A Toaster on Mars

by Darrell Pitt

  ‘Great.’

  ‘But the cooking process will be agony. I mean, slow frying is probably the most painful way to die. With any luck, you’ll pass out after about an hour, but some have regained consciousness at inappropriate moments.’

  ‘Well, we wouldn’t want that…’

  ‘I do need to ask you something,’ Roberts said, suddenly concerned. ‘Are you allergic to anything?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, I usually like to sprinkle on a little oregano and paprika. I’d hate to put you through any discomfort.’

  ‘I do have an allergy,’ Blake said. ‘Death!’

  ‘Oh, how droll,’ Roberts gave a wheezy laugh. ‘I love a meal with a sense of humour. I’ll leave you now and return when the oven’s ready.’

  ‘You do that.’

  Once Roberts had gone, Blake fell back onto the bed and struggled against the restraints.

  Astrid’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Blake?’ she groaned. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We got attacked by a loony with a stun gun.’

  ‘That explains my head. I feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of quantors.’

  Zeeb says:

  My aunt Lily was run over by a herd of quantors. Take my word for it. It’s very unpleasant.

  ‘How do we get out of here?’ Astrid asked. ‘And what’s that smell?’

  A strange odour drifted down the tunnel. Blake suspected the doctor was building up a fire in the cooker where he had disposed of his previous victims.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Blake said, swallowing. ‘He’s probably getting dinner ready.’

  ‘Great. I’m starving. What’re we having?’

  ‘If I tell you, do you promise to remain calm?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Blake told her and Astrid fainted.

  19

  A plan was forming in Blake’s mind, but he needed Astrid to help him carry it out. Unfortunately that would be difficult because she was still unconscious.

  ‘Astrid! Wake up!’

  She groaned and peered at him through half-open eyes. ‘Please tell me this is a terrible dream.’

  ‘This is a terrible dream.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No. We’re trapped in a cave and about to be eaten by a cannibal!’

  ‘And to think I was worried about my hair.’

  ‘I’ve got a plan,’ Blake said, nodding towards Nicki. ‘I think she’s only stunned. With any luck, she’ll have a reset button. Maybe you can reach it.’

  ‘What do you think I’m made of? Rubber?’

  ‘Reach out with your foot! Kicking someone when they’re down should be easy for you!’

  Grumbling under her breath, Astrid angled her body off the gurney, stretching out so her foot almost reached Nicki. ‘Where’s this reset button, then?’

  ‘Probably behind her neck.’

  A sound came from the entrance to the cavern.

  ‘He’s coming back,’ Blake hissed.

  A moment later the doctor returned to find Astrid still unconscious on the bed, while Blake whistled innocently at the ceiling.

  The doctor eyed him with suspicion. ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself.’

  ‘Just thinking about being eaten.’

  ‘And?’

  Blake lowered his voice. ‘May I make a confession?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve had a secret desire ever since I was a boy,’ Blake said. ‘It might sound odd, but I’ve always wanted to be the victim of a cannibal.’

  Robert Roberts did a double take. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain, but it has always held a fascination for me,’ Blake said. ‘You won’t anaesthetise me first, will you?’

  ‘Not at all. I like my food live.’

  ‘Good,’ Blake said, feigning relief. ‘So when can you start?’

  ‘Right now, if you like.’

  ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘But the woman will be first.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I prefer the taste of female flesh,’ Roberts explained. ‘It’s rather more tender, and I have a new port and stilton sauce I’d like to try.’

  Roberts wheeled Astrid’s gurney past Blake, who caught a glimpse of her horrified face.

  ‘Time for dinner!’ the doctor said cheerily as they disappeared from the room.

  Blake slumped, despairing. He couldn’t reach Nicki, and he soon realised the doctor had placed their backpacks and blasters in a pile near the entrance.

  But Roberts didn’t know about Louis.

  Louis was the backup weapon Blake had strapped to his ankle. Pushing his shoes off, he used his toes to unclip the holster and pull out the Louis .457 laser pistol. In serious combat situations it was useless, but it could still punch a hole in someone at close range.

