of travel, assuming a seventy kilometer average daily transit. And once he gets onto Arabia Terra the continental crust is fairly smooth except for craters and ejecta. If he stays clear of craters, he should make good time. And Schiaparelli Crater has a mostly smooth floor of compacted dust. So the two major problems are getting up onto Arabia Terra and getting down into Schiaparelli."
"Got it. What's the solution?"
"There are only two feasible ways for the tandem rover to get up Arabia Terra," Mindy said. "Arabia is divided from the surrounding Martian terrain by a large escarpment. I think it's too steep for the weight the rovers will be carrying. It's broken in only two places." She pointed to a dry river network almost directly southeast from the Hab. "Mawrth Vallis is my choice. The river bed is uneven, broken in a couple of places, and almost certain to be full of rocks carried down its path by ancient water flows. But the overall grade is one the rover can probably manage, and it meets the level of Arabia Terra here, near Trouvelot Crater. From Trouvelot there are large gaps between major craters to allow easy driving.
"The other way isn't as good. Mark would have to drive due south from the Hab for about fifteen sols. The escarpment is shallowest in that direction, allowing for a gradual rise in elevation. From there Mark would have to turn east-southeast, and a lot of overlapping craters will be directly in his path. Getting him through that route will be difficult. The only advantage to that route is that it's a slightly easier ascent to altitude than Mawrth Vallis. But it's the more difficult route, and it's several sols longer."
"Got it," Venkat said. "I'll tell Mark to pack all his cameras. We've wanted data from Mawrth Vallis for decades. We just kept finding even more interesting places to go instead." He reached down to Mindy's keyboard and switched the focus of the digital map to Schaparelli. "What about getting him down off the plateau again?"
"That's not so easy," Mindy said. "Most of Schiaparelli's crater walls are sheer drops. And the ground surrounding Schiaparelli to the south and east is rugged and broken— almost impossible for the tandem rover to navigate. There's only two possibilities."
She pointed to two spots on the map. "There's a point just west of Edom Crater where what looks like a smaller crater broke the rim and helped form a sort of ramp down from the highlands into the crater, here on the northwest side. That's the point closest to Mark's line of travel, but the ramp down is really rough and questionable. In the southwest corner, not far from the Ares IV MAV, there's a point where Meridiani Planum is almost the same altitude as the basin inside Schiaparelli's rim, and there are passes between the rim mountains. A rover might be able to get through them, but the passes aren't large. It's out of his direct path, and he might end up losing days to an obstacle we haven't spotted that he can't get around."
"Can we get better photographs of these sites?"
"Not much. I can try."
"Okay, do that. But in the meantime, let's assume this northwestern entrance is the way to go. Work up a detailed travel plan for Mark and write it up for transmission through Pathfinder. And look at some alternative routes if we run into a problem."
"Will do," Mindy said.
"I suspect Mark's been too busy to think about his route himself," Venkat continued, almost to himself. "We didn't include any detailed maps of Arabia Terra in the Ares III data files. He'll only have an old planetary map and a detailed map of Acidalia and Chryse Planitias. Getting this will let him focus on more urgent things."
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 406
ARES III SOL 399
"Look, all I'm saying," Dragonfly said, waving her forehooves in the multiversal calm-down motion, "is that Granny Weatherwax is the perfect Slytherin. I never said she was evil."
"Granny is Griffindor!" Spitfire insisted, slamming the worktable as she said it.
"I thought Granny was Hufflepuff," Cherry Berry said.
Heads turned. "Hufflepuff?" Mark asked.
"Yeah. Think tough love."
"But wouldn't Nanny Ogg be a better Hufflepuff?"
"Think about it," Cherry urged. "Granny and Nanny are close friends, right? Wouldn't they be housemates?"
"Or maybe Granny developed Nanny as a friend because she wanted the support and power," Dragonfly pressed. "Because she's Slytherin."
"Look, can we at least agree that Magrat Garlick is a Ravenclaw?" Starlight Glimmer asked.
Fireball snorted. "Well, duh," he said.
"Too obvious," Spitfire said.
"Come to think of it," Cherry Berry added, "what house would Ridcully be? He doesn't seem to be afraid of anything, so I guess Griffindor."
"He seems too stupid to be afraid," Dragonfly said. "Which means definitely Griffindor."
"Griffindor is not lawful stupid house!" Spitfire shouted. "Ridcully smart in his own way."
"You know, all of this is nice," Mark said to the world at large, "but at some point we're going to have to do something about the three trolls guarding the back door to the opera house."
None of the other players, nor Starlight the GM, paid the least bit of attention. "I think Hogwarts would need a fifth house for Rincewind," the unicorn said. "With a cheetah mascot. Or something else that runs really, really fast."
"Rincewind probably went to Durmstrang," Fireball theorized. "A perfect place for a wizard to learn about surviving really bad things."
The debate continued. The game session, not so much.
Author's Notes:
One of the critiques of the original book is that Acidalia/Chryse turns out to have a lot more obstacles than Andy Weir made out, that Arabia Terra is a lot smoother, and that Mawrth Vallis is a nasty obstacle course full of rocks and uneven terrain wide enough at points that the canyon walls are over the horizon, etc. etc. etc.
All set up at Ama-Con (Amarillo Civic Center); we open to the public tomorrow. Had plenty of time today, but not the energy to write more than this.
By the way, I'm no longer going to be building buffers. When I can write ahead, I'm going to be writing the Sol 551 launch. That will be an ENORMOUS chapter, as you might expect, compared to most of the others.
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Sol 400
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 407
ARES III SOL 400
[09:03] WATNEY: Hello, this is Starlight Glimmer. Mark is busy today— he's moving the south weather station to the cave farm so we can figure out exactly how much heat the cave is losing without the life support system. I have a solution in mind, but I need to be careful how I implement it so I don't accidentally cook the plants we're trying to preserve.
But I can't work on that without the data from Mark and a few other things, so I'm working on the Sparkle Drive for the MAV today. The new crystal has been installed in the old control system for some time. But since we won't have the old ship computer in the MAV with us, I need help connecting the Drive to the MAV computer, or failing that one of Mark's portable computers.
The Sparkle Drive works by signal from a computer. The version of the Drive that got us here jumped two meters at a time. We programmed our computer to trigger a jump every four computer cycles, or about 250,000 times per second. In our home universe that worked fine, but when we made the cross-universe jump our batteries were instantly drained to nothing. The Drive tried to draw more power, and the batteries crumbled to dust under the strain.
To prevent that, the new Sparkle Drive makes a much smaller jump, one which (we think) will only draw the power that seven batteries can regenerate with the six of us right next to them producing a tiny trickle of magic from our life force. We think a half-meter jump per cycle for capsule plus second stage (6 tons) will be small enough to allow the batteries to regenerate. The new Drive cannot make an inter-universal jump, so the danger of the power system failing in the same way as before is almost zero.
We also have two other settings, 0.65 meters per jump for capsule only and 0.2 meters per jump for the capsule docked with Hermes, based on the masses in your records. Those settings are adjusted by placing electrodes in different spots on the core crystal and can't be changed by the computer.
So what we need is an electrical connection that can pulse hundreds of thousands of times per second (it only takes a tiny charge) that the computer can operate. We need a program the computer can run to do this. And, finally, we need navigation software updates to take this system into account for trajectory calculations.
Obviously I don't expect you to do this overnight. We can't install it until we get to the MAV. But I'm sending you photos and descriptions of the updated system and its specifications, as well as Dragonfly and I can translate them, for you to work from. I'll begin sending as soon as you give me the word.
[09:55] JPL: Starlight, this is Venkat Kapoor. I have some engineers here eager to get started on your project. We've been expecting this for months. Go ahead and begin transmission.
[10:18] WATNEY: Thank you. File transfer begins immediately.
MISSION LOG — SOL 400
Well, it's official; the cave is slowly losing heat. The new solar relays aren't quite providing enough infrared along with the other components of sunlight to compensate for the loss of the water heating system.
It's not an immediate urgent issue; only four degrees Celsius in a week. Also, there's a good probability that the system will reach equilibrium well above freezing. But that's during Martian summer, and the days are growing shorter. If we leave things as they are, eventually overnight temperatures will dip below freezing, and then the temperature won't rise above freezing come the winter solstice. The alfalfa and potato plants above ground would die off, possibly to re-sprout five months later or so— or not. The cherry trees would probably be all right, except that the water recycling system requires magic from the plant life to work, and without that the water would sink to the bottom of the sealed cave chamber, beyond the reach of the roots of those trees. Without water circulation, even the roots and tubers die, and no more magic, no more plants, no more farm. Game over.
Starlight Glimmer says she can do a trick with the rainbow crystals— basically, to turn a few into little heating elements. The problem is, she can't enchant the crystal to only operate at certain temperatures. Enchantments are not very good at making judgments— that's one reason why the ponies ended up here in the first place. So she's thinking about it, trying to come up with a solution.
So tomorrow will be a make-and-mend day. I'll run diagnostics and maintenance on the Hab equipment— probably the last time I'll ever do it. Dragonfly will do maintenance and patching on the pony space suits. They're going to need it more than ever, since three of them will walk almost the entire distance to Schiaparelli. Starlight will be working on the enchantment for keeping the cave temperatures moderate. I don't know what Fireball, Cherry Berry and Spitfire will be doing, but I'm sure there's something constructive on their minds.
Two days from now, we'll attempt Sirius 5C. This time we're going to run until we just barely have the juice to get back to the Hab. If all goes well, we can proceed to the next test: spending the night in the trailer.
I mentioned this fact to my guests. I now know the pony words for "slumber party."
Author's Notes:
Doing okay at Ama-Con. Not feeling all that energetic, though, and definitely not inspired.
I'll be staying over in Amarillo Sunday night— I don't save any money on hotels by trying to get partway home.
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Sols 402-403
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MISSION LOG — SOL 402
Seventy four point three kilometers!
For any of you diligent, detail-obsessed future historians who would never skip a bunch of entries looking for the good bits, the above number is the distance traveled, according to the rover computer, from leaving the Hab this morning to when we pulled back up to the rover charging station with power levels reading 4%, three and a quarter hours later.
Sirius 5C is in the books as an unqualified success, and we're celebrating with... goddamn hay and fucking potatoes, because that's all we have left to celebrate with. But we're still celebrating, because today is a major milestone.
It's about 3200 kilometers from here to Schiaparelli. If we made seventy kilometers every sol, we'd get to the MAV in forty-six sols. Even allowing for losses of time or power due to elevation changes or obstacles, that gets us there with plenty of time to modify the MAV and make our Sol 551 rendezvous with Hermes.
To make things even better, Starlight came up with a brilliantly simple fix that will let her turn some crystals into heating elements for the cave farm. Right now, without the pony life support, the sole source of heat for the cave is the solar relay crystals... which, obviously, don't work at night. So if you make the additional heating elements light-sensitive, they'll run at night but not during the day, keeping temperatures in the cave more stable and preventing overnight freezing. It's not as good as a thermostat, but it's pretty close.
All in all, that's two pretty nice Christmas presents.
We discussed giving each other Christmas things made out of crystals, scrap metal, etc. In the end we decided against it. We won't be able to take much with us when we leave on Sol 551, and whichever homeworld we get to first will have much better stuff in the shops anyway. So tonight we're settling for me teaching them all the Christmas carols I know. (They have all sorts of questions about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.) And, of course, we have the traditional holiday family dinner of fucking hay and goddamn potatoes, because, etc.
Tomorrow we'll take the combined Whinnybago out to the cave, get production started on Starlight's heater crystals, and then have our slumber party in the trailer. There's no reason to wait, after all, and the cave will make just as good shelter as the Hab if something goes wrong with the life support in the trailer.
And if all goes well with that, then a couple days from now we'll attempt Sirius 7: the full dress rehearsal. Out in a straight line as far as we can go, set up the extra solar panels for recharge, stay overnight, then back the next day. If that works, then we're ready to roll.
To be honest, I don't know whether I hope that it works or that something fucks up. On the one hand, I'd like the peace of mind that having everything apparently working would bring. On the other hand, I'd rather find the glitch here close to comparative safety than a thousand klicks from nowhere in the middle of Arabia Terra.
Well, whatever I'm hoping, here's hoping it.
MISSION LOG — SOL 403
Well, fuck.
I'm writing this on a laptop in the cave. It's close to midnight Mars time, and we're all huddled around the pony life support unit and the RTG, both of which we uninstalled in record time when we decided to bail out of the rolling ice box.
In retrospect this was the obvious result. The RTG, by itself, is sufficient to heat the rover interior— a bit more than sufficient, since I had to rip out part of the rover's insulation to keep from roasting. But the open interior of what remains of the pony ship is more than four times the volume of the rover interior, with a corresponding larger surface area.
And the pony ship has no insulation whatever. For reasons which I guess seemed good at the time, the ship insulation was all between the inner and outer hull layers, wrapped around the cooling system pipes and things. When we stripped off the outer hull for scrap metal, we pretty much destroyed the insulation, too. We didn't keep very much of it. One of the largest pieces acted as the makeshift door between the farm and Tangled Hallway.
And now we're regretting that decision, because without that insulation what's left is a naked, highly conductive metal hull that sucks heat out of the interior. By the time we decided to bail out, we could see our breath condensing, it got that cold inside.
There's still a heater inside the ship, but that's for emergencies only. It draws 200 watts, and 200 watt-hours during the overnight hours, less the 100 watts of electricity the RTG produces, is still a bit more than one whole pirate-ninja every night that we won't be using to drive on come morning. The goal is to get through the night on nothing more than the 100 watts the RTG puts out, so that the batteries stay full for the morning's driving.
I'm already working on ideas for fixing the problem. I don't think we can re-insulate the whole ship, and anyway we'd want to stick the insulation on the inside of the hull instead of the outside. That's going to require a lot of work. To save on work, and to concentrate the heat into one place at night, I think we'll focus on just insulating the habitat deck. We'll close the pressure door to the bridge at night and shut off air circulation to the bridge and to the rover, concentrating all the heat sources into that one chamber.
It's going to get cramped; the sleeping bags normally hang from the cabinets, because sleeping is done in zero-G. Also, all the magic batteries except the big ones are in the habitat deck for maximum recharge. Floor space is at a minimum.
Question: where do we get more insulation? What we saved isn't even close to enough to paper the walls of the hab deck. Dragonfly has flatly refused to try spitting up insulation— and I don't blame her. I certainly wouldn't enjoy puking non-stop for a week or so.
We have the hab canvas from the top of the pop-tent we sliced off to provide an electrical ground for the cave farm for the Sol 247 storm. Hab canvas is a better than average insulator. It's built to be, since it not only has to block cosmic radiation but retain heat in the Hab. But that bit of canvas would be about enough to drop like a little doily across the old docking port, which is in the top of the habitat section of the ship. The only other sources are the second pop tent and the Hab, and it's a little early for us to cannibalize the place that's mostly kept us alive for four hundred sols.
The other source for insulation is the Rover 1 cabin. Remember, that was removed intact from the chassis and became a permanent radio shack connecting Pathfinder with the Hab. We wear space suits on the rare occasions we go inside anyway to save on air, since the only life support remaining inside is an air tank. The problem is that it's foam insulation, nearly impossible to remove or transport intact.
There's one other possibility; taking whatever hay the ponies aren't going to eat and turning that into insulation. It's not going to smell pleasant after one hundred and fifty sols, but it might help, so it's worth thinking about, provided there's enough of it.
Maybe the problem will seem simpler when I wake up in the morning. Maybe all we have to do is shut air circulation down, and the RTG will be enough to keep just the habitat deck warm.
Maybe the Princess of Mars will appear, command me to be her concubine, and make the others her ladies-in-waiting.
But for now, I'm going to find a spot in the sleep-pile with the others and hope body heat keeps us comfy tonight.
MISSION LOG — SOL 403 (2)
Hi to humans. I am Spitfire. I write this because Mark is hurt. He got in way of my rear hooves when I felt something poke me in rump. I am sorry but can't help it.
Starlight Glimmer won't stop laugh. She says I thought it funny when happen to her on Pathfinder trip. I remember not that way.
MISSION LOG — SOL 403 (3)
Mark here. She got me right in the solar plexus. Made breathing real interesting for about half an hour. I don't think anything's actually ruptured, though. If I start seeing blood in my urine, then I'll begin worrying.
It's about three in the oh-my-god-ning. Maybe we can get through three hours of actual sleep without a jackhammer to the gut...
Author's Notes:
Feeling a bit better today, but will still be very glad to get home. That's tomorrow's drive, by the way.
Anyone who saw this one coming, score yourself five bonus smug points. Collect twenty-five and trade them in for one genuine I Told You So.
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Sol 405
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 412
ARES III SOL 405
"It'd be easier if Starlight was helping us."
"Yeah," Dragonfly replied absently in Equestrian, focusing her attention on turning her ratchet while Fireball turned his. She hoped the dragon didn't follow that thought any further. Yes, having the unicorn present would speed up the process of stripping down Amicitas's habitat deck to bare walls, but she was more useful helping Mark cut the insulation out of Rover 1's dismounted cabin. This job could be done with muscle, but that job required a more careful and delicate touch— and magic.
So she was there and they were here, and complaining wouldn't change that.
"Where the heck are we going to put these anyway?" Fireball asked, pausing to point to the cabinet he was dismounting. "The bridge is crammed full already so we can barely get out the airlock. I'm not even sure these would fit in the airlock with either of us."
"We don't need to take them out of here," Dragonfly said. "We can work around them. We just need to get the walls clear for insulation."
"Oh. Okay. Where do you want the bolts?"
"Caddy in the top of the tool box. The one with the lid."
"Okay." More ratcheting. "Why don't you use your magic? Make this go faster."
"First, you know exactly why I want to use magic as little as possible," Dragonfly said, a little testily. "Second, I will be using my magic later. So I can't afford to use it right now doing something we can do by hoof."
"Yeah, yeah," Fireball grumbled. "This just takes forever, is all." Giving the lie to his statement, he dropped the last bolt from the current cabinet into the tool box, slid it up and off the bracket that held it in place, and looked for a place to put it. "You sure you can work around this?"
"Just a moment." Dragonfly pulled the last bolt out of her own cabinet, the one which had been beneath Fireball's, and slid the cabinet out of its groove in the deck. "The cabinets interlock. Take a couple bolts and thread them through the bottom mounting holes. You can link these two cabinets together that way, and they can just sit together in the middle of the deck." She forced herself not to look at the rather small deck area available for things to sit in.
"Right," Fireball muttered. "Two down, ten to go, then."
"Eh, we're almost done," Dragonfly said. "The hard part was clearing everything else out first."
"No," Fireball insisted, "the hard part will be putting everything back in the right order."
Dragonfly, unable to deny the point, crawled into another lower cabinet and began loosening another bolt.
After lunch, Dragonfly returned to the ship, this time with Mark. With Starlight's and Fireball's help, one airlock load at a time, they got the carefully cut slices of rover insulation foam into the ship. Of course, this left practically no room for human or changeling to get through the jumble of meal packs, hay bales, medicine, and other things that absolutely had to travel in the Whinnybago's trailer.
Dragonfly felt more grateful than usual when she set up the mana battery for field projection and switched the power on. Inside the mostly bare metal walls of the hab deck, the rainbow sparks that rose from the aerials occasionally lashed out to strike the unpainted portions of metal.
"Okay," Mark said. "Rover foam for the ceiling, especially to cover up the docking port. We're not going to use that any time soon. What's left of the ship insulation in the spots where the cabinets go. When we run out of ship insulation, Hab canvas. Use the ship insulation on the outer bulkheads, the canvas for the wall between habitat and bridge. You up for a lot of spot-gluing? I noticed you had a huge lunch."
"Just a moment." Dragonfly grinned a fang-filled grin, and then she shifted.
Mark's expression was everything Dragonfly had hoped it would be. "Um," he said carefully, "can't you pick another form? That one makes me really uncomfortable."
"I'm used to this shape," Dragonfly said, doing her best imitation of Beth Johanssen's voice to match the blue-jumpsuited body she was imitating. "And it's easier for me to work around the cabinets as a biped. Besides," she added, "I could change into you, but it takes a lot more energy to change mass."
Mark did his best to not look at her. "Really, really uncomfortable."
"Think of it as building up a tolerance," Dragonfly said, chuckling. "Or would this be better?" Another flash of green flame, and from the neck up she was still Johanssen, but from the neck down she was a certain actress famous for a role where she wore cutoff jeans for seven years. And instead of the blue astronaut jump suit, she wore those cutoff jeans and a string bikini top.
Mark's efforts not to look increased. "Really not helping," he said as firmly as he could manage. "Not helping in so many ways."
"Relax, Mark," Dragonfly giggled, now throwing a southern accent into her voice. "I'm not like Starlight or Spitfire. I don't kick. Much."
"This conduct is contributing to a hostile work environment!"
Dragonfly's giggle became a full-out laugh, and with another flash of green she went back to plain, jump-suited Johanssen. "All right, all right," Dragonfly said. "Just messing with you, Mark. And it feels good to be able to shift." She paused for full effect before continuing, "Although lust is a nice delicious treat... and I could really go for some empty calories right-"
"OH LOOK!" Mark said loudly. "I think that's a spot that needs some insulation right there!" He pointed up at a random spot near the ladder leading to the dorsal docking port.
"Some joker you are," Dragonfly muttered. "Okay, let me climb up so you can hand me some of the foam."
"Like that?" Mark asked. "Are you going to be able to... you know... make glue... in Johanssen's body?"
Dragonfly felt a blush coming on. Darnit, sometimes the disguise had a mind of its own. "Well, yes," she said, "but you probably don't want to watch. Not this soon after your own lunch, anyway."
MISSION LOG — SOL 405
Quick note for the record: changelings are gross. Really, really gross.
I haven't missed alcohol so much since the day we lifted off from Canaveral...
Author's Notes:
Ten and a half hours of driving, I got home tired and uninspired. So today you get Dragonfly being cruel to Mark.
The difference between Dragonfly and Chrysalis being, Chryssy wouldn't have let it drop...
... that, and Chryssy wouldn't have settled for Johanssen. She'd use Lewis's form instead, because commander.
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Sol 407
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MISSION LOG — SOL 407
Well, we didn't have to start weaving insulation out of hay, so that's good.
The combination of the RTG in the habitat deck and shutting down all air flow to Rover 2 and the bridge, plus the ugly-ass insulation job we did on the walls of that compartment, kept the room warm enough during the early part of the evening and only a little chilly by just before dawn. That'll have to do, because we can't really afford to run heaters, and we don't have anything else to use for insulation except hay, which has problems.
We decided one other thing: when we leave, we're going to line the floor of the habitat deck with the mattress pads from the Hab bunks. They're only a few inches thick— they were made to be thrown across a string base to save launch weight— but they're better than nothing.
Today we're going to make sure everything's in its proper place. Then tomorrow, Sirius 7, the dress rehearsal.
Fingers crossed...
(I need to ask Starlight what the pony version of that is.)
Author's Notes:
Sorry, but two things happened today. (1) I committed to helping a friend in Dallas, whose apartment lease is up and can't afford the new higher rent, get her crap out before the landlords lock her out and shitcan all her worldly possessions. And (2) I found a problem for our heroes, but not yet the solution, and I just spent an hour and a half verifying that the problem is, if anything, worse than I thought.
So this is all I had time for today, what with unloading the van and filling it with boxes and paper for moving stuff. And since tomorrow involves about twelve hours of driving plus five hours or so of moving house, I won't have any time for writing tomorrow.
Hopefully two chapters on Thursday to make up for missing a day.
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Sol 409
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MISSION LOG — SOL 409
There may be a problem.
We began Sirius 7 with the Whinnybago loaded as it would be, more or less, for the final trip:
ROVER 2 (empty, with extra hydrogen cells) — 3.7 tons
FRIENDSHIP TRAILER (empty) — 14.5 tons
FOOD (110 days supply) — 0.65 tons
BOOSTER SYSTEM (substitute equivalent weight of rocks) — 4.5 tons
SPARKLE DRIVE plus 7 batteries to power it — 0.5 tons
OTHER MAGIC BATTERIES — 0.84 tons
FRIENDSHIP THRUSTER PACKS — 0.12 tons
TOOLS, SCRAP, AIR TANKS FOR SPACE SUIT AND MAV, ETC. — 0.5 tons
CREW, SPACE SUITS, AND PERSONAL EFFECTS — 0.7 tons
14 SOLAR PANELS (NOT COUNTING THOSE INSTALLED ON TRAILER) — 0.1 TON
TOTAL ESTIMATED MASS: 26.11 TONS
To be specific, the trailer's total loaded mass is a little more than seventeen tons, with Rover 2 carrying the balance.
This load was propelled on ten wheels, eight of which are powered, two of which have the clutch disengaged so they rotate freely. (All the rover wheels have their own built-in electrical motors, rated at roughly fifty watt-hours per kilometer of travel on a normal load. This is more than double the normal load rating, with Rover 2 almost at maximum emergency load and the trailer miles beyond that..) The two rover batteries plus four Hab hydrogen storage cells add up to fifty-four pirate-ninjas to power all of this.
Bear with me. I'm laying all of this out so I can think.
We got a bit of a late start, so the sun was already up before we began rolling. We drove for about three hours, until the battery readouts showed 10% power remaining. (The rover computer is smart and can detect the extra, unauthorized power storage and monitor its charge level. Which is good, for reasons which will become obvious in a moment.) This got us 69.66 kilometers away from the Hab. All well and good, right?
We stopped, unloaded the fourteen extra solar cells from their stacks on top of Rover 2, and set them out for recharging the system. With a clear sky each panel provides 120 watts at peak power. The ongoing cirrus cloud coverage knocked that back a little, but with forty-two out of the Hab's fifty-four panels with us, we figured we had power to spare. Also, we have the 100 watts provided by the RTG, which isn't much, but it's 24/7.
So we retired to the trailer for the rest of the day, gathering in the habitat deck when the sun went down and it began to get uncomfortable in the bridge. I set the alarm for first light, about an hour before dawn, expecting to get up to find a full power system and an easy drive back the way we came to return to the Hab.
Nice theory. Too bad it didn't quite pan out.
We got up when my alarm went off. I suited up, went outside, picked up the solar panels in the Martian pre-dawn, and got into Rover 2 for the drive home. And that's when I discovered that the batteries were only recharged up to 70%.
Remember, it took 90% of the batteries to drive seventy kilometers yesterday. And since 70% is less than 90%, we definitely weren't going to get seventy kilometers today. But, since this was a test, we pushed on anyway. 90% got us seventy klicks, so 60% should get us two-thirds as far, right? Forty-six and two-thirds kilometers, no problem, yeah?
Nope. Barely forty kilometers. And that's where we are now, as I type this; thirty kilometers from the Hab, and temporarily out of contact with Earth.
I've got a lot of questions I need to find answers to. Where did my recharge go? Why is my driving performance fourteen percent less efficient on the second day? And, assuming I find answers, what can I do about it?
I do know one thing: forty kilometers a day is not going to do it. That's over eighty days— more than half our safety margin for modifying the MAV gone.
So we're cancelling today's read-along. No D&D. All of us are doing math and brainstorming solutions to this issue. I'm keeping this log open and using it for, well, kind of the minutes of the meeting. If we come up with good ideas, this will help us remember.
Okay, going forward.
Dragonfly asks how much power each solar cell produces. On Earth, with its almost circular orbit, sunlight adds about 1400 watts of heat energy per square meter of surface. Mars is a lot farther out, and its orbit is a lot more elliptical. Raw solar energy ranges from 500 to 700 watts per square meter. The solar cells turn that energy into electricity we can use at a 10.2 efficiency rate. That means, on a clear, day, each 2 sq. m. solar panel should have a peak power of about 120 watts.
Of course, we aren't having clear days lately. Cirrus clouds let in most of the sunlight, but not all of it. Also, the northern hemisphere's summer corresponds almost perfectly with the Martian apisol— that means farthest point from the sun in orbit. Mars is gradually getting closer to the sun, but this hemisphere is tilting away from the sun as we approach the equinox, so it's kind of a wash, energy-wise.
Fireball points out that estimates aren't the same as actual testing. Okay, so thing to do: connect one of the power meters in my tool kit to a solar panel and monitor its performance. That will give us an exact measurement.
Starlight Glimmer does some math and works out that, assuming twelve hours of good sunlight, our forty-two solar panels ought to produce a total of 60,480 watt-hours, or more than enough to fill up the batteries without the RTG. Nice idea, except that fourteen of the solar panels aren't producing while we're driving. We can't start driving until there's at least enough twilight for the ponies to see beyond the range of their suit helmet lights, so some recharge time during the day will be lost to driving.
Fireball asks: doesn't that mean that the batteries are charging from the twenty-eight solar panels on Friendship while we drive? Good point... come to think of it, damn good point. Let's think about that for a moment.
It takes at least half an hour after sunrise for the sun to be high enough off the horizon for the solar cells to get a decent current going. Before then the angle is too low and the panels are catching more photons reflected from the atmosphere than direct from the sun. But after that, the current is close enough to peak as makes little difference. And yesterday— and in the prior power test, come to think of it— we started driving at or after that point. That means that, in addition to burning what was in the batteries, we were also using 100 watts from the RTG and as much as 3,360 watts from the solar cells every hour. In three hours, that comes up to maybe 10,380 watt-hours.
I think we just found that fourteen percent efficiency loss. We didn't lose any efficiency. We were just burning more juice than we thought we were.
This morning we got rolling long before dawn and ran out of juice in a bit less than two hours of driving. The solar cells were putting out negligible amounts of current for about two-thirds of our drive time today, so we didn't get the benefit of their juice.
Doing the math again. With a normal load, the rover wheel motors are rated for fifty watts per kilometer per wheel, or (with eight drive wheels running) four hundred watts per kilometer, total. But more weight requires more juice. Yesterday's performance was (I thought) sixty-nine kilometers on 49.6 pirate-ninjas, or in round numbers about 720 watt-hours per kilometer. But it turns out we were probably closer to 60 pirate-ninjas, or roughly 870 watt-hours per kilometer.
More than twice as much energy consumption, for more than twice the rated load. There are a lot of reasons why this could have been different— lack of air resistance, rolling load, Mars gravity, all sorts of other shit— so I never bothered to run this calculation before. But...
... eight hundred seventy watt-hours per kilometer, at seventy kilometers, requires 60,900 watt-hours— call it sixty-one pirate-ninjas. We can only store fifty-four pirate-ninjas at a time, and an all-day recharge cycle gets us not more than 60.5 pirate-ninjas per sol. That's not sustainable. Either we find a way to use less power in motion, or else we accept a maximum theoretical range of (fifty pirate-ninjas divided by 0.87 pirate-ninjas per klick) fifty-seven kilometers per day.
The obvious answer is to lighten the load. The problem is, that's impossible. The ship is stripped down to the absolute minimum systems. We need all the magic batteries for emergencies, for magic rations to keep Dragonfly from crawling back into a cocoon, to top off the jumbo batteries for launch day, etc. We'll have to think of something else.
Anyway, next time we do a dress rehearsal run, we drive without the solar cells plugged into the electrical system until we stop driving for the day. That'll give a more accurate idea of what kind of daily driving range we can sustain without making changes.
But anyway, yesterday we had nine good hours of sunlight recharge with all solar panels. Let's say the clouds knock ten percent off their peak performance— it shouldn't be that much, but let's say. That should have got us almost 41 pirate-ninjas back in the tank, plus the 5 pirate-ninjas in reserve. And during our sleep cycle, when even the computers are powered down, the RTG should add close to another pirate-ninja. We should have had 46,500 watt-hours in the system when I got up this morning. Instead we had 37,500.
There is an electricity thief somewhere on Mars, and it's stolen nine pirate-ninjas from us already.
Cherry Berry beats me to my suggestion: make a list of everything, absolutely everything, that draws electricity.
Okay. First are the rover computer and the five Hab laptops, all of which we're taking along for reasons of morale. If all six are running at the same time, they draw a total of ninety watts, more or less.
The rover life support, with air circulation fans and air sampler, draws an average of twenty watts.
Two Hab light strips for illumination in the ship; twenty watts each.
Rover radio system, about ten watts. It's on to let us track the Hab beacon when we get within twenty-five kilometers of either the Hab or (at the end of our drive) the MAV. This was NASA's idea, and it's an excellent one. Schiaparelli is one of the largest craters on Mars, and the MAV isn't all that large in geological terms.
