NEIN NEIN NEIN Percent Reliable!
Baikonurek Cosmodrome
EVA Suit Testing Facility
August 1962
Dr. Doom von Evilstein growled. Confined to quarters, then his quarters reduced to eighths, and finally to sixteenths! Little more than a prison cell, with a bare floor and a bed that was little more than a cot! It was intolerable! It was an INSULT!
But he'd get his own back. He would have revenge on all his enemies, on Pavylyvych, on Omeganski, even on Shroomanski himself. Yes, yes, he would cackle with proper Thanasian glee as he swung the tip of his indefatigably lethal pickaxe into their soft, crunchy knees, yes, yes!
Just as soon as he triumphed politically. He would do it, somehow! He was
very very interested in politics. He didn't know exactly what he could do, for some reason all his plans failed due to catastrophically bad working assumptions, as when he sent a letter to Shroomanski asking for help, only to remember
later that Shroomanski hated him and would never help him in any way. But
somehow he would triumph, and all his enemies would be discredited, and the Zenobians would let him burn all the incriminating evidence and then
oh yes the pickaxe...
Von Evilstein's reveries about the time he first introduced himself to the joys of the pickaxe back in '43 were rudely interrupted when a man barged into his little room, shoving the door aside and looking at the Thanasian in a most peculiar way. He leaned against the wall, going through the practiced motions of lighting a cigarette before speaking to von Evilstein.
"Hello. Call me Dr. Vanko. Let me explain why you are here."
"I recognize
dich nicht."
"I am... recent addition to program. Was once a researcher in experimental power sources, a joint Zenobian-Murcan project, but that smarmy fucker Howard Strak stole all my work. Joke is on him, though, because he'll never get the thing small enough to be cost effective until... heheheheh. Anyway. You, Comrade Fucking Ratzi Slimeball, are here to play an
interesting role in our development of experimental EVA suit hardware. It will be like tests your friends in the camps did, sticking Joos into vacuum chambers, only we are kind, and will give you space suit before removing all the air, da?"
"Nein..."
"Oh, da. Don't worry. This suit has been tested before, except for some experimental seals at the thighs. Also, catheter modifications. For to piss on Murca from orbit, da?"
"Nein..."
"Da, da. Don't worry. System reliability is projected to be man-rated, according to your own ideas about necessary factors of safety for suit, also according to safety standards you yourself set back in '59, the ones that made rocket explode on the pad and kill my friend Yorgi, da?"
"
Nein!"
"Well, if you don't like the safety standards you had plenty of time to rewrite them, da? Da? Always you Thanasians say "these are the orders, I must obey!" But put you in charge and you just keep giving same shitty fucking murder orders, da? Because pack of slave drivers and butchers you are, da! You must kill innocent people, is like compulsion! Poor Thanasians, they cannot help it, is like
scorpion stinging frog, I know, I understand. Is okay, da."
"Nein..."
"But we Zenobians, we beat this out of you, da? We teach you to be good little commienists, good little producing proletarians instead of pompous Preussen assholes, da? It is like I tell my wonderful little son Ivan, when I bounce him on my knee. If you can make God bleed, people will cease to believe in him, there will be blood in the water, the sharks will come. And all we have to do is sit back and watch as the world consumes you, and when we are done, butchering Thanasian slavers and thieving Murcan scientists will study war no more!" Vanko beamed. "Me and my little Ivan, we are such a happy little family together. He will make me proud one day, I know it. Anyway, time for the team to suit you up, comrade! Have fun! This may be your greatest contribution to Zenobian science yet, testing experimental hardware! Heheheheh..."
Vanko turned to leave, and von Evilstein shouted one last word.
"
NEIN!"
Vanko turned. Would there be mercy?
"One thing, before I go. Explosive decompression in the groin. Painful way to die."
Von Evilstein shivered. Vanko took a long drag on his cigarette, chuckled, and left.
Dr. Anton Vanko tapped the pressure scale. "Old scale. Marked in pièze? Eh. Works." Tons per square meter was probably better than kilos per square meter anyway, whatever the Bureau of Standards said.
"Turbopumps are running, and all telltales are green, Comrade Vanko."
"Good, good. How about communications. You all right in there,
Herr von Evilstein?"
"NEIN!"
"Good, communications are working. Switches are working, da? Drop pressure to seventy pièze. Characteristic atmospheric pressure at three thousand meters. Like hopping on a plane, his ears be popping if we get this wrong, da?"
Von Evilstein's shouts of dismay were still audible as the pressure gauge went down. "NEIN! NEIN!"
"Breathing systems working, respiratory leakage zero. Joint sensors nominal, ballooning levels nominal...ish."
"Hokay, drop to forty pièze. Like might see on top of Mount Tall, da?"
"NEIN NEIN NEIN! ICH WILL RAUS!"
Dr. Vanko laughed. He
fucking laughed. "He wants out? Like Zenobian and Pollackistani slave workers in rocket factory want out, da! Drop pressure down to
one pièze. Like vacuum of outer space, practically enough."
"NEIN NEIN NEEIIN!!!!"
Vanko glanced at the control board. "Vital signs unfavorable, telltales condition amber, but could be instrument problem, give it some more seconds, eh?"
Even over the cable connecting the suit microphone to a BNC connector in the wall of the vacuum chamber, Dr. von Evilstein's cries were LOUD and PITIFUL to hear. Also kind of squeaky.
"NEIN NEIN NEEEIIIIN!!!!"
In a control room separated by a panel of one-way glass, Dr. Anton Vanko hovered over a clipboard with a pencil and mumbled. "Viability of experimental piss-on-Murca-from-orbit system...
nyet. Or should I say...
nein! Oh. And restore chamber pressure. Get some medicoes in there, we have orders to try and keep him alive and in roughly one piece. Don't ask me why."
Baikonurek Cosmodrome
Office of the Chief Designer
Two Weeks Later
"So, the surgery was a success. He will make a full recovery, doctor?"
"Approximately full, Comrade Chief Designer."
"...Approximately?"
"In all respects that you would care about, certainly. You are not degenerate Murcan, after all."
"Good."
"Well. His back may display a slight hunching due to lingering distortionate effects caused when suit pressure failed, but nothing especially crippling."
"A hunch... I see. So, explain to me this heading in
Herr Doktor's medical report- 'serum compatibility results.' I've heard the summaries, from Preobrazhensky and his medical team, but not the details, you see, and this is... perversely interesting..."
