My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 198

ARES 3 solar day 197

[13:08] Watney: System Command: Status

[13:08] System message: Last message sent: four hours and thirty-one minutes ago. Last message received: four hours and fifty-six minutes ago. The last satellite communication PING response: four hours and sixteen minutes ago. Warning: Fifty PINGs not answered.

[13:08] Watney: System command: PING

[13:10] System message: Request not responded within one hundred seconds. Retry [yes/no]?

[13:11] Watney: Yes

[13:11] System message: Response received in 0.021 seconds.

[13:21] Watney: Okay. Venkat, I am currently in rover No. 196, halfway between the residential area and Area E. I'm afraid my detailed report on the accident at Sunri Cave will have to be postponed. I'll send the summary tonight.

Starlight Glimmer woke up this morning with a terrible headache. According to Fei Huo, her current fever was caused by excessive spellcasting and depletion of magic energy. So the two of them could only stay in the residential area, while the rest of us went to the cave to collect deep soil samples for future investigations.

We didn't get any soil samples, at least not the ones I wanted. When we arrived at the site of the accident, we found extensive ground subsidence and water penetration in the farm area. Apparently after we left the cave yesterday, the permafrost layers underground that once held large deposits of methane hydrate collapsed. The ground in the farm area is now covered with pits with an average width of about 1.4 meters and depths ranging from ten centimeters to more than one meter. Several of them - and some of the largest ones - were formed right in the middle of the farm, causing damage to two of the pipes in the water heating system and flooding several nearby collapses.

The farm is now a puddle of mud.

I can't put into words how bad this situation is. The previous release of methane caused the explosive growth of anaerobic bacteria in the soil; after removing the methane, oxygen will gradually penetrate from the upper layer back into the cultivated soil, which should eventually cause the death of those bacteria in large numbers. But the soil contains a lot of water and happens to create a wetland environment - which is the favorite of those anaerobic bacteria.

All day today, and possibly tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, we will have to engage in extremely heavy physical labor under the eight-hour EVA time limit per day. This morning, Berry and I have been in the flooded area trying our best to harvest crops and transplant them to other locations, but it is most likely in vain. I'm already seeing signs of deep root necrosis on many alfalfa plants, and now the wet soil conditions are only exacerbating the situation. Potatoes were relatively unaffected - their root systems were much shallower and they were planted in a shadier area downhill. Judging from the current situation, it would be a miracle if we could salvage more than half of the expected alfalfa production.

Dragonfly and Fireball were also repairing the heating pipes. The plumbing system will have to be shut down at least until we have leveled the soil and removed most of the water; we would be doomed if we added water to the cave environment now. (Gan, now that I think about it, those days when I was always worried about insufficient water supply affecting crop cultivation are really worth remembering. Now I actually have to find ways to get these deadly ancestors out of the soil...)

Our current plan is to dig a well on the back wall of the cave farm as close to the bottom of the slope as possible. After that, we had to manually transfer the water from there, which meant that we still had the back-breaking work of carrying a huge amount of sample buckets filled with water out of the airlock and dumping them down the slope. Truth be told, given how much water we've added in the past one hundred and fifty solar days, this will probably become part of our daily routine from now on. Once we have removed all the viable plants from the pit and transplanted it elsewhere, we can then backfill the pit with the large amounts of soil produced by digging the well.

You should understand that before I became an astronaut, I never imagined that one day I would be so desperate that I would try to hand-transplant mature alfalfa plant by plant. Unfortunately, I have now fallen to this point. The seed reserves we have on hand are no longer enough to cover the entire affected area; once any crops in the non-subsidence area die due to root necrosis, the resulting loss of production capacity will never be recovered. So even if we know that nine out of ten crops soaked in water will die, we still have to at least try to save every plant we can.

All in all, our life here is so colorful now. There will be no magic at all for at least a week, and maybe up to two weeks; at least half of the alfalfa is cold, and if we're not lucky, it may continue to decline; and we still have tons of heavy clover staring at us. The coolies are waiting to see our show.

The fun times are truly endless. By the way, how are you doing today?

[13:44] HERMES: Everything is fine here, thank you for your concern.

[13:46] JPL: So do we. Mark, don't rush to report yet, your survival needs are the top priority. Our botany team has begun working on remedial options for the cave farm system.

Spitfire watched expressionlessly as the four figures, covered in mud, filthy and smelly, walked out of the No. 3 airlock one after another. Not a word of complaint, not a word of conversation could be heard as the two bipeds and two other quadrupeds lined up quietly to get into the shower.