Microwave. Or, as I shall henceforth call it, Slayer of Pirate-Ninjas. Twelve HUNDRED watts. We've been cooking our potatoes in it, and only three or four potatoes fit in it at a time. And microwaving a raw potato into what we laughingly call an edible condition takes a fucking long time compared to just heating up a pre-cooked meal pack. The three ponies and I ate a combined thirty potatoes yesterday cooked by the Slayer. I'm willing to guess that it ate two entire pirate-ninjas yesterday by itself.
Can anyone else think of anything? No. That's it.
So tonight we'll shut everything down except the life support and the rover computer. That's roughly thirty-five watts, which means the RTG should be recharging the battery system at a rate of sixty-five watts per hour even in pitch black. If it's anything different, we'll know we missed something.
So, recap:
Tonight— turn things off, check for electricity thief.
Tomorrow— get back to Hab, reactivate Hab. (Everything's shut down except for Pathfinder, because the Hab currently has only six solar panels left.) Tell NASA our results and plans.
Two sols after tomorrow— second dress rehearsal run. Drive without solar panels.
After that: fuck if I know.
Meeting adjourned.
Author's Notes:
Yesterday I got up at 6 AM, left home at 6:45, and got home at 12:45 AM this morning. I drove about six hundred miles, drove a load of boxes of things to my friend's new lodgings, and did what I could to otherwise lighten her load. (No details about the load: not my story to tell.)
I paid for it today. Despite seven solid hours of sleep, I more or less sleepwalked through today. And the planned chapter for today was always going to be an infodump/problem solving one, so I didn't get to make up the missed chapter today.
The electricity problem, two days ago, looked even worse than it was at one point, until I went through the page of math I did in my notes and realized that I was calculating the power output of the solar panels as if they were one meter square instead of two meters square. Basically, I was halving the power in the system due to a math error. There's still a power shortfall, but it's no longer catastrophic.
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Sol 410
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 417
ARES III SOL 410
[12:33] JPL: Welcome back, Mark. I've just finished reading your abstract of the results of what I suppose we'll call Sirius 7A. I have a question, though: why does it end with seventy-two iterations of, "I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use"?
[12:44] HERMES: Seconded. It's annoying when you spam the Pathfinder chat, Watney. What's your excuse?
[13:02] WATNEY: Sorry. That was Fireball. When we found out that all the remaining pony ship systems had been running for two days straight, plus at least one bad ground or short circuit bleeding power into the hull and out through the rover wheels, Starlight Glimmer suggested making Fireball write sentences as a reminder. We should have told him to use a word processor instead of the chat.
However, even considering that the hydraulic system the alien ship uses for steering and the pony radio draws a lot of power, we've still got a lot of battery drain unaccounted for. So Dragonfly and I will spend the next few afternoons going through the ship's wiring chart, finding every cut wire, and making certain it's capped off properly. Then we'll go through the harness and make sure no wires have chafed through their insulation. I figure it'll be a week before we can attempt Sirius 7B.
We have two other solutions to reduce power. For the next trip we'll disengage the wheel clutches on the rear wheels of Rover 2, reducing the Whinnybago to six powered wheels. It's possible that the cost of more power to the remaining wheels during acceleration will be offset by the savings at cruising speed. Also, we'll pre-bake our potatoes before departure. The spuds would ride in saddlebags on Rover 2 anyway, and so long as we don't break the skins they should be all right when re-heated. That'll save three-quarters of the cooking time and reduce the microwave's power draw proportionately. We could just yank the microwave entirely, but it's hard enough to eat plain baked potatoes week in and week out. Cold baked potatoes would be a morale hit I'd rather not take.
[13:29] JPL: Both good ideas. I'll get the engineers to testing the six-wheel configuration power levels at once. Also, you won't need to worry about that as much. We've been tracking your use of food packs since your last inventory based on your logs and chat, and if our numbers are correct, you're good to resume eating food packs on 2/3 ration on Sol 428.
By the way, you'll be glad to know that the cloud cover is beginning to break up at the equator. Meteorology forecasts clear skies at the Hab four days from now, with temperatures returning to more or less Martian normal shortly afterwards. Enjoy your above-freezing afternoons, Mark, because Mars summer is coming to an end.
[13:53] WATNEY: Oh no! How will I show off my sexy bod to all the little green beach bunnies?
Seriously, though, I'll be glad to get non-spud material in my diet again, but I'm not going to hog the good stuff while the others continue on nothing but hay. I plan to share out parts of my food packs and make up the difference by continuing on at least some potatoes. Otherwise I'd be too guilty to eat.
[13:58] WATNEY: Starlight Glimmer here. Did you say seventy-two iterations?
[14:16] JPL: Just be grateful there's no department stores having Back to School sales in Acidalia Planitia. If you feel you need to keep eating potatoes, Mark, go ahead.
[14:21] JPL: Yes, that's right. I counted them myself. I thought there might be some significance. Why?
[14:54] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:55] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:57] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:58] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:59] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:00] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:01] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:03] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:04] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:05] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:07] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:08] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:09] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:10] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:10] HERMES: Not again...
[15:11] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:12] HERMES: GOD DAMN IT WATNEY
[15:13] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:14] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:15] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:16] JPL: Oh no
[15:16] HERMES: MARK SERIOUSLY CUT IT OUT
[15:17] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:17] JPL: MARK
[15:18] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:20] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:21] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:22] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:23] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:24] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:26] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:27] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[16:00] HERMES: Is that it? Is it over?
[16:10] JPL: Don't know. Seventy-two plus twenty-seven is only ninety-nine.
[16:21] HERMES: God. Seriously, Mark, Starlight, Cherry, whoever, next time make him use the whiteboards. Bart Simpson didn't get to type out his sentences.
[16:37] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[16:38] WATNEY: Cant read clawriting in Pony. Worse in English. Whos Bart Simpson?
Author's Notes:
I felt like absolute crap this morning. Ended up having to take a nap, and my sinuses were giving me absolute fits.
But I'm better now, so I'm going for two tonight to catch up!
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Sol 412
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 419
ARES III SOL 412
"You know," Mark said as he pulled a bundle of wiring out of its recess, "you have it lucky. The capsule we took to the moon had fourteen miles of wiring. With your magic comms and life support, your ship has a lot less."
"That doesn't make this any more fun," Dragonfly grumbled. She was of no mind to be buoyed by Mark's it-could-be-worse comments, not when she was engaged in one of the most hated tasks ever to confront a repairpony: wiring harness inspection.
Lots of subsystems and control panels had been yanked and dumped in the search for weight savings. The entire launch staging system, with all its reprogrammable switches— gone. The subsystem for controlling maneuvering thrusters— junk, once NASA had looked at the thruster block specifications and assured her that the MAV's control system could be adapted to use them instead of its own heavier thrusters. Engine throttle— what engine? Buh-bye.
But in many cases the wiring for these systems remained, because it was too much trouble to unearth the wiring harness involved and then remove only the superfluous wires. Technically it still was, because even with wire coding it was impossible to be certain that one out of a dozen little wires in a bundle was the one you wanted to strip out. But they had to pull all of them anyway, and inspect them all, and make sure there were no bare spots where insulation had failed, allowing the metal wire to touch or spark against the metal of the ship interior.
Mark had told them all about what had happened once in a human ship, one with a pure oxygen atmosphere, when a wire sparked. The ship life support provided normal atmosphere and not pure oxygen, but the image stuck in Dragonfly's mind of a fire that burned so fast that the bodies of the astronauts it killed didn't have time to cook. That image almost— almost— made going through every single wire remaining in the ship tolerable.
But it didn't make it even slightly fun.
Yesterday had been the easy part. Yesterday they'd found every cut end, yanked the wire completely if it was conveniently short (not many), and taped off every loose end too troublesome to remove. (This was a lot— Dragonfly was down to a sliver of electrical tape on the spool, although admittedly the outer quarter or so had been made useless by the same Martian cold immediately after the crash that had turned the ship manuals into confetti). That had proceeded quickly— the loose ends were all in known, easy-to-find, generally easy-to-access places, generally because they were where something had been cut or removed.
But wiring inspection was worse than watching paint dry. You could let your mind wander with paint, but you had to pay full and absolute attention to every bloody inch of what was still several miles of itty bitty wires.
Thankfully, just before Dragonfly was going to ask for a break, Mark did. "I need to rest my eyes," he said after checking off Wiring Harness #7 (port thruster control, port SRB ignition and decoupling control lines, habitat deck and engineering deck lighting). "I haven't told NASA yet, but I've been getting a little bit farsighted the last couple of months."
"Farsighted?" Dragonfly asked. "Does that mean you can see the future?"
"What? No," Mark said, confused. "It means I'm going to need reading glasses when I get back to Earth."
"Oh. You don't have any problem with computer screens."
"Computer screens aren't up close to my face, and the letters are pretty big. But I can't read the characters on your wiring harnesses without squinting really hard." Mark sighed. "It's a common symptom of long term zero-gravity— weakened vision, I mean— but I'd hoped Mars gravity would be enough to avoid it."
"Huh." As Mark flopped over to lean his back against the habitat deck bulkhead, Dragonfly joined him in a similar pose. "That's kind of strange. You have the smallest eyes of any of us, but they're also the most fragile."
"Yeah, I've wondered how the ponies get on with those huge eyes of theirs. Probably spend a fortune on eye drops." Mark chuckled. "Allergy season must be a bitch."
Dragonfly blinked again. "Um, no," she said quietly. "I mean, a few ponies have allergies, but it's not like it's crippling or something."
"Oh. Huh."
The conversation lapsed, and Mark shut his eyes, reaching up to rub his temples with one hand.
"Hey, there's a thing you can do that we can't," Dragonfly chirped. "We can't rub both temples at the same time."
"Mmm."
More silence.
"I was wondering," Dragonfly asked, "why don't we move to the cave for the last few sols?" She'd thought about proposing this for weeks now, but this seemed like the time to bring it up.
"Mmm?" Mark didn't open his eyes. "Hadn't thought about it much. First thing I think of, I don't want to move Pathfinder. After what we saw when we opened up Sojourner, I think we were lucky as shit that Pathfinder worked pretty much first time. For all we know, any little bump could kill it. The Hab still has work space, the equipment we're not taking with us, six hydrogen cells for extra power storage, and more safety backups than the cave or the rover. It's still the safest place."
"Yeah, but... well," Dragonfly muttered, a little uncomfortable with her thought, "you're a botanist— a farmer, basically. Doesn't the farm feel more like home?"
Mark snorted, but his eyes stayed shut. "The cave is the most alien place on Mars to me," he said. "Yeah, it has plants. But it's underground, in a giant geode that dwarfs almost anything ever found on Earth, and it runs ninety percent on a force of nature my entire species had relegated to myth." He chuckled and added, "Well, most of us. I hear there are some who think that there are evil magicians among us who cast curses and steal away men's penises."
Dragonfly couldn't hold back her laugh. "What??"
"I could barely say it the first time," Mark said. "Apparently there's this really weird mental disease, a kind of paranoia, that can make a man think his genitals are gone. And then they have to blame somebody, because obviously..." The human began to chuckle uncontrollably, then managed to finish, "... they don't just get up and walk away..."
Dragonfly laughed too, but not as much. "You humans are weird," she said.
"Yeah, probably," Mark said once he calmed down. "But my point is, the Hab feels more like home than anything else here. I trained in a simulation of the Hab for years. And I've spent over a year living in it. The cave is nice, but..."
"The cave is alive," Dragonfly said. "The Hab is dying."
Mark's eyes finally opened. They looked a little sad, staring off at the opposite wall of the compartment. "Yeah, I know," he said. "We're killing it one piece at a time. The life support is down to about eighty percent capacity, give or take, despite my maintenance. We're lucky it has that. It was never meant to last this long with full occupation, much less with full occupation plus a farm."
"Mmm." Humans got a lot of mileage out of grunts as conversational tools, and Dragonfly could see why.
"There's a children's book back home," Mark said. "It's called The Giving Tree. The tree gives the young boy an apple. It gives the older boy a place to hang a swing. When the boy becomes a man, he takes the wood to build a house. And when he's an old man, there's nothing left to take. All the tree has left is its stump, and so the old man sits and rests on that. That's what the Hab feels like to me— a giving tree."
"That... that's so stupid!" Dragonfly snapped. "I want a copy of that book to put in the hive nursery! It's a perfect changeling story! Only instead of `The Giving Tree' we'd call it `The Taking Boy!' That tree gave the same way ponies `give' to changelings!"
"Yeah, you're not the first to notice the story's a little one-sided," Mark said. "But there's another side to it. The stuff the boy took didn't make him happy in the end. In fact, at the end he had nothing except the stump of the tree, because he'd taken and never really gave back. And when he's old, he goes back to where he was young and happy, trying to find that again."
Mark shook his head. "I haven't read the book in so many years, I'm probably messing it up. But I feel bad about how we've looted the Hab. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to help keep the cave going. I can't save the Hab, but maybe I can save that."
"Huh." Dragonfly shifted position. "How are your eyes?"
"They still hurt a bit," Mark said. "Gimme a few more minutes."
"Okay." Dragonfly got up, stretched her legs, and trotted over to her discarded spacesuit. "I'm going back into the Hab for a minute. Want anything?"
"Pill bottle in the medicine chest marked `aspirin'," Mark said. "If you could bring that. Rather not touch the Vicodin unless I have to."
"Okay. Back in a while."
It took time to cycle out the ship's airlock and in via Airlock 2 of the Hab. Once inside, she checked the clock. In about two hours Mark would have to take Rover 2 to the cave to pick up the others— well, Starlight and Fireball, anyway; Cherry and Spitfire would walk back. But for the moment she was alone in the Hab.
The Hab floor was dirty, but no longer dirt. The plants had been carefully transferred to the cave, followed by as much of the cultivated soil as they could shovel up. The cabinets and tables, so shiny and brilliant when the five of them had first entered it the night of Sol 6, now looked dingy, scratched, beaten. The canvas scar left by the blown-out Airlock 1 grabbed and held the eye, reminding Dragonfly of that pony who had worked for the Storm King, what's-her-name. One of the air circulation fans rattled, and another had that high-pitched whine only Dragonfly could hear, warning that its bearing was beginning to fail.
Without the farm— without the castaways— the Hab felt sadder, more tired, than before. If Dragonfly put the sensation into words, it had moved away from I still stand and had edged closer to I once stood. She still didn't know if what she felt was real or some magic-deprivation hallucination, but to her it didn't just feel like the Hab was dying; it felt like the Hab knew it was dying.
"Excuse me," she said, alone in the ninety-two square meter space under the canvas dome. "I, um, just want to say something. We didn't build you. The five of us, I mean, not Mark. We just showed up. You protected us. You warned us when you had trouble. You stood up to frightful things and kept us safe. And now we're taking parts of you so we can go a long way away, and probably never come back."
There was a vague hint that the bug had something's attention. More hallucinations, probably. She felt silly, but she carried on.
"Well, I just want to say that we're grateful for all you've done. And we're sorry, really sorry, for how badly we abused you. You deserved better. You deserved a happier mission, with your proper crew. Instead you got us, and you took care of us. And now you're giving us a chance to live long enough to maybe make it home again."
Dragonfly walked up to the console of the Hab's main computer, the one that monitored all the other equipment, the one too big and inconvenient to take with them to Schiaparelli. She placed a hoof on the side of the console and said, quietly, "Thank you."
And the Hab was happy.
Author's Notes:
In the book Mark Watney explicitly refers to the Hab as the Giving Tree.
And with this, the buffer is out of negative digits and back to zero.
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Sol 415
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 422
ARES III SOL 415
"Down five kilo, Mark."
"I'm not surprised," Mark replied. "Most of it's probably from my skeleton. Common in low-gravity environments. A little higher than this point in other Ares missions, though."
Spitfire considered this. "Ares mission lasts one year, yeah? This point in other mission, you be home two months now."
"You know what I mean," Mark said. "Come on, your turn on the scale. Everyone else has been."
"Blood pressure," Spitfire said carefully. "Temperature. Reflex. Breathing. You know the drill." That last was a pat phrase from several of the television shows they'd watched, and Spitfire liked it. She liked it even more once drill was explained to her as not being a tool in this particular usage.
The other four castaways had been through the process already. NASA had suggested this to them in the morning's chat. Before long they would no longer have access to the sample scale (nonessential equipment for the cross-country drive to come). This seemed like a good time to do another physical and assess the health of the crew. Blood work was out of the question, of course, but the usual non-invasive diagnostics could still be done.
To no one's surprise, Dragonfly had the worst results thus far, with her body weight down ten whole kilograms below the baseline readings taken three hundred sols before. Mark's loss of five kilograms came in second, but he'd had much more mass to lose than any of the others, even Fireball.
The dragon, incidentally, had actually gained three kilos. There were a couple of jokes about eating rocks, and then they moved on.
Spitfire went on to administer the other tests. Lungs clear, lung capacity undiminished. (Dragonfly was the only one whose breathing had grown weaker.) Temperature normal, heartbeat sound normal. Pulse rate slower, blood pressure slightly lower, both within margins of error according to the database on the Hab computers. In short, Mark was about as healthy as could be expected, right down to the barely visible burn scars on his upper right arm.
Spitfire was silently grateful for one fact: the only illnesses among the crew, aside from varying levels of magic deprivation, had come from injuries. Apparently neither the Equestrians nor the lone human had brought any infectious diseases to wipe out the group.
Or anyway, if they had, they were diseases for which everyone had standard resistance. If Spitfire understood parallel universe theory, the odds of Mark's germs and pony germs being more or less identical were actually not terrible. Of course, most of what Starlight Glimmer babbled about when talking about the two universes made no sense to Spitfire, so she could be wrong.
But that didn't help with her main concern. Mark, by deliberate decision of his bosses, had been isolated for weeks prior to launch to ensure he didn't have a communicable disease to give to his crewmates. The ponies hadn't been as cautious, but their weeks of training came close enough to isolation that it seemed to have worked out the same. But whichever planet the lot of them returned to first, the non-native would have to deal with the full range of disease, and the rest of them would have weakened immune systems from all this time in space.
Put bluntly, when they got back, wherever they got back to, they were all going to be really, really sick.
"Okay, Spitfire," Mark said. "Your turn."
"Fine." Despite her lack of hands, Spitfire had done most of the work so far. But hooves failed to cope with the added difficulty of performing the tests on oneself, so Mark had to step in for this part. She hopped onto the worktable, stepped on the scale— down one and a quarter kilograms, not bad— and then submitted quietly to Mark's careful and cautious movements.
She couldn't resist the ear flick when Mark stuck in the ear thermometer (a much more pleasant tool than the old-fashioned model in the Amicitas medical kit— that dinosaur was getting left behind along with the scale). Mark flinched, and Spitfire's ear-flick became two flattened ears. "Said sorry for kick you," she said crossly.
"And I think my abs forgive you," Mark said. The bruises had faded some, but they were still visible when he took off his shirt. "But I'm still a bit gun-shy."
"Get on with it." Another pat English phrase Spitfire had embraced wholeheartedly, especially since it had fewer syllables than a lot of single English words.
Everything else checked out fine until the last test, the breath capacity test. "How much?" she asked, when she heard the results.
"Twenty percent drop," Mark said. "That's as bad as Dragonfly's."
Spitfire groaned, flopping forward on the table. "No," she said, "it's worse."
"You wanna tell me about it?" Mark asked.
Spitfire snorted. "So you can finish my... sentences... for me? So you can correct me?"
Mark sighed. "Everyone, can you go find something to do in the rover or something?" he asked.
"You sure about that, Mark?" Dragonfly asked. "I think we all know Spitfire can kick your ass, even with only eighty percent of her lungs."
"Out."
Fireball chuckled. "Bug isn't wrong," he said.
"Out, out."
"Come on, everyone," Cherry Berry said. "I'm sure Dragonfly can find us some more wires to inspect. Suit up."
Five minutes later, Spitfire and Mark were seated on a bunk, alone in the Hab. "Okay, we here," she said, not bothering to hide the bitterness. "What you want me say, huh?"
"Well..." Mark seemed to think (for a change) before speaking. "First, how about this? You say what you want in pony, and I'll talk in English. That puts us on a level playing field."
"What?" Spitfire slipped into Equestrian at once. "But you don't understand Equestrian! You certainly can't speak it for crap! That's why we all learned English!"
"I understand more than you think," Mark said. "I'm a bit rusty, since you guys don't go off into huddles so much anymore, but I had a lot of opportunities to listen to you. And seriously, you guys never told me what's so wrong when I try to speak it."
"Remember Filthy Fred?" Spitfire asked. "When you try to speak Equestrian, you sound like that almost all the time."
Mark flinched. "That bad?" he asked.
"Worse. Like walking past drunk stallions at the air show."
"Um... I got walking and males, and something about flying," Mark said.
"What do stallions sound like when sexy mares walk by on your world?"
"What do... ooooh," Mark said, understanding. "I think I see where you're going. I sound like that. I wish you'd said."
"We didn't want to embarrass you."
"Was that embarrass?" Mark chuckled. "Believe me, that ship sailed long ago." He sobered a little and said, "Think we can keep this up now? How about you tell me what your real problem is? I know it's not me talking down to you, because I haven't done that for ages."
"You're not gonna drop this, are you? Fine." Spitfire slumped. "I'm not just a soldier, Mark. I'm an athlete. I'm one of the twenty-four top fliers in all Equestria. Or I was, before I spent over a year in space." She shook her head. "I've read the parts of your medical papers I can understand. They all say space weakens the body. When you come back you get back most of it with time and work, but never all.
"And then you tell me I've lost twenty percent of my lung capacity? I'm a flyer. A high-altitude flyer. I need every bit of lung function I can get. You might as well tell me that I've had half a lung cut out," she shouted, making a gesture with a forehoof across her upper barrel. "It amounts to the same thing! I'll never have that edge again! I'll never be able to go as fast for as long as I used to." She slumped and finished, "Mark, you just told me I lost the Wonderbolts."
Mark put his arm around the pony's shoulders. "I think I got most of that," he said. "And first off, you don't know you've lost your edge. We studied humans in space for up to two years. Humans, not ponies. We know nothing about pony recovery time or abilities. And you'll be going home to a world full of magic. Who knows what's possible there?"
"I do," Spitfire muttered. "Once you lose the edge, you never get it back. I'm going to be like Wind Rider— an old has-been clinging to lost glory." She slapped a hoof against the frame of the bunk. "I'm too young to be like Wind Rider, darn it! I have ten good years left in me!"
Mark hugged Spitfire a little tighter. "Spits, I'm telling you, it's going to be all right."
"I'm telling you it's not! Don't patronize me, Mark! It's over!" Spitfire, hardened veteran, steel-willed officer with over a decade in the EUP behind her, caught herself sniffling. After a moment she decided she didn't care. "It's over..." she moaned, and buried her face in Mark's side.
And then, to her shock, Mark pushed her away.
Mark, the softest, most annoying person Spitfire could think of, Mr. Cheer Up, Mr. Good Feelings, had pushed her away just as she was going to start crying.
"I'm not going to accept that," he said quietly. "It's not over. You're going to survive this. You're going to go home, and you're going to fly faster and higher than ever before. Because if you don't, Mars wins." He pointed a finger at the Hab wall. "That bastard of a planet out there has been trying to break us for four hundred and some sols. In a hundred and forty sols we'll be on our way home laughing at this fucking planet that thought it could break us. Laughing, do you hear me?"
Spitfire had lost all urge to weep. For the first time she could recall, probably for the first time ever, she heard in Mark Watney's voice the same tone that Cherry Berry had when she was in full Steel Eyed Missile Mare mode. No... like that time when she'd been a cadet at Wonderbolts Academy, and she'd been thinking about washing out after a particularly bad day. She hadn't said anything, but the training officer had sounded exactly like this.
"Look at all the ways Mars has tried to kill us," Mark continued. "Impalement. Explosion. Decompression. Suffocation. Poisoning. Lightning. Starvation. Blunt force trauma. And we're beating it, Spitfire, we're beating the bastard. For four hundred sols we've beaten it. So don't you dare let it have a victory now!" He looked down into her eyes, which had gone as wide as any of the others', and said, "Are you going to let this fucking planet beat you, Spitfire?!"
The answer was so automatic as to be involuntary. "Sir, no sir!"
The response to that was, apparently, tradition in two universes. "I can't hear you!"
"SIR, NO SIR!!"
"Are you going to go home, work hard, get back into shape, and show this planet where it can shove its twenty percents?"
"SIR, YES SIR!"
"Good!" And then the moment was gone, and Mark was his smiling, gentle self again, giving Spitfire another hug. "Now let's quit this touchy-feely remake of Full Metal Jacket and go join the others, okay?"
"Um... yeah," Spitfire said, totally confused. Had what just happened been some sort of prank? Or had she actually touched something in Mark?
She did feel better, so there must be something real in it.
"One thing," Mark asked, "What's so bad about being me? And why do you call me Mark Windy?"
"Not Mark Windy," Spitfire said in English. "A pony. Wind Rider. He was a hero, once. Not more, not now. Old. Angry. Washed up." Another pat phrase, but not one Spitfire liked.
"Okay," Mark said. "I know the type. But that's not you. That's never going to be you."
As Mark walked over to his spacesuit rack, Spitfire could only hope he was right.
Author's Notes:
Mark Watney is never going to be R. Lee Ermey. But he's also a born survivor, and apparently one of his very few buttons involves giving up.
I had no idea where this was going to go at first; I just wanted Spitfire and Mark to have a scene, since Spitfire is far and away the most distant of the Equestrians from Mark. I don't think Spitfire will ever particularly like Mark, but we'll see...
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Sol 418
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MISSION LOG — SOL 418
It's been a little while since my last entry, but I've been busy, what with hunting down electrical leaks in the Whinnybago, helping do pre-trip physicals, and doing other prep work. So I've got a lot of ground to cover to tell you how I got where I am now, which is back in the Hab after another attempt at Sirius 7.
It really helps that the skies are clear again— well, except for the fact that it's now considerably colder in the Whinnybago at night. The RTG and the insulation in the habitat compartment help with that, but this morning we woke up in a cuddle-pile, and we definitely didn't go to sleep that way. And getting up and suiting up in the chill was no fun at all, let me tell you. But it's not really uncomfortable yet, so we're dealing with it.
Over the past week I've been monitoring the noontime power output of the solar cells. On Sol 410, with the clouds still in full effect, the panel I tested put out 108 watts at high noon. Today, Sol 418, with the sky clear except for the normal pink haze, we got 122 watts. That's excellent news. So long as we have this kind of weather, we'll get maximum recharge out of the system.
Over the past week we went over the electrical system of the Whinnybago twice and Rover 2 once. We found four bare spots on the wiring and one outright break (in a nonfunctional system, obviously), not counting the four entire wiring harnesses we removed because nothing they led to still functioned. We didn't throw them away, though; they got added to the scrap and tools in the back of Rover 2. There are so many potential uses for wire that I just don't want to part with it unless I have to.
Between that inspection and double-checking that the remaining cut ends are both switched off and insulated, we've secured the circuits about as well as we can do without actually dismantling the pony ship. I mean, more than it already is. The thing already looks like it spent six months at a U-Pull-It parts wrecker yard.
And, finally, we performed the two tests for Sirius 7B. Yesterday we left the Hab on a full electrical charge, one hour before dawn, with the harness for the solar panels on the roof of the trailer disconnected, so that only the RTG was still putting power into the system. Everything else, of course, was pulling power out. We ran until the power readings read 10%, which means more or less 48,600 watt-hours consumed. Distance traveled: fifty-seven and one-ninth kilometers, for a consumption rate lowered to 850 watt-hours per kilometer, probably thanks to the power leaks we patched.
We reconnected the solar panels, spread out the spares from Rover 2, and spent the day more or less as before. We pre-cooked four days of potato rations before leaving, so each round of taters only required about four minutes to bring from freezing to edible. (Quick thought; if we bring in tomorrow's potato rations from the saddlebags to thaw each day, we can cut even that in half.) In every other respect we acted just like before— playing with the computers, talking, reading, recharging suits, whatever. And this morning, when we woke up, the battery charge was within 1% of full.
Yeah! Go team! Protect those pirate-ninjas!
This led to today's experiment; drive back the way we came, with the solar panels disconnected again— basically, run all the same conditions as before— with the motor clutches on the rear two wheels of Rover 2 disengaged.
Here's the logic behind this. The wheel motor systems are designed to produce a relatively low speed but outrageous levels of torque. Bear in mind, Rover 2 by itself hauled the wreck of the pony ship— a weight two and a half times its own. (Okay, it didn't do it entirely by itself. We had a unicorn and a dragon to help over the gullies. But if the ground had been as flat as it looks from orbit, it would have. And if the ponies had used larger wheels for their landing gear, we could have done it a lot quicker than the one kilometer per hour. Seriously, the Ares rovers are fucking beasts.)
Now, the logic is that electric motors have a flat efficiency curve, i. e. that so long as the load isn't zero or too heavy for the motor to budge, it's at or near peak efficiency, and thus pouring all the electricity to one engine or distributing it among four or eight makes no difference. Thing is, that's not necessarily so. In fact, once the load on an electrical engine drops below fifty percent of its rated capacity, its efficiency drops off. Below twenty percent, it becomes outright shitty.
The reason is friction. Friction constantly steals a bit of any engine's efficiency— the bearings rub against each other, they rub against the housings, etc. When you lower the load you lower the electricity needed to move it, yes... but you also raise the percentage of the electricity that's being eaten by that constant friction drain.
And as I said, the engines in each rover wheel are monsters. NASA wanted energy-efficient rovers, but they wanted a vehicle that would be able to climb over bad terrain and get its crew home a hell of a lot more. And the same idiots who gave us safety-glass helmet faceplates and one-use disposable CO2 filters said, "Well, there's no kill like overkill," so they gave us motors which could pull England across the Channel and connect it to France, nearly.
I exaggerate a bit, but the key point is that the rover motors are overpowered. That's a good thing for getting a twenty-six ton load started, but once it's moving it only takes a little juice to keep it moving. The apparent load drops off a cliff, and friction— aggravated by the excess weight of the Whinnybago— starts going all om nom nom on the efficiency. And telling the computer to cut all power to those motors doesn't help, because if you do that the motors immediately become dynamos, producing a massive drag on the other engines that more than eats up any power they produce.
Now, of course deactivating two wheels out of eight is not going to give us a twenty-five percent efficiency boost. First, when we're getting up to speed, all that torque is welcome. As beefy as these engines are, twenty-six tons from a dead start on six motors is a bit above one hundred percent of rated load, so the efficiency takes a hit until we're up to speed. Also, every time we brake the connected motors regain a bit of the electricity we've lost, but the wheels with the clutches disconnected don't do that. Free-wheeling wheels don't turn dynamos. So with the six-wheel configuration we lose efficiency both starting and stopping.
And then there's up-slopes. The six-wheel configuration does not like anything above a one in four upgrade. I actually had to get out four times today and re-engage the two wheel clutches long enough to get us out of gullies we had to cross, because we couldn't find any banks less steep than a thirty degree angle. When we make the trip for real, that represents lost time, which means lost recharge, which means shorter legs of the trip. It also means wasted energy stopping and then accelerating again.
NASA tried the experiment on the streets of JSC (and that must have been a thing for the tourists to see, though I feel sorry for the engineers who had to move their cars out of their on-street parking). They got an efficiency gain of twelve percent in Earth gravity on perfectly flat streets with no obstacles and little braking or accelerating.
So what did we get? Well, yesterday we got 57.11 kilometers on 48,600 watt-hours. Today we got... drum roll... 60.53. That's a 5.5% efficiency improvement, 805 or so watt-hours per kilometer instead of 850. After that we recharged for a couple hours and drove the short distance back to the Hab, which we had to drive past before. And here we are.
Five point five percent helps, but not one hell of a lot, especially when you consider there's going to be a lot of terrain where we won't be able to move without those two extra wheels. And critically, we drove more or less in our own tracks going back to the Hab in that second test, so at least a bit of that efficiency improvement is down to not having to slow down to pick a way around obstacles. (And there's going to be a lot more of those where we're going than there are in Acidalia.)
In short, we can only disconnect two motors if we can count on a really long, mostly level stretch where we can just barrel on through. Otherwise it's not worth the hassle.
