The Worst Man on Mars

Ero, still with the skip in his step, returned to the BioDome itching to restart his important gasket-fitting work. The new ‘positivity app’ was proving a real tonic. Jaw jutting with renewed determination, he sporadically punched the air, muttering “Happiness for Homo sapiens”. The heroic humans were coming and finally he would be seeing them in the flesh. What better motivation for finishing his task?

At the base of his scaffold-tower he retrieved all the fallen gaskets from the floor before making the long climb back to the top, the thirty-five rubbery things dangling from his fingers. He even caught himself whistling.

With renewed optimism, and his clever screwdriver technique, he set to fitting the gaskets retrieved from the floor, before continuing with the ones still in the box.

For three hours he toiled and, at the end of that time, one hundred and ninety-eight gaskets sat snugly in their allotted places. Only two remained in the box by his stocky, metallic feet. His whistling had progressed to singing. A look of pride gave his face an extra shine, and he even cast a mocking glance at the hammer-bot far below with its mundane, artless job of bashing in nails. This is real craft, he told himself, surveying his work.

But, as he reached for gasket number one hundred and ninety-nine, he spotted two other objects at the bottom of the box. He picked them out and examined them. One was a small tube labelled: “Glazaffix Gasket Glue™”. The other was a sheet of instructions which read: “IMPORTANT. Gaskets must be securely glued into place using Glazaffix Gasket Glue™ to ensure an airtight seal”.

<What?> he transmitted with a puzzled expression. He looked from the tube of glue to the instructions, and from the instructions to the gaskets above his head. Zooming in on one of them revealed the ends flapping gently as the winds of Mars buffeted the outside of the BioDome.

<Nooooooooo!> wailed Ero, letting the glue and the sheet of paper fall from his stubby fingers. Despair overpowered his new positivity software. Why had the glue and important instructions been at the bottom of the gasket box? What sort of stupidity was that? But as he glared at the ‘This Side Up’ arrow, he realized what had happened: he had opened the box from the wrong end.

The horror of his incompetence made him stagger backwards, crashing through the scaffold-tower’s safety barrier and out into thin air. Ero flung his arms out, desperately grabbing at anything that might stop his fall. But his digits merely snapped open and shut as though he were a flying castanet player. Down he plummeted, his optic lenses fixed on the roof that had become his nemesis.

<Not again!> Tude moaned on witnessing the bot crash to the concrete floor, this time flat on his back. <Robot down. Calling Zilli to the BioDome. Zilli to the BioDome.>

<Zilli’s not here,> pointed out the hammer-bot. <Went to the Other Place to fetch the robotniki, didn’t she.>

<Right, but that was ... three hours ago. I hope nothing’s wrong.>

He sighed as he approached the twitching gasket fitter. Ero’s head was loose and an arm had broken off. A camera shutter opened and a cracked lens stared up at Tude. <I’m fine, I’m fine. Just need a hand getting up. Be back at work in a jiffy.>

Tude reached down and hauled the battered robot upright. The hammer-bot picked up the severed arm and handed it to Ero.

<An admirable attitude, robot Ero,> said Tude. <But how do you propose fitting gaskets with only one arm?>

<Oh, this is nothing.> Ero waved the mechanical limb. <A mere metal wound. Some gaffer tape should fix it.>

<Good lad,> said Tude, punching the air. <For the good of the humans!>

<Loving it,> replied Ero and the hammer-bot together.

As Tude motored off in the direction of the site office the gasket fitter limped towards the scaffold-tower, his movement impeded by rear panels that had been flattened on impact. A knee joint screeched as he raised a foot onto the first rung of the ladder. Stay positive, he thought. Must stay positive.

But then his loose head rolled off his neck and dropped to his chest, hanging there from its multi-coloured cables. Better get that gaffer tape, he told himself.