RED MARS (Continue)

GALLAGHER

Maybe there was never anything in this valley.

As they walk, Burchenal checks his HCC.

BURCHENAL

If we are where we think we are -

Map appears on a small screen, he mutters to it, overlays of all the algae and lichen that were on Mars appear.

BURCHENAL

This valley was covered with blue algae a month ago. Valley back one should have been covered in an orange-red chloroflectic. He's right. It's weird. There should be something.

They crest a small rise. Below lies a valley that closes down quickly into an extremely narrow canyon. Burchenal and Santen check their HHC maps.

BURCHENAL

This, however, makes sense.

SANTEN

Debris apron. Delineated valley fill. Depositional fan...

He double-checks with Chantilas. Seems they're going the right way. Chantilas leans back heavily against a rock.

CHANTILAS

Good. You gotta keep moving...

Chantilas doesn't get up.

GALLAGHER

And what're you gonna do, sit here and watch? You getting old and lazy?

CHANTILAS

My spleen's ruptured. There's significant internal bleeding. I'm not going any further. And trying to carry me will slow you down just enough that we can all die.

Robby's stunned, frantic.

GALLAGHER

We'll get you to the Hab. Lock out the spine impulse and you can walk one of us through it.

CHANTILAS

No. You won't.

Santen takes charge. It's his mission now.

SANTEN

We build a litter. We take him.

CHANTILAS

(stern)

Chain of command once we hit the surface starts with me. And I'm ordering you to go, Lieutenant. Now.

(turns to Robby)

I've only got about forty minutes. There's really not much pain. Put me around the corner where I've got a view.

They lift him to the other side of the rock. Gallagher stays with Chantilas a moment. Stricken, speechless. Inside Gallagher's helmet, we can see as the tears roll down. Then -

CHANTILAS

It's okay. I'm not sorry I came.

Gallagher takes one last look over his shoulder. We are already PULLING BACK, BACK, BACK. Tiny figures in the landscape once again. One left behind.

INT. MISSION CONTROL - DAY

Tense. Flight Director Russert watches as Skavlem mutters into the mike.

SKAVLEM

Ares, this Houston, do you read? Ares, this Houston, do you read?

Skavlem continues in the b.g. as -

LOWENTHAL

What do you want to do?

RUSSERT

Get every dish in the Deep Space Network pointed at Mars.

(doesn't like it, but)

Declare a spacecraft emergency.

EXT. MARS SURFACE - DAY

Chantilas has toppled over. Unmoving. We GO WIDE, WIDE, WIDE and...

EXT. HILLSIDE (MARS) - DAY

The four of them trudge up a long hill. The summit is a dozen steps away. Santen is the first to reach it. He looks out over the horizon. Turns back to the others -

SANTEN

You're gonna like this.

HIS POV

We see what he sees, as do the others as they arrive - not that far in the distance, in the valley below, they can see the lab shining in the sun.

BACK TO SCENE

BURCHENAL

Twenty-six months of food, water and air, gentlemen.

PETTENGILL

We're saved...

They run down the hillside. For the first time we get a feeling for the .38 gravity. Bouncing sixteen foot steps. Like little kids as they come bounding down.

EXT. VALLEY FLOOR (MARS) - DAY

They keep running and leaping and coming. Until the first one begins to slow. It's not from exhaustion. And then the second and the third. It's from horror.

The Hab is in tatters. Roof is gone, walls are gone. Nothing but the titanium ribs remain. They approach. The insides are not much better. It's destroyed. There's no food. There's no water. There's no air.

EXT. MARS - HAB - DAY

They search. The news doesn't improve.

SANTEN

What the fuck happened here?

PETTENGILL

Jesus...

Burchenal continues to look around for a moment. It doesn't matter what happened. It's over. Shakes his head at Gallagher.

BURCHENAL

How's your air?

GALLAGHER

(checks)

Twenty-two minutes.

BURCHENAL

I'm not much better.

SANTEN

What the fuck...

He kicks angrily at what's left of the structure. Storms off. It takes Pettengill a moment to process it, but...

PETTENGILL

We're all gonna die, aren't we?

