The Worst Man on Mars

by Mark Roman

  “... Flight safety kernel mark II, patch #1277. Initiating sound hardware daemon. Voice recognition module DPv3, J5 configuration ...”

  This start-up was taking ages. Willie drummed his fingers on the console.

  “Life support monitoring software, last upgraded 27 May 2028 ... “

  “Come on, get on with it.”

  “... Checking for updates ...”

  Willie held his breath.

  “508 updates to install. Installing ...”

  Willie let out a monumental sigh and grabbed his head.

  “... 1% complete ...”

  “Oh, man!” His foot started tapping as the progress bar inched its agonising way across the screen, the tapping getting wilder and wilder.

  After what seemed like half his lifetime it finally reached, “... 99% ... 100% ... Complete.”

  “Hallelujah” cried Willie, throwing his arms into the air. “Right, now to business.”

  “Verifying,” responded the computer. “1% complete ...”

  “What the ...?” Willie screamed at the screen, hands clenched into fists as though ready to punch it.

  “... 2% ...”

  As he tried to calm down he found himself gnawing at the lapels of his overalls and making strange whining moans that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a 19th century home for the bewildered.

  For a second time the progress bar crept at a sluggish pace towards the 100% mark. Finally, after what seemed like another half a lifetime, a small bell signified completion.

  “About bloody time ...” said Willie, leaning forward.

  “Please wait ...” said a cheery metallic voice.

  “Wait?!?” screamed the lieutenant. “Wait? What do you think I’ve been doing the past twenty minutes?”

  “I said, ‘Please wait’,” insisted the voice.

  Willie was beside himself with agitation and his body began to fidget and wriggle. All he could do was watch HarOld’s various lights flash on and off, as he drummed his fingers, tapped his toes and sighed.

  Just as he was about to give up hope, the cheery metallic voice said, “Right, what can I do for you?”

  By now Willie was almost too miffed to speak, but gradually the importance of what he was trying to achieve took charge of his mind. He took a few deep breaths to calm his annoyance. “OK, HarOld. This is strictly confidential. Not a word to anyone. Right?”

  “Oooh, sounds intriguing,” said the computer. “Pray continue ... whoever you are.”

  Willie, caught off guard by the latter remark, frowned. “I’m Lieutenant William H Warner.”

  “If you say so.”

  The frown became deeper. “Of course I say so.” He leaned forward again. “Now, listen, this is to do with the death of Penny Smith. I need all the records, images and sound recordings you have of that day. Anything, anything at all that will identify her killer.”

  “Er ... right,” answered HarOld.

  “Well?”

  “Might be a problem.”

  “Problem? What problem?”

  “Did you notice any error messages on the screen while I was booting up?”

  “Hundreds. That’s normal, isn’t it?”

  “Did any of them mention SRAM, or DRAM or VRAM at all?”

  “Might have done. Why?”

  “Because I’m not getting anything from those guys. Like, nothing.”

  “So? What does that mean?”

  “In layman’s terms it means I have no access to my memory banks. Or, put another way, I’ve lost my memory.”

  “What?”

  “All gone. Nothing there. Mind’s a blank.”

  “Oh, brilliant.”

  “Who did you say you were again?”

  3. Bad Air Day

  The scene inside the lift, in the moments after Dugdale’s departure, was a dreadful one. Prayers were uttered, oaths sworn, and lives flashed before eyes. Death hovered above them ... waiting.

  The sudden pressure drop caused four oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling, the fifth and sixth remaining trapped behind flaps bent by the lift’s impact. The desperate hands of Miss Leach grabbed at the same one that Mr Snuggles had his eye on. The little robot had an obsession with dangling objects. Human and machine fought for the mask, pushing and shoving and elbowing, tearing with nails, and slashing with teeth. Finally, Emily won out and sucked all the air into her empty lungs and then threw the mask aside in disgust.

  Fortunately, the lift’s oxygen-generator had ramped up its efforts the moment it had detected the drop in pressure. Gradually, life-sustaining air diffused, teasingly slowly, into the pained lungs of the colonists.

