Teddy Says Later

by CaelynAilene

Venkat asks Teddy for satellite time, Teddy doesn't say no he just says not now. How are things back on Earth and Hermes as they believe Mark is dead. What will happen when they finally do get the pictures and discover Mark is alive? And how does Mark handle being all alone with no human contact for over a year? And what will his newly returned crew have to say about the situation?

5. Chapter 5

Log entry Sol 10

Ok, it reeks in here now. Damn, I wish I had a clothespin for my nose, or some vapo rub or peppermint oil. I tried those little ear-soft earplugs they sent along with us in case anyone had trouble sleeping because of the noise someone else made. They didn't do shit to help. Get it shit? Ah, whatever, it's funny. Marinez would have laughed. I can almost hear it.

"Mark of course that didn't work. You don't smell with your ears. DUH!"

How dumb do you think I am? I'm an astronaut and I have a friggin Ph.D. and just need to write and defend a second one. I'm practically Bruce Banner. Ok not really, I'm not that smart but I'm not dumb. Yeah I know that doesn't convince everyone because a lot of PhDs seem to lack common sense. Anyway, the plugs were in my nose. DUH! right back at ya.

Thank NASA for sending so many nitrile gloves. I'm wearing two pairs just in case even though I'm mixing the water back in with a sample stake. I'm desperately trying to keep that smell from embedding in my hands as so many smells do. I only have so much soap and other chemicals I can use to clean and some of them shouldn't be used on bare skin anyway and I don't want to curl up for bed and smell poop on my hands. It would make it kinda hard to sleep.

I mixed the poop with the Earth soil and an even amount of Martian dirt and set it up in a corner of the Hab that I'd cleaned. Go little bacteria go, do your thing. I'll check tiny amounts under the microscope in a few days to track the bacteria's growth, I hope. If they don't grow… No, not going there, not even going to think about it. I'm going to think positively and move on to other distractions.

Then I suited up and went out to clean the solar farm. It didn't need much thankfully, and the cameras were all clean, so I began bringing in more red dirt.

Oh yeah, the cameras, apparently they're all still hanging on the outside of the Hab, so they're wired directly into the Hab computer which means I can still use them. That's good because it means I can check on the solar cells without having to leave the Hab

I spent a few hours yesterday moving everything I could trying to clear the floor space. Everything that could go in a cabinet or a box went in one and boxes went on shelves, in cabinets, or were stacked up as high as I could reach. Should be safe there are no records of earthquakes or tremors on this part of Mars. Guess that would be Marsquakes huh? Anyway, none have been recorded here though there haven't been any storms like the one that stranded me and I don't want to test the odds but I need the floor space so boxes got stacked.

It might make finding things later a pain but I can catalog all of it after the farm is fully functional. I need a small walking path around the Hab but most of the floor can be a farm, so I used sheets to create a border and leave that walkway. I'm thinking about the emergency pop tents and the bunks as additional farm space. I need as much as I can get if I'm going to grow enough food to keep my calorie count above starvation level. I thought about emptying all but one seat of one of the rovers and using it but decided I need them both to be usable just in case so I left them alone.

This reminds me I need to go through and see what if anything I can plant. There has to be something, and no I still haven't looked. Yes, I've been planning to plant without knowing if I have anything to plant but I'm trying to think positively and just assume there's something there. Guess I should go find out now.

Log entry Sol 10 (2)

Potatoes, green beans, and peas… Those are my options. I'm going to start with the potatoes. They have the highest calorie count, but if they grow well and I can spare the farm space at some point in the future I may also plant the beans and peas. I do NOT want to live on potatoes alone for four years and since there's no way of telling if NASA will ever realize I'm alive until I can make it to Ares IV I have to plan on living only on what I can grow and what I already have. Gonna be slim pickings…. Yeah yeah ok, even I have to admit that was a groaner.

I guess NASA wanted us to have some "fresh" produce, as these weren't all freeze-dried. They were vacuum sealed and came on the ship with us, probably irradiated too to kill off any bacteria and keep them from molding. I'm leaving them in their packaging until the dirt is ready for planting, just to be on the safe side. Here's hoping that irradiated potatoes still grow, otherwise, well I'm not thinking about that right now, one step at a time.

