At the same time the next night, Beck sat on his bed with his laptop. He had just opened it when a knock came at the door.
"Come in," he called out.
The door opened and Martinez was standing there.
"Rick, what do you need? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Martinez said quietly, "I've been thinking."
Beck set his laptop aside and turned to face the door and his friend fully. "Okay, do you want to talk?"
"Not really." Rick frowned.
"Okay."
He sighed, "I know I probably should though I mean Shields wants us to right?"
"Yes. Talking about trauma can often be helpful when processing it," Beck responded.
"I'm not sure I'm processing anything. I kind of feel like I'm ignoring what happened. I know Mark is gone but unless we're all together I can pretend he's not. It's like he's just in a different part of the ship."
Beck nodded. "Yeah, I think all five of us have done that."
"But not you anymore?"
This time Beck shook his head.
"How'd you manage that?" Rick asked.
"I don't know," Chris shrugged."I just decided I had to accept it."
"That easy huh?" Martinez huffed.
"It wasn't easy. It's still not easy."
"So how do you deal with it?"
"I work on other things, think about other things, allow myself to be sad about losing Mark, and," he paused and grabbed his laptop then said, "I've been watching his unfinished videos. It is good to see how much fun he was having. I still miss him. That doesn't go away, but it is easier to remind myself how much he loved being an astronaut and that we all knew the risks."
"Yeah, those risks didn't include dying on Mars."
"Well they did, we went through how many different things that might happen. This specific incident just wasn't one of them."
"Yeah, I guess."
"I know, not expecting it exactly does make it more difficult to deal with."
"Do you ever wonder-" Martinez stopped.
"No," Chris answered quickly.
"Really?"
"You can't. You can't do that. You'll eat yourself up that way. All the evidence we had told us he was dead. There's nothing to indicate we were wrong."
"I know, but the thought is still there."
"Then think about this. If NASA doubted my judgment at all they would have had the satellites take pictures of the site to try and prove it. It took us over an hour to leave orbit; they could have even asked us to wait until they'd gotten images. Yes, we get back sooner if we leave immediately but honestly, one day or even a few hours could have been enough."
"Yeah." Rick nodded.
"Want to watch the next video with me? I think it's the last. There were only three files I could find in the unfinished folder."
"I don't know man, not sure I can handle it."
"You don't have to, and if it's too much you can always leave, but the first two were good even in their rough state. I can see why he was chosen to make them instead of the rest of us."
Rick thought for a moment, "Ok scootch over."
Beck did and Marinez sat down beside him. Chris opened the laptop.
"What are you two up to?" Lewis asked from the door, then chuckled when they both jumped. "Up to no good."
"No, you just surprised us," Rick said. "Mark was right, we need to put a bell on you."
"Watney said that huh?" She smiled.
Martinez's cheeks flamed, "Well um yeah."
"Sure, no doubt when you two were planning some prank right."
He didn't answer and Chris bit his tongue to keep from laughing.
Lewis laughed again. "I thought so, and does that mean that's what the two of you are up to now?"
"Not really in the mood to prank anyone Commander," Rick said.
"We're going to watch one of Mark's videos," Chris said.
"Mind if I join you?"
Beck looked around. They could all fit on the bed but it would be a tight fit.
"Maybe we should go to the rec and watch it on the big screen. We can warn Beth and Alex that's what we're doing so they don't come in if they don't want to."
Lewis nodded. "I'll let them know and meet you there."
Ten minutes later the three of them were sitting on the couches.
"Ok Beck," Lewis said. "Start it up."
"Ok, this should be a tour of the Hab, on the last video that's what he said the new one would be."
The video starts with Mark smiling at the camera that he is holding in his right hand extended out in front of him. The airlock door into the Hab can just be seen behind him.
"Welcome back to the Hab. I'm alone today. Everyone else is on EVA. Just like on the ISS2 or Hermes, someone always has to stay inside to make sure everything's running the way it's supposed to and to get any updates from NASA that we communicate to the others. We all take turns. Some days it's one person that stays in and some days it's two depending on the experiments and research schedule for the day. Today it's just me."
"Yesterday I did an EVA and the day before and the day before that. We're on Sol five. So when I last talked to you and showed you the Hab, it was a great big empty except for all the crates, and we were getting ready to set up as much as we could before going back to the MDV for the night. On Sol two after we were all up we came back in and this time we were able to get out of our EVA suits and finish setting up so we've been here ever since. It's nice to get out of the cramped space of the MDV and into our big, well kinda big, HAB."