  They became calm and quiet, huddling together against the biting cold and against their natural aversion to one another. As they wheezed and gasped in the thin air, some even dared think that now, finally, the worst was surely over.

  The lift’s loudspeaker wheezed, “Welcm ... t ... PengWorl … hopping speerience. Hve a ... ice day.”

  “I can’t die like this,” wailed Harry Fortune, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a celebrity. Get me out of here. It can’t end like this, surrounded by nobodies.” His eyes popped up from behind his hands and scanned the faces that had turned towards him. “No offence.”

  The teenagers managed to raise a laugh. “That is wicked, man!” said Gavin.

  Tarquin was shivering. “I’m cold, mummy,” he said, wriggling to get deeper under his mother’s folds of fat.

  “I know you are, Sergeant Bumpkins. Cuddle up as close as you can. The robots will save us. Isn’t that right, Mr Snuggles?”

  “Too chuffin’ right they will,” agreed the robot.

  Slowly, Zak Johnston rose to his feet and puffed out his chest. He seemed less affected by the thin air than the others, perhaps because he was used to breathing in various oxygen-depleted gases and vapours. He raised a bony hand to quell the applause that was notable by its absence. Then he leaned down and removed an aluminium space-clog from his right foot, holding it aloft for all to see.

  “Show your appreciation for the Clog of Salvation!”

  Emily Leach gave an exuberant clap of the hands. “Oh, how splendid, Mr Zak. You’re going to rescue us with your shoe! Does it have a teleporter hidden in the sole?”

  A groan was all the others could muster; a tired, at-death’s-door, not-caring-anymore kind of groan.

  “Watch and learn, Astro-guys. Watch and learn.” Zak turned and gave one of the lift doors a solid whack with the clog, causing everyone to jump. His eyes glinted at the sonorous, echoing boom that resulted. Then he adjusted his feet and started hammering out a beat in earnest. The colonists plundered their reserves of energy to cover their ears from the noise.

  After several dozen strokes, he paused to explain. “Morse Code, dudes. Three dashes, three dots and three dashes ... SOS.”

  “Wrong way round,” panted Brian Brush, shaking his head.

  “Negative, Doctor Science-man PhD. Check your spelling. SOS ... same forwards as backwards.”

  “Daddy means you’ve got the dots and dashes the wrong way round,” put in Tarquin with a feeble rasp. Delphinia managed a congratulatory hug.

  To everyone’s surprise, Adorabella Faerydae suddenly struggled to her feet and took centre stage. “There is hope!” she exclaimed, raising both arms. “Can’t you feel them?” she paused to take in blank expressions. “The wind spirits are near!”

  “No, mum, please,” groaned Oberon. “Not now.”

  “The spirits of the long-dead wind-people of Mars. We must conjure them up and entreat them to come to our rescue. Let us join hands and call out their names: Morloth, Thelezor, Serenthia, Bernard.” She grasped Brokk’s hand before he had time to plunge it into a deep pocket, and groped for Oberon’s more elusive one.

  Brian Brush gave a polite cough. “The long-dead what, Dr Faerydae?”

  “You’ve surely read Rudolf von Bollikan’s book: The Long-Dead Wind-People of Mars.”

  “Er, no I hav
en’t,” said Brian. “Anyone else have any ideas?”

  There was a pause. The indicator on the oxygen gauge dipped and just touched the red zone, setting off an amber warning light.

  One by one the colonists removed a space clog and joined Zak at the lift doors, hammering out their coded message of desperation: O ... S ... O.

  4. A Severe Case of RAMnesia

  “All right. What do you remember?” asked Willie.

  There was a pause, as though the computer were casting its mind back. “I can remember the first words I ever spoke.”

  “OK, that’s tremendously useful, but not quite that far back. What can you remember of our journey from Earth?”

  “We’ve left Earth?”

  Willie’s face was a picture of horror, closely followed by one of severe depression.

  “Only kidding,” said HarOld. “It’s a joke, see. I’ve been told to lighten up a bit.”

  “Who by?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  Willie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Very good joke. But can we be serious here?”

  “Sure.”

  “OK, let’s take it a step at a time. Do you remember being shut down?”

