Dead on Mars

“F*ck… It actually exploded…”

Tomcat sat on a chair, its face ashen.

“Don’t move.” Tang Yue held its head, pulling out a broken whisker that was plastered to its cheeks. Then, it began helping to groom the messy and charred cat fur.

“My… My whiskers…”

Tomcat’s eyes seemed to well with tears.

“What were you doing? Did you forget methane’s explosive limits?” Tang Yue asked.

“I was careless… There was a problem with controlling the releasing speed of the methane and liquid oxygen, leaving some oxygen unignited. Therefore, there was still oxygen left in the pit. By the time I had climbed up the Mars Wanderer to open the decompression valve and come back down, the methane in the pit had reached more than 5% concentration.” Tomcat shook its head. “It’s why it was all ignited at once.”

Tang Yue patted Tomcat on the shoulder as a form of comfort. After all, it wasn’t a real cat, and there was no way for it to regrow its broken whiskers.

Tomcat truly cherished the few whiskers it had. It would groom them every morning. Tang Yue had even chanced upon Tomcat secretly using 502 Super Glue to stick back its broken whiskers.

Unfortunately, it failed.

This tiny explosion temporarily stopped their work on gathering water. The two plastic sheets and water trough had been sent flying from the explosion. They couldn’t use the plastic sheet anymore as it had torn like a burst balloon. Tang Yue had to switch the sheet. The water trough which was made of plexiglass was robust and could be reused.

Having learned a lesson, Tang Yue and Tomcat decided that both of them needed to be present when collecting water.

Otherwise, letting the methane in the pit mix with oxygen easily reached the explosive limits.

Tang Yue was munching on a biscuit as he put the huge water trough from the ground onto the table. There were about ten liters of water. As it was condensate water, there weren’t many impurities in it. This was the result of an afternoon’s work. On his ninety-ninth sol on Mars, Tang Yue had his supply of water replenished.

“Mai Dong, the water is settled. What do we need to do next?” Tang Yue asked. “Go out and plow the land?”

The girl was dressed in a blue work suit when she appeared on screen. “You have settled the water?”

Tang Yue pointed at the water trough on the table.

Mai Dong was pleasantly surprised. “As expected of Mr. Cat.”

“What Mr. Cat?” Tang Yue sulked. “It’s all thanks to me, alright? Your Mr. Cat nearly blew up the condenser.”

“Alright, alright. It’s all thanks to you, Tang Yue.” Mai Dong smiled as she pressed her palms together in apology. “Let’s get back to the topic at hand. You can’t just head out and plow the land. Back when I was there, I had obtained specimens. Most of the soil on Mars isn’t conducive to farming. It’s because they have too many chlorates, mainly chloric acid salts and perchlorate salts… To put it simply, it’s too dry and salty. Tomatoes can’t grow in such soil. You need to find soil with slightly better foundations.”

“We still have to search?”

“Of course.” Mai Dong nodded. “Have you seen anyone grow tomatoes in saline land?”

“Then, there’s no way for us to reduce the soil’s saltiness? For example, using a filter and extractor or something…”

Mai Dong shrugged. “Extraction solvents are mostly poisonous, and I believe it will be too troublesome. This is because the amount of soil you will be using will be great. In addition, the biggest problem is, do you have the conditions for doing that?”

“Do we have them?” Tang Yue turned to look at Tomcat.

Tomcat was holding a broken, charred whisker in its paws; its expression blank.

Tang Yue turned his head back.

“Alright, I’ll go search for it.”

…

“I suggest using the Mars Wanderer and, with Kunlun Station as the center, obtain specimens around it up to a kilometer radius.”

Tang Yue donned the Radiant Armor as he opened the garage with Tomcat.

They seldom used the Mars Wanderer. It was actually very troublesome to use. Furthermore, it was very power-hungry, consuming the most electricity in all of Kunlun Station. But in essence, it was a tractor. It was called a Geolab Vehicle by others because it dragged a geolab experiment module behind it. If you changed the experiment module into a rubbish chute, Mars Wanderer would have been Mars Rubbish Collector.

The Mars Wanderer looked tall and mighty, but it was an electric vehicle. It used rechargeable batteries and was driven by electric motors. It had no suspension and it moved at the pace of a turtle. At most, it barely exceeded a bicycle’s speed, and its ability to go cross-planet was basically zero.

Back when the science team was around, there were many times when the Wanderer found itself stuck in a sandpit. The passengers had to collectively get down and push it. It really was quite useless.

The rover’s design wasn’t meant for long-distance hauls. Its only use was to be a mobile laboratory, making it convenient for the geolab to do its research. To this day, the furthest the Mars Wanderer had gone hadn’t exceeded twenty kilometers. In theory, the Mars Wanderer could go thirty kilometers from a single charge. It then needed to stop to be recharged after its batteries ran out.

But in fact, it had never reached the theoretical value. Old Wang once commented that the Mars Wanderer “worked half a minute after a five-hour charge.”

It was more OPPO than OPPO ¹ .

“How many specimens do we need?”

“Tang Yue, you can try to create quadrants,” Mai Dong replied. “I think getting about twenty specimens would do.”

“Then, we will choose the more suitable soil out of the twenty specimens?”

“Yes.”

Tomcat opened the rover’s door and sat in the driver’s seat. Tang Yue hopped on as well. The Mars Wanderer’s driving compartment wasn’t airtight; therefore, passengers needed to wear an EVA suit.

It was very easy driving the Mars Wanderer. It only had a wheel, a brake pedal, and an accelerator pedal that worked as expected. A start button started the engines on a single press and shut down the engines on another press. Some crazy person had even labeled the console deck with the slogan: “A merry trip begins here!” An arrow then pointed to the start button in a completely ridiculous style.

No one would steal the electric vehicle on the Mars Wanderer anyway. If it was stolen, it wouldn’t be a simple case of theft, but an interstellar diplomatic incident.

There were a few indicators for power, location, and temperature, making it resemble a bumper car at an amusement park. It was even the type that happily cried out “Daddy’s daddy is Grandpa!” when pressed.

Tomcat put on its seatbelt and looked at the battery level. Its batteries were fully charged, the Mars Wanderer was constantly on standby, so it was fully charged every day.

This power was enough for them to go about twenty to thirty kilometers.

“Mars Wanderer, start.” Tomcat pressed the start button, and the rover gently trembled in response.

A few minutes later, the vehicle’s engine died again.

Tomcat was taken aback.

“I think it’s because you didn’t call out its name. It’s not very happy,” Tang Yue said. “Try starting it again.”

“Great Mars Wanderer, start.”

Tomcat pressed the start button again as it pressed on the accelerator, and this time, the vehicle moved slowly out of the garage.