Now, to be fair, the issue isn't really power consumption so much as power generation. You can put up with shitty efficiency so long as you have fuel to throw at the problem. And we do have an advantage in that right now Mars is getting rapidly closer to the sun, and will continue to get closer during the trip. To make things better, Schiaparelli is almost on the equator— 3 degrees south latitude. That means, if anything, we'll get a slight gain in power from the solar panels as the trip progresses.
But that's not enough. We don't know what Mars will throw at us next. We might break down for days for some reason. We might find an obstacle NASA hasn't spotted from space that makes us detour. We might have more dust storms— autumn is the beginning of the main dust storm season, as the southern hemisphere warms up and gets really active. We really need that seventy kilometers a day.
So let's look at current ideal, best-case recharge rates. With eleven good hours of recharge time in a sol, if we use them all we're guaranteed of a full battery. But my math says there's very little margin. If we lose more than half an hour of prime recharge time, we don't start the next day on a full battery.
I say eleven hours, but that's not precisely true. There's almost twelve hours of good charging daylight each day. The problem is, I use an hour of it each day for driving, in addition to the pre-dawn drive. If I reconnect the solar cells and drive with constant recharging, I get about 3.6 pirate-ninjas in that hour, or about enough power for three and a half kilometers more. The less efficient charging right at dawn would probably stretch that to four, which requires maybe an extra nine minutes of driving. Push it any farther, and it becomes unsustainable.
I can't throw more solar panels at this. We only have six spares, and anyway with the saddlebags and roof storage already accounted for there's no place to put them.
Maybe Starlight Glimmer could stick those solar power catchers she made for the cave farm on top of the panels. Not the same ones, of course. The solar panels are lightweight and can't stand to have a big fucking slab of quartz sitting on top. But maybe a thin layer of glass...
Maybe I see a way out of this. Yeah. Time to talk to the man with the plan... or the unicorn with the horn... or something.
Author's Notes:
The exact efficiency curve of electric motors depends much on the motor and its power rating. It's not far off a horizontal line, but that's only after the first twenty percent or so. An electric motor moving less than twenty percent of its rated load, according to my reading, really is shit for efficiency.
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Sol 419
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 426
ARES III SOL 419
"Glass pyramids."
"Yeah. Bubbles would be better, because they'd be more resistant against breaking after a serious jolt, but that's pretty much it."
"Eighty-four glass pyramids."
"No, just fifty-six. If we put them on the solar panels we carry on the rover, they won't stack anymore, and we won't be able to carry them."
"All right. Fifty-six glass pyramids. On top of the ship. Which no longer has a safe place to stand on top of it, if it ever had one, because it's covered with solar panels."
"Starlight, I get the feeling you're less than enthusiastic about my little brainstorm," Mark said.
Starlight rolled her eyes. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Look, it's this or take a lot longer to get to the Mav," Mark said. "Like nine days longer if absolutely nothing goes wrong. Unless you can think of some other way to juice up the solar panels? Or maybe I could dismantle the wheels on the nose gear, remove their motors, and rig some sort of bicycle so we could take turns manually charging the batteries?"
Starlight shook her head. "Where do you get these ideas?" she asked.
"I dunno," Mark said. "Where did you get yours? The cave farm is almost entirely your baby, you know."
Starlight's head continued shaking. "There's a little shop in the crater behind the Hab," she said with mixed sarcasm and disgust. "Can't miss it. Big sign saying `DISCOUNT BAD IDEAS.' Fireball has a gold card membership, and I put the shop owner's kid through college."
Mark chuckled. "I think my jokes may be rubbing off on you a bit."
"No, seriously, Mark," Starlight Glimmer said, setting her hooves on the worktable, "I don't have original ideas. Not good ones. I know a ton of spells because I was an obsessed little filly who wanted to bend the world to her wishes. Every time I think of something myself, it goes wrong."
"Not true," Mark said.
"Transmuting rocks to ballistic cherries."
"You could probably do it now."
"The perchlorate spell."
"Which we use for salt mining. God, I don't know what we'd do without that."
"The methane spell."
"That one was my idea, remember?" Mark smiled. "Look, I'm not letting you off the hook. Most of the time if I come up with an idea, I have to come to you for implementation, right? But you came up with the translation spell that got us talking at first. You sealed the cave for the first time without asking for help from home. The lighting crystals were all you. Using the rainbow crystals to circulate water and add heat to the cave— all you. I couldn't have done any of that by myself. If it was left to me, we'd still be playing Pictionary."
Starlight looked at the whiteboard currently in the Hab. It had been drawn on and erased until the residue had made it less a white and more a darkish grey. "That'd be a neat trick," she said.
"Look, I'm sorry I'm always imposing on you," Mark said. "Believe me, I'd love to learn magic. I'd need a wand or something like in Harry Potter, but even if I could just make colored lights like you do-"
"Mark, we have wands that make light. They're called flashlights. You have them too." She sighed. "Look, take it from a recovering magic addict. Magic isn't everything. It's a tool just like anything else, and it can be dangerous if used irresponsibly."
"I'd still love to learn."
Starlight sighed again. "If you visit Pony-land, we'll see what can be done, okay?" She lit up her horn— it took a lot from her reserves, with the plants gone from the Hab— and made a line-picture in light above the work table. "Why a pyramid?" she asked.
"Surface area and angles," Mark said. "Imagine each square meter as four right triangles with the hypotenuse being a side of the square. 45-45-90 isosceles triangles, right? Each of them is a quarter square meter in area. Now imagine four 60-60-60 triangles instead— equilateral triangles, all of the sides being one meter long. Do the math, and each of those is a bit more than two-fifths of a square meter in area. More surface area. And since it stands up above the panel, you end up able to catch even a bit of light from lower angles. Add your light-gathering spell, and you get... well, I don't know how much you get, but more than we're getting now."
"Huh." Starlight thought about this for a moment, then banished the cantrip. She couldn't hold it much longer anyway. "You don't want bubbles," she said. "They might be more sturdy, but they'd be lenses concentrating all the light on a single point. Bad idea, don't you think?"
Mark blinked. "Oh. Yeah, you're right. I'd forgotten about that."
"I think I can cobble together something from a couple of mirror spells— not like Granny Weatherwax's sister did, perfectly safe stuff. Instead of being a relay like in the cave, I could have the glass just refract any light that hits it straight down onto the panel. There might still be some hot spots, but nothing that would melt the panel."
"Okay, I can see it."
"The problem is, these things will have to be thin to save weight," Starlight continued. "And they'll have to rest only on the panel frame, so they don't damage the cells. These are going to get broken a lot, Mark."
"Can you fix them?"
"I can't patch them. If they crack, good-bye enchantment. No, I'd have to replace any broken dome. That means bringing along raw material for repairs. A couple of big blocks of the clearest quartz we can find. I might be able to recycle broken domes into new ones, but I think we'd better add half a ton of quartz to the load."
Mark groaned. "You know we're trying to move faster, not slower, right?"
"If you think we're going to find a second gem cave on the trip-"
"No, no, I get you," Mark said, waving a hand in defeat. "When can we begin?"
"I need a place where I can stand and look down on the rover from not too far away," Starlight said. "That means a gully with steep sides somewhere. Site Epsilon's sides aren't steep enough."
"Okay. Get the crystal you need tomorrow, installation the next sol, Sirius 7C after that?"
"Sounds good."
Author's Notes:
I'm not fond at all with how this turned out, but the important thing is this: I wrote this last night, after I posted yesterday's chapter.
And I just finished writing another chapter.
I have a chapter in the buffer.
Which is good, because AnimeFEST in Dallas this weekend runs from Friday through Monday.
By the way, I haven't mentioned this before, but about a month ago I had a realization as I was about to drop off into sleep.
All this time I've described the mana batteries as having two posts each, like a car battery, only magical. But that night I realized: wait a minute, magic is NOT a polar energy! Once you expend the power, nothing cycles back to the battery! There's no need for a loop circuit! The batteries should have only ONE post!
But I didn't feel like changing every mention of battery posts at that point in the story— even less so, now. So magic batteries have two posts, Because Reasons. Tra-la.
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Sols 423-424
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MISSION LOG — SOL 423
Seventy-one point seven five kilometers!
AND, this time, a full fucking tank of pirate-ninjas long before sunset!
We are celebrating, and honestly this time. I've broken open two of the meal packs and divided up bits here and there to give us all at least one flavor that isn't alfatato.
(God, that's a horrible thought; a genetically engineered spud that tastes like hay, or a bean that grows taters on the stalk. I hope I never live to see it. Of course, somebody will read this and think, "What a neat idea! And I'm sure Mark Watney will be honored to see the product of his genius in person!" Well, future reader, let me be clear: if you do make it, keep that shit the fuck away from me unless you want to wear it. I like to think of myself as a gentle and nonviolent person, but I have my breaking point, and that will be it. Fair warning.)
Okay, to explain the solution: hothouse roofs.
It's a little more complicated than that, but not much.
On Sol 421 we went to the cave. Cherry drafted Spitfire to help her tend to the farm, including all the just sprouted new potato plants. The rest of us went and harvested the best remaining big chunks of rock crystal. These had to be absolutely clear, so sunlight could pass through. It wasn't easy, since we already used the best crystals in the cave for the jumbo booster batteries, but eventually Starlight said she could use extra magic to alter the shape of the quartz to fit what we need.
Which she did next. We made thirty rather thick slices of crystal and laid them out in a large open spot at the back of the farm. (We only need twenty-eight, but spares.) A bit of magic later, Starlight had the thick chunks of crystal turned to really thin sheets, one meter wide by two meters long each. They'll just barely fit through the cave airlock this way, but we had to do it here, because of the next step in the process.
The problem with crystal is, it can actually be more fragile than glass in certain ways. Cracks in glass propagate slowly, because the molecular structure is irregular. The whole definition of crystal is that it has a very regular structure, so if a crack finds one of its lines of cleavage, it'll zip right down it, and all you have left is shards. And that's a major concern, because these are thin sheets of crystal glass that will have to deal with every bump and jolt along the way, plus a daily temperature swing of between sixty and seventy degrees Celsius from hot to cold and back.
So we decided to add a lamination layer to our crystal panels to make them more resistant to breaking— and to make it easier to replace them when we have to.
That was Dragonfly's job. She wasn't happy about it, but she didn't need much persuading. She cooked up a clear form of goop in her guts and spread it with surprising evenness across each of the slabs— surprising because the process involved projectile spitting the stuff from a few meters away, then wrapping the overflow around the edges of the slabs. She then nibbled off the excess gunk to recycle it.
Seriously, changelings are adorable, but they're also gross as hell.
Anyway, we didn't take the slices out to the rover immediately. There was no point in exposing them to the aforementioned temperature extremes until they were installed. And installation would require a bit of preparation. Besides, the laminate needed some time to cure properly.
Yesterday we took the full Whinnybago out almost to Site Epsilon. There we found a spot in the gully nearest to the mountain where someone standing on top of the bank could almost look straight down at the trailer. We then went to the cave, loaded the panels onto the roof (we'd removed the saddlebags for this operation) and carefully drove the things to the trailer. We then went back and fetched eight magic batteries, because what came next was going to take a lot of juice.
The frames of the solar panels are not designed to be opened up, at all, ever. In fact, they're designed to hold together despite tremendous stresses, because they have to ride a resupply mission that launches at accelerations no human could tolerate and then land on Mars in a giant tumbler with air bags and everything. But there is a little lip sticking up from the surface of the actual panels, so that when they're stacked you don't actually have the panels rubbing against each other. That's what we had to work with— that and a lot of pony magic.
Fireball and I spent nearly two hours and six batteries standing on thin air with nothing between us and broken everything except the willpower of a unicorn. We "stood" on either side of each panel as, one by one, the laminated crystal sheets were levitated down to us so we could carefully and precisely seat them in the lip of the frame. Thankfully, they were a perfect fit. We were very careful, both for the sheets and for the integrity of our spacesuit gloves. But the thick layer of clear laminate around the edges protected us. We got through all twenty-eight without a hitch.
Then Starlight put us back on solid ground so she could finish the job. She snugged up the lips of all twenty-eight panels to hold the new panels firmly in place, using the wrapped-around laminate as a sort of rubber gasket. And then she stretched the crystal. She didn't make two big meter-square pyramids per panel, as I'd suggested. She had a better idea. She made a bunch of little pyramids— fifty of them, twenty centimeters on a side, per panel, with rounded and reinforced edges and peaks. As she pointed out, the smaller each pyramid is, the less distance the sides will wobble on each bump, and the less likely they are to crack or break. It's a damn good idea, and I give her full credit for having it.
In addition to turning the roof into a giant cheese grater, she laid a very simple zero-power refraction enchantment on the panels; any light, from any direction, that hits the glass gets transmitted through and directed straight down on whatever part of the panel is directly below.
Let me tell you, it makes the panels look freaky as hell. They're not totally black, because a lot of light gets reflected off the original solar panels, and much of that escapes back out the pyramids normally. But any light coming, for example, from the sky or from landmarks behind the pyramids gets sucked down inside them. So when you look at `em, all you see is a distorted reflection of the solar cells, plus a little bit of glare reflected off those cells. And that glare is never anyplace you'd expect to see glare, like on the tops or edges of the pyramids. Very Uncanny Valley of the Kings.
Then we drove back to the Hab. On the way back one of the crystals broke, and we had to replace it with a spare, using the last of the batteries we got from the cave. After seeing the damage, Starlight says she might be able to repair them en route, and if they can't be repaired, we'll bring enough crystal on the Schiaparelli trip to replace about one-third of them. But for now, we wanted to go with all original installation for the test.
Now, why are we going to all this trouble? Simple. Before, each solar panel had two square meters of surface area. With the new crystal bubbles, they have a surface area of 2.8 square meters each.
Now, it's not perfect. At early and late hours of the day you're still dealing with a shallow angle of attack on the solar panels which reduces their effectiveness. But the slightly higher profile of the pyramids catches more of that light, sooner and later, than before... and from about 0930 to 1500 hours Mars time, when the sun is shining down on the entire surface of the pyramids all at once, we'll get as much as a forty percent boost to our recharge power— in theory.
Today we tested the theory. Net result, averaging out recharge rates over the day: 120% power gain on the altered panels, in round numbers, over what we had. Hence seventy-one and a bit kilometers, plus full batteries long before sunset.
It's not all clear gain. Power consumption per kilometer is up, because we added about a ton and a half of material to the top of the trailer. Even stretched thin, quartz weighs a LOT. But we still have a significant power surplus now. With this boost we could technically start a little later, drive a bit longer, and still have a full battery. And if we get into serious trouble, we might need that. But I'd prefer to stick with seventy or seventy-one kilometers per day and just enjoy having more power than we need. With that in mind, we're still going to pre-bake all our potatoes and keep an eye on power consumption.
Margins are nice to have. In the time we've been stuck here on Mars, we've had margins and not had margins, and it's a lot more fun to not have to worry quite so much about everything going to shit and all of us dying because we just had to have one fresh baked potato.
MISSION LOG — SOL 424
Back at the Hab. None of the pyramids broke on the two-day shakedown.
The next time we take out the Whinnybago, it'll be when we leave the Hab for the last time. Testing is done. All that's left is to load this puppy up, cross our fingers, and hope nothing goes wrong.
Author's Notes:
Buffer is one and a bit, as I try to push forward.
For reasons why my energy is down, check my latest blog entry.
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Sol 426
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 434
ARES III SOL 426
The speakers hissed and popped with noise, but the voice that came with the noise came out clear and distinct. "Friendship, this is Hermes, voice comms check. Friendship, Hermes on voice comms check, over."
Mark nodded to Fireball, who switched Amicitas's transmitter on and said, "Hermes, Friendship. Lotta noise, but we hear you. Stand by for Mark."
The human grinned, adjusted his borrowed pony headset and said, "Good to hear your voice, Martinez! I've been practicing my Morse code, but I guess it won't be needed. Over."
Fireball switched his own headset over to the magic comms. "Friendship confirms voice contact," he said. "Report reply sent at 11:14 hours."
Cherry Berry's voice replied, "Copy that, Fireball. Report sent over Pathfinder chat. Let us know when you and Mark are done."
"Will do." Fireball switched back to the ship radio, then leaned back against his flight couch. "Well," he said, "got nine minutes wait for reply. What ya gonna say?"
"What would you say, in the same place?" Mark said. "If you could actually hear the voices of your people back home?"
"Easy. `I quit.'" Fireball growled softly, continuing, "I had enough space for lifetime. I crashed on launch and lived. Been stuck in orbit and lived. Looks like I'm gonna live after crash and been stuck in whole other universe. Think someone giving me a hint." He smirked a reptilian smirk and added, "Gonna go out on top of the game."
"Can't argue with that," Mark said. "Once I get back to Earth, I'm never going up again. Not that it's likely NASA would ever give me another flight, but if they did, I'd turn them down."
"Why?" Fireball asked. "My lord, she say, you astronaut now, do what I say. But you... word... you asked for this."
"Yeah, I volunteered," Mark said. "And don't get me wrong. I loved every minute of being an astronaut, up to the moment I got stranded here. After that, not so much."
"What's to like about astronaut?" Fireball asked. "It's mostly boring, except for total scary parts."
"Are you kidding?" Mark asked. "It's, like, the greatest adventure ever. You get to experience zero-G. You get to see things almost nobody ever gets to see, first-hand. Whatever science you're interested in, you're instantly on the cutting edge of it. And you get the knowledge that everything you do is this incredible privilege, something that only a tiny lucky few people will ever get to experience." He shrugged and added, "The pay's pretty shitty, though."
Fireball snorted. "Dragons don't do adventure," he said. "Dragons are adventure for other people." He couldn't suppress a chortle as he remembered a line from what was still his favorite of all the Earth books NASA had sent up. "Dragons make you late for dinner."
"I thought dragons made you dinner, period."
"Never!" Calculated pause. "Well, hardly ever."
Mark laughed. Score one for Fireball.
"Seriously," Fireball continued, "we not monsters like hydra or chimera or manticore. People leave our hoard alone, we leave them alone. We like nice, quiet life. No trouble. And flying rocket is nothing but noise and trouble."
"Are you kidding?" Mark said. "Yeah, it's scary, but it's also the most exhilarating experience of my life! Riding into space on top of the biggest controlled explosion ever devised by the mind of man!"
"But you never do it again?"
"Nope. Not once I'm home." Mark sighed. "I'm glad I visited Mars, but being stranded here taught me how much I took little things like breathable air, not dying if I step outside, and food that isn't a goddamn potato for granted. Let new Ares missions come back here. I'll cheer them on from my comfy chair, in a house with open windows, eating nachos and drinking coffee." The human shook his head and muttered, "Fuck, but I miss coffee."
"Just thought," Fireball said. "Coffee. Dragons don't get coffee. Never drank it until dragon program folded into changeling program."
"So, what?" Mark asked. "Are you saying you can't get coffee without being an astronaut?"
"I don't know how make coffee. Not without wall-plug coffee pot."
The admission embarrassed Fireball enough that he was grateful that the voice on the radio prevented Mark from delivering whatever rejoinder he'd been about to make. But once the words sank in, he was less grateful: "Friendship, Hermes, we read you clear, but your mikes are set to vox. Repeat, your mikes are set to vox and we're hearing everything you say. And recording it for posterity. Over."
Mark gave the dragon a Look.
"Oops," Fireball said, and switched the transmitter off. Then he remembered that Hermes had signed over to them, reactivated the transmitter, and said, "Friendship copies vox."
"And for the record," Mark said hurriedly, "although I firmly believe other people should have the chance that was cut short for me on Sol 6, I will happily work with NASA in whatever capacity they believe I can best advance the cause of the human exploration and colonization of space. Talk to you later, Friendship out."
Fireball didn't need the neck-chopping movement Mark made with a hand to switch the transmitter off properly this time. "Walk back much?" he asked with a grin.
"Hey, those people are holding my back pay for the last year and a half," Mark said. "Granted I probably owe them every penny for what they're spending to rescue me, but I have to live on something when I get home!"
Fireball's eyes widened. "And Dragonlord has my hoard!" he gasped. "All my stuff!"
"Yeah. So maybe we should wait to quit until we actually get home?"
"Oooooooh, yeah," Fireball agreed.
"And after someone teaches you how to make coffee."
"Yeah."
Author's Notes:
Adding to the buffer a little bit at a time. I should have two full (short) chapters in the can before I go to bed tonight, and I'll try to get a little writing done tomorrow morning before I leave for Dallas.
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Sol 429
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 437
ARES III SOL 429
"Cherry, look at this!"
Cherry Berry paused in her work on the cherry tree next down the row. That work consisted of little more than walking around the trunk as much as possible and thinking happy thoughts at the trunk and roots, but that was just how earth pony magic worked— or, at least, it was all she knew. "What is it, Mark?"
Mark had grasped one of the lower branches of the cherry tree at the top of the row and pulled it down for easier view. "Look at these buds!" he said.
"Yes, I know, Mark," Cherry said. "The fresh leaves should sprout in about three weeks, I think." She'd actually had to work a little to make the trees take as much of a nap as they had. Insofar as trees could feel, they felt happy and full of pep. They were impatient to wake up again and resume growing. Rest time was over, and the sheer number of buds suggested there would be a bumper crop of fresh-grown, low-toxin sweet leaves for tea-making just as they were ready to depart.
"No, no!" Mark said. "Look at these buds! See anything different?" He pointed his finger to the clusters of buds out towards the very whip-end of the branch.
Cherry Berry looked. At the moment they just appeared to be buds and— no, wait. These were larger than the leaf buds. A lot larger, although any bud on a cherry tree was going to be tiny. "Are those flower buds?" she asked.
"Can't be anything else!" Mark grinned. "I actually did a project as part of one of my undergraduate botany courses, going out to Jackson Park every day and monitoring the cherry trees from dormancy to first bud to full bloom. This is exactly what I remember cherry flower buds looking like!"
"That's wonderful!"
"That's impossible!" Mark said, still grinning. "These trees are too young, there hasn't been enough cold weather inside the cave, it's the wrong time entirely— there's every reason in the world why this shouldn't be happening, but it's happening!"
"Well, of course it's happening because-" Cherry's elation vanished, replaced by a sinking feeling in her tummy. "It's because the trees know we're leaving," she said. "I think they want to say goodbye."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "Do trees actually think, where you come from?" he asked.
"Hard to say," Cherry Berry said. "They don't think like ponies, that's for sure. But they do have feelings, and they know a little what's going on around them. And I think they might hear me a bit, the same way I hear them. The same way most earth ponies hear plants, if they learn to listen."
"So earth ponies aren't hobbits," Mark chuckled. "They're ents."
"Ha, ha," Cherry Berry said, sarcastic. "Look, I can believe the trees are thankful for the care we give them, can't I?"
"Sure, sure," Mark said in a placating tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun of you."
"Good." Cherry stroked a hoof down the tree trunk. "I really wish we could take them with us," she said. "All the way home, I mean. I never grew a tree from seed to adulthood before."
"Look at it this way," Mark said. "We brought life to a lifeless world and gave it a fighting chance. That's more than most people get where I come from— animal or plant."
"I know," Cherry sighed. "But the first trees I saw all the way through. I'd like to have even just one so I could show-"
Not far above Cherry's head, something went fwoomp. A few seconds later, it also went crack.
A branch about five hoofwidths long settled almost silently to the ground between Cherry and Mark, covered with fresh green leaves.
Mark looked at Cherry. "Did you just do that?" he asked.
"No," Cherry answered, shaken. "At least not... I didn't mean to. I don't know how..."
They stared at the fallen, leaf-covered branch for a long moment.
"The mister!" Cherry shouted. "Take off the cap, it'll hold water for it to soak in until the roots grow out!"
"Need to find some wire!" Mark shouted back. "If the leaves get into the water, the plant might drown! Cherry trees don't do well with too much water!"
"I'll find the wire! You have thumbs, you take care of the mister bottle!"
"Right!"
They rushed off to different parts of the cave, looking for the things they needed, while the stick spread its newborn leaves to catch the magic crystal sunlight.
Author's Notes:
Finished off tomorrow's chapter before I left home, which is good, because that's the only writing time I've had today.
Speaking of time... it's about bedtime. Still a TON of prep due tomorrow...
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Sol 432
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 440
ARES III SOL 432
Starlight Glimmer looked at the alfalfa growing in the cave. For some reason, today it smelled nicer than she remembered it ever smelling before.
Starlight had been raised by somewhat overprotective (and overbearing) parents in a well-to-do home in a unicorn settlement. She'd been brought up believing that grazing, like an ordinary, homeless nopony, was Just Not Done. You ate your hay from a bowl or in a casserole like civilized ponies did. But back home, if she'd smelled a hay field smelling as sweet and rich as the scent wafting off the little patch of cave soil now, she would have been tempted to take a few bites.
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.
Just making this trip, it occurred to me that we never got around to giving proper names to any of the features around the Hab. I checked with NASA, and it turns out they've stuck with the placeholder names given in the mission briefings.
So I discussed the matter with the aliens, and we decided to fill the gap ourselves. I mean, why not? I've already named a valley after Commander Lewis during the Pathfinder trip.
So, let's go down the list of features, beginning with the five geology sites we trained for. Site Alpha was just the flat ground the Hab sits on. That already has a name, though none of us ever used it except Lewis: Fertility Base. (Acidalia means "named for Venus", Roman goddess of love and fertility. And since I was along as a botanist, performing the first experiments with live plants on the Martian surface, some higher-up decided it rhymed with Tranquility Base. But none of us liked it, so aside from Lewis declaring Fertility Base fully operational at the end of Sol 2, we all just called it the Hab.)
Site Beta was going to be the nearest gully. The problem is that the eight gullies that run across the path between the Hab and the cave farm are pretty much interchangeable and uninteresting. So are the ones we crossed going south on the Pathfinder trip until we got into Chryse Planitia. Neither I nor the ponies feel like they deserve names, but if we don't somebody will. So we officially name them after dwarves: Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, Happy, Dopey and Tyrion, for the gullies going east to west from the Hab to Site Epsilon. If the others need naming, between the Lord of the Rings and Terry Pratchett there's plenty of names. Just use Bombur for a really wide gully, okay?
Site Gamma is the crater behind the Hab— well, technically Site Gamma and Site Delta both. Gamma was the outside of the rim, and Delta was the dunes inside the crater proper. The crater is nothing in Martian terms— only a few hundred meters across. There are millions like it around the planet. But this one is ours, so it gets a name. The ponies have no attachment to it, so I'm calling it Martinez Crater, after our pilot who used it as a landmark on the way to sticking a perfect landing.
That leaves Site Epsilon, the old volcano where we found the crystal cave. I let the ponies have that, and they've decided to name it after their ship, Mount Friendship. Actually, they asked me to give it a Latin name like Acidalia. I think "friendship" in Latin is something like amicitas. So Site Epsilon, once we leave, shall forever be Mount Amicitas. The cave gets its own name: Salvation Cave, because it definitely saved our asses.
Finally, there's the trans-Epsilon mountain. Since our name for the crest of the mountain is "the beauty spot". I'm naming it Mt. Johannsen. The big weathered rock on the outcrop overlooking the valley is Vogel Peak, after our silent stone man from Germany. And, since it gets my naming-shit-for-my-crew task over with at one shot, the valley the Beauty Spot and Vogel Peak both overlook will be Beck Valley.
Tomorrow I'll send in my naming requests, along with the requests for that flood channel in Ares Terra that I named for Lewis. We'll see how many NASA and the astronomical community approve. I suspect the names for the Ares III crew won't stick. Naming features for wives and kids works sometimes, but the bureaucrats frown on us naming stuff for ourselves. And, of course, NASA will be gun-shy about lawyers from Disney or the George R. R. Martin estate.
But if they say no to Mt. Amicitas, we'll go to the mat for it. The ponies are strongly for it, and I'm on their side; more than anything else except the existence of that cave, friendship is the reason we survived this long. And friendship deserves a name on a map.
It deserves that at the very least.
Author's Notes:
Buffer is gone. We'll see if I can get something written tomorrow.
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Sol 439
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 447
ARES III SOL 439
[09:50] JPL: Mark, just letting you know that there's been no significant change in that dust storm in Arabia Terra. It's moving westward at about four kilometers per hour with no real signs of strengthening. If this continues a small detour of about one hundred kilometers should be enough for you to avoid the dangerous parts of the storm.
[10:44] JPL: Mark, is everything okay down there? Pathfinder shows as fully active, but we don't see your response.
[11:31] JPL: Ares III Hab, this is JPL, communications check, please repond, over.
[11:53] WATNEY: Sorry. We've been busy this morning. Mainly, we just realized that what's left of the pony ship doesn't have a decontamination shower. The ponies used wipes for hygiene, now all expended. So this morning we had a line for the shower followed by discussions about rigging up a bathtub, since this is our last chance to be even sort of clean for the next hundred-plus sols.
[12:04] HERMES: One hundred sols? NASA, are there any procedures for manufacturing gas masks from materials on the ship? Come Sol 551 we're going to need some...
[12:15] WATNEY: Ha ha, guys. By the way, my response cost me my place in line for Second Shower. And you would not believe how long Dragonfly spends in there if left alone. I think she flosses the holes in her legs.
Author's Notes:
There probably won't be a hot tub this time. Replacing and recycling the water between users would be a bit much for the water reclaimer, and dumping water brought into the Hab from pony life support would be hot, sweaty, I-need-another-bath work.
Sorry for the brief gag, but I got home at 11:40 PM, and I'm about to go sack out.
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Sol 443
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 451
ARES III SOL 443
Dragonfly took a closer look at one arm of Fireball's space suit. "Right elbow," she said. "Outer layer fraying. Pass me the scope."
The scope was a bit of improvisation using one of the arm-mounted cameras from a spare Ares suit and a small flashlight from Dragonfly's toolbox. It worked much better than just holding an open space suit to the light or, worse, turning it inside out (a task which ranged from difficult to impossible depending on the part). A quick look at the Hab's main projector screen, which had been set to show the scope's video output, confirmed Dragonfly's fears. "Worse on the inside," she said. "The middle layers are probably damaged, too. I'll have to patch that one inside and out."
Starlight Glimmer had made her edict stick, all but eliminating the use of magic from the crew. This chore, however, was a vital exception; this was, in essence, the last chance Dragonfly had to patch and maintain the worn-out, scuffed-up pony space suits. That task required both surplus food and enough magic to replace what the changeling used up producing the quick-setting rubbery substance that acted as patches for the suits.
But in order to conserve the magic batteries, this time Dragonfly was going through all the suits and making a list of all the necessary repairs (aside from the obligatory re-soling of the suit hooves, which all of them needed). Only with a firm plan in mind would she go forward with the repairs, using as little time as possible while two magic batteries provided power for the operation. (To further save time and energy, Starlight would smooth scuffs and scratches on the helmets and visors at the same time.)
"I've been thinking," Starlight said. "About how difficult would it be to install the radio from one of Mark's spacesuits into one of ours?"
Dragonfly paused in her inspection to consider this. "Pretty tough," she said. "We'd have to wear the batteries inside our suits, with the radios constantly on. The last thing we want to do is punch holes in our suits for control interfaces, so we couldn't turn the radios on or off or switch channels on the fly. Why?"
"Well, Cherry Berry will need one for the launch," Starlight said. "That is, if she gets the okay to fly the ship. Using Mark's radios means we don't have to activate the telepresence spell and burn mana. And I was thinking it'd be good for you to have a comm system that your body wasn't actively sucking the power out of."
"Look, last I counted, Mark had five space suits functional," Dragonfly said. "He can't wear two, but they're still good for parts. He's taking two functional suits with him on the trip. That leaves only three spare radios. There's five of us."
"Spitfire's still struggling with English," Starlight said. "And I won't be scouting the trail with you because of this big suit patch." She tapped her own suit, which lay on the table under the one Dragonfly had been inspecting. "And neither of us will have any significant role during the launch unless things go really badly. That leaves you, Fireball and Cherry, all of whom have important jobs either during the trip or the flight."
Dragonfly still looked doubtfully at Starlight. "We'll have to test the range," she said. "The aerial would have to be somewhere inside the suit, too. Not in the helmet, either— too crowded. And I don't know where we'd mount the microphone. And that all assumes the radios can be removed from those suits. What I saw looked really complicated, with that whole helmet and backpack assembly thing and-"
A small black rectangle clattered onto the worktable. A moment later, a cable flopped on top of it, followed by the clatter of a small radio aerial.
"Three minutes per suit," Mark said. "They have their own built-in batteries good for four hours in case main suit power runs out. Need to scrounge some connectors to link the aerial and antenna cable. Microphone will have to be tied to the body— it threads through the helmet normally. No big problem."
