Speaking of life support, the rover switched over to the local tanks when the valves shut. Good boy, Rover! Here’s a Scooby Snack.

I’ve got twenty liters of oxygen (enough to keep me breathing for forty days), but without the regulator (which is in the trailer) I’m back to chemical CO₂ absorption. I have 312 hours of filters left. Plus I have another 171 hours of EVA suit CO₂ filters as well. All told, that gives me 483 hours, which is close to twenty sols. So I have time to get things working again.

I’m really damn close to the MAV now. About 220 kilometers. I’m not going to let something like this stop me from getting there. And I don’t need everything to work at top form anymore. I just need the rover to work for 220 more kilometers and the life support to work for fifty-one more sols. That’s it.

Time to suit up and look for the trailer.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 498 (2)

I had an EVA and things aren’t too bad. Mind you, they’re not good.

I trashed three solar cells. They’re under the rover and cracked all to hell. They might still be able to piss out a few watts, but I’m not holding out much hope. Luckily, I did come into this with one extra solar cell. I needed twenty-eight for my daily operations and I brought twenty-nine (fourteen on the rover’s roof, seven on the trailer’s roof, and eight on the makeshift shelves I installed on the sides of both vehicles).

I tried pushing the rover over, but I wasn’t strong enough. I’ll need to rig something to get a leverage advantage. Other than being on its side, I don’t see any real problems.

Well, that’s not true. The tow hook is ruined beyond repair. Half of it ripped clean off. Fortunately, the trailer also has a tow hook, so I have a spare.

The trailer’s in a precarious situation. It’s upside down and sitting on the inflated roof. I’m not sure which god smiled down on me and kept that balloon from popping, but I’m grateful. My first priority will be righting it. The longer it puts weight on that balloon, the larger the chances it’ll pop.

While I was out, I collected the twenty-six solar cells that aren’t under the rover and set them up to recharge my batteries. May as well, right?

So right now, I have a few problems to tackle: First, I need to right the trailer. Or at least get the weight off the balloon. Next, I need to right the rover. Finally, I need to replace the rover’s tow hook with the one on the trailer.

Also, I should spell out a message for NASA. They’re probably worried.

• • •

MINDY READ the Morse code aloud. “ROLLED. FIXING NOW.”

“What? That’s it?” Venkat said over the phone.

“That’s all he said,” she reported, cradling the phone as she typed out an e-mail to the list of interested parties.