SOL 84
Everything eventually comes back into style again. He remembered saying something to that effect to Mindy, when he'd been trying to hit on her.
It had proven oddly prophetic so far, during his extended stay here on this dusty red rock.
Music and TV shows from the seventies.
ASCII charts, and Johanssen's weird-ass computer games from the eighties.
A Mars lander from the nineties.
Driving all the way back to the Hab with Pathfinder was almost torturous; he was so anxious to get started. He'd loaded the lander onto the roof after removing some of the unneeded panels to lighten it up a little bit. He was already plotting out how he planned to get it working as he drove along.
Sojourner, though, was hanging out in the rover with him; a tiny rover inside of a much bigger one.
It was absolutely surreal to glance over and see it sitting right there, a little historical artifact, all reddish-colored with baked-on Mars grit. In his younger years, he'd studied the early Mars missions, and their varying degrees of success. Pathfinder had one of the more interesting histories. For one thing, it had actually worked.
"Ready to come out of retirement?" he asked Sojourner, conversationally.
No answer. But what Sojourner lacked in people skills, it made up for in communication potential. If only this worked. It had to work. The lander was most likely an easy fix. Probably just a dead battery. He was less sure about Sojourner. The little guy had been powered by components sealed inside a "warm electronics box", and the fact that it hadn't had made any reaction at all, after Mark had warmed it up and cleaned off the solar panels, didn't really speak well for the condition of its internals.
He wouldn't know for sure, though, until he had Pathfinder up and running.
"I bet they're going to be surprised to hear from you guys," he continued, grateful for the company, anyway, such as it was, as he looked into the two side-mounted cameras in front, designed for taking pictures in stereo. The cameras were so old, they were huge squared-off things with eyebrow-like shields, to protect them from direct sunlight.
"They're probably scrambling right now, digging the rest of your family out of museums and cold storage," he informed Sojourner, who stared back at him, impassively.
I'm talking to the Martian equivalent of a coffee table, he thought.
NASA would have a week or so to get things pulled together; because Mark was pretty sure of one thing: on the trip back towards the Hab, he'd noticed the satellites practically criss-crossing themselves against his path; NASA was most definitely watching him now.
That meant that the worst was over, right? NASA would be working on figuring out how to get him out of this mess. It might be slow going, but with Pathfinder they could get a very small amount of data back to him.
It meant that his parents knew that he was still alive.
It meant that the crew knew that he was okay, and that was something. He knew how hard they must have taken it, though. It couldn't have been easy to find out that he was still alive.
When he tried to imagine himself in their position… well, he'd feel absolutely terrible. What he really wanted to tell them was that none of this had been their fault.
Most of all, though, he just wanted to know what had happened, exactly. How had they made the call, to leave him behind? Had they not been able to find him? Was there just no time to go look? He could only imagine what his EVA suit had broadcasted. Had the MAV launch gone smoothly? He hoped so. If it had, by now they'd be halfway home. They'd be home a few weeks earlier than planned, even.
And what was happening back home?
In a few short days, he stood a good chance of finally finding out.
He occupied himself for the rest of the drive, coaxing as much distance as possible out of the rover, while he thought about which questions he would ask them first, once he'd established contact.
He didn't happen to know what distance Pathfinder's panoramic focal point was optimized for, but he could recall a picture he'd seen, of Sojourner, just a few meters away from it, and it had come out sharp enough to see the dust particles that had settled on it.
Good enough for a starting point, he decided. He'd position Pathfinder a few meters from the Hab, and make a perimeter circle around it, and…
The hours rolled by, in contemplation.
He couldn't wait to get started.
Houston
Mindy watched the scene play out from her bed, as it turned out.
Dr. Fite had advised her to start sleeping on her left side, to help keep her blood pressure regulated. The baby, though, seemed to find it was a wonderful opportunity to kick and wiggle around.
She had snuck home to get some sleep before she was due to work again this evening. She slept when Watney slept. In fact, she was supposed to be sleeping right now, but there was just no way that she was going to be able to wait to find out whether Pathfinder's signal would be received.