Spitfire and Starlight spent a silent day in the Hab. Starlight asked Spitfire to bring her a computer, and she sat on the bed and looked at it for about an hour, then asked Spitfire to put it back. For the rest of the day, she just dozed off intermittently, unable to cover up the fatigue, sleepiness and pain all over her body. During this period, Spitfire had been sitting on the bed closest to Starlight, observing her movements, ready to respond to her needs at any time.

She brought Starlight painkillers. Starlight declined her offer because there was less than half of the medicine bottle left. She brought Xingguang antipyretic medicine again, and this time she didn't give Xingguang a chance to refuse. Starlight accepted it obediently without objection.

The content of the Pathfinder conversation was displayed on a projection screen in the habitat. They saw Mark's continuous sad news about the tragedy at Cave Farm. The response was only silence.

Now that they were back, the first one to enter the shower room and the first one to finish showering was Mark. He took off the space suit that had been mostly washed away from the mud and put it back on his special space suit holder. Then he walked towards the two ponies who were staying in the living area while they were working just now and asked: "How is her condition? ?”

"Very sick," Spitfire replied. "Fever. Too much magic."

"It's not too little this time." Starlight turned over on the small bed and added with a chuckle, "It's a change to experience another symptom of magic energy exhaustion."

Mark looked up at the projector again and looked at the message he sent to Earth and the brief responses from Hermes and Dr. Capol. "I, uh," he continued, "you have also seen the bad news."

"How bad is it?" Spitfire asked.

“It was pretty bad,” Mark admits. “When we got there most of the center of the farm was gone – literally gone. It sank into the water. Now most of the water has seeped below the surface. But this is actually not a good thing. The cave is sealed tightly from top to bottom, so there is absolutely nowhere for so much water to go."

"Sorry," Starlight replied, "it's my fault."

"No," Mark took the initiative, "It's actually my fault. And it's the second time. I messed up again." He sighed and sat down on the bed next to Fei Huo, "Your fault before. Experts mentioned that caves do not need to be sealed. Now that I think about it, they are right. After sealing, the temperature inside the cave rises, causing the permafrost to melt, eventually releasing methane. And even without good sealing, loss through the ground The amount of air is so small that it can be ignored. We can completely let it flow, so that the water can flow deeper and freeze again." He shook his head regretfully, "It's a pity that NASA doesn't know how to accept it, but I'm here I ignored you on an issue related to magic and trusted their decision-making."

"It's not your fault," Starlight snatched the pot back. "As long as the temperature of the cave rises, the methane will melt anyway."

"But it's still my fault." Mark continued to explain, "Yesterday I was just thinking about taking action as soon as possible to eliminate the harmful bacteria on the roots of the plants in order to save as many crops as possible, so I didn't sit down and take the time to think about the entire action plan. Is it reasonable? My decision was too hasty. Look at the results now; you are lying in bed and have not recovered, and the farm is half dead. All because I forgot to consider that there is already air in the cave and underground methane also occupies a certain space. "The impact." Mark said, holding Starlight's hoof, "This is completely the result of poor consideration, and I should not have dragged you into the water in the first place. I want to apologize to you."

"I was too hasty and didn't consider this issue," Starlight replied. "This was originally my responsibility as the scientific officer of this mission."

"But this is not your idea." Mark retorted, "This is my idea, and I should bear the responsibility."

That's when Spitfire spoke up; she'd had enough of this back-and-forth "it's my fault - not yours" rhetoric. "What are we going to do now?" She slowly said these words. It is really difficult for her to think in English. The words just coming to her mouth will slip away and play hide and seek with her if she is not careful.

"We're going to rebuild the farm," Mark said. "We're going to plant the last of the seeds. We've tried transplanting alfalfa that we rescued from the sinkhole, but I think most of them have drowned. We're going to need potatoes to supplement the food supply. Lack of production. We will also build more batteries and get out of Mars before the rock surprises us or our own stupidity kills us."

"But we won't give up easily." Starlight replied softly.

"Never." Then came Mark's response, "We must face difficulties and believe that we can always find a glimmer of hope."

Feihuo nodded, "It's not just about survival, we also want to spread our wings and fly."

Mark, who had taken off his space suit, nodded and returned to the shower queue for the second time to wash off the dust from his body.

While Mark was busy in the shower, Spitfire and her fellow crew members were having a discussion outside. They found her suggestion very original and expressed their appreciation. They dug through Mark's pile of food packages and soon found the target that was four times larger than other ordinary packages. They then hid the Mark while it dried and returned the rest of the food packets to the storage cupboard.

A few hours later, when dinner was approaching, Tingting suddenly walked up to Mark and spoke in a serious voice, "Mark Watney, please obey your order!" Her serious declaration made her stare casually for more than an hour. Mark, who was looking at the computer screen in front of him, was startled and raised his head unconsciously.

"Clam?"

