Free Eejit: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man by Andrew Hindle

the one corresponding to Able Darko’s profile. Two different hits mean that one of them has to belong to another organism, and – if it is human DNA – the chances are excellent that this means baseline -human.”
    “I guess the alternatives are that there are some sort of genetic variants on the Tramp ’s eejits running around,” Cratch started, then saw Janya’s warning look. “But we can speculate about that later. Of course, we’ve all been on this ship together for a long time. What are the odds of some flakes of skin or other DNA markers finding their way into Eejit Airlock Maintenance 2-19’s pants-cuff or boot-sole or toejam?” he spread his hands. “I mean, maybe you and I, Janya, can have a nice safe non-brain-rebooting think about the implications – if any – of it being DNA from one of us, if it’s going to prove too–”
    “Begging your pardon, Doctor Cratch – I mean Glomulus – but I’m getting some results now and ruling at least some things out,” Westchester was studying another console. “It does not appear to be DNA from any of the Tramp ’s current crew.”
    “Past crew?”
    “Cross-checking,” Janya said, tapping away impatiently at yet a third console while it was still powering up. “but it doesn’t look like it, not at the moment, not according to the records … but then, those were all pretty hopelessly scrambled.”
    “But human , at least?” Cratch insisted.
    “Not human,” Adeneo shook her head.
    “But not alien ,” Cratch said. “I know you’re the calm type, but I like to think you’d be a little bit more excited about finding the DNA of that interstellar foot-chucker we were talking about earlier.”
    “I imagine I would be.”
    “I mean, imagine if we could clone him.”
    “Glomulus.”
    “Okay,” he crossed to the console. “So, not human. But a species we know? Molran? Fergunak? Sounds like something a Fergunakil would do, right? Maybe a wacky-wacky-Drednanth?” he ooger-boogered his fingers briefly. “ Damorakind ? One of those slimy things we found on that asteroid a while back? One of those horrible space-tomb scarab beetle hive queen things–”
    “Molran.”
    “I’m obscurely disappointed.”
    “Molran,” Westchester agreed with a decisive nod.
    “But not Decay,” Cratch stressed.
    “Not Decay.”
    “Some other Molran.”
    “Decay is a Blaran, not a Molran,” Janya pointed out.
    “My mistake. Molran oid . But not Decay.”
    “Not Decay,” Janya repeated.
    “Hmm,” Cratch concluded.
    “Oesophageal,” Nurse Dingus added.
    “Indeed,” Cratch and Whitehall said simultaneously.
    Janya twitched her eyebrows in what was, for her, a highly-amused grin. Then she looked back down at her console. “Um.”
    Cratch didn’t like the sound of that interjection. “‘Um’?”
    “This DNA?” Janya looked up. “The sample substance? Saliva.”
     

WAFFA
    After almost managing to sit down after his shift, and almost managing to relax and convince himself he’d get a fair but realistic amount of downtime after his recent series of scrub-fires, Waffa encountered something predictably awful. This, if the interface panel errors and the eejit-eating airlock were scrub-fires, was an ocean of glowing-hot coals lying inches beneath the forest floor just waiting to set a patch of dry leaves aflame.
    Inches, he stressed in his colourful imaginary levels-of-severity metaphor, beneath the entire forest floor .
    The great old starships of the line, even the smaller warships like the Dark Glory Ascendant , had been built with computers possessed of full synthetic intelligence. It was the only way to coordinate so many systems, incorporate so much human interaction and levels of communication and mis communication, and ensure that intuition and common sense found their way into the decision-making process but didn’t run it. While a chain was still only as strong as its weakest link, this weakest link was no longer on the machine side and it