INT. ARES - MAINTENANCE LEVEL - NIGHT

Pitch black except for the electroluminescent panels she's stuck around the room. She cracks another one on. They work like glowsticks, but the size of menus.

She's jumpered the circuits. Multimeters Velcroed all over the place. Trying to reboot the entire ship. Checks her loads, balances one more jumper, throws a breaker. The SHIP GROANS, FLICKERS TO LIFE, DIES. She checks a meter, changes a jumper, tries again. This time the SHIP GROANS, FLICKERS TO LIFE and STAYS ON-line. The systems begin to come alive around her. Panels light up, turn from red to green. Lights start to come on. Gravity returns.

INT. ARES - VARIOUS SPHERES - NIGHT

Bowman moves through. The place is a mess. Soot and fire stains in some spheres. Smoke damage in all. Flowers destroyed. The garden is half-wrecked. She manually opens a set of valves in one room. AIR HISSES in from an emergency supply. She checks a meter in her hand, checks again to be sure. Folds back the helmet of her suit. Breathes.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - NIGHT

Bowman tries to bring the rest of the ship back to life. Half a dozen systems are just plain dead and have to be locked out. Things are not good. Light's beginning to come up. Moments away from entering front-side orbit. Kate opens a panel marked OBS and throws a series of switches.

EXT. ARES - NIGHT

Door slides open. A small optical receiver is seen. They clear the dark side and burst into the light.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - NIGHT

On a large viewscreen, Bowman can now scan the surface to about a one meter resolution. Searches. Starts wide, scanning the edge of the horizon as it comes into view.

Picks up the glint of the MEV. Zooms in. At first there's nothing but the crashed MEV in profile. (Like a spy satellite, we are an an EXTREME ANGLE, SLOWLY REVEALING more as the Ares grows less oblique and tracks overhead.)

Then the severity of the damage comes clear. Bowman tries not to react. Nothing else is there. No sign of activity or escape. The footprints are beyond the resolution of the camera. There's no reason to believe anything but they're all dead.

EXT. HAB & ENVIRONS (MARS) - DAY

Gallagher and Burchenal sit on rocks nearby. Not exerting themselves. Checking their monitors.

BURCHENAL

Maybe we got what we deserved. We ignored science and truth on one planet and poisoned it beyond repair. Then tried to get science to save us on another. Maybe it's the inconsistency that did us in.

Burchenal points at a depression a few hundred yards away.

BURCHENAL

(then; points)

That's what they call the datum. Sea level. If there was a sea. Or when there was a sea, that's where it was. You can tell 'cause the sand was created by what's called the fluvial process where water breaks rocks into smaller and smaller pieces. We're the first men on Mars. Even if it isn't gonna last long.

(then)

Would you rather I shut up so you can die quietly?

GALLAGHER

Nah, you can keep talking. It's kinda peaceful.

In the b.g., headed towards a ridge of rocks, we can see a lone figure making its way along.

It's Pettengill. He steps around the ridge. We can hear his RADIO WHOOOSH TO STATIC as he loses line of sight communication with the others.

Up ahead of him, standing on the edge of an enormous drop-off, just staring out into space, is Santen. His back is to us. Pettengill walks towards him. Santen still doesn't hear.

Santen's radio is off. BEETHOVEN BLARES in his helmet. A 3000 foot drop at his feet. It is magnificent. As Pettengill approaches and Santen remains unaware, the scene seems less and less innocuous. We fear for him. Until...

Pettengill just walks right up beside him and stares out at the chasm as well. Santen LOWERS his MUSIC. They stand there silently for a moment. Santen has some kind of weak-ass epiphany...

SANTEN

Look, I'm sorry. I owe you an apology. I've been a dick. I pick on people who are weaker than I am.

It's way too little, way too late. But Pettengill doesn't let on. Just nods. As if he's forgiven him. Steps away and OUT OF FRAME. We HOLD ON Santen a moment and...Pettengill has picked up what would be a 250-pound rock back on Earth and is heaving it with all his might into Santen from behind. It slams into him, bending him in half, knocking his feet out from under him.

For half-a-moment we think Santen might regain his footing. But he doesn't. He starts to fall past the edge of the cliff. Slowly. In .38 grav SLOW MOTION. Flailing. Twisting in the air. As he falls, looking up, he slaps OFF the MUSIC, the RADIO COMES BACK ON. Pettengill leans over the edge.