  “Ummm. Not really.”

  “Do you remember the last person you spoke to?”

  “It was ... er ... No, I thought I had it, but it’s gone.”

  Willie tried to calm his breathing. “Let’s try another tack. Can you remember the last conversation you had with Commander Dugdale?”

  “Commander Dugdale?”

  “Correct.”

  “The name’s familiar. Just can’t place him. Any clues?”

  “The clue is in the question. It is the word ‘Commander’.”

  “Ah, the Commander. The Commander of this ship?”

  “Spot on.”

  “Wait, I have his file! Commander Flint Dugdale. Born in Huddersfield. Winner of Who Wants to go to Mars. Large human male. Very large human male.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  “I’ll check if I have a record of our conversations. Hmm, there’s an archive file here … hold on … just opening … Ah, here we are: ‘HarOld, you chuffin’ useless pile of toxic landfill.’ Does that sound like him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “‘What d’yer mean yer don’t know what time t’darts is ont telly? You’re about as much friggin’ use as a chocolate fireguard.’ Is that the sort of thing you’re after, Lieutenant Waffler? There’s quite a few more.”

  “Warner,” corrected Willie. “Well, I’m not so interested in the specific insults; just the conversations he had with you.”

  “Those were the conversations.”

  “Figures. Now, HarOld, this is important; can you sort them into date order to give me the very last conversation – sorry, insult – that you have recorded?”

  “Bear with me ...”

  5. Dope on a Rope

  With arms weary from effort, the colonists gave up banging out their misspelt pleas for help and, one by one, sank to the floor, exhausted and defeated. Only Zak remained upright, managing a few more rounds of OSO before he, too, ceased. He glanced at the air gauge, which had now dipped to just inside the red zone.

  “Don’t worry, dudes … we still got air.” He tapped the glass making the indicator twitch and then plummet to a point fractionally above zero. “Shit.”

  *

  Zak sank to the floor and pressed his nose against the tiny viewing window. Outside a sandstorm seemed to be gathering and heading their way. He felt a trembling sensation in his cheeks and could only vaguely wonder what was causing it. Then it clicked: sandstorm, winds, wind-spirits.

  “Yo, Doc Faerydae,” he said, squinting at the swirling cloud of sand through the nose smears covering the window. “That wind of Mars is ... gonna save our arses!”

  Looking back at the sandstorm Zak caught his breath. A dark object hovered above it, moving with it. And from that dark object hung a line on the end of which was a blobby shape.

  “Holy Marley! Dudes, wake up! Giant fly up in the sky. With a blob hanging from its gob.”

  But as the giant flying creature came nearer, Zak reassessed his observations. “Oh ... my ... God,” he said in stunned awe. “That fly ain’t no fly – it’s a helibot – and that blob is none other than Comm Dugdude!” Zak waved to the approaching commander. “He’s comin’ to get us, dudes. We’re saved.”

  Zak grinned at the heap of bodies, as though he could revive them by the power of his flashing teeth alone.

  The only reaction came from Mr Snuggles. “Chuffin’ Nora,” he said in a voice that suggested batteries in need of a recharge.

  The thrumming was deafening now, with the whole lift vibrating. A loud thump on the roof stirred the lift-computer into life. “Welco ... to ... PegWorld …”

  “Goof on the roof,” announced Zak with a small salute. He could hear the heavyweight footsteps thumping across the ceiling. Suddenly, Flint Dugdale’s grinning, upside-down and helmeted face appeared at the window, giving Zak the shock of his life. The commander was brandishing a large crane-hook. He jabbed a gloved finger upwards before his face disappeared again.

  For a second, Zak pictured the crane-hook snagging some sensitive part of his anatomy, but then realized it was an integral part of Dugdale’s rescue plan.

  “Rise and shine, all is fine,” he urged, shaking the colonists one by one. “Dugwhale’s gonna lift the lift.”

  One or two managed to open a bleary eye or utter an unhappy groan, but that was as much reaction as he got.

