The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (1999) (16 page)

Recently he had been trying a mathematical approach to comedy. He had been toying with a probability curve (a sort of Humorous Heisenberg Principle) such that if A were your expectations then B would definitely occur, or if B was posited as the likely outcome then A would instantly happen. This seemed a promising line of inquiry, and he noted with excitement that it seemed to hold good for physical as well as verbal comedy. He covered a blackboard in comedy equations, with all sorts of scrawled notations and exclamation marks. He used his own system of algebraic notation where! stood for laughter. For instance A + p =! where p was a pie and A was a face. But while this was normally true, it didn’t describe all cases, since A + p =? where A represents the face of the observer. A custard pie in the observer’s face was not funny, at least for the observer. And without an observer, was anything funny? It was a sort of “If a tree falls in the woods, does anyone laugh” problem.

He realized he had to include an audience in his algebra. This was also the first occasion I can find Carlton using an actual joke, since in his second sheaf of equations instead of using p, he used the symbol π for pie. Not bad, huh?

So, let m represent the mass of the people and O be the observer and he came up with:

 A + πO

 ———— = !

 m – O

When the pie goes in the observer’s face (πO), everybody laughs except the observer (m – O). From this he derived one important axiom: comedy is what happens to other people.

The tanker almost gave him a heart attack. With absolutely no warning it loomed out of the star field directly ahead of them, a massive matte black vessel almost on them. Carlton dropped his equations and ran. He screamed and hit the rudder. Nothing happened. Lewis raced in and gaped in horror. The huge tanker was side on to them. They were hurtling towards it. Carlton hit the rudder again. They could see the name painted clearly on its side as it came straight at them.

“Try manual,” yelled Lewis.

“Too late,” said Carlton. “It’s on us.”

“Shit,” said Lewis as he saw the vastness of it. “Look out!”

They dove to the floor as it came careening at them.

It missed them by inches. They could feel the mass of it passing overhead.

“What the hell was that?” said Lewis, totally shaken.

“Silesian Tanker. Named
Iceman
. Registered Rhea.”

“Where were their lights?”

“Probably knocked out by the shock wave.”

Alex came running in ashen-faced. He was easily scared at the best of times. He looked pretty shaken up.

“What
was
that?”

“Tanker,” said Lewis. “No lights. No warning.”

“Sweet Jesus,” said Alex.

“Where’s Tay?” asked Lewis.

“She’s on her bunk. She told me not to worry. Said Carlton was on it.”

“Not exactly,” said Carlton. “It came out of nowhere.”

“Great,” said Alex. “If he didn’t see it, and it’s a mile long, what chance have we got against something smaller?”

“About 5.36 to 1 against,” said Carlton promptly.

Alex gazed thoughtfully at the huge vessel. “Wait a minute,” he said. “If the
Iceman
ship is here, then we are…”

“In the middle of an icefield. Yes,” said Lewis.

“Without power?”

“Correct.”

They looked at each other.

“Get me the Washing Machine,” said Lewis.

“You soiled your pants?”

“No, you idiot. We can reprogram it as a lookout.”

“The
Washing Machine?
”

“You got a better idea?”

While Carlton worked on the power lines, Lewis and Alex jury-rigged the Washing Machine as an emergency electronic lookout. She didn’t like it one little bit. She moaned, she kvetched, she complained.

“This I need already? Bad enough I get to look at your unmentionables all day, now I’m a lookout in the asteroid belt?”

“Be grateful it’s not the hemorrhoid belt,” said Alex.

They put her in the tower and left her scanning for icebergs. They could hear her muttering away to herself, complaining. She had a range of only a few miles, but this would at least give them some warning when the largest chunks of ice appeared. They could still see the tanker behind them, the word
ICEMAN
painted in huge white letters on its side.

“They almost made a snowball out of us,” said Alex grimly.

“It looks deserted,” said Lewis. “Perhaps they’re in trouble.”

“Who are they anyway?” asked Alex.

