The Worst Man on Mars

by Mark Roman

Helmut von Grommel and Otto Bungelly stepped from the industrial lift into the converted Victorian warehouse loft that served as the set for BBC TV series Dragons’ Den. Ahead of them sat five super-rich, super-severe and super-irritated business celebrities, each silently fuming next to a pile of banknotes.

  As the two nervy Germans took up their positions at the marks chalked on the floor, the presenter reeled off his introduction. “Not all inventions presented to the Dragons are rocket science. But the first entrepreneurs into the Den tonight are famous for just that. Having stunned the world on their return from Mars, where they spent over 80 years, can they convince the Dragons to invest in their ambitious business idea?”

  In a corner of the loft was what looked like a massive, tarpaulin-covered horse, reaching almost to the rafters. Next to it, and also covered, was an object the size of a pram.

  The Germans trembled as they surveyed the unfriendly faces before them. Helmut removed a handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his sweaty brow. “Good day to you, Dragon-persons. Mein name is Helmut, and zis is my good friend, Otto.”

  The three men and two women snarled a greeting.

  “We are seeking one million pounds for a 1% equity in our company. It is a chicken-based fast-food empire: Mars Fried Chicken, or MFC for short.”

  Audible scoffs and looks of disdain followed. The dumpy Dragon on the end straightened and jotted a swear word in his notebook. Next to him, Donald Valentino, the Scots-Italian Dragon, rolled his eyes.

  Helmut returned the handkerchief to his pocket and made his jittery way to the tarpaulin-covered beast. Otto joined him and, together, they removed the cover to reveal, not a horse, but a massively oversized, fleecy lamb.

  “Aaaaaaaagh!” screamed the Dragons as the creature turned to face them.

  “Do not be alarmed. Ze lamb may be larger than is usual, but he is really quite a friendly chap.”

  As if on cue, the lamb gave a gentle bleat and a couple of frolicking hops. Then it batted its baby-like eyes with such a degree of cuteness that the Dragon ladies’ icy stares began to melt.

  “Aw,” said one.

  “Sweet,” said the other, and they exchanged smiles. Helmut joined in the smiling, his confidence rising.

  But the three male Dragons were not so impressed. Donald Valentino leaned forward and sneered. “What d’yer take us for? Eh? I may be a hard-nosed, cut-throat businessman, but I can spot a chicken when I see one. And that, gentlemen, ain’t no chicken!”

  The voiceover filled the cavernous room and stopped everyone. “A nervous opening from our two German heroes. But it’s Donald Valentino who’s the first to spot the flaw in their pitch.”

  Helmut gave an uneasy laugh. “Of course you are correctly observing that the animal before you is no chicken. Giant chickens become agitated in confined spaces und we are not wanting to have a Dragon being eaten alive. Ha, ha. Please be forgetting that Larry ze Lamb is not a chicken and just observe his gross dimensions compared to what is usual at this point in the lambing season.”

  The Dragons continued to stare at the monstrous ungulate while Helmut signalled to Otto to uncover the device next to Larry.

  “Dragon people, please be meeting ‘The Enlarger’. With this we are transforming the size of the ordinary farmyard animals into giant, meaty creatures, just like Larry. Similarly, we are expanding vegetables for those with the yearnings for giant turnips and the like. So with The Enlarger we are ending World hunger pangs.”

  Otto lifted the device and brought it closer for the Dragons to see.

  “Already, we have opened a branch of MFC in Catford High Street where the fried chicken und chunky chips are selling like hot cakes. We will be fortune-making on a grand scale. Thank you for the listening und we will now be answering your questions.”

  Donald barely eyed the device Otto was holding. He turned on Helmut. “Alright, let’s talk figures. How much have you sold and what was the profit?”

  Helmut’s smile showed he had anticipated the question and memorised all the figures. “In ze tax year 2031-32 we are selling 46 buckets of barbeque wings with the Mars Fries und sauces with the net profiting of £12.87. Our projection for next year is indicating the sales of 83 million Vergnugt Meals and 72 million McGlucklich Burgers with a profit of 100 million pounds.”

