The Law of Attraction [Chris Beck]

Chapter 31

"Blake,

I'm supposed to message everyone cause, ya know, I might die here. Again?

I figured you'd be the person to talk to about this, about dying. I've thought about it a lot, I've come close to it more than I've thought about it, though. Sorry, I shouldn't be bringing you down. I haven't given up hope and I hope you guys haven't either. I really hope you finally figured out how you feel about Beck, I mean, come on, the guys a dream boat. And anything can happen in life. You could die any day, or get stranded on Mars. So, figure it out, kid.

Watney."

Alice had figured out how she felt about Beck, but she kept it to herself. Over the few days that went by after the probe fail, Beck had not once pressed it. He knew now how Alice worked; she was not the kind to be pressured into anything, and she wouldn't let his words make her feel obligated to say them back. 

He respected that, he respected her, although it was beginning to mess with him. Running into her, working with her, the occasional dinner where they had to pretend like there was nothing going on between them because the rest of the crew was there. It was all still so exciting, and no worry or doubt had slipped into his mind.

Vogel opened up a link that was sent to him during the email dump, but it refused to open. Already he thought something was wrong with the email, which was sent to him by his wife. The image was titled "unsere kinder" which made everything feel slightly off. Not only was the K in "kinder" not capitalized, it was not what they would normally call their children. They referred to them more and monkeys, far less formal. Either way, he called to Johanssen to help him out if she wasn't too busy, and the woman made her way to his station swiftly. It was nearly time to head to bed, everyone was wrapping up for the night. Johanssen opened what was supposed to be an image, and found it certainly didn't want to open. So she worked at it, knowing right away it was not an image.

Then a code popped up, once she'd been able to crack the safety that had been put on the "image". Johanssen frowned. "Any idea what this says?"

"Ja, it's a trajectory course." He focused in on it, reading over it quickly. "Mein Gott."

The crew met, though tired and all ready for bed, in the rec room. Alice grabbed herself a coffee, her tiredness overwhelming her in the sense that coffee didn't even wake her anymore, but was simply a drink she had to keep away headaches and liked the taste of. It was rare that Lewis called a meeting for everyone to discuss anything; normally she would talk to each person on their own through a head piece, since it was hard to find any down time on the Hermes to begin with. 

Lewis, once they were all seated as well as could be in the 0.2 gravity, took a deep breath. Then, like the commander she was, she dove into what had to be said. "We've been informed of something very important, I'll have Vogel explain it to you in a moment, I need you all to consider every possibility when you hear it, and I need you to keep your heads level."