My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 307

ARES 3 solar day 303

"Here we are."

Starlight Glimmer, who was staring at the computer screen, raised her head. The screen displayed a photo of what seemed to be a neon halo on the crystal wall behind the abandoned cocoon of a dragonfly. "Huh?" she responded, "Sorry, I was thinking about other things just now."

"Why...oh," Dragonfly looked over the unicorn's shoulder and saw the photo on the screen, "You already find me annoying and want me to go back?"

Although the tone was teasing, Starlight Glimmer still felt a chill running through his body when he heard these words. "I won't forgive you if you dare to go back to that thing again," she said, closing the image browser, "No, what I'm thinking has nothing to do with this."

"Ladies, don't force me to turn around and drive back," Mark said. "Really, I'm begging you. I might have to change the battery anyway, so I hope this trip will at least be fruitful."

They walked ten kilometers east-northeast of Area E and came to another volcano or mountainous terrain - there were two peaks in the corner in front of them, each of which was significantly higher than the low hill in Area E. . Mark parked the car near the base of the volcano. They also carried the battery of the No. 1 rover in their saddlebags when they went out, as well as the RTG to provide extra heat inside the rover. The mountain side rose gently in front of them.

"Where can I find the best salt?" Mark asked.

"Mark, I do know a spell to find gems," Starlight replied, "but I've never met a horse whose talent is to find salt in the ground. I'm sorry."

Mark shrugged. "Well," he said, "let's drive a little further and see what's on the other side."

The rover climbed slowly but steadily up the side of the volcano, heading straight for the saddle between the peaks. It only took a few minutes for them to reach the top of the slope. The ground rolled away under the car, and then Mark suddenly hit the brakes and the rover jerked. The ribs of the wheel sunk into the loose soil and sand, slid slightly, and then stopped dead in its tracks.

"Wow," he exclaimed.

"Mark, this is not the time to joke." Starlight cursed angrily.

"This is no joke," Mark said. "Get your space suits on. We have to go out and see."

Ten minutes later, the three of them stood on the top of the mountain and looked east.

Unlike the gentle slope on the west side, the hillside facing east dropped straight down not far from where Mark parked his car. A giant bowl stretched out below in front of them. A long plain tongue protruded abruptly into the bowl from the south, and a small square mountain protruded from the tip, like a sphinx that was almost completely eroded by the wind. . Beyond these features, beyond the giant bowl in front of us, and even beyond the horizon, a long winding ridge rises in the dim distance as far as the eye can see; there marks this giant meteorite. The edge of the pit.

Mars seems to have concentrated all its limited colors into this scenic spot. Some bright substance, possibly volcanic ejecta or ice, paints the peaks almost a brilliant white. The hillsides are still dominated by the red and gray colors of the Asidarian plain. The bowl-shaped basin at the bottom of the slope is a different scene, dormant with a dull near-darkness that cannot even be illuminated by the distant but bright midday sun. The wind-smoothed square mountain on the rocky outcrop is in sharp contrast, painted an almost luminous rusty red; the color of the distant edge of the crater is softened by the distance and the pitifully thin atmosphere on Mars. rises and gradually fades to pink.

And just below the rim of the south bowl, between the rocky outcrop and the south peak, something glistened.

Mark raised the arm with the camera, adjusted the lens zoom to the maximum, and looked at the video output projected onto the inside of his helmet. "Oh my God," he didn't dare to say anything. "This is so stupid. I can't believe I can see this."

"What's wrong?" Starlight's gaze followed the direction pointed by Mark's stiff arm, "Is it the gem again?"

"Oh, it's much rarer than that," Mark asked. "What's the temperature your suit is reading right now?"

"Uh..." Starlight's gaze returned to her spacesuit and refocused on the data output under the mask, "One degree higher than freezing point."

"As I expected," Mark explained, "there have to be absolutely perfect environmental conditions for this to happen. The temperature has to fall within a range of a degree or two wide. The pressure has to be close to what's possible on this planet. Extreme value. The air pressure down there must be much higher than on the top of the mountain here." His speech speed was fast and slow, and his words became a series of murmurs.

