The Worst Man on Mars

Mayflower III was buzzing. Partly from the excitement of packing and preparation for the first steps on Mars, but mainly from the ship’s ion drives which were channelling a vast flow of energy to the high-intensity laser beam that formed an induction cable for the ship’s Space Elevator. This was how the colonists would be descending to the planet some 58,000 feet below. Not a choice made by the brilliant NAFA boffins, but rather by NAFA’s less-than-brilliant Chief Accountant who had calculated it to be by far the cheapest solution.

Most of the colonists’ luggage was now packed and stowed in the Assembly Room, there not being sufficient room in the space elevator both for colonists and their possessions. The elevator was to be sent back up to collect the baggage.

A slightly damp Dugdale poked his head into the cockpit where a very downcast Willie Warner was twiddling his thumbs.

“Wonka,” growled Dugdale.

Willie looked up, sudden hope in his eyes. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“About what?”

“Me coming down to Mars?”

“Not friggin’ likely.”

Willie’s face sagged.

“I’ve gorra job even you can’t cock up.”

“Great.”

“When t’elevator’s safely on its way, get yer skinny bum along t’me cabin and pack me clobber in t’suitcase. You’ll find it all floatin’ about the place. And soppin’ wet.”

“What an honour. I can hardly wait.”

“Mind you just pack the floatin’ stuff. Touch owt else and I’ll kill yer. If yer open any drawers, I’ll kill yer,” he said with a look that convinced Willie he wasn’t joking.

“That’s pretty clear, thank you.”

“Once yer’ve finished, go t’Assembly Room ’n get rest ert bags together. I’ll send t’elevator back up and you shove ’em in. Then press ‘Down’ button. Can yer manage that?”

“I really think I should go down with you, sir, instead of Zak,” Willie said one final time. “I know something that no one else does.”

“Yeah,” responded Dugdale. “Yer know how to be a completely useless tosser. Now shut yer cake ‘ole and act like you’re doin’ summat useful.”

In her cabin, Emily Leach had a huge decision to make. Most of her belongings were now packed inside her huge, coffin-sized leather trunk, with a few odds and ends tucked into the handful of hatboxes she had brought with her. But there was one thing that remained. She pushed herself towards her bunk and stared down at the item, still lying strapped to it, silent and immobile. A wicked smile played about her lips. Should she take him? She chewed her lower lip and said aloud, “To bring, or not to bring?”

Whatever she did, she’d have to get rid of the evidence. What if someone were to find her ... companion? What a palaver there would be! What embarrassment.

She exhaled deeply, shook her head and fluttered her eyes. “Oh, Mr Darcy,” she said, almost in a swoon, taking in the rippling muscles showing through the flimsy clothing. As she stroked the dark, flowing hair, always slightly damp, she made her decision. Her stroking stopped and her bony fingers gently probed the crown of the head. Finally, finding what she was looking for, she edged her fingernails under the cap and pulled it free. A rush of air gushed out through the valve, hissing and sputtering as the doll slowly deflated. The chest caved in, then the head, and at last the legs lay flat too.

“Ah, Mr Darcy,” sighed Emily as she gazed over the collapsed surface of the wet-look shirt and well-packed riding breeches. “Not so hard now, are we, sir.”

With most of the air out, Emily removed the straps keeping the Mr Darcy doll pinned to her bunk and started rolling him up, Swiss-roll style, beginning from the feet. She had to be careful of the sensitive self-inflate switch, disguised as one of Mr Darcy’s shirt buttons, as the slightest touch would fully inflate the doll within two seconds.

“I’ve decided to bring you with me to Mars, Mr Darcy,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, as she opened the lid of her trunk and set about trying to squeeze the literary sex-symbol into it. After a few frustrating minutes, he was safely stowed with all her clothing, and the trunk was shut again. Emily panted to get her breath back and then checked her bun in the mirror. After a little adjustment she was ready to face the Red Planet.

*

As teenagers Gavin and Tracey approached the space elevator, pulling themselves along by the corridor rails, they halted to survey the scene. The lift doors were open and most of the colonists were already squashed inside, bobbing about gently in its cramped confines, avoiding eye contact and eschewing all conversation. Outside, Dugdale was hovering and impatiently ushering people in. The thumb of his other hand was firmly pressed against the lift-call button to keep the doors from closing. “Gerra move on, you two spotty ’erberts. We ’aven’t got all day.”

They observed the faces of the colonists already in there, faces betraying looks of discomfort and trepidation.

