“Do you think he’s planning to go soon? He seems to be getting ready for a trip.”

“I hope not,” Venkat said. “There’s nothing at the site other than the MAV. None of the other presupplies. It would be a very long, very dangerous trip, and he’d be leaving the safety of the Hab behind.”

“Why would he risk it?”

“Communication,” Venkat said. “Once he reaches the MAV, he could contact us.”

“So that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

“Communication would be a great thing. But traversing thirty-two hundred kilometers to Ares 4 is incredibly dangerous. We’d rather he stayed put. If we could talk to him, we’d certainly tell him that.”

“He can’t stay put forever, right? Eventually he’ll need to get to the MAV.”

“Not necessarily,” Venkat said. “JPL is experimenting with modifications to the MDV so it can make a brief overland flight after landing.”

“I’d heard that idea was rejected as being too dangerous,” Cathy said.

“Their first proposal was, yes. Since then, they’ve been working on safer ways to do it.”

“With only three and a half years before Ares 4’s scheduled launch, is there enough time to make and test modifications to the MDV?”

“I can’t answer that for sure. But remember, we made a lunar lander from scratch in seven years.”

“Excellent point.” Cathy smiled. “So what are his odds right now?”

“No idea,” Venkat said. “But we’re going to do everything we can to bring him home alive.”

• • •

MINDY GLANCED nervously around the conference room. She’d never felt so thoroughly outranked in her life. Dr. Venkat Kapoor, who was four levels of management above her, sat to her left.

Next to him was Bruce Ng, the director of JPL. He’d flown all the way to Houston from Pasadena just for this meeting. Never one to let precious time go to waste, he typed furiously on his laptop. The dark bags under his eyes made Mindy wonder just how overworked he truly was.

Mitch Henderson, the flight director for Ares 3, swiveled back and forth in his chair, a wireless earpiece in his ear. It fed him a real-time stream of all the comm chatter from Mission Control. He wasn’t on shift, but he was kept apprised at all times.

Annie Montrose entered the conference room, texting as she walked. Never taking her eyes off her phone, she deftly navigated around the edge of the room, avoiding people and chairs, and sat in her usual spot. Mindy felt a pang of envy as she watched the director of media relations. She was everything Mindy wanted to be. Confident, high-ranking, beautiful, and universally respected within NASA.

“How’d I do today?” Venkat asked.

“Eeeh,” Annie said, putting her phone away. “You shouldn’t say things like ‘bring him home alive.’ It reminds people he might die.”

“Think they’re going to forget that?”

“You asked my opinion. Don’t like it? Go fuck yourself.”

“You’re such a delicate flower, Annie. How’d you end up NASA’s director of media relations?”