Starlight and Dragonfly watched as Mark walked over to the Hab's spacesuit rack to pop another radio out of the unused suit harnesses.
"Is it me," Starlight said, "or has he been getting more smug the closer we get to departure day?"
"It's not just you," Dragonfly said.
MISSION LOG — SOL 443
The ponies spent today on suit maintenance. We took advantage of the suit down time to pop three surplus suit radios out of the suits we're going to leave behind (Johanssen's, Lewis's, Vogel's) and put together a harness so that the ponies can wear them under their own suits. It was Starlight's idea, and it's not a bad one. The suit radios use very little juice and have four-hour emergency batteries built in, so recharging them from the Whinnybago system amounts almost to a rounding error in the energy budget.
But the work on suits got me thinking about my own suit, and one problem I probably should have given more thought to— specifically, air.
The rover will get all its air from the trailer. The trailer hitch includes electrical and air linkages that allow one rover to keep the other running in case of emergency. In this case we're using it to let the magic pony life support provide air, leaving the original Rover 2 life support for emergency backup. But there's a major problem with this— namely that this system doesn't provide compressed pure O2 and N2 for my suit to recharge its internal tanks from.
My original plan was to just bring along tanks from the Hab. Twenty-five liters of compressed O2 and ten liters of compressed N2 would be more than enough for my suit, with plenty to spare for charging up the MAV's life support tanks. But compressed air tanks aren't all that lightweight. I'd much prefer to use much smaller tanks if possible. And I think I've figured out how.
I may have mentioned that the pony ship airlocks dispose of air by gradually venting it into space. Not so either the Hab airlocks or the rover airlocks. Our airlocks have high-power compressors that put the air into small holding tanks. Those tanks can then be uncoupled, swapped around, whatever. The practical upshot of this is that I can stash air from the pony life support link and use that to refill my suit tanks.
Of course, it's not perfect. My suit is designed to hold one liter of oxygen and two liters of nitrogen. The rover compressor can't separate the two— that's what the atmospheric regulator does in the Hab. So the suit will have to cope with an atmospheric mix instead of pure gases in each tank. I have no idea what kind of glitches that will cause.
But it saves a bit of weight— and, much more important, a ton of space in the rover. So that's the plan I'm going with. I've passed on the idea to NASA, and they've given tentative approval, though they're going to rush a ton of tests through to make sure it works before we leave here.
The ponies are rolling their eyes at me, but I don't care all that much. I'm solving problems using good old human know-how and good old human-built equipment! Hell, if I only had a few more parts, I could probably convert the whole cave into a giant spaceship, which we would then use to escape Mars (after the inevitable first-person-shooter adventure in which we defend it from vaguely insectoid aliens and an insane AI).
Seriously, ever since we began work on the Whinnybago I've felt like a window pops up over my head to say ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! every time I fix something or solve a problem. It's a damn good feeling. It makes me feel like I'm in control of my own destiny for a change.
Yes, I know Mars will find some way to leave me helpless and at the mercy of my currently annoyed pony roommates. But I'm a space pirate. I live in the moment.
Arrrrr.
Author's Notes:
About to play some anime music stuff (as in, right after I post this— 9 PM Central 8-21-18) at http://listen.dementiaradio.org/ . Tomorrow night's regularly scheduled show is the Music Lessons playlist.
Mark, better ease off the ego trip. Yes, you can fix things. No need to brag.
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Sol 449
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 457
ARES III SOL 449
[10:04] WATNEY: We just used the pony ship radio to do a final comms check with Hermes. Fireball is sitting in the trailer waiting for the response. We're pretty sure we'll get one, though, since we've checked the system five times in the past two weeks.
Almost everything is done. All the medicines, all the tools, all the remaining spare canvas, sealing resin and seal-strips have been loaded. One hundred twenty days of food is crammed into the habitat compartment of the trailer, including over 200 kilograms of pre-baked potatoes. We've bathed, cut hair, shaved, filed, done all the hygienic things we can. The last medical information went out over this chat and the pony water-telegraph yesterday. The suits are patched as well as we can manage. All that remains is to load the components for the Sparkle Drive and the seven tons of magic batteries we'll be hauling to Schiaparelli.
We've eaten our last baked potato crisps. We've played our last D&D session on the worktable. We've abused the decon shower and the Hab toilet for the last time. We don't have to worry about alternating between airlocks anymore. And when Fireball snores, we no longer have the luxury of going to his bunk and poking him until he turns over, because the bunks have seen their last night of sleepers.
The time has come to leave. This is the last message I'll send via Pathfinder. When I shut down the Hab, Pathfinder shuts down too, probably forever. (But we're taking Sojourner with us, since the rover computers have been modified to control the little rover as if they were Pathfinder. If we can manage it, we'll use one of the spare radios from the MAV to allow a linkup from the rover to the satellite network around Mars, giving Sojourner and its replacement rechargeable battery an extended mission.)
It's a little melancholy. I've been here for what amounts to fifteen months. For much of that time this place was the only thing between me and horrible death. And, of course, this was where I met the aliens who helped me survive those fifteen months. In this place we've eaten, slept, learned each other's languages (well, mostly). Here we slew rampaging princesses and rescued dragons. Here we wept over the dead body of Albus Dumbledore, and again on the quay of the Grey Havens. And here we made plans, good and bad, to keep each other alive and semi-sane on this godforsaken world.
Maybe years from now archaeologists or historians or something will come back, put a dome over all of the junk we leave behind, and restore the Hab to its original operating condition. After all, this was the site where an Earth man first met intelligent alien life. But it's a lot more likely that Mars will eventually chew up and swallow the Hab long before humans return. In fact, if we ever terraform Mars, the Hab will end up under over a kilometer of ocean water, which will do a lot more damage than the Mars of today could dream of.
But mostly today I'm thinking about the mission I never got— the mission that got cut short on Sol 6. Trips with Lewis and Vogel to the various geology sites. My botany experiments with Beck. Maintenance chores with Johanssen. And, after collecting half a ton of rocks and gigabytes of photos and movies, the Sol 31 shut down and departure to begin the seven month flight home.
I'm grateful for my new, 67% quadrupedal crew, but I still miss the one I spent years training with. And I hate it that this planet stole the mission we trained for from us.
I've already shut down most of the equipment— the heaters, the atmospheric regulator, the water reclaimer, the oxygenator, the air circulation fans, the lab equipment, even the lighting. Only the main computer and the main power system are left. And let me tell you, it's damn quiet in here. The ponies are in their suits, minus the helmets. Every time they shift their weight, it's like a thunderclap. With no fans or equipment running, Mars is a fucking silent place.
Sorry. I just turned this chat into a log entry. Hopefully someone will copy it over when they publish the book fifty years from now. In the meantime, let me finish on a more professional note.
Fertility Base mission complete on Sol 449. Final findings: large deposits of water ice confirmed not far below the surface, including methane hydrates and large amounts of perchlorate salts. Rock strata indicate multiple events of sedimentary layering of generally basaltic materials, either by repeat flooding or ocean deposits. Once purged of perchlorate contamination, the Martian soil at this site, high in potassium and phosphorus deposits, makes more than adequate material for cultivation once Earth bacteria and a minimum of proteins are incubated within it. Aside from the methane deposits, no obvious signs of an ongoing or extinct Martian biosphere were discovered. Finally, first contact was established with an alien civilization, studies of same ongoing.
Mark Watney, senior NASA personnel on Mars, signing off from Fertility Base. Sirius 8 is rolling.
[10:32] SYSTEM: WARNING— PATHFINDER LOS— ATTEMPTING TO REACQUIRE
[10:33] SYSTEM: REACQUISITION OF SIGNAL CANCELLED BY EXECUTIVE OVERRIDE
The cave airlock opened, releasing a smell none of the six castaways had smelled for longer than they could remember— the smell of pollen.
"Wow," Mark whispered, as he, the ponies, the changeling and the dragon looked across the array of color flooding the farm.
The flowers had bloomed— not just the cherries, but all the flowers. Tiny pips of dark purple dotted the upper portions of the alfalfa plants. Pale white and lavender flowers towered over the ground-hugging potato plants. The fresh-grown leaves on the cherry trees seemed almost crowded out by the masses of white and slightly pink blossoms that drooped in cascades almost down to the cave floor.
And along the walls of the cave, where they had been cultivated by Starlight Glimmer, patches of the rainbow crystal enchantment shifted colors back and forth, some pumping trickles of water up from the rear of the cave, others giving off tiny pinpricks of light and heat. The as yet uninfected crystals, still (for now) the vast majority, still reflected the sunlight beamed in from the collector crystals, still glittered with reflections of the riot of color, still magnified the beauty of the moment.
"Yeah," Cherry Berry said. "Wow."
And although they spent most of the remaining day exploring and recording the event with cameras, it was a long, long time before any of them had a word to say beyond, "Wow."
Author's Notes:
Not much to say here.
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Sol 450
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 458
ARES III SOL 450
"Friendship, Hermes. NASA confirms you as go for Sirius 8 at least as far as the headwaters of Mawrth Vallis. That portion of the trip should take you fifteen sols. Once out of Mawrth, we expect to detour you around the leading edge of the sand storm, which should be creeping up on you by then. The storm is currently about six hundred kilometers across and moving due west at four kilometers per hour.
"In unrelated news, we thought you'd like to know that Dr. Beck formally proposed to Johanssen yesterday. They asked me to perform the ceremony, but I had to remind them that naval captains aren't authorized to conduct marriages, even less so mission commanders appointed by NASA. So that'll have to wait until after landing and quarantine, at least. Beck asks me to tell you he wants you to be best man. You can imagine what Martinez had to say about that.
"Finally, a quick status update on our mission: Hermes just crossed back over Earth's orbit on the outbound leg of our flight. We're catching back up to Mars quickly and are well on course for rendezvous with you on Sol 551— Hermes mission day 689. If the Sparkle Drive doesn't work out, then Ares III will surpass Gennady Padalka's lifetime space flight record of 879 days. Even if you count our time on Mars as breaking the chain, in a few days we'll eclipse Valeri Polyakov's record of 438 days continuously in space. Yes, I looked it up. Just wanted to say, you're not the only one going into the record books for all this.
"See you in about a hundred and four days. Hermes out."
Dragonfly awoke, uncomfortably chilled. Compared to the temperature outside on Mars's surface at midnight, it was still warm and cozy inside the cave, but in terms of the controlled environment she'd become accustomed to since the Bad Old Days Which Are Now Over became over, it was less warm than she liked it. She wanted more sleep, and to get it she needed more warmth.
Sol 450 had involved quite a lot of hard work in space suits. Each of the fifteen jumbo batteries, each weighing three hundred kilograms, had to be carefully moved into the cave air lock, then out onto the surface and down the side of what Mark now called Amicitas Mons to the rover. There each of them had to be carefully threaded through the complex saddlebag harness so they could hang from the straps without swinging against the big metal support beams running up from the chassis.
While Fireball, Mark and Cherry Berry conducted this operation, the others hauled out the normal-sized magic batteries— twenty-one of them, leaving nine in the cave tethered to the core of the rainbow crystal infection. Then came the Sparkle Drive core, last of all, secured as carefully as possible in a padded mount in the Amicitas bridge.
After that came the personal effects. Cherry's tree branch, transplanted into a small plastic box, had been stuffed into Mark's spare space suit and carefully carried down to the ship. Two more boxes followed, filled with cherry leaves to be used for making tea from hot water from the life support system. Another box followed that, containing eight small rainbow crystals that Starlight wanted to get back home for study. Etc., etc., etc.
And then, once all that had been done, Spitfire had pulled out a disc of metal salvaged from Amicitas, followed by a larger chunk of the same material. Mission medals, she said, for the six of them, so that a tiny bit of the ship could go home. After a brief argument (which, for once, Starlight lost), one of the batteries being left behind was tapped for enough juice to cut five more discs and to engrave them with the same message in Equestrian and English:
C. BERRY — S. GLIMMER — FIREBALL — DRAGONFLY — SPITFIRE — M. WATNEY
ESA FLIGHT 54 — AMICITAS MISSION 3 — ARES 3 EXTENDED
ESA / CSP / DSI / NASA
And, in the center of the disc, in place of any symbol or more uplifting motto:
"HOME"
Once all of that had eventually been done, and after a meal made mostly from grazing a substantial portion of sweet-smelling alfalfa blooms, they'd laid out their sleeping rolls, laid down by the entrance, and talked like they'd never talked before. They talked about the indignity of mixing crap into Mars dust by hoof, about hours and hours spent watering plants a dribble at a time, about how they might do it differently if they ever had to do it again. They talked about disco music, about television, about the books in the small digital library NASA had sent them. They talked about their near-death experiences and about the beauty of the world that kept trying to erase the word near.
Not one word was said about the trip to Schiaparelli. The evening had been about memories— the past, not the future.
And, eventually, with no artificial lights except the motes of light from the heater-element rainbow crystals, they'd fallen asleep.
Now Dragonfly was up. Unlike the others, she could see in the almost total darkness, at least well enough to find the pile of sleepers who, three hours before, had been five astronauts lying on five sleeping bags. Fireball and Mark lay at the bottom of the pile, and the three ponies sprawled across the top.
Grumbling a little in ancient Changeling (which sounded not like a hiss, but more like a soft chitter), Dragonfly dragged herself to the pile and squeezed herself between Mark and Fireball on the bottom of the pile. It would be warmest there, between the internally heated dragon and the almost furless human. And if Mark poked her flank, well, she was the one crew member who definitely would not kick him in the gut.
Warm and cozy once again, she drifted back to sleep... and dreamed...
Spitfire dreamed.
"Say, who is that pony?"
"Don't know. Should I recognize her?"
"She seems a little familiar."
"Oh, her? That's Spitfire. She used to be a flyer."
And just like that, the Canterlot mares walked down the street, leaving Spitfire alone in the rain, wearing a cloudbuster jacket that looked suspiciously like Wind Rider's.
Behind her, towering twenty hooves tall on the side of a shop, hung a poster: YOUNG? FIT? BRAVE? JOIN THE WONDERBOLTS! The face on the poster was hers.
Had been hers. Three years ago.
She could sense she had wings, kind of. They remained folded at her sides. The thought of opening them, even for a moment, made her gasp for air. Something held her to the ground, tighter than a leash.
Once I was a hero, she thought. Once I turned green flyers and self-obsessed prima donnas into the world's elite flying team. Then I could have had anything— anyone. But all I wanted was the job, the job of flying and leading flyers.
I could have had a relationship, started a family. Now I'm a broken-down has-been, all alone. The world flies on without me.
And then a group of kids— human kids, with human clothes, with incredibly familiar human faces, running on the streets of Canterlot— ran up to her. "Hey, look!" shouted the youngest girl. "It's a pony!"
"That's a pegasus!" a boy hardly older than the little girl snapped, the You Idiot tone drenching the words.
"Wow!" the girl said. "Can you fly, Ms. Pegasus?"
"Well... yes," Spitfire admitted, spreading her wings and flapping them enough for a slow hover. "But not as well as I used to."
"That's not right," one of the slightly older girls said. "With wings like that, you should be a fantastic flier."
"Yes," Spitfire said quietly, "I was."
"No," said the oldest girl, who reached up where Spitfire hovered and stroked her orange fur. "You will be." She waved around at the alleyway, which had changed into the walls of the crystal cave, leaving only a narrow gap to the open blue sky. "We watched you practice here, all the time. Why did you do that if you weren't going to fly again?"
And then, with a firm shove from the hand against her chin, the human teenager sent Spitfire skywards in a streak of flame. Darkness fled, along with crystals and castles and children. The air boomed around her, sending the clouds scattering.
Spitfire soared.
Fireball dreamed.
The hoard was immense. He was immense. Before long he'd have to seek out a different cave; if he dug this one any wider, the mountaintop would probably collapse on top of him.
It was a good life. Go searching for treasure when he felt like it, eat some crystals, then go home and sleep. Sleep was fun. Sleep was relaxing.
"Good morning!"
But sleep apparently wasn't on the program.
Standing in a little hole in one side of the cave (five hooves high and wide enough for three ponies to walk side by side) was a short blue figure, like a dragon with a beard. Indeed, like a particular dragon with a particularly silly beard...
"Ember," Fireball asked, "why are you wearing a ridiculous fake beard?"
"I'm looking for a dragon who might be interested in having an adventure," said the interloper.
"Adventures? No thank you!" Fireball said firmly. "I've had quite enough of adventures! All an adventure is, is being miserably bored or miserably terrified, one or the other! Nasty things! Make you late for dinner! No, we don't want any adventures today, thank you! My adventures are over! Try asking a pony!"
"Haven't you heard?" the Ember-like dragon wizard asked. "Adventures don't really have an end."
"They do for me, Ember or whoever you are," Fireball insisted. "I just want to be left alone for a century or two. Just me and my treasure."
"Oh, really?" The intruder strolled over to a little plinth Fireball had carved out of a stalagmite. "Then you won't mind if I take these pieces of junk and-"
"Get away from there."
Fireball punctuated the roar with a blast of flame— just a warning shot, but close enough to make the little wizard-Ember thing duck and take a couple of quick steps away from the plinth. "But why?" it asked when the fire died away. "It's just some paper, a bit of pony pot-metal, a cheap sapphire, and a magicked-up bit of rock crystal. You couldn't swap it away at Rainbow Falls, not for a broken goose quill."
"That's right," Fireball rumbled. "I couldn't." He looked with fondness beyond the normal dragon possessiveness at the bric-a-brac on the plinth. A disc of steel, a little rusty, with names and other things scrawled on it in two languages. A cheap sapphire, the very last one he'd saved from hundreds of days on an alien world. A bit of quartz that, if you waited long enough, would change into any color of the rainbow while you watched. And a small bookshelf full of books, four of which, bound in bright red, sat in a place of pride alone on the top shelf.
"Very well," the wizard-thing said. "But be warned; with a wave of my staff I can make your entire hoard vanish except for these things. You would shrink back to a mere dragonling, a whisper of your former might. You'd be driven out of the cave, possibly even forced to move into a pony house somewhere. Or I can just take this nasty junk from your adventures, erase it all, and leave you as you were meant-"
"Stop right there," Fireball grumbled. "If you think you can take my gold, my gems, and my other junk, go ahead and try. But you will not take the treasure I earned by my blood, by my fear, by my heartbreak. You. Will. Not." Fireball sat as tall as he could in the cave, his long, snakelike body curling around the little plinth, his disproportionately small wings unfurling to their widest spread. "And if the test of these things is in what I shall give up for them..." He smiled a little. "Then I shall diminish, and go into Equestria... and remain Fireball."
"As you wish." In a swirl of blue smoke the fake Ember with the fake beard vanished, leaving behind the words, "But remember that there are adventures yet to come, and deeds to do, before you may enjoy either treasure or mementoes."
Starlight Glimmer dreamed.
She sat, alone, naked but for her fur, on the surface of Mars. It didn't seem to be a problem.
In front of her, open and running, sat one of Mark's computers. It had a smiling pony on the screen that looked very much like a reddish-orange Pinkie Pie, next to the words, "Welcome to Mars Clicker! To make this planet inhabitable, click the left mouse key!"
Starlight read the words, shrugged, and clicked the button.
In the corner of her eye, she felt a hint of movement.
"Congratulations!" the screen now read. "You just moved one grain of dust!"
Starlight clicked the button again. There was another flicker of movement just beyond her field of vision.
The screen popped up a counter: Number of dust grains moved: 2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Every time Starlight clicked the button, she sensed something moving. But if it was only one mote of dust— only one mote, on an entire bucking planet—
A new button appeared: Buy a crystal, 20 clicks!
Starlight's eyebrows rose. What did a crystal do? She clicked the button a bunch of times, then moved the cursor to the button on the screen and clicked it.
The click counter dropped back to zero.
And there, next to the computer, was a little rainbow crystal. It shimmered at her.
Starlight picked up the crystal in her forehooves and examined it. It changed colors at her, but didn't seem inclined to do much else. Shrugging, she set it down again and looked at the screen for some kind of hint.
The click counter stood at five.
No, six. What in the world— seven now! Every few seconds, the click counter went up one!
She tapped the left mouse button several more times, saw the click counter ratchet up with each click. A new message appeared: Cost of next crystal 200 clicks!
Shrugging, Starlight clicked furiously for a few seconds. But long before she hit 200, a new message appeared: Buy a friend, 115 clicks!
She shrugged, clicked a few more times, and then clicked the button to buy a friend.
"Hi there."
Starlight looked to her left. Spitfire sat there, facing her own computer. "What are you doing there?" she asked.
Spitfire clicked the left mouse button on her own computer. "I'm clicking a button," she said. "Each click moves a bit of Mars dust, you know."
Starlight shook her head, unable to figure things out. The click count steadily increased, without her intervention. After about a minute she got impatient, hit the button rapidly, and bought her next crystal.
Next crystal at 540 clicks! Next friend at 810 clicks! Buy a sack of alfalfa seeds, 250 clicks!
Starlight continued to click. New options opened up as the clicks came faster and faster; a space habitat, a crystal cave, a bag of soil bacteria, potatoes, cherry pits, a space probe, a space ship...
In an hour Starlight was surrounded by the other five castaways, each clicking their computer buttons with single-minded fervor. Dozens of rainbow crystals lay scattered across the dirt, winking and blinking their colors. Like a picture in a pop-up book, the Hab rose from the ground. Off in the distance, a small dead volcano bulged upwards, then sloughed off a bit of overburden to reveal a familiar-looking airlock.
Starlight stepped away from her computer. She could actually see the bits of Martian dust moving now, dancing in the thin Martian air, moving from place to place. No, wait— that one was a snowflake. And another. And another!
Green patches began to spread across the surface. Potato plants sprouted from the soil, instantly full-grown. The sound of running water echoed out of a nearby gully. Clouds swirled in a sky growing steadily bluer with every moment.
Thunder echoed in the distance. Starlight spun around on her hooves to see, on the foreshortened Martian horizon, an honest, normal, water-laden thunderhead.
"What do you think?"
There was a strange human standing next to her— a very little boy, or so it appeared. But when the boy looked at her, his eyes seemed very, very old for some reason.
"This isn't real," Starlight said.
"It could be, someday," the boy said.
"But I didn't do this," she insisted. "I'm just one pony. I can't do this!"
"You don't have to," the boy said. He waved a little hand at the place where she'd been sitting. Surrounding her fellow castaways there sat dozens, possibly hundreds, of ponies and humans and other things, all clicking away at their computers. Crystals rained from the sky, half-sinking into the Martian soil as they dropped. More habitats arose, and then followed an immense dome built of hexagonal panels of some kind of glass.
"The process will go on without you," the boy said quietly. "But it needed someone to make the first click."
Cherry Berry dreamed.
She walked along the rows of the cherry orchard, wagon hitched to her barrel. This was her life now— the odd jobs she'd done so often, so many times before, in order to pay for her passion.
That passion was gone now. Flying was over. This was her new reality. The earth had reclaimed its own.
"Good morning, little bird," a slow, lugubrious voice said. A limb which might have been a tree branch or an arm reached out to pick up the pony, wagon and all, and lift her up.
"What— oh— oh, oh my," Cherry gasped. She looked down at a face surrounded by white blooms, pale bark shining in the sunlight. "You're— you— are you an ent?"
"What are you doing down there, Cherry?" the cherry-tree ent rumbled. "Don't you know you belong in the sky?"
"Oh." Cherry shuffled her hooves on the ent's spread palm. "But I'm not a pegasus," she said sadly. "I'm an earth pony. Earth ponies don't fly."
"Hoom hoom! That never stopped you before!" the ent rumbled, obviously amused.
"That was then!" Cherry waved a hoof at the row of trees, which now stood in front of a wall of crystal. "Now I grow things! I've been doing nothing but growing things for over a year! Maybe... maybe I should have been growing things all along." She looked down at her hooves. "Maybe I don't belong in the sky."
One of the trees turned into another ent, smaller and younger than the great creature holding her up. "Well, ha, hm, let's don't be hasty," it said. "After all, we owe our lives to you, do we not?"
Another tree stood up, its features becoming another entish face. "Certainly we would not exist if not for you, even if our existence is only for a brief time."
A third tree awoke. "But one could say that we belong in an orchard, on a proper planet, not a cave on, ha hm, a glorified asteroid."
The large ent holding Cherry added, "But we choose to belong here, where we are. I am very much of the opinion that the question of who belongs where is at least partly up to the creature involved to decide. If you want to belong in the air, who am I to stop you?"
Cherry looked back at her wagon. The little cherry branch in the plastic box pot didn't become an ent, but it did say in a distinct, high-pitched voice, "I am Groot."
"Ah, but our colleague speaks truly," the great ent said. "There are always those who will dispute such things. You have met them before, have you not? What did you do about it?"
"I went ahead anyway," Cherry said quietly. "Their voices didn't count. But what do I do if the voice speaking against me is in here?" She tapped her chest with one forehoof.
"Ah, hoom, hom," the great ent said, "well, that is another matter. You must deal with that yourself. But remember that, somewhere, there are trees who are grateful that, hom hoom, you flew and grew." With that the massive cherry-ent reached its other hand out and plucked away the wagon harness from Cherry's midsection. "In the meantime, why not have a quick flight? You don't have to stay if you don't want to."
"But I'm an earth pony!"
"Are you?"
Something felt different on Cherry Berry's sides. She looked to either side, blinking, gasping with shock as a pair of wings spread from her back and, almost without her commanding it, flapped a mighty flap.
Squealing with delight, the blonde-maned, pink-furred pegasus swooped around the cherry orchard, while the great ent and the lesser tree spirits stood rock-still and watched, smiling.
Mark Watney dreamed.
Mark Watney dreamed that he was surrounded by gigantic potatoes, with little arms and legs. In addition to many potato eyes, they had a pair of demonic red eyes overhanging mouths filled with way too many jagged teeth.
"We hear yous been talkin' shit about us potatoes," one of them said.
"We been keepin' yous alive," another said. "Where's yer gratitude?"
"Ain't we good enough for yas anymore?" a third asked.
Mark gave two seconds of careful consideration to attempting to plead his case and to sway the angry produce to his way of thinking.
Then, having considered the notion all the way to the airlock and jettisoned it into deep space, he bolted between two of the spuds of wrath and ran for his life.
Behind him, mixed with the angry shouts and little footsteps of his pursuers, he heard a song strike up:
Attack of the killer potatoes
Attack of the killer potatoes
You planted them to get you through
And never thought the things you grew
Would come right back to feed on you
(Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes!)
Attack of the killer potatoes
Attack of the killer potatoes
They're tubers off in hot pursuit
They'll eat you up from hair to boots
And then they'll file a slander suit
(Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes!)
You thought they'd keep you all fed
But now they just want you all dead
Your disrespect has got them steamed
They're madder than you ever dreamed
So better run— or you'll be creamed
(Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes!)
So now we have the chase scene
No butter and no sour cream
Just a man whose name is mud
And some tubers out for blood
That'll teach you to sass a spud
(Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes! POTATOES!)
Dragonfly dreamed.
She was alone, in the darkness. She saw nothing, heard nothing, but she could feel a presence in the darkness with her. Somehow she knew where she was, if where applied.
"Hello?" she said. "It's me again. Are you there? Did I make the right choice?"
The voice was not the cold, indifferent female voice she had heard once before. When it came it was male, ancient beyond words, and tremulous with weakness and senility. "You do not belong here," it said. "You disturb me. You infect me. You must die."
"Oooo.... kay," Dragonfly said slowly. "New voice. Creepy threatening voice. I hope the padded room they give me when I get home has enough space for all of us."
"You must die," the ancient voice repeated. "I will kill you."
"At least I know what my mind's cooking up this time," Dragonfly said. "You have got to be my cracked head's idea of Mars. Well, go away. We've stopped all your attacks already, and in a hundred days we'll be gone, off your stupid soil forever. So just shut up and go away, all right? I have enough voices in my head. No vacancy."
"No," the ancient voice whispered. "You will go. Others will come. There must be none. You must die. I will kill you."
"Oh yeah?" Dragonfly couldn't see anything in this weird blackout dream, but she could shout pretty well in it. "You've done a lousy job of it so far, pal! We survived your perchlorates, your decompression, your methane, your storms, your temperature extremes, everything you could throw at us! Your attacks are weak, you stupid planet!"
Now the voice lost its senile tones and gained a hard edge through the wheezy, whispering sound. "You have to succeed every single time," it said. "I need only succeed once. I have forever and you do not. You will die."
"Not today, buckhead," Dragonfly snapped. "Not tomorrow either."
"You will die," the voice repeated, much fainter, as if the effort had weakened it too much to continue.
"We will live," Dragonfly hissed. "We will ALL live, do you hear me? Do you? DO YOU, you stupid planet?"
"ANSWER ME!"
The shout awakened the entire pile of sleepers. "What th— get off me!" Fireball snapped, thrashing to dislodge the ponies on top of him.
"Heeeeey!" Cherry half-whinnied. "I was having a flying-and-cherries dream! Do you know how long it's been since I've had a flying-and-cherries dream?"
"What's all the noise?" Starlight asked, blinking away the sleep. "And what am I standing on?"
"That would be me," Mark grunted. "Can't breathe. Off, please."
"Oops! Sorry."
"Ow! Watch the wing!"
"Sorry, Dragonfly."
As the pile unraveled, Mark reached over to the mat where he'd been asleep, found the arm controls of his space suit, and checked the timer. "It's only forty minutes until we have to be up," he said. "Might as well make an early-"
"Mark." The voice was Spitfire's: low, cold, and sleepy.
"Yes?"
"All of you. Lie down. Shut up. Or I will make you."
"But-"
"Do it." That was Cherry Berry, equally cold.
"But-"
"Flying and cherries dream!"
"Yes, ma'am."
Mark and Fireball lay back down. Dragonfly crawled between them. The three ponies flopped on top of them and, in a few seconds, two of the three of them were asleep.
The third whispered, "Mark?"
"Yeah, Starlight?"
"Remember when I said that Cookie Clicker thing was the dumbest game ever invented?"
"Mm."
"It's dumber even than that."
The rest of the crew's final night in the crystal cave, what was left of it, passed in silence.
Author's Notes:
See idea.
See clever idea.
See clever idea not work out in the least the way you wanted it to.
See the clock tick down on the day, leaving no time or energy to redo the idea.
See the publish button.
Click the publish button.
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Sols 451-455
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MISSION LOG — SOL 451
Well, the cave farm is now seventy-one kilometers northwest of us. We're hanging out in the trailer now, with nothing much to do but spend the day waiting for all the batteries to recharge. And I do mean all. Starlight Glimmer ran one of the small magic batteries for ten minutes on field-projection. Then she linked them all so that they'd all recharge the partially spent one. If they recharge completely, it means they can afford ten minutes of magic time a day, which should be enough to keep Dragonfly at her current level of health. If not... well, we'll see.
Oddly enough, although I feel excited about taking the first step towards finally getting off this bastard planet and back home, I'm also feeling a bit anxious. The only time I've been this far from the Hab was during the Pathfinder retrieval trip. Even then I had the feeling that, if I got into trouble, I could get back to the Hab somehow. But this time we're not going back to the Hab, or the cave. We're driving over twice as far as I did for the round trip to Ares Vallis and back, and this time it's all one way.
Of course, in theory we could still backtrack. We could even get all the way to the MAV, turn around, and come back with the food we have on hand. And there would likely be a fresh, edible crop of hay and potatoes waiting for us when we got back. But that's if nothing goes wrong. This time there's nobody left behind looking after things. There's no telling what we'll run into on this trip. There's so much that could go wrong.
For the first time I'm really thinking about just how risky this whole enterprise is. And I'm wondering what NASA was worried about, when they green-lit this plan as being the least risky option. Is an asteroid going to hit the Hab on Sol 552 or something and they decided not to tell me? Is the warranty going to expire on Hermes and the next day the interplanetary tow truck has to haul it to the local AAA-certified spaceship repair facility? Is there some secret clause to the treaty that prohibits national territorial claims in outer space that says, "If aliens are on a planet for six hundred days, it belongs to them"?
OK, I admit, I'm being silly. But the thing is, I don't know. And Venkat, I love you like a brother if my brother were my boss, but I can't expect you to answer that honestly. You'd tell me what you thought I needed to hear to complete the mission, which is not the same thing as the unvarnished truth. And you wouldn't be totally wrong to do that, no matter how much it sucks for me on this end.
