The Worst Man on Mars

by Mark Roman

  Dugdale stood, watching. The airlock door swished open and the excitement of the bots increased a hundredfold. They now resembled a crowd of teenage girls greeting the entrance of their favourite pop idol. But he couldn’t see anything to get excited about. All he could see was one of HarVard’s avatars. And not a very interesting one at that: a man in a spacesuit. The man removed his helmet to reveal a wrinkly old face and a head of white hair. He placed the helmet on the hat-stand by the door.

  Something about that simple action struck Flint as wrong. If the man was a holographic image, how had he managed to remove an undeniably solid object and place it on another undeniably solid object?

  And then he realized what was wrong. The shock made him stagger backwards until his feet encountered an obstruction in the shape of Cassie who was waxing the floor. Flint sat down with a bump, crumpling the robot’s casing. He stared at the old man. This was no hologram. This was a real human being. Solid, alive, and here!

  The man, who had been waving both his hands at each of the robots, shaking some of their appendages, throwing kisses to others, glanced up and noticed Flint. He gave Dugdale a wave and made his way towards the stunned commander through the sea of robots, which parted as their Messiah walked through.

  Flint’s heart was pounding as the man approached. “Who the ‘ell are you?” he croaked.

  The man cracked a smile. After removing his gloves, he reached out to offer his right hand to Flint. It was cold and clammy, like a dead cod. Then, with a heavy German accent, the mysterious visitor spoke, “So very pleased to be making your acquaintance. Mein name is Helmut von Grommel. You must be Kapitan Dugdale, about you HarV has told me much.”

  “Where the chuff did you come from?”

  “I live three craters to the north of here. Along viz a few of my buddies we set up a small farming community some years ago. It is not much but I like to think of it as mein camp. I was noticing your dare-devil aerial acrobatics in ze sky yesterday, so I was thinking how nice to be popping over and meet ze new neighbours.”

  Dugdale remained seated on the small bot, his mouth opening and closing like a guppy fish. Cassie, hunched under Dugdale’s weight, peered sheepishly from between his knees.

  Helmut gave Dugdale a big smile. “We must chat in a moment and be getting to know each other betters. I vill explain all laters but first I am distributing the gifts I am bringing for my favourite robonautens.”

  Helmut shoved his bony hand into one of his spacesuit pockets and pulled out a brown paper bag filled with shiny wing-nuts and assorted washers.

  “Look vhat I have for you today,” he said, waving the open bag in front of the eager crowd which swayed, following the movement of his hand.

  One by one he carefully plucked out the sparkly fastenings and placed them into the outstretched claws, pincers and hooks. To Flint’s ear, the heightened robotic chatter made them sound like giggling schoolgirls. Flint saw Olli, his erstwhile darts opponent, offer up the jar of gherkins to Helmut.

  The old man gave a look of delight. “For me?” He took the jar and stuffed it into his pocket. “For that, you are getting ze extra present.” He tipped a number of silver metal washers into Olli’s open palm. Olli retreated to a far wall and greedily examined his haul.

  Then Helmut spotted the diminutive Disa who, unable to fight her way through the bigger bots, was spinning in circles of frustration. “Und who is this pretty little glocken-spoodle?”

  A hush fell in the room as the workerbots cast jealous glances at what they took to be Helmut’s new favourite. Disa stopped spinning, hung her curly mop head and bleeped coyly.

  Helmut crept toward the ladybot until he towered over her. He pulled up his spacesuit sleeve a little and showed a seemingly empty hand and length of bare arm. Delicately, he reached under her cascading mop of grey ringlets. She flinched. He hesitated. Then slowly he produced a tiny stick-man sculpture, crudely formed from ancient transistors and diodes, that had magically appeared from behind her audio flap.

  “Voila!” the old magician exclaimed as he proudly displayed the object to Disa and his awestruck audience.

  He bent down and whispered into her audio-receptor, “And this is for you, mein beautiful fraulein,” as he pinned the stick-man to her nightie.

  Her sumptuous rubber lips puckered and, confident of her new sexuality, she attempted to kiss Helmut on the cheek. But, just in time, he managed to elude the attempt. He turned to Dugdale. “Right, shall vee go somewhere quiet for our chattings?”

  The dumbstruck commander finally managed to get to his feet. “T’Conference Room,” he croaked.

