“Good thinking. Can I see the pic?”

“Sure.” She brought up the image on her screen.

Venkat peered at the blurry image. “Is this as good as it gets?”

“Well, it is a photo taken from orbit,” Mindy said. “The NSA enhanced the image with the best software they have.”

“Wait, what?” Venkat stammered. “The NSA?”

“Yeah, they called and offered to help out. Same software they use for enhancing spy satellite imagery.”

Venkat shrugged. “It’s amazing how much red tape gets cut when everyone’s rooting for one man to survive.” He pointed to the screen. “What’s Watney doing here?”

“I think he’s loading something into the rover.”

“When was the last time he worked on the trailer?” Venkat asked.

“Not for a while. Why doesn’t he write us notes more often?”

Venkat shrugged. “He’s busy. He works most of the daylight hours, and arranging rocks to spell a message takes time and energy.”

“So…,” Mindy said. “Why’d you come here in person? We could have done all this over e-mail.”

“Actually, I came to talk to you,” he said. “There’s going to be a change in your responsibilities. From now on, instead of managing the satellites around Mars, your sole responsibility is watching Mark Watney.”

“What?” Mindy said. “What about course corrections and alignment?”

“We’ll assign that to other people,” Venkat said. “From now on, your only focus is examining imagery of Ares 3.”

“That’s a demotion,” Mindy said. “I’m an orbital engineer, and you’re turning me into a glorified Peeping Tom.”

“It’s short-term,” Venkat said. “And we’ll make it up to you. Thing is, you’ve been doing it for months, and you’re an expert at identifying elements of Ares 3 from satellite pics. We don’t have anyone else who can do that.”

“Why is this suddenly so important?”

“He’s running out of time,” Venkat said. “We don’t know how far along he is on the rover modifications. But we do know he’s only got sixteen sols to get them done. We need to know exactly what he’s doing. I’ve got media outlets and senators asking for his status all the time. The President even called me a couple of times.”

“But seeing his status doesn’t help,” Mindy said. “It’s not like we can do anything about it if he falls behind. This is a pointless task.”

“How long have you worked for the government?” Venkat sighed.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 434

The time has come to test this baby out.

This presents a problem. Unlike on my Pathfinder trip, I have to take vital life support elements out of the Hab if I’m going to do a real dry run. When you take the atmospheric regulator and oxygenator out of the Hab, you’re left with… a tent. A big round tent that can’t support life.

It’s not as risky as it seems. As always, the dangerous part about life support is managing carbon dioxide. When the air gets to 1 percent CO₂, you start getting symptoms of poisoning. So I need to keep the Hab’s mix below that.