Venkat sighed. “What’s the point of this discussion if we can’t update the rover’s software?”

Jack grinned as he continued. “We can’t do the patch, but Watney can! We can just send the data, and have him enter the update into the rover himself.”

“How much data are we talking about?”

“I have guys working on the rover software right now. The patch file will be twenty meg, minimum. We can send one byte to Watney every four seconds or so with the ‘Speak&Spell.’ It’d take three years of constant broadcasting to get that patch across. Obviously, that’s no good.”

“But you’re talking to me, so you have a solution, right?” Venkat probed, resisting the urge to scream.

“Of course!” Jack beamed. “Software engineers are sneaky bastards when it comes to data management.”

“Enlighten me,” said Venkat.

“Here’s the clever part,” Jack said, conspiratorially. “The rover currently parses the signal into bytes, then identifies the specific sequence the Hab sends. That way, natural radio waves won’t throw off the homing. If the bytes aren’t right, the rover ignores them.”

“Okay, so what?”

“It means there’s a spot in the code base where it’s got the parsed bytes. We can insert a tiny bit of code, just twenty instructions, to write the parsed bytes to a log file before checking their validity.”

“This sounds promising…,” Venkat said.

“It is!” Jack said excitedly. “First, we update Pathfinder so it knows how to talk to the rover. Then, we tell Watney exactly how to hack the rover software to add those twenty instructions. Then we have Pathfinder broadcast new software to the rover. The rover logs the bytes to a file. Finally, Watney launches the file as an executable and the rover patches itself!”

Venkat furrowed his brow, taking in far more information than his sleep-deprived mind wanted to accept.

“Um,” Jack said. “You’re not cheering or dancing.”

“So we just need to send Watney those twenty instructions?” Venkat asked.

“That, and how to edit the files. And where to insert the instructions in the files.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that!”

Venkat was silent for a moment. “Jack, I’m going to buy your whole team autographed Star Trek memorabilia.”

“I prefer Star Wars,” he said, turning to leave. “The original trilogy only, of course.”

“Of course,” Venkat said.

As Jack walked away, a woman approached Venkat’s table.

“Yes?” Venkat said.

“I can’t find any Diet Coke, are we out?”

“Yes,” Venkat said. “I don’t know when Site Services refills the fridge.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Just as he was about to get back to work, his mobile rang. He groaned loudly at the ceiling as he snatched the phone from his desk.

“Hello?” he said as cheerfully as he could.

“I need a picture of Watney.”

“Hi, Annie. Nice to hear from you, too. How are things back in Houston?”

“Cut the shit, Venkat. I need a picture.”

“It’s not that simple,” Venkat explained.

“You’re talking to him with a fucking camera. How hard can it be?”