The Worst Man on Mars

Tarquin’s space helmet, carefully stowed in a corner of the lift had lost most of its contents the moment the space elevator had crashed into Botany Base’s inadequately-sized lift-shaft. Fortune had not smiled on Harry Fortune at that moment. For, not only had he borne the brunt of the ensuing shower, but he had also lost his hairpiece. Other items dislodged by the impact included Emily Leach’s false teeth and Brian and Delphinia’s glasses. The floor of the lift was a mêlée of bodies as the passengers tried to regain their bearings.

Harry was the first to appreciate the seriousness of his situation and immediately set to groping about for his lost hairpiece, eliciting squeals from the ladies and threats of violence from the gentlemen. At last he spotted the soggy item attached to Mr Snuggles’ crotch-plate. The hairpiece, coupled with flailing mechanical legs, made it appear the small robot was acting in some kind of mechanical porn movie. Harry slipped a hand below the surprised robot’s waist, retrieved his toupee and slipped it back on his head. But his actions did not go unobserved.

“Look, Fortune’s a pervy robot fiddler!” exclaimed Gavin. “Coppin’ a feel of Mr. Snuggles’ pubes, innit.”

The other passengers were too dazed to care about Gavin’s accusations. They were checking limbs, torsos, skulls and blablets for signs of damage. Once satisfied that minor bruising was all they had to worry about, they turned to their leader for guidance.

But Flint Dugdale was in no state for issuing guidance. He lay prone, his vast weight pinning Miss Leach beneath him. His pendulous stomach had been the last part of his body to stop moving, and its momentum had ripped off the shoulder-strap buttons on his dungarees. So now, as he lay atop Miss Leach, he hardly cut an elegant figure, with his chest and rear-cleavage significantly exposed. Meanwhile, Miss Leach’s hair bun had unravelled and she was poking her tongue past toothless gums over her lips in a way that she hoped Flint would find erotic. The effect was not exactly what she hoped for.

“Gerroff me, yer deranged old crone,” snarled Dugdale, scrambling to his feet. He brushed the parts of him that had been in contact with her and then looked around at the other passengers as they, too, struggled to their feet. “What t’bloggin’ ’ell just ’appened?”

There was much shrugging of shoulders and shaking of heads.

Flint peered out of the small lift window. “We’ve landed,” he observed. “But we’re not inside t’base.” He twisted his head around to get a better look outside. “Chuffin’ Nora! By t’looks of it, we’ve crashed on’t bloggin’ roof. Can’t anyone get anything right, round ’ere?”

There was a sharp intake of breath.

Ding! “Ground floor,” announced the lift. “Welcome to Penge Shopping Centre. We hope you enjoy your shopping experience. Have a nice day! Doors opening.”

Thirteen mouths gaped at the realization of what was about to happen. They were outside, on the roof, and the doors were preparing to open! Twenty-six eyes swivelled to stare aghast at the lift doors, desperately willing them to stay shut. Fortunately, young Tarquin did more than merely gamble on non-existent psychic powers. With lightning speed, he stabbed a thumb against the Close Doors button. “Got ’em,” he reassured everyone.

The whole lift sighed with relief as the doors remained closed.

“Oh, my superhero,” cried Delphinia, hugging her son tightly. “You saved our lives!”

For once, everyone else agreed with her and variously praised the little boy or patted him on the head.

“What do we do now, commander?” asked Miss Leach, lisping slightly due to her absent dentures.

Dugdale didn’t answer. He was still scanning the Botany Base roof through the window, seemingly deep in thought.

“Clearly we need to contact the base and be rescued,” said Brian Brush, locating and putting on his glasses.

“No can do, skipperoo,” explained Zak. “No signal. We’re wireless-less.”

A murmur passed around the lift.

“How about this Alarm button?” asked Tarquin.

“Worf a try, bruv,” put in Gavin.

“Waste of time, blad,” said Oberon.

“How’s pushing a button a waste of time, bruv? How much time does pushing a button consume?”

Oberon shrugged as though he’d lost interest in the matter.

Tarquin looked at all around him. “Shall I?” Various nods urged him to try. Mindful of keeping his thumb on the Close Doors button, he pushed the Alarm button with the index finger of his other hand. There was a click from the small loudspeaker just above it, followed by the dring-dring sound of a telephone ringing. A hush fell in the lift as all minds urged the phone to be answered.