“No way is I gettin’ in there, bruv,” Tracey said, shaking her head and starting to back away.

“Get a grip, sis. It’s just a lift,” said Gavin. He paused. “Although me is finkin’ it looks more like a broom cupboard, innit.”

“Black hole of Calcutta, more like,” added Tracey.

“Space elevator,” growled Dugdale, fixing them with a deadly stare. “Now, gerrin.”

A muffled voice from inside the lift, belonging to the other teenager, Oberon, said, “No, this is deffo a lift. Smells of piss.”

Delphinia clapped her hands over Tarquin’s ears.

Gavin had made up his mind. “No room, chief,” he said, indicating the human sardines before him. “Youse go ahead, mate. We’s is perfectly fine ici. We’ll get the next one.” He grinned.

“Yeah, E.C.,” said Tracey, before bursting into a fit of giggles.

Dugdale glowered and fumed. “In there. Now!”

As Gavin and Tracey approached there was unwilling shuffling and rearrangement of bodies inside the cramped space elevator.

“Can you shove up a bit,” moaned Brokk to Zak Johnston. “Your bony elbows are digging into my ribs.”

“Take a chill-pill, dude. There ain’t much room in this space tomb. And the poet dude has his head in close proximity to my masculinity,” retorted Johnston.

This was true. For some reason, perhaps due to his artistic leanings or maybe because he had approached the lift at the wrong angle, Harry Fortune was oriented upside down, his legs and space clogs poking above the heads of the others, his head uncomfortably close to both Zak Johnston’s trouser zip and Delphinia’s ample bottom. “There’s a poem in this,” he kept saying to himself to take his mind off the view. But the only lines that kept forcing themselves into his brain, over and over again, were: ‘There once was a spaceman from Mars, In a lift he was faced with an ....’

“Friggin’ well SHUT YOUR FACES!” roared Dugdale as he shoved Gavin and Tracey into the scrum with the aid of a hand, a shoulder and a knee. As he did so, the greasy thumb of his other hand slipped off the lift-call button. A loud ding issued from the lift and a recorded voice announced, “Doors closing”.

Instantly the lift was an echo-chamber of screams and cries: “No, not yet!” “Wait!” “Aaaaaargh!”

In the panic and struggle, both Gavin and Tracey found themselves ejected back into the corridor, narrowly avoiding the pincer-grip of the closing doors.

Dugdale stabbed the button with his thumb and the doors opened again. There was a collective sigh of relief.

After a second short struggle, involving even more compaction of the bodies in the small compartment, Tracey and Gavin were accommodated within the crush.

“Is that all of yer?” demanded Dugdale, unable to perform a head-count on account of not all heads being visible.

“One missing,” someone shouted from deep inside the scrum.

“Who’s that?”

“Brokk.”

“You mean t’gormless twonk wi’t goaty beard? I saw ’im get on,” retorted Dugdale to the voice.

“Yes, I’m Brokk,” said the voice.

“Well yer can’t be missin’ then can yer, dumbnut?”

“No, I’m Brokk and I’m not missing. Obviously. I’m the one telling you someone is missing.”

“Who the frig is it, then?”

“Brokk,” said another, squeakier voice, sounding suspiciously like Oberon Faerydae.

Dugdale roared. “Who. The. Chuff. Is. Missing?”

“Miss Leach,” said several voices.

The mere mention of the name made Dugdale shudder. Powerful though the urge to leave without her was, he stayed his ground and his blubbery face contorted to a shape that conveyed the message, I might have known.

At that very moment the echo of a faint female voice sounded from round the bend at the far end of corridor. “Yoo-hoo,” it called. “I’m coming. Would you mind holding the lift, please.”

“Space elevator,” Dugdale murmured under his breath.

A silence fell as they waited for Emily to turn the corner and join them. Dugdale checked his watch. A couple of teenagers giggled somewhere at the back of the lift. And then Tarquin said, “Mummy.”

“Yes, my little storm trooper?”

“It says here: ‘Lift. Max. cap. 8 pers.’”

“Space elevator,” repeated Dugdale wearily, unaware of the ripple of unease that Tarquin’s words had set bouncing back and forth within the tiny compartment.

“That means: Maximum capacity 8 persons,” explained Delphinia, stroking his head.