"Mark, please tell me, what is it?"

"It's water." Mark held out a finger on his raised hand. "We are witnessing a phenomenon that no other astronauts have had the opportunity to observe here for centuries - naturally flowing water on the surface of Mars."

"Is it really that important?" asked Dragonfly next to him, "If we are willing, maybe we can build a fountain."

"From a scientific point of view, it's not that significant," Mark replied. "We've known for a long time that liquid water could exist here under the right conditions. This was the first serious attempt to map using photos taken by space probes. When mapping Mars, they set the Martian sea level to be a height where the average ambient air pressure is high enough to allow liquid water to exist under perfect conditions. Later, we learned about the existence of perchlorates here and their antifreeze effect, and also Landslides caused by flowing water have been seen in satellite images. We know very well that this can happen."

"But this is a special moment in history. Everything has to be just right for this to happen. The air pressure isn't high enough, and the water can't stay liquid. The temperature is too low, and it freezes. The temperature is too high, and the water boils right away. Evaporate. But here and now, we are in the right place at the right time, everything is perfect, and we see a waterfall on Mars." He patted his outstretched hand with his other hand. arm, "and because of that, it's all going to be recorded."

Starlight shuddered at that, and even her spacesuit shuddered with it. “If water is so rare here,” she lamented, “this planet is in a really bad place.”

"Well, it's hard to say," Dragonfly said with great interest, "It's very bad here; it wants our lives, but the look of this area reminds me of the wasteland..." She focused her tone on the soil, "At our place, near the insect nest." She moved closer to Mark, "Should we get closer to study?"

"No," Mark shook his head and said, "The slope is too steep. I won't let the rover take more risks than this. And by the time we really get there, it might be over. " Indeed, the flickering of the water's reflection seemed to be fading, much faster than the brightness could change due to the sun's slow movement across the sky.

The human lowered his outstretched arm and moved a few times to relieve muscle stiffness caused by maintaining one posture for a long time. "You see," he said, "this kind of thing is why I chose to be an astronaut."

"Trapped on a desert planet with five aliens?" Dragonfly mocked.

"Well, of course it doesn't count," Mark corrected, "but think about it; we are the first creatures on this planet to witness such a phenomenon. Even if we didn't mention this, we would still be standing in this position, The first person to see such a view and gaze upon that horizon. No matter where we go, we are pioneering. The first time to touch that rock. The first time to dig into that soil. To see the unprecedented and to create a new world. , dare to be the first in the world, first, first, first!" He patted his arm with the camera and added, "Now we just need to take our discovery home. This is what it means to be an astronaut. .”

Starlight snorted mockingly. "That's right," she muttered, "and I was the first to accidentally reach another world with a spaceship from our world."

"A number one counts as a first," Mark replied. "When you go home, you will become heroes forever, you know?"

This time Starlight's snoring was even louder, the shock even overshadowing the mockery. "You mean me? A hero? The hero who got us trapped here?"

"Heroes who got us out of trouble," Mark replied, "Heroes who gave us a chance to survive until rescue came. Without you and your magic, there would be no Cave Farm, and there wouldn't be anything. For food, there will only be three ponies that died about one hundred and fifty solar days ago. Without the dragonfly, you will not be able to leave the habitation module, or you will have to try to make do with spare Ares space suits. Day. It was I who built the farm, and Berry Berry's management made it really on track. Without Fireball's physical strength, we wouldn't be able to move the soil and food. And without Feihuo monitoring everyone's physical condition at all times, One or more of us may suffer permanent physical damage."

"Starlight, we're going to survive. We're going to get off this fucking planet alive. Just because we survive on this planet for a year and a half, we're all going to be immortal heroes, immortalized in our memory."

"A thousand years is the pony's traditional saying about this kind of thing." Tingting still didn't forget to complain.

