The Martian (18 page)

After the storm abated, the lone remaining astronaut performed a full inspection of the Hab. But he didn’t notice anything amiss. The weak part of canvas was concealed by a seal-strip.

Designed for a mission of 31 sols, AL102 continued well past its planned expiration. Sol after sol went by, with the lone astronaut traveling in and out of the Hab almost daily. Airlock 1 was closest to the rover charging station, so the astronaut preferred it to the other two.

When pressurized, the airlock expanded slightly; when depressurized, it shrunk. Every time the astronaut used the airlock, the strain on AL102 relaxed, then tightened anew.

Pulling, stressing, weakening, stretching...

LOG ENTRY: SOL 119

I woke up last night to the Hab shaking.

The medium-grade sandstorm ended as suddenly as it began. It was only a category 3 storm with 50kph winds. Nothing to worry about. Still, it’s bit disconcerting to hear howling winds when you’re used to utter silence.

I’m worried about Pathfinder. If the sandstorm damaged it, I’ll have lost my connection to NASA. Logically, I shouldn’t worry. The thing’s been on the surface for decades. A little gale won’t do any harm.

When I head outside, I’ll confirm Pathfinder’s still functional before moving on to the sweaty, annoying work of the day.

Yes, with each sandstorm comes the inevitable Cleaning of the Solar Cells. A time honored tradition by hearty Martians such as myself. It reminds me of growing up in Chicago and having to shovel snow. I’ll give my dad credit; he never claimed it was to build character or teach me the value of hard work.

“Snow-blowers are expensive,” he used to say. “You’re free.”

Once, I tried to appeal to my mom. “Don’t be such a wuss,” She suggested.

In other news, It’s seven sols till the harvest, and I still haven’t prepared. For starters, I need to make a hoe. Also, I need to make an outdoor shed for the potatoes. I can’t just pile them up outside. The next major storm would cause The Great Martian Potato Migration.

Anyway, all that will have to wait. I’ve got a full day today. After cleaning the solar cells, I have to check the whole solar array make sure the storm didn’t hurt it. Then I’ll need to do the same for the rover.

I better get started.

Airlock 1 slowly depressurized to 1/90
th
of an atmosphere. Watney, donning an EVA suit, waited for it to complete. He had done it literally hundreds of times. Any apprehension he may have had on Sol 1 was long gone. Now it was merely a boring chore before exiting to the surface.

As the depressurization continued, the Hab’s atmosphere compressed the airlock and AL102 stretched for the last time.

On Sol 119, the Hab breached.

The initial tear was less than 1 millimeter. The perpendicular carbon fibers should have prevented the rip from growing. But countless abuses had stretched the vertical fibers apart and weakened the horizontal ones beyond use.

The full force of the Hab’s atmosphere rushed through the breach. Within a tenth of a second, the rip was a meter long, running parallel to the seal-strip. It propagated all the way around until it met its starting point. The airlock was no longer attached to the Hab.

The unopposed pressure violently launched the airlock like a cannonball as the Hab exploded. Inside, the surprised Watney slammed against the airlock’s back door with the force of the expulsion.

The airlock flew 40 meters before hitting the ground. Watney, barely recovered from the earlier shock, now endured another as he hit the front door, face first.

His faceplate took the brunt of the blow, the safety glass shattering into hundreds of small cubes. His head slammed against the inside of the helmet, knocking him senseless.

The airlock tumbled across the surface for a further 15 meters. The heavy padding of Watney’s suit saved him from many broken bones. He tried to make sense of the situation, but was barely conscious.

Finally done tumbling, the airlock rested on its side amid a cloud of dust.

Watney, on his back, stared blankly upward through the hole in his shattered faceplate. A gash in his forehead trickled blood down his face.

Regaining some of his wits, he got his bearings. Turning his head to the side, he looked through the back door’s window. The collapsed Hab rippled in the distance, a junkyard of debris strewn across the landscape in front of it.

Then, a hissing sound reached his ears. Listening carefully, he realized it was not coming from his suit. Somewhere in the phone-booth sized airlock, a small breach was letting air escape.

