Ninety-Fifth Entry

March 16^th, 2037

2250

Dear Space Diary.

…I’m not sure what to say.

“Hello would be traditional.”

Um, hello.

“Please to meet you. I’m Mary. The real one.”

I’m surprised. I didn’t think she was still around. And she’s a fair bit older than the last Mary I met. About 20 years older, in fact, which makes sense, given then whole 20 years lost in space.

“Not the fondest half of my life, if I was to be honest.”

No I’d imagine not. Still, it’s all kind of falling into place. The Mary I met before was… one of the other ones. I read about them in the mission documents. The purpose of this whole city was to test –

“Oh, you’re still doing the narration thing. That’s adorable.”

Thanks?

“You’re welcome!”

You’re a lot nicer than, um…

“Mary 2.0?”

Yes.

“Cut her some slack. She had a lot to be angry about.”

She did?

“You’ve no idea. And that’s not just a figure of speech. You really have no idea what NASA has done.”

I’m starting to.

“That’s the spirit. Now come on. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us. I’m afraid my tow truck act used up all the fuel I had on this side of the city. Up for some heavy lifting?”

You have fuel?

“Oh yes. Hacked a couple of lightdogs to do the construction. The formula’s my own, but they do the actual mixing. Sadly they were reprogrammed with the rest of the ones you saw. Don’t know how well the machine’s been running since then.”

Formula? You’ve made fuel? Like, actual fuel?

Well, not actual fuel. Actually, if you’ll forgive the lack of modesty, it’s a fair bit better than the dirty brown gunk they’ve pumped into the tanks. At least we’ve burnt off most of that now, should help clear the engines out a bit. This stuff is clean, slow burning, and lasts for donkeys. Bit proud.”

Well. That’s amazing. I’m sorry, this must sound rude, but I read your logs. You didn’t exactly strike me as the engineering chemical composition type.

“It does sound rude. But you’re forgiven. When I left Earth I was nothing like that. But I did have a lot of reading time, and the Zubrin’s digital library was well stocked.”

You became an expert in rocket fuels in 20 years?

“Oh goodness no.”

I thought not.

“I became an expert in rocket fuels after year three. At least in theory. Then I started practicing other things.”

Like what?

“Macramé, for one. But that’s less immediately useful.”

…right.

“Anyway, come on. Let’s go grab what we can, and then we can get out of here. Now we’ve got a faster than light ship, I’m anxious to see Earth again. I honestly thought I’d never return. You changed that. Thank you.”

You’re welcome. But… shouldn’t we wait for NASA’s rescue ship?

“Oh, you poor naïve man.”

What? I don’t understand.

“After all their lies, you actually thought they were coming?”