"I thought I'd start at the same door I came in the other day so you can see right away how it's changed. Now I'll warn you in advance this isn't a steady cam and as you know, or should know, gravity here is much lower so we don't walk normally, though we try to walk as close to normal as possible. Outside it's different with the extra weight of the suits but inside, well you'll get the idea. Anyway, the point is the picture will bounce and I apologize but there's not much I can do about it. If I had time I'd rig up a small gyroscopic handheld device to make it into a steady cam but there just isn't time in the schedule. Ok. Time to turn this around and start the video. No worries I'm going to move fast but you won't see it because I'll edit that part out, and yes I did just say that out loud so I won't forget to do it when editing. There, now you know one of my secrets."
The three astronauts watching laughed as the camera swung and the image moved rapidly to the door. Mark's hand comes out and opens it. Beck pauses the playback.
"I can't believe he was in the airlock without a suit," he said.
"I do," Rick replied.
Melissa shook her head, "So do I. He knew we'd all have looked in before coming in as well as reporting that we were on our way to the Hab. We would have noticed that it was pressurized, and if for some reason we didn't the door wouldn't open if it was so we'd be warned."
"You're not defending him are you?" Beck was shocked.
"Not really, it's still dumb and if I'd known he'd done it I would have talked to him about it."
Rick snorted. "Talked." He snorted again and laughed.
'Yes talked, and I'm sure Annie, Mitch, and Venkat would have had a thing or two to say as well."
"But the viewers would have loved it and most wouldn't have thought anything about it."
"Someone would. It's youtube after all. There would be comments," Martinez said.
"True, ok I'm starting it again."
"So as you come in here you see straight ahead is our work area with a few lab tables and some quick pop-up shelving holding a variety of scientific instruments that we move to the table as needed. You also notice I'm sure that it doesn't look so big anymore, that's because one of the things included in all of our supply crates was some partitions. Some areas of the Hab need to be separated from others. It was also to make it feel a bit more like a home with each 'room' having its specific boundaries. In reality, all we need to have closed off is the bathrooms, everything else could be open but it is nice to have the rooms."
He moves into the lab area.
"On the table right now we have the ChemCam and the microscope. The ChemCam contains a spectrometer which is used to identify what the rocks and dirt we bring in are made of, and what elements they're composed of based on the light that's emitted in the visible, ultraviolet, and infrared spectrums. The ChemCam also contains a small laser to vaporize samples turning their gasses into plasma for further study. I'm not allowed to touch the ChemCam. Hopefully, you know what microscopes do. These instruments are mostly used by Vogel, Beck, and Lewis. Though the rest of us help when we can."
He turns to another table. "This is where I'm getting started, though I won't be doing much until tomorrow after our EVA. I've been analyzing the dirt as well for chemical makeup. I have a small amount of Earth soil I brought along. I'll be attempting to grow some fast-growing ferns and grasses. Some I'll plant in pure Martian dirt/soil, some in Earth soil, and the last bit in a mix of the two. I know it doesn't sound super exciting but we need to know if we can grow things here for future colonies and I get to test that out, so I'm excited. Can't wait to see how it works. Hopefully, we can grow at least in the Earth-Mars mix because then we won't have to send as much Earth soil here for the colonies. Ok enough lab time, time to move on."
He turns and heads back to the "hall" that runs around the outside of the Hab.
"Let's go off to the left. Here's our kitchen where you can see again how much the Hab is like a tent. Everything's on tables or in boxes, all very temporary because we need to be able to set up and get out on the surface to start there as quickly as possible. You're not going to see cabinets and things that look very put together, like furniture back on Earth. I'm sure that's what will happen in the future when actual colonies are built on Mars. They won't be so thrown together. You can already see that in the colonies being built on the moon."
"Our food is all right here." He slides out a drawer from a stack of ten in a modular stand. All of our food is freeze-dried and has to be reconstituted. We have about five different options for breakfast, though we have more up on Hermes. For lunch and dinner, we have ten options. We also have a few different drink options; all of them have to be rehydrated as well."
He turns to show a spigot set up near the wall.
"We can rehydrate with hot water or cold depending on the food and drink options. We also have this nifty little microwave. There is no sink though and no dishwasher. It's why we have such small packages because they will all be left behind here. Future Martians are going to have to clean up our mess and the messes from Ares I and II as well."
