“Hey Bastian. It didn’t work and now I have to wait at least another week for them to figure out what went wrong.”

I lean onto the tank and look at his pretty sleeping face.

“The pH was too acidic and it would have killed you as soon as I’d injected it. Now we’re back to the drawing board and with one of their labs destroyed, it’s going to take them even longer to come up with a solution.”

I draw a finger over the glass as if to remove the stray lock of hair from his face. It’s still irritating me.

“Why couldn’t you brush your hair before you went to sleep?” I ask him sternly. “Now I have to fight the temptation to open your tank whenever I look at you.” I smile. “And I like looking at you. I like looking at you all. The more I look at you, the more it feels like I know you. By the time you wake up, we’ll be friends.”

I press a soft kiss on the glass and move on to Jim. He’s one of the scientists but his file isn’t very forthcoming with what he’s specialising in. I assume it’s something classified, but not knowing make me jittery. I want to get to know them all, learn anything about them I can find, and more. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with them and I don’t like surprises.

I stare at his scar, wondering if it will move when he talks. Does it hurt? Probably not, the scar tissue isn’t very thick and he got it over two decades ago. It takes away the symmetry of his otherwise flawless face, but it’s not as irritating as Bastian’s hair. Jim can’t do anything about his scar, it’s part of him.

“What kind of research do you do?” I ask him, calling up his file again. “Why doesn’t it say? What is so special about it? Will it be a danger to the station? Is it still relevant now that the Drowning has happened? People on Earth are no longer interested in science, all they want to do is survive. Unless you do climate science, they probably won’t care. Will that disappoint you? Will you be able to adapt?”

I search his face for any sign that he can hear me. It’s silly, I know he’s in a coma. I think I may slowly be losing my mind. It’s probably time.

I should probably get some sleep, but instead I stay in the loading bay, staring at the six men.

Toby is a cook, but you wouldn’t guess that from his slender frame. Not slender, really, just not big. I imagine cooks as having a large belly, rosy cheeks and not much hair. Total stereotype. In contrast, Toby looks more like an athlete, someone who runs marathons, not like someone who stands in a kitchen all day. I hope he’s a good cook. My meals have consisted of quickly boiled vegetables from our green houses, devoured quickly while already rushing to the next task. I’ve not had time to sit down for dinner in ages. Hopefully that will change soon, once they’re awake. We can all sit together, talk, enjoy the food that Toby has made for us. It will feel like life again, not like this strange existence I’m currently leading.

My stomach growls and reminds me to leave the men and get some sustenance. Then the filters need cleaning again, and I should go outside to check on the sensors. We had a massive sandstorm last night and I’m worried that some of the sensors and cameras we have on the perimeter around the station may have been damaged. One of the cameras has always been malfunctioning slightly, but right now it’s showing more static than it usually does. Hopefully it’s a quick fix and not something that needs technical skills. It’s really not my forte.

With a sigh, I leave the loading bay and head to the common room, which is probably the saddest place in the station. There are enough tables and benches for about a hundred people, so sitting in here on my own is depressing. It reminds me of all the friends and colleagues I lost. Sometimes I think I can still hear their voices echoing through the empty room, the laughing and shouting that always signalled our meal times. Life on the station was always hectic and difficult, but the three times a day everyone gathered in the common room, we let our guards down and relaxed.

Now, I have no time to relax. The station needs to be kept going. I take some carrots that I harvested yesterday and throw them into the cooking device. A minute later, they’re boiled and ready to eat. A bit of salt is all that I add.

Back on Earth, I liked to cook and made elaborate meals for my friends. Today, I couldn’t care less. It’s all about giving my body what it needs to keep functioning. Taste isn’t important. Although I have to admit that the carrots have turned out nicely, they’re sweeter than the last batch.

I’ve reduced the amount of space I use in the greenhouses and only plant enough for ten people. Everything else would be a waste of time and water. We may have found a way to distil water from the frozen ice deep beneath the Martian surface, but it takes a lot of energy to turn it into drinkable water than can be used for plants and humans. I always notice that the water quality has changed when I get a rash after my morning shower. A clear sign the filters need to be calibrated. Luckily that hasn’t happened in a few weeks now. I’ve got enough problems as it is.

Having swallowed my dry carrots, I head to the lab for a quick check up on the experiments I’m running. The scientists on Earth were wrong the first time, undoing a week’s worth of work. Now I’m waiting for their new calculations, but I’ve decided to rerun their method again, checking each step for mistakes. The last time, the final vaccine turned out to be too acidic, so if I can determine at which step of the experiment it became that way, I may be able to shorten the process.

I wish I knew how the virus was transmitted in the first place. When the first of us fell ill, she was put under quarantine, but it was too late. The next day, three others were complaining of the same symptoms. They checked the water and air for contamination and pathogens, but didn’t find anything. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything in there, though, just that we couldn’t detect it. Maybe it was a virus carried in from the outside, something that had laid dormant for millennia, waiting for the perfect host. That thought makes me shiver. Everyone thought there was no life on Mars, but maybe there was. Not intelligent life, just a virus that did its work very efficiently.

No use thinking of the past. I need to find a way to protect the newcomers from the disease that killed everybody else. Except me. I still don’t know how I deserve to live when so many others died. I’m not special, I’ve never been immune to other illnesses back on Earth. And I did get sick, but I only got minor symptoms and survived.

I check my instruments. The pH is still fine. I scribble down some notes that I can send to the control centre later on and take a wistful look at my bed. Well, it’s a mattress on the floor in a corner of the lab. My room is at the other end of the station, so it made sense to relocate while I’m trying to solve this puzzle. But even this simple mattress looks very tempting right now. I’ve not had a proper sleep in too long.

But now, I can’t. I rub my eyes and determinedly turn around, away from my place of rest. There’s work to be done.