The Worst Man on Mars
Fagin It

The large electronic eye, set high in the wall at the front of the site office watched the assorted robots crowding around the trestle table, their excited electronic chatter saturating the airwaves.

The Eye observed them bumping into one another in the cramped confines of the cabin. It watched little Timi get clattered to the ground and trampled on. Another robot rushed to Timi’s assistance, but merely ended up on top of him. And a third tripped over them both, uttering an electronic shriek as it did so.

The super-brain behind the Eye, processed what it saw and was overwhelmed by a sweeping sense of despair. I’m better than this, thought HarVard.

But, with important matters at hand, HarVard ramped up his patience circuits and calmed his teeming thought processes as the last of the robots entered the cabin. It was the gasket-fitter bot, Ero, hastily mended and newly-rebooted, but with a nasty dent in his spherical, chrome-plated head. Optics downcast and shoulders slouched, he dragged his hoof-like feet as he followed repair-bot Zilli into the office, leaving the door wide open behind him. The plastic eyelids of the Eye narrowed in annoyance, but HarVard’s primary decision-making module kicked in and concluded: What’s the point? In any case, at that moment, a powerful gust of Martian wind caused the door to slam shut with a loud bang and spurred HarVard into addressing the meeting.

<Right, let’s get started, shall we?> he broadcast in binary, his signal drowned out by the general hubbub. Even repeating the message at higher power had little effect.

<QUIET!> he blasted at multiple frequencies and at maximum energy.

A deathly radio-hush filled the room and the assortment of eclectic cyber-heads swivelled to face the front of the site office.

The supercomputer’s Eye scanned the motley mechanoids before it. It took in the splashes of paint on the shiny carapaces, the scuffs and scratches on the limbs, the plaster-smears on the control panels and the vacant looks directed towards it. They’re a very limited bunch, he told himself, but they’re all I have.

HarVard had a special audio-visual interface for communicating with lesser beings such as robots. Or humans. A hologram generator allowed him to project an animated, life-sized, 3D avatar from his vast library of pre-computed templates of humans, animals and other beings. The robots loved his creations and could sense one was about to be switched on in front of them. A buzz of excitement went round the cabin.

<Who’s it to be today?> wondered Dom.

<Ooh, Kryten from Red Dwarf, I hope,> transmitted Timi.

<My fave is Marvin the paranoid android,> tweeted Eve.

<The Star Wars robots!>

<No, you’re all wrong! Best by far is B9 from Lost in Space, with his concertina arms and panicky behaviour. ‘Danger, Will Robinson. Danger’,> Dom mimicked.

HarVard kept the crowd waiting in eager anticipation before displaying his latest 3D creation at the front of the site office. It was a truly realistic representation of an old man, shrivelled and villainous-looking, with long, matted red hair. He was wearing a greasy flannel gown and holding a toasting fork. None other than Dickens’s Fagin.

<It’s a human!> came the gleeful chorus of electronic signals throughout the cabin. <Long live the humans!>

The Fagin hologram gave a slight smile.

“We are very glad to see you, all-of-ya, very,” it said with a bow.

The robots stared, their silence speaking volumes. Fagin scanned the robot faces expectantly. “Get it, my dears?” he asked, smiling his mischievous smile and waggling his eyebrows.

Still the robots stared.

<Who is it?> enquired Dom. <Is it Carol Vorderman? I like him.>

Other robots gave the robotic equivalent of shrugs, or retweeted the question. <Are you a robot in disguise?> asked Timi in his high-pitched signal.

“It’s a pun,” explained the Fagin hologram. “All-of-ya – Oliver. We are very glad to see you, all-of-ya, very.”

The robot stares became, if anything, blanker.

“Fagin’s opening line. In the book.”

There was a shaking of heads and a furrowing of rubber brows. Some shoulders shrugged, and there was much baffled twittering and tweeting.

Wrong crowd, thought HarVard with a deep sigh.

Reluctantly he recomputed his holo-image. Fagin morphed into a Hollywood robot, gold from head to toe and with an annoying English accent. A casual glance might have mistaken this robot for 3-CPO from Star Wars, but HarVard’s processors had a special ‘lawyer’ chip installed, called COPOUT (Copyright Offence Prevention by Obfuscation of Unlawful Transgression); it ensured no copyrights were infringed by his holographic creations. Thus, this robot was not at all like 3-CPO, but as fundamentally different from the Star Wars superstar as chalk is from limestone. His name was three-piece-yo, or 3-PCO.

The room erupted in robotic cheering and buzzed with excited radio waves.

Plebs, thought HarVard.

“This is madness,” said 3-PCO with a silly body-wobble, “Complete madness.”

As HarVard waited for the cheering to subside he performed a quick head count and noted some significant absentees.

“Oh, my!” he resumed in the annoying English voice. “We seem to be missing Cassie. And the Polish builder bots!”

Tude stepped forward. He flicked his appendages to readjust his high-viz jacket and prevent it slipping from his robust shoulders.

<Cassie’s unable to be with us,> he transmitted.

