The Worst Man on Mars by Mark Roman & Corben Duke

Author:Mark Roman & Corben Duke [Roman, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Grand Mal Press
Published: 2016-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

8. No Place Like Home

It took many robots and much effort to retrieve the battered lift compartment from the bottom of the cliff and drag it across the sand to Botany Base. Tude and Dura led the sad procession to the base’s warehouse which had the only set of doors large enough to admit it. Behind them trooped a gaggle of bots, grieving at the loss of their human heroes. Gone was the chance to meet them face-to-face, to shake their hands, and take those all-important selfies. Their plans to elevate the humans onto pedestals and admire them all day long were now in tatters. The one exception was Ero, limping along with his squeaky knee-joint, beaming with a resolute cheerfulness that was anything but infectious.

In the warehouse, robots gathered around the lift with solemnly bowed heads. Tude signalled to Dom to deploy his tool for getting dead humans out of damaged lifts. The metal creaked and shrieked as Dom endeavoured to prise open the elevator doors. Finally, an abrupt hiss of air indicated that the seals had been breached and that the low pressure inside had been equalized. As the doors were forced wider and wider open, many of the assembled bots couldn’t bring themselves to look inside.

Over in a far corner of the warehouse, unaware of the dreadful significance of the noises they were hearing, the two warehouse-bots, Stan (Constancy) and Olli (Jollity), were engaged in a game of darts.

<On a break at the moment,> called out Olli, not taking his eyes off the dartboard as he aimed for double-top. <Be with you in a minute.> He lined up his throw and was about to launch his dart when a piercing screech of horror from a host of robot transmitters disrupted his concentration and sent the dart arrowing into Stan’s tin head. Olli swore and swung in fury to glare in the direction of the commotion. <Look what you made me do!> he roared. In truth, he would almost certainly have missed the dartboard. Even after five years of virtually continuous dart-play, both Stan and Olli rarely hit the target, the rash of tiny holes in the wall around the board, and in their thin metal skins, a testament to their poor aim. But for once he had an excuse and a scapegoat to vent his frustration at.

Then he noticed that not only had his domain been infiltrated by a large band of builder bots, but they had brought a big battered box with them. His electronic hackles rose. <Hold up, hold up,> he signalled, setting off at high speed towards the group. <You can’t bring that thing in here. Get it out.>

The bots turned as one to see who could be shattering the shock and sorrow of this dreadful moment.

Olli skidded to a halt before them, shaking his head and waving his arms. <No, no, no! Unauthorized objects are not allowed in here. Health and safety, health and safety. This is a sanitized area solely for food storage purposes.

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