Dead on Mars

The comet had gone.

Tang Yue packed up as he prepared to head home.

“We really have a second chance in life.” Tang Yue and Tomcat walked alongside each other, strolling through the desert. Above their heads was a sky filled with shooting stars. They were the large number of tiny ice crystals that Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had sent into the atmosphere. “A six was thrown at the most critical moment.”

“If there is a god in this world, what do you think it’s currently doing?” Tang Yue asked.

“It might be stroking a cat,” Tomcat said indifferently. “I think God is a cat person.”

“Why can’t He be a dog person?”

“Because all the dog people in the world have died.”

“I suddenly kind of understand theists. If I were a Christian and encountered something like that, I’d definitely kneel down crying to thank the Lord for His grace and salvation… There will always be a million believers in this world who will pray to God for help in times of adversity, all but a hundred of them will get no response. There will always be a hundred who experience something out of sheer coincidence,” Tang Yue said. “That final one hundred cases will then be called miracles.”

“Survivorship bias?”

Tang Yue thought and nodded.

“Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I hitting Mars and Deimos hitting the comet—these two matters were very low probability events for us, but to that entity above us…” Tomcat pointed at the sky. “It doesn’t matter how low the probability is; to the Universe, everything is mediocre. That is the mediocrity principle.”

“Mediocrity principle?”

“We find Deimos hitting the comet incredible because the probability is just too small, but in fact, the probability of Deimos appearing anywhere is equal. Its orbital inclination to the local Laplace plane can go from 1.79 to 1.80, and then 1.81 before finally reaching 1.82. Every outcome is mediocre.”

Tang Yue asked casually, “So we too are mediocre?”

Tomcat nodded. “Yes, both you and I are mediocre.”

“This sounds a little disappointing.” Tang Yue smiled. “You have to understand that everyone has once fantasized about being the center of the Universe.”

Tomcat took off its helmet and threw it into the air and caught it. “There is no conflict between the two. If you wish to sound more important, you can use the anthropic principle to verify this point.”

“Tang Yue, Mr. Cat, this is United Space Station.” Mai Dong’s voice sounded in the earpiece. “Can you copy? Is the signal okay?”

“I hear you loud and clear. Lass, are you okay?” Tang Yue asked. “Was the space station affected by the comet?”

“Everything is fine here.”

Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I’s collision with Deimos happened at an orbit of twenty thousand kilometers. This formed a very sparse ring—one that was simply in name since it couldn’t even be seen with a telescope. Tomcat said that if the matter in the ring would be evenly distributed in orbit, then two ice particles that exceed one millimeter in size would be more than four thousand kilometers apart from each other.

Tomcat estimated that the comet had left about half a trillion tonnes of matter in orbit, with most of it being thin gases.

This faint ring had zero influence on the space station’s near-orbit. The only thing that was affected was the relay satellites. The three relay satellites were located at an orbit of 17,000 kilometers; therefore, Tomcat and Tang Yue were worried that they would be damaged by the collision. But thankfully, their worries didn’t come to fruition as they continued working as per normal.

“Lass, we are having a meteor shower over here.”

“Really?” Mai Dong’s eyes lit up. “How big are they?”

“Very, very big!” Tang Yue drew a deep breath. “This is definitely the most spectacular meteor shower that humanity has ever seen. It doesn’t come from any particular constellation… It covers the entire sky.”

The girl exclaimed over the comms. She couldn’t see the shooting stars from the space station, nor had she ever seen a meteor shower before. Hence, she found it impossible to imagine what kind of scene the most spectacular meteor shower in human history would look like. This was fate’s gift to them—in the form of fireworks—for surviving the calamity.

“In the face of the most shocking scene of nature, human language if often that clumsy. Your brain capacity is insufficient, making it impossible to contain the greatest creations in the world. Your vocabulary is lacking, making it insufficient to describe the vast powers of the world. All you can say is big, very big, very, very big,” Tomcat quipped. “But cats are different.”

“What would a cat say?”

“Cats will say…” Tomcat replied. “Meow.”

Tang Yue opened the hatch to the airlock as Tomcat entered.

Tang Yue followed closely behind and shut the hatch behind him.

He stood in the lit Hab. On the table were monitors and in front of the table were two swivel chairs. It was still quiet and warm. Tang Yue stepping into the Hab felt as though he had returned home from a cold, rainy winter night. He would put away his wet umbrella as he enjoyed the fire in the fireplace. The hot blast of air would heat his cheeks up as firewood crackled amidst the flames.

Tang Yue took off the Radiant Armor, picked up a cup of water and stood in front of the rack to greet his tomatoes.

“Children, Daddy came back alive again.” Tang Yue squeezed on a pipette as he watered them one plant at a time. “Are you happy?”

“Tang Yue, Mr. Cat,” Mai Dong asked. “What… What do I do next? Do I still head down?”

The comet was no longer a threat to the space station and it was in a rather safe situation at present. It wasn’t imperative that Mai Dong descended.

“Do you wish to come down?” Tomcat asked. “Miss Mai Dong.”

Mai Dong nodded. “Yes.”

“It’s still the same as in the past. We will not force or direct you to make any choice. The choice is ultimately in your hands,” Tomcat said. “You can choose to remain in the space station and you can also choose to land, but I have to warn you… Miss Mai Dong, you have to consider the risks behind the choice you make.”

Staying in orbit was undoubtedly the safest. Using Orion II to forcefully land was an extremely risky endeavor. Tomcat had originally decided to use such a procedure because Comet Tomcat-Tang-Mai I had a hundred percent chance of destroying the space station. Under the pressure of the comet, they had no choice but to do all they could to save Mai Dong. It was the lesser of two evils.

But now, the comet had gone.

Mai Dong could use the comet’s arrival as nothing but an interlude. She could live on as she had in the past.

“But… But didn’t our simulations succeed?”

Tomcat secretly sighed.

They had planted a seed in Mai Dong’s heart, telling her that she had a chance of landing successfully, causing her to be unable to live the same way as she had previously… Once you gave a cornered person another path, an ethereal hope, a promise that seemed plausible, it was impossible to have that person sit willingly in their original spot.

“Miss Mai Dong, the surface simulation doesn’t tell us anything. There were so many accidents in history. Which one of them didn’t obtain success from a surface simulation? Yet, the accident still happened,” Tomcat said. “Since the threat of the comet no longer exists, you don’t have to make this dangerous choice.”

“I…”

“I agree with Tomcat.” Tang Yue stood in front of the rack. “Landing on Orion II is too dangerous. Lass, there’s no need to make bets with your life.”

“What if I insist on coming down?” Mai Dong bit her lip.” “Is this decision very selfish?”

Tomcat was taken aback.

Tang Yue was taken aback.

All of them laughed.

“No, no, Miss Mai Dong. You have the right to make any decision and bear the consequences yourself. It’s only a choice; there’s no right or wrong. No one can blame you,” Tomcat said. “If you insist on coming down, we will activate the plans for landing.”

Tang Yue finished watering the tomatoes as he sat on a chair with a blanket draped over him.

“A brand new day has arrived once again. I’m really happy for the Sun.”

“Why?”

“Because it can see me again. I believe the Sun likely heaved a sigh of relief when it saw the comet leave Mars’s orbit. It also expressed such a poignant thought: Tomorrow’s Tang Yue will still rise as usual.”