“So I spent the last few hours checking everything I could. Commander Lewis had two outings in Rover 2. The second was on Sol 5. According to the logs, after returning, she plugged it into the Hab for recharging. It wasn’t used again, and thirteen hours later they evac’d.”

He slid a picture across the desk to Teddy.

“That’s one of the images from last night. As you can see, Rover 2 is facing away from the Hab. The charging port is in the nose, and the cable isn’t long enough to reach.”

Teddy absently rotated the picture to be parallel with the edges of his desk. “She must have parked it facing the Hab or she wouldn’t have been able to plug it in,” he said. “It’s been moved since Sol 5.”

“Yeah,” Venkat said, sliding another picture to Teddy. “But here’s the real evidence. In the lower right of the image you can see the MDV. It’s been taken apart. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have done that without telling us.

“And the clincher is on the right of the image,” Venkat pointed. “The landing struts of the MAV. Looks like the fuel plant has been completely removed, with considerable damage to the struts in the process. There’s just no way that could have happened before liftoff. It would have endangered the MAV way too much for Lewis to allow it.”

“Hey,” Annie said. “Why not talk to Lewis? Let’s go to CAPCOM and ask her directly.”

Rather than answer, Venkat looked to Teddy knowingly.

“Because,” Teddy said, “if Watney really is alive, we don’t want the Ares 3 crew to know.”

“What!?” Annie said. “How can you not tell them?”

“They have another ten months on their trip home,” Teddy explained. “Space travel is dangerous. They need to be alert and undistracted. They’re sad that they lost a crewmate, but they’d be devastated if they found out they’d abandoned him alive.”

Annie looked to Venkat. “You’re on board with this?”

“It’s a no-brainer,” Venkat said. “Let ’em deal with that emotional trauma when they’re not flying a spaceship around.”

“This’ll be the most talked-about event since Apollo 11,” Annie said. “How will you keep it from them?”

Teddy shrugged. “Easy. We control all communication with them.”

“Fuck,” Annie said, opening her laptop. “When do you want to go public?”

“What’s your take?” he asked.

“Mmm,” Annie said. “We can hold the pics for twenty-four hours before we’re required to release them. We’ll need to send out a statement along with them. We don’t want people working it out on their own. We’d look like assholes.”

“Okay,” Teddy agreed, “put together a statement.”

“That’ll be fun,” she grumbled.

“Where do we go from here?” Teddy asked Venkat.

“Step one is communication,” Venkat said. “From the pics, it’s clear the comm array is ruined. We need another way to talk. Once we can talk, we can assess and make plans.”

“All right,” Teddy said. “Get on it. Take anyone you want from any department. Use as much overtime as you want. Find a way to talk to him. That’s your only job right now.”