jim deserves this, too. all his friends are here. and it's my last night.
i love you, deb.
yeah. i will. where is he?
mommy will.
well, i'll tell you what. i've been thinking about that. and what i thought was -- how 'bout if i bring along my own copy? then every night, wherever i am, i'll read a little bit more of it. and i'll know that you and mommy, wherever you are, you're reading it too. that way, it'll feel like we're still reading it together. 'cause i don't know about you, but i'm pretty anxious to find out how 'ol ben gunn got marooned on that island. what d'you say?
good deal. can i have a hug?
c'mon. a whole lot of folks here are gonna be mighty glad to see you.
then you've got a short memory. think back to how we were by the second week of lunar training.
i'm trying to remember, let's see, which one of us scored the lowest ranking up there?
oh, man, three commanders, on the same ship? if they sent us off to mars together, there wouldn't be enough fuel to lift all those egos.
listen to him. mr. cover-of-time magazine!
yeah, and who scored highest on the lunar rankings?
hey, woodrow, isn't it about time you donated this thing to a museum?
i'll see what i can do. just make sure you bring some fresh beer.
should've been your mission, jim. yours and maggie's.
none of us ever wanted mars the way you two did. not even woody. twelve years of hoping for this assignment, training for it --
if maggie hadn't gotten sick -- if you hadn't pulled yourself out of the rotation to take care of her --
no, i'm gonna say this. i have to say it.  i wanted mars one. hell, i battled you for it every step of the way. never wanted to beat anybody so bad in my life. but not like this.  jim, i'd give this all up in a second, if it would bring maggie back to us.
take care of yourself.
yeah, renee.
copy that.
what the hell is that?
where is it?
c'mon, what's so funny? gimme the coordinates.
the plains of cydonia. so? oh no. you're not telling me --
great. that's great. the first anomaly we hit, and it's gotta be in the one place guaranteed to make nasa look ridiculous.  you know how many books have been written about that damned mountain?
and all because a couple of lousy impact craters happen to look like eye sockets. if this gets out, we'll have every ufo kook on earth spouting off on the six o'clock news.  c'mon, people, gimme a read here. is that a cinder cone?
it's an upwelling, for sure. but maybe not volcanic.
look at the color. and see how shiny it is? i could swear that's ice.
how far away is it?
let's send a packet to micker. then we'll go check it out.
this is a truly anomalous formation. looks like nothing we've seen so far. the structure appears to be crystalline, at least from the angle displayed by ares-8 .
we're all trying not to go too nuts up here, but -- we think there's a good chance this could be an extrusion from some subsurface, geothermal column of water. and if we're right.
then we've found the key to permanent human colonization.
anyway, we'are going out to take a closer look at it, try to get an idea of its composition. by the time you receive this, we should be just about on-site.
anyone else hear that?
can you fix it?
big talker. renee, sergei, let's break out the radar, see what this thing's made of.
anyway, that's about it. we'll send another packet when we get back.
oh, right. one more thing. today is a very special day for a good friend of ours, and i know he's there right now.
now, he hates it when any fuss is made, so i won't mention his name.
because the last thing in the world i'd ever want to do is embarrass someone like jim mcconnell.
c'mon, you micker weasels, sing!
hey, ray! take a look at him! is he all red with one of those fake "i'm- a-good-sport" grins?
and hey, you guys, check out ray! does he have on one of his "this- wasn't-in-my-mission-plan" faces?
nothing you can do about it, ray! we're a hundred million miles away!
happy birthday, jimbo! make a wish!
catch you again soon. take care, buddy. end of transmission.
well? what's under there?
what?
that doesn't make any sense. you're reading a vein of ore.
nick, could the problem with the antenna be interfering?
try it closer and up the power. i'll watch the screen.
nick, how we coming on that antenna?
okay. crank up the juice and let's see what's in this sucker.
looks up from the display screen. a puzzled expression.
why did that stop?
make this quick.  may be only ch-- . to the site, when we.  hit us just as we.  --thers are all dead.
low sound that we couldn't understand. then all of a sudden there was this terrib.  --stems are holding up for now, but i don't know how long i can.
jim's first ship was seriously underpowered.
when they met at the air force academy, it was "love at first flight."
but maggie, as you can see, kept him on a short leash. until.
today we celebrate a new chapter in their story. and guys, it's a pretty historic one.
when you guys land, it'll prove once and for all there's no intelligent life on mars.
you're not here!
no, no, you're not.  you can't be here.
phil.  terri.
jim.  i don't understand. you're not supposed to be here.  why are you here? where's woody?
oh no.
we fired the radar. it came. they all died.
they all died, but i was spared. why? had to be for a reason. then, all of a sudden, i knew why i was spared.
so somebody would be left to figure out the secret.
come. comecomecome.
so.  let me be sure i understand this. your ship blew up, with all its supplies. then you emptied the cargo out of the remo, and it was totalled on landing. you've got no food, no water, no spare oxygen, nothing but what i see here?
what kinda rescue mission is this?
four.
terri.  i'm so sorry. he was a good man.
when there's time, we'll talk.
this way.
when i came to and dug myself out of the sand, my faceplate was cracked. leaking badly. i barely made it back to base. it was weeks before i could work up the nerve to go back out there and look for their.
renee was the only one i could find. but it didn't seem right, somehow, to dig just one grave.
if it holds course.
you don't believe me. that's okay. but i'm not crazy, jim.
you better see for yourselves.
see, where they made their mistake was, they must've planned for it to be visible from earth.
don't you understand? hundreds of millions of years have gone by. you've got erosion, sand storms, lava flows, meteor impacts -- hell, in that much time, the whole surface would've changed. so no wonder we never saw it before. well, i mean, we saw it, but not like they meant us too. too much dirt on it.
this.
i don't know. but whatever it is, somebody built it. and not us.
good, jim, good. that's the key.
hear the pauses? that's what made me realize it's a pattern -- a repeating pattern.
that's what i thought. there are distinct blocks in the pattern, and within each block the tones come in groups of three. threethreethree. for months i struggled to analyze it, trying different constructs.  then i thought about dimensions.
right! three groups equals three dimensions.  so i tried assigning different graphic values to each block, group and tone. and finally i got.  this.
you see it, too. thank god. i was afraid i was just suffering from a form of asphyxia.
my guess is, it's a signature. a self-portrait of whatever species created the face.
like i just got back my other three percent.
good work, terri.
what?
but why?
we fired radar into that thing. concentrated sound waves.
i think so, yes.
we don't have to go out there. there's a better way.
checking video feed.
there!
i'm not sure. maybe we better stop by that boulder.
it worked.  it worked!
normal. seismic.  normal. anemometer steady. no sign of the vortex.
or another test.
an hour? maybe less.
a storm like that? it could go planetary. and last a year.
it'll sock us in, jim. we won't be able to take off. if that happens, with what few supplies we've got left? we'll starve to death.
roger that. texture is smooth.
jim, seal it!
otherwise known as air?
yeah. it's mars.
we're martians?
they seeded earth.
he's right.
jim.
jim, we gotta go.
i once felt like i was taking your turn. but now i think maybe you're taking mine. guess i'm a little jealous.
thanks for saving my life.
hey, jim?
have a great ride.
phil? phil, do you read? he's not reading.
i'll try to keep on a straight line! it's our only chance.
save the fuel, phil. we're coming in.
tell you on the way. let's go!
godspeed jim mcconnell.