Dring-dring.

Dugdale turned round and, with a look of undisguised contempt, observed the silent, hopeful mass, staring desperately at the loudspeaker.

Dring-dring.

“Dis phone is probs ringing in some empty office in Penge, innit,” observed Gavin.

Dring-dring.

Brian Brush was shaking his head. “Can’t possibly be Penge.”

Dring-dring.

“Norwood?” offered Oberon.

“No!” said Brian, more forcefully than perhaps was necessary.

“Mitcham,” suggested Tracey.

Brian gave a deep sigh of irritation. “It cannot be on Earth. The signal to Earth currently takes about six minutes.”

“It’s gonna be ages before some geezer answers, then,” said Gavin.

Brian was shaking his head and stroking his chin.

Dugdale was also shaking his head, but in disbelief. “Worra total bunch of muppets! We’re on Mars. Duh! There’s no one down there but a bunch of dozy robot chuffers. Even if t’phone’s ringing down there, ’ow th’eck d’you expect them to rescue us?”

Everyone fell silent.

Dring-dring.

“We’re doomed,” moaned Harry Fortune, standing in a region of floor-space all of his own as everyone else had edged away from him to escape the smell.

Dring-dring.

“Shut that bloggin’ ringing,” demanded Dugdale. Tarquin released the Alarm button and the loudspeaker fell silent. Flint barged his way through to the lift doors. “Who’s gonna rescue us? The Flintster, that’s who.”

There was a sharp intake of breath.

“Hand me t’space ’elmet,” he ordered.

More breath was taken in sharply. “What are you going to do, commander?” asked Miss Leach.

“First man on Mars,” was all that Dugdale said as he snatched the helmet from Harry Fortune.

“Shouldn’t I go?” asked Tarquin. “It’s my helmet, so it’ll fit me better.”

Dugdale glared at the boy as he tipped the helmet upside down to let the last few drops of yellow liquid drip out onto the floor.

“No, I’m fine,” said Tarquin, changing his mind.

“You can’t go out there!” protested Brian Brush. “It’s madness. The air pressure’s so low your blood will boil!”

“How long can I last?” asked Dugdale.

“A minute. Maybe two, tops.”

“Bags of time,” said Dugdale with a smirk. He rammed the undersized headgear onto his oversized skull until it was stuck fast just below his blubbery mouth. His plentiful cheek fat formed an airtight seal with the rim. The smell inside the helmet hardly bothered him; he had encountered far worse in his time in the Gents in the Muck’n’Shovel.

He turned to face the lift’s occupants and uttered a few final words, none of which escaped the tiny helmet in any form that could be understood. He pressed his own fat thumb on the Close Doors button, replacing Tarquin’s, and shoved the boy out of the way.

A wave of realization of what he was about to do swept the small compartment, followed immediately by a wave of panic.

“Nooooo!” wailed several voices, but in vain. Flint stabbed the Open Doors button. A loud hiss of escaping air signalled the breaking of the seals as the doors jerked open. With a deftness that belied his bulk, Flint squeezed himself through the opening doors, prodding the Close Doors button with his trailing hand as he leapt out of the lift and onto the roof of Botany Base. As he glanced backward at the colonists, Flint’s last view of them, just before the doors closed, was of a sea of faces variously etched with looks of horror, of realization of imminent death, and of all hopes of rescue extinguished.

“Oh ye of little faith,” he muttered to himself and turned to look over the drop down to the Martian surface before him. It was at that moment that he became aware of the low atmospheric pressure and the extreme cold and the pull of gravity. Wearing little more than a tee shirt and a pair of flimsy dungarees, he was not best dressed for Mars. He tried shrugging the iciness off, reminding himself he’d been built in Yorkshire, home of Geoff Boycott, Fred Truman, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. Mars would not get the better of him. Minus forty degrees? Luxury! It were minus fifty sometimes during his binge-drinking promenades along Blackpool seafront at 3am in the middle of January, clad only in vest and underpants.

“By ’eck it’s cold, though,” he had to admit with a shiver. Suddenly he felt all alone, standing on a glass roof, 140 million miles from Huddersfield. But the thought of his home town recharged him. He glared out into the pink, dusty atmosphere and beat his exposed chest.