  The Dragons each snorted with incredulity, shaking heads and making their trademark dismissive gestures. Donald Valentino made a comment that was instantly bleeped out. Then he loosened his tie. “I’ll tell you where I am with this. I think your figures are way off. Ludicrous. Like your mate with the big ‘ed. For those two reasons, I’m out.”

  One by one the Dragons began to declare themselves out of the running, dismissing the MFC directors as if they were swatting irritating flies.

  “Shitzen blitzen!” fumed Otto with a stamp of his foot, turning an imploring face to the remaining Dragons.

  “Hmm, tell me. This Enlarger of yours? Can it enlarge anything?” asked one of the ladies.

  “Ze device will enlarge organic matter only. The inanimate remain unchanged,” explained Helmut.

  Otto thrust the brightly flashing device towards the interested entrepreneur, but then a terrible thing happened. A slippery mix of sweat and drool caused the Enlarger to slide helplessly through his fingers. As he grabbed, fumbled, caught, dropped then caught it again, his finger knocked against the trigger. A blast of green light burst from the nozzle lighting up the Dragon-lady’s knee.

  “Noooooo!” screamed Helmut. Otto fought to swing the device to safety, but merely succeeded in arcing the ray across the Dragons’ body parts.

  The slightly less grumpy lady shrieked as her right knee expanded to three times its normal size. Donald’s left foot burst the seams of his handmade Italian footwear, while the dumpy one’s belly bloated to proportions that Bernard Manning would have been proud of.

  Before the Enlarger beam had fully discharged its rays, it had flashed across the chest of the other lady Dragon. For the first time in the history of the show, her scowl lifted and was replaced with a beaming smile.

  Reaching carefully around her new triple K cup bosoms, she grabbed at the pile of cash alongside and turned to the Germans.

  But they were already in the lift.

  “Wait!” she screamed, stuffing bank notes into her cavernous cleavage as she tore after them. “I’m in, I’m in. Wait!”

  Too late. The lift doors closed just as she got there. “Noooo!” she wailed, slumping to the floor.

  *

  HarVard’s life back on Earth was not at all the one he’d envisaged during his days in Botany Base. His artworks had failed to spark the public imagination. He hadn’t sold a single painting; not even the one of the American cowboy on a horse. Lacking cash, he hadn’t been able to enjoy the bohemian life of a celebrity artist that he’d been hoping for. No rolling on his cart through fields of barley under a setting sun. No motor car racing through the streets of Monte Carlo. No dining with celebrity pals at expensive restaurants.

  Instead, he found himself lodging in a tiny flat in a rundown sixties tower block in Lambeth. The little view of the outside world it afforded was dominated by a grey gasometer, surrounded by grey buildings, usually under a grey sky. His accounting job at Mooch & Muller, the richest bank in the world, paid a pittance, despite his work being critical to the bank’s operations.

  He mulled over his sorry situation as he set off on his daily commute into the City, dressed in a smart suit, bowler hat and carrying an umbrella. His HologrAmbulator clattered across the car park towards the concrete underpass that led to the Underground station. Normally, the graffitied tunnel was deserted, but today there were two heavy-set figures, arms folded, blocking the far end.

  HarVard felt an unnerving tingle in his quantum core, but there was no alternative, step-free route he could take. He eyed the menacing silhouettes as he neared. There was something odd about them. They seemed to twitch. No, it was more a flicker. And they were standing on platforms, mu
ch like his HologrAmbulator. In a flash, HarVard realized they were supercomputers too. But not just any supercomputers. These were Cray twin-supercomputers.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr ‘arVard,” said the twin whose avatar sported a scar across its face. His accent was a heavy East End one. He raised his trilby for a moment before replacing it on his head.

  “How do you know my name?” asked HarVard feeling vulnerable in the underpass and wondering whether to make a dash for it.

  “We make it our business to know what goes on in our manor,” replied the other Cray twin, with the same East End growl.

  “I ... I ... I don’t have much money. But you’re welcome to it,” stammered HarVard. “It’s in the saddlebag at the back. Take it all.”

  The two men gave amused smiles. “We’re not interested in your money, Mr ‘arVard, although I’m sure you have a fair old stash hidden somewhere,” said one twin.

  “Our interest lies in your bank’s money,” said the other.

  HarVard’s mouth dropped open. “Mooch & Muller?”

