“Come—! On your mark!”
“One! Two! Three—! Heave! Ho—!”
Tang Yue and Tomcat held their shoulders against the Mars Wanderer as they exerted their strength together. The man and cat gritted their teeth, groaning away as though they were suffering from constipation. Their four hind limbs were slipping across the ground.
“Heave—!” Tang Yue growled. “Ho! A little bit more! Just a little bit more!”
The vehicle finally budged as the wheel that had fallen into a pit slowly crawled out.
“Just a little bit more…” Tang Yue’s face was flushed red as his head was perspiring profusely. He had used all his energy in that final push. “It’s about to come out! Almost!”
“You sh*t it out?”
Tang Yue felt all his strength drain from him as he nearly fell to the ground. He was unable to hold the heavy vehicle in place as it slowly rolled back into the pit. It was all for nothing.
“Will you die if you don’t say something obscene?”
Tang Yue sat down and panted while leaning against the Wanderer’s wheel. He glared fiercely at Tomcat.
He was rather pissed.
This tiny pit had delayed them for more than an hour. When Tomcat drove, it did its best to avoid complicated terrain, but it was inevitable that it missed a few sand pits.
The Wanderer was really not an all-terrain vehicle. The grip on its wheels and the torque of its engine were greatly lacking. When Tomcat depressed the accelerator all the way down, it would hear the wheels spinning inside the pit.
“That’s not obscene. I’m just expressing my concern for you. Your life and work balance are highly imbalanced and you eat irregular meals. I’ve no idea if your digestive system and bowels are still fine.” Tomcat sat down and, using a tone as though it was asking about Tang Yue’s family, asked, “Does Brother Poo leave on time every day?”
“He meets me daily at the same time! You don’t have to worry about it!” Tang Yue replied grumpily.
As a normal person, eating, sleeping, defecating, urinating, and sleeping were ordinary biological requirements.
The most troublesome part was defecating.
Urinating was, in fact, rather convenient. The Radiant Armor had a urine collector that had specialized male and female types. They were removable and could contain a total of 1.5 liters. Everyone’s urine on Mars was recycled and reused. After leaving Kunlun Station, Tang Yue didn’t need to recycle it anymore. All the urine stored in the container was cleared away daily.
During the trip, when Tang Yue suddenly called for Tomcat to stop and got down to stand on the ground, he would stand there for half a minute motionlessly… Tomcat would thus know what Tang Yue was doing.
Even though the urine collector’s design guaranteed that it wouldn’t leak regardless of the pose, the users didn’t trust it and would stand instead of sit.
Defecation was a lot more complicated.
Tang Yue couldn’t just stand motionlessly for half a minute and clear his bowels as the Radiant Armor didn’t have a feces collector. If he did that, he was bound to sh*t his pants and the Radiant Armor would be unwearable.
Kunlun Station had a toilet and it could extract all the water from the feces, sterilize them, and package them. It was a one-stop service. However, the Mars Wanderer didn’t have such a facility… Therefore, Tang Yue’s saviors were empty containers.
This was a rather complicated process. First, Tang Yue had to enter the geolab and seal the hatch. After confirming the airtightness, he would take off the Radiant Armor. Wearing an oxygen mask, he would prepare an empty box and plastic bag, placing them stably on the geolab’s floor. During his defecation, Tang Yue had to be very careful not to flip over the container. Everything was over if he did.
Finally, Tang Yue would seal the container of black mush before throwing it forever into the uninhabited Martian desert.
“How far have we traveled?”
“79 kilometers.”
“There’s still another 200 kilometers to go.” Tang Yue looked down at the control terminal on the back of his EVA suit. He prodded it and saw that the pressure and temperature figures were normal. “This is such an endless stretch.”
“You shoulder the load, I walk the horse. We welcome the sunrise and send away the sunset…” Tomcat hummed a tune that Tang Yue had never heard before as it circled the wheels and looked around. It picked up gravel to fill the pit.
Today was the third sol.
The past three sols had been smooth. The Mars Wanderer had completed its daily mission without any problems arising. As an old but tenacious old dog, it could be said to be one that gave its all until its last breath. It exemplified its seniors like Curiosity showcasing its tenacious spirit.
The solar panels were still in good condition as well.
“I say, Tomcat. Is there a way to make the Wanderer go faster?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Wanderer can only go thirty kilometers a sol. There are only twenty-four hours in a sol and most of the time is wasted by us. Can we think of a way to make it travel forty kilometers a sol or even further? That will greatly shorten the time it will take us.”
“Why are you asking me this question?” Tomcat crouched beside the wheel. “You’re the engineer. No one knows this old dog better than you.”
Tang Yue bit on a straw as he slowly sucked the water from the water bag.
“It’s because I can’t think of a solution. What limits the Wanderer’s daily range is the batteries. There’s no way to increase their capacity, so there’s no way to change the engine.”
“Since you’re already aware of the answer, why ask me?” Tomcat said. “It’s not as if I’m capable of changing the law of conservation of energy. Before setting off, I had suggested we bring Kunlun Station’s backup batteries along. That could have increased the Wanderer’s daily range, but you rejected the idea.”
“It’s because they aren’t compatible at all.” Tang Yue threw up his hands. “The parameters are all different.”
“I believe that’s a simple problem for you to resolve.”
“If we had moved the backup batteries from Kunlun Station onto the vehicle, Kunlun Station’s life support system would be finished,” Tang Yue said. “There’s so little life on this planet.”
“But we took away all the solar panels,” Tomcat said. “Without any replenishment for the backup batteries on Kunlun Station, the life support system won’t last long either.”
“Isn’t there still the RTG?” Tang Yue smiled. “The RTG’s tiny output is completely insufficient to maintain a human’s survival, but it should be barely enough for some tomatoes. I did the math. If I didn’t make any mistakes, the tomatoes should be able to live until they reach a peaceful death… Even if the plants fail to survive, there are still the microbes.”
Tomcat shot a glance at Tang Yue whose tone was stable and unperturbed. It was an attitude as though he had set everything in order. He had buried human’s history, closed Kunlun Station, adjusted the life support system, and settled the plants. He had even made precise calculations to ensure that they could last without any human interference.
Then, he left without anything holding him back.
“Done resting?” Tomcat stuffed enough gravel into the pit and smacked its claws. “If you’re done resting, come over and push the vehicle. This time, we have to push it out in one fell swoop.”
“Got it.”
Tang Yue got up and stood beside Tomcat. Using their shoulders and palms, they exchanged looks.
“On your mark—!”
“One! Two! Three—! Heave! Ho—!”
“It’s out! It’s out! It’s finally out—!”
“You sh*t it out?”
“F*ck!” Tomcat, will you die if you don’t say something obscene?”