Carlton paused for a moment on the power lines and accessed a database. “Project Iceman,” he read, “is the ice program for Mars. Huge chunks of ice floating around the asteroid belt are diverted to Mars and dropped onto the desert, where the enormous impact creates both ground water and water vapor-forming clouds. They are at the moment creating a controversial new Sea of Silesia.” He stopped reading and looked at them, puzzled. “What’s controversial?” he asked.

“The people who live there probably don’t want to live under the sea,” said Alex.

“Oh.”

“Anything else?”

Carlton read on. “The irony is that many of the Silesian workmen on the Icernan project now live in the largely inhospitable region of Mars where the sea is forming.”

He stopped again, puzzled. “What’s the irony?” he said.

“The irony is that it is their labor that makes it possible,” explained Alex.

“I’m sorry,” said Carlton, “is that irony, or just foolish?”

“Don’t get him started on irony,” said Lewis.

Comedy comes from conflict, from hatred.

—
Warren Mitchell

“What the hell was that?”

The voice spoke out of the darkness of the tanker. The harsh clang of boots echoed from metal floors and ceilings. Running footsteps. Torches.

“Josef, you there?”

A grizzled face spoke, in the sudden stabbing glare of flashlights.

“I’m up here, Pavel.”

The heavily bearded man called Pavel climbed the metal stairs onto the darkened bridge. He could barely make out the thin figure of Josef, peering through binoculars. A hard, wiry man with black hair and deeply intense black eyes.

“The
Johnnie Ray
,” read Josef. “What are they doing out here?”

“Heading for disaster by the look of it.”

They watched the
Ray
hurtling into the asteroid belt.

“Looks like they have no power.”

“It’s the H9 blast, Josef. There are hundreds of ’em around.”

“Better show some lights then, Pavel.”

“Right away.”

“We don’t want anyone else slamming into us, now do we?”

“No, Josef.”

“Oh, just emergency lights now. We’re supposed to be a crippled ship.”

“You got it.”

Pavel punched buttons. Green emergency lights lit the bridge and the outline of the huge ship below them.

“Broadcast a distress call,” said Josef.

The bearded man looked anxiously up at him.

“We need to be picked up now, don’t we?” said Josef.

“I guess so.”

“Might as well take advantage.”

“You think we should still go ahead?”

“Why on earth not?”

“Comus.”

“Shh,” said Josef. “Not here.”

They could hear voices and the clanking of boots outside.

“Any word from the watchers yet?”

“Just said they’re on the
Di
. They want to know what’s next.”

“Me too. Jesus, what a mess.”

Two thick bare arms heavily tattooed with linked W’s pulled a heavyset man up the outside ladder.

“It’s Sven,” said Pavel.

“You okay, Sven?” said Josef.

“Oh yes, I am fine,” said Sven, a tall blond Swede with a heavy accent. “Never better, ya? The ship too, I think. They tried hard but they missed us.” He laughed. “But it was fokking close.”

“No shit,” said Pavel.

Below them a dozen or so men stood, blinking in the sharp bright lights. Waiting for instructions.

“Okay, listen up.” The man called Josef spoke softly. They listened.

“I want you to check the ship and get me a damage report.”

They nodded, and disappeared, clanging, into the darkness.

“Sven, take the bridge. Pavel, come with me.”

The bearded man followed the slim figure of Josef into a cabin. Josef flicked on the lights. For a moment they blinked together. Pavel looked into the dark-rimmed eyes of the soft-spoken Josef and saw nothing.

“Where’s Comus?” said Josef after a second.

“In the storeroom. He’s safe.”

“Saying much?”

“Won’t talk.”

“Why the hell was he going to H9?”

“Looks like he was set to meet this Wallace woman.”

“She say that?”

“That’s all she would say—‘I’m supposed to meet Comus’—and then clammed up.”

“Didn’t they persuade her?”

“They started to. She seemed genuinely ignorant. Had a message, followed instructions, that’s all she knew. Wasn’t time to get much out of her. McTurk comes racing over, then the watchers pick up a signal from the postman. They trace the Weiss woman and find ‘Gunpowder Plot’ on her screen. What were they supposed to do? They didn’t have much choice.”

“They had a lot of fucking choice. They could have found out what she knew, or where the leak came from, but no, they just panicked and took her out. Then off their own bat they decide to advance the detonation time and they screw up even that. Jesus.”

