//------------------------------// // Sol 105 // Story: The Maretian // by Kris Overstreet //------------------------------// Cathy Warner walked out onto the soundstage through a group of life-sized cutouts: five colorful, large-eyed aliens surrounding a single shabby-looking human figure. “Welcome to the Watney and Company Report. Today is the one hundredth Martian day since the freak accident which stranded a member of the Ares III crew and the entire crew of an alien ship from a parallel universe on Mars,” she said. “For one hundred days these six incredibly different people have worked together to survive the hostile Martian environment, cut off from all outside aid from both their homes. “There have been heartbreaking setbacks, like the explosion which ripped Airlock 1 off the Hab on Sol 88, a little over two weeks ago. And there have been astonishing triumphs, with the aliens establishing a rudimentary telegraph to their home universe on Sol 30 and Mark Watney reviving Pathfinder for a more secure communications route with NASA twelve days ago. And two days ago, for the first time since the Sol 6 accident, the crew of Hermes had voice contact with Mark Watney and two of his fellow castaways. “But despite these triumphs, the lives of our friends still hang by a thread. The alien food supplies have been expended, and their survival depends on a harvest in the next few days from a farm built in a Martian cave using their alien technology and Mark Watney’s botany expertise. Injuries have taken their toll, with Watney having narrowly escaped crippling burns to his arm, Dragonfly having worked herself to exhaustion bringing Watney back from the fire, and Starlight having broken a limb in the Hab explosion. And who knows what future accidents await them, or Cherry, or Fireball, or Spitfire? “One hundred days after the Sol 6 accident, the six castaways still do not have a way to escape Mars. NASA administrator Theodore Sanders addressed this issue in a press conference held this morning at Johnson Space Center in Houston.” Cathy looked up to a dark portion of the studio wall, which lit up with the projection of footage from the presser. Teddy Sanders was his usual perfectly dressed self, standing at the lectern with his usual confidence. “Risk is the business of all astronauts,” he said. “But there is a difference between risks that are taken with careful planning and consideration of the possibilities, and emergencies of the kind Mark Watney and his friends are dealing with today on the surface of Mars. The circumstances they face were entirely unanticipated by anyone here at NASA at any point during the planning for Ares III, and according to the aliens, unanticipated by them as well. “Our ability to contact the alien homeworld is extremely limited, but I have used that ability to speak directly with my counterparts on their side. And on behalf of them, I can assure you that both they and we at NASA are exerting all our energies to bringing our people to safety- on one world or another. “Unfortunately the aliens are not yet able to mount a rescue mission. The nature of their accidental trip here means they do not know precisely where our universe is in relation to their own. Thus, they cannot name the day they can send a rescue mission. But today, here and now, I can give you such a day.” On the screen, for a moment, the gathered reporters rumbled and rustled papers before Sanders could quiet them. “NASA is committed to training and sending an Ares III-B crew on Hermes in the next launch window,” he said. “Thanks to the VASIMR engine on Hermes, we can set a firm date for Hermes to orbit Mars of Sol 768- six hundred and eighty-one days from today. “That’s almost a hundred days faster than our earlier estimates, but it’s still not what we’d like. As the Hab explosion proved, life on Mars is a precarious thing. The Ares III equipment is now operating well beyond its expected design life, and Mark Watney has to improvise solutions to problems never addressed in our mission planning. Every improvisation uses up resources, both from Ares III and from the alien spaceship, which cannot be replaced. The sooner we can rescue Mark and our alien friends, the less they will have to rely on those very finite resources. “With that in mind, NASA is offering a prize of twenty-five million dollars to any person or group who can present a workable plan to reach Mars with the capacity to retrieve our six castaways substantially prior to Sol 768 and return them to Earth safely. NASA will award the full prize to the person or group who devises the plan we actually use, and smaller awards to those who present workable plans that, for whatever reason, NASA chooses not to implement. NASA wishes to demonstrate that our top priority is to see Mark Watney and his friends safe on Earth as soon as possible. “Full details on what we’re calling the Watney Prize will be in the full press release which Annie Montrose will have for