Martian Defibrillator.

“Mission control, we are in orbit and ready to land. Over,” said the pilot of the space mission carrying mycelium to Mars.

“This is mission control, we copy. Good luck.”

Dr. Archid watched the monitors as everything unfolded.

“Do you think it’s going to work?” asked her colleague, Mizar.

“Between you and me, I hope it does—but I honestly have no idea if it will,” Dr. Archid said, pacing back and forth. “The idea came after I watched a documentary. With a bit more research on the evolving properties of mycelium, it turns out fungi pretty much terraformed Earth once… so maybe it’ll work again.”

She paused.

“Okay, that’s not completely accurate. It didn’t terraform Earth on its own, but it’s a simplification. In my head, Mars is a dead planet. And maybe—if the conditions are right—and the mycelium evolves similarly to how it did here…”

She shrugged.

“I mean, who knows? But it could be the defibrillator that gives life to Mars. And if it doesn’t work, I’m also really good at cleaning windows on very tall buildings. So I’m not nervous.”

Mizar smiled. “I see. To give Mars a pulse. To build a nervous system. That’s quite a concept. How are you going to keep the mycelium alive?”

“We’re bringing it on Earth-based materials,” Dr. Archid replied. “There should be enough chemical components on the ship to maintain decomposition and feed the fungi. After that, it’s just a matter of slowly replacing Earth inputs with Martian ones and seeing how it reacts. Eventually—fungi in the soil.”

“And if that succeeds,” Mizar said carefully, “you want to do this to an entire… planet?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I know how that sounds. But eventually the Martian fungi should be able to self-reproduce—hopefully. The biggest problem is time.”

She stopped pacing.

“If I’m being completely honest, there’s no way to know how long it’ll take for the fungi to adapt, reproduce, and start spreading. But by the time we reach that point, we should know whether it’s working or not. The real question is what kind of organism emerges once you change the variables of the equation.”

Mizar nodded. “I can see why you’re nervous. Have the experiments with Martian soil shown any results here on Earth?”

“Not really. Not yet,” Dr. Archid said. “We’ve also never simulated an atmosphere for this long. We don’t have enough data, so the experiments will be running simultaneously.”

She finally sat down.

“Do you think I’d make a good banker?”

Mizar laughed. “You’ve never been good with money. I think you should stick to making planets habitable.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.