Su Bin Bao had gone to Beijing to meet the two top men of the American space program, leaving his backup to translate on behalf of the American launch director. Yang Jusheng had known the job was difficult, after shadowing his boss and the Yankee for almost two weeks.

If he’d known how bad it was going to be, though, he would have requested to re-enlist in the Revolutionary Army and get stationed in Xinjiang. It would be less stressful chasing drug smugglers and secessionists in the far western mountains and desert than preventing his co-workers from murdering the loud, tactless American.

“Tell this unlettered dog whelp to leave my people alone!” the vehicle assembly supervisor was shouting at him, pointing at the American in question. “We don’t need some white-bread jerk hovering over our shoulders while we’re trying to do delicate work on heavy machinery!”

Meanwhile, in an entirely different language, Mitch Henderson was shouting, “Tell this lazy bastard to get his crew into gear! This ship has to launch in four days, and we haven’t even begun on final inspections! Why the hell isn’t Sleipnir 5 mounted yet?”

“And if you can pound anything at all into that pig head on that American hog,” the supervisor continued, “try to get him to learn that just because we don’t speak English doesn’t mean we haven’t learned any! And my people know very well when they’re being insulted!”

“And tell him I’m not interested in excuses!” Henderson continued. “There are eleven people up there for whom excuses aren’t going to do any good!”

“We’re moving as fast as we can!” the supervisor continued. “But we’re not going to rush things and risk what happened with Sleipnir 1!”

“WHAT did he say about Sleipnir 1?” Henderson snarled.

Jusheng had had enough for a moment. He held up both hands, palms out, to silence the two older men. “Mister Henderson, I will get a full report on current conditions from the supervisor so I can translate it for you. While I am doing that, I will express your concerns to him. In the meantime, we have prepared fresh coffee in the break room. Perhaps you would like some while you wait?”

After a few moments made it clear that Jusheng wasn’t going to say a word to the supervisor until Henderson left earshot, the American growled, “Four days to launch. Remember that!” Having made his point, he stalked off.

“Boy, I don’t think I can take much more of him,” the supervisor said quietly.

“He is anxious,” Jusheng said. “For us the aliens on Mars are a wonderful thing, a treasure to be rescued from the flood. But for him there are six co-workers- perhaps friends-“

“Does such a man as that know what a friend is?” the supervisor snorted. “How would he keep one long enough to find out?”

“He thinks they are his friends, anyway,” Jusheng said diplomatically. “He knows them personally. Their lives are at stake. He wants them to be saved.”

“It would go much faster if he would restrict himself to assisting when we need his knowledge!” the supervisor said. “I’ve considered denouncing him as an American spy, except he’s obviously not trying to steal our knowledge. He keeps trying to fix it instead. If anything, he’d be a double agent!”

“Does he know what he’s talking about?” Jusheng asked.

“Most of the time, yes,” the supervisor said. “The problem is that he won’t give us credit for knowing what we are talking about- or doing! And every time one of my workers sets down a tool and wipes his face, he’s there, shouting at him, calling him lazy-“

“Sir, please consider,” Jusheng said, trying to derail this rant before it could build up momentum. “Consider that, say, three of our taikonauts were stranded in a capsule in orbit, unable to re-enter. Only a miracle could save them from slow, agonizing death. What would you do to save them?”

“If it would help? I would skin myself alive and dance around the gate of the Forbidden City,” the supervisor said. “I’d climb to the top of the assembly gantry and jump off if it would help. I would do anything. And I understand he’s the same way, boy.” He pointed a finger at the door to the break room and growled, “But I’d be a lot more polite than that pocket-turtle!”

“He is from a different culture,” Jusheng said. “A culture where the politeness you and I take for granted is considered the mark of a weakling.”

“No, he’s just a dick,” the supervisor said bluntly.

“Perhaps.” Jusheng wasn’t like Su Bin Bao. He had a limit to his diplomacy. “But we aren’t, sir.”

“Mm,” the supervisor said, nodding. “Please offer my apologies for… well, find something to apologize for besides my calling him a dick.”

“Yes, sir,” Jusheng said. “How is the assembly proceeding?”

“Couldn’t be better, aside from him,” the supervisor said. “The adapter collar their JPL made lines up perfectly with the mount points for Tai Yang Shen. We should be good to go to roll out to the pad tomorrow, after inspections.” He smiled a little and added, “We might even get ahead of schedule if you could take him somewhere else.”

“Unfortunately I am ordered to go where he goes,” Jusheng sighed. “Hopefully he will be distracted by his colleagues when they arrive tomorrow.”

The supervisor shook his head. “I wouldn’t be, in his position,” he said. “And if I was that boorish.”

“It’ll all be over soon, sir,” Jusheng said soothingly. “Hold on to that thought.”

The supervisor frowned. “We’re going to have to give him a thank-you dinner,” he said. “Hospitality requires it. Boy, my crew and I, and the booster team, we’d all rather give him a short flight off the Great Wall without a mattress at the bottom.”

“Please try not to mistreat him,” Jusheng said. “This is supposed to be a moment of international cooperation between spacefaring nations.”

“Oh, we won’t poison him,” the supervisor said, showing his teeth. “But if he’s not used to the traditional dishes of our back-country work force, well, too bad for him.”