all of you after the conference. Questions?” After a loud roaring scrum for attention, Sanders pointed out one reporter, who asked, “What if the aliens rescue Watney before NASA can launch its rescue?” Sanders allowed himself a wry little grin. “Then we save a lot of taxpayer dollars and breathe a huge sigh of relief,” he said. “But the difficulties facing the aliens are immense. To give you some idea, until a few months ago our physical models of the universe regarded travel between parallel worlds as impossible. I think the aliens can be forgiven if they find it very difficult to do it again.” A few chuckles, but not many. “So we have to go forward under the most pessimistic expectation: that the aliens will be unable to launch a rescue before we can get there ourselves.” Another hand, and a voice shouting over the others: “What about the resupply mission?” “Project Sleipnir is going forward,” Sanders replied. “Thanks to SpaceX, we expect to have three Red Falcon boosters available in fifty days’ time. We are clearing Cape Canaveral’s launch schedule beginning sixty days from now to allow for the mounting, inspection, and launch of three resupply probes with air-bag landing systems, all of which should arrive on Mars with food and supplies well before Sol 600. If the aliens manage a rescue before then, the supplies can be reapplied towards a proposed Ares VI mission to complete the work Ares III was unable to…” The projection went black, and Cathy looked into the camera. “More on the proposed rescue of Mark Watney and the alien castaways after these messages.” When the lights came back up on the studio a few minutes later, the cardboard cutouts had been moved to the background to make way for the usual table and chairs. On the studio wall where the NASA press conference had been projected in the first segment, a sequence of drawings, paintings and photographs faded in and out. “The plight of the Martian castaways has captured the global imagination since the first grainy photographs taken by Hermes from orbit showing multiple figures walking the Martian surface,” she said. “But even the most imaginative artist was unprepared for the reality of the photos sent a few days ago, when for the first time we learned what the aliens look like outside their suits. And since then, the Internet has exploded with opinions about the aliens, both positive and negative. “With me today are Nyota Lincoln, organizer of the #BringThemHome campaign on Twitter and Gemcomm; the Reverend Martin Spenser, whose controversial sermon “Let Them Die” garnered ten million views within a day of being released on streaming video; and John Karoli, founder of the website AresHoax.com. Thank you all for being here.” The three guests murmured their polite responses. Cathy froze her smile in place long enough to cross some unseen inner fingers and hope that the repeated backstage lectures- “keep it civil or we’ll cut your mike, we don’t care who starts it”- would hold. Where did her producers come up with some of these people? “Where do those CNN dickheads come up with these people?” Annie Montrose asked, as the Watney and Company Report descended straight into inanity for what looked like the remainder of the half-hour. “It’s humanity,” Teddy shrugged. It was after hours, and no one was in his office except Annie, Mitch Henderson, and a worn-out Venkat Kapoor. But Teddy never slumped. Even watching television, with nothing important left on the agenda, he remained seated as rigidly as if they were discussing something vital, like the testing setbacks JPL had encountered with the fabric for the Sleipnir tumbler probes. “Humanity my ass,” Annie grumbled. “When I was I in college- God I was so green. I decided I was going to bring truth to the masses and improve humanity. By the time I got my degree I’d grown up some, so I came to work at NASA, hoping to make the best humanity has to offer more visible, offer a fucking example to the rest of them. So here I am,” she snarled, jabbing a finger at the screen, “and my job requires me to aid and abet that.” On the screen, the Reverend Spenser said, “We must always remember that Satan was originally Lucifer, an angel of light. The greatest temptations to evil always come in attractive packages. So these aliens, who are clearly designed to appeal to our most protective natures yet who claim to use the power of witchcraft, are clearly temptations to turn humanity away from the true teachings of God as the end of days approaches.” “See? You see that bullshit??” Annie snarled. “The better I do my job, the more often shits like him get camera time to smile his plastic smile, brush his plastic hair, and declaim hate and ignorance on fucking live global television. In the name of balanced journalism. Bullshit. And nothing, not the first fucking thing I can do, will prevent thousands of morons from believing every word that asshole says.” “Should I take this up with CNN?” Teddy asked. “Fuck