Eh, I'm going to stop worrying about it. I'm going to see if I can get together four people for a game of computer hearts. Starlight says she hasn't quite finished her new campaign setting of Middle-Ponyworld. She's working out exactly how a Ring of Power would function under her world's magical laws.
Come to think of it, that just makes me worry harder.
MISSION LOG — SOL 452
The sleeping arrangements are... well... communal. And uncomfortable.
A quick explanation: the rear part of the habitat compartment of what was the pony ship is taken up with the life support equipment looted from Rover 1, plus the RTG. The cabinets are stuffed full of hay, with what little space not taken up by that devoted to medicine and other supplies that might hurt from direct exposure to Mars's so-called atmosphere. The floor space is ringed around with twenty-one foot-wide crystal and metal bricks— the magic batteries. What's left of a horizontal surface for sleeping on isn't all that much larger than a king-sized bed.
You may ask, "But where did the ponies sleep when this trailer was a spaceship?" Answer: on the cabinets. Unlike Hermes, which rotates to maintain a 0.4 G gravity in its habitat modules, Friendship had no artificial gravity of any kind. The ponies slept in sleeping bags tethered to the cabinet fronts, much like they still do on our space station and have done since the days of Skylab.
The problem is that this sleeping space was vertical, not horizontal. Even in Mars's weak gravity, only Dragonfly can still sleep in a bag hung from the wall with anything remotely close to comfort. And it can't be that comfortable, because when we woke up this morning she was down in the pillow-pile with the rest of us, cuddling up for warmth.
And yeah, even with the RTG only a few feet away, even with the windows blocked up, even with the pressure door to the bridge sealed, and even with the improvised insulation we threw in here, the room still gets chilly before dawn. It's a fight between the RTG and the air from the pony life support and the metal hull conducting the heat out into Mars's lethally cold night. So we start out in our own little private spots on the pile of Hab bunk mattresses, and we end up in a tangle of bodies when the alarm goes off.
But on the bright side, nobody's kicked me in the belly yet.
In other news, the recharge system is working perfectly. The combination of permanently mounted, crystal-enhanced solar cells and the fourteen unmodified panels that ride in a stack on Rover 2 bring the batteries up to full charge well before sunset. And since we start driving at very first light, pre-dawn, we don't stay up all that late to burn charge at night.
So I drove another three hours, another seventy-one kilometers, and set out the extra solar panels again.
One minor bit of trouble: the magic batteries aren't recharging as well as the original two did when the ponies first came to the lab. Starlight estimates a recharge rate of 1.4% per day per battery. She puts it down to Dragonfly's weakened system sucking up more magic than before. Also, in the early days she deliberately strained herself to dump her inner magic reserves into the batteries to build up charge faster. Both Cherry and Spitfire are determined to stop her if she tries doing that again. Fainting Unicorn Syndrome ceased to be funny ages ago.
The good news is, that's enough to replace the juice used to create ten minutes of magic time— but only barely, and only because we have these twenty-one heavy pointy uncomfortable toe-stub hazards where we sleep. Daily magic production is just enough for that one ten minute window of magic plus topping off the jumbo batteries each sol.
We'll refine things as we go. For now, it's more or less smooth sailing.
MISSION LOG — SOL 453
Excellent news— today we left the part of Acidalia with all the shallow gorges. Technically that means we're in Chryse Planitia now, but the border between the two is really uncertain. They're both part of the great Boreal Planum, with Chryse being the southernmost extension of the Martian lowlands and Acidalia being the northeastern region tucked between Chryse, Arabia Terra, and the polar regions.
None of which makes a fuck, except that with the gorges gone we don't have to slow down and accelerate anymore. We squeezed out four extra kilometers today from improved efficiency.
Looking forward to tonight. Starlight says her campaign is ready, and she's given us templates to use to build our characters. I've decided to play the wizard. If Starlight will let me, I'll have him wear rainbow-striped plate armor, even though technically metal is supposed to interfere with magic according to D&D rules.
But it's essential, if I'm going to name him Canned Ralph the Gay.
(I'm kidding. He's not gay. He's asexual.)
MISSION LOG — SOL 454
We all woke up grouchy this morning, partly because some of us were lying on limbs so hard they lost circulation, partly because the first, and likely last, session of Middle-Ponyworld ended with a TPK. Alas, Canned Ralph, we hardly knew ye. But apparently goblins in Middle-Ponyworld have invented the can opener.
Yeah. Apparently we started out with the Pony-Shire getting invaded by an army of orcs and goblins and wolf-riders and like that. No warm-up. No Nine Riders, no Old Man Willow, no trio of easily fooled trolls, nope. Straight into the rampaging hordes. Starlight still needs to learn a bit more about pacing.
Anyway, things were pretty frosty in the Whinnybago today, even after the sun warmed things up some. For once Lewis's disco music is a better companion than the ponies. Cherry in particular is relaying orders through Spitfire because she isn't talking to Starlight, not after a great goblin took her druid, tossed it, and told a worg to fetch.
And from the way Starlight looks at the rest of us, the grudge is mutual.
I suspect that, before today is out, I'll be asked to take back the DM screen again. Which means more Discworld games. I'm thinking this time I'll focus on Lancre. Anyway, writing up a campaign will give me something to do. Once I've set out the solar panels for recharging, my work day is over.
In the meantime, I think I might take a nap. I didn't get much rest last night, because see above.
MISSION LOG — SOL 455
Fireball can snore and continue living.
Fireball can smoke and continue living.
But if he does both at the same time another goddamn night, I am going to build a plank and walk him the fuck off it.
By the way, seventy-two kilometers, if you give a shit.
Author's Notes:
Not feeling well today— sinus infection. This is all I could do.
In the original book Mark's log skips ten sols here.
If he hadn't, it would have been about on this level.
BTW, my sympathies lie entirely with Starlight. Level 1 characters, when confronted with thousands of goblins and orcs, are supposed to run, not attempt to defend their village in a futile last stand. But then, GMs who expect their players to be mind-readers can look forward to nothing but disappointment...
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Sol 461
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 469
ARES III SOL 461
"Friendship, Hermes. You're almost through the southern gap. Now turn directly east if possible. That'll aim you towards the center of the main channel of Mawrth Vallis. Please acknowledge, over."
Starlight Glimmer, seated next to Fireball in what had been Amicitas's co-pilot seat, keyed on her microphone. "Friendship acknowledges, roger wilco, over." Switching her headset from the ship radio to her suit's magic-powered comms, she said, "Confirmation from Hermes, Mark. We're in the valley. The main channel mouth is due east of us."
"That's what I figured," Mark said from Rover 2's cabin. "Cherry, did you get that?"
"We copy, Mark," Cherry Berry's voice added. "We're clearing a couple of large rocks out of the way now, but the ground is wide open once you get past that last narrow part of the pass."
Ten days of very easy driving across the northern lowlands of Mars had come to an abrupt end towards the end of driving the previous Sol. This hadn't been totally without warning— NASA, via Johanssen on Hermes, had warned them— but it had still been a bit of a shock to see the big-ass mountain of flood debris dead ahead, where the low-resolution map in the rover computer showed a wide open valley entrance.
They'd parked close to the mountain and taken some pictures. NASA couldn't decide if the great mountain that spanned almost the entire mouth of Mawrth Vallis was debris left behind by subsiding flood waters or the moraine of some long-gone glacier. They'd have to wait at least another forty sols to find out, but they'd sent Mark and Fireball out to get enough photos and video to keep the astrogeologists arguing for years.
As a consequence, the Whinnybago had made a late start of it the next day. Partly this was due to the shadow of the mountain blocking much of the early morning light, but mostly it was due to waiting for the broadcast window to Hermes to open so the crew could get guidance, even at eighteen minutes' round-trip lightspeed delay, from Hermes, its superior Mars maps, and its direct connection to the Martian orbiter network.
Their eyes in the sky had revealed the southern pass between the mountain and the outer edge of the ancient valley mouth, though tight and half-filled with loose debris, was the more direct route around the obstacle. The northern route was twice as far and not that much more open, according to Johanssen. Unfortunately the difference might still have been moot, since a ten kilometer drive had taken an hour and a half, counting the time lost waiting for updates from Hermes.
But that was over— or almost so. "I see the tight spot you warned me about, Cherry," Mark said. "Fireball, prepare for plus thirty on my mark... now!"
"Plus thirty," Fireball rumbled, turning Amicitas's flight yoke to the point marked on the steering guide Mark had installed.
"And zero!"
"Zero," Fireball said as the rover crept cautiously past a boulder so large the top of it rose almost level with the former spaceship's cockpit windows. "Boss, how big rocks did you move?"
"Don't ask," the earth pony turned forward scout replied.
"Minus ninety in three, two, one, now!" Mark ordered.
Fireball yanked the flight yoke all the way to the right. "Minus ninety," he said.
"Hold it... hold it... zero!"
Fireball straightened. "Zero," he said.
"Yeah, that looks beautiful," Mark said. "Wide open now. Let's get a little more distance from the pass, and then I'll turn us due east and open up the throttle."
"Which way is east?" Fireball asked. "Can't see sun from back here."
"Um, yeah, it's pretty high up by now, isn't it?" Mark said. "But I can see Spitfire's spacesuit. It's the only white thing anywhere in sight. Cherry, I'm following Spitfire. That good with you?"
"No problem, Mark. We'll stick together for a while. What are we looking for?"
"An upslope. A shallow, level upslope. Starlight, ask Hermes for details, okay? By the time you get a reply, we should be eight or nine kilometers along."
Starlight nodded to herself, then remembered Mark couldn't see her head from the rover cabin. "Will do," she said.
"Lot of trouble to drive up a river," Fireball muttered from beside her.
"Less trouble than having to work it out for ourselves," Starlight replied. She switched back over to the radio. "Hermes, Friendship," she called. "We're out of the pass now and making full speed due east. We expect to be about nine kilometers east from our current position by the time we get your response. Please give guidance to the best path up the valley from that position. Over."
As Starlight switched her headset back to suit comms, she heard Mark say, "So, after all of that, are you talking to me again?"
"That depends, Mark," Starlight growled. "Are you going to let me have my apprentice witch character?"
"Oh, not this again," Mark moaned in her headset. "I banned all witches from the campaign because I didn't think you'd have fun being constantly stepped on by Granny Weatherwax. If there's a serious magic problem in Lancre and any witch is involved in any way, she's going to take over the whole thing. She just is. That's how the books worked."
"They don't work like that for Tiffany Aching."
"I am not giving you Tiffany Aching for a starting-level character, Starlight," Mark groaned. "Look, if you want to be a magic user, be a hedge-wizard."
"I'm holding out for witch, Mark," Starlight insisted.
"Dragonfly here. Just wanted to mention the total and absolute lack of rocks in the path ahead. Definite absence of obstacles of any kind for klicks and klicks. Nary a rock. Boulders are conspicuously inconspicuous."
"Message acknowledged, Thesaurus Jones," Mark replied.
"How much longer are we going to drive today, Mark?" Cherry asked. "We're already an hour past the point where we'd normally stop."
"I'm going for the full seventy kilometers," Mark said. "We won't start tomorrow on full batteries, but we can drive in shifts. Assuming no more major obstacles— or at least advance warning without geological detours— we should be back on normal driving schedule by the time we get out of Mawrth."
"Pretty big assumptions, Mark," said Starlight.
"I'm thinking big," Mark replied. "Mars is a pretty big planet, after all."
"If you're thinking big, how about you think a little bigger about witches in the campaign!"
"Starlight, drop it. We're tired of it." Spitfire's first words in the radio conversation were the last...
... almost.
"So, talking to me?" Mark asked.
Starlight stared silently out the cockpit windows at the gradually receding mountainside.
"That'd be a no," Mark answered himself, and then the conversation really did die.
Author's Notes:
So, yeah. In the original book Mark talks about how Mawrth Vallis is wide open at the mouth and nice, smooth and near-level all the way up.
Take a look at actual orbiter maps, and you'll find none of that is true. The mouth of Mawrth Vallis, along the line of what obviously was the original edge of Arabia Terra, is almost completely closed off by a big-ass mountain. The interior of the valley has splits in the middle, rivulets, and one hell of a lot of boulders, as you would expect if you were looking at a river valley in mountainous terrain on Earth that one day spontaneously went dry.
That said, it's still Mark's best available option. But it's not going to be as easy as all that.
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Sol 464
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 473
ARES III SOL 464
Two ponies and a changeling galloped through the valley of Mawrth Vallis, hearts sinking as they drew close to the next obstacle.
"Please, please don't be what you look like," Cherry Berry moaned as she approached a sudden rise in the valley floor. The meter-high scarp was bad, but not insurmountable by itself, had it been even and level across the valley. It wasn't. The water of ancient floods had scoured a trench through the center of the rock layer that made up the scarp, leaving a trench that grew deeper as it rose up the valley. Although it technically grew narrower the farther back it went, the sides also grew higher and steeper. The total effect was a wheel-breaking, rover-dumping obstacle that had to be bypassed.
The previous two days had been full of this sort of thing, which is why the ponies had gone a full two kilometers ahead of the Whinnybago. Large boulders had to be moved or shattered to make room for the rover. The most level, most gradual slope had to be picked out. Three times so far the rover had actually had to backtrack, reversing Fireball's and Mark's roles in steering the contraption out of a cul-de-sac. They'd maintained their seventy kilometers per day, but at the cost of falling farther behind in battery recharge.
But this was the worst obstacle yet. A large plateau, twenty-five kilometers long according to reports from Hermes, split the valley in two. They'd been about to take the eastern channel (the valley running almost due north-south at this point) because Hermes reported the western one as narrower, unlevel, and clogged with boulders, some as big as the Whinnybago itself.
And now, well after noon, blocked by impassable terrain, Cherry had had enough. "Buck!" she shouted, and then added in English, "Friendship Actual to rover. All stop, all stop, all stop. And set out the solar panels. We've hit a really tough obstacle. We're not going any farther today."
"Cherry, we've only made forty-two kilometers-"
"And we're not going to make any more without careful planning, Mark!" Cherry snapped. "It's after noon already, and we're on our fifth hour of EVA." She held her tongue as she looked at Dragonfly, who drooped in her orange space suit. Changelings didn't have the endurance of ponies even without developing life-threatening levels of magic withdrawal. "We're going to use the rest of our EVA time to look over our options. In the meantime, stop before you get under the shadow of that mountain." She took a deep breath and added, "Starlight, report our situation to Hermes."
"Details, Cherry," Starlight called back from the old Amicitas bridge.
"Meter-tall rock shelf, almost sheer. The rock shelf is split down the middle by an eroded trench of some kind. The trench walls build up high and steep really quick as you go up the valley, leaving not a lot of safe room to either side without risking a fatal slide into the trench. We're scouting around to examine our options."
"Got it. I'll pass it along."
"I stopped the rover as soon as you gave the first order," Mark said. "We're parked. The plateau is square in the right window. Suiting up now."
"Good." Cherry looked over at Spitfire, her white suit badly soiled by several days of long-distance galloping. "Spitfire, go around the north end of the mountain. I want to know more about those boulders. Come back to the rover at 1330 hours."
"On it, commander," Spitfire said, saluting and then galloping back down the valley.
Cherry Berry looked at Dragonfly, who had stopped hiding her exhaustion at rest stops the day before. She motioned at Dragonfly's comms controls before switching her own to the private channel. Once Dragonfly had followed suit, she asked, "Are you up for a bit more scouting, or do you need to go back to the rover?"
"I can go on, so long as I don't need to gallop," Dragonfly said quietly.
"Okay. We could probably get the rover up over this shelf, but there's no point if there's not a safe path up. I'll take the eastern side of the branch, towards the valley walls. You take the side next to the mountain. We need a clear, mostly level path at least three times the width of the rover. Anything that puts wheels on the downslope leading into the valley is probably game over. Right?"
"Yeah," Dragonfly said, saving her breath.
"How's your suit battery?"
"Nineteen percent."
"At nine percent you go back to the rover, no matter what," Cherry said. "I don't want to risk you getting lost."
"Getting lost?" Dragonfly waved a hoof at the big flood-scarred wall of rock practically next to them. "Boss, we're in a valley. A darn big valley, yeah, but still a valley."
This was true. Mawrth Vallis was bigger than Ghastly Gorge, than practically any canyon or valley outside the Badlands that Cherry Berry could think of. It lay almost fifteen kilometers wide in places, so wide that the actual canyon walls, despite being as much as a kilometer high, just barely peeked over the horizon. Mark had told her there were a couple of canyons on Earth larger— the Grand Canyon was twice as deep and wide, if only about half as long— but that Mars had canyons much bigger than Mawrth— "Valles Marineris is so big that, if Mawrth flowed into it, it wouldn't even have its own name."
But it was still a valley. And the mountain next to them, according to Mark, would lead anyone near it back to the Whinnybago.
"Okay. Just be careful. Back to public channel, and get moving."
Dragonfly didn't gallop, but she made a decent walking speed up the slope to the right of the wash. Cherry jumped up the shelf— almost as tall as she was— and took off up the left side, gauging the slope, the maneuvering room, everything. Oddly enough, there weren't a lot of rocks here; the floods which carved out the canyon, and the rock scour they were trying to avoid in particular, must have flushed them farther down the valley to bedevil poor innocent shipwreck victims.
After half an hour Dragonfly said, "Returning to ship as per orders. There's a path on this side, but it's pretty narrow. And getting the rover up that first step will be a pain."
"Roger," Cherry said. "The way is a lot more open and clear on this side, and the channel slopes merge smoothly with the upper levels of the valley. I'm going to backtrack and see if there's a path up the sides of the main channel that the rover can climb."
"Spitfire here. The west channel is no go. Tight, deep channel crammed with rocks. We might make a kilometer per day trying to get through on this side. I'm coming back."
"Roger," Cherry repeated. "See you in about an hour."
She stopped, looking around the slopes near her. The ground here looked different than most of the rest of Mars she'd seen so far. The colors were different— for example, there was the orange not of Martian dust, but good old common clay like she might see on some of the farm roads around Ponyville. That particular shade hadn't been in the planet's color palette anywhere near the Hab.
For a moment she felt like she could follow the streak of orange and, in a few moments, be walking past Golden Harvest's farm, next to Sweet Apple Acres...
... and that moment of thinking of home, instead of a task at hand, opened a crack in her mind.
A wave of panic slammed through her as, for the first time in months, the full weight of responsibility and danger struck her. She'd been fine as long as there was a task, but now that she'd paused, that she'd thought of being in Ponyville again, now that she was off alone by herself, she reverted to a typical Ponyville pony, right down to the hair-trigger panic button. Every fiber of her being shouted at once, I'm not supposed to be doing this! I don't know what I'm doing! Princess, save us!! I don't care which princess! I'll even take Flurry Heart! Just don't leave this up to me!!
She flopped onto her side, the fabric of her spacesuit scraping the loose dust of the valley floor as she curled into a ball and let the panic attack wash over her. It had been a while, but she knew the symptoms by now— the racing heart, the uncontrollable tears, the waves of fear and shame. Give it a few minutes, a part of her separate from the storm thought. Let it run its course, and she'd be able to control herself again. Trying to push through immediately, without something to focus on, would just make it last longer.
The suit comms didn't give her that time. "Cherry, this is Starlight. Johanssen apologizes for the bad info. The colors of the valley here make telling surface features difficult, and a meter escarpment is pushing the limits of what they can make out from orbit. They figured you'd just go around the wash on the left side."
With her insides still storming with fear and anxiety, Cherry found room for surprise at just how calm her own voice could sound. "Looks like that's what we're doing, all right," she said. "If we can get up above the wash, there's a broad level area that goes for kilometers with almost no rocks. But getting up is going to be the problem."
"No hurry," Starlight said. "NASA sent Mark on an extended EVA. They want all the pictures he can get of the rock layers of the plateau. Something about clays and... phyllosilicates, I think Johanssen said."
"Silicates?" Cherry asked, focusing on the conversation as her lifeline back to sanity. "Like the cave? Didn't Mark say something about the cave being made over millions of years from dissolved mineral deposits? Maybe this is where the minerals came from."
"It's not impossible," Mark said, cutting into the conversation. "I don't see any level routes up and out of the main channel on the left side that I'd like to try driving the Whinnybago up. How crumbly is that rock ledge?"
"Not very," Cherry said. "But I could probably break it down enough for a ramp." Yes. A thing I can do. Earth ponies are good at breaking rocks. Things I can do are good.
"Half a ramp would do. The rover was made to traverse obstacles half a meter high. Is there enough room on the left side of that gully to work up and around it?"
"Maybe. It'll take careful driving. I'd rather bypass it altogether if we can."
"Let me know if you see any good options as you come back. I'm going back in for lunch in half an hour. Dragonfly's already back."
She is? She must have galloped straight back. "I'll be down in half an hour," she said. "I want to give this side a good look before I give up on getting the rover up here."
Hey, she was on her hooves again. She didn't remember getting up. Her emotions were steadying again; when she told herself things, she could listen. Everypony is depending on me. I have to do my job. Our job. One day— one sol— at a time. Seventy kilometers at a time, except today. And we will get there.
And I bucking well deserve wings and a horn for what I've done on this planet.
Reflexively giving herself a shake that did nothing to dislodge the dust from her suit, Cherry Berry walked, then trotted, then galloped back down the slope of Mawrth Vallis, doubt and fear banished so that she could be the steel-eyed missile mare again.
Until the next time.
Author's Notes:
No, Cherry isn't entirely over her self-doubt. Or PTSD. Or both.
Mars orbiters have actually picked up spectrographic signatures of clay in the area of Mawrth Vallis where this chapter takes place. It's an exciting find because not only does clay generally require water to form, it requires water over a geologically significant period of time. (Put that another way: the entirety of human civilization, from the oldest known writing to today, runs eight thousand years... and that's NOT geologically significant.) Mawrth Vallis was a top contender for the Mars 2020 program destination site, mainly because of this find.
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Sol 468
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"Got a minute, Mindy?"
Mindy Park looked up from her SatCom monitor to see Randall Carter, the Mars meteorologist, leaning over her cubicle wall. "Maybe," she said. "What's up?"
"Well, first, what are you working on?"
Mindy pointed to her monitor, where dozens of photos of the upper reaches of Mawrth Vallis sat displayed overlapping one another. "Sirius 8 is about to enter a really bad part of Mawrth Vallis," she said. "I've been working out detailed notes for Johanssen to sysop Watney through it all. Of course the conditions on the ground will probably be totally different, but maybe it'll help some."
"Have you been monitoring the dust storm?" Randall asked.
"Not really," Mindy said. "I've had the satellites taking detailed photos about one orbit before they pass over Sirius 8. Those photos get forwarded to you automatically. I've been too busy with planning Watney's route to watch the weather." It didn't take much brainpower to make the deduction which followed. "It's got worse, hasn't it?"
"Yes and no," Randall said. "The storm's stopped moving— that is, its center is stationary. But it's beginning to grow. Not quickly, not like the global storms Mars has sometimes. But a normal Mars storm should either stay more or less the same or blow up into a global event in a matter of days. This storm's been stable for weeks. So why is it blowing up now?"
Mindy looked at the screen full of satellite photos. "You mean, besides the universe in general and Mars in particular just hating Mark Watney and-or the ponies?"
"That isn't so funny," Randall said. "A couple of my coworkers are talking like that lately. And I'm about to go to Dr. Kapoor and give him a report that absolutely can't have those words in it."
"I don't think I was joking." She looked at the photos again. "Do we tell them to backtrack to the Hab?"
"Not my decision."
"Your recommendation?"
"At this point, if Dr. Kapoor asks, I'll say we're still go," Randall replied. "The rover's already far enough from the Hab that the return isn't guaranteed if the storm does blow up. And turning around now is a scrub for any rescue by Hermes or anything else we can launch for over three years. Right now the edges of the storm are survivable, and we can navigate them around the edges. But I'll tell you something," he sighed, "I'd love for them to be turning due south right now."
"Can't do it," Mindy said. "Climbing out of Mawrth is just barely possible for them now— maybe. But the ground west of Trouvalot Crater is full of craters and small valleys— absolutely treacherous. They can't turn south until they're east of Trouvalot. The terrain on that side is more forgiving. Will the storm hit them in four sols?"
"No," Randal admitted. "But at the current rate of growth, it won't be long after. We need them to turn south as soon as they can do it safely."
"Right," Mindy sighed. "Let me finish this, and then I'll begin work on a route due south from Trouvalot."
Author's Notes:
This one's short because there's nothing else particularly interesting going on aside from more driving through rocks.
That will change soon.
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Sol 470
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 479
ARES III SOL 470
Dragonfly stepped in through Amicitas's sole remaining airlock, carrying on her back the mana battery that had just been used to top off the jumbo batteries hanging from Rover 2. It had been a long morning's drive, but not as long as any of the days before, at least not since entering Mawrth Vallis. She barely even noticed Starlight Glimmer walking into the ship beside her.
Dragonfly was more than ready for the lunch hug and the eight minutes of magic time. (The meager recharge the batteries in the ship got from the crew hadn't quite kept up with both maintaining the charge in the big batteries outside and providing ten minutes of environmental magic, so Starlight had trimmed the daily dose down.) She'd put in a hard morning's work, and she was hungry...
... but more than hungry, she was worried.
Thus far, Dragonfly hadn't felt any more hungry than, say she'd felt on an average afternoon in the Bad Old Days. That applied to magic hunger as well as hunger for love. But after a day galloping behind Cherry Berry and Spitfire, she felt more or less like she did when she fell out of the cocoon in the cave. She'd been an all-day flyer before this little trip. Now three to four hours of running and occasional rock-kicking (a lot less of the latter than Spitfire, and massively less than the boss pony) laid her out like a six-hoof-wide flyswatter.
And Spitfire was worried about not getting her edge back when they got home? Ha! Dragonfly felt ready for a desk job, if not a wheelchair, once they got back. No comparison.
And the worst part of it all—
"Come here, Dragonfly. You look terrible."
-was that she didn't have the energy to even attempt to hide how weak she felt.
"Here you go," Mark said, finding a seat on one of the ex-ship's flight couches and picking up the changeling to put in his lap. "Before-lunch snack, okay?"
Unfortunately love wasn't the main emotion Mark was putting out at the moment. "Can I just say one thing?" Dragonfly said. "Yes, I'm still sick. I won't get better until I get home. But I will get better. Once I get back to the pony world, everything will be just fine. So will you please quit throwing all that worry at me?"
"Sorry," Mark muttered. "I can't exactly turn it off. To be honest, you look like shit."
"Way to make a bug feel beautiful, Mark."
"Well, you do," Starlight agreed. "Not as bad as when you came out of the cocoon, but..."
"You look like after fight with rock slide, second place," Spitfire half-stammered.
"Oh really?" Dragonfly didn't know which annoyed her more, the low level of concern coming from the pegasus or the low level of English, despite how many months of speaking it? "So you mean, about twice as good as the Canterlot guards when we got through with them?" she snapped back.
To her surprise, Spitfire didn't rise to the bait like she usually did. "Maybe," she said. "I wasn't there. But really bad."
"Maybe you can rest for a few days," Cherry said. "Did you notice the valley walls today?"
"Yeah. One of `em was gone, pretty much. The other got tall again, though."
"That's not a valley wall," Mark said. "That's a crater rim. We're out of Mawrth Vallis." He frowned, giving her a little squeeze on his lap as he added, "That means we just ran out of easy navigation again. We'll have to rely on sun sightings, Phobos, and reports from Hermes to verify our position from now on."
"Does the crater have a name?" Cherry asked. "The mountain ridge around it seems a lot taller than anything in Acidalia."
"Trouvelot," Mark said. "Tomorrow we drive between it and another one called Rutherford. Ideally, we'd keep going east-southeast for several sols afterwards until we reached Marth Crater— um, spelled differently from Mawrth Vallis." He pronounced the two the same. "Then we'd swing around the south side of Marth to bypass a bunch of smaller craters. That'd put us into Terra Meridiani, which is a lot smoother than Arabia Terra, and that would take us most of the way to Schiaparelli."
"You said `ideally'," Dragonfly said. "I think that means `if all goes well.' Right?"
"Yes," Mark sighed, "and it's not going to go well. I think we're going to turn southwards and go around Trouvelot's rim tomorrow. Have you noticed that Johanssen hasn't mentioned the dust storm in days?"
"Maybe it's gone," Cherry suggested.
"Nope," Mark said. "I'm betting they didn't want to talk about it until we were out of the valley. No distractions."
"We didn't ask, did we?" Fireball pointed out. He returned to the pilot's seat he'd occupied for three hours that morning, switched on the radio, and said, "Hermes, Friendship. Fireball here. What about the dust storm? Respond. Over."
"And now we're tied down here for sixteen minutes waiting for the answer," Starlight grumbled. "Whoopee."
"So we eat while we wait." Fireball shrugged. "Big deal."
"What's on the menu?" Cherry asked. "Besides hay and potatoes, I mean."
"Quartz," Fireball growled.
"And roast beef with reconstituted mashed potatoes," Mark sighed, "broccoli and cauliflower Florentine, and apple crumble."
"And hugs, I hope!" Dragonfly pointed out. Honestly, sometimes you had to remind people...
"I dunno, Dragonfly," Mark said. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have the beef? The gravy is really tangy. You don't get that with hugs."
"Says you."
It was stupid pony-type gabble, but it did one good thing— it got rid of the worry and pity. Her lunch wouldn't be spoiled.
Everyone else's lunch, on the other hoof, did get spoiled, since Hermes's response came in about midway through it. "Friendship, Hermes." Instead of Johanssen's voice, they heard Commander Lewis talking. "We're still working out the details, but we want you to turn due south after tomorrow's driving. We'd like you to turn south now, but there are several large ravines that would block your path if you tried to hug the edge of Trouvalot.
"The dust storm is intensifying. The combination of growth and movement has it coming towards you at about four kilometers per hour. Its main direction of movement is a little north of true west. At this point if you tried to backtrack to the Hab, the storm would catch you long before you could get back. NASA figures your best hope is to move due south and hopefully get beyond its southern edge.
"Unfortunately we figure you're going to get caught by the edges at least. That means a reduction in solar cell efficiency. After tomorrow we need you to return to your original driving schedule to maximize battery recharge. I don't need to explain to you why that's important.
"Good luck, everyone. We'll be watching... and listening. Hermes out."
Mark looked at his meal pack. "I'm not looking forward to cold food," he said. "But once we're in the storm, we can't afford the microwave."
Dragonfly, who'd had to leave the human's lap during lunch, leaned against him. At least her meals, no matter how they tasted, never came cold.
Author's Notes:
For today's author note, something completely different.
As a general rule, airlock doors, pressure seals, and windows designed for space are made as round as possible. Sharp square corners are out. The sliding doors you see on Star Trek just don't work.
Quick detail: from the outside, Amicitas originally appeared to have heart-shaped lateral windows. That was just the outer hull trim. The bare pressure vessel has almost round windows that lay underneath that trim. Heart-shaped windows would just be begging for a stress-induced hull breach, were they to actually fly.
Square windows were bad enough. They were what permanently grounded the entire fleet of the world's first commercial jet airliner, the DeHavilland Comet.
The reason for this is that a circle is structurally the most durable shape. Forces working on a circle or sphere are distributed equally throughout the structure. This is why so much ancient stonework beyond a certain size used arches— the arches redirect the load on the center down through the legs. Square structures don't do this. The corners create weak points where force on one point of the structure gains leverage against the rest of the structure. Instead of spreading the load, square shapes tend to concentrate it— which leads to failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Cg2ZeYa5E
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Sol 472
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 481
ARES III SOL 472
Fireball stretched. He'd been stretching for twenty minutes, but after almost four hours in the pilot's seat, he felt incredibly stiff, especially in the tail. In the Hab he hadn't spent nearly as much time seated as he did in the ship, and when he had sat it was on a work stool, not in a flight couch.
Around him, the rest of the crew were settling in, the post-driving chores done, lunchtime still a little while away. Starlight Glimmer had taken her suit over to the ship's head, so she could report the day's progress to Equestria without spilling water all over the place. The three scouts just lay on the deck, resting, Cherry Berry and Spitire looking tired, Dragonfly one small step short of exhausted. Mark, for his part, leaned against one of the second row of flight couches, staring at the head with curiosity while Dragonfly quietly translated Mares Code into English.
