The new air system is up and running in the cave- and just in time.

Johanssen’s little program isn’t exactly a software patch. It’s a separate program that runs in the background most of the time. It does have a test sequence, because Beth Johanssen is not just a nerd but a super-nerd who understands the need to double-check everything, especially in space.

We made all the connections, and the system works great. The fuel plant released carbon dioxide, the pressure valve that keeps the air in the cave from escaping back out through the fuel plant opened up just enough to let the CO₂ in, and the plant shut off exactly when the computer told it to.

For a triple-check I took a small oxygen bottle and ran it directly into the atmospheric analyzer. The computer (after seven minutes- running the analyzer non-stop would wear it out in short order) saw the lack of CO₂, sent the order, and the fuel plant let loose more CO₂. Ten minutes later, with the oxygen cut off, the computer saw the perfectly adequate CO₂ levels and shut off the fuel plant again.

So, an almost purely mechanical solution to a problem works without a hitch. We’ll need to transfer another of the Hab’s hydrogen batteries and a couple of the handful of un-pillaged solar panels to guarantee enough power for all of this, but otherwise it’s good to go. Score one for Earth!

And, as I said, just in time. Tomorrow’s the final potato harvest. We’re not going to keep more than a small number of the spuds. Most of them are going to be re-planted.

That’s right, I said re-planted. And moreover, we’re going to gradually move the Hab potato plants and the Hab soil (which is getting pretty worn out anyway) to the cave. Why? Because, at least in theory, more life equals more magic. The rainbow crystals Starlight diddled to circulate water will need all the magic we can give them. Also, if the sun crystals don’t produce enough heat once the water heating system is shut off, we’ll need to make some rainbow crystals with a heating enchantment to make up the difference. Those will need even more magic.

Of course, the tradeoff is less magic in the Hab, which means that any batteries we have there will recharge about half as fast as they have been. But we can’t take plants with us to Schiaparelli. Every kilogram above the minimum means more electrical demand from the wheel motors, which means a shorter per-day travel time. The plants, and the soil they grow in, are a luxury we have to do without. So, if we can’t take them with us, we might as well put them where they’ll do the most long-term good.

With that in mind, when we harvest the cave potatoes tomorrow we’ll also dig up the water pipes and rearrange them. Starlight is already arranging it with her people back home to dump a LOT of water as far back in the cave as we can manage. We’ll reconnect the pipes to stretch almost all the way through Tangled Hallway, then use the scrap metal trench to get the water back maybe as far as the Orb. The water will seep through the uncultivated dirt floor and sink to the bottom of the sealed chamber. Part of that will become deep permafrost, but most of it will remain liquid, and the plant roots and enchanted water-pumping crystals will be able to cycle it up from there. The pony planet will monitor flow and shut off the valve on their end when we get as much water added to the system as it can take without risking a return of the black ooze, so we can just leave the tap running when we leave.

It’s obviously not a perfect solution. Humans have never been able to make a perfectly sealed, self-contained, self-sustaining environment larger than a bottle garden, and absolutely never with alfalfa and/or potatoes and/or trees of any kind. Balanced complex ecosystems get exponentially tougher the larger you make them. But this is the best we can do to set up a system that, without anyone to maintain it, has a fighting chance to survive the six years until the next open slot for an Ares mission. I just hope it’s enough.

We’re about halfway done transplanting the Hab plants and soil. The ripe tubers have been cut and replanted around the edges of the original cave farm, while the plants (along with a number of alfalfa cuttings) have been planted in Lunch Buffet.

The rainbow crystal irrigation system is already beginning to work- at least, the one that runs from the well at the back of the farm chamber up to the front. Starlight has begun a second, smaller line- a pair of lines, really, to bring a bit of water up from below Lunch Buffet’s soil and irrigate the plants we’re putting there. In the meantime we’ll spend our remaining cave time hand-watering those plants to give them a chance to root and survive.

But we’ll be doing that using pony space suits. Our half-assed hydrological system has absorbed all the water the main life support box can give. So tomorrow we’re going to pull the life support box and re-install it into the pony ship.

I wonder what Ares V or whoever will find in six years’ time? Will it be a crumbling, freeze-dried plant graveyard after something rusts or breaks or cracks and lets the air out? Will they find a terrarium where the plants are surviving but half-starved and sickly? Or will they find a wildly growing jungle of alfalfa and potato plants, half-shaded by an enormous tangle of cherry tree branches?

Common sense bets on the first option, but I’m hoping for the last one. We all are. The farm served us well this past year, and now we’re giving back what we can to give it a chance to live on.

I changed the Morse code rock message today: “SOL 395 – TESTING ROVER MODS, ON TRACK FOR SOL 451 DEPART.” Not that I really needed to, since Pathfinder is working and we have the pony radio for when Pathfinder’s no longer an option. But it had been over a hundred sols since I updated my rock blog, and it was overdue, and I felt like it.

After that we all got to work loading up the Whinnybago. From now on everything that’s going with us gets stored on board. The food is in, along with my tools, all the spare parts we’re going to take with us, and whatever personal items we might take with us. We’re not loading the magic batteries yet, because we want to put as much charge on them as possible.

Since we’re not taking the batteries with us yet, we have to add their equivalent weight in Martian rocks to the rig. That means going around the area around the Hab and the cave farm to gather several tons of rocks to make up the difference. Even Fireball was grumbling about a sore back by the time we got back to the Hab for the evening. It takes a lot of rocks- seriously, a LOT of rocks- to equal the weight of fifteen slices of quartz five feet long each plus all the smaller batteries.

We’re going to take tomorrow off- entirely off. We’ve earned a vacation day. And then we’re going to perform the first serious test of the combined Whinnybago- driving around within two kilometers or so of the Hab to see how far it goes on a full electric charge and how well it handles the little canyons that criss-cross this part of Acidalia. If it can’t handle these, then there will be major problems getting up onto Arabia Terra, never mind across it.

Anyway, it’s game night tonight. I’m anticipating trouble; Dragonfly asked if she could roll up a new character. I wouldn’t worry, except that she asked for a template for a Nac Mac Feegle…

About-So-High Angus MacHenderson, the Nac Mac Feegle, got vetoed, and there was much rejoicing (except by Dragonfly).

But I want a copy of the character for future reference… assuming I make D&D a regular thing back on Earth, I’d like a way to express my displeasure if a DM is screwing us over in a Discworld setting…

Author's Notes:

Most of this was written either while waiting on my free wash and detail job at the dealership (which I drove to in a blinding downpour) or while waiting on the oil change. I wish I'd taken the laptop in to the doctor's office, but when I walked in I wasn't expecting to actually get an appointment for today. But they had an appointment for 12 PM, which meant I got to see the doctor at 1:45.

To be fair, the doctor spent almost half an hour with me. He put me on an acid reflux pill, sent an inhaler prescrip to my pharmacy (which wasn't ready when I had to drive to Houston on another errand), and "just to be sure" ran an electrocardiogram on me.

Which picked up an irregular heartbeat.

Probably benign, he says. 90% of the time it's benign. But I need to see the cardiologist anyway. So tomorrow morning I get to check and see if his referral is actually in-network on my insurance.

Fun times, fun times.

Anyway, sorry this is all Mark. I tried to think of interesting things that could happen during all this work, but nothing popped immediately to mind.