Read Online Eejit: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man by Andrew Hindle - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andrew Hindle
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been considerable damage from the catchment scoops, since this was assumed to be a rock at first detection.”
“Well, we can’t blame Waffa for that–”
“I wasn’t blaming Waffa,” Janya said. “It’s just going to make the examination more difficult.”
“The examination that will tell us if somebody caught Eejit Airlock Maintenance 2-19’s foot and threw it back at us at high speed?” Cratch twinkled. “Are we looking for fingerprints? DNA? Trace elements of lacrosse stick?”
Janya spared Cratch an unamused look. “DNA, certainly,” she said. “Easy enough to look for, and if we find anything but Able Darko’s DNA in there, we’ll know that we’re dealing with…” she paused, actually uncertain.
“An interstellar body-part shortstop?” Doctor Cratch hazarded.
“Yes,” Janya said. “We’ll call it an IBPS in the official report, of course.”
It irritated Cratch that he sometimes couldn’t tell when Janya was being sarcastic, and instead had to just assume that she was because it seemed like the only way to get out of conversations with her in one piece. “Okay,” he said reasonably, “well whatever we’re going to do, we might as well get on with it before we either fly too far away from whatever-it-is, or it comes after us and catches us unawares.”
“Agreed.”
Janya set the scanners in action, and they unwound from the ceiling like metal tentacles. Cratch watched them curl and focus on the slowly-melting mince-and-polymer popsicle in the middle of the workspace. He couldn’t help but think it was a lot of effort and infrastructure for very little purpose.
“So what if we get some DNA reading from some cantankerous intergalactic kraken that we’ve just slapped in the puckered series of orifices and ghastly spines and hooks it has for a face, with about six percent of a snap-frozen eejit?” he asked. “Are we going to turn around and try to talk with it? Or just fly on, perhaps accelerating a little in order to guarantee it doesn’t start throwing anything else in our direction?” he paused. “It’s going to be the former, isn’t it?”
“We are primarily a ship of exploration for the expansion and betterment of the human race,” Janya said firmly.
“We were that, once,” Cratch said, “or to be entirely fair, you were. Not entirely convinced I qualify for inclusion,” he waited a moment for Adeneo to either agree or disagree with this, but she seemed content to just stand quietly and study the controls as the scanners did their work completely autonomously and in no need of guidance or supervision. “Now, since The Accident? I don’t know what we are, but explorers? Expanders? Betterment of the race? The sensible evolutionary thing for us to do right now would be to find a quiet uninhabited planetoid and hole up and lick our wounds for a while. Every instinct in my body is telling me this is what we should do.”
“I’m perfectly well aware of what the instincts in your body tell you to do,” Janya said.
Cratch opted to ignore that. “When did you last get an external communication?” he asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“When was it? I don’t get anything, of course, but that doesn’t mean much. Have you gotten any messages or hails or distress calls, since the Dark Glory Ascendant fiasco?” he paused. “For that matter, any messages or pings from any of their escape pods? They can’t all have been sucked into that–”
“There are good reasons you are denied communications access,” Janya said, “and that extends to asking me leading questions and attempting to–”
“To what? Make you think?”
She bristled visibly, but didn’t rise to him. Nor, he noted, did she seem to be making any muscle-tension movements towards her subdermal activators. It was one of the most unsettling things about her, in fact. Aside from the Captain himself, Janya Adeneo was the only person aboard the Tramp to never use the
“Well, we can’t blame Waffa for that–”
“I wasn’t blaming Waffa,” Janya said. “It’s just going to make the examination more difficult.”
“The examination that will tell us if somebody caught Eejit Airlock Maintenance 2-19’s foot and threw it back at us at high speed?” Cratch twinkled. “Are we looking for fingerprints? DNA? Trace elements of lacrosse stick?”
Janya spared Cratch an unamused look. “DNA, certainly,” she said. “Easy enough to look for, and if we find anything but Able Darko’s DNA in there, we’ll know that we’re dealing with…” she paused, actually uncertain.
“An interstellar body-part shortstop?” Doctor Cratch hazarded.
“Yes,” Janya said. “We’ll call it an IBPS in the official report, of course.”
It irritated Cratch that he sometimes couldn’t tell when Janya was being sarcastic, and instead had to just assume that she was because it seemed like the only way to get out of conversations with her in one piece. “Okay,” he said reasonably, “well whatever we’re going to do, we might as well get on with it before we either fly too far away from whatever-it-is, or it comes after us and catches us unawares.”
“Agreed.”
Janya set the scanners in action, and they unwound from the ceiling like metal tentacles. Cratch watched them curl and focus on the slowly-melting mince-and-polymer popsicle in the middle of the workspace. He couldn’t help but think it was a lot of effort and infrastructure for very little purpose.
“So what if we get some DNA reading from some cantankerous intergalactic kraken that we’ve just slapped in the puckered series of orifices and ghastly spines and hooks it has for a face, with about six percent of a snap-frozen eejit?” he asked. “Are we going to turn around and try to talk with it? Or just fly on, perhaps accelerating a little in order to guarantee it doesn’t start throwing anything else in our direction?” he paused. “It’s going to be the former, isn’t it?”
“We are primarily a ship of exploration for the expansion and betterment of the human race,” Janya said firmly.
“We were that, once,” Cratch said, “or to be entirely fair, you were. Not entirely convinced I qualify for inclusion,” he waited a moment for Adeneo to either agree or disagree with this, but she seemed content to just stand quietly and study the controls as the scanners did their work completely autonomously and in no need of guidance or supervision. “Now, since The Accident? I don’t know what we are, but explorers? Expanders? Betterment of the race? The sensible evolutionary thing for us to do right now would be to find a quiet uninhabited planetoid and hole up and lick our wounds for a while. Every instinct in my body is telling me this is what we should do.”
“I’m perfectly well aware of what the instincts in your body tell you to do,” Janya said.
Cratch opted to ignore that. “When did you last get an external communication?” he asked.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“When was it? I don’t get anything, of course, but that doesn’t mean much. Have you gotten any messages or hails or distress calls, since the Dark Glory Ascendant fiasco?” he paused. “For that matter, any messages or pings from any of their escape pods? They can’t all have been sucked into that–”
“There are good reasons you are denied communications access,” Janya said, “and that extends to asking me leading questions and attempting to–”
“To what? Make you think?”
She bristled visibly, but didn’t rise to him. Nor, he noted, did she seem to be making any muscle-tension movements towards her subdermal activators. It was one of the most unsettling things about her, in fact. Aside from the Captain himself, Janya Adeneo was the only person aboard the Tramp to never use the
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