Dead on Mars

Chapter 111 - Sol Hundred and Twelve, Biscuits and Coal
Chapter 111: Sol Hundred and Twelve, Biscuits and Coal

Tang Yue began selecting the compressed biscuits that met the criteria. Placed in front of him was practically all the food in Kunlun Station. Under ideal conditions, these compressed biscuits would have allowed him to survive eight hundred sols. This was the number that Tomcat had calculated back when it was distributing the supplies. It was unknown what it was thinking back when it was doing the calculation. The last two human lives in the Universe were held in its paws, and whoever received an additional biscuit lived another day.

This robot cat had played the role of God, placing Tang Yue and Mai Dong on two ends of a scale to measure their lives’ importance.

The production date of the compressed biscuits in Kunlun Station was nonuniform. The oldest batch went all the way back to the ninth landing mission, 2042 from ten years ago. The Orion had just been commissioned back then, and it was the first time a Chinese astronaut had boarded the spacecraft as Mission Commander. It is worth mentioning that the Commander was Tang Yue’s teacher, the present deputy director of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, Li Yang. He was said to be an elite of the PLA Air Force’s 1st Fighter Aviation Division.

Tang Yue sat on the edge of the table while a cardboard box was placed by his feet. He checked each biscuit packaging for its production date, placed those that met his criteria beside him and threw those which didn’t into the box.

“June 2041… Nope.

“August 2044… Nope.

“February 2051… Nope.”

Tang Yue casually pulled out a packet from the pile of biscuits. “Production date: July 2046. China Astronaut Research and Training Center… This is it!”

“How much Vitamin C do these cold-treated biscuits contain?”

“No idea. It’s hard to tell.” Tang Yue shook his head. He waved the compressed biscuit in his hand at the camera. “The packaging says that each biscuit contains 120 grams of Vitamin C, but in reality, it’s definitely not that much. Cold-treated biscuits were failed products. The amount of Vitamin C contained in them will keep dropping with time. Back then, Cryptic Yang showed me a table… I think it drops 25% every two years on average.”

Mai Dong did a rough count. “Doesn’t that mean that the biscuits have already lost 75% of their Vitamin C?”

“Possibly. Therefore, there aren’t many vitamins in these biscuits, and can only be used to tide me through.” Tang Yue continued the selection. He didn’t know how many of the compressed biscuits in Kunlun Station met the requirement, and based on the present situation, it was best that he had as many as possible.

Tang Yue muttered the production date on the packaging as he threw plenty of biscuits into the box. Beads of perspiration oozed out of his forehead while he did so.

“2051, 2044, 2044… More 2044…”

When Mai Dong saw the number of biscuits beside Tang Yue’s hand increase in number, she felt her heart tense up. This was a matter of life and death. The more cold-treated compressed biscuits there were, the more Vitamin C there could be. It would give Tang Yue more time to live.

“How do you plan on collecting the Vitamin C in these biscuits when the time comes?” the girl asked. “You aren’t going to eat them all, right?”

Based on Tang Yue’s explanation, the cold-treated compressed biscuits contained less than 30 grams of Vitamin C. An adult needed 100–120 grams of Vitamin C a day, and more was needed on Mars. Furthermore, Tang Yue’s body was on the brink of succumbing to scurvy, so he needed to consume at least 200–300 grams of Vitamin C a day.

If Tang Yue were to solely rely on eating biscuits to replenish his vitamins, it would require him to each ten a day.

It would definitely kill him.

“Of course not by eating them. Do you think I’m a machine that burns carbohydrates? To eat more than ten a day, are you adding charcoal to a furnace?” Tang Yue slapped the bricks placed to his hand. “With so many compressed biscuits, eating them would kill me. I’ll need to extract the vitamins!”

“Extract?”

“Yes, do you still remember the traits of ascorbic acid?” Tang Yue smiled with clenched teeth. “It happens to be the easiest vitamin that can be extracted!”

“Ascorbic acid is easily soluble in water… Are you saying that Vitamin C is soluble?” Mai Dong frowned. “You want to extract the Vitamin C from the biscuits using water? But Vitamin C solution isn’t stable at all. It easily gets oxidized.”

Mai Dong didn’t understand why Tang Yue was claiming that ascorbic acid was the easiest vitamin to extract. In fact, it was the opposite. Vitamin C solution was easily oxidized, and the reducibility was extremely strong. There was no way it could stably exist. To extract Vitamin C in laboratory conditions, one needed to add hydrochloric acid or oxalic acid.

“On Earth, extracting Vitamin C isn’t simple, because of the existence of air. Air will quickly oxidize and damage the ascorbic acid, but lass, use that tiny brain of yours. Where am I?” Tang Yue pointed at the camera and tapped on the girl’s forehead. “I won’t be extracting the Vitamin C in Kunlun Station, but in the garage… What’s most lacking over there is oxygen. With nothing to react with the Vitamin C, it won’t be a problem to extract it.”

Mai Dong clapped her hands in amazement.

“Come on, you were some scholar from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Why didn’t you think of this?” Tang Yue smiled.

The girl pouted her lips. It wasn’t that Mai Dong hadn’t thought of it, but that her train of thought had been derailed from the beginning.

With her mind blank, there was no way for her to think normally.

Tang Yue had suddenly informed her that he was dying, and that had given her a fright. She hadn’t even recovered from the shock yet.

Tang Yue spent the entire morning selecting all the compressed biscuits that were produced between 2046 to 2048. There were a total of 96 pieces, and according to the calculation that each piece had 30 grams of Vitamin C, 96 pieces contained a total of 2880 grams.

“If I provide myself with 200 grams of Vitamin C a day, these biscuits are enough to last me 14 days.” Tang Yue pondered for a moment. “If I supply myself with 200 grams of Vitamin C every two days, these biscuits can last me a month.”

The cold-treated compressed biscuits didn’t contain much Vitamin C, and the time it took to grow the tomatoes was about two months.

He was still short by a month.

“Forget it. So what if I’m short by a month. At worst, I’ll just lower the amount of Vitamin C I receive a day. I won’t die in a month anyway.” Tang Yue shook his head. “He took the measuring cylinder from the rack and counted six blocks of compressed biscuits. He threw them into a water trough, along with a metal rod he planned to use as a pestle. He then tore off a roll of gauze from the first-aid kit, used the measuring cylinder to measure half a liter of water, screwed tight the cup’s lid, and threw them all into the water trough.

Finally, Tang Yue removed the insulation blanket around him, wrapped the water trough in it and took down the Radiant Armor.

“Mai Dong, I’ll be heading out to extract the Vitamin C. You continue searching for Tomcat.” Tang Yue crawled into the Radiant Armor, contacting Mai Dong as he inspected the EVA suit. “Tell me if you discover anything.”

“Okay, got it.”

Tang Yue clumsily bent down, hugged the water trough in his arms, surveyed the area, and paused for a moment. “I’ll be heading out. Bye.”