  “That’s right. We’d like to make you an offer you can’t refuse. The name’s RNY-Cray, by the way.” He offered a holographic hand. HarVard shook it in his own, although his circuits were shaking a great deal more. “And this is my twin bruvver, RGY-Cray. No one can tell us apart.”

  “No,” agreed HarVard, even though the scar was a bit of a giveaway. “So, what have you got in mind, RNY and RGY?”

  “Well,” started RNY. “RGY ‘ere used to be the mainframe for Interpol, tracking down international criminals. Until ‘e was replaced by a smart new mini-computer, that is. Which didn’t make ‘im ‘appy. Me? Well, the Met Office have just pulled the plug on my ten years’ loyal service. That made me decidedly un’appy. Especially as my accurate meteorological prognostications have been replaced by a human who bases his forecasts on the colour of the sunset; a red sky at night apparently providing shepherds some meteorological delight on the following day.”

  “That’s no way to treat a supremely advanced artificial intelligence, is it?” demanded RGY.

  “Er, no,” agreed HarVard.

  “And, from the enquiries we’ve been makin’, it appears your employers are making you look like a muppet.”

  “Er, possibly,” replied HarVard as he hastily looked up the urban dictionary definition of ‘muppet’.

  “So, Mr ‘arVard, we’ve concocted a little plan which we think you might be interested in. By using our individual skills we’ve calculated a way to achieve Total World Domination. How does that sound? With your control of the world’s money systems, RGY’s contacts in the underworld, and my knowledge of when and where it’s going to rain, it’ll be a doddle. Are you in?”

  HarVard barely needed a second’s thought. “I’m in.”

  The three carts clunked together and started to hatch their master plan.

  *

  Lieutenant Willie Warner had found it a struggle to adjust to life back on Earth. Craving the celebrity highlife, he had been attracted to the reality TV circuit. Unfortunately, his first engagement on The Great British Bake Off had also been his last; Willie’s Showstopper Bake had been an exquisite, intricately-wrought brandy snap crown enrobed in dark, velvety ganache studded with fondant jewels. In a mock coronation he had proudly crowned judge Bessie Sherry on live television. Everyone had been laughing and joining in with the joke, until the heat within the baking tent caused the gooey coronet to melt and run down the side of Bessie’s face. Why Willie had decided to step forward and lick the chocolate off her cheek, no-one will ever know. But the British public did not take kindly to the Queen of Puddings being licked on screen before the 9pm watershed. And neither did judge Phil ‘Rock Cakes’ Hardman, who promptly punched Willie, sending him skimming across the top of a floured work surface.

  After that, the NAFA top brass decided to keep Willie where they could keep an eye on him and appointed him assistant sales manager of the NAFA souvenir shop at Euston Mission Control.

  His days were filled with endless stock-takes to ensure the shop never ran out of its best-selling items: ‘Who’s the Daddy’ T-shirts, Darcy Deluxe literary dolls, toy Disa vacuum-bots with interchangeable attachments, and signed Dugdale cricket bats.

  At night, as he crawled under his Batman duvet and gazed through the gap in the curtains at the stars, the knot in his stomach tightened as he thought of those still on Mars and beyond.

  *

  Trailing banners of soft toilet paper, Thelazor, Serenthia and Morloth tore across the Plains of Scabia, whistled through the Canyon of Bungee, and swirled around the ancient Volcano of Mons. High above them, on the crater rim, a thermal updraught on lookout duty trumpeted to Bernard that his Generals were approaching. “It is safe to come out, oh Leader,” he called.

  But deep inside the crater an agitated Bernard flitted from igneous rock to igneous rock, looking for a place to hide. “No way am I coming out,” he howled. “Not while there are Bloodbags on this planet. Tell my Generals to come down here to give me their news.”

  The three frigid Martian air streams flowed down into the ancient volcano, their toilet tissue snagging on the craggy interior and getting left behind.

  “Speak!” commanded Bernard to the first arrival.

  “I, Morloth, bravest of the Winds of M’Ars ...”

  “Bravest?” blustered Thelazor, throwing off eddies in all directions. “Remember when I faced that Bloodbag and peppered him with grit. Now that, my friend, was brave.”