There was a live feed from the Associated Press, and Mindy watched as Annie Montrose gave a brief statement. But Mindy couldn't focus on what she was saying, because the only thing that was currently getting through to her brain right now was the split-screen image in one corner. It was another live feed, from the conference room at JPL, as the Deep Space Network returned data from Pathfinder.
Mindy buried her face into her pillow, as tears pricked the corners of her eyes.
SIGNAL ACQUIRED.
SOL 95
"There ya go, little guy," Mark set Sojourner down, safely inside the Hab, on one of the upper bunks that he used for storage. He knew perfectly well that Sojourner couldn't possibly send data to the lander through Hab canvas, but he wanted to keep an eye out, anyway.
During the long road trip back to the Hab, he'd killed time by cleaning up his new little buddy. Decades of hardened dust and sand had blasted its outer coverings, and powder and small rocks had gotten caked into the undercarriage. He'd even unlocked the wheels to have a better look at them. Ever since, he'd been playing around with a half-formed notion of flipping Sojourner over and labelling the six wheels with hex numbers and letters.
Maybe JPL could use him as a little 6-wheeled teletype machine.
It was worrisome that Sojourner hadn't come back to life after finally getting some sunlight on the newly clean sheet of solar panels.
He supposed it was plausible that once Pathfinder itself was running again, that the rover would power up and start responding. Though it didn't explain why the little rover hadn't tried to navigate his way back to Pathfinder on his own. That was a emergency protocol in his programming, if Sojourner had power but the lander did not.
No matter. He'd have plenty of time to muck around with Sojourner, later. First things first, as his mom always liked to say.
He'd already returned the RTG to the shallow grave that Lewis had dug for it, and done what he could, for Pathfinder, the previous day. The potatoes were growing well; he'd restarted the water reclaimer to pull some of the excess water out of the air.
It was finally time to check and see if this crazy-ass plan of his was going to work.
"Okay, I'm leaving you in charge, here," he informed Sojourner. "I'm off to make Pathfinder into my own personal Ouija board," he grinned at the little rover. "I hear that's the best way to communicate with the humans, for us back-from-the-dead types."
Houston
2 days later
"Ha!" Richard slapped the kitchen table with both hands. "Farming crops!" His eyes were squeezed shut as he laughed. Caroline and Mindy were laughing, right along with him. It sounded so far-fetched and completely absurd, but it was, apparently, true.
"I know!" Mindy burst out. "When I read that, I just… started laughing so hard. It's just so…"
"Mark!" Caroline finished, stating the obvious.
"But I'm disappointed," Richard grinned, "that he hasn't complained about my green beans yet."
"Oh yeah?" Caroline challenged, "did you not notice that he only said 'Hi Mom!' and nothing at all to you?" she pointed out, triumphantly.
Richard was silent for a moment, eyes widening with dawning comprehension.
"Trolled!" Mindy said, looking at Richard.
"You're right," Richard said, shaking his head, laughing. "And he's gotten way too goddamned good at it!"
"He learned from the best," Caroline grinned.
"Oh my god, can you just imagine?" he asked. "The Hab, all planted up like a little farm? Wonder how he pulled that off?"
"I have no idea," Mindy admitted. "I was under the impression that Martian soil was too umm… salty, or something, to grow anything."
"Well, now we have two important matters to discuss," Caroline changed the subject, her face serious again. "First things first, we've got to tell Mark about the baby."
"Agreed," said Richard.
"It'll go out in our first message." Richard nodded at her. "Henderson said to go ahead and forward our message to him, and he'll send it out in the first data dump."
Mindy nodded. The idea made her nervous as hell, but it was long overdue. The baby was less of a concept these days, and more of an active participant. Her tummy barely fit underneath the kitchen table anymore, as the pregnancy reached the home stretch.
"What was the other thing?" she asked.
"You need some help, Mindy." Caroline said, bluntly. "And you need a better plan, my girl. I don't know how you're intending to keep up with this crazy schedule of yours once you have a baby to take care of. But this situation with Mark; it's not going away anytime soon. He'll be there for three and a half years. Babies need a routine. They need to be fed, at the same time every day, and go to sleep at the same time. Earth time, not Mars." Caroline smiled.
"I know," Mindy said, feeling guilty. "You're right. I do need a better plan, or… probably… to find a different job-"
"NO!" They'd both said it together, startling her.
