Sergei is working on Xi. She came out of her room and they had a long discussion about the Green and the Yellow. She gave me the impression that she'll make the trip out as long as she can ride with Sergei while I follow in the other Jeep. We've also got to find the shortest route to the Yellow. This is progress.

Sergei told me afterward that he was considering offering her his seat on the next relief. He'd have to clear it higher up, as he's already over the maximum time a researcher is supposed to spend in The Sick Land. I'm pretty sure she'd take him up. We're getting on at the moment, and while it's improving her mood, she still wants out.

We played poker for matchsticks in the evening. Xi is really good. Turns out her first degree was in statistics. Sergei is terrible. He would have been out early on if we hadn't let him open a new box of matches. He's not bad at the decision making side of it. No worse than me, anyway. He just has a distinctive tell that we picked up on. When he thinks he's won, his mind wanders and he starts to scratch his hand. He doesn't even realise. When he's bluffing, he focuses on how you're playing, and doesn't scratch. He couldn't understand how we knew when to fold. Decent day today.