“Pointless to even ask her,” Venkat said. “We need to make this decision; it’s a matter of life and death.”

“She’s the mission commander,” Mitch said. “Life-and-death decisions are her damn job.”

“Easy, Mitch,” Teddy said.

“Bullshit,” Mitch said. “You guys have done end runs around the crew every time something goes wrong. You didn’t tell them Watney was still alive; now you’re not telling them there’s a way to save him.”

“We already have a way to keep him alive,” Teddy said. “We’re just discussing another one.”

“The crash-lander?” Mitch said. “Does anyone think that’ll work? Anyone?”

“All right, Mitch,” Teddy said. “You’ve expressed your opinion, and we’ve heard it. Let’s move on.” He turned to Venkat. “Can Hermes function for five hundred and thirty-three days beyond the scheduled mission end?”

“It should,” Venkat said. “The crew may have to fix things here and there, but they’re well trained. Remember, Hermes was made to do all five Ares missions. It’s only halfway through its designed life span.”

“It’s the most expensive thing ever built,” Teddy said. “We can’t make another one. If something went wrong, the crew would die, and the Ares Program with them.”

“Losing the crew would be a disaster,” Venkat said. “But we wouldn’t lose Hermes. We can remotely operate it. So long as the reactor and ion engines continued to work, we could bring it back.”

“Space travel is dangerous,” Mitch said. “We can’t make this a discussion about what’s safest.”

“I disagree,” Teddy said. “This is absolutely a discussion about what’s safest. And about how many lives are at stake. Both plans are risky, but resupplying Watney only risks one life while the Rich Purnell Maneuver risks six.”

“Consider degree of risk, Teddy,” Venkat said. “Mitch is right. The crash-lander is high-risk. It could miss Mars, it could reenter wrong and burn up, it could crash too hard and destroy the food… We estimate a thirty percent chance of success.”

“A near-Earth rendezvous with Hermes is more doable?” Teddy asked.

“Much more doable,” Venkat confirmed. “With sub-second transmission delays, we can control the probe directly from Earth rather than rely on automated systems. When the time comes to dock, Major Martinez can pilot it remotely from Hermes with no transmission delay at all. And Hermes has a human crew, able to overcome any hiccups that may happen. And we don’t have to do a reentry; the supplies don’t have to survive a three-hundred-meters-per-second impact.”

“So,” Bruce offered, “we can have a high chance of killing one person, or a low chance of killing six people. Jeez. How do we even make this decision?”

“We talk about it, then Teddy makes the decision,” Venkat said. “Not sure what else we can do.”

“We could let Lewis—” Mitch began.

“Yeah, other than that,” Venkat interrupted.

“Question,” Annie said. “What am I even here for? This seems like something for you nerds to discuss.”

“You need to be in the loop,” Venkat said. “We’re not deciding right now. We’ll need to quietly research the details internally. Something might leak, and you need to be ready to dance around questions.”