“Ah well. How about Watney? What did he do?”

“He’s our botanist and engineer. And don’t talk about him in the past tense.”

“Engineer? Like Scotty?”

“Kind of,” Beck said. “He fixes stuff.”

“I bet that’s coming in handy now.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

• • •

THE CHINESE had arranged a small conference room for the Americans to work in. The cramped conditions were luxurious by Jiuquan standards. Venkat was working on budget spreadsheets when Mitch came in, so he was glad for the interruption.

“They’re a weird bunch, these Chinese nerds,” Mitch said, collapsing into a chair. “But they make a good booster.”

“Good,” Venkat said. “How’s the linkage between the booster and our probe?”

“It all checks out,” Mitch said. “JPL followed the specs perfectly. It fits like a glove.”

“Any concerns or reservations?” Venkat asked.

“Yeah. I’m concerned about what I ate last night. I think it had an eyeball in it.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t an eyeball.”

“The engineers here made it for me special,” Mitch said.

“There may have been an eyeball,” Venkat said. “They hate you.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you’re a dick, Mitch,” Venkat said. “A total dick. To everyone.”

“Fair enough. So long as the probe gets to Hermes, they can burn me in effigy for all I care.”

• • •

“WAVE TO DADDY!” Marissa said, waving David’s hand at the camera. “Wave to Daddy!”

“He’s too young to know what’s going on,” Martinez said.

“Just think of the playground cred he’ll have later in life,” she said. “‘My dad went to Mars. What’s your dad do?’”

“Yes, I’m pretty awesome,” he agreed.

Marissa continued to wave David’s hand at the camera. David was more interested in his other hand, which was actively engaged in picking his nose.

“So,” Martinez said, “you’re pissed.”

“You can tell?” Marissa asked. “I tried to hide it.”

“We’ve been together since we were fifteen. I know when you’re pissed.”

“You volunteered to extend the mission five hundred and thirty-three days,” she said, “asshole.”

“Yeah,” Martinez said. “I figured that’d be the reason.”

“Your son will be in kindergarten when you get back. He won’t have any memories of you.”

“I know,” Martinez said.

“I have to wait another five hundred and thirty-three days to get laid!”

“So do I,” he said defensively.

“I have to worry about you that whole time,” she added.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

She took a deep breath. “We’ll get past it.”

“We’ll get past it,” he agreed.

• • •

“WELCOME TO CNN’s Mark Watney Report. Today, we have the director of Mars operations, Venkat Kapoor. He’s speaking to us live via satellite from China. Dr. Kapoor, thank you for joining us.”

“Happy to do it,” Venkat said.

“So, Dr. Kapoor, tell us about the Taiyang Shen. Why go to China to launch a probe? Why not launch it from the US?”

“Hermes isn’t going to orbit Earth,” Venkat said. “It’s just passing by on its way to Mars. And its velocity is huge. We need a booster capable of not only escaping Earth’s gravity but matching Hermes’s current velocity. Only the Taiyang Shen has enough power to do that.”