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“NASA has just sent us some data about the Ares mission,” Grace states, after uploading and unzipping the files. As these are still compatible with Mary’s technology, he just smiles. It seems that, except for sending people to Mars, not much has changed on Earth during the last thirty years or so.
“What data, question?” Rocky shifts closer in his co-pilot chair. This new part of furniture was added before they left Erid because Rocky loves piloting this ship and Grace doesn’t mind.
Now, he browses the directories with a frown.
“It seems as if there’re a few logs and some camera recordings,” he explains. “Not much. Mark Watney can’t send large files using Pathfinder anyway. I’m surprised they managed to receive these logs. Video takes a lot of memory.”
“Let’s check it,” Rocky urges him.
After getting closer to Earth, and after establishing communication with NASA, Grace found out that once more he is the Earth’s only hope to save life on yet another planet– this time on Mars– even though this ‘life’ right now consists of just one person.
As for Grace– and Rocky– there’s no ‘just’ when they deal with life of any kind, this one man is now the most important person in the entire universe and there’s no way they wouldn’t help him get back home.
So, Grace picks the first track and clicks the ‘play’ button.
The man on the screen looks worse than Grace felt after the fishing trip on Adrian, and that alone says a lot.
“This is... Mark Watney,” the man says. “Astronaut. I am entering this log for the record, in case I... don’t make it,” he hesitates for a moment, as if he didn’t know what to say next “It’s... oh-six-fifty-three on Sol 19. And... I’m still alive. Obviously. But I’m guessing this is going to be a surprise to my crewmates. And NASA. And... the world. So... surprise. I didn’t die on Sol 18.” Again, he gathers his thoughts and only then he continues. “Best I can tell–” he holds up a piece of antenna. “–this length of our primary communications antenna tore through my bio-monitor and ripped a hole in me as well. It was horrible, thank you for asking. But the antenna... and the blood... managed to seal the breach in my suit. Which kept me alive. Even though the team must have thought I was dead.” He seems extremely disturbed, but Grace doesn’t expect anything else. “Commander Lewis... If you ever hear this... it wasn’t your fault. Just bad luck. You did what you had to do, and if I had been in your position I would have done the same.” Another pause. “All right, though. That’s where we’re at. Mark Watney, stranded on Mars. I have no way to contact NASA because our communications antenna broke and stuck into my stomach. Which we’ve covered. And even if I could, it will take... four years before the next manned mission gets here. I’m in a Hab designed to last thirty-one days. If the oxygenator breaks, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just sort of... implode. And if, by some miracle, none of that happens... eventually I’m going to run out of food. So... yeah.” Mark trails off. “It’s one thing to know it. It’s another to... Yeah.”
Grace clenches his fists. What the fudging fudger?! This is insane! Sol 18? Now is what– He counts the days. 549 days on Mars? Was this man even real?
Grace spent three years on Erid– and this planet was more unfriendly for humans than Mars– so he knows exactly what Mark Watney must have been facing on Sol 19. And what he’s still facing. There must be much more than what he’s just listed.
But Grace had company for most of this time. First, he had Rocky, then Adrian and then all Rocky plural and quite frankly, he hasn’t felt alone for ages.
“No one watched Mark Watney sleep, question?” Rocky asks hesitantly.
“No one.” Grace winces. There were nights when the entire Erid had been watching him sleep.
Rocky shifts. “Scary.”
“Scary, scary, scary,” Grace confirms.
He’s looking at the frozen frame on screen, Watney’s face is telling everything. And it feels as if Grace was looking in a mirror.
Yet, his mind somehow locks on the ‘Mark Watney. Astronaut.’
This is how Watney introduced himself. This is how he wants to be perceived. This is who he is. An Astronaut. With the capital letter. It’s everything that Grace is ‘not’. Yes, he’s been traveling in space for decades there and back again, but it doesn’t change the fact he’s still the definition of the ‘not’ in the ‘astronaut’.
“Watch more, question?” Rocky asks.
No, he’s not ready to watch more. Watney survived whatever happened to him, but Grace is not ready to watch what it was exactly. He will have to, but not now. Now he needs to think about the logistics. Watney is a trained and experienced astronaut, a botanist and a mechanical engineer. He probably macgyvered everything perfectly, unlike Grace after he woke up here, with no memory and all alone. Still, watching Watney face death traps on Mars isn’t something he can ‘watch’ right now.
“I don’t think I can do it now,” Grace shakes his head. “Do you want to?”
Rocky considers it for a moment.
“Yes, I’ll go to the Don’t-Go-Crazy-Room.” He reaches for his ‘reading’ device.
“Thank you.” Grace smiles. “I’ll redirect the files there.”
When Rocky disappears behind the door, Grace thinks what to do now. He needs to prepare for the rescue mission and he knows they can’t do it all by themselves, no matter how confident NASA is about their MAV and other procedures. Nobody knows better than Grace how much may go wrong in space and, knowing his luck, all these things will go wrong at the worst possible time.