  *

  By the time they reached the Conference Room, Dugdale had regained some of his composure.

  “Mind yer ‘ed,” he warned the German. “Stupid buggers built this place for fuppin’ midgets.”

  The first thing they noticed on entering the room was that the chairs had been shortened to match the reduced building size by the simple expedient of sawing 300mm off their legs. The conference table, however, hadn’t yet been adjusted. So, when they took their seats, they found themselves squatting on opposite sides of the meeting table, with only their heads visible to each other.

  “So then, Fritz,” started Dugdale. “What’s yer story? How did you get ‘ere, how long you been ‘ere?”

  “Helmut. My name is Helmut von Grommel.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Little Urn offering them tea.

  “Milk and four sugars,” barked Dugdale.

  “Just black, please, Urn,” said Helmut.

  The robot set about preparing the table, laying out a fine china tea service in front of them. He filled the teapot with ‘tea’, put ‘milk’ in the milk jug and ‘sugar’ in the sugar bowl. Then he poured the two teas, spooning in four sugars for Dugdale and adding his milk. Using a pair of silver tongs, he placed a pink ‘fondant fancy’ on each man’s plate. They looked delicious, made as they were from glazing putty, coloured a hot pink colour, and decorated with tiny ball-bearings. Satisfied at a job well done, Little Urn gave a beep and trundled off.

  Dugdale could hardly wait to get his teeth stuck into his fondant fancy and take a swig of his tea, but Helmut raised a warning hand to stop him. “I vouldn’t eat the cake. It is for sure that it vill kill you. And what a horrible death it vill be. As for the tea…. just no.”

  “Serious?”

  “Ja. But why not be coming to our place for the teas. Real tea, with real milk und real sugar. And cakes to die for.”

  Dugdale perked up at the sound of that.

  “And were you enjoying the pumpernickel bread?”

  “That were from you?”

  “Ja, a little welcome to Mars gift. You can have more when you come. Anyway, now, I am telling you my story.” Helmut made himself as comfortable as he could on the uncomfortable chair. He rested his arms on the table top and started, “We are coming from Earth in the year 1947 ...”

  “Like bollocks you are,” objected Dugdale.

  “It is true, Herr Commander. We were the cracking team of German rocket scientists in ze U, S of A.”

  Dugdale was shaking his head. “That’d make yer about hundred ‘n ten.”

  “Jawohl, mein Kapitan, one hundred und nine to be precise. Life on Mars is good for ze complexion. Let me continue viz my story…..’

  Flint stared at him as the old man told a tale almost beyond belief.

  20. Helmut’s Story

  “I was born in 1920 in Vockhof, Germany, a tiny village located on the main road from Fahrtenlinger to Plonkk. I was the youngest of nineteen boys and mein farter was a chicken man. He kept eine large costume in the cupboard under the stairs and dressed up as poultry for children’s parties, corporate chicken farming exhibitions, und sometimes, even the silent movies. Still I remember with fondness, ze madcap capers of papa, alongside Buster Klinsman, being chased by those crazy Krazy Kops.

  “Then, one day, a fox crept in through an open window and
made off with papa’s chicken suit. After this my farter tried his best to find work. But, alas, a chicken impersonator lacking ze feathers und beak is just a man with a peculiar walk, bobbing ze head and making the clucking noises. He found his services no longer in demand and so, to avoid the constant hen peckings of my mutter, he topped himself.

  “Winning the family bread was now the role for mein mutter, Brunhilda von Grommel. Fortunately, Panzer Inc, the tank guys, were just opening a new factory outlet at the endings of our road, und mama was employed as a welder. ‘Bring us home something from your workings’, we would all cry out as she went off to work. Und sure enough, every day, a turret panel or, perhaps, a caterpillar track link, she would bring for us to play. Happy days!

  “My first memory of Otto Bungelly – who you vill meet when you come over – was in ze playground of Vockhof Primary School. I spotted him playing with his conkers. Even then it was obvious there was something making ziss boy different from ze other eight year olds. Firstly, his conker was a 3,986er. So hard it was, that diamond scratchings left no trace. Secondly, he was 6’2” tall and sported a thick bushy beard. We were friends from the off, und sat next to each other for every lesson.

