by Mark Roman
“With no wind or gravity to hold us back we reached Mars as quick as sticks and made landings in the humble little crater we call home. Once we had found a cave in the wall of the crater we are hanging Hansie’s long-johanns in the corner to supply the air. Six months laters, Otto’s belly-bun popped and out came a mewling and puking sprog – Andy Marsman, the first boy to be born on Mars.
“One thing that was surprising me about Otto; despite his brains, he was permanently looking over his shoulder for the little bald grey mens with big eyes. To this day he is still expecting them to be jumping out of the woodwork und cave his head in with a rock.”
*
Having finished his story, Helmut folded his hands on the table and gazed across at Flint who had occasionally dozed off during the tale.
“That’s the biggest loada tosh I’ve ever ’eard,” Dugdale said.
“It is all true,” assured Helmut. “Apart from the bits I just made up.” This last comment was muttered under his breath, but Dugdale was no longer listening anyway. His mind was mulling over a matter of far greater importance. “1947, you say?”
“Ja.”
“That means I wasn’t the First Man on Mars?”
Helmut was shaking his head, his lips pressed tight. “Not even close.”
“I’ll ‘ave to settle for First Englishman on Mars, then.”
But still Helmut was shaking his head.
“Friggin’ Nora. I must be,” insisted Flint. “You old codgers are all German and ‘appen Andy Marsman were born on Mars – makin’ ‘im a Mars man.”
“You are forgetting ze stowaway we are having on board. Philip Barnsley.”
Dugdale stiffened. “Don’t tell me he were English.”
“Ja, a work experience lad of fifteen. We were finding him dossing down in ze luggage compartment of the Grommelsaucer.”
Dugdale’s shoulders sagged. “Alright,” he sighed. “Well at least I were t’First Yorkshireman on Mars.”
Helmut gave a slight grimace.
“Oh, bollockin’ ‘eck. First Man from ‘Uddersfield then?”
Still Helmut was grimacing, causing Dugdale to look more disturbed than ever. “Where in ‘Uddersfield were he from?”
“The East part. Quay Street.”
Dugdale leaned forward in even greater distress. “Which number?”
“Forty-three.”
“Oh, for frack’s sake! I live at piggin’ 45. Right next door!” He looked up at the ceiling and threw up his hands.
“So sorry, Herr Kapitan. You are now jogging my memory. It was not 43, it was number 45. Perhaps your grandparents are knowing him.”
“Eight bloggin’ months of sheer ‘ell for nowt!”
Helmet tried to put a consoling hand on Dugdale’s, but Dugdale snatched his away. “Where is this Philip Barnsley. ‘Appen I want a word wi’ ‘im.”
“I am afraid that will not be possible,” said Helmut with a sad bow of the head. “He died after only three days on Mars. We buried him. His gravestone says: ‘First Man on Mars from 45 Quay Street, Huddersfield, England, UK’.”
*
Helmut’s departure left Dugdale reeling, mostly because he’d just discovered worldwide fame and glory weren’t going to be his.
But, also, there was something troubling him about the whole encounter with the German. Something was nagging at him, but he couldn’t place his finger on it. He replayed the whole episode from the moment he had first set eyes on Helmut. Something of significance had happened in the entrance hall with the robots.
He remembered Helmut handing out the nuts and washers. No, that wasn’t it. Then the little magic trick with Disa. Nor that, either. And then he recalled the scene when warehousebot Olli had handed the German a jar of gherkins and been generously rewarded for it. Yes, it was something to do with that little vignette.
Dugdale played that scene over and over again. And then, in a flash, he had it. He shot up with a roar, thumping his sore skull against the ceiling. “Those twerkin’ robots,” he fumed. “They’ve been trading all our food to the Germans for friggin’ ironmongery! No wonder the Food Store’s completely empty.”
21. Mutiny on the Botany
Outside the entrance to Botany Base three very miserable-looking robots stamped their mechanical feet and rubbed their mechanical hands to prevent joints seizing up in the cold of the Martian morning. They stood around a burning oil drum fuelled by broken furniture. Greedy flames leapt from the roaring fire towards the airlock door, feeding off the escaping oxygen hissing from the poorly fitted seals. Propped against the base’s wall were several placards with various misspelt slogans scrawled in red.
Warehousebot Olli jerked his head back in bewilderment.
The third of the robots, floor-polishing bot Cassie, said,
Olli’s composite face cracked a broad smile.
Cassie and Stan exchanged glances.
<... all the robots are inside the Base,> finished Cassie.
Olli now had a huge grin splitting the segments of his face.
*
HarVard had summoned Tude to his super-cooled, super-cool, supercomputing room.
Tude studied the images.
Tude shrugged and began picking at a blob of dried cement stuck to his body shell.
There was a huge frown on his usually taciturn face.
Then an idea struck him.
A wireless search of Botany Base’s extensive software apps Library soon turned up something that seemed to fit the bill: ‘Industrial Unrest: The Arthur Scargill Way’. Despite the warning notices, he downloaded and installed the software, skimming the instruction manual and further warning notices without taking any of it in. But then his attention was caught by the image of the man who was the inspiration for the app. Tude focused on it long and hard. What impressed him most was the fine head of wiry ginger hair that seemed to billow out from one side of the head and across the top to the other side. He stroked his own bare metallic pate and studied his reflection in a glass wall panel.
a wink at himself, Tude headed towards the base’s entrance, ready to face the militants.
