Hermes
Vogel shook his head, chuckling at Watney's message. What a character he was.
A German accent, and a base on Mars was apparently enough to identify him as a super villain.
Over the last few days the crew had been getting personal messages, direct from Watney; the NASA flight psychologist had apparently decided that Watney needed an increase in direct contact with the crew. Anchoring, Shields had said, when she'd briefed them. It had gone unsaid that Watney was depressed; obviously, his odds of survival had decreased dramatically with the recent Hab breach. She'd advised them all to reply to his messages with their reassurances that things were fine on Hermes.
Keep it light, she'd said. He needs your support.
Watney, he replied,
Bwa-ha-ha! How dare you to figure out my evil plan! At least I remember to bring my death ray schematic back aboard Hermes with me.
I have found the data drive you left. This was on your workstation in the botany lab.
Would be nice if I could trade it back for my own. I am not enjoying your Dr. Who without the subtitles, and I do not think that you will probably be enjoying my movies in German.
Unless, wait for a minute, do you secretly speak German? That would make us the rival super villains, no?
No, never mind, you could not even say 'auf wiedersehen' without hurting yourself. I will find someone else to be arch nemesis with.
Vogel
Houston
How had it come to pass, Mindy wondered, that in the last year, she'd tripled her square footage and still somehow wound up with less room than she'd started with?
What kind of crazy math was that?
Caroline and Richard had adopted one bedroom for themselves; the one she had originally intended as a home office.
The guest bedroom had been officially retooled into the baby's nursery. Mindy couldn't take much of the credit, though. Caroline had done most of the work. Together, she and Richard had painted, assembled the crib and stocked it with all the essentials. Her mother had sent Mindy her antique rocking chair, shipping it from Florida to Texas, which had been a touching gesture. She also planned on coming out for the birth.
Her own bedroom, while the largest, was also the most hideous. Plywood subflooring was not the most stylish decorating choice she'd ever made, but if the Watneys ever wondered why her brand new house had come complete with ripped-out carpeting in the master bedroom, they'd never said a word about it.
On her way to work this morning she had discovered the car seat's base, installed in the back seat of her car. She would need to thank Richard for that. This baby thing was starting to get very real.
She'd already had her tour of the nearby hospital's maternity wing. She'd taken Lamaze classes for a couple of weeks before deeming it silly and worthless, for someone who was not at all opposed to a nice epidural.
Dr. Fite had deemed her "ready to deliver" as she entered her final month of pregnancy. Everything was progressing smoothly, and other than the occasional bout of leg cramps, Mindy and the baby were in perfect health. Which, if you thought about it, Mindy considered, was kind of impressive given the unusual amount of stress she'd been under.
Not yet "ready to deliver", on the other hand, was the supply probe that JPL and NASA were working round-the-clock to finish.
Collectively, they were now a horrifying three weeks behind launch schedule, and Mark didn't have an extra three weeks of supplies. Already on minimal rations, Mark was going to have to stretch his rations and supplies even further.
The Iris probe wouldn't be carrying regular food packs to Mars, either. Poor Mark. In an effort to keep the probe as small and compact as possible, they were sending most of his rations in the form of protein cubes.
Ugh.
A couple of cubes, and some hot water would produce a sort of protein shake, full of calories and complex carbs and fiber and protein. Enough to keep a guy going, until they could send a follow-up probe, the following year. She couldn't imagine that it would taste like much, though. It sounded utterly disgusting.
Just the thought made her feel guilty, every time she sat down to eat a meal.
They'd included a letter from Mark's parents (censored, of course, which was ridiculous) and personal letters from the President and Director Sanders. And of course, they'd loaded up a media drive, with music and other entertainment, as a surprise. Movie studios had jumped at the opportunity to send screeners of their latest films for Watney to enjoy, and, hopefully, comment on. Musicians, authors, game designers and television studios had quickly followed suit, submitting several petabytes of media for Watney to enjoy, over the next four years.
It was incredible how quickly that part of the project had come together. The final product was, in Mindy's opinion, quite an impressive media library, and she felt certain that Mark would appreciate the gesture.
Before the Hab breach, Mark had complained, repeatedly, about Commander Lewis and her extensive collection of disco music and seventies TV series. Frankly, Mindy hadn't been sure whether he sincerely didn't like them, or if he just wanted to troll NASA and Commander Lewis, and disco was a safer topic than being left behind on Mars.
