Dead on Mars

The girl giggled.

“I guarantee you that you and I will have dinner together on the same table tomorrow night. Tomcat and I will serve you Kunlun Station’s valuable stash of red-braised beef biscuits and tomatoes.”

“It will be that grand?”

“Obviously, Miss Mai Dong. You are a VIP. I’ve stashed away all the red-braised beef biscuits. I’ll share them with you when you’re here,” Tang Yue said. “I’ve been eating salted squid biscuits all day now. It’s torture.”

“Is that a promise?” Mai Dong asked softly.

“Yes.” Tang Yue nodded. “We will definitely get you down safely… We have already done all the preparations. Orion II will definitely land safely. Tomcat guaranteed it.”

“Pinky promise?” the girl said.

“Pinky promise.”

The two extended their pinkies.

“Anyone who breaks this pinky promise is a puppy!”

Mai Dong giggled.

“Hey, Tang Yue. How many sols has it been?”

“321 sols,” Tang Yue replied. “About 320 sols have passed since Earth disappeared.”

“Ah… It’s already been 321 sols. It’s almost a year.” Mai Dong blinked. “But if you think about it, the days feel so long. It’s as if many years have passed. Life on Earth feels like something from another lifetime.”

Indeed, it hadn’t been a year since the two were left stranded around Mars, but it felt like a lifetime. The lives they had before leaving Earth felt like another lifetime away. Tang Yue could remember his family, friends, colleagues, and teachers, but those memories were fragmented and blurry. It was more like the life of a person named Tang Yue more than a hundred million kilometers away.

At times, Tang Yue would let his thoughts stray, wondering if he was born on Mars and if there was another Tang Yue who shared the same name and looks as he did on Earth.

“I still remember… that before I left, Mom came to send me off at the center. She told me to wear more clothes because it would be cold and to remember to eat breakfast daily. She said that it’s not good to skip breakfast. She reminded me to call back home regularly or send a video. I was told to drink warm water because I have a cold constitution.”

Tang Yue’s heart stirred.

Before leaving, he’d had a phone conversation with his family. His mother had repeatedly exhorted the same things such as be safe, eat well, wear more clothes to not get sick, and to have good relationships with his colleagues. As for his father, he was listening by the side urging his wife to stop. “Enough, enough. Do you think a grown-ass man like him doesn’t know how to take care of himself? He’s an astronaut. An astronaut, got it? The country will take good care of him.”

His mother was a classic working woman. She was one of the ordinary members of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens. She hadn’t received any higher education, having graduated from junior college. She wasn’t an entrepreneur with her own business. The highest-ranking member in society she came across was the police inspector at the station across the street. The furthest places she had been were Thailand and Singapore.

All her life, Mars was nothing but a term she had read in books or the news. It was never a reachable place. She didn’t have a clear concept of what it meant to land on Mars, nor could she imagine a massive spacecraft weighing thousands of tonnes. It was only when she checked Wikipedia that she realized that a return trip took two years. She was shocked, surprised that it was such a distance away!

At that moment, his father grunted. “Of course it’s far. It’s Mars. Do you know what Mars is? The distance between Earth and Mars is at least… Son, how far is it?”

Tang Yue had already gone too far, so far that it was as though he had reached the stars in the sky.

“My dad stood by the side with a nasty look on his face. It’s because he didn’t support my decision to come to Mars. He said that I was too young, that such work should be left to older people,” Mai Dong continued. “I quarreled with him over this. He even went to the director and slammed on his desk saying, ‘My daughter is only twenty-five. Can you take the responsibility if anything happens to her by sending her to somewhere so dangerous?’ Later, he was dragged out by Mom… This was something Mom told me via email later. She said that my dad had caused a fuss at the director’s office.”

“What happened after that?”

“Later, I participated in the training. Slowly, my dad stopped saying anything.” Mai Dong smiled. “My dad is a stiff, conflicted man. The hardest thing for him to do is to bow his head to others… But he eventually came with Mom to send me off. He only said one thing throughout the entire process.”

“What was it?”

“Be safe,” Mai Dong said. “Mom later sent an email telling me that my dad cried the entire way home on the bus.”

“Your father’s attitude is completely different from my dad.” Tang Yue sighed. “Indeed, a daughter is a treasure, but a son is nothing.”

“What did your father say?”

“Son, you are going to be an astronaut. This will bring glory to our ancestors! Go without any worries. I’ll take care of your mom!” Tang Yue curled his lips. “I told him that it was risky! That I might not return! Guess what he said?”

“What?”

“That clueless dad of mine said that he had also risked his life when he was young. He fought someone who held a knife on the street and was stabbed in the back. Thankfully, he was fast to react, or the knife would have hit his head,” Tang Yue said gloomily. “Injured, he ran far away and hid in an abandoned car, scaring a lady who happened to walk past. Later, that lady became my mom… My dad often said that I wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t risked his life.”

Mai Dong hugged her stomach as she kept laughing until she was out of breath.

“Tang Yue, you have so many stories.”

“It’s because I was never considered a good student from a young age. I had all sorts of riffraff as friends. I relied on being smart, by having pretty good scores simply by working hard just before exams. I always was within the top ten for exams.” Tang Yue hugged his arms. “That’s why the teachers never cared about me. I’m different from brainy students like you.”

“But that life is very boring. I’m so envious of you.” Mai Dong sighed. “When I was young, my dad was very, very strict with me. After I got home from school, I’d have English lessons and piano lessons. During piano lessons, he would stand beside me with a cane in hand. If I were to be distracted, he would lash at the floor. On weekends, I still had mathematics enrichment classes. I basically never had any free time.”

“You know how to play the piano?”

“A little.” Mai Dong hesitated. “I passed Grade 10 during the graduation of middle school.”

Tang Yue whistled.

Strictly speaking, Tang Yue and Mai Dong had very different families. Tang Yue was born into a normal household. People from that class were often humble but flawed, kind but cowardly. They were tenacious. As for Mai Dong, she was the classic example of a daughter from an intellectual family. She had the reservations and discipline that stemmed from being from a family of scholars.

“It’s not early, lady. It’s time for you to sleep. “Tang Yue said. “Have a good rest. Make sure you have enough energy to deal with tomorrow’s work.”

“Tang Yue… Will we be able to meet tomorrow night?”

“Yes,” Tang Yue said firmly. “We’ve pinky promised.”

“Yes, we did.” Mai Dong felt at ease as she closed her eyes in satisfaction. Moments later, she opened her eyes. “Tang Yue?”

“I’m here. What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Mai Dong shook her head. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

…

Kunlun Station became silent.

Tomcat was curled in a bundle beside a wall with its eyes closed and ears drooped. When sleeping, it looked no different from an ordinary cat apart from its size. Of course, a certain fat orange cat was about the same size.

Suddenly, the monitor on the desk silently lit up.

In the darkness, the cat’s ears pricked up.

The communications system popped up a window as the display showed a message reach Kunlun Station.

“HELLO MARS!”