“Bullshit!” Mitch shot back as he stood from his chair. “You’re just convincing yourself the crash-lander will work so you don’t have to take a risk. You’re hanging him out to dry, you chickenshit son of a bitch!”

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

After a few seconds, Venkat followed behind, saying, “I’ll make sure he cools off.”

Bruce slumped in his chair. “Sheesh,” he said nervously. “We’re scientists, for Christ’s sake. What the hell!?”

Annie quietly gathered her things and placed them in her briefcase.

Teddy looked to her. “Sorry about that, Annie,” he said. “What can I say? Sometimes men let testosterone take over—”

“I was hoping he’d kick your ass,” she interrupted.

“What?”

“I know you care about the astronauts, but he’s right. You are a fucking coward. If you had balls, we might be able to save Watney.”

• • •

Lewis:

Hi, Commander.

Between training and our trip to Mars, I spent two years working with you. I think I know you pretty well. So I’m guessing you still blame yourself for my situation, despite my earlier e-mail asking you not to.

You were faced with an impossible scenario and made a tough decision. That’s what commanders do. And your decision was right. If you’d waited any longer, the MAV would have tipped.

I’m sure you’ve run through all the possible outcomes in your head, so you know there’s nothing you could have done differently (other than “be psychic”).

You probably think losing a crewman is the worst thing that can happen. Not true. Losing the whole crew is worse. You kept that from happening.

But there’s something more important we need to discuss: What is it with you and disco? I can understand the ’70s TV because everyone loves hairy people with huge collars. But disco?

Disco!?

• • •

VOGEL CHECKED the position and orientation of Hermes against the projected path. It matched, as usual. In addition to being the mission’s chemist, he was also an accomplished astrophysicist. Though his duties as navigator were laughably easy.

The computer knew the course. It knew when to angle the ship so the ion engines would be aimed correctly. And it knew the location of the ship at all times (easily calculated from the position of the sun and Earth, and knowing the exact time from an on-board atomic clock).

Barring a complete computer failure or other critical event, Vogel’s vast knowledge of astrodynamics would never come into play.

After completing the check, he ran a diagnostic on the engines. They were functioning at peak. He did all this from his quarters. All onboard computers could control all ships’ functions. Gone were the days of physically visiting the engines to check up on them.

Having completed his work for the day, he finally had time to read e-mail.

Sorting through the messages NASA deemed worthy to upload, he read the most interesting first and responded when necessary. His responses were cached and would be sent to Earth with Johanssen’s next uplink.