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Rich Purnell was asleep in his office when Mark Watney knocked on his door. He was still asleep when Mark Watney pushed the door open and poked his head in. He was asleep until Mark walked over to his nest on the sofa and shook his shoulder.
“Hey are you dead?”
Rich jerks awake blinking in the low light offered by the computer monitors on his desk. Rich blinks a few times to clear the crusty feeling from his eyes and squints up at the person who has barged into his office. Huh, its Mark Watney. Well, how about that.
Upon seeing him open his eyes Mark smiles at him.
“Oh good, I was worried that you were dead.”
“Why’d you think that?” Rich grumbled.
“It's kind of ripe in here, dude. When was the last time you showered?”
Rich thought about it. “Yesterday? Maybe it was the day before, I can’t remember. What time is it?”
Mark looked at his phone.
“It’s eight thirty at night, and dude I don’t really have room to judge; I mean I didn’t shower for over a year but...”
“Well...you were on Mars,” Rich supplied helpfully.
“Yeah, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Rich was a little confused. “You wanted to talk about showering on Mars?”
“Wha--no! Mars! I wanted to thank you for coming up with the maneuver that got the Hermes back to Mars in time to save me.”
“Oh! That. I mean, you’re welcome, I was doing path trajectories for Iris when I realized it would be faster to slingshot around Earth and send the Hermes back to get you. From there it was just a matter of working out the math of it, and getting you to the Ares IV MAV.”
“Well it was kind of my life so, could I buy you a beer?”
Rich seemed surprised by the offer but quickly replied with an enthusiastic yes.
Considering he was one of the best known men in the entire world it was truly impressive that Mark Watney was able to get them a table in a tucked away corner of the bar with two beers. Rich was studying the framed picture above their table when Mark set their beers down with a small clink before sitting down.
“This is where we came when you got back on the Hermes,” Rich said suddenly. “JPL I mean, we came here and made a huge deal of it ’cause it had actually friggin worked.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “I’d heard. Bruce Ng told me a bunch of you guys went out to get hammered.”
Rich snorted. “That’s one word for it.” He pointed to the photo above them, in it Mark can see what appears to be the entirety of JPL personnel shoved into the bar drinking themselves silly. “Imagine a bunch a overworked exhausted physicists getting blackout drunk because they had finally achieved what they’d been trying to do for over a year. Getting everyone home afterward was a chore, I can tell you.”
Mark laughed. “Did you all just descend en mass and proceed to make a huge scene?”
“Basically,” Rich said with a smile. “Even the aerodynamicists went. They had us working simulations for the MAV.”
Suddenly Rick looked uncomfortable.
“Sorry about that by the way. We thought the HAB canvas would hold, and that messed with all our calculations.”
Mark waved his concern away. “Not your fault. Everyone thought the canvas would hold.”
Mark took a long sip of his beer before speaking again.
“Besides it all worked out in the end. My crewmates made a bomb on purpose, the lunatics, but like I said it all worked out.”
“Yeah,” Rich said with a laugh. “I thought Bruce was going to have an aneurysm when the crew said they were going to breach the VAL, and he wasn’t the only one. Someone had brought a flask with them and a bunch of people started swigging whatever it was back.”
Mark started to laugh too.
“Tell me the truth, how many are you guys are lightweights?”
Rich held up a hand. “In our defense we’d spent the majority of our time trying to figure out how to get you off that planet. It didn’t leave a lot of free time. Most of us hadn’t had more that a couple sips of anything but coffee in a while.”
“Pssh! Lightweights.”
Rich flipped him off with a smile and they sipped their beer in silence for a short while before Mark spoke up again.
“The crew wants to meet you too, at some point.”
Rich was surprised. “Really? I just came up with a flight path; anyone in my division could have done that if they’d been asked. Vogel could have done it if he’d had enough time. I’m just a guy who did some math.”
Mark looked at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“But no one asked. You came up with this on your own and it's kind of fucking brilliant. No one else thought to send the Hermes back to get me, they were all working on getting me more supplies. ‘Just a guy who did some math’, well I’m just a guy who grew some potatoes.”
Mark drained his bottle and set it down before fixing Rich with a mischievous grin.
“Do you know what the crew calls you?”
Rich shook his head, confused.
“They call you, and I quote, ‘Our steely-eyed missile man.’ Of course they want to meet you.”