"Message... received... Friendship," she said as the response message came through. "Will... relay... to Twilight Sparkle and Chrysalis... gone to... Hair Hat City... for Summer... Sun... Celebration, over."
Cherry Berry and Spitfire moaned.
"What's wrong?" Mark asked.
"This is the second Summer Sun Celebration we've spent on Mars," Cherry Berry sighed.
"Here. Not there," Spitfire added.
"Well, look at the bright side," Mark said, smiling. "We launch in eighty sols. There's a good chance you'll be home in time for... what's the next big holiday?"
"Doesn't matter," Fireball snorted. "Ponies have holiday every week."
"Not every week," Cherry protested. "Not more than every other week."
"Yeah, and they'll make another one just for the day you get back," Fireball growled. "So no sighs. Keep mind on getting home."
Cherry Berry sat up and glared at Fireball. "Nice gentle attitude you have there," she said.
"As gentle as the next dragon who ain't Spike."
From the head, Starlight called, "Do we have anything more we want to say today? If not, I'm signing off."
Cherry looked at Fireball. "Tell them to start buying our Hearth's Warming presents," she said. "And make sure Fireball gets coal."
Fireball made a face. "Coal? Tastes awful. And gives me gas."
"I don't think they meant for you to eat it," Mark said.
"Whatever." Fireball stretched again. It was crowded in the bridge, but at least it wasn't the habitat compartment. After two weeks on the road, nobody wanted to be in there until they had to be, when mealtime came or when night fell.
But for the moment a room without nutty whiny ponies or cheerful monkeys seemed like a good idea. "I make lunch," he said. "I tell you when ready."
MISSION LOG — SOL 472
We made our first southbound leg today. We're now past Trouvelot and on our way to a region of smaller craters marked on my map as Thymiamata. The bad news is, NASA predicts the leading edge of the dust storm to catch us just as we enter that area. We're hoping we get the go-ahead to turn east before we hit Crommelin crater, though. The area around Crommelin is really bad even by the standards of Arabia Terra. Plus, Crommelin is just above Mars' equator. If we go more than 150 kilometers south of it, we drop south of the MAV... meaning that after that, we'll be driving AWAY from our destination.
But the important thing is that we keep moving. If we stop, not only do we miss the launch, but we probably die. We can't make it back to the Hab now, even if we wanted to. So we have to make as much ground as fast as we can while guaranteeing a full battery in the morning for more driving.
That's not easy. The ground east of Trouvelot was pretty badly broken, with several small craters to dodge, ejecta from those craters and from Trouvelot itself, and a lot of gullies and ravines that dwarf the little ditches we had in Acidalia. But after two hours today we found a huge lake bed which runs north-northeast to south-southwest. It's got some sand dunes, but nothing too difficult. We haven't bogged down or threatened to tip over— more just plowed right through. There's a ridge we have to go around tomorrow or the next sol, but for two days we should have comparatively smooth driving.
After that, though, it's back into the standard Arabia Terra crap... complete with sandstorm. Because into each life a little crap must fall, unless you're Mark Watney and anyone unfortunate enough to be within his blast radius, in which case enjoy the fucking Niagara Falls of diarrhetic feces from the sky.
We're not reporting to NASA anymore, but we're not completely out of contact. At high noon local time we turn on the radio to receive-only. Hermes will send a message update within ten minutes with a brief on the next day's driving and a weather report. After the ten minutes is up, we turn off the radio. Granted we don't need to be saving every scrap of power just yet, which is why we're still using the microwave for meals and all the computers for entertainment. But the radio thing is NASA's idea, and it doesn't really hurt at this point to start doing it.
That said, we're going to make tonight the last D&D session for a while. And I've decided to make a little peace offering to Starlight. Her Priestess of Om character is about to draw the attention of a Discworld-style unicorn that's escaped from the elves. If she plays the situation right, she might just get to be a witch after all...
MISSION LOG — SOL 472 (2)
Since we're not on power rationing yet, I'm going to report: my plan went a little too successfully. Starlight is now the Ninth Prophetess of Om due to consecutive natural 20s rolled on her knowledge of Omnianism as it applies to the holiness or unholiness of wild unicorns. As in, Om manifested, and she made the case to sanctify her new unicorn friend, and made it stick. For one night, the pony the others call Ms. Can't Roll made every roll.
Of course, the others are mad at me for two reasons: (1) Starlight got a magic pet and they didn't; and (2) all those good rolls were wasted on what amounts to diplomancing. No combat.
I think the reason GMs get the reputation for being TPK addicts is, TPK is the only way a GM can win..
Author's Notes:
San Japan setup is tomorrow. Going to be busy, so I'm going to take advantage of the situation in story to cheat a little and do several short-short chapters as our heroes begin driving through the storm.
Because on Monday I might have the time to write the good bit...
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Sols 475-476
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MISSION LOG — SOL 475
Today's message from Hermes:
"Good morning, Mark. Hope you had a good drive today. It's not going to be easily apparent from where you are, but you entered the dust storm today. For the next day or two you'll only see a small reduction in efficiency. We're hoping it stays that way.
"You're mostly on the right track. If you see any craters that stretch across the horizon, pass them on the east side. That will keep you out of the worst terrain of Thymiamata.
"Good luck, and stay safe."
Well, she's right. Looking outside the day is just as sunny and clear to look at as before. But the wattage coming from the solar cells is down just a hair— about half of one percent down.
We've been pushing hard the last couple of sols, trying to squeeze a couple extra kilometers out of each drive. For all we know those couple of kilometers might be the difference between life and death.
Cold food today. The ponies decided to go to an all-alfalfa diet for the time being, since they loathe cold potatoes with a passion surpassed only by my undying hatred for the root vegetable in any form, at any temperature. Sorry, Mom, but I'm going to snub your potato salad next Thanksgiving we have. Besides, your dressing is better anyway.
Compared to the triangle of huge craters at the headwaters of Mawrth Vallis, the cluster of craters in Thymiamata are much smaller. That said, they're still over ten kilometers wide, a couple as wide as twenty kilometers. With Mars's too-close horizons, a crater rim wall for any of those really would go from horizon to horizon if we hit dead-on. Fortunately we're only seeing the rim walls from a long way away... and, yes, we're passing them all on the east side.
Although the region has a name, none of the local features do. So I'm naming craters as we pass them based on what the crater rims look like from the Whinnybago. So far I've got Headstone Crater, Cenotaph Crater, Crypt Crater, Sarcophagus Crater, and Duckie Crater.
Somehow I don't think the astronomers are going to endorse my suggestions.
Mindy looked up at the sound of stomping feet on the carpeted SatCom floor. Randall Carter was making a beeline for her cubicle. "Are these pictures legit?" he asked, waving a couple of printouts clutched in one hand.
"You're getting the raw data every time any of the probes cross over Arabia Terra," Mindy said. "Is there something wrong?"
"Something's very wrong," Carter said. "Show me any photos you have from any single satellite observing Arabia Terra, each one day apart. Include today."
Mindy ran through the mental list she kept of which orbiters had and hadn't yet crossed Arabia in their orbits during local daytime that sol. "Close up view or wide area?" she asked.
"Not planetwide, but get me all of the storm if you can."
"Okay." She knew exactly which orbiter to pick. She called up the image archives, selected each day's targeted view of Arabia Terra from three days ago until today, and brought them up on her screen. "Here you are."
"Cycle through them, in chronological order," Carter said.
"Okay." Mindy stacked the windows on her screen in the proper order and then clicked through them. First to second; small movement of the storm. Second to third; small movement. Third to fourth...
Whoa.
"Is that supposed to happen?"
"No," Carter said grimly. "High-level martian dust storms like this one do not suddenly double their land speed and, at the same time, intensify strongly. Did the ponies do another thruster test or something?"
"They're not scheduled to," Mindy said. "But they're not broadcasting right now, and they couldn't send us uploads of their logs even if they were broadcasting. So I can't confirm that."
Carter growled with frustration, tossing away his printouts. "Print out each of those," he said. "Then come with me. Time to see Dr. Kapoor."
"This," Teddy said, his hands clasped on his desk blotter, "is our nightmare scenario made real."
"Possibly not," Venkat said. "Yes, the storm is growing thicker and stronger, and above all larger. But it's still only about a thousand kilometers across. It's now moving at eight kilometers per hour. If the storm stops growing and keeps moving, it will pass over the Whinnybago in five more sols. No danger."
"How confident are you that the storm stops growing and keeps moving?"
"Not in the least," Venkat said. "You said it yourself. Nightmare scenario. Kobayashi Maru."
"Do you mind not speaking geek when I'm in the room?" Annie snapped. "The fuck is a kobawhatever maru?"
Teddy and Venkat stopped to stare blankly at the director of media operations. On the couch, Mitch Henderson did likewise, as did Randall Carter and Mindy Park, who had been dragged along behind Venkat to this emergency meeting. "You must have watched Star Trek," Teddy said.
"Watched it, yeah," Annie said. "Once. I don't worship it like some people."
"Kobayashi Maru is a no-win scenario," Venkat said. "In the story it's a simulation rigged so that everything you do, everything you can think of to do, is the wrong thing to do. No matter what, you die."
"The difference is that this is no simulation," Teddy continued. "Venkat, is there anything we can do to help?"
"We're feeding updates and guidance through a daily Hermes radio message," Venkat said. "That's all we can do. Mark's only options are to keep trying to get around the worst part of the storm or to hunker down and hope it passes quickly. Right now his options are limited to backtracking north or going south. Going west takes him into the broken terrain of Margaritifer Terra, and going east requires him to negotiate the badlands of Thymiamata. Both would slow him down greatly, and the western route takes him directly away from Schiaparelli."
"What I want to know is," Annie said, "if this is a rigged game, who the fuck is doing the rigging?"
"Mars is," Mitch said from the couch. "The planet's not even trying to hide it behind coincidence or natural phenomena or human error. It wants them dead and doesn't care who knows it anymore."
"That," Teddy said quickly, "is something NASA cannot even hint at. Annie, shut down any hints or suppositions that Mars is out to get Watney and his friends."
"Why? Sounds like the plain fucking truth to me, at this point," Annie said.
"It doesn't matter how true it is," Teddy said. "It's unscientific. There's no way to disprove it. And whatever else we are, NASA is a scientific institution. If we can't test it, we don't discuss it."
"Even if we believe it?"
"Especially if we believe it," Venkat said.
Author's Notes:
Unloaded the van in an air-conditioned loading dock, set up most of the booth.
Still feel badly overheated. Brain cooked.
But apparently I still wrote a thing.
This weekend they'll probably get shorter. I hadn't intended to write the Houston bits until they happened, so expect at least one update this week which is just a Mission Log about the length of the one here.
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Sols 477-478
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MISSION LOG — SOL 477
Message from Hermes: "The storm's continuing to expand, and the center's moving almost directly in your direction. Keep pushing as hard as you can. Starting tomorrow we'd like you to start angling a little east of due south. This is partly because the storm has shifted direction of motion to due westwards, and partly because the ground is smoother in that direction. We'll keep you posted."
Wonderful. So the storm's getting bigger and deeper, and the worst part of it is turning to aim directly at us. That's the bad news. But the good news is...
... yeah, I got nothin'.
We made 71.1 kilometers according to the rover computer, as opposed to 71.5 yesterday, despite starting the sol with a full battery charge. That's down to less production from the boosted solar cells on top of the rover, all of which have surprisingly remained intact through all the driving. As of right after I set out the rover's solar panels for recharging, the panels as a whole were producing 92% of their normal voltage. That's opposed to 97% yesterday and 99.5% the sol before.
Not much conversation in the Whinnybago today. The storm is casting a shadow over everything— in all senses of the phrase.
MISSION LOG — SOL 478
Message from Hermes: "The storm is slowing down. Keep moving. All we can do is cross our fingers."
That's not a message you ever want to hear from NASA, even indirectly.
When the batteries hit the critical 5% "stop right now or you'll regret it" level, we'd made 70.3 kilometers. We're almost out of Thymiamata. Solar cells producing at 83% of normal.
We stopped today not far from a middling-sized crater, about ten kilometers across I think. I walked out to it and up to the rim— about a kilometer each way.
Remember, the normal horizon on Mars on flat ground is just over two kilometers. When you stand on a crater rim, though, it's like standing on a scenic outlook on Earth; you're higher than the terrain you're looking towards, so you can see over the curvature of the planet a bit. I should have been able to see the far rim of a ten kilometer wide crater pretty well, given normal conditions.
I could barely see it at all. It was just a slightly bigger blur in the distance. In fact, the crater seemed to be filled with this haze, which grew thicker as I followed the rim wall around the edges of my vision.
Looking up, the sky looks mostly unchanged. The sun is still bright, though not as bright as on Earth. There are no obvious clouds, no storm front, nothing like the Sol 6 storm or the Electric Storm.
But the storm is there, and it's getting closer. And the direction we're going now, if we drive seventy kilometers per sol, only about twenty-two of that counts as getting closer to Schiaparelli.
I'm racking my brains trying to think of something we can do to boost power or driving efficiency or both. Problem is, nothing comes to mind. We tried everything already when we were testing the Whinnybago, not just the six of us here but over fifty engineers back at NASA.
But if we don't think of something else, this trip could become a lot longer... and hungrier.
Author's Notes:
In the book Mark finds out he's in a dust storm by noting the haze he sees looking across Marth Crater— a pockmark well over fifty kilometers across. And that was when his solar cells were performing at 97%.
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Sol 479
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 488
ARES III SOL 479
The Equestrians huddled. They hadn't done this for quite some time, but Starlight had insisted. She didn't want Mark to hear— or, at least, to understand— what they were talking about.
"So what are we talking about?" Fireball asked, in Equestrian. Starlight had insisted on that, too, for the same reason. "Is it about how we stopped early?"
"Sixty-three kilometers," Starlight said. "This morning the batteries were only at eighty-three percent charge."
"It's actually darker outside," Cherry Berry said. "It kind of snuck up on us, but it's obvious now."
"And Mark couldn't find Phobos when it rose," Starlight added. "The dust is too thick to see anything in the sky but the sun."
"How big is this storm, anyway?" Dragonfly asked.
"Big, and growing," Starlight said. "Mark says that about once every four years or so, a dust storm blows up big enough to cover the entire planet in a dust cloud. They last for weeks, sometimes months."
"We haven't got months," Fireball pointed out.
"I know." Starlight looked at Dragonfly. "You kept talking about hearing voices from this and that. Hearing anything from the planet? The weather? Anything at all?"
Dragonfly turned her gaze away from Starlight's. "I don't like to talk about it," she muttered. "You all laugh. You keep it inside, but I hear it anyway."
"We're not laughing now," Starlight said. "Right now, I'm wondering if Mars has windigoes."
"Windigoes?" Spitfire's eyes opened almost fully. "You mean the monsters from the Hearth's Warming stories?"
"That's right," Starlight said, "and I don't mean the nice one from `The Lonely Red Windigo,' either. Think about it; we're getting on each other's nerves, and the weather is changing as if it deliberately wants to freeze us solid."
"Um," Cherry Berry said, "we're not grumpy anymore. We're worried."
"Pfft, worried," Fireball said. "We're scared. We're bucking terrified."
"And I'm not feeling anything like windigoes around us," Dragonfly said. "Mars isn't saying anything. All I feel is the six of us, the rover, and the death box. The rover only ever says one thing— `Let's go.' And the death box just says, `Good night, mortals, good work, I'll probably kill you in the morning.'"
"Does it care if Mars gets us first?" Cherry asked.
"Cherry, commanders don't say things like that," Spitfire snapped.
"Not wrong, though," Fireball grumbled. "It looks like we're going to die out here."
"It's not hopeless!" Spitfire insisted. "Twilight Sparkle might be just about to save us!"
"If she is," Dragonfly sighed, "now would be a really good time."
"Well, this is awkward."
In the middle of the table, lights blinking, sat Angel 16.
On one side of the table sat Princess Twilight Sparkle, head of the Equestrian Space Agency; Queen Chrysalis, head of Changeling Space Program; and Princess Luna, one of the ruling diarchs of Equestria.
On the other side of the table sat Twilight Sparkle, unicorn scientist; Chrysalis, one of the leaders of the Resistance; and Queen Nightmare Moon, tyrant of Equestria.
"I still want to know, counterpart of mine," Nightmare Moon purred in a most unfriendly tone, "what persuaded you to surrender to our sister."
"Well, there was the purifying blast of pure harmonic magic direct to the face," Princess Luna said. "Did you not get that?"
"I destroyed the Elements of Harmony with my own hoof," Nightmare Moon said.
"So did I," Luna said. "It didn't help. The Elements are not just artifacts. They're avatars of the highest ideals of civilization. And they summoned to them six mares suitable to embody those ideals."
"Which did not occur in my universe," Nightmare Moon said. "My initial takeover met with zero resistance, even from my sister." She glared at the changeling and pony sharing her side of the able and hissed, "Resistance, such as it was, came later."
"Obviously something happened to prevent Rainbow Dash from achieving a sonic rainboom in your universe," said Princess Twilight, speaking from experience.
"Rainbow Dash is a lieutenant in my Shadowbolts," Nightmare Moon said. "None more loyal."
"Rarity?"
"Chambermaid and dresser," Nightmare Moon said. "She insists on trying to get me to wear bright, frilly things. `Contrast' this and `Lace softens the lines' that."
"Applejack?"
"Led the first uprising against me. She lives in my dungeons now as a hostage against the future good conduct of the Apple clan."
"Pinkie Pie?"
"Who?"
"Fluttershy?"
"Never heard of her, either."
Princess Twilight pointed to her non-alicorn doppelganger. "And you? Did you attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns?"
"I... dropped out," Twilight said sadly. "Once I read all the books and scrolls in the public shelves, I left to seek out knowledge on my own. I was in Hollow Shades investigating the mystery of the disappearance of the Pillars of Harmony when the Night Without Dawn began. I returned to Canterlot and was recruited into the Resistance by Princess Cadance."
"And when I find her, I shall bring proper order to the kingdom again," Nightmare Moon growled. "That filly has been a thorn in my flank for far too long."
"I was studying the moon, trying to find some way to return Nightmare Moon to her prison," Unicorn Twilight continued. "That's when we saw her magic reach out and grab this object in space. We thought it might be something we could use to defeat her, so we organized the Resistance to infiltrate her castle and steal the object." She glared at non-queen Chrysalis. "We were discovered."
"Not my fault," non-queen Chrysalis snapped back. "Your ponies betrayed my changelings."
"What is the matter with you??" definitely-queen Chrysalis shouted. "Changelings don't get betrayed! They do the betraying!"
"Well, excuse me for trying to survive in a life or death battle against a mad goddess!" not-queen Chrysalis shouted back.
"I am not mad!!" Nightmare Moon shrieked. "How dare you imply that my sanity is not up to scratch-"
"LADIES, PLEASE!" Princess Twilight's horn lit up, and four muzzles found themselves clamped shut by magical force.
"To get back to your original question," Luna said quietly, her mouth not being sealed, "it was rather for the best that I surrendered. Our night has been appreciated more than ever, especially since exploration began of the void beyond. And I have since learned to appreciate the talents of our sister, and the trials she undergoes."
Nightmare Moon's horn flared, dispelling Princess Twilight's muzzling spell. "Oh, spare me," she snarled. "Miss Pretty Perfect Princess? I can do anything she did, and do it better! I protect our ponies from the monsters that roam the waking world, and I am a thousand times more terrible than the beasts that stalk their dreams! What does she do better than you," she sneered the pronoun at Luna, "do?"
Luna didn't even blink. "She opens shopping centers and bridges and the like."
Nightmare Moon's jaw dropped. "Y-y-you mean," she stammered, "I don't have to DO that?"
"And she can send nobles home from open court," Luna continued, "happy and cheerful— without actually agreeing to any of their foolish proposals."
"I'm sorry?" Nightmare Moon asked, even more boggled. "This is our sister? Celestia? The shy mare who got tongue-tied every time Princess Platinum berated her about acting her station?"
Unicorn Twilight blinked and looked at Nightmare Moon. "Princess Celestia? Tongue-tied?"
"Yes, except when she babbled uncontrollably," Nightmare Moon said. "You would not believe how fast she'd go to pieces any time someone asked her to... um..." The tyrant queen blushed under her helmet, finding something interesting on the wall to look at. "We may discuss this another time," she muttered. "Indeed we have much to discuss when we return home. But now it is time we got to our proper business: an explanation into the cause for this... device," she said, poking the steel casing of the space probe on the table, "and its intrusion into Our realm."
Explanations followed.
The dimensional counterparts, curious, accepted the invitation to watch the film collected by the probe, once it was developed. This process was rushed to completion, and two hours later the group of them sat and watched the flickering images of a couple of different versions of Equus, a desolate lifeless rock, empty space, and a blue-white world with different continents that Princess Twilight referred to as "an Earth."
And then the scene shifted from space to someplace entirely other, a realm flooded with a murky, roiling green mist. An eye floated into view... then another, and another, and another. They flowed around one another, obviously not tethered to anything, yet giving the impression of being under the control of a single mind.
Well, hello. I knew allowing that bit of metal to pass through would be worthwhile. Such a fascinating cluster of worldlets you had here.
The ponies tried to scream, and couldn't.
They tried to blink, and couldn't.
All six of them sat rigid, staring at the projector screen, as something extended out of it and into the room.
"I heard somepony's watching a film!" The door to the conference room banged open, and this world's native Pinkie Pie barged in, wobbling on her hind legs as her forelegs carried a gigantic tub of popcorn. "And you can't have a film-watching party without the po-" Her eyes locked onto the screen, and her body froze. The tub of popcorn fell to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere.
At the same moment, the tentacle of otherness recoiled back into the screen.
PINKIE!
No, wait... you are not MY Pinkie.
Whew.
You are just a pony... an extraordinary pony, but still only a pony.
Very well. You at least shall be no obstacle to-
Hey, Gnarly, watcha doin'?
The tentacle, which had begun to extend itself back into the room, froze. On the screen behind it a portion of the roiling green was pushed aside by a mass of rigid cotton-candy cloud which seemed to extend into non-Euclidian geometric shapes.
Gnarly! I'm ashamed of you! What did I tell you about this?
The not-voice had a mixture of cringe and whine in it: It's mean to conquer and defile the realms of puny insignificant mortals.
Now say you're sorry! Or no (untranslatable concept) with your (different untranslatable concept) tonight!
I apologize for my intrusion into your lower dimension. It won't happen again.
Okay! Now let's clean up the mess you made...
The ponies blinked.
A tinny fanfare rang from the film projector's built-in speaker. The title appeared on the screen: Bunny-Wunny Adventures on Carrotcake Mountain!
"What did we just see?" Princess Twilight asked.
"Nightmares beyond the dream realm," Princess Luna gasped.
"Things mares were not meant to know," Nightmare Moon added.
"Aw, ponies always complain about the Bunny-Wunny Adventures," Pinkie Pie said between mouthfuls of popcorn. "They just can't appreciate a simple, sweet, fun story."
"Wait a moment," Queen Chrysalis said. "If this is a children's film, what happened to the film from the probe?"
"Oh, that's obvious," Pinkie said. "They couldn't close the door while the film existed, so they made the film not exist anymore."
"So... they destroyed it," Resistance Chrysalis said cautiously.
"Nah," Pinkie said. "It never existed. Duh!"
"But... if it never existed..." Unicorn Twilight began.
"... then how do we remember seeing it?" Princess Twilight finished.
"You don't," Pinkie said. "You remember the fact of seeing it, but if you remembered what you saw, that would be a door too. Really, am I the only one who sees all this obvious stuff that's totally obvious?"
"But they had a Pinkie!"
"Lots of places have a Pinkie!" The local Pinkie giggled and added, "Sometimes more than one!"
"I vote," Resistance Chrysalis said, "we all just relax, forget everything, and watch the movie. And pass me that popcorn."
"Since when do we eat food?" Queen Chrysalis asked.
"Fine. Pass me some of that love of popcorn, please."
"One moment," Princess Luna said. "The seven of us saw that film... but didn't the ponies who developed it see it as well?"
"The eldritch beings are powerful," Nightmare Moon said, "but neither all-knowing nor infallible."
"To the developers! Post-haste!" Luna cried. "The nightmares such visions can spawn would be just as deadly as the original invaders!"
The two moon princesses galloped out the door.
Princess Twilight and Queen Chrysalis looked at each other. "No Angel 17?" Chrysalis asked.
"No Angel 17," Twilight agreed.
"Sssh!" Resistance Chrysalis hissed. "We're trying to watch a movie!"
Author's Notes:
Inspired by comments on last chapter.
This is probably the last we see of Equus for the rest of the story...
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Sols 480-481
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MISSION LOG — SOL 480
Hermes message of the day: "We can't see your rover on the surface anymore. The storm is too thick. The center of the storm is about two hundred kilometers due east of you, but the edges... well, the storm covers a huge portion of the planet now, Mark. All we can suggest is that you try disengaging two of the wheel clutches, while you're still on comparatively level ground, and see if that saves power."
Yeah, already did that, after we woke up this morning and found we'd only managed to recharge up to 71% of total battery capacity. It didn't help worth a damn. We still only managed 51.8 kilometers today.
If we'd made a proper full sol of driving, we would have had to turn east or west to get around Crommelin crater today. We'll probably just barely reach it tomorrow. After that we have to make some hard decisions.
Before we put out the solar panels today, we tried running on magic power. The ship has a magic-to-electricity converter in the bridge controls, where the emergency magic batteries normally connect. We hooked one magic battery into the system today and began driving on it. After about a minute and a half Starlight called a halt to the experiment, because she could watch the charge readout dropping as we rolled. We were burning through mana that fast.
After we set out the solar panels (now operating at a measly 59% of peak), we checked the levels in the battery we used and the distance we traveled in a minute and a half (accelerating most of the way, admittedly). Then we did the math and worked this out.
In very rough, round numbers, the Whinnybago burns twenty kilowatts per hour driving at top speed. That's a kilowatt every three minutes.
In the minute and a half we spent driving on magic power, we only hit top speed for about half that time. It takes the Whinnybago a long run-up to get started. So we only traveled about half a kilometer, burning (again, very rough, round numbers) five hundred watts in that time.
In that time, the battery went from fully charged to 95% charged.
Put another way: the battery would get us ten kilometers before it pooped out. It would only run for a bit more than twenty minutes. It's effectively the equivalent of a battery with a watt-hours rating of about ten kilowatt-hours.
Give it its due— that's more efficient for a lot less weight than the rover batteries, and it competes with the lighter weight but much bulkier Hab batteries. But considering I've seen Starlight do things with fractions of magic battery power that would rate in megawatts or possibly gigawatts if they could be done at all electrically, I've got to say that the magic-to-electricity converter is really fucking inefficient.
But that's not really the problem. The problem is recharge time.
If not for the dust storm, we'd have a little over 70 pirate-ninjas of recharge power every sol, of which we can only store 54 pirate-ninjas. Every sol we'd start out with another seventy kilometers or so of driving in the tank.
If we hooked all twenty-one of the small magic batteries up to the rover power system and used it only for driving, we'd get two hundred and ten kilometers out of it. The batteries are currently recharging at a rate of one point four percent per sol... which means a full recharge from zero would take sixty-seven sols.
Sixty. Seven. Sols.
During which time we could do nothing, absolutely nothing, involving magic.
During which time the jumbo batteries would be losing charge at the rate of 0.5% of a regular battery per day... each.
During which time Dragonfly begins drifting back towards physical collapse.
We would have to be really fucking desperate to take that option. And we would also have to be a lot closer to the Hab or Schiaparelli than we currently are. As it is, we are now slightly closer to the MAV than to the Hab or the cave farm. If two hundred kilometers got us to safety, it might be worth it. Otherwise, better to save the magic for a better idea.
Let's just hope we find one before we lose all light completely.
By the way, if you say, "Why not just use the magic batteries to drive the distance they recharge by?" All twenty-one batteries gain about 1.4% of their capacity each sol. That adds up, combined, to the equivalent of 29.4% of the charge of a single battery, or just under three kilometers. Under the current conditions (technical definition: "fucked nine ways from Sunday") it's not worth it.
Better to keep the changeling, dragon, and ponies healthy with that power... while we can.
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 490
ARES III SOL 481
The wind didn't howl outside the Whinnybago. The dust didn't hiss as it hit the bare ship hull. The only electricity came from the flickering glow that appeared occasionally on the tungsten discharge points attached to outer hull mounts around the former Amicitas, some of which were visible through the bridge windows.
But the dusty haze of the prior few sols had become a fog, a cloud of dust motes drifting past on the weak Martian wind. The afternoon sun shone dimly outside, providing a light more similar to what the ponies thought of as moonlight than anything associated with a star. The storm had them firmly in its grip.
And considering that they'd only driven thirty-six kilometers before running out of power, and that the solar panels which produced that power provided only forty-two percent of what they should have produced, everyone in the Whinnybago recognized that grip was tightening.
Hermes had run out of hopeful news. Their report today had been grim; center of storm one hundred forty kilometers east-northeast. Storm almost stationary, no longer widening but getting thicker at the core. At the storm's center, they estimated, only about ten percent of the sun's light reached the Martian surface... ten percent and still dropping. If the storm remained at current strength and intensity, it would take over a month to pass over Crommelin crater, which the broken ground outside suggested was now very close by the Whinnybago.
"So here's the situation," Mark said, as the six of them gathered in the bridge to discuss options. "We have three options. We can hunker down and hope the storm passes more quickly than expected. Anybody want to talk about how likely that is?"
Not a word. Everyone knew this storm had their names on it.
"Yeah, me neither. Option two; turn east-southeast and begin making for Schiaparelli at whatever speed we can. That takes us closer to the heart of the storm, but it also runs against the direction the storm's currently moving, so it's just possible that we get out from under it sooner. We can run life support off the RTG and your ship's system, so we should be able to at least crawl a little each sol."
"Maybe we could pull the ship behind us," Cherry Berry suggested. "Like when it was salvaged."
Fireball slammed a fist into the deck. "No!" he shouted. "Tying ropes around our space suits? The way they are? Look at us!" He pointed to the patches on his own suit, the elbow and knees on Cherry and Spitfire, the large gash of black gunk of Starlight Glimmer's right foreleg. "They blow out quick. Kill wearer. No rescue. Suicide. Dumb idea. I know what I'm talking about."
"I could make harnesses-" Dragonfly suggested.
"NO!" Fireball took a deep breath, held up a palm to stop anyone from speaking, and thought carefully. "Even harness make different pressure on some parts of suit than others," he said. "Different pressure puts more pressure on patches. Can't avoid. Can't fix. Trying that will kill somebody. Listen to me."
Dragonfly nodded. "I hear you, Fireball," she said, "but if it comes down to the choice-"
"If it's choice, then ask Mark for medicine," Fireball snarled. "You want a choice of how to kill yourself, he find something a lot less trouble than losing all your air outside."
"Okay," Mark said after nobody followed up Fireball's declaration. "Anybody like that option? My main problem with it is, if my navigation is right, we're still about thirteen hundred kilometers from the entrance to Schiaparelli, plus maybe another four hundred kilometers after that to get to the MAV. Seventeen hundred kilometers. If we traveled at the rate we did today, we'd reach there on Sol 530— but we all know the storm would get a lot worse. My math says, we'd miss the launch date and run out of food first."
Again, no argument.
"Option three. Go around Crommelin to the southeast. We have another hundred and fifty kilometers of southward travel before Pythagoras becomes our enemy— sorry, cultural reference, I meant before we start getting farther away from Schiaparelli instead of closer. So long as the storm doesn't turn south and cross the equator— which it's not supposed to be able to do, but who knows what this fucking planet will do next— we'd begin to get out from under the shadow.
"The problem is, we don't know how far south we'd have to go. The dust cloud extends a long way south of the equator— maybe eight hundred kilometers. If we go that route we'd have to take the backup route into Schiaparelli on the southwest side, which requires crossing a lot of uneven, rugged terrain. It'll take a long time, and there's no guarantee we'd reach the MAV before our food runs out."
"There's a fourth option," Starlight said quietly. "I've been thinking about it for the last two sols."
"What is it?"
Starlight shuffled her forehooves on the deck. "Remember the booster system test?" she asked. "It cleared the skies instantly. We had weeks of clear weather and unseasonably warm temperatures. We could do it again."
"Hey, yeah," Dragonfly said, grinning. "That is a great idea! We don't need as big a mass this time! Or as much speed, either! All we need is a big rock from the surface, a little booster target, a booster crystal, and some battery power!"