no, that’d make it worse,” Annie sighed. “The bastards would attack us for trying to control the media. Again.” She slumped in her own chair and muttered, “Goddamn, but I want a drink.” “It’s after hours,” Mitch rumbled. “Why don’t you have one?” “I haven’t had a drop since college,” Annie said. “And these days I don’t dare. If I once crawl into the bottle I don’t think I’d ever come out. Seen too many people fuck themselves that way.” “How did the speech go over?” Venkat asked, more to change the subject than from any interest. He had to be back in the office at 5:14 AM to match up with Watney’s 08:00 usual chat start. Living on Mars time while juggling all the responsibilities of a NASA project head wrecked sleep cycles. “Oh, it was a big hit,” Annie said. “Knocked it out of the park. Perfect mix of gravitas, recognition of difficulty, and understated optimism. Everybody bought it except the manned-spaceflight-wastes-tax-dollars crowd and the government-can’t-do-anything-right crowd.” She jabbed a finger at the screen again; why she did so Venkat never understood, because her next words had nothing to do with the conspiracy theorist explaining how NASA’s CGI Mars mission was coming apart due to a disgruntled employee making up cutesy-puke little horsie aliens. “The only problem is that contest is already bringing in get-rich-quick schemes and crackpots. Which I told you it would.” “It’s still a good idea,” Teddy insisted. “It shows we’re open to outside input, and it might just bring something out we might not otherwise get. I want the word put out to all parts of NASA, by the way. Our top two priorities are, in this order, getting resupply to Mark Watney as soon as possible, and getting Hermes to Mars as soon as possible. Everything else is secondary.” “Already wrote the memo,” Annie muttered. “Speaking of secondary,” Venkat asked, “how’s the Eagle Eye 3 launch coming?” “Re-inspection should be done in another five days,” Mitch said. ”We’re launching a month past the window, but Astrodynamics got us a revised trajectory that actually gets to Saturn only nine weeks late. We give up about ten percent of our post-Saturn-orbit delta-V to get it, but we’ll be well within mission parameters.” “Good,” Teddy said. “We need to clear that mission out so we can bring in the boosters for Sleipnir 1 and 2 when they’re ready. How firm is the delivery date for Sleipnir 3’s booster?” “Not very,” Venkat said. “SpaceX has dropped everything to get these boosters ready for space. They’re already warning us that some of the Ares IV presupply launches will be endangered because of it. After all, in order to get a usable payload to Mars with the current position of the planets, re-use of the first stages has to be sacrificed.” “Secondary priority,” Teddy insisted. “Get us those boosters.” Venkat nodded. He couldn’t help but yawn as he did so. “But first,” Teddy said, “get some sleep. You need it.” “I know,” Venkat said. “I just don’t feel like leaving this chair yet.” They watched the rest of the show in silence, grateful that for the last eight-minute segment the leading cable news channel stopped insulting the intelligence of its viewership and instead showed pictures found on the Internet based on the recent photos. The last three pictures caught their attention. Even Mitch sat up as the camera lingered on each for about ten seconds. There was a picture of the entire Ares III crew, including Watney, drawn as if they were from the alien world. Lewis, a long-necked dragon with a smaller muzzle than Fireball but much larger wings draped protectively around the others; Martinez, a bug-pony with a mischievous smile and glowing brown eyes; Johannsen, a unicorn filly levitating a computer with a ray of light from her horn; Beck, a pegasus with a stethoscope; Vogel, a strange eagle-horse hippogriff hybrid with glasses; and sitting in the front, half-covered with dirt, an earth pony Watney making a silly face at the viewer. The second picture was the reverse of the first- the five aliens drawn as humans. Cherry Berry, a tall slender blonde with a pink jumpsuit and a space helmet under one arm; Starlight Glimmer, who vaguely resembled Hermione Granger with a Marge Simpson hairdo, in a violet lab coat; Fireball, a tall, strong-featured, hawk-nosed man with a perfect Captain Kirk coif; Dragonfly, a smiling African woman with blue eyes and a tattered jumpsuit; and Spitfire, a redhead in sunglasses dressed like the recruiting poster for the Air Force. And then, the final picture, a mockery of the Last Supper. The shot panned from left to right, showing first the five Ares III crew members on Hermes in various poses; then, in the center, Mark Watney, looking wryly amused but not particularly holy; then the five alien castaways; and finally, in the position of Judas, a Roman centurion fingering a bloody sword and wearing a most unpleasant smile. At least one artist believed Mars had more trouble in store for the occupants of the Hab.