“Beats the fuck out of me,” Annie said.

“Guys,” Bruce said, “I need to catch a flight back to LA in three hours. Is Teddy coming or what?”

“Quit bitching, Bruce,” Annie said. “None of us want to be here.”

Mitch turned the volume down on his earpiece and faced Mindy. “Who are you, again?”

“Um,” Mindy said, “I’m Mindy Park. I work in SatCon.”

“You a director or something?”

“No, I just work in SatCon. I’m a nobody.”

Venkat looked to Mitch. “I put her in charge of tracking Watney. She gets us the imagery.”

“Huh,” said Mitch. “Not the director of SatCon?”

“Bob’s got more to deal with than just Mars. Mindy’s handling all the Martian satellites, and keeps them pointed at Mark.”

“Why Mindy?” Mitch asked.

“She noticed he was alive in the first place.”

“She gets a promotion ’cause she was in the hot seat when the imagery came through?”

“No,” Venkat frowned, “she gets a promotion ’cause she figured out he was alive. Stop being a jerk, Mitch. You’re making her feel bad.”

Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t think of that. Sorry, Mindy.”

Mindy looked at the table and managed to say, “’kay.”

Teddy entered the room. “Sorry I’m late.” He took his seat and pulled several folders from his briefcase. Stacking them neatly, he opened the top one and squared the pages within. “Let’s get started. Venkat, what’s Watney’s status?”

“Alive and well,” Venkat said. “No change from my e-mail earlier today.”

“What about the RTG? Does the public know about that yet?” Teddy asked.

Annie leaned forward. “So far, so good,” she said. “The images are public, but we have no obligation to tell them our analysis. Nobody has figured it out yet.”

“Why did he dig it up?”

“Heat, I think,” Venkat said. “He wants to make the rover do long trips. It uses a lot of energy keeping warm. The RTG can heat up the interior without soaking battery power. It’s a good idea, really.”

“How dangerous is it?” Teddy asked.

“As long as the container’s intact, no danger at all. Even if it cracks open, he’ll be okay if the pellets inside don’t break. But if the pellets break, too, he’s a dead man.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” Teddy said. “JPL, how are the MDV plans coming along?”

“We came up with a plan a long time ago,” Bruce said. “You rejected it.”

“Bruce,” Teddy cautioned.

Bruce sighed. “The MDV wasn’t made for liftoff and lateral flight. Packing more fuel in doesn’t help. We’d need a bigger engine and don’t have time to invent one. So we need to lighten the MDV. We have an idea for that.

“The MDV can be its normal weight on primary descent. If we made the heat shield and outer hull detachable, they could ditch a lot of weight after landing at Ares 3, and have a lighter ship for the traverse to Ares 4. We’re running the numbers now.”

“Keep me posted,” Teddy said. He turned to Mindy. “Miss Park, welcome to the big leagues.”