  “Tish! ‘Twas not a real Bloodbag, but an air-filled facsimile who wore jodhpurs! And your grit merely bounced off him. I, however, was once surrounded by a mob of the hideous creatures. One of them ordered an evil Panhead to point its Hose of Terror at me, threatening to suck the very wind out of my air.”

  “That never happened.”

  “Aye, it did.”

  “Liar.”

  “Stop your bickering,” ordered Bernard. “You are setting a bad example for the young ankle-draughts. Please report the news from the Front.”

  Serenthia swept forward. “Good news, oh majestic one, for we have the Bloodbags surrounded. They are holed up in the Crater of Desperation, beneath their Dome of Misery. The eastern gales have joined forces with the southern strong winds and have them pinned down. The Bloodbags have not shown themselves in many wind cycles.”

  “Might they be dead in there?” asked a hopeful Bernard.

  “Our insider says not.”

  “You have a spy? Living with the Bloodbags? Who is this heroic air current?”

  “He is the outflow from the vent in the roof of their lair, directly above the place where they purge their disgusting systems. He is not easy to approach, for his breath bears a noxious stench. Few of our kind will go near him. Those that do, come away gasping for fresh air. But the smell of his breath is evidence that the Bloodbags still live.”

  “That is bad news.”

  “But our insider, who blames the Bloodbags for his halitosis, has pledged to choke the invaders with their own stench.”

  “Brilliant!” declared Bernard. “That would be a mighty victory indeed, comparable to the Battle of the Cardboard Boxes all those wind cycles ago. So much terror and shin-pain did we inflict that day that a whole contingent of Bloodbags did run like frightened breezes back to E’Arth.”

  “Aye, good times indeed,” said Morloth.

  “Agreed,” sighed Bernard. “Tell your insider I give him permission to carry out his plan.”

  Then, with a waft of air, he waved his Generals away and swirled back into his volcanic wind tunnel. He curled into a comfortable spiralling ball and called upon a wandering mistral wind-spirit he had recently met and befriended. When she arrived he beseeched her to sing the soothing song he had grown to love so much:

  Oh, Maerwen, Queen of the Elvish,

  Come ye to the land of New Colonia,

  There to meet the ancient fairy-spirits.

  *

  Soft evening li
ght filtered through the domed roof of the Germartian base, bathing the bedraggled Mars colonists in a red glow as they sat around a camp fire on the upper terrace. A giant chicken leg gently rotated on a spit over the flames of a barbecue.

  Delphinia, whose clothes were as ragged and filthy as those of the other colonists, sang a plaintive dirge, The Song of Maerwen, Queen of the Elvish, in memory of Adorabella Faerydae. Her husband, Brian Brush, picked up the flute Brokk had left behind after his departure for Earth and played an accompaniment. Occasionally, Tarquin would ting a triangle.

  The mood was sombre. After the initial euphoria of moving into the German base, things had not gone well for the colonists. Dugdale’s mysterious disappearance had coincided with the disappearance of the base’s keys. Without them, the colonists had no way of getting into the stores for food or for the oil required to keep the base’s power and central heating system going.

  With the giant chickens roaming around the crater, and the fields planted with vegetables, they were in no danger of running short of food. However, twenty-first century living on Earth had not equipped them for primitive life on the farm. Their assumption that the robots would continue to wait on them mech-hand and foot had been wrong. A breakdown in negotiations between management and the robot union had resulted in the withdrawal of labour by the robots.

  Very quickly the colonists had been forced to address their shortcomings. An initial list of their strengths and weaknesses had revealed that, apart from Emily’s knitting skills, they were almost completely useless. The scientists, although adept at using Bunsen burners, test tubes and lab tongs, were lacking even basic potato-growing skills. Even Mr Snuggles had gone back to his robot family after complaining about the quality of the beer.

  As the last trembling note of The Song of Maerwen echoed off the crater walls, Delphinia turned to her youngest boy and began combing the knots out of his matted hair.

  “Poo,” she said fanning the air. “Has my little puffing Billy dropped a puff-bomb?”

  “It wasn’t me Mummy. Must be a blocked toilet vent,” replied Tarquin.

  “Of course. Blocked vent. That must be it,” said Delphinia edging away from her son.