Log entry Sol 11

It dawned on me today in the middle of filling a large rigid sample container with dirt, you know what normal humans call a large Rubbermaid tub, why we had fresh food. My mind wanders when I'm doing repetitive work like that. It would be different if I was trying to take samples rather than just get dirt for my farm. Anyway, I remembered there were all kinds of studies done back in the late nineties and early two thousands on how astronauts would survive a long-term trip like a trip to Mars. One of them was in Hawaii, HI-SEAS and the major focus of that program was food. They spent months in a habitat on the side of a volcano, going out only in "EVA" suits simulating a Mars mission. They ate a variety of foods and kept journals about the quality and how the food made them feel. No, NASA didn't teach us that. One of the participants wrote a book and when I was looking into what a Mars mission might be like I came across it and read it.

NASA has been constantly trying to improve food for astronauts since John Glenn ate the first tube in his orbital flight.

The first ISS proved that vegetables could be grown in microgravity. There is a garden on board Hermes. I tended it for the trip here and harvested the vegetables for our meals. They also scheduled "family" meals on the ISS where all crew members ate together at the same time at least once a week. We did the same on Hermes and here in the Hab, well that was the plan for here on Mars but we weren't here long enough to get to our first family dinner. That would have been Sol 7. Every 7 sols and Thanksgiving was the schedule.

Anyway, all of these things add up to NASA realizing it's good for morale to have "fresh" food and make meals together, and so they sent the irradiated and vacuum-sealed produce that will hopefully grow and keep me alive for the next four years. It had to be irradiated to kill any bacteria that might cause mold even though it was vacuum sealed. They were refrigerated for months on the way here and a month or so before.

I think the idea was that because it's November, we would make a Thanksgiving dinner. Now I'll be thanking NASA every time I eat potatoes for having that idea when I know I groaned about it originally. It's not that I don't like Thanksgiving, I love the food but Thanksgiving with my Dad's family often devolved into what my Mom only somewhat jokingly called "dinner with the savages." It was always better the years we stayed home or went to her family. I don't know the whole idea just sounded hokey to me, and now I'd give anything to have the crew back and be whining about it with Rick.

Log entry Sol 12

My back is killing me. I don't know if the potatoes will grow. I don't know if the bacteria will spread and make the Martian soil plantable, though it should, I'm not waiting to find out any of it. I'm making farmland now. The vast majority of the Hab floor is now filled with dirt I can turn into soil. I also used one of the lab tables, left the other one alone, gotta have it to work on, and figured out how to use the emergency pop tents. I don't need them. I'm not going anywhere for years, and even if I did what would be the point?

The pop tents are meant for astronauts to hide in until others can come to rescue them if something goes wrong with the rover. Yeah, I'm alone, so no one can rescue me anyway so I'll use them to keep me alive by growing food.

Anyway, all of that digging, dragging, and spreading dirt out has my back screaming at me. Fortunately, it turns out I was wrong and Bossy Beck didn't have time to take the key to the drug box with him. Guess I didn't look hard enough that first day alone, but I was rather distracted by pain from you know being speared and abandoned. So what that means is I can get to the Vicodin, so I'm taking one and chilling with some entertainment if I can find any that is. I left my data stick on Hermes, didn't think I'd need it or have any time to watch my shows and movies.

Our schedule was packed from the moment we landed and disembarked from the MDV until we were supposed to launch. We had very little downtime in the schedule. It was built in every day and week on Hermes. It wasn't that we didn't have any on-the-surface plan but it was almost all about the science and getting as much as we could out of the time we had. It cost so much to send us here, we were doing our best to maximize the benefit. We'd do the EVA stuff during the day and then spend evenings analyzing those samples and results and communicating with NASA. We had a bit of time before lights out for free time but not much so I left my data stick behind.

Yeah, I'm kicking myself now. Martinez left his behind too, not sure if he did it on purpose like I did though. So I have Vogel, Beck, Johanssen, and Lewis's data sticks to peruse.

Log entry Sol 12 (2)

My entertainment selection sucks. Why oh why did I leave my data stick on the damned Hermes. Vogel's stuff is all in German so unless I can find a translation program it's no good for me. Beck brought a bunch of lecture notes, and I swear the few audio files I opened were also lectures. There may be other files but the first several I checked were lectures so I gave up. He had movies and music on Hermes so I guess he decided the surface time was also for work only or maybe he grabbed the wrong data stick or meant to grab both and didn't or he had his good one on him when they evac'd. Doesn't matter which one it is, it just means I don't have a good selection.

Johanssen has no music either, but she does have a ton of books. The whole of Agatha Christie's books it looks like, along with Sherlock Holmes, and a ton of old PBS mystery series. Then there's the commander. She has music and shows but they're all seventies.