  Blake grunted. The gun slipped from his grasp onto the floor. He leant over the edge of the bed and tried to grab it again between his toes.

  Almost. Just a few more inches…

  The gun went off and a laser beam seared his forehead.

  ‘Aahh! Sprotting krog of a sprot’s—’

  Roberts’ voice echoed down the tunnel. ‘Everything okay down there?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Blake said. ‘Just filled with excitement about being eaten by a cannibal. Weeee!’

  He tried to grab the weapon again. I’ll be lucky if I don’t take off my head, he thought.

  Just down the corridor, Astrid was also struggling as Robert Roberts attached her gurney to a conveyor belt that led to a fiery oven.

  ‘The gas is provided free of charge via the methane produced by the rubbish,’ Roberts said. He gave her leg a pinch. ‘So tender! Just how I like it!’

  Astrid tried to think of a way to stall him, but she could only wonder how she had ended up here. The day had started so normally. A few hours teaching, a spot of shopping, a touch-up by her nail technician—and now she was trapped in an underground lair about to be eaten by a cannibal.

  A pile of bones lay in a corner. She didn’t want to imagine where they’d come from. She had to delay Roberts long enough for Blake to save her—if he could.

  ‘So have you seen anything good on television?’ she asked shrilly.

  The doctor paused. ‘There are a few shows I rather like.’

  ‘Really?’ Astrid stared into the burning oven. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Oh…’ He paused a moment, thinking. ‘There’s that reality-TV show on Channel 979 about the interspecies family living on Eradranabran. Traskian on the father’s side—’

  ‘—and Zybrat on the mother’s!’

  ‘You’ve seen it?’

  ‘Absolutely! It’s wonderful, all those little half-mammal, half-lizard children.’

  ‘And there’s so many of them!’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Is it sixteen or seventeen?’

  ‘It was seventeen, but one of them broke a leg—’

  ‘I remember!’ Astrid said. ‘And they ate him on the spot!’

  She stopped. It had seemed so amusing on a reality-TV program set on a world thousands of light years away, but now it was rather too close to home.

  ‘And what else do you like?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, the cooking shows.’

  Astrid tried to speak, but all she could see was the lizard kid disappearing under a pile of hungry siblings.

  The doctor gave a satisfied sigh, pushed a button and the conveyor began to move.

  This can’t be happening!

  ‘Please! Think about what you’re doing!’

  ‘I am,’ Roberts said. ‘It’s making me hungry!’

  ‘No, no, it’s wrong! Taking a human life is wrong!’

  ‘Not if you do it out of necessity.’

  ‘You’re doing it out of necessity?’

  ‘Absolutely. Pizza Hut won’t deliver down here.’

  The conveyor belt inched along, dragging her closer to the oven.

  No! It can’t end like this!

  ‘
Please!’ she begged. ‘You have to listen to me! It’s wrong to kill. It’s wrong to eat people. Every life is important. Everyone counts.’

  She found herself staring directly into the eyes of Robert Roberts. Slowly, he reached over and pushed a button. The conveyor belt slid to a halt with Astrid only inches away from the flames.

  ‘You’ve made me realise—’ the doctor said.

  ‘Thank God!’

  ‘—that I haven’t added my oregano or my paprika! How could I forget? And a pinch of salt makes all the difference!’

  He reached for a jar, but his carefully laid plans were soon derailed when a laser beam winged him. Stunned, Roberts reached into his pocket and withdrew a device the size of a remote control just as Blake and Nicki burst from a tunnel. Roberts pressed a button on the device and disappeared into thin air.

  ‘Astrid!’ Blake yelled.

  Nicki released her and Astrid threw herself into Blake’s arms. Drawing back, she stared at his forehead.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

  ‘I was able to get out my other weapon. I had some problems firing it, though. Grazed myself. Then I shot Nicki.’

  ‘You shot Nicki!’

  ‘He’s wanted to do it from the moment we met,’ Nicki said.

