The Worst Man on Mars

Willie drifted up to the closed door of Dugdale’s luxurious quarters, still dressed only in his pyjama top and Zak’s adapted rastacap. Attached to the wall was the gold plated name plaque bearing the name ‘Mission Commander Chad Lionheart’ which, like the seat in the Assembly Room, had been modified to ‘Flint Dugdale’. Willie shuddered as he pressed the intercom buzzer.

“What d’yer want?”

“Lieutenant Warner to see you, sir.”

“Who?”

“Lieutenant Warner, sir.”

“Oh yeah, Wobbler. Get yer butt in ’ere now.”

The door swished open and the stench of stale food, BO, beer and Emily Leach’s perfume hit Willie full in the face. Flint was slouched like a basking, blubbery walrus, velcroed to a reclining armchair and eating two Pot Foodles at the same time. The sight of Willie’s apparel made him choke on his spicy snack.

“What the frig ’ave you come as…Mr Blobby’s lovechild?”

“Wardrobe malfunction.”

“I’d say.” Dugdale coughed out some of the half-eaten noodles he’d choked on as he thumped himself on the chest. He took a deep breath. “Any road, before I say owt about t’mission, I’ve just ’ad Leachy in ‘ere gabbin’ on ’bout you and Zed Space-Brain. What you two gerrup to in t’privacy of yer torpedo tubes is up to you. But if yer flash yer multi-coloured codpiece anywhere else, I’ll cut them skinny legs off and shove ’em up yer nostrils. Capiche?”

“Thank you, sir. Don’t suppose you’d like to hear my side of the story at all. Just to give you a more balanced view?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so.”

Willie took up a position in the furthest corner of the room, observing the monstrous, gravy stained creature that had taken control of the ship. He wondered if he and Zak could, and should, have done more to stop him.

“There’s good news. And there’s bad news,” Flint was saying.

“Can’t wait for the latter.”

“Good. I’ll save it fer last. Good news is: that tin tosspot InspectaBot has sent his thumbs-up. Certified t’base as ready and waitin’. Plus, he sent a video. About twenty mins since.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

Dugdale shrugged the comment away. “’e reckons t’place is t’mutts nuts. Five stars. So, Wally, it’s all systems go. This time tomorrow I’ll be t’first man on Mars.”

“So pleased for you.”

Dugdale’s grin betrayed his delight. “I’ve forwarded everything to those NAFA jerks, so I expect they’ll give us green light any second.”

At that very moment his comms terminal beeped.

“Ayeup, that’ll be them now.” He turned, clicked the screen on and started the transmission.

A young male face flicked into life, revealing a set of rabbit teeth as he smiled.

Dugdale grunted. “T’gormless one. Nigel summat-or-other.”

“Langston.”

On screen Nigel was saying, “I say, Dugdale, old chap, what a spiffing report from InspectaBot, eh? Super stuff, super. And the video fly-throughs! Splendid, what? Those robots have done a marvellous job. Marvellous. We uploaded it to our FaceTube page and we’ve had hundreds of ‘likes’ already. Amazing. But you’ll never guess what all those conspiracy theorists are saying ...” Nigel broke off to laugh, although it sounded more like a neigh. “... Those nutters, what are they like?” This time his laugh was more of a snort. “They’re claiming the footage has been faked. Nothing but a CGI simulation! Har, har, har.”

Nigel wiped the tears from his eyes. Willie Warner had stiffened on hearing this news. He watched Dugdale’s reaction closely, but the commander was laughing along with Nigel.

“So, you’ve been warned,” said Nigel, wagging a pantomime finger at the camera. “Har, har, har. Where do these nutcases crawl out from?”

“Nutters,” agreed Dugdale.

“Seriously, Duggers, all looks triff. You’re all clear to go down. Bang on schedule. Super. Absolutely super. Remember to utter some immortal words as you set foot on Mars. That’s immortal, not immoral. Har, har, har. Best of British!”

Dugdale stabbed the screen’s Off button. “Pratt,” he muttered.

Willie stared at the blank screen. He suddenly felt butterflies in his stomach, remembering the images he’d seen from Beagle 2 and worried that the same had also been seen on Earth. His ‘close encounter’ was suddenly looking closer and closer, but he needed to stake his claim to the discovery. He felt excited and scared at the same time. “And the bad news?”

“Ah, yes. Yer off for space-walkies.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“There’s a job needs doing on the outside.”

Willie wasn’t sure how to respond.

“So, get yer arse down t’spacesuit bay and tog yerself up. When I give t’signal you go outside.”

“To do what?”

Dugdale gave an embarrassed cough. “Er, we ’ave to bring in t’corpses. And when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘you’.”

“What?”

“The chuffers who snuffed it.”

“You mean: the unfortunate fatalities?”

“That’s t’buggers. You need ter bring ’em indoors.”

