Eighty-First Entry

March 15^th, 2037

2015

Dear Space Diary.

In her defence, once Mary finished laughing, she did help roll the spaceship and get me out in pretty short order. Once you get it started, it actually spins quite well is the lower gravity.

Not so much in her defence, it took her about half an hour to stop laughing.

She seems to have mellowed out a fair bit now that her chance of escape seems effectively negated. We’re out of fuel, and unless we come up with another solution, (and I haven’t ruled that out), there’s nothing to do now but wait for the rescue ship. We’re choosing to overlook the whole betraying each other thing for now.

Also, there was that whole saving each other’s life thing. That probably helped.

The city is only a few hours walk away. We are towing (or in this case rolling) a spaceship though, so it’s probably going to take a lot longer.

Before we started, I’ve taken a moment to read over the messages from NASA and to update them on the current situation. Nothing fascinating. Confirmation of navigation for the trip home (little useless now), a couple of newspaper articles (Nobody’s seen Bobo the Wonder Dog in weeks. A Nation Mourns, apparently), and some extra information about Mary’s original mission that a lowly technical officer thought I should read. Knowing NASA it’ll be as thrilling as a 400 page collection of blueprints and process documents (which is probably what it is), but I’m a little surprised they sent it at all. I was under the impression they weren’t allowed to tell me. Hmm.

I’ll read it later, no time now.

2025

And we’re off.

We’ve only one space suit, meaning we can’t both be outside at the same time, unless one of us wants to get lead poisoning. And if we could only travel for 30 minutes every six hours, NASA might actually get here before we were halfway.

Admittedly, they’ll be homing in on us, but the Zubrin’s not going to be as easy to shift as my ship is. We want to be as close as possible. I don’t entirely trust NASA’s autopilot.

Mary, being shorter and less (ahem) well rounded than me, is actually able to stand up inside the ship with only some minor strain and possible permanent back damage. So we’ve swapped places. I’m in the spacesuit, pushing the ship from behind, rather like a dung beetle. Mary’s inside, pushing and walking along whichever part of the ship is currently the bottom. Rather like a hamster inside a ball.

…Honestly not sure which simile is more demeaning.

2055

Even though we’re now working together, we’re not especially friendly, so the walk is a silent one.

2200

We’re stopping for the night. Uneventful, except for when Mr Rock fell out of the glove box and hit Mary in the head. That was amusing. I’m carrying him now.

2203

Mary’s already asleep.

2213

The dung beetle was definitely worse.