"We've got half a ton of clean crystal," Starlight said. "I think we only need twenty-five kilos of it to make the booster and its target."
"We still have the data from the test," Dragonfly said. "We can use that to keep the power use to a minimum. Maybe only one battery would do it!"
"Yes!" Starlight grinned even wider than Dragonfly now. "I can't think of any reason this might go wrong!"
"I can," Fireball grumbled. "How do we know the last test didn't cause this storm now?"
Grins vanished. The others looked meaningfully at one another.
Cherry Berry finally spoke up. "So maybe we have a storm during launch day," she said. "We'll deal with that then. But if we don't try something, this storm right now will keep us from even having a launch day." She looked at Starlight. "Do it," she said. "We'll launch your cloudbuster tomorrow morning."
Author's Notes:
Going to be busy the rest of the day, so here's what I wrote last night.
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Sol 482
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 491
ARES III SOL 482
The rock sat on other rocks, as rocks sometimes do.
To differentiate it from other rocks, it sat with its ends supported by two carefully constructed rock cairns, lifting its middle up and away from the ground. On its underside a small bit of clear quartz had been carefully attached, pointed straight down towards where a slightly larger bit of quartz lay. That second crystal chunk was connected by a series of cables to a much larger, metal-wrapped chunk some twenty meters away, which in turn was connected to a switch, which itself was connected by ten meters of changeling-made rope to the hand of a figure in a somewhat worn-looking space suit.
The rock didn't know it yet, but it was about to go for a ride.
Spitfire, having retired inside the Whinnybago after helping gather the rocks for the launch cairn, stared through a cockpit window and allowed herself to feel jealous of a rock. Your life sucks, she thought to herself, when a rock gets to fly and you don't.
"If my calculations hold up," Starlight Glimmer was saying over the comms, "the missile should reach two hundred fifty meters per second at about one thousand meters altitude. The shockwave should begin to form there, clearing out the skies without sending the missile on an escape trajectory."
"If you say so," Mark said. "Fireball, is the camera rolling?"
"No," Fireball said, sounding confused. "Camera in my hand. You want me to roll the camera?"
"I meant, is it recording?" Mark asked.
"Ooooooooooooh," Fireball replied. "Is it recording? That different. Recording now."
"You did that on purpose," Mark said. "I'm proud of you."
"Back on task, everyone," Cherry Berry said, standing near Spitfire and watching through a different window. "All go for launch in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven."
Dragonfly, also inside and safe, paced the small open area of the bridge.
"Six. Five. Four."
Spitfire put one forehoof on the bulkhead next to the window, watching the dust-blurred figures, a hundred meters away, leaning towards the ship as they prepared to run like hell from the launch zone.
"Three. Two. One!"
A hundred yards across the rubble-strewn surface of Mars, Mark yanked the rope that triggered the switch and began half-bouncing, half-running for the rover.
Unlike the first time they'd done this, with a much larger and heavier projectile, Spitfire could follow the ascent of the rock with her eyes. It got faster in a hurry, and in a couple of seconds it left the limited visual range of the porthole, but it had definitely been slow by comparison to the original booster system test.
"Tracking missile drifting west," Fireball said. "Not gonna drop on our heads."
"I'm back at the ladder," Starlight panted. "Climbing up now."
"And I'm right behind," Mark said. "I don't see any shockwave, though."
"Lost target," Fireball said. "No shockwave. All I see is a kind of swirl in the dust." Pause. "Got a breeze."
"Shoot!" Cherry Berry snapped. "Why didn't it work? Not fast enough?"
"It'll get faster as it gets higher," Starlight said. "And most of the dust is upper-level atmosphere. Give it time."
Spitfire continued staring out the porthole. She could see dust, the thicker, grittier dust that the weak dust storm couldn't pick up, dancing in little clouds and gusts from the surface. A roller-wave of the stuff rippled across the slope towards the launch point. Another one rolled away from the rover towards the launch point.
And the haze seemed to dance and twist around the launch point... almost as if...
Updraft.
Updraft plus heat from friction, as the rock continued to accelerate past the speed of sound.
"Commander," she said in Equestrian, "I strongly urge we get the others in at once. Leave the equipment outside."
Cherry Berry turned to look Spitfire in the eye. She stared for just a moment, then turned back to the window. "Emergency abort," she said in English. "Everyone back in right now."
"What for? Just a little breeze," Fireball said.
"Not for long," Spitfire said, this time in English. "Dust devil forming. Tornado. Get inside right now!"
"Just a minute!" Starlight said. "Let me go back and get-"
"No." There was a bit of rustling, and then Mark's voice continued, "I've got Starlight. Fireball, get that door open."
"Okay."
Spitfire watched the window more intently. More dust continued to ripple towards the launch point. A column of it could be seen clearly now, borne up by the air rushing to the launch site in the wake of the massive artificial updraft.
"But the battery!"
"People before equipment," Mark insisted. "Starlight, quit wiggling!"
"I'll stop wiggling if you put me down!!"
The trailer rang with the sound of the outer airlock door slamming shut.
"In," Fireball said simply. "Cycling airlock now."
Outside, the sky grew darker, as for the first time the dust began to hiss against the hull, mixed with the occasional clatter of pebbles as the winds picked up.
"I don't know if you care," Dragonfly said, "but Mars is talking again."
Cherry Berry sighed. "What's it saying? `Die' again?"
"No," Dragonfly said. "Hear the clicking of rocks? That's what laughter sounds like in Old Changeling."
The planet was laughing at them.
Outside, the storm took the energy given to it by the launch... and it closed in, hungry for more.
The battery, still connected to the enchanted repulsor crystal, gave it all it had.
Two frantic hours passed, during which two magic batteries were used up to safeguard another EVA. The launch system had been retrieved using Starlight's force field spell, but only because they had to go outside to install a rapidly improvised tarp over the forward cockpit windows. This was composed of the remaining spare Hab canvas and all the sleeping bags, hastily stitched together with thin changeling rope. The rover windows had shutters; Amicitas didn't, and although it had stood up to worse storms in the past, the crew hadn't been totally dependent on it for a living environment at the time.
The storm continued to pelt the ship with dust and larger particles. The crew, looking out through the smaller, thicker portholes and airlock windows, saw only a slightly less than pitch black environment outside.
According to the clock on one of the laptops, it was just past noon, Mars time.
"Right," Cherry Berry said, pulling Spitfire away from a porthole with one hoof. "Why didn't it work?"
"Too slow," Spitfire said. "Too slow, too small to make a big, um, shock wave like before. But fast enough, big enough, to... thing follows boat in water?"
"Wake?" Mark suggested.
"Pulls air up behind it," Spitfire continued. "Rock gets faster, heats up. Hot air goes up. Makes updraft. Updraft causes dust devil, tornado... worse."
"And heat makes weather stronger," Starlight sighed. "More violent. We made it worse."
"Okay," Mark said. "We can try launching another rock with more power. Or a bigger rock. Or both."
"We'd be fooling with a phenomenon we clearly don't understand," Starlight sighed. "I should have known better."
"Are we getting any power from the solar panels, Mark?" Cherry asked.
"They're pissing out a few watts, but that's all," Mark said. "We can't drive on that, even if we did go EVA again to pick up the panels around the rover."
"Okay. What can we do for power, then?"
"Well," Mark said, "if the launch had failed in a less shitty way, I was going to try to remove the motors from the wheels on the landing gear. If we could find a place to mount them inside, Starlight could spin them with magic to produce electricity. They're not as efficient as proper dynamos, but they'd make some power. I figure rotating one of them at, oh, about two hundred revolutions per minute would produce one kilowatt-hour per hour."
"Which means a thousand revolutions per minute," Starlight said, her face going from concentration to shock as she did the math, "to recharge the batteries in twelve hours. Assuming I could keep it up for that long."
"Also assuming we could spend two to three hours on EVA just to dismount and remount the wheels," Mark added glumly. "Further assuming removing the motors is easy. I've never done it. Further assuming we could get them mounted in here." He gestured to his suit, which lay on the deck behind the co-pilot seat. "None of which makes a damn, because I can't go outside with that stupid safety-glass faceplate while the wind is throwing gravel around."
Spitfire tuned out the conversation after that depressing series of broken assumptions, turning to look out the window again. Stupid Martian storm, she thought. Give me twenty Wonderbolts and enough air and magic to get airborne, and we'd knock that storm out, one-two-three.
Her mind got yanked back to the inside of the Whinnybago by the sudden sound of the ship's radio. "Friendship, Hermes," it said in Commander Lewis's static-filled voice. "I don't know what you did, but it was the wrong thing to do. The whole storm is unraveling and spiraling in tight around Crommelin. It's like it's spontaneously re-centering itself. There's now a dark grey spot on Mars about four hundred kilometers in radius. If you did that, undo it, quick. We're reading tau levels like we haven't seen since 2018. If you received this message, acknowledge by Morse key. Hermes out."
"Fuck," Mark moaned. He repeated the word, and repeated it again, each repetition shifting up the scale from shock to rage. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"
"Four hundred kilometers radius," Starlight grumbled. "Why couldn't it have been diameter?"
"That's just the dark part," Dragonfly sighed. "Want to bet there's a thin dust layer surrounding it? For how far out?"
Fireball moved to the hatch linking the bridge and habitat. "Well, that's it," he said. "I'm eat my last sapphire now. Why not?"
"We're not giving up," Cherry Berry said firmly.
"Got any ideas left?" Fireball rumbled. "I don't."
"Yes! We send up another cloudbuster!" Cherry insisted. "A bigger one, with more batteries! We have the spare quartz for it, right, Starlight?"
"Yes, for several more if we're careful," Starlight admitted. "But we don't know it'll do anything except make it worse."
"We know doing nothing won't help!" Cherry replied. "If we sit here and do nothing, we die. We can't drive far enough on the power we've got to escape. Our only hope now is to knock out that storm!"
"Last time we made the storm stronger!" Starlight said. "If we do it again, the rover might not survive!"
"Then this time we have to get it right!" Cherry barked. "Can't you add an enchantment to the target? Some kind of storm-be-gone spell?"
"Do I look like a pegasus to you?"
And just like that, the idea snapped into Spitfire's mind in cold, horrible clarity.
It was a dumb idea— no, strike that, it was literally a suicidal idea. But...
... no, there was a chance. A small, small chance. So many ifs had to fall the same direction.
But nopony else could do it. Only her. The job needed twenty pegasi, but there was only one available.
"Launch me," she said.
The room froze for several seconds. Then, all at once:
"What the fuck, Spitfire?" Mark asked.
"You nuts?" Fireball hissed.
"Oh my Faust," Starlight Glimmer gasped.
"You gotta be kidding!" Dragonfly said.
"We are NOT launching you!" Cherry Berry said.
More words followed these, expressing the shock and anger Spitfire knew it would bring. She let it more or less run out, which took several minutes of alternate ranting by one person and shouting by another. She let it run its course, waiting for silence to finally set in before explaining herself.
"Look," she said, and then glanced to Starlight and muttered, "Explain it to Mark later." Continuing in Equestrian, she said, "Shooting more rocks into the air isn't going to work. You need actual pegasus magic up there to disrupt the air currents and break up the storm. Wire in a magic battery to my suit, make sleeves for my wings, and I can do it— and come back safely."
"You can't!" Starlight insisted, also in Equestrian. "It's impossible!"
"No, it's not impossible," Spitfire said firmly. "All I have to do is maintain the speed the booster gives me long enough to break the storm. My wings and magic will give me the purchase in the air to steer— not much, but enough. I can do the job, circle around, and let you catch me with your magic before I crash."
"I refuse," Cherry Berry said. "You'll be going faster than sound. The air will be like a wall. A concrete wall, since it's full of sand and grit. It's certain death. Permission denied."
"Cherry, you're the best at flying machines," Spitfire said. "But don't tell a Wonderbolt what they can and can't do in the sky. I've hit mountainsides going hundreds of miles per hour. I've overseen tornadoes strong enough to lift water half a mile into the air."
"On Equus! This is Mars!"
"This is me," Spitfire replied, thumping her chest with a forehoof. "This is what I was born to do!" She paused, adding in a softer voice, "And this is what I'm sworn to do. A Wonderbolt is still a guardspony first. I serve to protect, Cherry. Even if it means making the final sacrifice." She looked her commander directly in the eyes and said, "This is not the first time I've faced that possibility."
"Certainty."
"Possibility."
"Girls," Mark interjected in English, "either switch back to English or let me try speaking your language again, but don't leave me out of this."
"In a minute, Mark," Cherry said. Switching back to Equestrian, she said, "We'll have to cut up your space suit and patch it. We've got nothing to patch it with."
"Except my flight coveralls," Spitfire said, "coated in a flexible airtight goop from Dragonfly. You can do that, right, bug?"
Dragonfly considered the question. "Like your flight suit material? I can get pretty close," she said. "No insulation, though. You're gonna be cold. And no reinforcement, either. If the wings breach, you die, period."
"How fast can you ascend and not black out or be injured?" Starlight asked. "Eight G's?"
"Eight Equus G's," Spitfire agreed. "Let's say seventy-five meters per second of acceleration. Faster than today's launch, a lot slower than the booster test."
"We'll have to switch off the launch battery after a few seconds," Starlight said. "Ten seconds will have you going at three times the local speed of sound. Air resistance will destroy your suit if you go any faster."
"Seven hundred fifty meters per second?" Spitfire nodded. "I can handle that. Rainbow Dash goes faster than that all the time."
"Have you?" Cherry Berry asked pointedly.
"Watch me," Spitfire replied, carefully not answering the question.
Cherry shook her head. "This is why I didn't want to be the captain," she said. "I'm going to make the wrong decision. And it's going to get you killed."
"Say it does," Spitfire said. "One for five is the kind of trade the officers and guards of the EUP are trained to make."
"I want zero for six."
"You'll get it. I promise."
"You can't promise that."
"Read my lips," Spitfire said, and then added in English, "I prom-mise."
Cherry sighed, shaking her head. "Mark," she said, "you and I have until morning to think of a better idea than launching Spitfire on top of a piece of crystal." She turned to Fireball, growling, "Got any smart remarks about that?"
"No, ma'am," Fireball said quietly.
"The rest of you do whatever it takes to make it happen. Including bringing her down safely. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," the others chorused.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Cherry whispered to herself in Equestrian.
Yeah, Spitfire thought. Me either.
But at least if I'm going out, I'm going out flying.
Author's Notes:
One of you called this days ago, not in a complimentary tone. But I've had this planned for about a month, and I'm going through with it.
Rising air is what powers thunderstorms and dust devils alike. Tornadoes require rising air, but they also require conflicting air currents to create vortexes. A launched rock producing a wake probably wouldn't start a storm anyplace in the universe... if magic weren't involved. But as I've written before in this story, when magic and Mars meet all bets are off.
Incidentally, for those wondering, Mark is assuming that the rover wheel motors are mounted on the hub. If the motor is mounted so that the spindle turns on the inside edge of the rim instead, then it's going to take a lot more RPMs than he thinks.
To get an idea of how much overdrive would be required, at top rated speed of 25 kmph, a wheel would be turning at 95 RPM, or a touch more than 540 degrees of rotation per second. I honestly don't know how efficient running an electric motor in reverse is for generating current, but I seem to recall it's not all that compared to a proper dynamo. There are losses to entropy, in any case.
And remember that the bearings inside these motors were designed to run at a relatively low speed with zero maintenance and only whatever lubrication was sealed into them during manufacturing. Overdriving them would probably chew them up in short order. Mark has to know that what he's proposing is a desperation tactic and not sustainable.
But on the other hand, it's probably more sustainable than "throw a pegasus at it."
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Sol 483
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 492
ARES III SOL 483
Spitfire, in her past career as leader of the Wonderbolts, had carried two full-grown ponies in the air along with her... on Equus.
The combined weight of her spacesuit, the extra spacesuit battery strapped to the outside of her backpack, the two ship mana batteries harnessed around the barrel of her suit like a mining donkey's saddlebags, and the two pieces of quartz attached to her chest added up to about two full-grown ponies. Unfortunately, Spitfire was on Mars, with its alien atmosphere which, if you had to limit yourself to a single word when describing it, would be, "less."
And its magic environment, which under the same rules would be described as, "zero."
"Okay, mission briefing," Starlight Glimmer said, adjusting the magic battery on her own back. "We've disconnected your suit thruster system. Remember that. You do NOT have thrusters. We don't want another storm to come back and hit us in two weeks, and anyway you can't spare the magic power."
"Right. No thrusters," Spitfire nodded.
"These," Starlight Glimmer said, tapping the bits of quartz on Spitfire's chest, "are force field projectors. The first one is for launch, during the sub-sonic portion of your flight. It should keep the dust from destroying your suit before you build up a shockwave strong enough to keep it away. The second one is in case your suit breaches. Twilight Sparkle has been told to keep overriding your life support safeties in case of a breach. If your suit breaches, you activate this and come straight down at once if you can.
"The force field will keep out dust and hold in air, but it won't hold up to anything much more energetic. If you see a mountain up there, don't play tag with it."
"Ha ha," Spitfire said sarcastically.
"Once you're supersonic, you must remove the first force field projector by hoof," Starlight said. "One cable will be loose. You'll need to attach that cable to the second projector to activate it. I just hope you don't need it."
You hope? Spitfire thought. Aloud she merely said, "I understand."
"Okay, moving on to the suit proper," Starlight said. "We used the flaps we cut out of your suit to line the leading edges of your wings. They'll take the most punishment and protect the seams of the rest of the sleeves."
"The resin covering the wing-sleeves hasn't cured yet," Dragonfly groaned from a flight couch. Unlike the others, each of whom had their suits on and at least one magic battery to carry out, Dragonfly was staying in the ship. Having spent the entire afternoon and evening horking up goo for the flight harness and the space suit modifications, then actually making the spacesuit mods with Fireball's help, she was literally both sick and tired. "That's the only reason they still flex. The goo is still liquid around the fabric core. A small breach should be self-sealing. But don't tempt it. This isn't your regular flight suit."
"I know," Spitfire said. "My flight suit has naked wings." She'd actually tried to argue for leaving her wings open to the elements. She hadn't been voted down so much as shouted down. Dragonfly had made the one argument against the notion that Spitfire considered valid; the only way to keep an airtight seal on wing slits would be to glue the suit to her skin. No seal meant no air... and no life.
"I really wish we could have used the spare Hab canvas for these," Starlight continued, tapping the spots just above the bulky mana batteries where the wing-sleeves had been added. With Spitfire's wings folded, the new fabric barely showed. "But Hab canvas blocks magic, according to the tests we ran on the rainbow crystals. Changeling goo doesn't, or at least no more than ordinary fabric does."
"I make work," Spitfire snapped.
"Anyway. If you have a suit breach, you abort. When the big batteries run out, you hit the quick-release." Starlight tapped— very carefully— the harness buckle directly under Spitfire's barrel. "I hate to lose these batteries, but better them than you."
"Won't lose `em," Spitfire said.
"When you abort, or when you succeed completely, you activate suit power," Starlight said. "That'll give you a beacon back to the ship. We'll be running the telepresence system for just that reason. But even with the double battery on the backpack, once you're on suit power your flight time will be measured in seconds. Come straight back as fast as you can. Don't waste effort slowing down or braking."
"According to NASA," Mark added, "wings in general become useless on Mars at any speed much below two hundred meters per second. That is, any wings smaller than a football field."
"Right. Just come at us as level as possible. I'll be waiting to grab you telekinetically."
"Got it."
"How are the connections?" Dragonfly asked.
Spitfire gave thought to the two little wires the changeling had added to her suit, ending in biomonitor pads stolen from the undergarment of Mark's spare suit. The adhesive on the pads tugged at the fur between her wings and made her skin itch abominably underneath. But she'd learned many years before to stay perfectly still no matter how she itched, after her first dose of KP duty at the Academy. "Solid," she said.
"Okay," Cherry Berry said. "Booster pad check?"
Mark checked the improvised flight couch— really just the largest flat bit of scrap metal from the small supply they'd brought in Rover 2, with three small repulsor targets bolted to it. "All solid," he said.
"Booster check?"
Starlight squinted at three bits of quartz, about the size of a paperback book each. "Enchantments look good," she said.
"Okay. Suit up," Cherry Berry said, lifting her helmet. "Fireball, Starlight and I go out first. Then Mark and Spitfire. Let's do it."
A pale blue sphere surrounded the rear of the Whinnybago. Flying dust and grit swirled around it. Inside it, a unicorn, an earth pony and a dragon waited as a human helped a badly overburdened pegasus navigate the boarding ladder that extended from the airlock almost to the ground.
The five went about their tasks in almost total silence, speaking only to confirm tasks completed. Fireball held a mana battery in one claw and Starlight Glimmer in the other, allowing the unicorn to keep her hooves on the battery terminals and focus on maintaining the force field. Mark and Cherry put Spitfire on the improvised launch platform and carried it, slowly and carefully, to the same cairns that had been used to launch Operation Cloudbuster the sol before. Once the launch platform was in place, they wired up the three boosters to the single battery dedicated to the launch. Two more batteries stood ready if and when the battery Starlight was using ran out of power.
Spitfire, in all of this, had nothing to do but lie back, wait, and think about exactly what a horrible idea this had been. She had, on a couple of rare occasions, barely managed an ordinary sonic boom. The only genuine rainbooms she'd ever witnessed had been performed by Rainbow Dash and Princess Twilight Sparkle; she herself had never, never gone that fast in her life. Not even close.
I'm about to fly what would be Mock 2 back home, she thought. Three times the local speed of sound. In a dust storm. And if anything breaks on my suit...
Oh, Faust, oh Faust, I am about to die.
No. Calm. We've taken every possible precaution. Multiple backup systems.
I am wearing a space suit that we took a pair of shears to. We patched it with changeling puke and scrap clothing. Then we strapped over two hundred and fifty pounds of rocks to it, so that I will not only have the aerodynamic properties of a brick, I'll be a bucking FAT brick.
I am SOOOOO gonna die.
Okay. Fine. You're gonna die, Spitfire. But your crew isn't. Keep your mind on the task. Beyond that? What happens, happens.
"How are you doing, Spitfire?" Mark asked over the suit comms.
"All go," she replied, her voice calm and steady as she'd trained to be.
"Okay," Mark said. "We're pulling back for launch. You're about to lose the force field. Are you ready?"
"Yes, Mark."
"Clear skies and fair winds, Spitfire." Where the buck had Cherry Berry picked up that old pegasus farewell? Probably an adventure book somewhere; nopony talked like that anymore.
Unless they thought somepony was about to die.
Oh, yeah.
"Yes, commander, clear skies, that's the plan," she said out loud.
"Counting down," Starlight said. "Thirty. Twenty-nine."
The wall of the force field flowed past and around Spitfire, and she suddenly felt the soft brush of talcum-light Martian dust running across her spacesuit. Right now, she thought, all it would take would be one well-placed bit of gravel, right in my faceplate, and it would all be over.
"Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen."
"Suit comms off at t minus six. Force field at t minus three, Spitfire," Cherry Berry called.
"Copy t minus three," Spitfire replied.
"Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven."
"Back in a few minutes, guys." She'd spent half the previous night thinking of what her last words would be pre-launch. Part of that had been because the phrase had to be in English, but only a small part. Most of it had been because she hadn't been able to think of anything except mush or empty bluster. This was— what was Starlight's word?— banal, but it had a certain class, a clean simplicity.
As a dying mare's last words, she could do worse. She switched off suit power.
"Six. Five. Four."
On three Spitfire's hoof hit the toggle switch, and the two big batteries came to life. A smaller version of the same force field Starlight Glimmer had used popped up around her. At the same time magic poured through her, in a strength she couldn't remember ever having before. She felt like all of Equestria was pouring into her wings.
She'd never touched a magic battery's terminals during operation before. She could see, now, how Starlight might find it addictive, here and now.
And then zero came, and the mighty hoof of Faust slid under her back and shoved her towards the skies.
Centrifuge training, back at Cape Friendship, came back to her instantly, as did the Dizzitron at the Academy. She clenched her abdomen, breathed shallowly, forced the darkness at the edges of her vision to stay there. Somewhere off unimportant, a voice counted upwards, sounding urgent, as if shouting a number made it more real somehow.
Ignore it. Focus on the mission.
The forcefield deformed around her, pushing closer to her as the forces pushing against it intensified. Just beyond it she could see dust being pushed aside, not by the force field, but by the inability of the air immediately in front of her and the launch platform to get out of the way.
Almost time. Be ready.
And then, just as suddenly as Faust's hoof had lifted her up, it was gone. Free-fall.
Instantly Spitfire's newly sleeved wings opened— just a little, for opening them completely at this speed would have been suicidal. She raised a hoof into the sky, slapped away the force field crystal with her other hoof, felt the magic in her wings...
... and pushed.
The forcefield died, and several kilometers above the surface of Mars, nothing remained but a storm and a single pegasus carrying two massive batteries and over seven hundred meters per second of momentum.
Spitfire's first task was to level off while maintaining speed. That took almost half a minute. Even at the absurd speed, with magic flooding her wings, there wasn't that much air for them to get purchase on. Besides, this was a completely unknown environment. No pegasus had ever flown under conditions like this before, anywhere, ever.
But though the sky was alien, it wasn't totally unfamiliar. Spitfire had flown high altitude and high speed enough that these conditions, potentially lethal as they were, had some familiar qualities.
She could work with it.
But the clock was ticking. She had to get to work.
Without realizing it, she'd turned automatically into the wind. Good. Counter-flying the rotation of a storm was the way you broke it... you and a couple dozen other Wonderbolts, or a couple hundred ordinary weatherponies. But since there was only her, she'd have to make up the difference with sheer speed.
Even with the batteries pouring magic through her, she couldn't maintain seven hundred meters per second for long in level flight. She'd have to angle down, let Mars's weak gravity help her.
She found herself panting. Had the suit lost integrity? No— no alarms yet. This was just exhaustion, being out of shape, and that lost lung capacity from the last medical exams.
No time for weakness. Either this works, or the crew dies. Pony up and do the job.
Spitfire's eyes caught a glimmer of light. There, above her, was a blazing streak of orange flame, floating in the sky like...
... like a contrail. Like her contrail, except that instead of smoke, she was trailing fire behind her. A ring of fire. A spiral of fire.
No. A corkscrew of fire. Because Mars, you bucking rock with delusions of grandeur, you just got screwed.
Spitfire grit her teeth, angled a little downward, and flapped her wingtips, pushing for the heart of the storm.
"Oh my God."
Starlight had just switched to the second magic battery, the force field flickering for only a moment, when Mark pointed skywards and said the words. There, miles and miles overhead, a flickering thread of light shone through the dark haze of the dust storm.
"She's doing it!" Cherry Berry cheered. "Go for it, Spitfire! You can do it!"
Unnoticed by the observers on the ground, the launch platform crashed to the ground behind them, sending up a thin spattering of chipped rocks from the impact.
The air grew thicker, and so did the dust. Despite that, Spitfire knew she was slowing down, losing momentum, losing power.
She couldn't help it. For all the power in her wings, she couldn't really feel the air around her through the sticky, horrid wing sleeves. She wondered how well an earth pony farmer would do with all four hooves in galoshes, trying to work the fields.
But she could feel a little, secondhand. Her instincts told her where the currents of the weather were going, how they could be distrupted, how she could bust them. She plowed through them, always turning her leading hoof into the greatest point of resistance, each descending loop growing tighter around the center of the storm's circulation.
And above, unseen by her, gaps in the storm appeared, spreading out from her contrail, which persisted in its glow as if the Martian air itself was burning.
And then she felt a tug on her wingtip, an imbalance in the huge, bulky batteries, each bigger than her head, strapped to her sides.
There. That's the core of the storm.
Her suit alarms went off— suit breach. The life support cut out, then cut back in. In, out, in, out, in... and stopped. Breach self-sealed, for the moment. Good.
She felt another eddy, a downdraft in her wake. Yes. It's weakened. It's breaking.
Time to finish it.
She rolled to the right, nosed down, and dove down through the heart of the storm.
The trail of fire followed her down.
The castaways stared up as the corkscrew of light grew tighter, and tighter, and then...
... stabbed.
The light plunged down through the storm, descending faster and faster. As it plunged, it expanded, sending rings of condensed dust pluming outwards from the center of rotation to descend in a slow shower on the ground below.
Patches of ordinary Mars-red sky began to appear through the breaks in the storm overhead. Even as they watched, the red patches became red-ringed patches of pink, and then pink-ringed patches of the same amazing blue they'd experienced for weeks after the first booster test.
And then the plume of fire pulled out of its dive with a terrifying slowness, swinging away from the perpendicular, approaching the ground closer and closer...
... but not quite touching it. Less than a hundred meters overhead, it soared over their position and began to climb again, rising over the now clearly visible rim of Crommelin to the south.
And behind it, mixed with the dust rapidly settling out of the rare Martian atmosphere, fell snowflakes.
The alarms didn't stop now. Fortunately, the life support wasn't cutting in and out anymore, either. The tiny part of her mind Spitfire could spare for irrelevancies decided that Twilight Sparkle must be leaning on the override switch constantly. Good for her.
In a way, the suit breach felt like it helped. Spitfire thought she felt a slight improvement in the lift and thrust from her wings. Without that, she didn't think she could have pulled out of the dive, not with the stupid batteries harnessed to her. The fact that she was gasping for air, her mouth wide open, her lungs laboring, all that was a minor issue.
Whatever. Finish the job. Hold on to all the momentum you can. Keep pushing. Bank around and come in for another strike-
The overwhelming power that had flowed through her wings CEASED.
The laws of physics, which had railed against the flagrant violations the spacesuited pegasus had committed, pounced. Air resistance grabbed at the empty ship batteries, slowing Spitfire below the local speed of sound almost instantly.
She reached for the release buckle... and yanked her hoof away, instead hitting the switch for suit power. She didn't know where she was in relation to the ship, and she was not going to risk dropping two heavy rocks from the sky onto her friends' heads.
The suit power came up, providing a water fountain where the big batteries had been a firehose. But it was enough, for the moment, to regain control.
With the suit power came the comms and the nav-ball. She didn't have the breath to spare for talking, but she could see the nav-ball and the beacon for the ship.
The same part of her mind that had imagined an alicorn princess propping up a wall with one hoof to keep a certain switch closed now noted, with an almost insane clinical detachment, that she'd just missed a perfect bombing shot if she'd wanted to utterly destroy the rover with a hundred kilos of crystal and metal. Even as she thought it, she passed over the rover at a kilometer high and dropping faster and faster.
Two other things ran through Spitfire's head: Wings become useless when you drop much below two hundred meters per second on Mars, and Once you activate suit power, your flight time can be measured in seconds.
Without really thinking about it, Spitfire spread her wings as wide as they could go, pounding them frantically, in the process pumping air through the breach in her left wing sleeve. Snow condensed out of the leak as soon as it left the hole, trailing a cloud of white behind her where there had been a streak of fire. She banked left and down, using the little power remaining to regain enough speed for her wings to catch enough of the thinning air to make the turn back to the ship.
The red world beneath her turned... turned... so slowly...
It grew closer... fast... faster... faster...
She saw the rover again. More to the point, she saw the cairns where her friends were waiting.
More alarms were going off. The suit breach had gone beyond the life support system's ability to compensate. Gasping for air wasn't helping anymore. Panic began rising in her chest, for lack of anything else there to rise.
And then she remembered the second force field.
Flight time measured in seconds. No power to spare.
Buck that!
Spitfire fumbled frantically at her chest with her forehooves, found the loose cable, and jammed it into the plug carved into the little crystal slice.
A pointy bubble appeared around her, streamlined back by the rush of air, thin as it was, around her. She could see herself slowing down in relation to the surface, dragged back by the field's resistance.
And she could feel air, precious, life-giving air, returning to her lungs as the life support filled up the bubble with air. It felt...
... really, really painful. The inside of her chest felt like she'd inhaled sandpaper.
She felt her wings lose way in the air; she'd slowed down below the speed required to gain lift. All she had left was momentum, and that was a rapidly diminishing resource.
Oh, look. There's the ground. Hello, ground. Be kind to me when I'm buried in-
She felt something grab her, and in a yank she hadn't felt since the crash landing all those sols before, she came to a rapid stop some thirty meters above the surface. Then, slowly, she was lowered to the ground, while a large blue bubble of light charged towards her position.