He listened intently to the hiss. Then he touched his broken faceplate. Then he looked out the window again.

“You fucking kidding me?” He said.

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

I’ve been laying here for a little while, trying to figure out what happened. I should be more upset, but I took a pretty good whack to the head. It had a calming effect.

So…

Well, ok.

I’m in the airlock. I can see the Hab out the window; it’s a good 50 meters away. Normally, the airlock is
attached
to the Hab. So that’s a problem.

The airlock’s on its side, and I can hear a steady hiss. So either it’s leaking or there are snakes in here. Either way, I’m in trouble.

Also, during the… whatever the fuck happened… I got bounced around like a pinball and smashed my faceplate. Air is notoriously uncooperative when it comes to giant, gaping holes in your EVA suit.

Looks like the Hab is completely deflated and collapsed. So even if I had a functional EVA suit to leave the airlock with, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. So that sucks.

I gotta’ think for a minute. And I have to get out of this EVA suit. It’s bulky, and the airlock is cramped. Besides, it’s not like it’s doing me any good.  

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

Things aren’t as bad as they seem.

I’m still fucked, mind you. Just not as deeply.

Not sure what happened to the Hab, but the rover’s probably fine. It’s not ideal, but at least it’s not leaky phone booth.

I’m wearing Beck’s EVA suit. I haven’t worn my own since Sol 6 when I got shish-kabobed. Beck’s suit was about the right size and didn’t have a hole in it. Why does that matter right now? Because, unlike my original suit, this one still has an unused patch kit.

Don’t get excited. It won’t do the suit any good. The patch kit is a cone-shaped valve with super sticky resin on the wide end. It’s just too small to deal with a hole larger than 8cm. And really, if you have a 9cm hole, you’re going to be dead way before you could whip out the kit.

Still, it’s an asset, and maybe I can use it to stop the airlock leak. And that’s my top priority right now.  

It’s a small leak. With the faceplate gone, the EVA suit is effectively managing the whole airlock. It’s been adding air to make up for the missing pressure. But it’ll run out eventually.

I need to find the leak. I think it’s near my feet, judging by the sound. Now that I’m out of the suit, I can turn around and get a look…

I don’t see anything… I can hear it, but… it’s down here somewhere, but I don’t know where.

I can only think of one way to find it: Start a fire!

Yeah, I know. A lot of my ideas involve setting something on fire. And yes, deliberately starting a fire in a tiny, enclosed space is usually a terrible idea. But I need the smoke. Just a little wisp of it.

As usual, I’m working with stuff that was deliberately designed not to burn. But no amount of careful design by NASA can get around a determined arsonist with a tank of pure oxygen.  

 The EVA suit is made entirely of non-flammable materials. So is the airlock. My clothes are fireproof as well, even the thread.

I was originally planning to check the solar array, doing repairs as needed after last night’s storm. So I have my toolbox with me. But looking through it, it’s all metal or non-flammable plastic.

I just realized I do have something flammable: My own hair. It’ll have to do. There’s a sharp knife in the tool-kit. I’ll shave some arm hairs off into a little pile.

Next step: oxygen. Back when I turned the hydrazine into water, I had tubing, garbage bags, and all sorts of other luxuries. I won’t have anything so refined is a pure oxygen flow. All I can do is muck with the EVA suit controls to increase oxygen percentage in the whole airlock. I figure bumping it to 40% will do.

All I need now is a spark.

The EVA suit has electronics, but it runs on very low voltage. I don’t think I could get an arc with it. Besides, I don’t want to tear up my suit’s electronics. I need it working to get from the airlock to the rover.

The airlock itself has electronics, but it ran on Hab power. I guess NASA never considered what would happen if it was launched 50 meters. Lazy bums.

Plastic might not burn, but anyone whose played with a balloon knows it’s great at building up static charge. Once I do that, I should be able to make a spark just by touching a metal tool.

Fun fact: This is exactly how the Apollo 1 crew died. Wish me luck!

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

I’m in a box full of burning hair smell. It’s not a good smell.

On my first try, the fire lit, but the smoke just drifted randomly around. My own breathing was screwing it up. So I held my breath and tried again.

