Jarad stared at the screen. It was filled with the data from his lunar observations and he was fed up of looking at it. He was fed up with noting the positions of the two moons. He was fed up with the long hours within the capsule with the port-holes (and the starboard-holes) darkened against the glare of the sun and the bizarre red cast to the light from the iron ore dust that covered the planet. Actually, he mused, I'm just plain fed up.

He looked at the final page of data – down to 729 possibilities – but he was fairly sure he was on Mars, the next rock out from the benighted planet whose inhabitants called it Earth. Imaginative.

How long, he mused – he had plenty of time so musing was his favoured mien this week – would it take to walk back? To long. What about a scooter? Surely he could reprogramme the replicator to build a space scooter, then he could ride home. It really was only a short hop between the two planets.

What a pity, he thought, that the civilization that had built that had built the extensive canal network to irrigate this world in its dying, drying days hadn't thought of or discovered the principles of fixed line space travel. It would have been far easier for him to repair and resurrect a space tram line than to build a scooter from scratch. Now he just needed to calculate the battery size he needed.

Let's see, he muttered, jotting the factors into a list with a unaccustomed level of enthusiasm. Soon his spreadsheet was replete with items such as required time of travel as a function of distance, air supply, pay load and acceleration level limits.

Eventually, Jarad fell asleep dreaming of roaring across space towards the planet that held those who had humiliated him. Navigation, he dreamed, was easy: turn right at the bright star and then straight on to morning!

Celestially inspired by Light Speed Motor Scooter

_{© 2007 English Rose Literary Productions}