  “But, more remarkable than his size, was Otto’s brilliant mind. Laters, in a drunken moment, he told me that he was a love-child. His mutter was eine Flapper girl from Berlin und his farter was a long-haired Zurich poly student named Einstein. Not ze really famous Einstein with all the crazy blackboard scribblings. No, this was Albert’s smarter bruder, Colin. For sure, the brilliant Einstein family had rubbed themselves off into Otto’s DNA.

  “It was clear that mein friend was destined for ze stars – or at least ze planets – and, if I did not do something, I would be left behind with all the other Bozos. I am not proud to admit ziss, but right here, I am making a confessing: during the school examinations I copied Otto’s answers!

  “On ze shirt tails of my best friend, I was lifted to the Frankfurter School of Rocket Science. But, soon after, our government got involved in a mix up over an invitation from our Polish neighbours. Und a bit of a kerfuffle broke out. Otto and I were dispatched to the Natzy-Patzy Firework Company where we were asked to make special rockets only to be used at the Führer’s birthday parties. A very giggly Gestapo guy told us they were to be kept top secret so as not to spoil his birthday surprise.

  “So good was Otto at concocting rockets to loop-the-loop and spread sparkles across the night sky, that he was seconded to a secret underground facility located in the old mine workings near the sleepy Polish village of Milkaców. Unfortunately, my name was by now linked with Otto. Und so my fate was sealed. Despite protestations, I was taken from my cushy blue touchpaper job and set to work in the cold, damp shithausen of Wrinklarsen.

  “They were grim, grim days. The damp played merry havocs with my arsch.

  “Then, one fine day, Otto was bursting into my bed-vault clutching a cake tin. ‘Helmy, Helmy, you must see vhat I have cooked up,’ he cried. What a state he was in, with the shakes of excitement. Whatever could be ze matter? I knew of his experimentations with his grandmutter’s special cake recipe. As he eased open the cake tin lid, you could be knocking me over with the feather. Granny Bungelly’s lighter-than-air cakes were exactly that. By some miracle, pink, lemon and chocolate fondant fancies floated free from earthly restraints; Otto had hit upon an anti-gravity recipe!

  “This discovery might very well have changed the course of the war. Unfortunately for the German nation, his discovery came on the very day of our surrenderings, so flying tanks made of cake-mix were never seen over ze streets of London.

  “Instead, while we waited for the arrival of the Americans, Otto and I became famous for our crazy practical jokings. What fun we had smearing raw cake mixture over ze sandwich boxes und pencil cases of our fellow rocket scientists; the expressions of wonder on their little nerdy faces as they opened their satchels during the lunching break, sandwiches und protractors floating into the air. The laughings nearly split our sides. That Otto ... what a jokemeister!

  “The months that followed, however, were bleak. And, just as the lights began to dim and fightings broke out over the last two tins of sardines, mine-shaft rumblings were heard. Above us the American Sherman tanks had arrived, sending showers of coal dust over our abandoned experimentations. Und, after the dust, the hootings and hollerings. I shall never forget the cigar-smoking, pistol-toting, General Hiram J. Hackenpacker III bursting into the shaft, yelling ‘Yippee-ki-yay’ and shooting his guns into the air. Ze rocket guys were all over him like a rash, for the bubble-gum sticks and poly-nylon underwear. But the General did not fancy ze utter scientists, he only was having the eyes for Otto and myself. I don’t mind telling you our heads were turned with his big talk of a future in Nevada, near the bright lights of Las Vegas and the ‘All you can eat for ein dollar’ diners.

  “I remember that time so clearly; our hearts joy-filled with anticipations of working for the good guys. We were off to stuff our boots with the American Dreams. Hot diggerty-hund, Otto was so excited! He spent the whole aeroplane journey furiously fingering the sales brochure for the brand new Kaiser Firebird motor car. This was the vehicle he had set his heart on buying. But, imagine our dismay, as we flew over ze Big Dipper und slot machines of Vegas and away into the desert to a hellhole so unremarkable it had no name, other than ‘Area 51’.

  “Two other great guys playing a part in my story are Hansie Wankmüller and Andy Marsman. Hansie was ze caretaker of the aircraft hangar where we were assigned. He handed us a set of hangar keys and an envelope marked ‘Top Secret’. Inside were twenty crisp green buckeroos, a book of luncheon vouchers and our instructions: ‘BUILD A FLYING SAUCER’. In no time Otto cobbled together a miniature prototype from an upturned car hubcap and a plastic light shade he found in a pile of hangar junk. With a soft centre of special cake stuffings he glued the pieces together. And there it was, floating before our eyes, a flying saucer, forward thrust delivered by a twisty rubber band and lolly stick propeller.