He needs to contact his own MacGyver, so he establishes communication with Adrian, who’s traveling on an Eridian ship, as part of the delegation that’s supposed to make the first contact with human kind. The Blip-Earth is still a few light years away, because Grace and Rocky had to leave Erid much earlier, for Grace’s safety. Unlike Eridians he can’t travel with too many g’s without getting hurt.
They’re using the quantum entanglement between subatomic particles and this way they can communicate in real-time with almost no delay, regardless how far from each other they are.
For a moment all he can see is a dark screen, which is completely normal until the crew on Blip-Earth turns on the lights for him. The mere fact that they have lights there just so he can see the crew while they’re talking is making him wonder what he has ever done to deserve such wonderful friends and family.
“Grace?” Adrian asks, concerned.
It’s not their usual time to talk, normally they organize movie nights (no horror movies, because Rocky hates them), to make the journey less boring, which always turns into talking about culture and other stuff they all are curious about.
Now, Grace smiles with relief. The Blip-Earth is the most advanced spaceship he’s ever seen (not that he has seen many, but he’s right in this case) and there’s no reason to worry, but after everything that happened in his life and during his space travels, he earned the right to worry.
“I’m happy to see you, Adrian,” he smiles.
“I’m always happy to hear you, Grace. Can I help you, question?”
Grace glances towards the door where Rocky disappeared. He knows his friend can hear this conversation, as Eridians have an exceptional ability to divide attention, but he’s counting on that now.
“I have a request, Adrian. Since we last talked, we contacted NASA, the agency I hoped would help us and– well, they have some emergency on Mars and they asked us to help them. We will be helping with a rescue mission. There’s an astronaut, Mark Watney, stranded on Mars and I’ll need to go out.”
Adrian visibly ‘tenses’.
“Something wrong with the EVA suit?” they ask, alerted.
“No! Nothing is wrong with my suit, but I’ll need to maneuver outside with more precision than usual. Probably, I’ll have to go without a tether.”
“Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous!”
Grace doesn’t like it either, but it’s how it will probably end.
“That’s why I need your help.”
“Give me specifications,” Adrian demands.
“I’ll need some maneuvering device allowing free movement in space. Operated by hands. Something that Rocky can put together relatively quickly, using what we have here and, more importantly, what I can learn before the mission. So, in about twenty Earth days.”
Adrian thinks about it for a long moment, and Grace smiles, seeing how they count on their ‘fingers’. Just as Rocky usually does.
“Just for your hands, or for legs, too?” Adrian asks finally. “Coordinated or used separately as needed?”
Grace frowns.
“I don’t think I can learn something too complicated,” he admits.
“For saving someone, you’ll need your hands free at some point. You only have two main hands and catching with legs is not practical for humans. Having jets on your legs will come useful. I’ll design four and you choose how many needed after initial practicing.”
“Thank you, Adrian,” Grace whispers. He doesn’t trust his voice much right now.
“Your voice is shaky. Scared, question?” Of course they notice. After all these years, Adrian can ‘read’ him like an opened book.
“He’s been there alone for almost two years now,” Grace confesses.
“No one watched him sleep, question?” Now Adrian’s voice is shaky.
“No one.”
“He’s scared, too?”
Grace can’t even imagine how scared Watney probably is. Or maybe he can?
“I haven’t talked to him yet, but– yeah. He’s scared. At least, he was on the footage.”
“Everybody is scared when they have to sleep alone for two years.”
“Yes.”
Adrian shifts a bit closer to the camera, and Grace knows it’s more for him, than for Adrian, as they don’t need to ‘see’ him.
“I’ll send the schematics in two Earth hours.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Grace.”
The sudden warmth around his heart is not unexpected, nor is it unusual.
“I love you, Adrian,” Grace says softly.
It took him ages to feel safe saying these words to Rocky or Adrian, but now he can’t imagine not saying them as often as he can.
The Eridians don’t have this expression in their language, or at least not a 100% translatable one, so Adrian shifts their hand making a set of movements with their fingers over one of their arms. Just like Rocky did when Grace asked him about his mate for the first time.
As it’s the most personal and intimate confession on Erid, Grace and Rocky decided to not translate it and just use it as it is originally in their respective languages. And now, Adrian is also included in this agreement.
That’s when Rocky gets back. And he doesn’t look happy.
“You’ve already finished watching the footage?” Grace asks, curiously. “All of it?”
Rocky visibly ‘shudders’.
“We need to save Mark Watney as soon as possible. Hurry, hurry, Adrian!”
“That bad?” Grace asks, concerned. Saving stars is one thing, but saving stranded astronauts is a completely different story.
“Rocky doesn’t like horror movies. Mark Watney needs to rest. He’s more stupid than Grace when not enough sleep. Statement.”
Grace blinks, surprised. What?
A few days later, after finally watching the footage, Grace wonders what people on Earth must have felt about his own performance when they got what he sent with the beetles. He has no idea how Watney– a trained and experienced astronaut – survived all these accidents, but if Grace ever had any doubts about his own incompetence, they all vanished permanently after watching these videos.
And for the first time in his life, Grace feels he’s truly in a very cool company.