Dead on Mars

Chapter 12 - Sol Two, The Naked Man on the Desolate Plains
Early the next morning, Tang Yue rolled to his feet. The first thing he said to Tomcat was, “Is the Earth back?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“What about Orion I?”

Tomcat shook its head in response.

“There’s nothing?”

Tomcat nodded.

After Tang Yue had fallen asleep, Tomcat had entered a hibernation state and also charged itself. There was a tiny charging dock in the Hab, and Tomcat was a robot that could dock itself for recharging. Twelves hours of charging was enough to run it for an entire day.

In its hibernation state, Tomcat still maintained a portion of its operations. It made follow-up observations in the direction of Earth, but the Earth had failed to appear.

“What about communications?”

Tomcat shook its head again.

The communications system was online 24 hours a day. Kunlun Station’s computers would send a ping every half an hour. If there was any response, Kunlun Station would immediately receive it… Tang Yue still had hopes of the world restoring to its original state the moment he opened his eyes. Perhaps, Earth’s disappearance yesterday was a glitch in the Universe. One night was sufficient for it to fix that bug.

Unfortunately, things had remained the same as yesterday.

It was a mystery whether Earth had vaporized or had run away from home. There was no knowing when it would return, or if it would ever return at all.

Tang Yue crawled out of his sleeping bag wearing his baggy pants with his messy, disheveled bed hair. With his eyes half-closed, he stepped into the hall and saw Tomcat already working. It placed a half-filled glass trough on the table.

“You’re awake?” Tomcat tapped the trough with its claws. “Come here and take a look. This is the amount of water you can use today.”

Tang Yue rubbed his eyes. “This little?”

Tomcat nodded. “The water you use for drinking, brushing your teeth, washing your face and feet, showering, as well as the water for washing the dishes and the toilet are all here. A total of 1.5 liters.”

Every time water was rationed, Tomcat’s stinginess made Tang Yue feel like pulling the plug on it.

How much was 1.5 liters of water? A typical bottle of mineral water was 550 milliliters. Two of them would be 1,100 milliliters, and three would be 1,650 milliliters. Tang Yue didn’t even have three bottles a day to use. And that was for all kinds of tasks that required water.

Tang Yue felt that he couldn’t drink using normal cups in the future.

He had to use a measuring cylinder.

Tang Yue found a 100-milliliter measuring cylinder from a cabinet underneath the experimentation table, indicating that he would use it for drinking and brushing his teeth.

“I plan to split the brushing of teeth into five steps. Each step, I’ll drink 20 milliliters of water.” Tang Yue held the measuring cylinder, having never imagined that he needed to use one to confirm the amount of water for brushing teeth.

“The first step. Drink a mouthful of water before rinsing the mouth.” Tang Yue took a tiny sip of water and very carefully controlled his usage. However, the 20 milliliters basically didn’t do a thing when it entered his mouth. He originally wished to rinse his mouth, but it wasn’t possible. All it did was moisten his throat.

“Second step. Get some toothpaste and sip another round of water.”

Tang Yue dabbed some toothpaste and sipped a small mouthful of water. With the water mixing with the gelatinous toothpaste, it felt a little like chewing gum, with a faint, sweet and fruity flavor. The toothpaste on Kunlun Station was specially designed. One’s oral hygiene was maintained by chewing on it. There was no need to brush his teeth. Finally, he could even swallow it. On the one hand, he could conserve water and, on the other hand, reduce waste.

Tang Yue chewed for half a minute before swallowing the toothpaste.

“Third step, dab another round of toothpaste and take another sip of water.”

“Fourth step, sip some water and rinse the mouth.”

“Fifth step. Take one last sip… to rinse the mouth… F*ck, where’s the water?”

Tang Yue turned agape as he overturned the measuring cylinder on his head. He kept smacking it, but it took all day before a pathetic drop of water gathered onto the wall of the measuring cylinder. It slowly dripped down as Tang Yue stared at it intently. At the instant, the water droplet separated itself from the measuring cylinder, he quickly stretched out his tongue to catch it.

Tang Yue quickly retracted his tongue like a frog before smacking his lips, feeling extremely pleased with himself.

Tomcat silently covered its eyes.

“Why are you covering your eyes?” Tang Yue tried to extend his tongue inside the measuring cylinder as there were still droplets of water around the inside.

Unfortunately, the mouth of a 100-milliliter measuring cylinder was just too small. The cylinder was too narrow in diameter, making it impossible for his tongue to reach it.

“I think you are… really pathetic,” Tomcat replied. “I can’t bear to watch any further.”

Tang Yue took another 100 milliliters of water and dripped it onto a towel. He rubbed his face and also used it to hold down his hair.

He successfully used 200 milliliters of water to finish up his wash up. This also clearly indicated that the impossible was forced in humans. If one didn’t ruthlessly force oneself, one wouldn’t know what their limits were. Tang Yue planned on challenging the enormous difficulty of only using 190 milliliters the next time—although he didn’t know when he would next be brushing his teeth.

After finishing the washing up, Tang Yue took off his pants.

“Wow!” Tomcat jumped in fright and covered its eyes with one paw. Then, it secretly split two of its fingers and pointed its other trembling paw at a particular spot. “Long… Long… Long-haired elephant…”

“F*ck your elephant! Why the act!?” Tang Yue threw his pants on Tomcat. “We are all men. Who hasn’t seen one?”

“I’m not a man, nor do I have one.” Tomcat shook its head. “Why are you taking off your clothes? It severely affects the landscape and the country’s image, do you know? Tomorrow, Time Magazine will have your naked picture on its cover. The New York Times will probably report: Shocking appearance of naked Chinese man on Kunlun Station. Does this imply that Asia’s views on sexuality have opened up to place it in the leading ranks of the world?”

“Of course, it’s to hang up and dry the clothes.” Tang Yue thought nothing of it. He walked around the hall showing his naked ass. “Now that I’m the only one on Kunlun Station, and there’s no one else to see, how would it affect the landscape or country’s image? The Earth is gone, so how can there be Time Magazine or The New York Times?”

Indeed, now that he was the only person on Mars, he could do as he wished. There was no one else to see him. If Tang Yue was willing and unafraid of dying, he could even run naked across Mars. The only outcome would be the naked corpse of a nameless man strewn across its surface.

Tang Yue found a thin piece of rope and latched them over the hooks on the wall before pulling it above him. Stretching across the hall, it became a makeshift clothesline.

Tang Yue hung his pants over it.

“Don’t you find it irritating having that thing swinging around? Will it drop if it accidentally gets caught by something? Since there’s no chance for you to use it in the future, you might as well just cut it off…” Tomcat nagged by the side, showing extreme curiosity towards a particular organ on Tang Yue’s body. “Hey, have you been circumcised? I heard that there’s a discount when undergoing circumcision. Is it half price for the second circumcised dick?”

Tang Yue really wished to unplug the talkative robot.