“Guess they used more than they needed.”

“No, really? They blew the whole fucking place apart.”

“Think we’re compromised?”

“I can’t figure it. I hate this bollix. What the fuck was Comus doing slipping off for a meeting with the mistress of Emil Keppler anyway?”

“Is he boffing her?”

“At his age? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Damn right it doesn’t make any sense. In the middle of an operation to stop off for a quick shag with the other side.”

“I thought Keppler’s with us?”

“Keppler’s with Keppler. He’d jack us in faster than you can blink if he thought he could get away with it. He’ll know by now he’s not alone though. But he won’t know exactly who or how many. What we didn’t count on is your boys totally blowing the shit out of H9.”

“Maybe it’s even better this way.”

“Yeah, maybe. How much did this Keppler girl know?”

“It’s academic, she can’t talk to anybody now.”

“You sure of that?”

“They shot her full of Corazone and left her in the Rialto. She couldn’t even walk.”

“The watchers all pulled out?”

“They left a couple of mechanicals.”

“I’ll need that confirmed. Meanwhile let’s see what friend Comus has to say.”

“About what?”

“Let’s see his reaction when we tell him Katy Wallace is dead.”

There are more than one hundred elements, but the most important is the element of surprise. Boo!

—
Alex Muscroft

Keppler stood in the small watch cabin beside the bridge. He was gazing out into space. His white beard reflected in the big window. He watched Mitchell enter behind him, but didn’t turn round. “Well?” he said finally. “She’s not here, sir.”

Now he turned. Mitchell looked concerned. “Miss Wallace is definitely not on the ship, sir.”

“You’ve checked…”

“The hospitals, the sick bays, the list of injured.”

“Is this a complete list?”

“By no means, sir. They’re still working on it, but she’s crew, sir, she would have checked in if she was on board.” Of course she would. He was grabbing at straws. “What was she doing on H9 in the first place?”

“Said she was going shopping, sir.”

Keppler sighed, shook his head, and walked back onto the bridge. The indestructible Kyle hovered like a large black shadow, his head heavily bandaged. Rogers was talking to Mitchell, his captain.

“We need to start searching for survivors at once,” Rogers was saying.

It irked him Rogers was issuing instructions on
his
ship. It irked him even more that he couldn’t throw the little shit back onto the stinking garbage heap of a run-down clapped-out colony he had come from. But he couldn’t. Code 437. Whatever the fuck that was, the little shortarse had invoked it. He had a thought and walked over to the main computer. He tapped it for a while, then raised an eyebrow.

“Mr. Rogers.”

The cop looked up.

“Yes, Mr. Keppler?” said Rogers pleasantly.

“Code 437.”

“Yes.”

“You made it up.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Nice.” Keppler smiled unexpectedly. “Nice one.”

“Thank you.”

“But it means I am now in charge of my ship.”

“That would be right.”

“In that case we shall not be going anywhere until I have located an important member of my staff.”

“May I ask who?”

“Katy Wallace.”

The name rang a bell with Rogers, but he didn’t immediately place it.

“It’s his girlfriend,” said Kyle in his ear. “The man’s well buzzed about it.”

Better play it sweet, thought Rogers.

“We’ll have her checked out and located for you. She must be on one of the other vessels, unless…”

“Unless what?”

Rogers hesitated.

“Unless she was left behind on H9,” said Kyle.

Keppler said nothing.

“You all right, sir?” asked Mitchell.

“Yes. Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

“She’s probably on one of the other ships, sir.”

“Yes. That’s right. She probably is.”

“We’ve broadcast an alert, sir. We should hear back in a while, but many of these ships are without power right now. But I’m sure she’s safe, sir.”

Nobody said anything. Keppler looked grim.

The moment was broken as a cloud of expensive perfume entered, followed by Brenda Woolley.

“Emil, darling? There you are.”

He looked bleakly up at her.

“Brenda,” he said.

Rogers watched in amazement as the figure he recognized from a thousand billboards strode over to Keppler and planted a couple of air kisses at least six inches either side of his face.

“I need to talk to you quite seriously,” she announced, looking around confidently at everyone.