Dead on Mars

“Compressed… biscuits?”

Tang Yue nodded. He moved the remaining compressed biscuits from the cabinet and piled them onto the table. The pile reached a height taller than Tang Yue. They were to be Tang Yue’s main source of food in the coming months for he had finished up all the soft bread and canned food. The fruits and vegetables that had a shorter shelf life had been finished first, followed by meat, noodles, and other reconstituted food. Back when Tomcat and Tang Yue sent supplies to the space station, they were inclined to give the tastier canned food to Mai Dong, a showcase of the Chinese culture’s time-cherished tradition of selflessness.

Now, Kunlun Station only had these hard and heavy compressed biscuits of different flavors—red-braised beef, pickled vegetables, prawn and fishcake, mushroom-stewed chicken. But in fact, they all tasted the same. They were as hard as bricks and could be used as a murder weapon. One piece was enough to fill Tang Yue’s stomach, and it was also the main culprit of Tang Yue’s constipation.

The early missions of the Mars project had food that followed the style of military ration packs. They were high in calories, small-sized, portable, and had long shelf lives. They included spam, chocolate, energy bars, and compressed biscuits. There was also chewing gum that helped the consumer maintain calm, but due to the terrible taste, it was unanimously boycotted by all the astronauts. Some people called it “diet food” out of jest, so in later missions, such food items were eliminated and no longer mainstream.

Many of the compressed biscuits in Kunlun Station were a result of history. No one wished to eat them, but spending the effort to take them back to Earth was too troublesome. Therefore, they were left on the station as emergency supplies. Whoever wanted to eat them could eat them; after all, they had a shelf life of decades.

“Compressed biscuits contain Vitamin C?” Mai Dong asked.

“In theory, no.” Tang Yue weighed the compressed biscuit in his hand. “Mai Dong, what’s Vitamin C?”

The girl subconsciously replied, “Ascorbic acid?”

“L-ascorbic acid.” Tang Yue nodded. “Vitamin C isn’t stable by itself. It can only survive in an ascorbic environment, but it’s easily exposed to oxygen in the air. And the raw ingredients in the compressed biscuits contain sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. The creation process places them in an ascorbic environment. They will also experience high-temperature baking to eliminate any germs. Therefore, normally compressed biscuits do not contain any Vitamin C.”

“Normally… compressed biscuits?” Mai Dong noticed the out-of-place term.

If there were normally compressed biscuits, did it mean that there were abnormally compressed biscuits?

“That’s right. Normally compressed biscuits do not contain Vitamin C, but the idiots at the nutrition center back then began producing abnormal compressed biscuits.” Tang Yue picked among the pile of biscuits. “Mai Dong, do you know Yang? Cryptic Yang?

Cryptic Yang?

Mai Dong frowned. What kind of name is that? Were his parents cryptographic programmers who had suffered brain damage because of all kinds of software bugs?

“Cryptic Yang is that guy who kept clamoring about making Swedish herring canned food mixed in Sparkling Oldenlandia Water.”

Mai Dong was enlightened. She knew the man once Tang Yue had said that. Although she had never heard his name, this man’s name was infamous. He was a legend in the nutrition center who had purchased a wall worth of Swedish herring canned food and another wall worth of Sparkling Oldenlandia Water. He spent all day in his laboratory, wearing a gas mark and using an electronic balance to measure the fish meat. It resulted in the building stinking in a way that was so bad that people began theorizing that the man was trying to create biological weapons.

“Yang told me that his mentor was once in charge of a project. The topic was to use cold treatment to ensure the nutrients in the compressed biscuits are preserved. The nutrition center then used this method to produce biscuits.” Tang Yue tried hard to recall. “I remember Yang’s words were… “The old man developed a new process to produce compressed biscuits in an acidic environment without using any high temperatures… In the future, you can save on multivitamin pills.’”

“They managed to preserve the vitamins in the biscuits?”

“Not only did they preserve the vitamins in the biscuits, they even stuffed all the micronutrients the human body needs in them. They created a nutritious biscuit that’s convenient for consumption.” Tang Yue nodded. “But the facts proved that it was a plan that had been taken for granted. The project eventually failed.”