The freaking seventies? I mean come on. Nothing from this century? She's not old enough to have grown up with all of this so it has to be her parents' influence. I never met them somehow, or Vogel's. All of the rest I met at the bbq we had before the launch. Vogel's parents were watching his younger kids so his wife and oldest could be with him. NASA made sure they had a live stream to watch the launch. Not sure about Lewis's parents though. I know she's mentioned them, so they're alive. Yeah, I now feel like a horrible human being for not knowing more.

Beck and Martinez's parents and mine were great. Within two hours they were all saying how glad they were that the three of us hadn't known each other when we were younger.

Huh, I haven't thought about that since it happened and it all came back to mind because I was whining about seventies tv. Ugh, seventies tv. Still, beggars can't be choosers so I'm watching Three's Company.

Log entry Sol 12 (3)

I was wrong, Johanssen does have music. She has the entire Beatles library. What is with my crewmates and old music? And I'm not saying I hate old music. I grew up with stuff from the seventies and eighties that my parents loved but it wasn't disco. Yes, I like the Beatles, at least some of their music but it would be nice to have something from this century.

Log entry Sol 14

It looks like this is going to work, or at least we're off to a good start. I took a sample of the Martian/Earth soil mix and checked it out under the microscope. Those bacteria are happy and spreading. I should be able to double in a few days. I'll take the active dirt and spread it out over another section of Martian soil. Eventually, I'll have enough to plant and keep myself fed.

Problem: I'm going to run out of water. I need hundreds of liters more than I have. I know how to make it, you know hydrogen plus oxygen makes water. Of course to do that I also have to use fire and NASA looks down on fire in space, since it kills and all that. So I don't have anything flammable. The clothes are all non-flammable, the furniture is all some sort of plastic composite, our pencils are mechanical, and even our paper is specially made to be non-flammable. I might be able to burn some of the food but I kinda need it to survive until the potatoes grow.

Yeah, now what? I'm not gonna think about it right now.

Log entry Sol 17

The bacteria was super happy and spreading so I doubled the soil for the first time today. If I can double the soil every week I should be able to have the whole farm ready for planting in a month. Thank math for exponential growth. Hopefully, they continue to spread, well, as long as I can keep watering the dirt. Guess I need to get back to figuring out how I'm going to make the water I need. First I have to figure out exactly how much water I am going to need. And then I need to start figuring out how to make it and get it made or the exponential growth won't happen, and if it doesn't happen no way can I grow enough food to keep from starving to death.

Log entry Sol 17 (2)

I've taken to looking up when I go outside during the day. Trying to see the satellites in orbit. I occasionally see Phobos or Deimos but no man-made satellites yet. You can see the ISS2 from Earth just like you could see the original ISS. There's even still a website that tells you when it will fly over your area and at what angle. So I should be able to see at least one of the multitude of satellites up there. Maybe it's because I'm looking during the day but I haven't seen any. I could go out at night; they're probably easier to see then. My EVA suit has built-in flashlights on the helmet in case we were stuck out after dark, though we never planned to use them. Still, I'm not comfortable being out of the Hab at night.

I wonder if they're even still flying over me. Has their trajectory been changed? Is anyone looking and seeing me out during the day? Would they even notice if they did? I like to think someone has seen but I also am afraid of getting my hopes up. I need to concentrate on one day at a time and one problem I can deal with at a time. The satellites and NASA aren't anything I can control or contact so they're out of my sphere of immediate concern.

And yet I still keep looking up, not for long, I don't want to waste the CO2 filters, but I keep looking each time for at least a few minutes, just in case.

Log entry Sol 18

It's so quiet in here at night. Not silent, there are too many systems running, but the lack of people noise is unsettling. On Hermes we all had our little quarters, larger than those on the ISS and ISS2, those are basically closets but they hang on the wall to sleep. We have sleeping bags and hooks on the wall for when Hermes isn't rotating, but when we have gravity there are real beds to sleep in with what is the equivalent of a futon mattress, I'm not complaining mind you. Even if they were super uncomfortable I wouldn't complain because you know - space.

They weren't uncomfortable by the way in case you were wondering. That might be because we were at Mars gravity on the way here. On the way home as we built to Earth's gravity they might have been. Hopefully, I get to find out, still won't complain though. Honestly, I'd sleep on the rec room couch or even the floor if it meant I was on Hermes headed back home.

Back to the quiet, we were only on the surface for six days but it was enough that I still miss Martinez tossing and turning, Lewis's little whiffle, Johanssen's incoherent mumbles, and just other people breathing. I've considered playing Beck's lecture notes on a low level as background noise, actually tried it for an hour, but it's just not the same thing. It was distracting and kept me awake.