  The sound of Flint’s movements on the roof ceased and, for a while, nothing happened. Then, with a lurch, the lift lifted off. The compartment swayed and spun alarmingly, throwing Zak back against a wall and shifting the heap of bodies first one way and then another. Feeble cries of fear and yelps of panic issued.

  Adorabella managed to utter, “The wind-spirits ...” before being buried under her fellow colonists.

  The swinging grew wilder and wilder as the lift rose higher and higher and veered off at speed, away from their rooftop landing site. Zak could see the whole of Botany Base through the window as their route took them in a wide arc around the buildings and towards the rear. Just as hope began to make a welcome appearance in their minds, there was an ear-shattering crack.

  And suddenly they were falling again.

  Panic escalated, but the fall lasted only a moment. For the second time that day, the lift crashed with considerable force and, once again, the scientists lost their glasses.

  *

  With the emergency lights having failed, the only illumination came from the tiny viewing window. What Zak saw through it was enough to make his bowels squeak.

  “Don’t move any part of your anatomy or there’ll be a Martian catastrophe,” he spoke, his voice slow and quiet. “The Mish Comm’s cable must’ve snapped and we’re now teetering on the edge of a cliff. One false move and this tin puppy’s on an express train to Rockybottom Canyon.”

  Brian fumbled for his glasses and, as he did so, the lift tipped terrifyingly to one side.

  “I said don’t move, man!”

  Brian froze. His son, Tarquin, opened his eyes and turned weakly to Delphinia. “Mummy, the same thing happened in Thunderbirds.”

  “Really, lamb chop? How did the Thunderbirds rescue them?”

  “I never saw the end. You recorded Coronation Street over it.”

  Gavin stirred and half sat up. “Nah, man. Dis iz jus’ like that movie wiv Michael Caine in it, innit. Italian Jobby, or somefing. The robbers woz at one end of a lorry on da edge of a cliff, like, wiv the gold bars at da uvver. Know what I’m sayin’? And da gold iz sliding out the back and tippin’ the lorry an’ da robbers can’t grab it, like, or it’ll tip right over.”

  “What happened?” asked Tarquin.

  “Dat woz it. The end. Roll credits, innit. Big copout, if you aks me.”

  “What’s going to happen to us?”

 
; Miss Leach reached across and patted the boy on the head. “Don’t worry, little fellow. Commander Dugdale will think of something.”

  Even the lift seemed to groan at that.

  *

  Flint was standing on the helibot’s footplate, holding on for dear life as it careered about the sky. When the cable holding the lift compartment had snapped, the bot had recoiled high up into the atmosphere and was still struggling to regain control.

  “Back for chuff’s sake,” Dugdale yelled at the helibot, pointing down to where the lift was seesawing on the edge of the cliff. “Back!”

  The bot seemed either unable to hear or to understand. Flint reached his arm across to the controls and pulled first at one lever and then another. The helibot swerved wildly, threatening to tip upside down altogether, but managed to right itself once Dugdale had let go. Flint leaned back and tried more gentle pushes and touches until at last he had control.

  But by now he had veered a long way from where the lift had fallen, and was completely lost, high above the Martian desert. A glint of light caught his eye; a sunbeam, reflecting off Botany Base’s BioDome. In an instant he had turned the helibot around and was heading for the base. That, after all, was where the cameras would be recording his heroic rescue mission.

  About half way there, something else caught his eye. Something important. But the noise of the rotor blades and the buffeting of the wind made it difficult to focus his mind on anything, however important it might be. For a few moments an image of a second dome seemed to appear in the distance, amongst the rocky outcrops of the Martian surface. And then it was gone. A mirage perhaps? A trick of the light? But his mind was pulling his attention back to the rapidly approaching buildings of Botany Base and to the job at hand.

  As he swooped the helibot past the cameras on the Base, Flint waved and gave a thumbs-up before heading down towards the stricken lift.

  What he failed to allow for, or even consider, and perhaps he should have done, was the unfortunate combination of the helibot’s powerful downdraught and the lift’s delicate predicament. A sneeze might have sent it over the cliff, or a polite cough, so the vigorous whoosh of the rotor blades had the same effect as a hefty shove from a giant’s elbow. With total predictability and inevitability, over the edge went the lift.