  ‘There’s probably some truth in that,’ Blake admitted. ‘But I did do it on purpose. Knowing she’d only been stunned by Roberts, I remembered—’

  ‘—that robots have automatic defence systems,’ Nicki said. ‘While I’m not a robot, the part of me that is has the same software. I woke up, released Blake and we came to your rescue.’

  ‘So what happened to the doctor?’ Astrid asked. ‘He disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Blake said. ‘Maybe we’ll never know.’

  Zeeb says:

  Allow me to fill you in on the details.

  Robert Roberts owned a site-to-site teleportation device, designed to transport him to the far side of the underground cavern. In a bizarre twist of fate, however, a hole in the fabric of space-time intersected with the matter transportation beam, carrying him away to a planet in the southern arm of the Pegasus galaxy, where he landed in the middle of a reality-TV show called Lizard Survivor. He lived there for three days, pursued by gangs of three-foot-high reptiles.

  Finally, cornered in a desolate canyon, he was torn to pieces and eaten alive.

  His final words, ‘Don’t forget the oregano!’ were broadcast to the ten-billion-strong audience, and even made it onto the Best of Lizard Survivor, despite the audience having no clue as to their meaning.

  ‘Where to from here?’ Blake asked.

  ‘I saw a jamming device in Roberts’ cave,’ Nicki said. ‘I think that’s what caused that magnetic interference. I’ll turn it off.’

  Nicki left. Blake stared at Astrid. Her hair was dishevelled, her nails broken; she had dirt on her face and her clothing was ruined.

  He thought she’d never looked lovelier.

  She frowned. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know,’ she said, her voice low. ‘With mushy eyes.’

  ‘I can’t help it. You’re beautiful.’

  ‘I look like a mess!’

  ‘When all this is over, maybe we should think about—’

  Nicki reappeared. ‘The jamming device is off!’

  Blake sighed. His timing was never good.

  ‘So where are we, then?’ he asked Nicki. ‘And how do we get out of here?’

  ‘I’m not completely sure,’ she said, scanning her datapad. ‘Roberts must have a second jamming device, but it looks like there’s a wall about a mile east of here. We can cut through there and hopefully get our bearings.’

  Once they’d retrieved their backpacks, the trio set off again through the piles of junk and reached the wall soon after. Nicki fired her weapon, creating a hole that revealed another dark corridor beyond.

  ‘I can see where we are now,’ Nicki said, checking her map. ‘We don’t need to take this tunnel. There’s a small cave on the other side of this wall. We’ll save time by cutting across.’

  She fired her weapon again, this time dissolving the wall. But instead of darkness, bright sunshine poured through the gap and a gentle breeze washed against their faces.

  ‘What the—’ Astrid started.

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ Nicki said.

  ‘That wouldn’t be the first time today,’ Blake muttered.

  20

  Beyond the gap lay a broad, green valley with a stream running through it. Trees laden with honey-coloured flowers and wide patches of shamrock green lawn carpeted the hills. The sky was arctic blue, laced with milky-white clouds. A flock of red-and-yellow birds swooped between the trees and disappeared into the distance.

  ‘This we don’t need,’ Blake said.

  ‘What the sprot is it?’ Astrid asked, amazed. ‘Where are we? Are we still underground?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Nicki said. ‘I think it’s a pocket dimension.’

  Blake checked his watch. He had less than a day until Badde’s deadline expired. They couldn’t afford a detour, especially a pocket dimension leading to another world.

  Zeeb says:

  Coincidentally, ‘A Pocket Dimension Leading to Another World’ was a number one hit by the group Hoby Toblat and the Bargs. It stayed at the top of the charts for three months before being usurped by the Vienna Boys’ Choir version of the Village People hit ‘In the Navy’.

  ‘Isn’t there a way around this?’ Blake asked Nicki.

  ‘Not unless you brought a strontium drill with you.’

  Blake frowned. A detour through a pocket dimension had not been on the cards, but this wasn’t the first time he’d come across one.

