The Daylight Room and other short stories

The Lazarus Incident

- Based on the characters and incidents in my novels Blackstar and Life on Mars. -

'There's no such thing as bad publicity.' Beebee had said. 6 weeks later he would barely be able to afford to pay her wages and spend more time in this bar than in the office. Commander Maxtor sipped his Jack Daniels and Coke, looking around he saw nothing but losers, guilty by association he thought to himself. 

Business tends to take a dive when your security company let's the single rarest commodity in the Universe slip through it's fingers. The media had dubbed it 'The Lazarus Incident'. 

If this job offer didn't come off he'd be paying Beebee out of his own pocket in a few weeks. Maxtor checked the time, finished his drink and strolled out into the street. As he entered Beebee nodded towards the office and mouthed "He's here." 

He breathed deeply and pushed the door. The kid, who couldn't have been more than 25 years old was rummaging in a holdall and seemed surprised to see Maxtor. Quickly dropping the bag by his chair he stood and they exchanged pleasantries.

"Drink Mr?" said Maxtor

"Noble, no I'm fine thanks."

Maxtor fell into his chair, picked up a glass of dark liquid and sipped. He produced a hankie from his pocket and buffed the condensed liquid on the desk. "How can I help you Mr Noble?"

"I want to know about the Lazarus."

Maxtor stood and indicated the door. "Go buy a newspaper Mr Noble."

"I'm paying for your time Commander, I consider the clock is running."

Maxtor slowly sat down, "You wanted to talk about a job?"

"I do, but first I want to hear it from you."

"Ok," said Maxtor cautiously, he took a large gulp of his drink and the ice clinked against the crystal as he placed the glass back down.

Maxtor leaned back and sighed. "I was commissioned to pull together a team and jump onto the surface of Mars to recover a rare artefact known as the Blackstar." Maxtor unconsciously glanced up at the clock. "If you want the physics lesson then here it is. The universe is made of stuff, that stuff is the same pretty much everywhere. The stuff is distributed in different quantities across the universe. For example diamonds, some say theres even a planet out there somewhere thats made of diamond. But the Blackstars are unique, only two. A completely unknown substance."

Maxtor thought he sensed a slight grin on the kids face. "For several hundred years these elements had been placed along with millions of other samples in the old martian base. Our orders were to recover them and bring them back to earth."

"And your employer was?"

"You already know, we had no idea, I had two team members and an observer, a Professor Touchreik." 

The kid nodded slowly, "Still, he surely had some clout, getting you aboard the Lazarus?"

"We'd assumed so, the Lazarus was a pleasure cruiser on her maiden voyage to circumnavigate Mars. A couple of hundred passengers were aboard, purely for sightseeing purposes of course."

"But not you?"

"No, we were to jump to the surface and bring back the Blackstars."

"Which you did." 

Maxtors eyes narrowed, "Yes." he said sensing the insinuation. "We did the hard bit, returned to the Lazarus and placed the Backstars in the vault."

"Then spent a month enjoying the onboard facilities."