PETTENGILL

Fuck you. Fuck you. I'm gonna die. But I'm gonna spend the next five minutes of my life completely satisfied knowing I killed you.

SANTEN

No, you won't, because...

Pettengill shakes his head and steps back out of the line of sight. Santen's last taunt turns to STATIC.

PETTENGILL

Yes, I will.

He turns and walks away.

EXT. MARS - HAB - DAY

Pettengill returns to the others. He can hear over the RADIO as he approaches -

BURCHENAL

Johannes Kepler was the first to accurately map the orbit of the planet. In 1609.

PETTENGILL

Santen's dead.

They turn. But not surprised. They just figure he -

BURCHENAL

Chewed through his air...

PETTENGILL

He threw himself off the cliff.

GALLAGHER

Ouch.

Burchenal bows his head down for a moment, overcome. But it's not Santen. It's the bigger picture...

BURCHENAL

It's not often you get to fail when 12 billion people are counting on you.

Gallagher's got more pressing problems. Checks his wrist. unnerved.

GALLAGHER

I'm at under a minute here. You guys know what this is gonna be like?

BURCHENAL

Hypoxia? Dizzy. Skin'll tingle. Vision narrows. Then anoxia. Shock, convulsions, acidosis.

GALLAGHER

Gonna hurt?

PETTENGILL

Yeah.

A WARNING TONE GOES OFF on Gallagher's SENSOR. He starts to gasp. Opens his mouth wide. Sucking in and out air that's worth less and less to his body.

He begins to claw at the air. It's not pretty to watch. Spins about seeking some release. None forthcoming. Claws some more. Falls to his knees. The others can barely watch. They know they're next.

Gallagher's growing more claustrophobic and crazed. Falls the rest of the way to the ground. Still clawing at the air. It's horrible to see. And in one last desperate, angry, trapped-feeling move, reaches up and unhooks the front of his helmet and throws it back. Croaks out a faint epitaph as he collapses.

GALLAGHER

Fuck this planet.

And he's still. Still. And then in a last reflexive shudder. Gasps. Gasps again. Takes in the worthless Mars atmosphere. And right when we think it's entirely over...Takes in some more. Breathes again. And again. Opens his eyes.

GALLAGHER

I'm not dead.

The other two are watching in amazement.

GALLAGHER

I'm not dead. It's like being at high altitude. There's not much air here. But...

Takes him a minute to catch his breath, but...

GALLAGHER

We're not gonna die.

Burchenal's suit ALARM GOES OFF. He doesn't screw with gasping in the suit. Just opens the damn thing up and prays. Breathes. Raggedly.

BURCHENAL

It ain't much. But it'll do.

He looks around, puzzled.

BURCHENAL

What the hell's going on here??

Pettengill's ALARM GOES OFF as well. Much more tentatively he removes his helmet. Breathes. He's not really rejoicing like the others.

PETTENGILL

I thought we'd be dead.

The enormity of what he's done strikes him.

PETTENGILL

I thought we'd be dead.

They all breathe the thin Martian air for a moment.

GALLAGHER

God, if Santen had only waited five more minutes. What a waste...

OFF Pettengill's completely unsettled face...

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK

STATIC on the comm clears. A brief caesura then -

BOWMAN

Copy.

SKAVLEM (V.O.)

Roger, Ares. Good to hear from you. We believe you may have suffered a proton field upset. What is your status?

Silence. Silence. Bowman struggles to maintain control. Tear runs down. Takes a deep breath.

BOWMAN

MEV launched. Radio contact zero. Visual shows crash site, one body, no motion. Believe entire crew to be End of Mission. Ares systems check at below 70 percent. Telemetry to follow.

She punches a button. Starts to upload it to them.

BOWMAN

Air purge in fire control degraded orbital path. Current orbit unstable. Thirty-two hour projected failure. Do you copy, Houston?

INT. MISSION CONTROL - DAY

The telemetry has come in. Russert puts it up on the common viewscreen. Ship status and all the failures are displayed. It's a disaster.

SKAVLEM

Roger. We copy that.