"Mindy, honey, that's not what I meant. Not at all." Caroline smiled at her, reassuringly. "I don't trust anyone else to do your job half as well as you do it. We want you to be able to keep watching over him."
"What we want to do is help out with the baby," said Richard. "Take care of the little guy, while you're working. Keep him on a non-Martian schedule for you."
Oh. That wasn't a bad idea, she thought. Not at all. Except for the fact that they lived a thousand miles away. But it was what Caroline said next, that surprised her even more.
"We're not going back to Chicago," Caroline continued, as Mindy blinked, shocked. "Except to pack up the things that we'll need to stay here in Houston for the next few years, to see this thing through. We'll find ourselves a place, nearby. We're here to help you, if you'll let us."
"We're the kid's grandparents," Richard added. "I think it's the least we can do, since our wayward astronaut son is off… farming potatoes on Mars." He grinned. "Why don't you let us step in and take on some of the responsibility, here, that should have been Mark's?"
Mindy was silent for a few moments, considering their generous offer.
"You'd really move here? Just for me and the baby?" It was kind of hard to believe, when they'd been strangers a couple of short months ago.
"You're the mother of our grandchild," Caroline said, simply. "It's what we want to do."
"And it's what Mark would want," added Richard. When he saw Mindy wince at his words and shake her head, he continued. "Now, don't you shake your head at that, miss," he grinned. "Mark has never backed away from responsibility in his entire life. Never. He's a good kid, and I'm willing to bet that the first thing that he has to say to us, when he gets up to speed on the situation is, 'I want you guys to take care of her, and help take care of the baby, until I get home.' That's what he'll say, I guarantee it. And I, for one, would like to be able to put his mind at ease and tell him that we've already got it covered."
Caroline nodded. "We need to do this for him. So that he won't have to be worried about it, and so that he can concentrate on keeping himself safe."
"So let me get this straight," Mindy said, wryly. "It's my duty, in your opinion, to permit you to help me with the baby. Because to not do so is to dishonor the… um, known wishes of your son. And it's just coincidence," she smirked, "that you two want to get all of this nailed down, mere days before he will finally be informed of the situation and actually be capable of expressing his own opinions on how he would like things to be handled. Is that the way we're going to be playing this?"
"Sounds good to me," Richard chuckled.
"Yep." Caroline smiled innocently. "I think that pretty much sums it up."
"I suppose I'll just have to go along with all of it, then," Mindy conceded, faux-grudgingly. "Heavens above, I would hate to have anyone think I was slacking off on my duties, which naturally include foisting my kid off on you guys," she sassed them.
"Good." Richard ruffled her hair, and pulled her in for a hug.
"Foist away," Caroline said, gaily. "We can't wait."
"Okay." Mindy agreed, as Caroline put her arms around them both and turned it into an awkward three-way hug. "But I want you to stay here," she added. "With me. All of us. If we do this thing, we do it together. As a family. How does that sound?"
They looked at one another, and then at her, nodding.
"I think we can deal with that, kid," Richard said, gruffly.
Dear Mark,
First things first.
We are so very proud of you, son. We always have been.
We love you.
We miss you.
We're looking forward to the day that we'll all be together again.
Mark, there have been some developments while you've been gone. This is going to come as a shock, and we very much wish that you could have known about it before now.
It concerns the young lady you met, shortly before you left Houston (We will not use her name here, to protect her privacy, in case people other than you are reading this.) She is a lovely girl, Mark, and your dad and I like her very much.
At your funeral, in November, we became aware that she is pregnant. Mark, my boy, you are going to be a father.
Please try not to worry. It will all work out. Be safe, and be smart, like you always are. Let us know if you have any questions and we will answer them the best we can.
Love,
Mom & Dad
P.S. We are getting a little old for all these surprises you keep pulling on us. Dial it back on the drama, huh, kid? ~ Dad
P.P.S. If you do anything that makes your Dad any prouder, his head might explode. He's been insufferable since he heard about those potatoes. I've had to listen to him go on and on about how farming runs in his family. You know how he gets. Please come home safely and save me from this. You're my only hope. ~ Mom