The Worst Man on Mars
Page 12
Cheers of joy and all are happy,
Life on board has been so crappy.
But then our laughter turns to shock
When on the window there’s a knock
And Sylvia Rothschild stares at us
With zombie eyes and grin rictus.
The wiper swings her left and right.
Terror-struck, we flee in fright.
The dead old bird has spooked us proper,
And Dugdale took too long to stop her.
Harry punched the air and grinned. “Perfect,” he said. “Brilliant. Just need about fifty more like that before the end of the mission and I’m sorted.”
*
Emily regained consciousness with a start. It took a full second to get her bearings, another second to restrain herself from screaming the place down, and a third second to start enjoying the situation she had woken up to. For she was in Commander Dugdale’s manly arms, and his lips were firmly clamped on hers. Suddenly, she felt she was floating on air, both literally and figuratively, and did her best to lap up the sensations zipping through her nervous system.
Flint Dugdale shot away from her. “Billy Arkwright’s bollocks, you’re alive!” he concluded, giving no indication of whether this pleased him or not.
“Oh, Commander Dugdale!” exclaimed Emily with a little giggle and a flutter of her eyelashes. “What am I to make of this?”
“Nowt … It wert kiss er life,” he explained, stuttering and edging even further away. “’Appen I thought you’d croaked ...”
Emily followed him, stroking the tight bun of greying hair on top of her head. “You saved my life, Commander Dugdale.” She fanned her reddening cheeks. “How can I possibly repay you?” She gave what she intended to be a seductive wink.
Dugdale shuddered and tried to retreat further, but found himself backed up against the window blind. “Back off, Leachy,” he ordered. As he recoiled more, his rear pressed against the window-blind button. The blind, which only minutes before had been so painfully slow to close, now sprang open in a flash as though on the world’s most powerful spring.
Miss Leach gave a gasp of shock, and her advance on Dugdale stopped in its tracks. She stared, open-mouthed, past Dugdale’s shoulder, through the panoramic window. Her breathing quickened and, once her lungs had filled with sufficient air, she let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Sylvia Rothschild’s body was still spread-eagled on the window, snagged on the giant windscreen wiper, one eye dangling, and some gaping rents in her spacesuit revealing more mummified flesh than the average stomach can tolerate. But what prompted the scream was the sight of another space-suited figure, with its arms apparently hugging her from behind, space gloves cupped over breasts, pushing and pulling with forceful pelvic thrusts. In the process, the tear in Sylvia’s spacesuit grew progressively larger, revealing more and more desiccated leg.
“Lieutenant Warner!” screamed Emily. “Stop that at once!” Unable to take any more, she paddled her way out of the Assembly Room as desperately and as quickly as she could, past a very surprised Zak Johnston who had just arrived and was gazing in astonishment at the scene outside the window.
Dugdale, too, was staring out of the window, his face one of total stupefaction. He grabbed his communicator from his top pocket and punched Lieutenant Willie Warner’s icon. “What the hell are you doing with that stiff, Woggler?”
“She’s stuck,” came Willie’s panting reply. He thrust once more and caused Sylvia Rothschild’s helmet to clatter against the window glass.
Dugdale gaped in disbelief. “Right,” he said at last. “I want all the corpses in t’ship in ten minutes. Then get yer skinny arse to t’cockpit to see me!”
21. Lost it in Space
Willie Warner sat in the changing room, his head in his hands. Even the room’s foetid smell couldn’t distract him from his sense of hopelessness and despair. He had removed his helmet but hadn’t yet found the energy to remove the damp space-suit nor the moist boots.
“Whoa, dude,” said Zak Johnston, floating into the room, dreadlocks tangled with headphone wires, all trailing behind. “Hail, Thane of the Stiff-bangers. Watched your latest ‘thing’ with old ma Rothschild out there. Hot stuff.” He grinned and Warner’s head sank lower still. “Props to ya, man. Don’t get me wrong, friend. Dead-granny-shaggin’ ain’t my bag, but you’ll hear no criticism of your fetishism from this guy.”
Willie didn’t respond.
“So, where is the old biddy, now that you two are an item?” Zak peered around the room. “Ain’t ya going to introduce me to the space-kill moose?”
Warner was shaking his head. “I let her go.”
Zak floated closer and stared hard at Willie’s distraught features. “What, you dumped her? You are one callous space-dude. And after what you’d just been through? You guys were written in the stars. Where’ve you stashed her?”
“The smell,” was all that Willie could say. “That awful smell.”
“Yeah, just got a waft of whiff de stiff. Spill dude, where is she?”
Willie sighed and looked unseeingly into the distance. “I managed to haul her as far as the airlock. Got her inside.”
“What d’ya do then, spaceboy?” interrupted Johnston.
“Kissed her goodnight and gave her the taxi fare home,” snapped Willie. “What do you think I did? I closed the outer door, let the air fill and took off my helmet.”
