Eejit: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man

by Hindle, Andrew

  The Artist snarled and tossed Dingus aside. “Stimulator,” he said, turning towards the closet.

  “I’m afraid our stimulator burned out when Wingus Senior accidentally bonded himself to an autopsy table,” Cratch said. “The good news was, he was already on an autopsy table so that was a time-saver. The bad news was, like I say, the stimulator burned out. And additionally, just between you and me, Wingus Jr. is a little bit thick,” he smiled. “Everything’s good news and bad news, isn’t it? It’s like I always–”

  “Shut up,” the Artist transferred the three heavy bottles to his lower hands, then placed them on the counter while keeping Cratch carefully in his line of sight. “Shame you weren’t still in the brig,” he said, “I might have just left you there. Now I’ll–”

  “Wait,” Glomulus raised a long forefinger. “If we’re going to have a showdown, can we wait until the next song? Can’t Stop Butting Heads, it’d be so much more appropriate.”

  The Artist eyed Cratch cautiously, as if to illustrate that his foaming rage and clear psychosis was merely a decorative scrimshaw on the surface of a tooth belonging to a much more expansive insanity. An insanity space whale, perhaps, Glomulus reflected whimsically. Contro would no doubt approve.

  There wasn’t much you could say about the Artist, appearance-wise. He was a Molran, and a more or less normal one – but then, Molren were normal almost by definition. Molren were basically the same as Blaren in looks, with four arms and four-digited hands, broad flat-topped skulls and perpetually-smiling mouths, wing-like webbed ears and elongated eye teeth. Well, in short, Molranoid. Molren were even more homogenised, however, with even fewer variations in height, build, and general appearance. Blaren liked to insult Molren by calling them ghone, a derogatory Xidh term meaning ‘clone’.

  About all that Cratch could tell about the Artist under his liberal coating of eejit blood was that he was old – quite possibly ancient. Despite this, however, he was also extremely vital. He was clearly at one of those stages of Molran life where the body revitalised itself and grew new muscle, new fat and in some cases new organs, all the worn-out bits sloughing away and being replaced with improved models, albeit ones that burned steadily hotter and faster as the final phases came upon the individual. These prime periods were how Molranoids managed to live for millennia while humans could barely scrape into a second century with all their hull plates intact.

  “I would have left you in the brig,” he said, “and the machine would most likely have kept you fed and watered for as long as you needed. I can’t have you out here, though,” he went on, “because I need a ship. An empty ship, at least empty of these unpredictable and unmanageable living elements.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say the ables we have on crew are manageable,” Glomulus said. He considered attempting to deflect the Artist’s attention by telling him about the odd underspace-sensitivity Whye had discovered in the Tramp’s eejit population, about which he’d been doing the Janus Whye equivalent of excited jabbering almost since the landing party had left. For Janus, excited jabbering meant idly saying hey, I just noticed this thing, not sure if it’s important, if you think it’s worth a look, I don’t know, it’s all just whatever …

  In the end, he decided against it for the time being. If the Artist did end up stealing the ship, killing them all and attempting to form a rapport with the eejits, then he could darn well figure them out as he went along, just like the former crew had.

  “No,” the Artist agreed moodily. “It’s a shame the able plant seems to have been scrambled, but the automation is good and I don’t need to go far. I’ll be able to get a replacement, and put these poor creatures out of their misery.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you needed to go anywhere,” Glomulus said. “If you can travel to any part of the universe with just a scooter and a spacesuit, why do you even need a ship? And why use this ship as an intermediate point if you can go directly to wherever you’re planning on going – this fabulous place where you can get a new fabrication plant and everything?” The Artist smiled, although Cratch admitted this could simply have been the way his mouth looked. He’d never been good at telling a smiling Molran from a scowling one. “It’s the synthetic intelligence, right?” he asked brightly. “Too difficult to rip it out of the Tramp. If it would even let you try,” he paused, and glanced theatrically at the nearest comm speaker. “Bruce has been quiet lately,” he noted.