He lets go of the mike. Can't help himself.

SKAVLEM

Jesus fucking God.

FLASHBACK - INT. ARES - ACCESS TUBE - NIGHT

SUPERIMPOSE: MISSION TIME DAY 15

Dark. Someone moves along. And emerges into -

INT. ARES - OBSERVATION SPHERE - NIGHT

An icosahedronal slice has been removed from one side and replaced with optical glass. A billion stars are brighter and more numerous than you've ever imagined. Gallagher comes in, bumps smack into Chantilas. Thought he was alone.

GALLAGHER

Sorry

CHANTILAS

Lotsa room.

They lean back against the "floor" for a moment and stare out at a billion and a half stars.

CHANTILAS

Know the stars at all?

GALLAGHER

(pointing)

Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cetus, Lepus, Canis Minor. We're looking at what you'd see south around midnight, mid-May if we were on Earth. At about 42 degrees.

He's not showing off. He just really does know. Chantilas looks at him, surprised.

GALLAGHER

My grandfather taught me to sail when I was a kid.

(fondly)

He made me learn the stars in case all the G.P.S. satellites fell out of the sky at once. He said anyone who put his life in the hands of anything run by batteries was a jackass.

CHANTILAS

He sounds like quite a guy.

GALLAGHER

He didn't like what he called the easy answer or the quick fix. He didn't want to own anything he couldn't repair himself.

(thinking back)

And, oh yeah, everything automatic sooner or later fails automatically, usually during or immediately before a crisis. He had a lotta damn sayings.

(then)

He wouldn't've approved of this.

CHANTILAS

Going to Mars?

GALLAGHER

No. That we killed off half the living things on Earth. That after we all but destroyed one planet with global warming, we're trying to bring another to life the same way. Kinda tricky, don't you think? He woulda said we were asking for trouble.

CHANTILAS

It looks like we got trouble. That's why they sent us.

A beat. They go back to staring at the heavens. Then -

GALLAGHER

I don't really get it. You quit being a scientist? You went back to school to study God??

CHANTILAS

I just realized science couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions.

(off Robby's look)

There are values that are fundamental to an adequate apprehension of the world in which we live that can't be expressed by equations or experiments. In that, you see the hand of God.

(explaining)

Acknowledgment of basic values. Love, kindness, joy. Science doesn't have much use for these. Look, ugly theories are wrong. We know it by insight. Science doesn't want to accept that. We live in a moral world and have moral knowledge that tells us that love and truth are better than hatred and lies. But it's modern to think this is little more than genetic imprinting or a tacit communal cultural agreement. That's not a world I cared to live in anymore.

Robby stares back into the void. This is not the kind of conversation he's used to, but -

GALLAGHER

I asked my grandfather once if God existed. He played me Brahms' Third. Then he asked me what good it was? Or was it just vibration.

CHANTILAS

(following)

What good is beauty?

GALLAGHER

He said if a man could listen to Brahms and not believe in God, he was a fool.

CHANTILAS

I think I woulda liked your grandfather.

Robby turns to him.

GALLAGHER

You didn't come on this trip because of science at all, did you? That's why they let you come, but you're going to Mars to prove to yourself God exists.

Yup.

CHANTILAS

Maybe I'll pick up a rock and it'll say so on the bottom 'Made by God.'

GALLAGHER

Maybe God's more subtle than you are.

(then)

You think we're doing something we shouldn't, Bud, messing with another planet?

CHANTILAS

(unconcerned)

If so, it's because we're supposed to find something out. (then)

Let's say we didn't. And we finished poisoning off the Earth and everyone was dead in a hundred years. Then what was the point of any of it? Music, art, beauty, love? All gone. The Greeks, the Romans, the Enlightenment, the Constitution, people dying for freedom, ideas? None of that meant anything? I'd rather go out and make a mistake than live in a world that bleak.

GALLAGHER

No one said jack to me about the Greeks and Romans. Shit, I just came along to fix stuff.

CHANTILAS

Fooled ya, didn't we. It's okay. No one told the others either.

There's a quiet moment. Robby just came up to stare at the stars. Wasn't expecting all this. Then -

CHANTILAS

There's a reason the planets go around the stars in exactly the same way electrons go around the nucleus of the atom. It's not an accident. There's a design at the bottom of all this. God's watching over you.