“I know what it means, Mummy. It’s just that there are ten people on board already, not counting Mr Snuggles. When Commander Dugdale and Miss Leach are on board there’ll be twelve, and with Mr Snuggles, thirteen. Which is not only very unlucky, but is more than the maximum capacity, isn’t it, Mummy?”

Delphinia tried to laugh her son’s question off as the sense of unease in the lift became more tangible. “I think they just forgot to take the sign off.”

“You see, son,” put in his father, Brian. “This lif ... er ... space elevator was bought, second-hand, by NAFA from the Penge Shopping Centre where it had had many years of useful service.”

“That would, like, explain the smell of piss,” put in Oberon from the back. “Innit.”

“The clever chaps at NAFA,” continued Brian undeterred, “spent most of the lift budget on a brilliant laser beam induction system in place of a cable and there was only enough money left for a cheap lift carriage.” There was a pre-panic murmur from all around him. “But, there’s no need to worry, everyone. They’ve done a marvellous job of refurbishing it, making it airtight and painting the outside with two coats of anti-radiation emulsion.”

“And look, my little plumchops,” added Delphinia. “They’ve even added a tiny viewing window in case you feel claustrophobic or travel sick.”

The ripples of unease were working themselves up into a tsunami of concern.

“Besides,” added Delphinia. “Don’t forget we’re weightless. So it doesn’t matter how many persons we have in here.”

“But there’s gravity on Mars, Mummy.”

“How right you are, my clever little sausage.” She grinned proudly as she fondly squeezed her little boy’s cheek. “But you surely know that gravity is a lot weaker on Mars. So, 13 persons weigh a lot less. Say, as much as 8 persons?”

“But, Mummy, when the lift starts decelerating, won’t we weigh a lot more than 13 persons?”

Delphinia forced a loud laugh as she looked around at the terror-stricken sets of eyes around her. One pair belonged to her scientist husband, Brian. “That’s enough showing off, my little Einstein.”

“But ...” said several of the colonists before a commotion in the corridor outside distracted them.

It was Miss Leach, floating toward them with her man-sized trunk and a small flotilla of hatboxes, attached to it by pink ribbons. The elderly daughter of nonagenarian zillionaire Sir Geoffrey Leach, made her awkward, weightless way towards them.

The needle on Dugdale’s rage gauge turned swiftly towards the red zone. “I thought I told yer: no boggin’ luggage!”

Emily fluttered her eyelashes and tried to play the helpless female card. “But, Commander. A lady cannot be without her personal nick-knacks. I’m sure we can find a little room to squeeze in a ladies’ travel-case or two.”

Dugdale stared at the trunk and hatboxes in disbelief. “No boggin’ luggage. End of!”

Still she advanced towards the lift, pushing against the corridor rails with her feet. She had built up quite a pace before tragedy struck. Her long pearl necklace, dangling weightlessly behind her, snagged on a service valve and pulled her up short. As she grabbed at it to prevent strangulation she, naturally, let go of the trunk’s handle. Its momentum kept it heading towards Dugdale, catching him unawares and bundling him up against the wall, like a burly policeman apprehending a drunk, smearing Dugdale’s greasy face across the stainless steel surface. “What the fwaolloah?” was all he could say, using both hands to forcefully push the trunk off him. In the process, his thumb released the lift button.

Ding! “Doors closing,” announced the pleasant lift voice, and the doors slid towards one another.

“Nooo!” came the cries from inside the lift, and from Emily outside it.

In a flash, little Tarquin sprang to the rescue, locating the ‘Open doors’ button on the control panel inside the lift and pressing it just in time to reverse the doors’ sliding progress.

The trunk and hatboxes had crashed into the opposite wall. The impact had snapped the trunk’s clasps, allowing its lid to spring open and its contents to spew out into the corridor. Within seconds the air was filled with a cornucopia of feminine undergarments and an explosion of subtle, and not-so-subtle, fragrances. Billowing from the trunk was a whirling cloud of corsets, lacy brassieres, stockings, suspender belts, frilly knickers, pink dresses, feather boas and assorted ladies’ separates, as well as items of a personal feminine nature rarely discussed in polite company.

But worse was to come. The impact had also triggered Mr Darcy’s self-inflate button and, like a jack-in-the-box, he had sprung out of the trunk, reaching full inflation, and full speed, within 2 seconds. His trajectory took him towards the open lift and its cramped occupants. After brushing against Delphinia’s bottom he came to a halt pressed up against Adorabella. The presence of female pheromones triggered his ‘Smoulder Mode’ causing his eyes to narrow, stubble to blacken and chin dimple to appear.