  “Scaling up this small model proved tricky. But the many years I had spent watching mama welding tank panels had not been wasted and at last I could make a real contribution to the von Grommel & Bungelly brand. I set to work with an oxyacetylene torch and built a glorious new craft.

  “Finally, on the 7th July 1947, ze top knobs with the big wigs gathered for the test flight. With Otto at the controls and me in charge of tensioning the elastic band propulsion, we took off, right in front of our brassy topped audience. From the glass dome, on top of the saucer, we could see the astonishment on their faces. Up, down und side to side we careered over the desert. The Grommelsaucer Mk1 was a great success with the knobs, und our funding was increased sufficiently to allow the replacement of the elastic band with a Rolls Royce Aristocrat IV jet engine. What a difference this was making. The Grommelsaucer MkII moved like greased scheisse off a shovel.

  “But, unbeknown to me, Otto had developed a disturbing new interest.

  “One fine morning, in late September, I noticed he was looking very peaky and under the spotlight of cross-examination he began spilling his guts. A wayward experiment with cross-gender pollination had left a belly-bun in Otto’s oven und ze bulge was already beginning to show. What a disaster! The Yankees would never tolerate a pregnant chap on the books, flying saucer or not. Otto would, for sure, be walking the high jump and I would be left carrying ze baby. Without Otto’s brains I would be up scheisser creek without ze paddle. I confess a panic descended and we planned a dash to South America where, after the war, many of our relatives went to live.

  “In the dead of night we crept into the hangar. It was dark and spooky. Suddenly the light was on and Hansie Wankmüller, with the bleary eyes, was standing in front of us wearing only his long-johanns. He told us that Frau Wankmüller had ejected him from the family home due to his unnatural interferences with his chickens and he had ended up sleeping, with his chicks, in ze corner of the hangar. So so
rry for him we felt that we invited Hansie, along with several of his chickens and a healthy supply of chicken feed, to join our escape adventure. That very hour we all set off in the Grommelsaucer, heading to Mexico. Little did we know that we had an extra passenger on board – a stowaway!

  “For a time our escape was going swimmingly. We were full of jeerings at the feeble attempts of the Americans to catch our saucer with their antiquated flying jalopies. But, just as we were zipping over Albuquerque, New Mexico, a strange thing happened. Otto happened to glance out of the side window and almost swallowed his pipe. There, flying alongside us was another, bigger und shinier saucer, with a little grey baldy guy leering at us with huge black eyeballs. He was waving a skinny, silver-skinned, arm at us. Otto, being a friendly guy, took his hand off the wheel to return a cheery wave. Unfortunately, this momentary concentration lapse caused the Grommelsaucer to swerve into the UFO and accidentally clip the fellow’s nearside panel. Not being of superior German construction, the baldy chap’s UFO crumpled and plummeted, last seen careering toward the small town of Roswell.

  “Now we were in big doo-doo for sure. We reasoned the bug-eyed baldy man must have been a top enchilada to be owning such a nice saucer. Most probably a guy with friends in high places. South America would be no hiding place for us. So Otto grabbed his joystick and yanked it hard and we shot into orbit. With his foot firmly on the gas, and no gravity to hold us back, we flashed past the moon and out across the solar system toward Mars.

  “I bet you are thinking, ‘How could there be breathings without the air and what did they eat on their trip to Mars?’ Good questions. Well, you may not be believing this, but Hansie’s long-johanns were saving us from certain death. He never washed them, you see. And that meant they were teeming with exotic bacteria. In fact, Otto and I joked, that, if removed, they would probably wander off on their own. Ha, ha, ha. Anyway, it seems that the microscopic creatures, crawling through the fibres of his underwears, loved the chicken guano that covered the dirty caretaker. Und the more shite the bugs munched, the more oxygen they burped out. As long as we stayed close to Hansie, his long-johanns would provide sufficient oxygen for the journey. Once we overcame the stench of his body odour, it was quite cosy aboard ze Grommelsaucer and a lucky by-product of the aerobic process was a cheesy crust that was forming between Hansie’s skin and underwears. A surprisingly nutritious nibble for us to peck on and keep the wolf from ze door.