GALLAGHER

I just wish I didn't think he was chuckling.

END OF FLASHBACK.

EXT. HAB (MARS) - DAY

Gallagher, Burchenal, and Pettengill are still stunned over the fact they're alive.

BURCHENAL

There shouldn't be enough oxygen on Mars to do this.

PETTENGILL

We never even got close to a breathable atmosphere. Then the levels started to drop and the sensors all died. I don't understand what's going on here.

Gallagher is rummaging through the wreckage of the Hab. It's been devastated.

PETTENGILL

Wattya lookin' for?

Gallagher unearths a tangle of wire and chewed-up circuits.

GALLAGHER

This.

He tosses it aside. It's worthless.

GALLAGHER

It used to be the radio. I don't mean to piss on the parade, guys, but no one knows we're here. Don't you see? The good news is we can breathe. The bad news is, unless we can tell somebody, now we get to starve to death. The only mission left is rescue.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK

The schematic she sent back to Earth is on the screen here as well. The ship is fucked-up bad.

SKAVLEM (V.O.)

The ground crew's dead, your orbit's unstable, and you're gonna burn in less then a day and a half.

(beat: then)

Let's get you home.

EXT. HAB - DAY

The three of them rummage through the ravaged structure. News isn't good.

BURCHENAL

We could head back to the lander, try to make something work there.

PETTENGILL

(won't make it)

It's six hours back.

GALLAGHER

And it all ran through the main computer which was half-fried and dropped from a great height.

Shakes his head no. That ain't gonna help. Then Burchenal, of all things, grins.

BURCHENAL

Gotta think about this scientifically. There's another radio. Two kilometers from here.

GALLAGHER

I didn't see any stores on the way over. I miss a Radio Hut?

BURCHENAL

We sent it here. Twenty years before you were born. In 1997. Think where we are...

PETTENGILL

(gets it)

We're right over the edge from the Ares Vallis. The Sojourner site.

The HHCs are yanked out.

PETTENGILL

There was a high-density ridge ringing the valley. The algae never took there.

Gallagher checks his watch.

GALLAGHER

We still might have a chance this pass. We wait long...

They start to run towards a ridge to west. Sun hangs low in the sky. Only an hour or so of day left.

CUT TO:

GALLAGHER, PETTENGILL AND BURCHENAL

with a goofy look on their faces. Like kids at Disneyland the first time. They're standing there looking at -

SAGAN/SOJOURNER SITE

The little rover. All those damned named rocks. Our first big visit to Mars. The reverie is over quickly. Gallagher tosses down his bag of tools. Walks over, kneels beside Sojourner (the rover).

GALLAGHER

Sorry about this.

He pats it once and starts POWER-SCREWING off the cover. Tosses another tool to Burchenal. Re

the Sagan lander -

GALLAGHER

Rip the panels off everything around the aerial.

(then)

It's a fifty-year-old off-the-shelf computer radio modem on a frequency that we're not using for this mission.

PETTENGILL

Then why are we bothering?

GALLAGHER

Cause I'd rather die doing something than just sitting there.

CUT TO:

EXT. SOJOURNER SITE - DAY

Gallagher has cobbled together a radio from 50-year-old parts. Pettengill holds the solar panels at the sun while Robby carefully removes one of his two suit-radio microphones. Checks with a meter, then solders it onto his jerry-rigged radio.

GALLAGHER

Testing, testing...

He adjusts a tiny pot as he continues to call out. A green LED comes on, flickering with his voice.

BURCHENAL

Does it work??

GALLAGHER

Well, the little green thing lights up. I don't know if it works...

(into mike)

This is Ares ground crew, come back. This is Ares ground crew, do you copy?

We PULL BACK WIDER AND WIDER. They are so damn alone.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - DAY

Various return scenarios are flickering on different vid screens.

SKAVLEM (V.O.)

Okay, scenario three calls for you to lock out systems 17, 22 and 40.

Kate tries. 40 freeflows, doesn't lock out.

BOWMAN

No joy.

She resets everything.

BOWMAN

Maybe we're trying to be way too subtle. Why don't we just jettison the damn tank?