Probably a little bit of both, she figured, grinning. The Watney snark was strong with that one.
NASA had also included some vacuum-sealed seed packets, so that Mark could attempt to restart his farm. And maybe, if he were lucky, provide a little diversity for his diet. It wasn't really known whether his cultivated soil would still support plant life, but the seeds themselves had been inoculated with friendly bacteria to help reestablish the soil. The botany team was hopeful that Watney could at least do some research on the topic, though the Iris probe contained more than enough calories in the form of protein cubes to carry him through and help him regain some of the lost muscle mass, either way.
Richard had laughed himself silly when he'd learned that one of the included seed samples was green beans.
The payload was due to be completed on schedule. Ahead of schedule, even. The actual probe, though, was progressing far too slowly to possibly be finished in time for the launch date they'd settled on.
Johnson Space Center
Flight Psychologist
It had been a difficult decision, but Dr. Shields had felt that she had no other choice but to delay the unexpurgated message to Watney once again; as she'd given her reasoning at the weekly department head meeting. Mindy Park had pointedly avoided looking at her. She was angry, Irene supposed, but it couldn't be helped.
During the past few years that she'd known Watney, Irene had gotten to know the man fairly well; as well as anyone at NASA, she supposed. He was an unusual mix of introvert and class clown, and it was hard to predict how he would react. Telling him of his impending parenthood was a risky move.
The problem was that his state of mind was simply too fragile after the Hab breach. Depression, understandably, had set in; the only thing that had seemed to help him feel better was the long-promised permission to directly message with his crewmates on Hermes, and Irene had reason to be a bit worried with the content of several of the messages he'd sent, and his apparently lack of judgement.
In particular, Major Martinez had been alarmed, when Watney asked him to talk with his parents, if he died. Not really the lighthearted mutual reassurance that they'd been looking for.
Another message from Watney to Dr. Beck, had contained information of a personal and private nature. If Watney had been thinking clearly, he never would have chosen to send such sensitive information to Hermes via the data dump, knowing that his messages would be read by the ground crew.
He'd inadvertently revealed Beck and Johanssen's secret relationship to Mission Control, and in doing so, he'd exposed his crewmates to disciplinary action. Such indiscretion was very out of character for Watney.
The loss of Sojourner had also seemed to hit Watney particularly hard; it had been the closest thing to a pet that one could have on Mars, she supposed.
Regretfully, she'd had to recommend at least one more additional week of psychological observation, before another assessment could be made, thus making it unlikely that he would learn of Mindy's pregnancy until after the birth.
She'd given her opinion, though, that Watney would likely be up for full communications after a successful Iris launch.
Houston
No inspections? Mindy didn't like the sound of that, but she had to agree with Director Sanders. There wasn't a safer way to save time. And what if they did find something worrisome, it wasn't as though they could hold back on the launch for any length of time to figure out and fix anything, anyway.
They had to do something to get Iris launched on time; at this point, every day they held the launch cost them two more in travel time, and it was already pushing the boundaries of what they thought Watney could manage on his rations. Pushing them hard. Mindy had listened to Dr. Keller discussing the probable effects of Mark spending four years in Martian gravity, in this afternoon's meeting. Five years, if you counted the year on Hermes, coming and going.
It wasn't going to be pretty. He was going to need a lot of rehab, and probably a lifetime of medical monitoring.
The crew members of the first Ares mission, previously the record holders for the most time spent in .4G, had not suffered any serious health problems thus far. Eight years later, they had regained most of their lost muscle mass, and normal bone density, by a couple of years post-landing. But that crew had had been only a little over a year in Mars gravity. They could really only guess at what the results would be like, for Watney.
The thought of Mark in a wheelchair, possibly for the rest of his life, was a sobering one.
Mindy collected the latest round of satellite photos; every four minutes now, she had more images to sort through. It was proving to be a pretty dull day in the Acidalia Planitia, so far.
They were worried about him.
Mindy knew that Dr. Shields had made a good call, to continue not to tell him about the baby. It was so frustrating, though, to know that she would be in labor soon, and the baby would be born.
Caroline had sworn that she would take matters into her own hands, after that. What she meant by that, exactly, Mindy didn't know.
One thing was of paramount importance, though. She had to get back on her feet, and get back to work as quickly as possible, after the birth. The typical six weeks of maternity leave was going to be too much. She simply couldn't risk someone else from her department getting too comfortable doing her job.
Not when Richard and Caroline were counting on her.