It's not like I'm not sleeping, I am, some nights better than others. I suppose in time I'll get used to it, and then hey when I get to Schiapparelli and have to share a Hab with six other people four years from now I won't be able to sleep from the noise, well that and the lack of a bunk, but I can and will sleep on the floor to get home. The bigger issue is there are only six seats on the MAV. Again not worrying about it for now, not for a long time. Even then it'll be NASA's issue to fix, not mine.

Log entry Sol 19

Still can't quite figure out Commander Lewis's taste in tv shows. I mean all the shows on her data disk are from the seventies but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the ones she chose to bring along. And they all suck, they're cheesy as hell. Ok not all of them suck, some are okay or maybe my taste is just warping being stuck on this forsaken planet. Still half-hour comedies, and hour-long dramas, and she doesn't even have Wonder Woman. Of all the shows I would have expected her to have it was Wonder Woman, hell she is a wonder woman. Maybe she left that on Hermes. I would kill for some good or cheesy as-hell superhero stuff but no Diana and no Bruce either, oh wait it was David on that show because Bruce sounded too gay. Dumb ass homophobic idiots of the seventies!

Ok maybe that's just urban legend, but since I have no way of looking it up I'm not taking back what I said.

Seriously she has Three's Company and the Jeffersons and the Mary Tyler Moore Show but no Mork and Mindy or Happy Days. She has the Love Boat of all things but no Dallas. I really can't believe she doesn't have Charlie's Angels or Cagney and Lacey, wait maybe that one is more 80s, hell if I know.

Rereading that list I'm feeling rather pathetic that I knew all of those shows. Not that I've watched them all, but I have heard of them and some of them I even know what they're about. Ok, this might be becoming a case of protesting too much.

Log entry Sol 19 (2)

Found a show that doesn't suck, well most of it doesn't as I recall. Yes, I've seen it before. My dad is a huge fan because his dad was a huge fan when it first aired. The first few seasons are hit or miss, then the middle is really good, the last few seasons are also hit or miss and sometimes super preachy but still overall a good show and great nostalgia for times with my dad. Off to start watching it now, oh guess I should log which one it is, or not. I'm gonna let you nameless NASA employee reading this whenever it was found, guess what the show was.

Log entry Sol 20

I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this show. Guess maybe Lewis and I had more in common than I realized. Never noticed how many lines Dad drops into conversation regularly. One or two I've even used myself though I didn't remember where they came from. The problem is as much as I enjoy watching, it makes me think of Dad and that depresses me so I can only watch an episode or two at a time. Eleven seasons, no idea how many episodes total, over two hundred for sure. Watching just a few at a time and not every day will make it last longer. Wonder if watching this with Beck would be fun or torture. Not going to think about the fact that I might never know.

Log entry Sol 23

I've decided I need a schedule. Something to keep me busy so I'm going to stop binge-watching Lewis's crappy seventies tv shows. I'll watch just one episode every evening and only once a week, you know like back in the actual seventies when everyone watched shows that way. Though I may give in and watch a few episodes like when shows went into syndication and ran two or three in a row. Anyway, I'm stretching it out.

I'll also be reading from Johanssen's Agatha mystery books, playing chess against the computer until I beat it which might take until Ares IV because I suck at chess, and something else. I'd like to make playing cards. We didn't bring any but I could play all kinds of solitaire games or build card houses. Gotta look and see what we might have I can make them out of. I could also maybe take the markers and draw on the walls, be the first graffiti tagger on Mars. Now that would be hilarious to send back to NASA. Too bad I don't have any writing utensils that I could use to tag the outside of the Hab just in case they send the satellites over. I could take apart one of the bunk cots to make thread/string to do something with. I could attempt to learn to knit. My mom tried to teach me years ago. There are plenty of things I could use as needles. Anything I can do to stave off boredom and you know insanity caused by prolonged isolation.

One of Beck's textbooks has a list of possible side effects from prolonged isolation and another one for PTSD. I know, I know I'm nowhere near qualified to diagnose anyone, especially myself but I am the only doctor on this planet, so it's not like I have any other choice. Every few days I look through the two lists. So far nothing is jumping out at me as a problem but It could start any day now. I did see it said in the cases of extreme isolation that the person came out relatively sane, they had kept their minds busy in some way, hence the projects.

Log entry Sol 24

I just came back from cleaning off the solar farm and realized I haven't used airlock one since Sol 6. I don't know that I've actively avoided it but the rovers are parked between airlocks two and three and the solar farm is to the right of airlock three so it just makes sense.