SKAVLEM (V.O.)

Because the margins for error are so small. There's enough fuel to get you home, then if you don't sneeze. It makes us nervous.

BOWMAN

You want nervous...

INT. MISSION CONTROL

Over in the corner, Schlissel is listening to something on his headset that's blowing his mind. He starts waving three fingers frantically at Skavlem and Russert. They don't respond fast enough for him. He reaches over and patches someone into the comm link. A new voice breaks into the conversations. The accent's Australian.

OZZIE (V.O.)

Right, right. Commander Katherine Bowman?

RUSSERT

(peeved)

This is a restricted, encrypted frequency. Who is this?

OZZIE (V.O.)

(unperturbed)

This is Hank Osterbee in Canberra. Deep Space Network, mate. I've got a call for you.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK

BOWMAN

A call for me?

OZZIE (V.O.)

Right. From the surface of Mars. I'm routing it through. Direct frequencies follow.

There's CRUNCH OF STATIC, then -

GALLAGHER (V.O.)

Commander Bowman?

BOWMAN

You're alive?? You're alive?!

EXT. SOJOURNER SITE (MARS) - DAY

GALLAGHER

We're at sixty percent. Lieutenant Santen and Bud are gone.

(beat: then)

Oh, and by the way, we can breathe.

INT. MISSION CONTROL - NIGHT

SKAVLEM

You can breathe??!

GALLAGHER (V.O.)

Not real well, but yeah.

(then)

Hey, Kate...We've changed our mind. Get us outta here. We'd like to come home.

If the room was at a standstill before, now it's frozen. Is there hope?

SKAVLEM

If they can breathe, can we live there?

LOWENTHAL

No. Ninety percent of the algae's gone. It's some kind of freak anomaly. Mars is a dying planet. Just like Earth.

RUSSERT

They're breathing. It coulda worked. Dammit, it coulda worked...

Then through the cacophony comes one voice.

SCHLISSEL

It doesn't matter. They're going to die tonight anyhow. In an hour, the sun sets on Mars. It's going to be minus 140. They cannot survive in the open. They're going to die.

Yow. Everyone shuts up. It's ugly but true.

LOWENTHAL

He's right. You can walk across the South Pole, long as you stay moving and you're wearing insulating clothing - the suits'll work - you can stay warm. But once they stop moving, without shelter, they're gonna die.

SCHLISSEL

Her orbit could degrade at any time. She could auger in and burn while they chat about old times and freeze to death. It's a waste. We should just bring her home.

Skavlem doesn't love it, but -

SKAVLEM

We can get a free return trajectory now. She's got enough food and water to bring one person back.

Russert not happy at all, but -

RUSSERT

You're not wrong.

Nods to Skavlem...

SKAVLEM

Commander, this is Mission Control.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - DAY

BOWMAN

No.

SKAVLEM (V.O.)

Ma'am?

BOWMAN

I'm not stupid, John, I know what the question is. I'd ask it if I was there. And the answer is no. So let's move on.

(then)

By my calculations, if I ditch my reserve tank now and commit to a three-second apogee burn, I stabilize my orbit for another eighteen hours. I'd like someone to check the numbers as my apogee's in seven minutes.

INT. MISSION CONTROL - NIGHT

Russert has to grin. It's gonna drive him crazy and it's exactly what he'd do. Before any of them can bitch and whine -

RUSSERT

Come on, people, you heard the woman, let's get on it.

The techs begin calculating madly.

EXT. MARS SURFACE - DAY

The crew is coming down a rise toward the Hab. Carrying the radio. Walking back quickly. Sun is flat over the horizon. Shadows are long, already getting cold. You can see their breath.

BOWMAN (V.O.)

There's some concern at Mission Control. About the weather.

GALLAGHER

(deadpan)

It's gonna rain?

BOWMAN (V.O.)

It's gonna get a little chilly.

GALLAGHER

I could see that. It's dropped about fifty degrees in the last half hour. We figure a hundred below fairly soon.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - NIGHT

Bowman is doing her best to keep the tone light. But she's gotta know whether or not he thinks he's gonna live or die.

GALLAGHER (V.O.)