My second try, the EVA suit threw everything off. There’s a gentle flow of air coming out of the faceplate as the suit constantly replaces the missing air. So I shut the suit down, held my breath, and tried again. I had to be quick; the pressure was dropping.

My third try, the quick arm movements I used to set the fire messed everything up. Just moving around makes enough turbulence to send the smoke everywhere.

The fourth time I kept the suit turned off, held my breath, and when the time came to light the fire, I did it very slowly. Then I watched as the little wisp of smoke drifted toward the floor of the airlock, disappearing through a hairline fracture.

I have you now, little leak!

I gasped for air and turned the EVA suit back on. The pressure had dropped to 0.9 atmospheres during my little experiment. But there was plenty of oxygen in the air for me any my hair-fire to breathe. The suit quickly got things back to normal.

Looking at the fracture, it’s pretty tiny. It would be a cinch to seal it with the suit’s patch kit, but now that I think about it, that’s a bad idea.

I’ll need to do some kind of repair to the faceplate. I don’t know how just yet, but the patch kit and its pressure-resistant resin is probably really important. And I can’t do it bit by bit, either. Once I break the seal on the patch kit, the binary components of the resin mix and I have 60 seconds before it hardens. I can’t just take a little to fix the crack.

Given time, I might be able to come up with a plan for the faceplate. Then, I could take a few seconds during that plan to scrape resin over the airlock fracture. But I don’t have time.

I’m down to 40% of my N2 tank. I need to seal that fracture now, and I need to do it without using the patch kit.

First idea: Little Dutch Boy. I’m licking my palm and placing it over the crack.

Ok… I can’t quite make a perfect seal, so there’s airflow… getting colder now… getting pretty uncomfortable… ok fuck this.

On to idea number two. Tape!

I have duct tape in my tool box. Let’s slap some on and see if it slows the flow. I wonder how long it will last before the pressure rips it. Putting it on now.

There we go… still holding…

Lemme check the suit… Readouts say the pressure is stable. Looks like the duct tape made a good seal.

Let’s see if it holds…

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

It’s been 15 minutes, and the tape is still holding. Looks like that problem is solved.

Sort of anticlimactic, really. I was already working out how to cover the breach with ice. I have 2 liters of water in the EVA suit’s “hamster-feeder”. I could have shut off the suit’s heating systems and let the airlock cool to freezing. Then I’d… well whatever.

Coulda’ done it with ice. I’m just sayin’.

All right. On to my next problem: How do I fix the EVA suit? Duct tape might seal a hairline crack, but it can’t hold an atmosphere of pressure against the size of my broken faceplate.

The patch kit is too small, but still useful. I can spread the resin around the edge of where the faceplate was, then stick something on to cover the hole. Problem is, what do I use to cover the hole? Something that can stand up to a lot of pressure.

Looking around, the only thing I see that can hold an atmosphere is the EVA suit itself. There’s plenty of material to work with, and I can even cut it. Remember when I was cutting Hab canvas in to strips? Those same sheers are right here in my tool kit.

Cutting a chunk out of my EVA suit leaves it with another hole. But a hole I can control the shape and location of.

Yeah… I think I see a solution here. I’m going to cut off my arm!

Well, no. Not
my
arm. The EVA suit’s arm. I’ll cut right below the left elbow. Then I can cut along its length, turning it into a rectangle. It’ll be big enough to seal the faceplate, and it’ll be held in place by the resin.

Material designed to withstand atmospheric pressure? Check.

Resin designed to seal a breach against that pressure? Check.

And what about the gaping hole on the stumpy arm? Unlike my faceplate, the suit’s material is flexible. I’ll press it together and seal it with resin. I’ll have to press my left arm against my side while I’m in the suit, but there’ll be room.

I’ll be spreading the resin pretty thin, but it’s literally the strongest adhesive known to man. And it doesn’t have to be a perfect seal. It just has to last long enough for me to get to safety.

And where will that “safety” be? Not a damn clue.

Anyway, one problem at a time. Right now I’m fixing the EVA suit.