Adorabella screamed. Emily Leach screamed. Dugdale roared in disbelief and the teenagers sniggered. The rest were too stunned to react.

Gavin, seeing an opportunity for a lark, solemnly offered Mr. Darcy a hand and introduced himself. “Yo. I is Gav. You must be, like, a close personal friend of Leachy, innit.” He gave a smutty wink on the word ‘friend’.

Emily, now bright red, wrenched her necklace free of the valve, sending pearls spinning into the zero-G air and then, like a geriatric otter, swam her way towards her life-sized doll. “He’s my literary companion,” she explained to the smirking crowd. “Programmed to read and discuss all the classics. We’re currently doing Thomas Hardy.”

For some reason, the last statement made everyone laugh which, in turn, made Emily blush even more.

Sensing the presence of his owner, Mr Darcy’s eyes widened and he ramped up to ‘Lover Mode’; a long slug-like tongue crept out from between moistening lips and started drawing weirdly hypnotic circles in the air, as though licking out the last drops from the bottom of a yoghurt carton.

“What’s he doing, Mummy?” asked Tarquin, hardly finishing the question before Delphinia had clapped a sweaty hand over his eyes and manoeuvred her ample form to block his view. “It’s nothing, poppet,” she said with a disgusted curl to her lips. “Just keep pressing that lift-button.”

Gavin invited Mr Darcy for a dance. “Cue music, maestro, please.”

A blast of techno-breeze issued from Oberon’s blablet and Gavin began weightlessly cavorting with the doll, mugging and grinning. Tracey cheered, Oberon applauded, and Miss Leach turned white with horror. She grabbed one of her pneumatic reading companion’s arms and tried to pull him away. But Gavin wasn’t about to relinquish his new comedy partner without a struggle. So, teenager and spinster engaged in a desperate tug-of-war, stretching Mr. Darcy’s body and causing his shirt buttons to pop off and his firm, rippling, hairy chest to heave into view.

When Mr Darcy appeared to be at the limits of his elasticity, Gavin let go, catapulting Emily and Mr Darcy back into the passage. They cannoned into Dugdale and the three of them tumbled through the miasma of feminine apparel.

Dugdale, fuming, returned to the lift, swatting ladies’ garments to the left and right as he did so. He turned back to see the receding Emily entangled with her rubber lover. “Leave t’friggin’ love puppet alone, Leachy, and get in t’lift!”

After bouncing off a few walls, Emily managed to steady herself and start back towards the open door, reluctantly leaving Mr Darcy behind. As she went she collected her clothing from the air around her, folding it and all the while muttering, “He’s just a literary companion, you know. Just a literary companion.”

“Leave t’friggin’ …” started Dugdale, but was interrupted by a sudden shriek of “Yeuch!” from behind. He turned just in time to see Tarquin thrashing with both hands at a pair of cami-knickers clamped to his face.

What happened next seemed to happen in the slowest of slow motions. With the boy’s thumb no longer pressing the crucial lift button, there was a Ding! and the lift announced, “Doors closing.”

Dugdale stared mortified as the metal doors slid shut, the image left ingrained on his retinas being of a grinning Mr Snuggles, staring out from the shrinking opening, giving a plaintive wave.

“Noooooo!” he yelled, pulling himself back to the lift doors and going into a frenzy of lift-button pressing, making a strange whimpering noise as he did so.

From behind the doors could be heard a cheerful electronic voice saying, “Welcome to Penge Shopping Centre. Gateway to a world of shopping adventures. Going down.”

“Oh, fiddle-sticks,” said Miss Leach with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “They’ve jolly-well left without us. So, it’s just thee and me, Mr. Flint.” She drifted toward him, fluttering her eyelids in what she imagined to be a seductive manner.

Dugdale, seeing his dreams going up in smoke, redoubled his lift-button pressing efforts.

Ding! The doors opened. “Level 2. Ladies’ lingerie,” announced the electronic voice.

Inside, the occupants appeared to be in a rigid and silent state of shock. Without uttering a word, Dugdale grabbed Miss Leach by the lapel of her blouse and dragged her into the lift after him, wedging her into a gap between Gavin and Adorabella. Maintaining a threatening silence, he punched the ‘Ground Floor’ button and the doors closed once again.

Ding! “Going down.”

Down plunged the lift, throwing the hapless passengers up at the ceiling. If any dared to think that the worst might be over, they were wrong.