It would have been nice to be in the Hab. And there ain't no other motel to check into.

BOWMAN

You have a plan? Any thoughts on how you might...stay alive?

EXT. HAB (MARS) - ALMOST SUNSET

They're back at the Hab now. We can't quite tell what's going on, but Burchenal and Pettengill are busy doing something noisy and furious in the b.g. Crashing, bashing, breaking. Burchenal flicks open an entrenching tool. Thumbs a button, edge whizzes by like a tiny chain saw. Chews through something and...

GALLAGHER

Yeah...

Behind Gallagher is a whoooosh of flame as Pettengill gets the debris he's piled in the middle of the Hab to light. He's got stacks of additional fuel nearby.

GALLAGHER

We're gonna have a 75 million dollar campfire.

EXT. HAB (MARS) - 20 MINUTES LATER

The sun sets. First sunset on Mars man has seen. Red upon red upon red. Fire burns behind them. Sky turns black. Fast. A billion stars. And then a METEORITE begins to fall. It's huge. It's red. It EXPLODES.

GALLAGHER

What the hell was that?

BURCHENAL

She ditched the 'B' tank. She must be figuring there's an even chance we'll live through the night.

EXT. SPACE - NIGHT

The Ares lights up and burns for three long seconds. And off.

INT. ARES - FLIGHT DECK - NIGHT

Bowman checks the gauges. Eight liters was burned.

BOWMAN

Hell, what's eight liters?

(answers herself)

It'll either save their lives or I've screwed up getting home and I'll spend the next three hundred years circling this planet.

EXT. HAB - NIGHT

Burchenal pokes at the flames. They're spread out and low. Flickering yellow and blue.

BURCHENAL

I think we'll make it through. There's so little O2, this is gonna burn real slow.

Gallagher picks up a piece of scrap, about to feed it into the flames, then stops, examines it by the light of the fire. It looks like someone took a rasp to it. He gets up, turns on a suit light and looks over the remaining ribs of the structure.

GALLAGHER

What happened to this place? Everything but the titanium supports were just chewed up. Could a dust storm've done this?

BURCHENAL

No prevailing pattern to the damage. I don't know what could've done it.

Nor does it matter right now. They sit back around the fire and relish the warmth. Out in the darkness, past a rise, something catches Robby's eye. A flash, a reflection. Of the fire? On what? And then it's gone. He doesn't bother to mention it. Writes it off.

TWO HUNDRED YARDS AWAY

Behind a hill, AMEE crouches in the dark. Pops up again, looks over, sees the three men and the fire. Lowers back down - you'd swear she was thinking - then silently ambles away.

BACK AROUND FIRE

The weird tableau of three men in spacesuits around a campfire on Mars. A moment then -

GALLAGHER

You still think we had any business coming to Mars? Screwing with stuff? Trying to spread life? You think maybe God's teaching us some hardass lesson?

Pettengill just makes some kind of weird gulping noise and turns away. They let him be.

BURCHENAL

God? You talked to Chantilas too much on the trip over. I don't mean to burst your bubble, but God's the retreat of the ignorant, the weak and the hopeless.

GALLAGHER

I bet you don't believe in Santa. And you're no fun at all at Christmas.

(then)

Not everything gets an explanation you can write down as a formula.

BURCHENAL

Son, I'm a scientist. A geneticist, as good as they come. I write code, just like a hacker. Four elements, A.G.T.P., in different orders, back the genome. And your kidneys work or you grow a sixth finger. I line up unconscious atoms and they give rise to conscious beings. It's like if I stacked up a bunch of rocks in the right order and they become a dog. I do that. I chose when, I chose where, I chose how many fingers. I just don't hold with mystical explanations for science, with organized religion, buildings with different symbols on 'em. You spot God, you lemme know. Till then, I put my trust in my three Ph.D's.

(then)

But I think life's an amazing thing. And I believe that when you get it you should grab it with both hands and live as much of it as you can. Which is why I am not happy about losing it on this damn ugly planet.

Burchenal shuts his eyes. We PUSH IN ON Gallagher looking rueful and...