Starlight sat down and lowered her head. "I don't think I'm a hero," she murmured, "like Berry, of course, she allowed us to land alive. I don't think anyone else can do it. And Feihuo is here We have had various heroes there. Even Dragonfly is a hero among the changelings."

"Indeed." The changeling in question admitted humbly.

"But I only delayed things," Starlight continued. "Yes, I did do a few things, but they created more problems than I solved. If it weren't for me, we wouldn't even be here Here - you'd go home with your crew, and we'd do, well, anything. I was just scared to death, trying to protect myself and figure out ways to keep everyone alive for as long as possible. "

"All things considered, you are pretty good at this." Tingting commented.

Mark knelt down, stretched out his hand and put it on Starlight's shoulder through the spacesuit, and leaned against it so that she could feel the weight. "Heroes don't have to be fearless," he said. "They don't have to have superhuman abilities. I'm not Neil Armstrong. I'm not even as good as Chris Hadfield. But a hero never gives up. . A hero can survive things that most people wouldn't survive. It's that simple: don't die. When people look at you in the future, they won't say, 'That guy named Starlight Glimmer, she flipped over. That’s a lot of times, isn’t it?’ What they would say is, ‘How on earth did she survive for a year and a half in another universe? Or on a planet with almost no air? And she had to grow her own Food? Build your own escape vehicle? I wouldn't be able to do it.' This is what they really say about you."

"Really?" Starlight Glimmer stood up from the dirt. "And what do they say when they talk about you, Mark Watney?"

"They'd say, 'That's Mark Watney? He's not as tall as I thought.'"

The pony and the changeling smiled knowingly.

"But seriously, I've been thinking about this for a long time," Mark continued, "How do you ponies treat heroes?"

Starlight Glimmer shrugged. "I lived with six of the greatest heroes of our time," she said. "One of them was a princess, and even now she walks down the street without one most of the time. Half the ponies stopped to look at her. If it wasn't Princess Sun or Princess Luna, we couldn't seem to get excited."

"It's so different for humans," Mark lamented. "The problem with becoming a human hero is that you can't turn back. After a heroic deed, your life is separated from the hero." It has nothing to do with it. For example, the Neil Armstrong mentioned just now, you know? He is actually very introverted. If he had a choice, he would be more willing to deal with machines instead of communicating with people. He would always say nothing. Then he became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. After that, he never enjoyed a moment of solitude until his death. From then on, he could never do anything else or become another character. . He can only be the first person to land on the moon and will go down in history forever."

Mark stood up again and dusted off the dust on his EVA spacesuit knees. "I often think about these things. NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars and was willing to risk the lives of five people just so that I, who was worthless, could roll back to Earth. This is a favor I owe them. , they will definitely let me pay them back in the future. A life-long space drug experiment subject. Be a speaker at any astronaut event they want. Become a teacher and pass on the experience to the next generation or two of new astronauts. Regardless of whether I Whether I am willing or not, there will be a lifetime of endless work waiting for me.”

"This is only the situation on NASA's side. In addition, I have to face the public. When I go back, I will be the first person to colonize Mars. My alma mater also mentioned in an email sent to me At this point - if you lived somewhere and grew crops, you colonized it. I'm going to live the rest of my life as the first Martian. And because of that , wherever I go, Zhang San, Li Si, cats and dogs will think that taking up my time, listening to them, shaking my hand, and getting my endorsement are all things I should do. They are not completely wrong."

After he finished speaking, he looked towards the giant bowl in the distance. The waterfall thousands of meters away has stopped, and the water flow has long disappeared. "Yeah. It's something I've been thinking about ever since I actually started believing that we were going to get out of here eventually."

A hoof poked his thigh through the suit—it was a dragonfly. "So how do you feel about being a hero?" she asked.

Mark took a deep breath. "I think it's at least better than nothing," he replied. "Speaking of which, isn't it time to give you some magic field time? Let's first see how much salt we can find on the top of the mountain."

The answer is: pitifully little. They finally returned to the foot of the mountain and filled the salt shaker with the starlight collection spell halfway back to Area E.