Reprise

Mark smiled as his son tottered across the floor of the greenhouse toward him. "Da, da, da," Ares said as he held out his stuffed toy replica of the Hermes. Mark scooped up his miniature astronaut, dressed in his Ares mission suit onesie, and then flew him down the aisles and around the hanging pots making whooshing sounds while Ares held out his toy and laughed uncontrollably.

(*)

The morning class had gone very well. Most of the session had been spent watching the Ares Five crew assemble greenhouse segments and critiquing the actions of the Ares Five crew members. Mark was taking the opportunity of a live feed from Mars to illustrate what the actual job was. It had been very instructive to the candidates, four of which he was already convinced were going into space.

After about three hours of observation and discussion they had made their way across the Houston campus to the Chris Craft Mission Control building. More than ten rooms were now dedicated to the various operations NASA was conducting. Among them was the ongoing and immortal Opportunity control staffed by four dedicated scientists and engineers. There was the Lasso flight control room, there were two different control rooms for the space docks, there was the International Space Station control room, and there was the main control room, where currently the Ares Five mission was their prime focus.

Mark led his candidates into the observation lounge and told them to have a seat and watch the operations while he checked on his son. On the main floor of the control room Ares slept next to his mother in the bassinet. Francine Noel, occupying the Satcon seat, moaned as she saw Mark appear.

"Time for him to go already?" she whined.

Mindy turned from her console and rose to kiss her husband. "You are a bit early," she said.

"Oh, we're not leaving yet. I brought the class over to see Mission Control," he told her. "I'll bring them down a few at a time to talk to you guys, okay?"

The people around Mindy nodded, and Mark thanked them. His cadets were polite and respectful as he cycled them through, and they asked insightful and probing questions about the ongoing operations on the surface. Several were particularly interested in the biomonitoring station. They were both surprised and relived to find out how closely the health of the Ares team members was monitored. One, a mechanical engineer that Mark knew would go into space, was obsessively interested in the construction of the greenhouses. He asked, and was granted permission, to take control of one of the site monitoring cameras focused on the current assembly of greenhouse two. He sat next to the Video Control station, pointing the camera at different parts of the greenhouse and studying the assembly for the rest of the session.

Another candidate asked about the foundry systems, and Mindy had been more than happy to guide him through the entire system monitoring and process. Unknown to Mindy and almost everyone else, Commander Smith had been instructed to bring the first QC sample block back from Mars. The very first panel cast by the foundry would be set aside as a historical object, and because of that the QC block would not need to be kept. Commander Smith had it safely tucked in her storage bin on the MAV already, and when she returned to Earth she would pass it off to Director Sanders. Teddy had been in contact with Tiffany's in New York, and they were proud to have been chosen to mount the half inch by half inch by three inch ingot of Martian glass in a silver setting. At the congressional reception of twenty-forty-six Mindy would be presented with one of the most valuable pieces of jewelry on the planet.

She would wear it until the day she died, and then it would hang in the Smithsonian.

(*)

His son slept in the crib as he watched.

All his work, all the endless talking was yielding results, and as Ares slept on Mark felt the tension ease. They were making it happen, he and his friends were. The Pope and the Dali Lama, who had become the best of friends themselves, were currently circling the world on a speaking tour. They carried the message of peace and unity as they traveled. Preaching it to the developed nations and to those still struggling with the effects of the changing climate. His other friends were quietly working behind the scenes, pulling strings and making subtle changes that would yield dramatic results. His meeting and subsequent friendship with U.N. Secretary General Malala Yousafzai had led to his addressing the general assembly the previous month, and he had felt the world change around him in that moment. Humanity was waking from the fog of history, they were looking beyond their narrow confines and out into the universe, and from the sands of Mars Mark had pointed the way.

They had got it, he could sense it in the way people talked now, and the whole of the Earth had a new purpose. They were no longer bound to just this planet, no longer prisoners of fate, no longer destined to be marooned on a single island in space. They would reach beyond Earth, and Mars was just the beginning. There was a new end game now, the stars.

Out at the edge of the system, beyond Pluto where the effects of the sun's gravity were weakest, they would do the gravity experiments that would lead to the breakthroughs. There they would find the secrets to flipping between the stars, he was certain of that. The math had been done, the theories tested, now they needed a laboratory to do the research and development.

Looking at the clock in the nursery, Mark saw it was time to start thinking about food. Mindy was in the middle of her second trimester, the morning sickness was passing, and she could really pack it away he thought with a grin. He always smiled when he thought of her. She, the mystery woman watching him from space, had become her. Mindy, his world, and then they had become a family. Now another little astronaut would be joining them in five months.

With Ares down for his afternoon nap Mark had time to cook, so he went to the refrigerator in the kitchen and studied the contents for a moment. He chuckled, nodded, and slid the meat drawer open. Two large andouille lay wrapped in white paper. He smiled to himself and picked up the package and the bag of prawns next to it. After setting them out on the counter he went to the computer in the corner and activated the messenger program.

Open session (Watney, Mi)

(Watney,Ma)Hey there, how's our little astronaut today?

And so we've come full circle. I'd like to thank all of those who have read and reviewed, especially Knightpheonix, for their encouragement and praise. The Martian has become one of my favorite stories, and I can't thank my fellow geek Andy Weir enough.

As you may have divined I have some experience and exposure to many of the areas covered in this little story. The tech for the foundry and garage systems exists now, we could do it tomorrow if we had the will. The chemistry of the sands of Mars is as I have described, and the specs I stated for the panels are accurate. Plus, the beautiful aqua color they would be would contrast nicely with the red sands of Mars.

I have also worked with the intelligence community. We live in an isolated little bubble, most of us, and we never even get a passing whiff of the terrors these people deal with every day. If you think Janice, Hannah and their friends are pure fiction, think again. All of these characters were drawn from people I know in real life. They are smart, they are funny, and they are lethal.

And they have saved all our lives a hundred times over.

So fear not, everyone, I have plans for a series of shorts to follow. I'm going to call it "Life on Mars?" because, you know.

After all, I have to tell you about Elon on Mars…