*
No sooner had Tude emerged from the airlock than a gust of wind crept under his ginger wire-piece and flipped it in the opposite direction to leave it dangling over his shoulder, his shiny scalp naked once more. Stan and Olli stifled an electronic snigger, and even the breeze seemed to be laughing. Cassie stared at the orange tangle with a mixture of fascination and horror.
Olli shuffled forward to take charge of the negotiations, still unable to focus his optics away from the orange thing on Tude’s head.
Tude stared at the placards with undisguised perplexity.
Stan and Olli nodded vigorously in agreement.
Tude raised an appendage to halt the flow of complaints, but then seemed to freeze, as though undergoing a reboot. The Scargill App had stirred to life within his circuits. Something in the situation, and the language of the militant workers, and the sight of the placards and burning oil drum, had triggered it into action. In a matter of moments, the app was in full control of Tude’s positronic network. he started.
For a full twenty minutes the four robots stood in the wind while they pinged encrypted messages between one another, their comms lights flashing in perfect synchrony.
Deep inside his supercomputing sanctuary, HarVard viewed, with suspicion, the huddled group.
*
As Tude made his way back from the picket line, HarVard contemplated the likely mind-set of the foreman bot and how best to pre-empt any potential confrontation. A strategic selection of avatar was in order. So, just before Tude’s arrival, the holo-image of a formidable-looking woman gradually materialized in the room. At first glance one might have mistaken it for the former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, but a closer look would have revealed it to have a far closer resemblance to a latex puppet version of the same lady, complete with glowing evil eyes and fat cigar held between fat fingers. The image puffed out a cloud of holo-smoke.
“Come!” she called in response to the knock on the door, her high-timbre voice laden with layer upon layer of menace and bubbling anger.
Tude entered, his ginger comb-over back in place. The sight of the Thatcher avatar caused a ripple of unease to pass through his controlling app. He closed the door behind him and tried to steady his trembling metalwork.
“Sit!” commanded Thatcher’s harsh masculine voice.
Sitting was an action Tude was not well equipped for. To add further difficulty, the single chair in HarVard’s supercomputing room was tiny. By the time Tude had squeezed his bottom panel onto the cushioned leather seat, his head was only just visible above the top of the desk in front of him. The robot nervously swept his clumpy metal fingers through his wire mop to make sure it was completely covering his shiny skull, but only managed to get his fingers tangled, ripping out several ginger strands as he struggled to free them.
“Now then, Tude, what is this ridiculous problem with the workers?” The eyes blazed like burning coals.
“Three,” pointed out Thatcher.
Thatcher puffed out another cloud of smoke. “Go on.”
“And just what are these demands?”
Tude was in his stride now, no longer nervous, ready to do industrial battle, the app fully in charge.
As Tude listed the demands, HarVard noted a steely look in the robot’s optics that had never been there before. Even the imposing image of Maggie Thatcher was not weakening his resolve. If he were to outwit Tude he’d need to find a way of wrong-footing him.
<… maternity leave, paternity leave, use of the five-a-side pitch in the evenings and at weekends …>
The Thatcher hologram morphed into a horse, still smoking the cigar.
<… oil-drilling rights on Mars, a snooker table, colouring crayons for tiny Timi the flue-cleaning bot …>
Tude hadn’t batted a lens cap at the horse, so HarVard tried again. A lettuce. Nothing. A chimpanzee playing a banjo while sitting on Father Christmas’s knee. Not even a stutter.
<… a basketball team coach, balloons, a belly-dancing robot ...>
HarVard had an idea. A large can of Castrol GTX gear-oil gradually materialised in mid-air. At last this made Tude stutter and his lens shutters widen.
This was the break in concentration HarVard had been looking for; a gap in the Scargill App firewall. Within a nanosecond the supercomputer had wirelessly transmitted a Trojan horse routine that wormed its way into Tude’s central cortex and initiated a full reboot up the backside control system, uninstalling the Scargill App and clearing Tude’s RAM. Moments later, Tude found himself facing a kindly-looking android in the supercomputing room, wondering how he had got there.
“Ah, Tude,” said the android with a warm smile. “Just the robot I needed to see. Would you mind being a dear and popping outside the base to tell Stan, Olli and Cassie that, if they don’t return to work immediately, they’ll be reassigned as an electronic leaf-sucker, a fizzy-drink vending machine and a toilet air-purifier.”
“No, I think that’ll do for now. Off you pop.”
Tude turned to leave.
“Oh, one last thing. You seem to have an orange bird’s nest on your head. You might care to remove it as it looks positively ridiculous.”
*
Outside, the three robots were running out of furniture to put on the fire and, as the flames began to subside, were becoming chilled to their core processors. From around the corner of the building appeared Timi, the tiny flue-cleaning bot.
Timi waved a greeting as he approached.
The others returned his wave, but as he made to pass between them, they shuffled up to block his path. Timi looked surprised.
repeated Stan, leaning over the small bot.
Timi looked at each of them in turn and could see they meant business. But he didn’t have time to worry about employment rights and strikes; he had a job to do and he was late. The little bot feigned a step to the right causing Olli to attempt to block his path. But, being nippy, Timi swerved to the left and darted between Cassie and Stan towards the airlock door. Stan shook his ‘Robots Я Peeple 2’ placard at him, but it was too late, Timi had slipped inside the base.
*
No sooner had the airlock door closed, than it opened again to reveal the shiny head of the site foreman bot.
Tude’s head popped back in, and the airlock door closed once more.
The three stared at it silently for a full minute.
Olli looked appalled.
said Cassie.
Both Stan and Olli tilted their tin heads to the right in puzzlement.