  “Navigation is one concern,” the Artist strolled along the front of the closets, keeping Cratch in front of him in that once-again disconcerting way that suggested he was, if not sane, then at least far more calculatedly nuts than it seemed to the untrained eye. “As is the integrated nature of my … friend. Plus, now that you have destroyed my designs and my development station and manufactory, I have need of some of your lab space and automation equipment.”

  “I think you’ll find our labs and automation gear disappointing too.”

  “Most likely,” the Artist said distantly. “A most unfortunate attempt on the part of your tactical officer to shift the balance of power.”

  “Sally is more of a ‘shoot first, questions are for sissies’ person,” Cratch noted philosophically.

  “She is a fool.”

  “Just as well Decay didn’t get back here and get his hands on you first,” Glomulus noted, his voice quiet. “His wife was killed in The Accident.”

  “I didn’t cause your precious Accident,” the Artist snapped in sudden annoyance. “Do you think I would do something that risked not only the ship and the ables, but also the synthetic intelligence I needed? No, it was that thing Captain Ixia left with your Captain that did it. Did you even know about that? No, I imagine you didn’t,” he said, switching from hot to cold with worrying fluidity. “I imagine they haven’t told you much of anything at all, actually.”

  “Sort of like you and Bruce.”

  “Sort of like,” the Artist said in mild amusement. “So,” he went on, not waiting for Cratch to fire off a new response, “you survived your so-called Accident … and they let you out?”

  “Among the things you weren’t expecting to be surprised with today,” Cratch said, waving his hands sheepishly.

  “I suppose they needed medical expertise,” the Artist shook his head, “and … well, humans – what can one say? They found themselves alone and in trouble, their numbers suddenly reduced to a pathetic handful. Naturally, being humans, they sought an illusory solidarity with every last member of their species left on board, and illogically assumed they shared common cause and a mutual respect that increases in inverse proportion to the population.”

  “Very technical,” Glomulus approved. “I’m not sure that’s what they thought, but it sounds as though it’s based in some very solid human psychology. Or at least mathematics.”

  “Only a few of you left, you’ll simply have to trust one another and work together or you will never make it through,” the Artist murmured. “Crimes of the past forgotten and all backs bent to the common oar, yes?”

  “You’re really thinking of a different group of humans,” Cratch smirked. “Did you hang out with a lot of stem-tweakers or egg-poppers as a younger man?”

  “I still can’t believe they let you out,” the Artist marvelled. “Bruce said something about it, but I admit at the time I was more interested in the larger ramifications of your ‘Accident’.”

  “I guess there’s a lot of stuff Bruce didn’t tell you,” Glomulus smiled sympathetically. “About the guns. About the eejits. What do you need a molecular bonding stimulator for?” the Artist’s eyes narrowed, and Cratch gave a little shrug. “I’m no threat to them,” he went on. “Not right now, anyway. They have subdermal implants that they can use to set these off,” he rattled his bracelets, then twitched the leg of his pants to show the matching metal gleams around his ankles.

  The Artist’s ears flicked in surprise, sending a fleck of eejit blood spattering against the closet door. Glomulus kept himself
from staring at it by sheer willpower. “Mini-charges?”

  “You know what they say,” Doctor Cratch wiggled his fingers again. “It’s amazing how difficult it is to concentrate when your hands and feet have been blown off.”

  “You let them put those on you?”

  “Not exactly,” he replied easily. “It was a condition of my release. Plus, I was goofballed out of my mind on tranks that would have floored a wacky-wacky-Drednanth. So much for that illusory solidarity and shared common cause, right?” he grinned. “So much for the crimes of the past being forgotten and all of us getting down on the ol’ common oar.”

  “I admit,” the Artist said, “even with the evident underestimation I have fallen victim to with these creatures, I am surprised.”

  “Of course, it hasn’t stopped me from trying to get out of them,” he went on. “They make a move, then I make a move, see? You might help me with my next one.”

