The computer finishes its boot process and brings up a screen I’ve never seen before. I can tell it means trouble, because the word “TROUBLE” is in large type across the top.
Adding it to water and active bacteria would quickly get it inundated, replacing any population killed by the Toilet of Doom.
Bleh. I’m going to bed.
My life depended on some math I’d done earlier. If I dropped a sign or added two numbers wrong, I might never wake up.
Everything just changed. Watney’s headed for Pathfinder.
I’ll drop the oxygen mixture to zero and breathe pure nitrogen until I suffocate. It wouldn’t feel bad. The lungs don’t have the ability to sense lack of oxygen. I’d just get tired, fall asleep, then die.
Kick a rock? That rock hadn’t moved in a million years!
Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.
I’m going to finish off the last of Three’s Company tonight. Frankly, I like Mr. Furley more than the Ropers.
Nothing like a language barrier to make people leave you alone.
Love of science is universal across all cultures.
Light is a funny thing. Its wavelength defines what it can and can’t interact with. Anything smaller than the wavelength is functionally nonexistent to that photon. That’s why there’s a mesh over the window of a microwave. The holes in the mesh are too small for microwaves to pass through. But visible light, with a much shorter wavelength, can go through freely.
Of course the Eridian language has no words for colors. Why would it? I never thought of colors as a mysterious thing. But if you’ve never heard of them before, I guess they’re pretty weird. We have names for frequency ranges in the electromagnetic spectrum. Then again, my students all have eyes and they were still amazed when I told them “x-rays,” “microwaves,” “Wi-Fi,” and “purple” were all just wavelengths of light.
So that’s the situation. I’m stranded on Mars.
He points to his ship. “I have twenty-two million kilograms of Taumoeba in fuel bays. How much you want, question?
When flint strikes steel, it knocks microscopic flecks of metal into the air. The metal burns because of some complicated crap related to surface area and oxidization rates. Basically, it rusts so fast that the reaction heat makes fire.
Then he knelt on one knee and fist-pumped repeatedly.
I have a much bigger problem. The farm is dead.
The moon is a nice place to pass out. You hit the ground very gently.
Or maybe they’ll board my ship and lay eggs in my brain. You can never be sure.