Sol 549. That’s when they come for me. If I miss it, I’ll spend the rest of my very short life here. And I still have the MAV to modify before then, too.

Sheesh.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 482

Air Day. A time for relaxation and speculation.

For relaxation, I read eighty pages of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun courtesy of Johanssen’s digital book collection. I think Linda Marshall is the murderer.

As for speculation, I speculated on when the hell I’ll get past this storm.

I’m still going due south every day; and still dealing with efficiency loss (though I’m keeping ahead of it). Every day of this crap I’m only getting 37 kilometers closer to the MAV instead of 90. Pissing me off.

I considered skipping the Air Day. I could go another couple of days before I ran out of oxygen, and getting away from the storm is pretty important. But I decided against it. I’m far enough ahead of the storm that I can afford one day of no movement. And I don’t know if a couple more days would help. Who knows how far south the storm goes?

Well, NASA probably knows. And the news stations back on Earth are probably showing it. And there’s probably a website like www.watch-mark-watney-die.com. So there’s like a hundred million people or so who know exactly how far south it goes.

But I’m not one of them.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 484

Finally!

I am FINALLY past the god damned storm. Today’s power regen was 100 percent. No more dust in the air. With the storm moving perpendicular to my direction of travel, it means I’m south of the southernmost point of the cloud (presuming it’s a circular storm. If it’s not, then fuck).

Starting tomorrow, I can go directly toward Schiaparelli. Which is good, ’cause I lost a lot of time. I went 540 kilometers due south while avoiding that storm. I’m catastrophically off course.

Mind you, it hasn’t been that bad. I’m well into Terra Meridiani now, and the driving is a little easier here than the rugged, ass-kicking terrain of Arabia Terra. Schiaparelli is almost due east, and if my sextant and Phobos calculations are correct, I’ve got another 1030 kilometers to get there.

Accounting for Air Days and presuming 90 kilometers of travel per sol, I should arrive on Sol 498. Not too bad, really. The Nearly-Mark-Killin’ storm only ended up delaying me by four sols.

I’ll still have forty-four sols to do whatever MAV modifications NASA has in mind.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 487

I have an interesting opportunity here. And by “opportunity” I mean Opportunity.

I got pushed so far off course, I’m actually not far from the Mars exploration rover Opportunity. It’s about 300 kilometers away. I could get there in about four sols.

Damn it’s tempting. If I could get Opportunity’s radio working, I’d be in touch with humanity again. NASA would continually tell me my exact position and best course, warn me if another storm was on its way, and generally be there watching over me.