The Worst Man on Mars

In the site office HarVard had morphed his hologram avatar into the form of a saint. Not any particular saint, but a generic holy figure with a radiant glow, open arms and a glowing halo over its head. He reckoned he would probably be needing the patience that came as part of the saintly package. “Tude, my son. Perhaps you could inform us how close we are to completion. Any ideas?”

<Er, well,> started Tude, with a sideways roll of his head. <Let me see, now.>

“Percentage completion?” prompted the holy man.

<Not 100%, for sure,> started Tude.

“I think even I can see that.”

Tude sucked in some Martian air through the orifice that served as a pseudo mouth and scratched at his head.

<Difficult to give a precise number, really. Based on my last walk around the site, I’d put it at maybe, 80%.>

“Really?”

<Alright, 74%.>

“Hmm.”

<69.>

The saint put his fingertips together. “You see, that presents us with something of a problem.”

Tude swivelled and jerked his head. <How so?>

“Well, if it’s taken five years to reach 69% completion, by my calculations, it’s going to take another two years, two months and twenty-nine days to finish the base,” explained HarVard. “And the humans arrive tomorrow.”

In an instant, the site office erupted in a wave of cheering and celebration at the news. <Long live the humans!> they chanted. <Humans are our heroes!> and <Happiness for Homo sapiens> in which they somehow managed to rhyme ’sapiens’ with ‘happiness’.

HarVard’s saintly image gazed at them with its most forbearing and forgiving expression.

“It goes without saying that we want only the best for our humans. But I don’t feel that 69% completion qualifies as ‘the best’.”

<We still have twenty-four hours to finish,> pointed out Tude.

“And what do you think we can achieve in twenty-four hours?”

<We’ll need to focus on the high priority tasks, obviously. Airlock doors for starters. Stop the oxygen whooshing out of the base. Humans like oxygen. Can’t get enough of the stuff.>

“That’s straightforward, right?”

<Not really.> Tude flicked his appendages to adjust his high-viz jacket. <There’s a slight issue with the airlock doors. They don’t fit the airlock openings. Nothing a bit of sawing and planing won’t fix.>

<Or very large rubber gaskets!> suggested Ero.

HarVard’s avatar, despite its inherent goodliness, was starting to grind its teeth. “OK, what else is urgent?”

<Water.>

“I thought we had water.”

<We do, we do,> insisted Tude, looking round at the other robots for backing and getting several nods of heads. <The issue with the water is largely an aesthetic one.>

“Explain.”

<Humans ...> he paused for the cheering to finish, <... have a thing about their water being transparent. And ours is sort of ... reddish brown.>

“Filters not working?”

<Oh, they’re working OK, but just not filtering. Very fine sand, see. We’ll take a look at the situation a.s.a.p.>

“Anything else?”

<Food. Not overly abundant. In fact, the only things in the BioDome’s veggie incubators are seven carrots and a parsnip, and …>

“And?”

<For some reason we are unable to fathom, the carrots are under an inch long and the parsnip has grown into a shape that humans might consider offensive.>

“What about the fish?”

<All dead. Dura thinks they were quite fussy about the transparency of their water too.>

There was a long silence from the saint. It stood still with its eyes closed. The robots glanced at one another and shuffled about on the site office floor. Every now and then they would guiltily glance up at the calendar with its large red circle and the words ‘COMPLETION DATE’ scrawled next to it.

“Alright,” said the saint eventually, opening his eyes. “We need to get those things fixed, Tude. All of them. Maximum priority. All hands on deck. They’ve got to be sorted out by first-light tomorrow.”

<Sure, Mr. Supercomputer. No problem.>

The saint sighed and put his palms together, as though in prayer. “There’s another thing you need to know. Quite important. A site inspector is on his way to sign the work off. It’s an InspectaBot 360.”

There was an electronic gasp from all the robots, followed by a deathly hush. One could have heard a pin drop but for the howling wind outside and the distant wails of Cassie, still struggling to get out of her ditch.

<Oooh, an InspectaBot 360. Fancy,> Eve messaged, but was firmly shushed.

“I tried to stall him,” the saint was saying, “but he’s on his way anyway. Should be here within the hour. And you know what a bad report from InspectaBot would mean ... No humans.”

There were cries of horror and groans of disappointment.

“I’d say our chances of getting a good report are approximately ... zero.”

The groans became moans and then wails. <Noooo,> some robots whimpered.

“But don’t forget: I am a supercomputer. And I have a plan. I’ll need a volunteer.”

The rafters squeaked as Dom struggled to signal his willingness.

“It’s OK, Dom. You have enough on your plate already. I’m sure Dura can handle it. The rest of you go and start working. Work, work and work, harder than you have ever done in your lives. For tomorrow, the humans arrive!”

In an instant the mood was lifted, and the robots burst into their usual chorus of cheering. <Long live the humans! Happiness for Homo sapiens!>

HarVard waited until he could be heard once more. “Right, Zilli, you go get the Polish robotniki. Without them we’re doomed.”

Zilli made for the exit.

“And Dom, you deal with Cassie ...” The saint stopped, noticing the snagged robot. “Ah, yes. What are we going to do with you?”

Dom’s optics looked more downcast than ever.

“OK, can one of you help release Dom from the ceiling?”

There was a huge clattering of aluminium casings as all robots moved towards Dom to render their assistance.

“I said ONE!” yelled the saint in a most unsaintly tone. Alas, too late. The flimsy floor-panel where Dom was standing collapsed under the additional weight, leaving him suspended from the rafters by his bucket-hands. Panic ensued as several other robots fell through the resulting hole to find themselves standing on Martian soil, their waists at floor level and the wind ripping up into the site office.

“Alright, calm! Let’s have some calm,” ordered the saint, a martyred look on his face. “I’m sure we can sort this one out.”

Twenty minutes later, the holed robots had been pulled out of their hole and the hanging robot unhooked from the ceiling. Instead of heading back to Botany Base, they seemed rooted to the spot, alternately looking down at the gaps in the floor-panel and up at the hole in the ceiling.

HarVard’s saintly avatar stared at them. “Well? Get on with it.”

Tude raised an appendage. <Shh. We’re working out a strategy for fixing it. Need to formulate a plan. Without plans there is mayhem and disorder.>

HarVard tore at his hair in a most unholy manner. “I don’t mean the portakabin, I mean get on with the Base, you idiots. You’re wasting precious time.”

Tude shrugged and drove out of the site office, shaking his head, followed in slow procession by the others. At the back of the line trudged a dispirited Ero, trailing gaskets from his workbelt. Noting his demeanour HarVard transmitted a ‘positivity app’ to his neural network. Ero’s pace slowed for a second as the software installed and then, with a bounce in his step, he zipped past the others and sped towards the BioDome.

After a few more precious minutes had ticked by, HarVard’s avatar was left alone with Dura.

<So, what’s the plan, HarV? How do we deal with InspectaBot?>

The supercomputer gave a nod before shape-shifting into an arch-villain looking very much like a cross between Dick Dastardly and Terry Thomas.

“This will be trickier than I thought,” said the composite bad-guy. “But here is what we do ...”