Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Also full of—you guessed it—skeletons.

K-VRC

Not all of them – just the really rich ones!

X-BOT 4000

I thought that’s what the sea-steads were for!

11-45-G

Those were for the merely millionaires. The obscenely wealthy point zero one percent of humans decided they needed an entirely new planet.

X-BOT 4000

What about the other ninety-nine point nine?

11-45-G presses a button on a console.

EXT. MAIN ENTRANCE – THE FENCE

Just behind the fence, a line of rotating TURRETS rise from the ground, wide muzzles telescoping out. With a sputtering roar, flames blast the skeletons piled against the fence.

INT. CONTROL TOWER – MISSION CONTROL ROOM

11-45-G

The elite were not sympathetic to their concerns.

11-45-G (ALT) (cont’d)

Flamethrowers of death are easier to construct than systems of wealth redistribution.

X-BOT 4000

Okay, but Mars? It’s dead and lifeless! They could have taken the money they spent on the spaceships and used it to save the planet they were already on!

K-VRC

Pffffft. Where’s the fun in that?

X-BOT 4000

Humans are the actual worst.

11-45-G

Indeed. Humanity had all the tools to heal their wounded planet and save themselves. But instead, they chose greed and self-gratification over a healthy biosphere and the future of their children. As the great human philosopher Santayana once said—

K-VRC

(interrupting)

Hey! I think at least one of the rockets launched. Check this out.

K-VRC has wandered over to a console. He hits a key and a recorded entry plays. A single rocket rides a column of flame into the sky and away.

11-45-G

But... who was it who made it out?

They all look up through a hole in the roof to the star- filled sky above, wondering. Long beat and—

EXT. MARTIAN COLONY – DAY

A vast, red desert stretches to the horizon. But a swarm of STRANGE HABITATS are clustered around the craggy outcroppings of rock. Around the habitats, creatures in environmental suits lounge under the red Martian sky.

Cats. Because of course they are cats. One of them turns to the camera.

CAT

What, you were expecting maybe Elon Musk?

BAD TRAVELLING Neal Asher

The captain hung in his hammock like a sack of whale blubber, his eyes closed and his mind lost in dream smoke. Cert, the cabin boy, stood at the helm and was hardly tall enough to peer over it. And Bosun Torrin had drunk enough sea-kale rum to feel no responsibility for anything. He knew the sea killed the drunk, the negligent and the fatigued, for it was without forgiveness, without mercy, but just then he did not care. He should have. Saparin was the first to notice the clumped sargassum, but by then they were already upon it.

“Steer to port! Steer to port!” Torrin screamed, his rum bottle smashing on the deck as he stumbled and weaved toward Cert. The boy wrenched the helm to the side and the ship heeled over, its tarred wood and rope creaking in deep protest. There was a lurch as the mass of rotting weed dragged across the hull and a thick waft of decay as it broke apart.

“Drop the port boom! Drop it!” Jorvan bellowed at Melis and Calis.

The two crewmen ran to obey while others, not lost in stupor, scrambled for the great knife harpoons scattered about the soiled deck. Soon clutching these ill-kept tools, they stood with faces pale as the ship shuddered and groaned past the bed of weed. All knew what it meant to go too close to the sargassum, for the great clumps of rotting weed brought creatures of the deep to the surface, creatures that would not otherwise be able to reach the ships. The ship lurched then began to pull free.

“Hard starboard, now,” said Jorvan.

Torrin looked askance at him, but did not countermand the order, since he had been about to give it. He looked over the port rail and saw the mass of weed, a great yellow scum on the sea, receding behind them. He offered up a thank you to Cerval then peered with annoyance at his broken bottle. The deep hatchetting thud turned him round, and the ensuing thuds had him and the rest of the crew backing away from the rail.

“Thanapod,” said Jorvan, First Knife, and perhaps the only man aboard who kept his ship-metal blade clean and honed.