“Sure, I’m hearing yer,” Zak replied, fiddling with the personal stereo that fused external sound with a Bob Marley beat and delivered it directly to his inner ears.
“The smell was awful. You can’t believe how badly she stank.” Willie fanned his nose at the very memory. “And putrid pieces of her kept floating out of her ripped suit. The more she warmed up, the worse it got.”
“Gross Point Zero, man. Wait, I think Gran may have left her calling-card. If I’m not mistaken, I spy a flap of her wrinkly skin stuck to your chin.”
Willie squealed and began swatting wildly at his face like a demented seal.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” said Zak, grabbing his arm, and studying Willie’s chin more closely. “Soz, dude, I am mistaken.”
Willie sighed with relief, took a deep breath and continued. “There was no way I could bring her on board. So I opened up the outer door and pushed her back out into space, sweeping as much of the rotting stuff as I could out after her.”
“Awesome, dog!” said Zak, slapping his thigh and hooting. “Props maximus, man. Wait till Dugdale hears about this shit. He’ll board the train to Explosion City.”
Willie’s head jerked up at Zak. “No, he mustn’t find out. Please, please don’t tell him. We need to hush it up, Zak. We get three suits ...” He swept a hand to indicate the space-suits strapped to the wall, “... and we fill them with old blankets or something. Then we stow them in InspectaBot’s pod as planned. He’ll never know.”
“Count me out, space ranger.” But then Zak’s eyebrows knitted together and his face brightened with excitement. “Wait! Better still, let’s tell him!”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, but he is.” Zak lowered his voice. “Captain Dug-dude is so losing the plot. Like a one-man, out-of-control locomotive. Your triple-body balls-up could just launch him on the fast road to Madsville. Think George Cukor’s Gaslight.”
“And sending him over the edge is a good thing?”
“To our advantage, dude. Pro us. The moment he’s unfit to lead, we’re in charge. You and me, friend. Kings of the castle.”
Willie frowned, not entirely convinced. But before he could respond, the door had swished open and the devil they were talking of had entered. Dugdale’s expression was not a serene one and Willie looked for a place to hide.
“Weiner!” bawled the commander, his face purple. For Willie, hiding was no longer an option. “What the buggerin’, bollockin’, friggin’ ‘eck did yer think you were doin’ out there??”
“I ...” started Willie, but Dugdale
had grabbed him by his spacesuit lapels and pulled him closer.
“What part of ‘you sneak outside and bring stiffs indoors secretly’ didn’t you understand? ‘Appen you thought it’d be a laugh to start flingin’ bodies at t’window where every one o’ passengers could get t’best view.”
Willie tried to breathe in some fresh air, free of Dugdale’s halitosis, but Flint was not done and was wafting more bad breath into his face.
“And, if that weren’t enough! You go and start ‘umping the old trout across t’windscreen. By ‘eck, Wiggler, I thought Johnston were weird, but yer interplanetary sex act trumps pretty much anything he can come up with.”
“Hey, cap,” interrupted Zak with a wink at Willie. “That’s all old news, sir. Previous episode, man. You need a series catch-up; story’s moved on.”
Dugdale released Willie’s lapels and swivelled to stare at Zak with a mixture of fury and puzzlement. “What yer blitherin’ on about, Johnston?”
“You’re at the last stop, dude, but the train’s pulled into a new station.”
Still Dugdale stared at him in open-mouthed bafflement.
“Yesterday’s papers,” continued Zak, putting his hands behind his head. “Today’s headline, in 50-point boldface, reads: Bodies go missing.”
Dugdale’s mouth dropped open even further. “Bodies what?” he started, and then wheeled to glare at Willie. “I hope fer your sake, Wobbler, that Corky the Clown ‘ere ain’t tellin’ me yer’ve lost t’dead’uns?”
Willie shuddered. “The bodies aren’t missing, as such,” he started, swallowing hard.
“I’m still hearing the words ‘missing’ and ‘bodies’ in the same sentence.”
“We know, in a general way, where they are, sir,” started Willie. “They’re in orbit. It’s just that it’s a, sort of, re-entrant orbit.”
Dugdale’s gigantic hands moved towards Willie, but instead of grabbing the lapels, grasped his scrawny neck instead.
“Think about it, Chief,” intervened Zak. “Last wishes of the Dame dudette fulfilled. Buried on Mars. Good and deep, too, if she happens to hit a soft bit. Or, alternative numero duo, they burn up on re-entry, ashes scattered across the planet. No more bodies … no more paperwork. It’s a win-win!”
Flint continued to glare deep into Warner’s eyes, his hands still encircling his throat. But then his grip slackened.
“You might have a point there, Rastaman,” he growled. Then he looked at both of them. “Not a word to anyone. Gorrit?”