Jusheng sighed. “Could you at least restrain yourselves to one eyeball?”

“No promises, boy. Last I heard, pig embryos come with two eyes anyway.” The supervisor chuckled and added, “I wonder if we can get him to eat the placenta.”

Michael Hong still had his job, though he wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore.

He’d taken a pay cut, lost the little seniority he’d had, and was put under NASA supervision for the duration, but he had his job. The two other inspectors who’d signed off on what had turned out to be a deteriorating coupling on Sleipnir 3 had lost theirs, but only after clearing Hong.

When the special investigating committee had interviewed the inspection crews, Hong hadn’t said a word about his misgivings. After all, he’d signed off on the part along with the other two. Each of his former coworkers, when privately interviewed, had admitted that Hong had noticed something wrong and that they'd pressured him to ignore it. They'd both done it unprompted, whether out of guilt or obligation or something else Hong didn't understand. But for whatever reason, they'd fallen on their swords for him, although he heard both tried to pin final blame on NASA's schedule pressure. Their testimony had resulted in a second, more specific interview for Hong, and that interview had saved his job.

He didn’t deserve it. He’d knuckled under. The reasons didn’t matter; it was still his name on the inspection report that deliberately overlooked the discoloration which was the very beginning of corrosion from an oxygen leak due to the faulty seal. It hadn’t advanced enough to be obvious, to match up to what Hong had been trained to watch for. He’d failed in his job.

But… but if he resigned from SpaceX after this, his engineering career was dead. Gone. Over. No other aerospace firm would hire him. He wouldn’t even be able to get a job repairing thirty-year-old airliners in Africa. He might- might- be able to find a job as a high school science teacher, but that was all. He'd be remembered forever as one of the men who (almost) killed Mark Watney.

So he was still here, doing his job, hating himself the whole time.

Today, to be specific, he was the lone SpaceX man of a three-man final inspection team. The other two men were NASA inspectors, whose names Hong had heard but hadn't registered. Names weren't important; the inspection was. Most of the normal inspections had been tossed, with the launch date and time set and immovable, so this was the only pass they'd get. Fortunately this time the booster was brand new, just off SpaceX’s assembly line, without a refurbished part in it.

The probes went in the inspection ports, the little cameras snaking around the tanks, around the thrusters and guidance systems. Hong’s hands remained on the controls, moving the camera slowly, delicately, not missing one inch of the insides of the giant beast preparing to hurl a comparatively tiny package into deep space.

The longer the inspection went, the more his hands wanted to shake. He kept blinking. Several times he stopped to rub his eyes. Again and again he looked, trying to spot the flaws, the hidden flaws… hell, the obvious flaws.

There weren’t any.

Hong had inspected plenty of SpaceX rockets, some just off the assembly line, others before being refurbished, others after. He’d once sent a second stage that was fresh off the line back for seventeen corrections. There were always problems. ALWAYS problems. And with less than three days to go, there was no time to spare to fix a problem, so he had to find them right now.

He couldn’t find any, and that was impossible.

There was always a problem that needed fixing. Always.

So if he couldn’t find the problem, that meant there was something wrong with him.

“Okay,” one of the NASA men said, removing the probe from the last inspection port and preparing to seal it up again. “I wouldn’t have believed it, but it looks like-“

“I want to check again,” Hong said in a soft voice.

The two NASA men looked at each other, then at the SpaceX inspector standing between them. The second NASA man said quietly, “Did you see something?”

“No,” Hong admitted. “And that’s why I want to check again.”

The two NASA men exchanged another look. Then the first man said, “All right, Michael, I think we can spare a little time.”

Hong felt tears coming to his eyes, and it took a moment for him to realize it wasn’t from the Sleipnir 3 failure or from his terror of missing something on Sleipnir 4. “That’s the first time anyone I’ve worked with has called me Michael,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Er… you’re welcome?” the NASA man said, a bit confused.

“What do they call you?” the second NASA man said.

“Mickey,” Hong squeaked.

“Ah.” The two inspectors shared another look, this one of sympathy. “Michael, we’re both named Richard. Trust me when I say, we understand,” the second one said.

“Restart the inspection from the bottom?” the first man said.

“Thank you,” Hong said again.

Meanwhile, Hermes drew closer.

Author's Notes:

I'm not dissing China with this entry. I tried to find authentic Chinese insults, but I didn't go overboard on them. And the "eat the placenta" thing comes from the book Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams's companion to the 1980s BBC documentary about several species on the verge of extinction. At the time there were estimated to be about 200 baiji dolphins in the Yangtse River, and efforts to preserve them by the Chinese government were feeble, half-hearted, and more than thwarted by fishermen, cargo boats, and pollution. The species was declared extinct ten years ago.

I bring this up because, after the show aired but before the book was released, Adams received a letter from someone who had visited China and been given a special feast as an honored guest... roast baiji dolphin, including its unborn fetus and, yes, the placenta (or, as the letter-writer called it, the afterbirth).

So, yeah. I didn't make that up.

The buffer stands at one. Today's chapter was written last night, but today was a lazy Sunday, so I only wrote tomorrow's short bit.