Rich snatched a paper from the desk. “Here it is!” He handed it to Venkat with a childlike smile.

Venkat took the summary and skimmed it. The more he read, the wider his eyes got. “Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely!” Rich beamed.

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know,” Venkat said. “Friends?”

“I don’t have any of those.”

“Okay, keep it under your hat.”

“I don’t wear a hat.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Really?” Rich said. “It’s a stupid expression.”

“Rich, you’re being difficult.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

• • •

Vogel:

Being your backup has backfired.

I guess NASA figured botany and chemistry are similar because they both end in “Y,” One way or another, I ended up being your backup chemist.

Remember when they made you spend a day explaining your experiments to me? It was in the middle of intense mission prep. You may have forgotten.

You started my training by buying me a beer. For breakfast. Germans are awesome.

Anyway, now that I have time to kill, NASA gave me a pile of work. And all your chemistry crap is on the list. So now I have to do boring-ass experiments with test tubes and soil and pH levels and Zzzzzzzzzz.…

My life is now a desperate struggle for survival… with occasional titration.

Frankly, I suspect you’re a super-villain. You’re a chemist, you have a German accent, you had a base on Mars… what more can there be?

• • •

“WHAT THE fuck is ‘Project Elrond’?” Annie asked.

“I had to make something up,” Venkat said.

“So you came up with ‘Elrond’?” Annie pressed.

“Because it’s a secret meeting?” Mitch guessed. “The e-mail said I couldn’t even tell my assistant.”

“I’ll explain everything once Teddy arrives.” Venkat said.

“Why does ‘Elrond’ mean ‘secret meeting’?” Annie asked.

“Are we going to make a momentous decision?” Bruge Ng asked.

“Exactly,” Venkat said.

“How did you know that?” Annie asked, getting annoyed.

“Elrond,” Bruce said. “The Council of Elrond. From Lord of the Rings. It’s the meeting where they decide to destroy the One Ring.”

“Jesus,” Annie said. “None of you got laid in high school, did you?”

“Good morning,” Teddy said as he walked into the conference room. Seating himself, he rested his hands on the table. “Anyone know what this meeting’s about?” he asked.

“Wait,” Mitch said, “Teddy doesn’t even know?”

Venkat took a deep breath. “One of our astrodynamicists, Rich Purnell, has found a way to get Hermes back to Mars. The course he came up with would give Hermes a Mars flyby on Sol 549.”

Silence.

“You shittin’ us?” Annie demanded.

“Sol 549? How’s that even possible?” asked Bruce. “Even Iris wouldn’t have landed till Sol 588.”

“Iris is a point-thrust craft,” Venkat said. “Hermes has a constant-thrust ion engine. It’s always accelerating. Also, Hermes has a lot of velocity right now. On their current Earth-intercept course, they have to decelerate for the next month just to slow down to Earth’s speed.”