Spitfire let herself flop forward onto her barrel when she touched down. She didn't have the strength to stand. She couldn't get the air to stand. She felt herself begin to shake. Everything was cold, horribly cold, despite the warm air blowing from the vents in her suit.
The force field flickered and burst as it merged with the larger one. Figures stood over her. They had voices— the voices had been in her ears for some time now, but they hadn't seemed really important, no matter how urgent they sounded.
"The left wing is ripped wide open!"
"There's a pinhole leak in the right wing, too!"
"Spitfire, you idiot! Why the buck do you still have those batteries strapped on!"
"Don't just stand there, get them off her!"
"Hey." Was that her voice? She'd always had a rasp to it, but wow. "Told you I'd bring the batteries back."
"I can't hold this field much longer! Get the crap off her and get her to the airlock, now!!"
Airlock. Ship. What a good idea.
Spitfire wanted to help, but she hurt, and she was so very...
... very, very...
... tired.
Moving as fast as they could without jarring their burden, the crew carried the unconscious pegasus back to the Whinnybago.
Around them, the shattered, dusty fragments of sky fell.
Author's Notes:
Well, this turned out to be longer than I expected.
But now you see why I didn't want to try to write this during a convention.
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Sol 484
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MISSION LOG — SOL 484
The skies are clear and dark blue, and the north rim of Crommelin is so clear on the horizon it almost looks like we could walk to it in half an hour. We're no longer trapped under a thick curtain of airborne dirt.
So why, you might ask, are we still sitting here like a bump on a log? Well, I'll tell you.
First and foremost, after yesterday's miracle (there's no other word for it), Spitfire is still in a bad way. We had to cut those wing sleeves off of her, because the uncured changeling gunk had pretty much sealed to her wings. When the sleeves finally came off, they took a lot of pony feathers with them. She woke up during the process, and we had to give her a triple dose of the pony painkillers to get her back to sleep.
Fortunately, the pony medical kit actually has medicine— I suppose "potion" is a better word— to accelerate regrowth of pegasus feathers. It's just like the medicine Spitfire kept jamming down Starlight's throat when her right foreleg was broken. It doesn't work as well as it does back on their homeworld, though, which is why they administer it only when they're running the magic field... which has been cut down to three minutes a day. More about that in a bit.
But the bigger worry is decompression sickness. When Spitfire wakes up, she complains that her lungs feel like raw meat. Been there, done that. But lung tissue is incredibly resilient. Also, there's another medicine bottle specifically to treat smoke inhalation, and the ponies on the other end of their water telegraph gave the go-ahead to use that on Spitfire, too. It'll be a long healing process, but we like her odds there... or would, if it wasn't for the headaches.
Whenever Spitfire wakes up, she complains of terrible headaches and joint pain. She also sees stars, the way you might if you get hit in the head really hard. I suspect our little hero had a very close brush with the bends. I didn't get that, because my exposures to low air pressure were brief— first when the antenna impaled me on Sol 6, second when my suit caught fire in the perchlorate bomb on Sol 40.
(God, that was over a year ago. So hard to believe... seems like only yesterday I was driving across Mars in a pain-filled stupor, egged on by a hallucination that turned out not to be a hallucination at all... fuck, I better stop this. I'm getting nostalgic for the times I was almost killed by Mars, and I'm not off this motherfucking planet yet!)
Anyway, the proper treatment for the bends is a hyperbaric chamber with an almost pure oxygen atmosphere. The bends are caused by gaseous nitrogen in the bloodstream. Normally nitrogen, like oxygen, remains dissolved in the blood. But when you undergo a sudden drop in pressure, it can come out of solution, becoming bubbles that operate just as efficiently as blood clots for cutting off circulation. Left untreated, the bends can kill just like a stroke— exactly like a stroke, in fact— or cause permanent injury.
Unfortunately we don't have a hyperbaric chamber. Once Spitfire told us the symptoms, we stuffed her into Starlight Glimmer's suit and asked the pony homeworld to overpressurize the suit with as high a concentration of oxygen, and zero nitrogen, as they could manage. We take off her helmet for meals, then stuff a rolled-up shirt into it for a pillow, put it back on, and let her drift off.
Fortunately, Spitfire seems to be escaping the paralysis and nausea that my training taught me come with the bends. (Ares astronauts get training on this because we have to be prepared for triage and recovery in case of a Hab breach.) We'll have to watch her, but the worst should be over in a week. After that, Spits gets to begin recovery, and we find out what, if anything, she's lost permanently.
That's the main reason we haven't moved an inch— taking care of Spitfire. But there are other reasons.
We didn't know what damage the storm did to the exterior of the Whinnybago. We did know, however, that when Spitfire killed the storm, all the dust it was carrying fell almost straight down. So this morning Fireball, Starlight Glimmer (borrowing Dragonfly's spacesuit) and I spent the entire morning cleaning off the rover, dusting off the solar panels, and inspecting everything for signs of damage. We took special care with a bottle of compressed air to clean out all ten rover wheels. The last thing we want is for accumulated grit to lock up a wheel and make us drag it across the Martian plains.
In the process, we found four of the solar panel amplifier sheets had been broken in the storm. That required Starlight to levitate Fireball and myself up to remove the bad sheets, bring down the most intact parts of what was left, and then reverse the process once she'd used more of the spare quartz to fix them. Between that and the boosters and things, we've used up over half of that half-ton chunk of crystal we brought from the cave farm.
Meanwhile, Dragonfly spent today undoing the modifications on Spitfire's suit. That required cutting out the wing sleeves, stitching the flaps back in place, stealing about two square feet of the spare Hab canvas, and a lot more puking up black sticky stuff. She's lying down next to Spitfire now. When I asked if she was all right, she flipped me the "high hoof" and rolled over. Not a happy camper, is our little love bug.
And finally, reports. Oh, GOD, the reports. The ponies took turns flooding the toilet with water describing the last couple of days. They had it easy. I had to make my report by vox, and NASA kept relaying more questions to Hermes for me to answer. By the time today's broadcast window finally closed, I was feeling a little... like I'd swallowed broken glass. (See, I can too resist the urge for a cheap joke!)
But one day is all we can spare. Hermes is getting closer. The lightspeed lag is only five minutes now. In sixty-two sols, ready or not, it's going to fly by. And we're still over sixteen hundred kilometers from the MAV. We've got to get moving.
(Besides, NASA is still shouting at me to send them the video Fireball captured of Spitfire's flight, and we need the MAV's radios to do it. So we better do that before the last scientist at JSC has a brain aneurysm and dies.)
The electric batteries are full again. Eleven of our magic batteries are empty, and most of that is power we're not getting back, but they'll regenerate a little each day. We're as ready to roll as we're going to get.
Tomorrow we turn east... and, in the words of BJ McKay, lay the hammer down.
Author's Notes:
Not a lot of energy today, so this is all I had. Staying up late last night to finish the chapter had its drawbacks.
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Sol 485
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"Well, Bruce," Venkat said, looking across the desk at the chief of JPL, "what have you brought to show me? The final MAV modification procedures, I hope?"
"I figured now was a good time," Bruce said. "We finalized them six days ago, but the storm thing came up. By the way," he added, "I was somewhere over New Mexico during the comms window with Hermes. What's the report?"
"Seventy-five kilometers today," Venkat said, smiling. "Spitfire is resting, eating well, and recovering, though she reports still having headaches. Even better, they're entering Meridiani Planitia; mostly flat, level, empty land. Between the clear skies and smooth terrain, they should make excellent progress over the next ten sols or so."
"That's good to hear," Bruce said. "I've been looking at the satellite photos taken near the time of the event. It's a shame that Hermes was at the wrong angle to see the flight. I doubt its video cameras could have picked up any details, but it would have been nice to try."
"Believe me, the photos we have are still plenty," Venkat said. "Not that the people demanding more would agree. We're lucky we had satellites in place to monitor the Whinnybago's usual drive time, and that they launched Spitfire during that window. But some of the people asking for more pictures act like NASA has a secret time machine that would let us go back and take more photos." He shook his head. "The ones with doctorates, at least, ought to know better."
"Well, when we work out the bugs, we'll let you know," Bruce said, smiling. His smile dropped as he pulled a bundle of printouts from his briefcase. "We've spent over half a year working on this," he said. "These procedures remove the most weight possible from the MAV without fatally compromising life support or the capacity for a Sparkle Drive direct abort to Earth."
"Should I be concerned?" Venkat asked.
"You will be, regardless," Bruce said. "Remember, the MAV at launch, minus its descent stage, weighs 12,600 kilograms plus the weight of its fuel and oxidizer. We sat down and did the math and figured out that, without the pony booster system, we'd have to find a way to add extra fuel and, at the same time, reduce the tare weight of the ship to 7,300 kilograms in order to achieve intercept velocity with Hermes."
Venkat blinked. "Forgive my imprecise math," he said, "but that's almost cutting the ship in half, Bruce. How on Earth did you expect to manage that?"
"By removing the parts of the pressure vessel Mark could access directly, using Hab canvas to seal the holes, and having the crew ride up in their space suits," Bruce said.
"You've got to be kidding me," Venkat said. "That's the most outrageous proposal I've ever heard."
"It would have been an act of desperation, yes," Bruce admitted. "Thankfully, we don't have to go there. But I want you to bear that in mind as we go down the list of everything we have to do to shed two and a half tons from a ship we already intended to be as light as possible. Just keep in mind it could be worse."
"Go on," Venkat said.
"First, bear in mind we'll be adding some weight to the ship," Bruce said. "The Sparkle Drive made by Starlight Glimmer on Mars will use up the entire five hundred kilogram weight allotment for surface samples. We're also allowing the crew fifty kilograms for personal effects. The MAV would normally carry only one day's rations for the crew, with rationing in case of the low orbit abort scenario. We're packing seven days of short rations in this time. And we're adding the surviving ship thrusters from Friendship. We considered just using them to replace the existing thrusters outright— they're lighter and they regenerate if there isn't too much shielding between them and the crew. But the headaches of adapting the existing controls to the new system were too much. They'll be backup in case the Direct Earth Abort scenario becomes necessary."
"How do you propose to use them, then?" Venkat asked.
"We'll use the control systems for the secondary and tertiary thrusters," Bruce said. "They're redundant for good reason, but they're still redundant. They go. Speaking of redundancies, we'll be dumping the backup comm systems. Life support, too, except for emergency tanks for Mark's suit. The pony suit life support systems will take up the slack except for heat, and that's not an issue, because we're sending up both the Ares III and Ares IV MAV's RTGs to extend the life of the MAV batteries. Which we're going to dump three of, plus the entire auxiliary power system. Also the copilot station and controls, plus every control panel that isn't absolutely required for on-board control."
"That's an interesting qualification," Venkat said. "Not that I'm suggesting this in any way, but why not throw out all the controls and have the computer fly the ship? Or Martinez, using the MAV satellite launch protocol?"
"Because we need a live pilot if the Direct Earth Abort becomes necessary," Bruce said. "We can't program a computer for any immediate responses required if and when the MAV makes it to Earth local space. There are just too many unknowns. That means there has to be one set of pilot controls on board. And if they're going to be there, it makes more sense to use them than to risk a computer glitch or a loss of signal on the ride up."
"Only if the pilot's qualified," Venkat pointed out. "Assuming Cherry Berry is going to be the pilot, we need to get her simulation time every sol from their arrival at the MAV until launch day. And only if she qualifies— and qualifies at least comparably to Martinez— do we give her the power to manually override the computer."
"No problem," Bruce agreed. "But anyway. Comms, life support, power system, controls... okay, yeah. No medical kit. No tools. All the suit interface gear except for Mark's, gone. We'll be swapping out the human flight couches for the couches the ponies rebuilt using parts from the MDV, again except for Mark's.
"And, finally, the two big issues. The auxiliary fuel pump, and one of the Stage One engines. Both are redundant, and both are heavy as hell."
Venkat had to stiffen his jaw to keep it from dropping. "You want to remove an engine," he said, keeping his voice level.
"Yeah," Bruce said. "We get more delta-V out of the ship without it. It's only there as a redundancy in case of breakdowns."
"Bruce," Venkat said carefully, "is there a single backup system on the MAV you aren't gutting?"
"A couple," Bruce said. "But only a couple. Every kilogram we save means a little fuel we can save in the second ascent stage for maneuvering or, if necessary, for Earth orbital insertion. And dumping this weight gives us a margin if some of the pony booster pylons fail. As it is, we predict that if the pylons all work properly, the MAV can achieve orbit on the first stage alone, with this payload."
"No backups, Bruce," Venkat insisted. "What's the estimated odds of failure with this setup?"
Bruce shook his head. "Impossible to say," he said. "The repulsor launch system and the Sparkle Drive are too unfamiliar for us to judge. And if they both fail, Mark and his friends are stuck in Mars orbit if they're lucky."
"Jesus Christ," Venkat moaned.
"Yeah," Bruce said. "Just keep reminding yourself, it could have been worse."
Author's Notes:
Bleargh. Spent all day with a mild headache. Meant to cook today, but didn't have the energy. And the stress test and ultrasound are tomorrow, which means I have to get up at 6 AM for the almost two hour drive to where it's being done.
Fun, fun, fun.
All the named stuff coming off the ship, by the way, is listed— and then some— in the original novel. Don't ask me why a two-stage rocket plus capsule has -one— auxiliary fuel pump...
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Sol 489
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 498
ARES III SOL 489
Dragonfly watched as Sojourner navigated the walkways between Amicitas's flight couches. The little rover crept along at a snail-like pace, navigating based on orders given by her laptop and relayed via wireless network to Rover 2's computer and out through its radio to Sojourner's receiver. Every two minutes it paused, slowly rose up to take stereograms with its forward cameras, then rocked forward to do the same with the aft-mounted color camera.
"C'mon, bug, put Robo-Bug away." Spitfire, still wearing Starlight Glimmer's space suit, walked out of the habitat deck. The helmet made her voice sound very muffled to Dragonfly without the suit comms to transmit it. "And help me off with this thing. I gotta hit the head."
"Good morning, Spitfire," Dragonfly said. "How are you feeling today?"
"I'm going stir crazy," the pegasus said. "I want out of this suit full time. I want to stretch and start doing exercises again. I've got a lot of work to get back in flying trim."
"Uh huh. Now try that with symptoms added."
"Ugh." Spitfire turned her head away, as much as the suit helmet would let her. "All right. I still have a headache, there's still pins stuck in my fetlocks, my new feathers itch horribly, and I can't put three words of English together. But it's all better than yesterday."
"It must be," Dragonfly agreed. "After all, you couldn't put three words of English together before."
"Fuck you."
"Two, however, you manage just fine."
"Look, if this was your suit I wouldn't mind, but I don't want to fill Starlight's suit full of roadapples when I don't have an undergarment anymore. Y'wanna help me out of this?"
"Sure, Spitfire," Dragonfly said, rearing up to grip the helmet between her forehooves. "But once you're done in the head, you go back in the suit and lie right back down. You've got two days of treatment to go, and treatment is high pressure, oxygen, and lying down. No exercise."
"But I'm feeling better-"
"How does it feel to swap places with Starlight Glimmer, by the way?" Dragonfly asked pointedly.
When the helmet came off, Spitfire's ears slumped in shame. "Yeah, all right," she said. "You made your point. I'll be good."
"That's our hero."
"And don't you forget it," Spitfire muttered, wiggling out as Dragonfly helped unseal the rest of the suit. "I may be flying a desk after this, but at least I have one record Rainbow Dash is never going to beat."
Dragonfly looked at Spitfire's wings. They were in tatters. Another couple of primaries had come out overnight. The Feather-Fix potion had begun growing replacements for all the feathers they'd had to chop up to get the gunk-lined suit wings off her, but it came a lot more slowly than it would have done at home. The new feathers were barely barbs. A lot hadn't even broken the skin yet.
Spitfire noticed Dragonfly examining her wings. She looked the changeling straight in the eyes and said, "Worth it." Stepping free from her suit, she walked to the head, wobbling only a little as the deck underneath them rocked gently. The morning was young, and the Whinnybago was rolling along at top speed through an uncommonly smooth stretch of Martian terrain.
Dragonfly returned her attention to Sojourner. The little probe would have to scoot back to its corner in a while; it didn't get a lot of sunlight through the cockpit windows to recharge its batteries. But learning the commands to make the little rover go gave her something to take her mind off of other things, like the hunger she imagined she could feel building up after days of almost no magic.
It had to be imaginary. A daily two minutes had to beat out twenty minutes every seventeen days. But... well, she felt weaker, she felt hungrier, and she couldn't stop feeling that way.
She hadn't mentioned it to the others, though she knew they would want her to. It just didn't seem to be helpful. There were very good reasons why magic time had been cut back so drastically.
The batteries recharged at 1.4 percent each per sol— they'd triple-checked the rate— for a total mana recharge of 29.4% of a single battery's capacity. 7.5% of that went to top off the jumbo batteries to compensate for their slow bleed. Two minutes of magic field, the new daily ration, ate up another 5.6%. That left just over 16% per day to recharge the eleven batteries they'd used defeating the Great Black Spot, as NASA was calling it.
At noon of Sol 483, they'd had ten full batteries and eleven empty ones. By tonight, assuming no emergencies, they'd have eleven full batteries and ten empty ones, or the equivalent. According to Mark's travel estimate, they might be able to recharge four more batteries before they reached Schiaparelli. After that work on modifying the MAV would eat more power— who knew how much. And at the end of the process— with recharging the jumbos, with MAV mods, with daily magic doses, with emergencies if more cropped up— they had to have at least seven full batteries, minimum, for installation with the Sparkle Drive.
Bottom line: recharging the batteries against future emergencies took absolute top priority— even if it meant pushing the edge of magic starvation again.
The Great Black Spot had totally bucked Spitfire— but to be fair, she'd got the last kick in. But it was still bucking Dragonfly over, too, and it wasn't around for the changeling to get her own kicks in. And it didn't help that she had entirely too much time to work all of that out, especially with Starlight borrowing her suit and taking her place scouting alongside Cherry Berry.
Spitfire eventually came out of the head. "Okay," she said. "Help me back into the flour sack."
"Rarity would have a fit if she heard you call it that," Dragonfly chided.
"Would she?" Spitfire asked. "Oh dear. Did this suddenly become Ponyville instead of Mars while I was on the can? Sure fooled me!"
"You're getting better," Dragonfly muttered as she helped Spitfire shrug the borrowed suit back on. "It takes energy to be sarcastic. What do you want for breakfast?" Mark had dug out a few of the precious non-meat food packs, formerly reserved for use if they had to take the MAV straight to Earth, to give Spitfire more incentive to eat full meals.
It hadn't worked as well as Mark might have liked. "What's the entrйe?" Spitfire asked, not bothering to fake optimism.
"Cowboy beans and rice," Dragonfly said.
"Bring on the hay," Spitfire said, allowing Dragonfly to walk her back to the mattress-covered floor of the habitat deck.
Watching Spitfire eat breakfast (and getting a snuggle-snack for her trouble) occupied twenty minutes of her attention, but that was over once the helmet was back on the suit, the life support turned back on, and a computer left beside her so the pegasus could read one of the mystery novels Fireball had recommended from the NASA stash. To make things worse, Sojourner had completed its pre-programmed little dance, so Dragonfly didn't even have watching that to occupy her mind.
Well, the Whinnybago was still rolling, so there was at least the entertainment of watching the gently rolling terrain of Meridiani Planitia slowly passing by and behind the rear-facing cockpit windows. She dragged Sojourner back to its usual resting place, then trotted forward to the co-pilot seat.
The flight couch was occupied, however, by a potted plant.
"Hey, Fireball?" Dragonfly asked.
Fireball reached over to switch off his outgoing suit mike, then said, "Done playing with the mini-rover?"
"Why do you have Cherry's shrub in a flight couch?" Dragonfly asked.
"I've been helping take care of Groot," Fireball said. "I think he likes looking out the windows. Of course, we're at the wrong angle here for him to get much sun, but I think he likes the view."
Dragonfly had her mouth open to say something like It has no eyes, it can't see the view, or How do you know what a plant does or doesn't like, or, most probably, It's a bucking TREE, before her brain caught up and turned all of it to a meaningless, "Errr..." After all, how many times had she talked about her delusions of sensing what this or that thing felt about anything? Where did she have room to scoff at what saner people thought an inanimate object felt or thought?
Come to think of it...
She could feel Sojourner's smug feeling from its corner, as if it were saying, I did work today! She could sense the Whinnybago's confidence: I am rolling, and I will continue to roll, because I was reborn to roll. But she'd never bothered to try tuning her insanity to Radio Free Twig before. Why not?
She turned all her attention to the leaf-covered branch stuck in mildly damp soil.
Must get bigger. Must get stronger. Must get big and strong real soon.
"I don't think it notices the terrain," Dragonfly said carefully. "It's really focused on growing as fast as it can."
"Really?" The dragon actually smiled at that. "That's good. Good Groot."
Dragonfly sensed a sudden spike of... delight? "It knows we're paying attention to it," she added. "It likes attention a lot."
"Who doesn't?" Fireball asked.
"You mean, besides dragons?"
"Dragons love attention," Fireball said. "We just don't like visitors."
"Pardon me for asking," Dragonfly said, "but why are you fooling with Cherry's plant anyway? If she finds out she's going to have your hide."
"I asked first," Fireball said, a little primly. "Ever since the cave farm, I've been wondering how it feels to take care of something of my own." He reached over to the copilot seat and turned the sample-box planter a quarter turn. "Feels kinda nice so far."
Dragonfly could just barely hear Cherry Berry's voice through Fireball's headset as she broke in, speaking in English. "Small crater ahead. About a kilometer wide. Rubble field for two hundred meters around the rim. Scattered rocks a lot wider."
"Roger. Any problem with taking it on the south side?" Mark asked from the rover's driver cabin.
"Negative. No sign of any serious obstacle on either side," Cherry said.
"Okay. Fireball, prepare for plus ten."
Fireball switched his mike back on. "Copy plus ten," he replied, also in English.
"On my count... five, four, three, two, one, turn!"
Fireball turned the flight yoke on the word turn.
"Hold... hold... and zero!"
Fireball re-centered the flight yoke, and with barely a wobble the Whinnybago rolled on.
"Battery check?" Cherry called.
"Twenty-one percent," Mark answered. "About half an hour to go."
"Roger. Looking forward to lunch. And some hot cherry tea."
"Me too. Fireball, get Dragonfly on the headset, will ya?"
"Roger." Fireball took his claws off the flight yoke long enough to remove his headset. "It's for you," he said, handing it down to Dragonfly.
Dragonfly squeezed between the pilot and copilot seats, carefully placing her forehooves away from any important active controls. "Dragonfly here, Mark. What's up?"
"How did the Sojourner test go?"
"By the numbers," Dragonfly said. "Should be a lot of new pictures in the rover's data storage."
"You might want to have it wave out the port side windows," Mark said. "We're passing by Opportunity right now."
"Opportunity? What's that? Where is it?"
"We can't see it. It's over three hundred kilometers south-southwest of us. This is as close as we get. But Opportunity was one of the two rovers that came immediately after Sojourner. A bigger younger sister, if you like. It was expected to last one hundred sols. It survived for years and years."
"I don't suppose we could stop by and visit?" Dragonfly asked.
"Over three hundred kilometers south? Nope, sorry. We need to keep moving. Besides, Opportunity is a lot bigger than Sojourner. It wouldn't fit in the airlock."
"I wasn't thinking of taking it with us," Dragonfly protested.
"I know. But the Opportunity mission is detailed in the Project Ares database. Go read about it if you're bored. It was one of the most successful space probes of all time. I think only the Voyagers beat it out."
"Oh? Where are they?"
"They left the solar system decades ago. They were deep space probes, sent to fly by our outer planets. Have you tried anything like that yet where you come from?"
"No. We were going to just use the Sparkle Drive to go there direct."
"Well, you've got some wonderful things to look forward to, then," Mark said. "Anyway, put Fireball back on. I think I see that crater Cherry found, and we may need to make some turns in a minute."
"Okay." Dragonfly hoofed the headset back up to Fireball, then left the dragon and the plant to their driving.
Reading about Opportunity and its sister Spirit consumed the remaining driving time for the day. Thirty minutes of distraction.
Only about twelve more waking hours to go...
Author's Notes:
With the immediate danger past and nothing but open road (or lack thereof) ahead, here's a chapter more or less about nothing.
Writing this on the laptop. My desktop HD is all but dead— hesitating and locking up a LOT. I managed to back everything on it up overnight— at least I think I did— but Monday I have to hand the compy over to a tech to clone the drive and check the computer's drive controller to make sure it isn't an issue.
Fun times...
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Sol 492
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 501
ARES III SOL 492
Cherry Berry took the sample box full of water and began washing off her space suit, beginning by splashing her forehooves in the plastic bin.
The Hab had had an advanced air filtration system that scrubbed dust particles out of the air and a full decontamination shower. Amicitas had had neither, and there wasn't space or weight allowance for them in the Whinnybago. After a couple sols of driving, Mark had noticed the buildup of dust in the trailer and had insisted, using graphic and detailed accounts of the potential inhalation hazards of perchlorates and regolith, on efforts to get the dust out of the trailer again.
The solution relied heavily on one of the few resources the ship had an endless supply of: cold water. Suits would get as much of their surface as possible washed off, leaving aside only those spots which might be hurt by getting wet. This would be done in the airlock, so that when the last suit was cleaned, someone with a dry suit could suit up, open the outer airlock doors, and quickly sluice out the airlock floor before the water froze or evaporated.
It was Cherry's turn to do it this sol, and she was already worn out. The Martian sky had already returned to its normal pink tones, and there had been a large, rocky ridge to overcome. (Mark said it was an ancient riverbed, which seemed crazy to Cherry; since when did riverbeds bulge up from the surface? Mark had said something about concretion, but Cherry wasn't interested unless the concrete was a royal highway leading straight to the MAV.) Cherry wanted lunch, followed by several hours of immobility.
So when she saw, through the open inner airlock doors, Spitfire suited up in her own spacesuit and doing stretching exercises, Cherry Berry's nerves grew just a little bit more frayed. "Spitfire," she said quietly, "what are you doing?"
"I'm going out for a trot as soon as you're done," Spitfire said. "Don't worry, I'll wash out the airlock when I get back."
"The heck you are," Cherry Berry said.
"Cherry? Spitfire?" Mark, his freshly heated food pack in his hands, leaned over the second row of flight couches. "Something wrong?"
"We're fine, Mark," Cherry said in English, forcing a smile.
"Yes. Fine. All good," Spitfire added.
Mark didn't look like he believed it, but he shrugged and sat down in one of the seats to eat his meal.
Cherry ground her teeth. She'd have to keep her voice soft and sweet, considering how much Equestrian Mark understood. "Spitfire, go put that suit away and eat your lunch," she murmured.
"What's the problem?" Spitfire asked. "I completed the week of rest. My head only hurts a little, and my joints don't hurt at all anymore. I'm better. And I need to get some exercise so I can build my strength back up." She tossed her head, adding, "And don't talk to me about relapses. I'm the mission medic. And so long as I don't go flying or rip my suit, I'm safe to begin moderate exercise."
Cherry's teeth grit a little harder. "I'm not worried about you having a relapse," she lied. "But your suit is compromised all to Tartarus. Dragonfly fixed it up so you'll have it for brief EVAs, but the more you take it outside, the weaker the patches will get."
"It'll hold up for half an hour of trotting!" Spitfire insisted, not bothering to keep her voice low. "If it won't, then Dragonfly needs to do the job over!"
"Is somebody calling my name?" The changeling herself strolled out of the habitat deck, trotting up to where Mark sat eating his lunch. "What's all the noise?" she asked him in English.
"Well," Mark said, "Spitfire wants to go outside for a run. Cherry Berry doesn't want her to because she's afraid Spitfire's suit might blow out at the patches. And neither of them wants to make a scene about it in front of me. At least not Cherry."
Cherry Berry blushed. So much for keeping voices low. And apparently Mark understood even more Equestrian than she'd thought.
"Come on, commander," Spitfire moaned. "I've been stuck in here for over a week. I need to get out of here for a little while or else I'm gonna buck some heads."
"You can put up with it a while longer," Cherry said. "Look at Dragonfly. She's been in here just as long as you have. And she's holding up just fine."
"Are you kidding?" Spitfire asked. "Dragonfly spent two months in a cocoon. I'm pretty sure she doesn't get claustrophobia."
"Excuse me," Dragonfly said, a little miffed. "I was asleep for those two months, thank you. I get cabin fever about as much as the next bug."
"Anyway, it's just half an hour."
"Sure it is," Cherry said. "And what happens if the patches fail when you're out there? You could asphyxiate in seconds if it's a bad leak."
"So don't let her go out alone," Dragonfly suggested. "Send someone with her carrying one of Mark's emergency patch kits. They'll work just as well on our suits as on his."
"See?" Spitfire said, grinning. "No excuse left! C'mon, bug, let's go for a run!"
"Yeah, no," Dragonfly said. "You've heard of the law of conservation of energy? Well, I'm conserving mine, and that's the law."
Cherry Berry cleared her throat. "Fireball?" She called out. "Could you come here a moment?"
"Huh?" Spitfire's face scrunched up inside her helmet. "What do you want Fireball for?"
Fireball walked onto the bridge still crunching on a sliver of quartz. "Yeah?" he asked.
"Please suit up," Cherry said. "Spitfire needs a backup for her EVA. She wants to get out of the ship for a while."
"Don't we all," Fireball muttered.
"No, not really," Dragonfly corrected, radiating innocence.
Spitfire looked at Fireball, then at Cherry, pleading in her eyes. "Commander, please, not Fireball," she begged. "He's even slower than Mark is. If I have to stay close to him, I won't even get beyond a walk! Can't you send somepony else?"
"His suit is intact— well, more than anyone else's— and more to the point, it's dry," Cherry pointed out. "The only other dry suit right now is Starlight Glimmer's, because she's been using Dragonfly's for scouting duty."
"But Cherry..." The former Wonderbolts commander, for all her experience and maturity, had trouble keeping the whine out of her voice.
"Have a nice bit of exercise," Cherry said, using a bit of Ares III discarded clothing to wipe down her hooves. "And don't forget to wash out the airlock once you're done."
Author's Notes:
I have a headache, and my right arm (which has had rotator cuff and tendonitis issues since February) is more sore than usual today. So this is all I could come up with.
Incidentally, ridges made of ancient dried river beds are very much a real thing on Mars. Arabia Terra is full of them. They're formed because sediment from the ancient river beds, being mostly grains of basaltic material, made an excellent cement to hold together larger bits of other rocks, forming a kind of concrete. Over billions of years, this natural concrete eroded more slowly than the surrounding material, so what had once been the lowest point in the local terrain eventually became the highest point.
And incidentally, they've had to shut down the life support multiple times to stick a tool down the air lines and wipe dust and other crud off the crystal that didn't get transported along with the air.
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Sol 494
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MISSION LOG — SOL 494
Three years ago, if you'd told me that one day I would find Mars boring, I'd have said you were crazy. Wait a minute, that's not exactly true. I'd have told you to go fuck yourself, because I'd just been selected as prime crew for Ares III and was totally into every aspect of the hardcore training we had to do before we shipped out. But you get the idea.
Anyway, whaddaya know? I'm on Mars, and I'm bored.
Aside from the little bit of mildly life-threatening weather we had, we've been in a rut, so to speak. Every sol we drive seventy-odd kilometers across terrain that, truth be told, tends to look a lot alike. (Seventy-four km each of the last three days; we've used over 200 kg of food and over 200 kg of our emergency quartz supply, and the lighter load is showing in our power efficiency.)
After every sol of driving, I set out the rover solar panels so the batteries can recharge, then go in to exchange a quick message with Hermes— we're only about four light-minutes apart now, and the signal is getting pretty clear. After that lunch, reading time (everyone has their own book they're reading silently, but for some reason we still like reading aloud from one book together, even if it is Agatha Christie). Every three afternoons we have a D&D session; Starlight comes up with basic scenarios, and I fill in the actual challenges and run the game. It's more fun for everyone that way, since Starlight tends to get a little TPK when players piss her off.
On sols that we don't do D&D, we watch television, or we work on the various reports we owe NASA and the pony space programs once we get to the MAV. We don't stay up too long after dark, because we have to wake up well before dawn to have breakfast, suit up, pick up the solar panels, and then start driving again just as the pre-dawn light begins filling the sky. Besides, when the sun sets it gets damn cold in the bridge.
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".
