Watney turned away, hugging a pillow to his head. “Noisy people, go away,” he mumbled.

“Beck!” Martinez called out, shaking the mission’s doctor. “Rise and shine, bud!”

“Yeah, okay,” Beck said blearily.

Johanssen fell out of her bunk, then remained on the floor.

Pulling the pillow from Watney’s hands, Lewis said, “Let’s move, Watney! Uncle Sam paid a hundred thousand dollars for every second we’ll be here.”

“Bad woman take pillow,” Watney groaned, unwilling to open his eyes.

“Back on Earth, I’ve tipped two-hundred-pound men out of their bunks. Want to see what I can do in 0.4 g?”

“No, not really,” Watney said, sitting up.

Having rousted the troops, Lewis sat at the comm station to check overnight messages from Houston.

Watney shuffled to the ration cupboard and grabbed a breakfast at random.

“Hand me an ‘eggs,’ will ya,” Martinez said.

“You can tell the difference?” Watney said, passing Martinez a pack.

“Not really,” Martinez said.

“Beck, what’ll you have?” Watney continued.

“Don’t care,” Beck said. “Give me whatever.”

Watney tossed a pack to him.

“Vogel, your usual sausages?”

“Ja, please,” Vogel responded.

“You know you’re a stereotype, right?”

“I am comfortable with that,” Vogel replied, taking the proffered breakfast.

“Hey Sunshine,” Watney called to Johanssen. “Eating breakfast today?”

“Mnrrn,” Johanssen grunted.

“Pretty sure that’s a no,” Watney guessed.

The crew ate in silence. Johanssen eventually trudged to the ration cupboard and got a coffee packet. She clumsily added hot water, then sipped until wakefulness crept in.

“Mission updates from Houston,” Lewis said. “Satellites show a storm coming, but we can do surface ops before it gets here. Vogel, Martinez, you’ll be with me outside. Johanssen, you’re stuck tracking weather reports. Watney, your soil experiments are bumped up to today. Beck, run the samples from yesterday’s EVA through the spectrometer.”

“Should you really go out with a storm on the way?” Beck asked.

“Houston authorized it,” Lewis said.

“Seems needlessly dangerous.”

“Coming to Mars was needlessly dangerous,” Lewis said. “What’s your point?”

Beck shrugged. “Just be careful.”

• • •

THREE FIGURES looked eastward. Their bulky EVA suits rendered them nearly identical. Only the European Union flag on Vogel’s shoulder distinguished him from Lewis and Martinez, who wore the Stars and Stripes.

The darkness to the east undulated and flickered in the rays of the rising sun.

“The storm,” Vogel said in his accented English, “it is closer than Houston reported.”

“We’ve got time,” Lewis said. “Focus on the task at hand. This EVA’s all about chemical analysis. Vogel, you’re the chemist, so you’re in charge of what we dig up.”

“Ja,” Vogel said. “Please dig thirty centimeters and get soil samples. At least one hundred grams each. Very important is thirty centimeters down.”

“Will do,” Lewis said. “Stay within a hundred meters of the Hab,” she added.

“Mm,” Vogel said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Martinez.

They split up. Greatly improved since the days of Apollo, Ares EVA suits allowed much more freedom of motion. Digging, bending over, and bagging samples were trivial tasks.