The Worst Man on Mars

<HUMAN!!> cried Dura, pointing at the figure that had just crash-landed amongst them.

More robots had now made their way through the airlock, so there was quite a crowd gathering around the man who had fallen from the sky and now lay in a giant heap on the ground. They were buzzing with excitement. One of them even fainted, his batteries too low to cope with the increased electrical activity in his head.

Flint Dugdale was also experiencing increased activity in his head, although not all of it was electrical in nature. The fluid in his ears was beginning to boil, due to the low atmospheric pressure. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably. His face was turning blue due to insufficiency of oxygen. His tongue and eyes were bulging, and his mouth frothing. He raised his head and looked blearily at the mechanoids surrounding him, waiting for them to give him a hand and help him up. But they just stared back, fascinated.

Catching sight of the base’s entrance some twenty yards away, Dugdale summoned all his strength and commenced a slow, painful, laboured crawl towards it. The robots first moved aside to let him through, and then followed, forming a slow-moving cortege.

HarVard, seeing the guest of honour escaping without a proper welcome, reverted to conductor mode. He tapped his baton urgently on a holographic music stand and then raised it high into the air. “Ready? Two, three, four.”

The three or four robots that had managed to raise their instruments in time launched into a hurried, and not particularly well synchronized or note-perfect rendition of The Floral Dance. Luckily for Dugdale, the boiling fluid in his ears prevented him hearing any of it as he pulled himself along the sandy, rocky ground.

Dura tapped Tude’s titanium elbow as they edged along beside the human. <I didn’t realize humans moved like this.>

<Instinct,> replied Tude. <Must be the sand that triggered it. In the wild they crawl across sand to lay their eggs.> He paused for thought. <Or maybe that’s sea turtles.>

Dugdale had reached the airlock threshold and hauled himself into the base’s entrance hall. The first man on Mars had entered the base. A huge cheer went up from the robots that had gathered to form a surprise welcoming party. Poppers popped, small fireworks fired and confetti confettied. The ramshackle band, still playing the odd note or two, plus their conductor, ambled through the entrance and, once all were in, the two airlock doors snapped shut behind them.

Dugdale collapsed into a foetal position and, gasping for air, struggled to remove the space helmet that was now firmly stuck on his head.

“Are you all right, Commander?” enquired HarVard, noting the bubbling froth that covered the inside of Dugdale’s visor.

In the grip of suffocation, Flint frantically appealed for help, miming the action of pulling off his helmet. Some robots aped his arm-raising-and-lowering motions, taking them to be some kind of celebratory dance. The band struck up again and tried to catch the rhythm.

“We need to get his helmet off or he’ll die,” instructed HarVard.

<Don’t think we know that one. Could you hum it for us?> messaged Dura.

“Just get his helmet off!”

<Right-ho,> tweeted Len, stepping forward and grasping the helmet in his tong-like grippers. He pulled once, he pulled twice, he pulled three times, but the helmet stayed firm. The only noticeable change was the look of desperation and pain on Dugdale’s face.

<Need a better grip,> remarked Len, moving towards the hall door, dragging Dugdale by the head, arms and legs flailing, behind him. Some sounds escaped from the helmet, but they were too indistinct for even HarVard’s processing powers to make sense of. Len dropped the helmet, and the head it contained, to the floor and pushed the door closed against it like a vice. More sounds emerged from the helmet, slightly higher in pitch and suggesting a higher level of urgency.

Len signalled to two other robots to grab a leg each. <Heave!> he shouted.

And heave they did, pulling with all their might. Len had been careful to select the two strongest robots in the room, each designed to lift and pull steel beams and who, combined, had enough pulling power to tow the QE2 into Portsmouth harbour or even to wobble the Eiffel Tower. A scream so loud that even the helmet was unable to muffle it, issued from behind the door. With a loud pop, the scream roared into the room as the two pulling robots fell backwards in a heap several metres from the door, still holding onto Dugdale’s legs.

“What the fuppin’ Nora?” yelled Dugdale, clutching his head in his hands. “Aaaaargh!”

The robots stared silently at the screaming, yelling, swearing human, transfixed. Several of the smaller ones scurried away, squealing in fear.

Dugdale stopped screaming and sat wincing with pain, still grasping his ears. He’d suddenly remembered where he was and the significance of the occasion. He coughed, struggled to his feet and brushed himself down, wiping a hand over his face to clean it of froth, saliva and other fluids. He looked around at the startled mechanoids and astounded hologram. “Well, come on, then. Don’t just chuffin’ stand there, get t’cameras rollin’ for me ’istoric speech.”

“Of course, Commander,” said HarVard with a glutinous smile. “The camera’s right over there.” As he pointed he morphed into a facsimile of Bob Attenborough, the lesser known of the Attenborough brothers but as brilliant a film director as Sir Richard.

Dugdale sniffed loudly and pulled a scrap of paper no bigger than a bus ticket from his back pocket.

“OK, lovey?” asked Bob Attenborough, holding a raised clapperboard. “Just be natural. Give it all you’ve got. And ... action!” The clapperboard snapped shut.

Dugdale coughed and hoiked up a large quantity of phlegm. Thinking it best not to spit it out onto the floor, given this was his historic speech and about 7 billion people would be watching, he discreetly swallowed it again. “Friends, humans, and Yorkshiremen ...” As he spoke he noticed something strange happening in his mouth; his saliva seemed to be boiling. “I, Mission Commander Flint T. Dugdale, ’ave summat really important to say....” More boiling saliva issued forth and dribbled down his stubbled chin. His face had now turned blue and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe. His tongue seemed to have doubled in size. Then his eyes rolled and he collapsed to the floor.

The robots gazed down at him. <Not much of a speech,> muttered Tude. <I’d been expecting something more moving. And a bit longer.>

Flint lay on the floor, immobile.

<Is he dead?> asked Dura, moving to prod the human but thinking better of it at the last second.

HarVard calculated possible explanations for the commander’s prone state. “Hmm,” he said.

A small mechanical appliance, exercising a surprising degree of initiative, scuttled to retrieve the commander’s space helmet from the hallway and returned to the motionless body of Mission Commander Dugdale. <Is the human missing his head?> it asked HarVard.

HarVard merely waved the robot away. “No, that’s a helmet. Just hang it on the German hat-stand by the entrance, please.” As HarVard pointed to the hat-stand he caught sight of the airlock door, now closed, but ...

“Someone forgot to close it when we went out, didn’t they,” he said, turning to cast an accusatory gaze round at the robots. “Hence there isn’t actually any air in here, is there.”

The robots all backed off a little, shaking their heads, protesting their innocence.

HarVard looked down at the still form on the floor. “He’s probably dead by now.”

A hush fell in the room.

Attempting to inject a note of positivity into proceedings, Ero tweeted. <We’ve still got the others, haven’t we. You know, the ones in the lift.>

HarVard was shaking his head. “They would have lost all their oxygen when this one left. They’re almost certainly dead, too.”