The ponies have taken excellent care of the cave farm. I went there yesterday. It’s almost warm in there now. I may suggest pulling one or two of the pony ship heaters so we can get some of the solar cells back to the Hab. Hot air rises, and I’m assuming the air seal on the cave depends on a viable permafrost layer on top of the cave, so having it get too warm inside isn’t a good idea. But since I’m in touch with NASA now, I’ll give all the botanists they say they’re recruiting something extra to worry about by throwing the problem at them.

Seriously, looking at the plants, I felt kind of superfluous. They’re growing at about the same rate, maybe slightly faster, that they would on Earth in proper sunlight. The alfalfa looks almost tall enough to harvest already. The potato plants are flourishing. I dug up two and found half-grown tubers aplenty on them already. Still green, so too soon to harvest, but I have a feeling it’ll be a good harvest when the time comes.

And there are eight other little sprouts, which I know I didn’t plant, running down the eastern side of the cave parallel to the planting area. When I asked about them, Cherry looked positively guilty. Apparently she planted some cherry pits, and they’ve sprouted. I’m not mad at her, but I am puzzled, because what she’s done is absolutely impossible. Cherries require winter cold- a whole winter cold spell- before their pits become viable. And then it takes a lot longer than just one month for the pits to germinate. Some cherry pits never germinate at all.

But there they are- eight little leafy twigs, pretty nondescript at the moment. In a garden I wouldn’t think twice about weeding ‘em out. But seventy-five sols ago those were still fresh fruit. Now, thanks to whatever mojo Cherry has going for her, they’re living, photosynthesizing plants. I’m definitely not weeding these out, and not just because it would break Cherry’s heart. This is magic and botany at work doing the impossible, and I want to document every step from here on out. This shit is what I got my degree for.

Anyway, not much conversation with Earth today. They’re still absorbing the bombshell about magic being a thing. All pony questions are on hold until we get photo transfer capacity running.

NASA wants today’s bandwidth for another update of Pathfinder’s software and to send a new app to the rover which will convert photos into a format the Pathfinder-Sojourner parser understands. If it works, I can start sending the photos I’ve got banked up. Video is still out, though. I’ll be limited in my upload time to the afternoons, after a daily check-in and Q&A with the eggheads back home. Even using Hermes as a relay to cut transmission distance and increase bandwidth, the data’s being pushed through a really thin straw. Maybe a coffee stirrer.

Venkat Kapoor’s flying back to Houston today, so I did what talking I did today with Bruce Ng at JPL. He’s got a breakthrough idea on the task of getting the Hab radio working at least long enough that I don’t have to spend all morning suited up in the rover. Instead of using Rover 1’s radio and a new cable through the wall of the Hab, we’re going to use one thing I actually have a surplus of… suit radios!

Each suit helmet has a little antenna on it. The suits can talk to the rovers over a distance of about two kilometers- a bit better than an Earth walkie-talkie. When the Hab had its full antenna farm, it could hear suit radios even farther than that, but two kilometers is plenty to talk to a radio that’s parked right outside. And since the antenna is already vacuum-safe, we don’t have to worry about sticking it in a pop-tent!

The one problem is this: the Hab radio system puts out a lot more power from its transmitter to the antennas than a suit radio sends to its antenna. The excess electricity could melt the itty bitty antenna. So they’re doing tests at Johnson with spare antennas. (They have plenty now: all of the suit helmets for Ares IV and V have been scrapped, and a new contractor is building replacements with visors that don’t shatter into a billion pieces when the Hab front door suddenly comes flying at your face.) If the output is too strong for the conditions, they want to know what the best way is to reduce or step down the power before I dick with it here.

But assuming they find the solution, in a sol or two I’m going to take the antenna off the helmet I left in Airlock 1 and use some comm system spare parts to hook it to the surviving end of the wire leading to the dish mast. Obviously it won’t talk to Earth, and probably won’t talk to any of the satellites, but it can talk to the rover just fine. And the rover can talk to Pathfinder, and Pathfinder can talk to Earth.

I wonder if this was what the first days of the Internet were like. Maybe I should set a camera on my coffee pot and ask NASA to register me for mars_coffee_pot.com.

Anyway, convo’s done for the day. In a bit I’m going to go help Starlight and Dragonfly work on converting their measurement units into ours so they can tell us how powerful their remaining rocket engines are. Also, I need to nail down for certain the pony radio’s power output and wavebands so we can try to use that as a backup or parallel comms system.