“But Johnston released them into space?”

Dugdale scratched his head and grimaced. “Er, not exactly. That’s what folk are supposed to think ’appened. Lionheart had Johnston suit first two up and tie ‘em to th’outside ert spaceship. We did t‘same for Lionheart after ’is accident.”

“You mean they’re all outside? They’ve been there all the time?”

“Aye. In t’ship’s blind-spot.”

Willie blinked rapidly, trying to take it all in. “So there are three corpses in spacesuits out there. And you want me to bring them in?”

“Two and a half.”

“A half?”

“Yeah, well, we couldn’t actually recover all of ol’ Lionpaw. All ’is innards got sucked out by the urine suction unit. What was left of ’im were all floppy. So we folded ’im up and stuck ’im in a bag.”

“My God, that’s horrific.”

“Weren’t too bad. It were one of Leachy’s knitted bags. It ‘ad a friggin’ flower on it.”

“Oh, that’s alright then ... if it had a flower on it.”

“We squeezed it into a spacesuit and that were it.”

Willie shuddered. “But why? Why keep the bodies at all?”

“Sylvia Rothschild wrote a will, didn’t she. Some bollocks about wantin’ to be buried on Mars. So we had to bring ’er body with us. As for Penny Smith, ’er death were unnatural. Foul play. So Doc Airy Fairy’s gorra do a post mortem on ’er. On Mars.”

Willie was speechless. This was all news to him, particularly the part about Penny Smith’s death. “Unnatural?”

“Got ’er ’ed bashed in.”

“But she was so ... lovely. So beautiful. Who would do that to her?”

Dugdale shrugged.

“So there’s a murderer on board! What do NAFA say?”

“’Ad to hush it up or they’d ’ave aborted the mission.”

“Terrific,” said Willie, staring out through his commander’s porthole at the planet below.

“So ’ere’s t’plan,” started Dugdale. “You get kitted up. I’ll get t’rest of t’dozy beggars in t’Assembly Room and tell ’em good news about Mars and give ’em last-minute instructions. When I give t’signal, you sneak outside and bring stiffs indoors secret-like. Get ’em hid proper, and we’ll shift ’em down t’surface later, once everyone’s settled in and doing all their hippy stuff.”

“Where shall I hide them?”

“Use yer gumption, Wonga. InspectaBot’s pod is empty. You can sling Rothschild and Lionpaw in there. Shove the Smith woman in a cupboard or under a bed or summat. OK?”

“Why’s Johnston not doing this? He took them out there.”

“Says he’s disabled. Can’t walk on account of his verruca. Doc FairyLand’s given ’im a sick note.”

“Verruca?” Willie was so outraged his mouth opened and closed like a toothless carp’s.

Dugdale beckoned him to come closer, which he didn’t.

“One more thing, Woggler. I ‘aven’t decided which of you two clowns is comin’ down to Mars with us and which is stayin’ up ‘ere to keep t’home fires burnin’. So play yer cards right and I’ll see yer right, lad.” Dugdale tapped the side of his bulbous nose.

Willie was speechless.

“What yer waitin’ for? Bugger off.”

The suit room smelt like a men’s changing room where sportswear has been festering in the lockers for weeks and the toilets have overflowed.

“Oh joy,” said Willie with a grimace as he entered. “This is why I love my job so much.”

All the spacesuits looked way too big for his skinny body. Picking one off a peg with a sigh he started to pull it on. As he eased his feet into the boots he shuddered to discover they were disconcertingly moist. The seat area seemed moist, too. Once he’d zipped himself in, Willie floated in damp misery, mourning the loss of all his personal possessions and awaiting further instructions.

About twenty minutes later, Zak Johnston’s dreadlocked head appeared in the doorway. “Poo-wee,” he said, wrinkling his nose at the smell. “Not lovin’ the scent of Eau de Ferment, dude.”

Willie stared back, unamused.

“Message from Dugzilla. The sheep are in the pen.”

“Sorry?”

“The bats are in the roost, dude. You know, the donkeys are in the shed. The snails in the snailery.”

“Do you mean the colonists are in the Assembly Room?”

“Bullseye. That’s it, man. Master Duggit says: ‘It’s time for you to leave, Grasshopper’. I’d go, but for my toe.” He waved a piece of paper at Willie.

“Yes, verruca. I’ve heard. How tragic for you.”

“Sure is, Spaceguy. Bugs in the boots. In fact, them boots you’re wearin’” He pointed accusingly at the moist space-boots on Willie’s feet.

“Lovely.”

Not wanting to think too much more about the microbial war raging around his toes, Willie drifted out of the suit room without so much as a backward glance at Zak. He made his way to the double hatched airlock. After closing the inner door behind him he shut his eyes to brace himself for the horrors that awaited outside. After a long pause, he pushed the button to open the outer door and pulled himself out of the ship.