A Rover's Story

Resilience misses Rania and Xander, and he realizes he even misses Journey. He is sure Journey would say “beeps and boops” to him missing her, and “[t]his only makes [him] miss her more” (98).

When the crate is opened, Resilience is surrounded by scientists he doesn’t recognize. He still doesn’t know what’s going on, which is frustrating because “[he] was not built to not-know” (99).

Journey was a test rover and never meant to go to Mars. Resilience tries to tell the scientists there’s been a mistake because “Journey is a rover who will do well on Mars” (100), but the scientists can’t understand him. These scientists are much more negative than Xander and Rania, which frightens Resilience. He remembers the song Rania played and feels better.

Sophie’s next letter tells Resilience that Rania is scared about the launch and keeps listening to the same song over and over again. She hopes Resilience isn’t too scared, but she’d understand if he was because going to Mars sounds scary.