  ‘These things have multiple exits,’ he said. ‘We can always come back here if we don’t find one.’

  Astrid and Nicki climbed through the hole. ‘Are you coming?’ Nicki asked Blake.

  Blake stepped onto a green meadow. The portal they’d just travelled through was sunk into a boulder at the top of a hill.

  It was midday, wherever they were, and it wasn’t Earth. No place on Earth had looked this way for centuries. He looked up to see three moons in the sky.

  Definitely not Earth.

  ‘Hey!’ Astrid cried.

  The hole was now shrinking.

  ‘No!’ Blake yelled.

  Before he could take another step the hole had shrunk to nothing, giving a tiny puck as it slipped out of existence. Blake punched the boulder.

  ‘I’ve never seen that happen before,’ he said.

  Nicki stroked her chin. ‘It’s estimated that holes leading into pocket dimensions close once every 2183 times,’ she said. ‘Looks like this is one of those times.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Astrid asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Blake said.

  ‘You said there’d be a way out!’

  ‘I’m sure there is, but we’ve got to find it!’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Nicki said.

  ‘What if we don’t?’ Astrid asked.

  ‘We will,’ Blake said.

  ‘But if we don’t—’

  Nicki intervened. ‘We may have a problem.’

  To Blake’s way of thinking, being stuck on an alien world in an unknown part of the galaxy with no means of escape and only twelve hours to break into the most secure facility on Earth was already a problem.

  ‘A person just came out of that house,’ Nicki said, pointing. ‘And he has a weapon.’

  Blake had not noticed the house, nestled between trees halfway down the hill. From this distance it looked like some kind of ancient log cabin.

  ‘You’re right,’ Blake said. ‘He does have a weapon. An axe, I think.’

  ‘This’ll sound strange,’ Astrid said. ‘But he looks… familiar.’

  On the other side of the field, the man who had just stepped from his woodshed to chop some logs peered up to see som
ething unusual. Three people were standing in the middle of his field. One of them was a golden robot. The other two were humans—a man and a woman.

  It had been a long time since the man had seen anyone different, and this made him feel a little scared, but also hopeful. He started up the field.

  ‘He’s coming this way,’ Nicki said.

  ‘I can see that,’ Blake said.

  ‘Maybe we should shoot him.’

  ‘Whaaat?’

  ‘A study conducted last year by the First Contacts Public Review Board found that violence was the outcome of some eighty-two per cent of first-contact situations. Its main recommendation was to shoot first.’

  ‘And ask questions later?’ Astrid said. ‘Keep your blaster holstered, cowgirl.’

  ‘I agree,’ Blake said. ‘No shooting unless we have to.’

  ‘What if he does something threatening?’ Nicki asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Looks at us funny.’

  ‘Looks at us funny?’

  ‘You know, funny I-want-to-chop-you-up funny.’

  Blake sighed. ‘Don’t do anything.’

  The man continued towards them. The occasional word was carried by the breeze to him, words like shoot and funny, and then he heard the word cannibal. But he was not unduly concerned. He had lived a long time—long past his time, truth be told—and he didn’t fear death.

  He stopped about ten feet away. Their surprise was understandable. He was probably the last person they ever expected to see.

  ‘Howdy, there,’ he said. ‘I’m Elvis Presley. Welcome to Elvisworld.’

  21

  ‘It was a dark and stormy night,’ Elvis began.

  They were sitting on the deck of the cottage on the other side of the hill. From here they had a clear view of a narrow valley. A few purple cows stood in the field, thoughtfully chewing grass. Something that looked like a red parrot with four legs coasted on the wind overhead and landed on a tree.

  Elvis had made them sandwiches, which they’d devoured. Now he poured them drinks of cold lemonade from a jug.

  ‘I was at Gracelands making a deep-fried peanut-butter sandwich,’ he said. ‘It was late and everyone else had gone to bed. I was feeling poorly, which was not unusual back in those days.’ He slapped his trim belly. ‘I went through a bit of a bad patch, you might say.’