Willie nodded vigorously while Zak looked slightly dismayed at his plan having misfired. Dugdale floated towards the door but then stopped and spun around. “‘Appen, I’ve made up me mind who’s goin’ down t’Mars and who’s stayin’ in this shit-bucket. Wobbler, I’ll give you a clue: you ain’t going.” With that, he turned and pulled himself out of the changing room.
“But,” cried Willie. “You can’t. Nooooooooooo!”
22. Love, Factually?
Miss Leach was once more both literally and metaphorically floating on air as she pulled herself into her cabin and locked the door behind her, clinging onto the handle to steady her trembling. She could hardly breathe as she kept running that kiss over and over in her mind.
What a kiss!
And what a man! There was something so raw, so primal, so manly about Mission Commander Flint Dugdale that her mind always turned to mush in his presence. Strange hormones pulsed through her, reaching parts of her body that no hormones had ever ventured into before. Delicious sensations dribbled through her palpitating form.
Emily managed to calm herself enough to review what that kiss might signify? Lacking a sufficiently encyclopaedic repertoire of past kisses to draw on, Emily could only guess at the significance of this one. However, based solely on the reactions it had produced within her central nervous system, its significance was surely Immense.
Emily gave herself a hug and allowed a wide grin to spread across her face.
With a start she glimpsed the human form strapped to her bed and her grin vanished. The figure lay silent and still. Six-foot-tall and dashingly handsome, dressed in long boots, riding-trousers and an unbuttoned, wet-look shirt. There were straps at the wrists and ankles, plus a larger strap across the chest from which sprouted a healthy bush of manly hair. There was no sign of life, no movement, no breathing. Emily caught her breath and put a hand to her lips. “Oh my,” she squeaked. “Oh my, oh my ...”
She fanned her cheeks with greater gusto and propelled herself towards the bed.
“It’s a lucky thing,” she said to the immobile human form lying before her, “that I didn’t invite Commander Dugdale back for a coffee.”
The mysterious figure made no response.
“Or what would he have thought of me?” She undid the top two buttons of her blouse and fanned herself some more. “What would he have thought?”
23. Poles Together
With much joshing and slapping of backs, the four Polish builder-bots, the robotniki, ambled over the Martian sand towards the front entrance of Botany Base. All were covered in splashes of paint and thick layers of plaster. Witek, the most rotund of the four, struggled to keep pace with the others, though they were hardly rushing.
Maciek stopped in his tracks about ten metres from the entrance, and the others stopped with him. A look of surprise and amusement crossed his work-hardened face.
The others looked amused and amazed, too, as they took in the fact that Botany Base now had a set of airlock doors blocking their entrance into the building.
Maciek, playing the clown, strode over to the outer door and pressed the OPEN button. With an exaggerated bow, he invited the others in. Giggling like schoolgirls, they obediently trotted into the airlock, tapping at the doors to check the workmanship, and sniggering at the shakiness of the whole construction.
They were still sniggering as they passed through the inner door into the entrance hallway. But the moment they saw what was waiting for them, all sniggering ceased and all movement screeched to a halt.
There, visibly fuming, was HarVard in the guise of a stern-faced, stockily-built battle-axe of a woman, her hog jaws set in a scowl, arms crossed, a wooden rolling-pin grasped in one hand. The fluffiness of her apparel – the pink nightgown, fur-lined slippers and pink hair-curlers – did nothing to soften her stony appearance.
The robotniki turned to make their escape, but the inner airlock door had already closed behind them.
“And where do you think you’ve been?” growled the formidable female, her face like a crushed handbag, her voice more male than female.
Maciek bravely wheeled forward, a cowed expression on his blocky face.
“Oh, really?” said the Gorgon, advancing on him while slapping the rolling-pin into the palm of her free hand. Her squashed face twisted into a fake smile, her voice adopting a menacing calm. “And how is the ‘Udder Playce’ looking these days?”
Maciek edged back.
Andrzej, the tall, thin one, gave a shrug.
The robotniki would have been well advised to think their answers through, instead of just blurting them out.
“Hmm,” said the dragon lady, her nostrils flaring and a hint of smoke emerging from them. “It’s funny you should say that.”
The robotniki exchanged smirks, taking her words at their most literal.
“Because the HUMANS ARRIVE IN FOUR HOURS!” The voice had lost much of its calmness. “So this place better be ready by then. And if it means knocking it all down and starting again, then so be it. But you have only four hours to do it in!”
The Polish builder-bots’ jaws dropped. They’d never seen HarVard so agitated.
The other robotniki looked at Witek as though he were insane.
The dragon-woman shook, like a volcano about to blow. She raised her rolling-pin high into the air. “That,” she yelled, “is AN ORDER!”
The robotniki blinked in surprise, shrinking back from the holographic weapon. They exchanged a few Polish remarks, involving much shrugging and some argument.
“Five minutes,” said the monster woman. “That’s all you get. Then go see Tude. He’ll tell you what still needs to be done.”
The robotniki exchanged hurt looks at the injustice of it all.