FLASHBACK - INT. ARES - HYGIENE SPHERE - DAY

SUPERIMPOSE: MISSION TIME: DAY 32

Gallagher comes in. His timing, depending how you look at it, is very good or very bad. Bowman steps out of the shower. To dry off. It's too late for Robby to stop or recoup. He has to tough it out and try to act like an adult. Bowman sees his discomfort. She's amused.

BOWMAN

It's okay. I had brothers.

GALLAGHER

I have two sisters.

(gives up)

Neither of them were this fine.

Now she colors.

BOWMAN

The only way this works, is if we both make believe it doesn't matter.

GALLAGHER

I tried. I really tried.

(then)

Maybe I should go fix something.

BOWMAN

(laughing now)

Maybe you should.

He hesitates, leaves. She starts to vacuum dry her hair.

END OF FLASHBACK

EXT. CAMPFIRE (MARS) - NIGHT

Gallagher's half filled with regret, half annoyed with himself. Sighs, shuts his eyes, tries to get some sleep.

INT. MISSION CONTROL - NIGHT

Place is ragged

coffee on the workstations, techs as unshaven and beat as the crew on Mars.

RUSSERT

All right, people, we bought ourselves another eighteen hours in orbit. The crew's burning pretty much what we've got on the surface so they don't freeze solid. So whatever we can come up with...

LOWENTHAL

...has got to work before the sun sets again tomorrow and they freeze to death anyhow.

RUSSERT

What else is on Mars?

SCHLISSEL

Rocks. Sand.

RUSSERT

The janitor just built a radio out of a fifty-year-old Rover mission. Now, what else is on Mars?

Mars maps come up on all their PIMs. There are things on the surface. Marked with various symbols. Leftovers from other missions.

SKAVLEM

We sent a dozen probes even before the biologics started up. Eight were return missions.

LOWENTHAL

And they're back.

SKAVLEM

There's a Viking lander...

SCHLISSEL

2,200 kilometers away.

Silence. They all stare at the PIMs. And then Schlissel turns to a nearby TECH -

SCHLISSEL

S.Y.F.

TECH

Slap your forehead.

SCHLISSEL

We're not the only people who sent stuff to Mars.

Other overlays come up on the maps. New colors. New symbols.

SKAVLEM

The Twenties were nothing but unmanned sample return missions. Everyone wanted to bring back a bucket of Mars rocks.

They find something near the Hab.

SCHLISSEL

There was Euro-Malaysian sample return mission 2018.

TECH

Checking...

LOWENTHAL

(knows)

It blew up on attempted return.

Looking further afield, they find something else.

TECH

It ain't close, but there's an Uzbecki S.R.M. that failed to launch.

SCHLISSEL

(argh)

An Uzbecki probe from 2032.

RUSSERT

Is it viable? Can we get plans?

SCHLISSEL

It was built at the Cosmos factory in Garagin in 2031. (there's more)

The factory closed eight years later. And then it burnt down.

All right, that's the end of that. And then Schlissel spots a detail that means something to him.

SCHLISSEL

It was designed by Aleksandr Ivanovich Borokovski. He was the last of the greats in the Russian space program.

RUSSERT

Is he still alive??

Schlissel's PIM flickers madly as he mutters at it.

SCHLISSEL

There's no closing date on his bio. He'd be in his seventies.

RUSSERT

Find him. Somebody get on the line to Kazakhstan.

LOWENTHAL

This is insanity. A thirty-year-old lander built in a factory that doesn't exist anymore.

TECH

Found him!

SCHLISSEL

He emigrated. He runs a deli in Brooklyn.

INT. MISSION CONTROL - NIGHT

Low hum of conversation, a bunch of the workstations are vacant, techs sleeping in cots nearby. BOROKOVSKI, in his best suit, 20 years old, comes in led by two NASA flunkies. Unhooks his filtration mask. Vindicated.

BOROKOVSKI

All right, I am Borokovski. I am here.

EXT. HAB (MARS) - PRE-DAWN

Sky's beginning to grow light. Last of the fire flickering out. Nothing left of the Hab but a few metal ribs.

Gallagher stirs. Stiff from sleeping on the ground. Burchenal and Pettengill follow. They've lived through the night. Gallagher walks off twenty paces. When we see him again, he's unlocked the top and bottom of his suit and dropped the trousers to his knees.