“Why?”

“Because they tasted nasty. The cold-treated biscuits didn’t undergo the puffing processing, so everyone who ate them said that it was like eating brick powder. Not only were they nasty, but it was also painful for the teeth. They would rather consume multivitamin pills than eat these so-called nutritious biscuits,” Tang Yue explained. “In fact, there was no need to stuff all the micronutrients into the biscuits. The development of space food was working towards being varied and diversified, so this project was doomed to failure from the beginning. It’s said that this project was spearheaded by CNSA, so to save face, they bit the bullet and continued.”

Mai Dong nodded. It was quite understandable.

Nothing was more important than face.

“After the production of cold-treated biscuits succeeded, they entered the food menu of the Mars’s project astronauts. They were sent onto the Orion and were used as a supply for micronutrients and vitamins needed. The higher-ups even suggested not providing any multivitamins but were met with fervent objection from the ground. Someone even made the claim that if they were made to eat these things, they would refuse to carry out the mission,” Tang Yue said. “As a result, the cold-treated biscuits were quickly discontinued after all the complaints. Later, the importance of the compressed biscuits became lesser and lesser, until it was left out of the astronauts’ food menu. No one cared about these biscuits after that…”

“Such bad-tasting food actually managed to win the bid?” Mai Dong found it incredulous. She was a newcomer, so she had never eaten these biscuits that had earned such opposition.

“It’s because the factory had ties with someone from the logistics department. There was a strong conflict of interest. Back then, cold-treated biscuits were even considered a key innovation project backed by the country. The people working under this project managed to get more than 10 million yuan in funding,” Tang Yue explained. “After this matter was exposed, the top brass of the corporation were thrown into jail for charges of bribery as well as having large sums of cash from unknown sources. It was said that the amount far exceeded 200 million yuan.”

Mai Dong was alarmed. As a mere member of the expedition team, to hear of such gossip about Earth on a space station hundreds of millions of kilometers away in Martian orbit gave her the feeling of being an objective spectator.

The various conflicts of interest that involved the Mars landing project was something that she had heard about, but she hadn’t paid too much attention to them. To Mai Dong, the Mars project was a resplendent pearl of human civilization’s development—a grand milestone. But to certain people on Earth, the Mars project was equivalent to a massive gold mine, a chance for them to get rich overnight. Just siphoning ten-thousandth of the benefits was enough to have them laughing to the bank.

Beneath any grand miracle were squirming maggots and darkness.

Not everyone looked towards the starry heavens.

Mai Dong patted her cheeks as she got back on topic.

“You mean that a portion of these biscuits contains Vitamin C? The discontinued cold-treated biscuits?”

“That’s right!”

“Where are those biscuits?” Mai Dong asked.

Tang Yue pointed at the pile of compressed biscuits on the table. “Inside Kunlun Station. They’re here, right in front of me!”

Tang Yue circled the table quickly as he pressed his index fingers into his temples, trying his best to recall.

“Let me think! Let me think! The cold-treated compressed biscuits have short shelf lives. When were they commissioned for use? When was it… I left Earth in early 2052. Back then, Yang told me it was six years ago! Cold-treated compressed biscuits were officially used in the Mars projects six years ago. So that’s 2046!”

“The project was discontinued after two years. They were then abandoned, and the production of compressed biscuits returned to normal after that. That is to say that all the biscuits that were made in China from 2046 to 2048 were all made using the cold-treated process!” Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief. “Which Mars mission was it between 2046 and 2048?”

“The eleventh landing mission happened in March 2047. It was the fourth flight of the Orion. That was the final construction mission for the science station.”

“Then it’s the compressed biscuits brought from the eleventh landing mission that I want!”

To be frank, finding vitamins in compressed biscuits was an idea Tang Yue had come up with on a whim. He suddenly recalled his idle conversation with Yang at the nutrition center. Back then, they were having a meal together, and Tang Yue was only listening unintentionally. He didn’t expect that conversation to save his life.

It was truly a case of unintentional actions bringing about unexpected success.