“The Flintster’s ’ere! Come’n gerrus, Mars, if yer think yer ’ard enough.”

HarVard raced his motorized holo-projector through the airlock doors, leaving them open for those behind him. Not having had the time to change his avatar, he charged with his conductors’ baton thrust in front of him like a sword. Behind him tottered a ramshackle posse of robots, still holding, or dragging, their assorted musical instruments.

“Remember to close the airlock doors,” he called behind him as he headed into the Martian desert. A few of the robots managed to get through before the majority, in trying to pile through simultaneously, became wedged in the doorway, the base’s air whooshing out through the gaps between them.

HarVard had no time for their incompetence. He screeched his cart to a halt outside the base and his avatar pointed up at the roof. “There they are, see?” he said to Tude and Dura and the other two robots that had made it. On the roof, sitting at a slight angle, was the space elevator’s compartment.

<Hurrah for humans,> chorused the robots quietly, but without their usual gusto.

<How are we going to get them down?> asked Tude.

“Good question,” said HarVard, his avatar morphing into Rodin’s Thinker.

<I can go up there,> volunteered Dura.

Rodin’s Thinker took his fist from under his chin. “And what will you do when you’re up there?”

<Press the lift button.>

“What do you suppose the effect of that would be?”

<It’d open the doors!>

“Correct. And then all the air would rush out and the humans would die.”

Dura lowered his metal head.

Ero limped forward, radiating positivity. <I could fit thick gaskets around the lift doors to stop the air escaping,> he said, holding up a length of rubber with his good arm. He had to crank his whole body round to gauge HarVard’s reaction, his head immobile from the gaffer tape strapped around his neck.

Rodin’s Thinker gave him a benevolent look. “And when the doors opened they would die.”

<How about luring them out with some tempting bait?> offered Timi.

The Thinker sighed. “They would need to open the doors to get to the bait. And then they would die.”

The robots stood scratching their heads. <Not very robust, are they,> muttered Dura.

“Perhaps you should leave the thinking to me?”

<International Rescue?> Tude chipped in.

HarVard’s avatar blinked in puzzlement and turned his gaze towards the site foreman. “What?”

<International Rescue. They are a family of humans, operated by strings, who live on Tracey Island and run a fleet of large vehicles called Thunderbirds, equipped for difficult emergency rescues.>

The Thinker gave a slow nod. “Ah, yes. I see where you’re coming from, Tude. I surmise that you’ve been watching children’s TV broadcasts from Earth?”

<Affirmative.>

“And International Rescue comprise a group of puppets with rigid facial expressions?”

<Affirmative.>

“Thought so. Any other ideas?”

<How about we radio Earth and ask them to send some replacement humans in a smaller lift?> suggested Dura. <We’d need to move this one out of the way first, obviously.>

There was a general uck-uck-ucking sound of agreement from the other robots.

<Or we could enlarge the lift-shaft. Save them the bother or making a new elevator compartment.>

More uck-uck-ucking. Dura’s ideas sounded very logical.

Encouraged by the support of his peers, Dura continued. <The humans in the space-elevator could stay in their lift until the new arrivals rescue them!>

Uck-uck-uck murmured the nodding robots.

The Thinker stayed as still as a statue, eyes closed, waiting patiently for the flow of robot suggestions to cease. “Very good. Now can you all keep your potty ideas to yourselves? I am trying to think.”

But he was interrupted by an excited squeak from Dura. The robot was pointing up at the roof and jumping up and down on his suspension. <One of them’s escaped! One of the humans is out!>

Flint spotted the group of robots and the strange statue at the base of the dome at about the same time they saw him. He gave a quick wave. Aware that his time in the low pressure was limited, and that the air trapped in the helmet would not last forever, he bounded across the flimsy polycarbonate panels of the BioDome roof towards the group below. As the roof became too steep to hold his footing he launched himself onto his large behind and began to slide. Faster and faster he went, yelling like a wild-eyed, bare-breasted warrior charging into battle, until his trajectory detached him from the roof and put him into freefall.

“WHO’S THE DADDY,” he roared as he flew, the sounds barely escaping his child-sized helmet. He landed with a bone-crunching thud smack bang in the middle of the robots.