The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (1999) (40 page)

“No,” said Alex, “we’re going to make you a grandfather.”

E
ach man kills the thing he loves. Who said that? It’s me. I’m back. And this is definitely the final curtain. What made me do it? What made me think I could get away with it? What if every biographer went around shooting his subject?

I went to see Carlton, still unsure whether I’d have the guts to go through with it or not. He was in a shabby sort of sanatorium.

There were a couple of Bowies there. Later models. One or two Olivettis, and a Harrison Ford. It was like a museum. Eerie kinda place. Nurses in white lab coats and computers sitting around playing five-dimensional chess with each other. He was in a room of his own. I think he knew from the minute he saw me what I was intending to do. He said a very odd thing. “I have been expecting you.” Now that is weird, isn’t it? How could he possibly know? Did he suspect someone was tracking him all the time? Had he finally developed enough sense of irony to predict what was going to happen to him? He looked pretty good for something over a hundred years old. He still had that young blond Bowie look, though he was a bit dusty. They weren’t polishing him too well, I’d say. I was pretty shaken coming face-to-face with him like that. I knew more about him than he did. And I was there to blow him away. That’s heavy. So maybe there was just the slightest hesitation that was enough to give the nurse time to alert Security. I don’t know. I saw him, he smiled, said “I was expecting you,” then I fired, and the next thing the door was off its hinges and security was trying very hard to hurt me. What could I do? I shot the nurse and ran. And now there isn’t much time, well for me anyway. They’ll find me shortly.

I’ve decided pills are the easiest way out. I’m not bold enough for the full Hemingway bullet-in-the-temples job. Bit messy. And I’ve done one good thing. I’m sending this whole story to the Nobel Committee, along with a letter of apology and a strong recommendation that they forget DNAcism, bite the bullet, and award Carlton the Nobel he deserves. I think I can be forgiven for giving them the impression that I was going to do that anyway. Maybe they’ll believe me. Maybe I might have in time. I’d like to think so anyway. Of course shooting a nurse and being pursued by five security agencies won’t look too good on the record. But that’s another reason I’m leaving this story behind. It’s my confession, my justification, and my valediction. Thanks for staying with me. You have been my companion on the long and lonely nights. It turned out to have a different ending than I had anticipated. But isn’t that often the way with stories? And don’t feel too harshly about me. I know intellectual fraud isn’t particularly nice, but wouldn’t you have been tempted to do the same? As I said, fame is a terminal disease.

There is a final chapter which was found on his computer after Reynolds’s suicide.

All tragedies are finish’d by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.

—
Lord Byron

There is nothing common about sense. Would that it were as common as hydrogen in the Universe; but then again, come to think of it, most of the hydrogen is on fire all around us, busy burning up in tremendous furnaces called stars. All those stars, all those galaxies, millions of flaming bonfires whirling round above our heads. All those violent clashes in the Universe—how could we be expected to be peaceful? We live in an exploding Universe which grew from a tiny dot, a singularity, fifteen billion years ago, expanding out of nothingness to create everything we see around us. The Big Bang. The Big Laugh. Explosions of laughter. Like orgasm. Seeding the Universe.

It’s life that’s the puzzle. Life is the weirdness. Life is the unnecessary part of the equation. Given time, the physical Universe becomes biological and grows intelligence. Why?

Someone once asked the classic White Face clown Steve Martin why life was present in the Universe.

“Because,” he replied, “without life, the Universe does not exist. It needs an observer to make it real.”

Yes. The post-Heisenberg world of comedy. Smart bastards, comedians.

Everyone said it really was Brenda Woolley who had saved the day. Even though to bench-press Josef over her head she would have needed the muscle tone of a professional Bodyslog. Even though she was lying in a hospital bed holding Boo’s hand at the time. Still it’s a much better story and we’ll take the better story over truth any day, won’t we? Isn’t that the point of journalism? So the myth persisted that Brenda Woolley saved the Universe (or at least a tiny part of it). To everyone’s surprise, including his, when she came out of hospital, she took up with Boo. She was devoted to him, and he, the supreme ironist, enjoyed this final irony and seemed utterly fascinated by her. It was an odd relationship, but then again, aren’t they all?

As for Carlton, all he asked as his reward was a chance to perform comedy. They tried to dissuade him, everyone said it was madness, but he was adamant, and since he certainly deserved it, they finally gave him his wish. He appeared at the Sangster Club on Mars, billed as
Carlton the Comedy Computer, For One Night Only
. It was the highlight of a Grand Gala Thank-You Ball given by the Government of Clarketown for Brenda Woolley and the crew of the
Princess Di
. Being Special Bureau employees, Dunphy and McTurk were not invited, though Rogers was. Alex got them a couple of passes anyway. Kyle showed up in a tux looking like a million dollars. Everyone was there. Everyone made speeches, including the mayor of Clarketown, who played down the threat, though he did announce that Project Iceman was officially dead. Of course he didn’t explain it was really for economic reasons: the very expensive Iceman project was being replaced by the new fusion technology which could grow ice, water, and water vapor chemically from oxygen and hydrogen. They didn’t need the icebergs anymore. So in a way, everyone was happy. The Silesian Sea would grow imperceptibly up to the edge of the lands his friends had already purchased.

Katy was at the gala, looking glamorous in a strapless frock. She had moved in with Alex. He was nuts about her. They were talking about kids. He proposed to her in the lobby of the Sangster Club. She said she’d think about it. His face fell. Ten seconds later she said yes.

“You bastard,” he said.

“Gotcha,” she said.

It was a tough crowd. A tux crowd. Glittering jewels and polished faces. Carlton was coolly confident. Backstage it was Alex and Lewis who were nervous, like parents at a school play. They were in the way, redundant, pacing around offering useless bits of advice.

“Time to go, buddy,” said Katy, leading Alex off to his seat.

“Break a circuit,” said Alex.

Lewis gave him a slap on the back. Tay handed him a little good luck drawing she had made, then they all passed through the black velvet curtain to take their places.

I do hope this is a good idea, thought Carlton.

Could he do it? Was comedy accessible to computers? Was artificial intelligence finally ready to be funny?

He stepped forward into the spotlight.

E
ric Idle lives in Los Angeles, California. He is one of the original members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. As well as editing all the Python books, he has published
Hello Sailor
(a novel),
The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book, Pass the Butler
(a play), and most recently
The Owl and the Pussycat
(a children’s novel), for which he received a Grammy nomination.

EOF