The Worst Man on Mars
Unequal and Inapposite Reactions

Back in her cabin, Delphinia Brush was wailing in high dramatic fashion, bear-hugging Tarquin’s innocent little head to her ample bosom. “Oh, my poor little space hero.”

Tarquin struggled against his mother’s grip, unable to speak, unable to breathe.

“It’s all my fault. I should have covered your eyes sooner and spared you the horror. But I was in a state of shock. It was so awful!” Her hug tightened. “I hope you didn’t see that awful, ghastly thing, my little flapjack. If you did, try to put it out of your mind, else you’ll have nightmares; you’ll be scarred for life. Oh my God, what a terrible thought – and it’s all my fault.”

The youngster managed to release enough of a nostril to fill his empty lungs with air.

But this only made his mother hug him tighter. “Mummy’s here for you.”

Tarquin was starting to turn blue, and on the point of passing out, when Delphinia finally released him, clasping his cheeks between her chubby fingers and slapping a huge, wet kiss on his forehead.

“I’m OK, Mummy,” said Tarquin when he had regained sufficient breath. “It was real bad.”

“I know it was, my little fruit bat. I know it was.”

“No, I mean ‘bad’ as in ‘good’. So cool. Especially when her eye popped out.”

Dr Adorabella Faerydae scrolled through the list of bush-remedies on her scratch-pad.

“Not feeling too good, honey bumps?” asked husband Brokk, pushing himself towards the mini-fridge for a space-can of lager. “You should try one of these.”

She gave him a look of utter disdain. “I devote my life to caring for others, not myself.”

“Sure you do, cherry lips. Sure you do. But who do you think might need emergency alternative treatment at this hour?”

“Duh! Like ... did you not see what just happened in the Assembly Room? Emergency? I’d say so.” She turned to her alternative medicine cabinet and scanned the labels on the bottles before plucking a bottle of earwig powder and baboon navel fluff.

Brokk looked puzzled. “You mean that mummified old trout in the window? You might be a bit late to save her, my fairy cup-cake. By about eight months.”

Adorabella flashed him a furious glance. “Not her, you idiot.”

Brokk took a swig of his lager and gave her an enquiring look. “So?”

His wife huffed. “Any minute now,” she explained patiently, “people are going to be knocking at that door, desperate for post-traumatic stress counselling.” She pointed at the cabin door, as though he didn’t know where it was.

Brokk gave a sceptical chuckle and strapped himself into his gaming console.

Adorabella stared at him. “What’s that laugh supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, Addy-bells. You know no one ever comes to see you for treatment.”

His wife was speechless.

“Aside from the medicals that everyone has to have, you’ve only had one ‘patient’ during this entire trip,” continued Brokk. “And she’s dead.”

“That’s simply not true.”

“Which part?”

Adorabella stuttered, “I ... I ... I ... She died of natural causes.”

“That’s not how I heard it.”

“What?”

“It’s OK, darling, we all make mistakes.”

Harry Fortune was pushing himself back and forth between one end of his cabin and the other – the zero-G equivalent of pacing. His face glowered, eyebrows melting towards the bridge of his nose, mouth downturned. He was fully immersed in his dark, artistic side. It was a huge moment for him, he knew that. Massive. And it terrified him. Was he up to the task? Would he be able to produce the goods at last?

For eight whole months he had not written a single poem of note, which, for a Poet in Residence, could be construed as something of a failure. The few love-odes dedicated to Penny Smith had bordered on the obscene and could hardly be classed as the sort of poetry commemorating Mayflower III’s historic mission as his appointment required.

Nothing had come to him. His muse was extinguished. He felt a failure and a fraud.

Finally, after such a shocking event, such a dramatic, gut-wrenching, vivid event, the inspiration was flowing and he began to write.

Incident in the Assembly Room

High above the Martian sand,

We’re waiting for the word to land.

InspectaBot’s report comes through;

Base looks good – base looks new.

Cheers of joy and all are happy,

Life on board has been so crappy.

But then our laughter turns to shock

When on the window there’s a knock

And Sylvia Rothschild stares at us

With zombie eyes and grin rictus.

The wiper swings her left and right.

Terror-struck, we flee in fright.

The dead old bird has spooked us proper,

And Dugdale took too long to stop her.

Harry punched the air and grinned. “Perfect,” he said. “Brilliant. Just need about fifty more like that before the end of the mission and I’m sorted.”

Emily regained consciousness with a start. It took a full second to get her bearings, another second to restrain herself from screaming the place down, and a third second to start enjoying the situation she had woken up to. For she was in Commander Dugdale’s manly arms, and his lips were firmly clamped on hers. Suddenly, she felt she was floating on air, both literally and figuratively, and did her best to lap up the sensations zipping through her nervous system.

Flint Dugdale shot away from her. “Billy Arkwright’s bollocks, you’re alive!” he concluded, giving no indication of whether this pleased him or not.

“Oh, Commander Dugdale!” exclaimed Emily with a little giggle and a flutter of her eyelashes. “What am I to make of this?”

“Nowt … It wert kiss er life,” he explained, stuttering and edging even further away. “’Appen I thought you’d croaked ...”

Emily followed him, stroking the tight bun of greying hair on top of her head. “You saved my life, Commander Dugdale.” She fanned her reddening cheeks. “How can I possibly repay you?” She gave what she intended to be a seductive wink.

Dugdale shuddered and tried to retreat further, but found himself backed up against the window blind. “Back off, Leachy,” he ordered. As he recoiled more, his rear pressed against the window-blind button. The blind, which only minutes before had been so painfully slow to close, now sprang open in a flash as though on the world’s most powerful spring.

Miss Leach gave a gasp of shock, and her advance on Dugdale stopped in its tracks. She stared, open-mouthed, past Dugdale’s shoulder, through the panoramic window. Her breathing quickened and, once her lungs had filled with sufficient air, she let out an ear-piercing shriek.

Sylvia Rothschild’s body was still spread-eagled on the window, snagged on the giant windscreen wiper, one eye dangling, and some gaping rents in her spacesuit revealing more mummified flesh than the average stomach can tolerate. But what prompted the scream was the sight of another space-suited figure, with its arms apparently hugging her from behind, space gloves cupped over breasts, pushing and pulling with forceful pelvic thrusts. In the process, the tear in Sylvia’s spacesuit grew progressively larger, revealing more and more desiccated leg.

“Lieutenant Warner!” screamed Emily. “Stop that at once!” Unable to take any more, she paddled her way out of the Assembly Room as desperately and as quickly as she could, past a very surprised Zak Johnston who had just arrived and was gazing in astonishment at the scene outside the window.

Dugdale, too, was staring out of the window, his face one of total stupefaction. He grabbed his communicator from his top pocket and punched Lieutenant Willie Warner’s icon. “What the hell are you doing with that stiff, Woggler?”

“She’s stuck,” came Willie’s panting reply. He thrust once more and caused Sylvia Rothschild’s helmet to clatter against the window glass.

Dugdale gaped in disbelief. “Right,” he said at last. “I want all the corpses in t’ship in ten minutes. Then get yer skinny arse to t’cockpit to see me!”