Mitch rubbed the back of his head. “Wow… 549. That’s thirty-five sols before Watney runs out of food. That would solve everything.”

Teddy leaned forward. “Run us through it, Venkat. What would it entail?”

“Well,” Venkat began, “if they did this ‘Rich Purnell Maneuver,’ they’d start accelerating right away, to preserve their velocity and gain even more. They wouldn’t intercept Earth at all, but would come close enough to use a gravity assist to adjust course. Around that time, they’d pick up a resupply probe with provisions for the extended trip.

“After that, they’d be on an accelerating orbit toward Mars, arriving on Sol 549. Like I said, it’s a Mary flyby. This isn’t anything like a normal Ares mission. They’ll be going too fast to fall into orbit. The rest of the maneuver takes them back to Earth. They’d be home two hundred and eleven days after the flyby.”

“What good is a flyby?” Bruce asked. “They don’t have any way to get Watney off the surface.”

“Yeah…,” Venkat said. “Now for the unpleasant part: Watney would have to get to the Ares 4 MAV.”

“Schiaparelli!?” Mitch gaped. “That’s thirty-two hundred kilometers away!”

“Three thousand, two hundred, and thirty-five kilometers to be exact,” Venkat said. “It’s not out of the question. He drove to Pathfinder’s landing site and back. That’s over fifteen hundred kilometers.”

“That was over flat, desert terrain,” Bruce chimed in, “but the trip to Schiaparelli—”

“Suffice it to say,” Venkat interrupted, “it would be very difficult and dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him trick out the rover. Also there would be MAV modifications.”

“What’s wrong with the MAV?” Mitch asked.

“It’s designed to get to low Mars orbit,” Venkat explained. “But Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars gravity entirely to intercept.”

“How?” Mitch asked.

“It’d have to lose weight… a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of people working on these problems, if we decide to do this.”

“Earlier,” Teddy said, “you mentioned a supply probe for Hermes. We have that capability?”

“Yes, with the Taiyang Shen,” Venkat said. “We’d shoot for a near-Earth rendezvous. It’s a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that’s for sure.”

“I see,” Teddy said. “So we have two options on the table: Send Watney enough food to last until Ares 4, or send Hermes back to get him right now. Both plans require the Taiyang Shen, so we can only do one.”

“Yes,” Venkat said. “We’ll have to pick one.”

They all took a moment to consider.

“What about the Hermes crew?” Annie asked, breaking the silence. “Would they have a problem with adding…” She did some quick math in her head. “Five hundred and thirty-three days to their mission?”

“They wouldn’t hesitate,” Mitch said. “Not for a second. That’s why Venkat called this meeting.” He glared at Venkat. “He wants us to decide instead.”

“That’s right,” Venkat said.

“It should be Commander Lewis’s call,” Mitch said.