  The Artist ignored this offer, at least for the moment. “It’s all very well to take a precaution,” he mused, “but calling the bluff is quite another matter. Do you think they’d actually do it?”

  “I have the luxury of not needing to hypothesise,” Cratch wiggled his fingers. “This must be my sixty-fifth set.”

  The Artist actually blanched. “You’re serious.”

  “The first nine sets were my own doing, so I kept good count of those,” Glomulus smiled. “They decided to try out an informal little house arrest system at the start, an arrangement where I’d stay in the medical bay and if I went outside the detonators would trigger. I went out nine times before they agreed to turn off the boundary sensors. I agreed in turn to not go out without permission or notification. Principle of the thing.”

  “You blew off your own hands and feet?” the Artist whispered. “Eight more times after you knew they weren’t bluffing?”

  “I think personally that the only reason they opened the boundary after those nine times was because they needed me to do that surgery on Janus Whye,” Glomulus shrugged. “They can always detonate without question if I show up outside without agreement and warning.”

  “I would have imagined a human would bleed out if it lost its hands and feet,” the Artist rallied. “You don’t have the arterial control to shut off bleeding.”

  “Well, the charges are pretty hot,” Glomulus said, giving his hands another shake, “so I estimate a certain amount of cauterisation comes into the equation. They’re also shaped, so they don’t blast me ragged to the knees and elbows. My guess is that they separate, and the bits that don’t blow up just tighten and act like tourniquets. As for the rest, so far I have been lucky to get prompt treatment – but again, I can only guess. Sorry to say I’ve passed out every time so far, like a big wimp.”

  “And they all have charges?

  “Yep. Like I said. Subdermal.”

  “She has charges?”

  “Funnily enough, she is the only one who hasn’t popped off the occasional set just for a laugh,” Cratch said whimsically. “Her and the Captain. As far as I know, anyway, since there’s hardly a broadcast when it happens. Usually the others make their culpability quite clear, verbally or by amusing pantomime. Sometimes they might have been covering for each other, but in this case I doubt it,” he spread his long hands. “No secrets here.”

  The Artist laughed, loudly and abruptly. “No secrets? Glomulus Cratch, secrets are all you people have left. Ask your precious merciful Captain about that. Do you even know who’s leading your intrepid band?”

  Molren were fast and the Artist, while old, was in that phase that left him strong and fast even for a Molran. As Cratch opened his mouth to answer, the blood-drenched alien slid fluidly forward onto his knees. His lower left arm snaked to one side into the half-open door of a nearby cabinet, and he rose to a crouch with a scalpel curled in his fingers. The scalpel swept up through the empty space where Glomulus’s groin had been a split-second before. The Artist missed Doctor Cratch’s femoral artery by a fraction of an inch.

  Because as fast as the Molran was, Glomulus Cratch was faster.

  The Artist skidded on the bloody tiles and puffed out his final breath as the pale human sidestepped and dipped his long thumbs into the junction of his flat-topped skull plates.

  Doctor Cratch tightened his grip in a smooth flexing of super-dense tendons and adrenaline-fed muscles, cracking the heavy bone down the middle like an egg.

  SALLY

  “Space weasel,” Zeegon yelped, spinning and flailing desperately in zero gravity while Sally pulled herself across and shone a lamp into the wiring behind the panel. “Space weasel, space weasel, space weasel.”

  “Stop saying ‘space weasel’,” Z-Lin said.

  “Just as soon as you stop there from being one on my head!”

  “Hold still.”

  “Very difficult in zero gee and with a space weasel on my head!”

  Clue grabbed the chittering mossy creature and pulled it free. This sent the Commander somersaulting backwards and a few globules of Zeegon’s blood floating in the other direction, while he continued to spin in place. Clue righted herself easily with her feet and let the weasel float loose while she ducked for a sample container. Utterly unaccustomed to freefall conditions and no longer connected to the leverage of the wiring access slot, the weasel twisted and revolved in place much like Zeegon was doing. Unlike Zeegon, the weasel also managed to wee vindictively into the air, sending an arc of ammonia-reeking piss-globs flying into the only part of the cabin not already occupied by bodies or fluids therefrom.

