Eejit: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man Read Free

it slithered onto the floor, or peel away a flap of skin or uniform or the plastic maintenance report flimsy Eejit Airlock Maintenance 2-19 had been carrying when he died. “On initial visual inspection I would say that the injuries here are consistent with the accompanying casualty report,” he said, shifting to a slightly more sombre tone. “Limbs and torso crushed and almost severed by rapidly opening-and-closing inner airlock door, finally pinning victim at sternum level, then outer airlock door opening a small amount resulting in decompression and the pulping of the upper body as it was dragged through inner airlock door by force. Some cold damage and lost material from lower extremities, presumably when they were sucked against the narrow opening in outer airlock door. One leg severed at lower-shin, presumed lost into space. Cause of death…”
    Doctor Cratch looked at the partially-collapsed head, the scattered bones and the mounds of flesh and intestines.
    Dingus, the second nurse, pointed helpfully at the ragged stump of the neck where it now largely failed to connect with the base of the skull. “I think people die when the neck is open like that,” he said.
    “Yes,” Cratch said solemnly. “Yes, I can say with confidence that they do.”
    Wingus and Dingus did look slightly different, both to one another and to the ancient Able Darko archetype. It was an enduring myth that clones all came out looking totally identical. The production of a clone was not, after all, the same genetic process as might take place for the gestation of identical twins, let alone completely synthesised printed replicants – another set of horrific myths altogether. No, ables were more like non-identical siblings, although their genetic-level identicality and the fabrication process itself served to draw them towards that identical baseline far more than if they had simply been cloned from the same stock. Their similarity of appearance was a reflection of the similarity in their blood, organs, skin and tissues – it wasn’t because they were clones, as such.
    But long story short, they were strikingly similar. Each was embedded with an identity at fabrication, and whatever name they were later assigned became linked to that identity. Glomulus could tell Wingus and Dingus apart, nine times out of ten. For the hundreds of other eejits on board, name-tags were a definite plus.
    “So … cause of death would be something like … neck being off?” Dingus suggested.
    “Neck parts missing,” Wingus Jr. amended professionally.
    Dingus nodded crisply. “Cause of death, neck loss.”
    “ Cause of death ,” Wingus Jr. concluded triumphantly, “asphyxiation due to insufficient neckal tissue.”
    “ That one,” Cratch said, ending his tennis-match back-and-forth administration of the diagnostic consultation, snapping his fingers and pointing at Wingus Jr. “The points you lost by using the word ‘neckal’, you more than made up for with ‘asphyxiation’,” he nodded approvingly. “For ‘neckal’, try substituting ‘spinal’ or, depending on the context and if you’re feeling particularly loquacious, ‘oesophageal’.”
    “Oesophageal.”
    “Right,” Cratch stepped back to look at, as it were, the big picture. He waited for Mr. Larouchel to croon to the end of Sad Little Doggy and launch into the soft opening bars of Oræl Rides To War before continuing. “Although, if we’re talking about cause of death and being absolute sticklers for, you know, facts and stuff … given that his skull is still mostly intact and that the damage goes chop chop chop legs, crunch crunch pelvis-and-gut, chomp diaphragm and then smear on up to the neck … I’ll hazard a guess that he went feet-first.
    “By the weight of this physical evidence, my esteemed colleagues, I think I’m going to risk going on record saying that our old friend Eejit Airlock Maintenance 2-19 was probably dead by the time he got squeezed from the access