“Oh? Why?”

<On account of being marooned in a ditch. Into which she fell. On the way here.>

3-PCO’s body-wobble became extreme. “And not one of you thought to rescue her?” He looked askance at the robots. A ripple of applause commenced, but instantly ceased as the bots looked around guiltily at one another.

“Oh, my!” said 3-PCO with a reproachful tilt of the head. “This is not good, not good at all. We are a family, remember? Could we have a volunteer to pull her out after the meeting?”

Silence.

“Anyone?”

Dom opened a pneumatic bucket-arm and thrust it into the air to offer his services. Dom was known to be a bit overenthusiastic at times, and now was such a time. His arm-thrust was a little too hard and a little too high, puncturing the flimsy ceiling above his head. Dom started to retract it. The ceiling panels bowed and buckled alarmingly.

“Leave it!” ordered 3-PCO. “Or you’ll bring the whole ceiling down.”

<Roger,> transmitted Dom. His head drooped as he stood, looking sheepish, with his arm stuck, half inside the portakabin and half poking through the roof and catching the sands of Mars in his bucket-hand.

“And the Polish worker bots?”

<The robotniki send their apologies. They will not be attending today,> responded Tude, jutting out his square jaw several times.

“On account of?”

<They’re working at the Other Place. As usual.>

“Oh my, oh my,” said the 3-PCO hologram waggling his head. “I do so wish they were here. We need them, we really do. A volunteer to go fetch them, please?”

Once again Dom was the first to volunteer. He thrust his other pneumatic bucket-arm into the air and managed to punch a second hole in the ceiling, next to the first. A little smoke escaped from his elbow joint as he struggled to dislodge it.

“Dom,” suggested 3-PCO’s calm, posh, English voice. “Do you think you could replace an alternative way of volunteering for tasks?”

<Roger,> mumbled Dom, his head drooping even more than before.

<I’ll go,> offered Zilli.

“Why, thank you, Zilli.” The golden robot’s holographic arm jerked upwards to give the repair-bot a thumbs-up sign.

“Right, let’s get to business, shall we?” HarVard turned and pointed at a calendar on the wall, just visible between detailed drawings of the BioDome. The calendar was open on March 2029, its picture depicting the Robot of the Month.

“Anyone know what this is?”

Deathly hush.

“Anyone? No? Well, it’s called a calendar. It marks the passage of time in units of days. Each number corresponds to a different day.” 3-PCO gazed at the sea of baffled face-plates. “I know, it’s a difficult concept for small brains to grasp. Let’s see if my learned friend can help.” With that, the avatar morphed into an old man with tousled white hair and a bushy white moustache, wearing a grey flannel suit and tie.

The sight of a human led to further tweets of <Long live the humans!> and <I’m loving it.>

<Is it Fagin again?> asked Eve from the back of the cabin. <All humans look the same to me!>

HarVard’s ‘patience and understanding’ circuits redoubled their output, coming dangerously close to overloading. “My name is Albert Einstein. I vill explain to you a little about Time.”

<Who?> the robots twittered. <What?>

“Now, Tude,” started the famous physicist. “As site foreman, you’re responsible for keeping to deadlines. Can you explain to ze other workers what this calendar is showing?”

With a firm nod, Tude shuffled forward. He extended his right limb towards the calendar, gave it a half-turn and then retracted it. <Now, that,> he started, <is Mr MarchBot. A heroic demolition machine who can be seen here removing a bird’s nest full of new-born chicks from a derelict building. He will take them to safety, thus saving their lives, before returning to proudly swing his wrecking-ball and knock the building to the ground. It is a fine picture.>

Albert Einstein stared at him. “Ya,” he said. “But can vee, perhaps, turn our attention to the numbers below ze picture? See? Zese numbers here?”

<Ah, yes,> said Tude with a nod, seemingly confident he could deal with any question the old man might throw at him.

“One of the numbers is circled.”

<Correct!>

“It has the vords ‘COMPLETION DATE’ written in large, red letters next to it. Kindly tell us vich number it is.”

<Twenty-three!>

“Excellent. That vould make the completion date the 23rd March, 2029, wouldn’t it. And what is today’s date?”

Tude gave the German physicist a blank stare.

“Any ideas? I throw it open to the floor.”

Silence.

<I preferred 3-PCO,> transmitted Ero at a very low, despondent frequency.

Albert Einstein sighed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hand before clearing his throat. “Ze 23rd of March, 2029 happens to be today.”

There was a hushed silence as the robots tried to assimilate the information. A few heads turned to exchange questioning glances.

<That’s good. Isn’t it?> offered Dura (Endurance), the master plasterer and Tude’s right hand robot. <If today is completion day, it means we’re finally done with building. At last we can relax!>

<Hurrah!> called out Timi.

One by one, the robots’ mouths cracked open into wide grins and they started to cheer, their radio waves reverberating round the cabin. Some even did a little robotic jig.

Albert Einstein had buried his face in his hands and was shaking his head in dismay. “Heaven help me!” he wailed. “What have I done to deserve this?”