Dead on Mars

Chapter 38 - Sol Five, The Meaning of a Million Tang Yue’s
An hour later, Tomcat returned in a sorry state.

“Damn it. How is that wind becoming stronger in this darn weather?” Tomcat wore an ashen expression as it shut the airlock’s hatch. It cursed while removing the safety rope around its waist. “Tang Yue… What’s wrong with you?”

“I need some alone time.”

Tang Yue sat slumped in his chair, covering his face, feeling weary towards life.

Tomcat took off the helmet of the IVA suit, placed it on the table, and unzipped the suit. It then nimbly jumped out of the suit. “What’s the present wind speed?”

“It’s… 43 m/s.”

Tomcat turned its head to look at the display. Four jarring red numbers were displayed there.

43.59.

Tomcat frowned. At wind speeds of 43 m/s, the situation wasn’t promising.

It looked at the time. It was half-past six in the morning. The sun should have risen by now, but it remained pitch-black outside. Clearly, the pitiful amounts of sunlight Mars received weren’t enough to penetrate the dust layer spanning more than ten kilometers above Kunlun Station. All of the Eagle’s computer systems had been booted up. The self-checks were completed and the docking program had been set up. It could be launched at any moment—as long as the wind speeds dropped below that safety threshold.

“Is there any hope for us?” Tang Yue asked.

“As long as the weather turns for the better,” Tomcat replied.

“Can the Eagle launch at such speeds?”

He hoped that if the wind speeds didn’t drop, they could still forcefully launch the lander. At the very least, the Eagle was designed up to 50 m/s wind speeds. Wind speeds of above 40 m/s still weren’t too great a threat.

“Yes, but it won’t be safe. Even if the hurricane doesn’t fail the Eagle’s launch, it will still interfere with the lander moving into orbit. It might cause the final docking to fail.”

Tang Yue stared at the cup on the table in a daze as he suddenly had the urge to smash the cup of water.

If the final docking failed, the launch would have been for nothing.

He got up and stood in front of the window, looking in the direction of the Eagle. He knew that it was standing about a hundred meters away, laden with rescue supplies.

This situation left him burning with anxiety. Tang Yue suddenly understood the feelings rescuers experienced when responding to a marine disaster. You could receive the distress signals of the survivors and you knew that they were alive, but due to the darn hurricanes and huge waves, helicopters filled with supplies and medical help were unable to take flight.

As you wished for the weather to turn for the better, you watched helplessly as the chance of a successful rescue slipped away. One by one, the survivors had their lives snuffed out.

“You said that we only have a 10% chance.” Tang Yue turned around and while leaning on the wall, slowly slipped down to the floor. He whispered, “Then the probability of failure is 90%.”

“That’s right.”

“Does this count as having slim hopes?”

“Tell me, how did you get yourself here?” Tomcat asked.

Tang Yue was taken aback, unable to figure out the purpose of the question.

Tomcat took a step forward and looked into Tang Yue’s eyes. It was short and wasn’t much taller than the sitting Tang Yue.

“In this mission to Mars, how many candidates, including you, were eventually selected to participate in it?”

“Including me… ten.”

“Then you are one in ten.” Tomcat pointed above. “That lass is also a one in ten. Do you know what mine is?”

Tang Yue shook his head.

“I was the only robot that passed the rigorous tests out of a batch of ten thousand robots,” Tomcat said. “I’m one in ten thousand.”

… So the purpose of telling me this is that you are a thousand times more impressive than me?

…

“I’m telling you that the Earth is gone, but we remain alive. You, me, and that lass are three in 6.5 billion. If we expand the denominator to all life on Earth, then you might even be more than a trillion in one,” Tomcat said calmly. “For you to encounter a one in a trillion event, why should you be afraid of a one in ten event?”

Tomcat returned to the work desk. On the computer display, there was a rectangular map of Mars. Following that, a blue waveform appeared over the map.

The sinusoidal wave was the United Space Station’s trajectory. To be precise, it was the trajectory of the space station’s substellar point. A substellar point on a planet is the point at which a celestial object is perceived to be directly overhead. As a spacecraft’s trajectory and the equatorial circumference have certain intersection angles and are not completely parallel, the projection of the space station on an unfolded map—the orbit trajectory—would result in a sinusoidal motion.

Back when Tomcat re-established communications with the United Space Station, it had obtained an update on the space station’s accurate position. Now, the space station’s orbit was stored on Kunlun Station’s computer system. Similarly, it was stored on Eagle’s computer. This orbit could be extremely precise without deviating a millimeter.

Tomcat was trying to minimize all possible errors. Due to the weather, the Eagle might very well lose its connection after the launch. The Kunlun Station would be unable to guide it, so all trajectory changes and docking procedures would have to rely on the lander’s computer. The difficulty was akin to hitting a billiard ball into a pocket from a kilometer away… Without any human supervision, the Eagle’s success at autonomous docking was only 5%.

A more precise number was 4.837%.

Tomcat had previously mentioned that the chance of probability was about 5%, but there was still the possibility of raising it a little higher. And with the RD-0172’s propellants on the payload capsule capable of two trajectory changes, the chance of success was 9.44%.

It was less than one in ten.

“What’s the present wind speed?” Tomcat tapped noisily on the keyboard, its eyes peeled to the screen.

“43 m/s.”

Tomcat nodded. Without saying another word, its two paws rapidly moved across the keyboard. It was modifying the flight program of the lander bit by bit, making the last three significant figures to five significant figures and, therefore, more precise. Then the numbers of five significant figures were made even more precise to ten.

The only sound left in Kunlun Station was Tomcat’s tapping on the keyboard. Tang Yue didn’t dare to disturb it.

“What’s the present wind speed?”

“42 m/s.”

Tomcat’s face was heavy. It expressed the solemnity and meticulousness a robot should have. Again and again, it optimized the Eagle’s launch procedures. Complicated numbers and functional figures on the screen reflected in its bright eyes. Tomcat was putting in the last bit of effort to fight that 9.44% chance.

By making precise more than a hundred parameters, perhaps it could raise the probability to 9.441%.

Although it was only an increase of 0.001%, it still held meaning.

After all, the chances of Tang Yue surviving from Earth’s disappearance was 0.0000000001%. A trillion in one probability might seem meaningless to most people, with it being no different from zero, but its meaning was everything in Tang Yue’s life.

That 0.001% held the meaning of a million Tang Yue’s.