"This is exactly what happened on the original moon missions. They packed up all the trash and dumped it out on the surface before the lunar module took off. The current moon missions that are just visiting and setting up the colonies do their best to bring everything back with them. They dock back at ISS2 before they head back to Earth. Then it's stuffed into a Progress resupply craft that's undocked and sent back to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere."
"It would cost too much to bring all the trash back from six people for thirty days. We need that space for essential equipment and our samples. I'd show you all the food itself but if you've been watching these videos you've seen it and if not go back and watch the older videos. Let's keep going around the hab. Here we are at another one of our partitions. As you can see, it doesn't go all the way up to the top of the dome."
The camera pans up and then back down.
"The partitions snap together and it's just for the illusion of privacy because we all sleep in the same area anyway. I checked first this morning to make sure everything was clean and nobody had anything out, any personal pictures or anything. Not everybody wants to share their family photos. There isn't much privacy so you take what you can get. I also let my crew know that I would be doing this video today.
"Here are our beds, basically bots that have been bunked. We have six beds and need to take up as little space as possible. NASA tried triple bunking the beds but that just wasn't safe so it's just doubles. We had a long talk back on Earth before we ever launched about who was top bunk and who was bottom bunk. Here I am on the bottom. That mess up there, yeah that wasn't there earlier and it's Martinez's bed, big shock bet he did it on purpose. Well, I'm not editing this out so the world can see just what a slob he is. Lewis is bottom bunk here, Alex is top bunk, the over here Johanssen is top bunk and Beck is the bottom one."
"In case you're wondering, the lights do dim and go out so we're not sleeping with it bright in here. The sunlight is about half as strong as it is back on Earth. The brightest it gets here is like Canada in the middle of winter. Back in the early 2000s, a greenhouse was built on Devon Island in Canada to test whether or not we could grow plants on Mars with that amount of sunlight. That was just one step in the ongoing research that I'm not a part of.
"We all have laptops that we can move about in case we want to work in our beds or watch movies or type up emails to our families. Okay now on to the bathroom, the one room everyone most wants to know about. It's another set of snapped-together partitions. There are four stalls here, the first two are showers and the second two are toilets. Calling them showers is generous actually. If you've ever been camping and had a solar shower, that black bag that's filled with water and the sun heats it, then you open the spigot, you've used one pretty much like what we have. The water in our showers isn't heated. It's Hab temp which isn't bad but it doesn't make you want to stay in for a very long time, and that's a good thing because the amount of water we use is limited to one bagful per shower. We get real showers when we get back to Hermes. Of course there we still only get ten minutes. That's the one thing I miss most about Earth right now, the option to get in the shower and stay until the water heater runs out."
He opens the door to one shower then steps back and opens the next door.
"Now for the question, everybody always asks: How do you go to the bathroom in space? Well, honestly the toilet here is the same as ISS2 and Hermes, an upgraded version of the one from the original ISS and the shuttles. The toilets come pre-assembled in modular units that we just have to unfold when we get them in place. We also have to hook them up to the electricity because when you have to go number 2, yeah like that technical term"
You can hear the smile in his voice.
"Anyway, when an astronaut has to defecate it is then dehydrated and packaged for easy disposal. That's pretty much it for our tour. In two days I plan on taking you all out with me on an EVA to watch us select geological samples: rocks and some dirt for chemical analysis. A few days after that I'll take you along for a ride in the rover and then maybe sometime when everybody's working in here, or maybe you can join us for a meal one day. I'm going to try and get these videos out to you before we launch back to Hermes but no promises. Watney out."
"He'd have made a good teacher," Lewis commented.
"Watney a teacher?" Rick guffawed. "He'd have those kids running wild."
"Not kids or even teens," she said, "but for the astronaut program or in a college setting."
"I could see that," Beck said. "So that's the last one in the unedited folder. Either of you wants to go back and watch the others."
"Not right now," Melissa said as she stood. "Thank you but I think one is all I can handle. Maybe in a week or so."
"Same man, thanks," Rick said, also rising to leave.
Beck nodded and said, "I'll get these in the file for the next data dump back home."
"Thank you."
Beck waited until they were both gone then made copies of his own just in case something went wrong. Maybe after they were back home they could watch them all together or maybe even later on the flight home. He'd make copies for the Watneys, as hard as it might be for them it would be good for them too to see just how happy Mark had been. He thought they'd appreciate seeing what he'd been doing, especially the uncut versions. When that was done he logged off of the rec room computer and headed to bed.