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[3:57] HAIL MARY: Mark Watney, this is Ryland Grace on the Hail Mary. On our way to pick you up. We’ll send a lander in around fifteen days from when this message arrives.
[15:11] WATNEY: Whoever this is, it is not funny. Fuck off.
[15:12] WATNEY: NASA, tell whichever clown set their name to “Hail Mary” to eat shit. I only came to send a message to my parents.
[15:16] WATNEY: Hold on, I just read the message from my parents. They mentioned the Hail Mary too? Is that actually the Hail Mary? How? How???
[15:17] WATNEY: Also, is there a way to delete messages?
LOG ENTRY: T-15 SOLS TO HAIL MARY ARRIVAL
The first message I ever send to Ryland Grace—the Ryland Grace, hero of the Hail Mary, man who saved two planets after waking up without remembering his own name—the first message I ever send to Ryland Grace is one where I tell him to fuck off.
Maybe I deserve to be left on Mars.
I’ve read everything he’s ever published. (Trust me, try “Why everyone is wrong about life”, for the snark alone.) I dressed as him for Halloween. Multiple times. Including as an adult. Oh, I can see your shocked faces. No one could possibly guess that the science nerd who went to space looks up to The Science Nerd Who Went To Space.
And now Ryland goddamn Grace is coming. To Mars. To save me.
I talked with NASA after I finished hyperventilating. The Hail Mary and Blip A entered our solar system a few days ago. They were headed for Earth, obviously, then NASA got them to detour and help out lil’ me.
So I sent DR. RYLAND GRACE another message apologizing and confirming that yes, I will still be here when he arrives. I’m not going to die. I can barely believe it. I’d made peace with the idea of dying, and now I have my life back.
Think I’ll reread one of the biographies I have on my laptop. Personally, I prefer The Science Teacher, though it doesn’t go into detail about his time on the Project. That’s in Her Right-Hand Man if you can hold your nose about its ass-kissing of Stratt. Maybe I can excuse it a bit. It was published before the Amnesia Papers.
And speaking of that: the last thing Earth did to him was an interstellar kidnapping. Why the fuck is he coming back?
LOG ENTRY: T-14 SOLS TO HAIL MARY ARRIVAL
This morning I checked for a response from the Hail Mary. Yeah, yeah, the speed of light says that’s impossible. A guy can dream! Anyway, NASA sent more work. They want me to collect a buttload of soil samples now that I can bring more mass back.
My commander, geology geek that she is, sounds more excited about these soil samples than about the Hail Mary being my ticket home. Absolutely batshit priorities there. But hey, it’s an order. So I’ve been spending hours outside bagging samples, and then more hours inside sorting. Plenty of time to think.
Shit, he’s missed a lot, huh? He left before the Cold Years really got going. Before the famines, the wars, the famines caused by the wars, the pandemics caused by all the above, government collapse after government collapse, and the climate staging a worldwide revolt. It was bonkers to learn about in history class. My parents say it was even more bonkers to live through.
The joke was that the problem wasn’t astrophage. The problem was the Ghost of Antarctica, mad about the nukes and taking it out on Earth by turning everywhere into a freezer.
My very first memory is of the Beetles arriving. When you’re a kid and every adult around you is breaking down, let me tell you, it leaves an impression. And then Ryland Grace’s logs were everywhere. Especially in science class. I’ve watched him discover taumoeba a hundred times, and it never gets any less awe-inspiring. That, right there, is the salvation of two entire species.
He has personally named literally every single extraterrestrial species that we know. And he did that while recording very, very funny videos. Our parents had Bill Nye the Science Guy. We have Ryland Grace the Nerd in Space.
How weird would it be to ask for his autograph?