"Today I want to greet you on behalf of a special group of people." The bug horse grinned her cute fangs and continued, "Everyone will join this group one day, but today we want to welcome a new member It's you."

Fireball took a solemn step forward. Apparently he found half a dozen used sample labels from somewhere, added some adhesive, bent and twisted them into a cone shape to make a very crude-looking paper hat. "Please put on your hat."

Mark, who looked confused, was slapped with a short fool's hat.

"In recognition of your contribution in responding to your responsibilities to help teammates who were late and below the qualified level," Tingting then read the congratulations, "to commemorate your decision to only use your brain as an advanced helmet stand, and also to To congratulate you on shattering your long-held image of absolute perfection; Mark Watney, I hereby solemnly announce that you are officially a member of the Royal Fail Society."

Then the ponies stamped their hooves on the floor - the pony way of cheering. Fireball on the side decided to clap his claws in a human way.

A minute later, Tingting added, "Now, please take a step forward and tell us how they gloriously joined the association." She bowed first and volunteered, "I am operating myself." I got distracted while putting on my spacesuit and almost caused permanent damage to my spacesuit.”

The next person to come out was Starlight Glimmer, who had just gotten out of bed and was getting ready for dinner. "I just wanted to try to see if I could turn a pebble into a cherry. I rashly tried to cast the transformation spell when I didn't have enough magic power. It almost punched a hole in the habitation module."

Then it was Fireball's turn, "I tried... I tried before... to bring back the perchloric acid salt." He said word by word, "It started... it caught fire, and we almost died. .”

Fireball's efforts to ensure that she could express herself correctly amazed Spitfire, so much so that she was so nervous that she made several slips of the tongue. "I forgot to make sure everyone knew..." She shook her head, ignoring the soft laughter of everyone in her ears, and concentrated on speaking slowly and speaking again, "I forgot to make sure everyone knew that the airlock was dangerous."

"Me too," Cherry Berry agreed, "and we almost died."

Spitfire then turned to Mark; it took him a moment to realize that it was his turn to speak. "I, uh, I pushed you to implement an imperfect plan." He said, "I forgot that no matter what matter it is, it will take up space. I forgot it twice in a row. As a result, we still haven't dealt with it until now. Finish this mess I made."

"Okay." Tingting said, presenting the large bag of food stolen from Mark's supplies, "Next, in order to congratulate our new members, please help cook tonight's ceremonial feast."

Mark looked at the extra-large food package and asked, "What is this?"

Spitfire extended a wing and pointed at the label on the food package. "It says 'turkey,'" she replied. "Like the one in 'jive turkey.'"

Fireball on the side grinned and added, "What you eat will make up for it."

Mark couldn't help but laugh. "Okay, okay," he said, "I accept your honor with a smile, but I have one more condition: Can any of you tell me... uh, what's the point after the embarrassment?"

Dragonfly started up first, and everyone followed suit and replied in unison: "Don't make the same mistake again in the future."

"That's right." He looked down at the Thanksgiving turkey dinner in front of him that had been thrown in the corner and forgotten for a long time. Spitfire thought on the sidelines that if this food was the same as his other food packages, it would taste exactly the same as freshly baked even after being stored for a whole year. Military rations are nearly timeless in this regard. "Okay, it seems I'd better start cooking now."

"By the way," Spitfire asked, "what exactly is a turkey? I mean it in other words besides swearing."

The smile on Mark's face suddenly disappeared, but he just hesitated for a moment, and then quickly replied: "A stupid, fat bird that can hardly fly even short distances. It looks like an ugly bird A very fat chicken with a long neck and a bald head.”

This time it was Spitfire's turn to stop laughing. "Oh." She only responded with one word. For a moment she felt like she was about to faint; after all, just having feathers meant they were related, right? But think about it again... "How bad was it?" she asked again.

"The flying distance of wild ones is about fifty to one hundred meters, and the farmed ones cannot fly at all."

Spitfire thought about it carefully, and finally decided that it would be better for him to distance himself from such a stupid, ugly bird that could not even escape the pursuit of a predator. "Can I have a taste later?"

After all she thought about it, there was no way this meat would taste as horrible as bacon.

It turned out that she was right, but even with the help of gravy and stuffing seasoning, she didn't want to have this experience again. After taking a small bite, she decided to go with the crowd and returned to the embrace of alfalfa potatoes.

Mark wrapped most of the burritos and put them in the cabin freezer, saving them for later and eating them with the potatoes. “It feels like Thanksgiving,” he muttered. “The leftovers can be eaten for another week.”

Fei Huo didn't understand this sentence - Mark always said a lot of words that she knew every word, but when read together, she was confused.

But if gratitude here meant thanking them for being safe and sound, she thought it was quite appropriate.