  Zeegon may or may not have similarly lost bladder control when the weasel had leapt on him, actually, but Sally knew from firsthand experience that the AstroCorps uniform – even the non-Corps crew variants worn by pretty much everyone except Z-Lin – was up to the task of containing at least minor leaks.

  Z-Lin scooped the weasel into the sample box and sealed the lid before it could propel itself out. “See if there are more,” she said.

  “I looked,” Sally reported, “not seeing any signs. But there’s wiring and cluster ducts and all sorts of shooey back there, they could have crawled into any of them. If this one got up here, others could have gone other ways.”

  “How did they get in?” Zeegon demanded, wrestling himself into the pilot’s seat with admirable resilience and a minimum of bitching. “No, wait, scratch that, even if Bruce didn’t just open the doors or release the bioseals on the landing struts for shits and giggles, the lander was open for a few minutes when we were on approach in Methuselah,” he dabbed at his scalp with a piece of gauze Z-Lin had handed him, and grimaced at the blood oozing from his stiff black hair. “Little bastards were probably ready to climb into anything after those mini-whorls went off. What I want to know now is, how royally screwed are the lander controls?”

  “Not entirely,” Sally reported, “just looks like a connector was cut and that locked the autopilot out too … don’t worry,” she went on, “I’ve got a procedure for getting rid of excess biological buildup – you know, critters in the lander’s junk.”

  “Is it another unnecessarily ultra-violent procedure?” Zeegon asked.

  “What do you mean, another one?” Sally squinted at the helmsman.

  “Sorry,” Zeegon conceded. “I’m just feeling a bit of a schmuck sitting here at the controls when I know they’re not actually capable of doing anything. Also a bit worried about space rabies.”

  “Stop putting the word ‘space’ in front of things and presenting them as viable possibilities just because we’re in space,” Clue said in exasperation.

  “How is that in any way an invalid practice?” Zeegon inquired.

  “Space whales,” Waffa said from the hatch.

  Zeegon grunted. “Point.”

  “Looks like there’s just a couple of chewed bits, and only one of them’s actually severed, and there’s also some crap pellets in here,” Sally reported, “I’ll splat the rest of the weasels, if there are any, and–”


  “Hang on, ‘splat’?” Z-Lin interrupted.

  “Figure of speech,” Sally replied stoutly. “It’s really going to be more of a ‘scrunch’.”

  “That’s not better.”

  “I’m hyper-pressurising the internal conduits and wallspace with a blowback from the atmosphere scrubbers,” Sally said, “easy. You may get a slight case of ear-pop but most of the pressure will be localised. We did it that one time we got a bat up in there, you remember?”

  “That was the weirdest,” Waffa reminisced.

  “Alright, then let’s see about getting back on course and back to the Tramp,” Z-Lin nodded.

  “How long do we have before we suffocate, freeze, starve or die of thirst?” Zeegon asked.

  “Forget it,” Clue said. “We’ve got power to keep us warm for a couple of years, food printer-blocks to gorge ourselves sick on for about eighteen months, air for a decade and, with the condenser, functionally infinite water. We could power down the engines and hose our way back to the Tramp. We’re more at risk from cabin fever,” she pointed at Zeegon, “or a crewmember succumbing to space rabies and space-murdering us all in our space beds.”

  “I suppose you think that’s funny,” Zeegon grumbled, dabbing at his head.

  Clue shrugged. “I know comedy.”

  “Don’t worry,” Decay said, sounding a little more like his usual lackadaisical self, “I’ll keep an eye on you all while you’re unconscious.”

  “You’re probably better off out here anyway,” Bruce suddenly spoke up. “The Artist is super-mad at you.”

  “No doubt if we were back on board, he’d come up with some wonderful villainous death for us all that would be so much more tortuous than dying in interplanetary space adrift in a lander,” Sally said, and then remembered the underspace drive and wished she hadn’t spoken.