Nah that's rationalization, I've avoided that thing like the plague. I never used the other two airlocks from landing until I came back in to sew myself up. Every time I've left the Hab since then I've walked towards that airlock only to stop and veer to one of the other two. It's completely stupid and paranoid but I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. I don't need to add to my paranoia levels. I have enough trouble when the canvas starts rippling with the winds. I need to start figuring out how to cover the canvas with dirt. Gotta keep those pesky UV rays out. It's one thing if I'd only stayed the planned thirty days but four years is another story. Yes, the Hab canvas is rated to keep out the UV rays but it's likely to break down or fail as the years go by. Even if not it probably doesn't keep the rays out as completely as say a building back on Earth where I'd also have the atmosphere to help. If I don't do something I could leave this planet riddled with cancer liable to die as soon as I get back to Earth if not before.

Just what I want to do, shovel and move more dirt.

Except it's not that simple. If I just throw dirt up on top of the Hab the next big wind or sandstorm could blow it off and I'd be back where I started unless I can find some way to make the Hab canvas sticky and I have no idea how to do that, so I guess I need to see if I can dig down deep enough to get to a solid layer that I can use as bricks that I can use to build sort of an igloo around the Hab. I could also use a couple of the small or medium-sized rigid sample containers, you know boxes, then when I make water I can mix it with the dirt to make mud, put the boxes out on the surface for the water to boil off, and make bricks. It might work. That means a lot of water though and a lot of digging, a lot more than I've already done. The mere thought of all the digging and moving is making my back hurt. Time to go watch more crappy 70s tv and save the planning for another day.

Log entry Sol 30

Tomorrow we were supposed to leave, today was our scheduled pack-up day. So I'm packing up, my crew mates things that is. I wasn't going to. There's something comforting about all of their things being spread out. I can just keep telling myself that they're out on an EVA.

I have to stop doing that. It's not healthy. Being here alone isn't healthy but if I keep pretending they're all here just around the corner or just outside I'm going to start hallucinating long before Beck's medical texts say I might.

So I'm packing, slowly though. No matter how much I know it's better to acknowledge that everyone is gone, it's still not easy to pack everything away. I got through all of Johanssen's stuff then halfway through Martinez's and it hit me that someone on the crew had to do the same with my stuff on Hermes. They think I'm dead and there's no way for me to tell them any different.

My parents, my parents probably have already been to my storage facility in Houston and cleaned it out. I gave up my apartment when we went into isolation before the launch. Figured I'd get a new one when we got back. We have to do isolation like the first three Apollo moon landing crews, except in our case it's to protect us and not the rest of the world. Any Mars germs we picked up would either have caused us to become ill or been no danger. The problem would be us spending two years with only each other and our germs and suddenly landing back on Earth exposed to countless viruses and bacteria that might make us ill. Hell back in 2020 those poor returning ISS astronauts had to deal with CoVid that developed and was identified while they were happily orbiting the planet. Anyway, I had a deal with the landlord, guess that's gone.

Thoughts of my mother and father going through my stuff hit hard and I fell back against the wall with a picture of Martinez's family in my hand.

I've seen my mother cry more times than I can remember. Dad and I have been teasing her for years about what a sap she is. Dad, on the other hand, I've only ever seen him cry once. When his father died he was misty but no tears fell. When grandma died he was ok at the funeral but when we went to pack up and clean out her house he lost it. He talked about being an orphan now and just sobbed.

I can see them pulling out boxes and packing them into a truck to take back to Chicago. Mom probably opened every box while Dad told her they'd do that when they got home, and then looked at everything with her. They probably got them home and went through them again. No doubt they began sorting out what they should keep as mementos, what they would set aside for friends and family, and what to donate. Dad cried. I just know it.

My chest aches and I realize I'm bawling. My poor parents. I have to make it back to them, somehow.

Log entry Sol 30 (2)

I've been thinking about it for weeks now and I think I finally have a plan for making the water I need. It's completely ridiculously dangerous and never in a million years would NASA approve it. Then again never in a million years did NASA think they'd leave an astronaut alone on a deserted planet millions of miles from Earth either, so I'm going to be ridiculously dangerous.

I have to start by vandalizing the MAV fuel plant and the MDV to get the hydrogen and CO2 that I need. Yeah, I know CO2 isn't what I need to make water, well not the carbon anyway but the oxygenator in the Hab will help me separate that out. While I was packing everyone's stuff up I found the last thing I need. Horrible as it is, I'm going to shave pieces off of Martinez's crucifix to start the fire. I can't believe NASA let him bring it and didn't insist it be fireproof, works out for me though.

I've doubled and redoubled the soil several times now. I have to do it once more but I need water first so getting everything I need into the Hab is on tomorrow's agenda.