But for now I’m enjoying my email! I haven’t had an email dump since Sol 5!

They’re not sending all of it to me at once, of course. There’s too much. NASA wants to parcel out my bandwidth and my personal time, too. They definitely don’t want me to spend all day responding to thousands of emails. So they’re sending me the cream of the crop.

So far there’s two emails from the President (both boilerplate, ho hum), one email from the Pope, half a dozen rock stars, several from movie stars (the one I really love is the one from Chris Evans- Chris Frickin’ Evans!!), several scientists, and other notables.

But the most important to me was the one Mom sent me. It’s exactly what you’d expect, no surprises: thank God you’re alive, don’t die, your father says hello, we didn’t return your Christmas presents, etc.

I keep going back to read it. It reminds me just how important it is that I not die here.

Anyway, I need to get moving. Cherry is dancing on her hooves waiting for NASA to give her the good word on whether or not we can MacGyver our way off this rock.

Right after I read that letter again.

TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS

ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas via suit SG, over.

AMICITAS: DF - Amicitas calling Baltimare, over.

ESA: Prepare for long message to be relayed to Mark’s people. Over.

AMICITAS: Standing by, over.

ESA: People of the planet Earth! Greetings from the people of Equestria! I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, greet you in the name of friendship and harmony between our worlds and thank you for the generous hospitality you have sh

ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, over.

AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltmare, over.

ESA: Why did you turn off suit SG’s life support, over?

AMICITAS: How long is that message, over?

ESA: Not that long. Only about twenty-five hooves or so. Over.

AMICITAS: You must be kidding, over.

ESA: Proper diplomatic relations are a vital part of Amicitas’s extended mission, over.

AMICITAS: Can I speak with Spike or Moondancer, please? Over.

ESA: QC – Cutting in here. I got curious and tripped on TS’s scroll. I’ll explain facts to Princess of Prolixity. What are the limits, over?

AMICITAS: DF- Hello my queen! None of us know half the words in English for TS’s speech. We can’t write down anything longer than a paragraph. And floor in Hab is getting very soggy, over.

ESA: QC – Understood. Stand by for much shorter message, a perfect princess speech. Over.

AMICITAS: Standing by, over.

The first item of business at the meeting in Teddy’s office consisted of a message coming from Mars just before the daily transmission window closed.

Annie spoke for almost everyone when she said, “What the fuck IS this?”

The message, printed out on single sheets of paper for all the attendees, read:

[16:11] WATNEY: This is Dragonfly again. Mark told us not to do this, but our bosses back home wanted to say hello to you. Their first message was too long and with too difficult words for us to translate, so my ruler sends this message instead on behalf of Princess Twilight Sparkle, the founder of the pony space program.

“I am Princess Twilight Sparkle. Hello to Earth. I declare this bridge / bank / library / store open.”

I don’t know what it means, but my ruler says it is the best speech for princessessessessess. Sorry, I’m not sure where you stop writing that word.

(P. S. I had to look up “declare.”)

Teddy Sanders, alone of the group, smiled at the message. “I know what it means,” he said. “Venkat, please send the reply: ‘Tell Dragonfly’s ruler some of us understand completely.’” He shook his head and added, "I only wish I could spike some Congressmen like that."

“Okay,” Venkat said drowsily, still recovering from the red-eye from LAX to HOU. “I’ll do that when we remind them about not using bandwidth during software updates.”

“No, don’t do that,” Teddy said. “Mark can handle that. Just send the diplomacy.”

“What kind of alien fucking idea is this,” Annie growled, “for the first step in interplanetary diplomacy?”

“The kind,” Teddy said, still smiling, “that every history book will print verbatim for the rest of time. I guarantee it.”

The meeting moved on to more important business.

Author's Notes:

No writing today- I just can't concentrate. So the buffer drops back down to 2.

Teddy understands rivalry between organizations. He also understands those who take their jobs too seriously and those who have fun deflating the first kind... even if he himself is the former and not the latter.

Meanwhile, don't be angry at Twilight. She was trying to do it the right and proper way, and so she forgot about the reality of the water telegraph's limits.

And it seems Cherry's every other day work in the farm is paying dividends. And Mark is kicking himself in the figurative ass for not having been there for all of it.