Tuesday September 19, 2017
Book 18: Mandatory Failure — Part I

Note: The term "corpsicle" is not particularly apt. Bodies thrown out airlocks don't freeze very quickly, since vacuum is an excellent insulator. Bodies ejected from ruptured habitats are another matter, however. The rapid depressurization of the habitat's gases and liquids functions in much the same way as the compressor on a refrigeration unit. The term "corpsicle" still isn't the right one though. It's just hard not to say it.

Addendum to Note: In the waning days of 3099 the Neoafan Freehold published an amazing suite of life-extension technologies which, taken collectively, promised to extend lives almost indefinitely. (See Delegates and Delegation, Schlock Mercenary Book 15.) The intervening sixteen months have seen numerous non-trivial crises as the widely interspeciated population of the the galaxy increased just a couple of percentage points faster than it used to. Most of these crises were mentioned in Schlock Mercenary only in passing, because "lets build more houses" is less interesting than "oh no we're being attacked by space bugs."

Transcript

NARRATOR: Sixteen months ago corpses like these would have presented responders with a cold, grisly cleanup task.

Today, however, it's a cold, grisly rescue operation.

Uuplechan: Cubbins, prioritize.

CUBBINS: How, exactly? They're corpsicles.

Uuplechan: Radiation can cook the data out of bare skin.

You gotta go for the naked ones first.