by Doug Naylor
And a third, and a fourth.
Slowly, water started to seep up out of the cracks, as if it was being sucked out by a hugely powerful vacuum.
He leapt again - this time bringing both his heels down on to the plasti-plate. The plate smashed and water started to disappear through the hole and into the night sky outside.
The lake started to empty.
But his lungs had nothing left to give. Nothing left to keep him conscious. Not even the few seconds it took for the cyberlake to flood up into the asteroid's night sky.
He blacked out.
He saw faces. He heard voices. And then they faded away and there was nothing.
Just a peace and tranquillity that he had never experienced before and Lister knew more surely than he'd ever known anything in his life that he was about to die. He made a noise like a small child deprived of a favourite toy. A two-syllable moan of disappointment. 'Ow-woo.'
Then he died.
CHAPTER 11
Kochanski perched on the wires of the telegraph pole and hung on to the insulated rubber cables as her eyes scanned the oranging sky for signs of Starbug.
For the past thirty-six years she and Lister had lived as man and wife in a reality where time ran backwards. They'd lived their lives in reverse, starting out in their dotage and gradually growing young together.
They'd had a good life. They'd owned their own Food Collection Depot — where members of the backwards society had dropped by and, in return for cash, had regurgitated meals on to the empty plates which Lister and Kochanski diligently laid out on the tables every day. Once the meals were regurgitated they were taken into the kitchen where they were un-cooked. Potatoes were returned to their peels, eggs to their shells, bread un-sliced and bananas from banana splits were carefully sealed in yellow skins. When the food was finally uncooked and packaged ready for collection, they paid to have it taken away. Trucks would then transport the food to huge warehouses where it would be stored until the meat was finally turned into living animals, which were set free on farms.
Life in a backwards reality wasn't easy. They'd brought down two fine children together, Mij and Yelxeb; she thought about them often. They'd steered them through the anxieties of a backwards adolescence, a most confusing time, where pus hurled itself off mirrors into their faces, and they'd watched entranced as their children grew smaller until finally they'd become tiny babies and returned to Kochanski's womb.
For thirty-odd years they'd lived like that, thirty years of reverse-living and, at the time, Kochanski had been grateful; after all they'd both been killed in reality and transporting them to a backwards Universe was the only way to bring them back to life. But when they had rendezvoused at Niagara Falls, as agreed, on Lister's twenty-fourth birthday, and Kryten and the gang had transported them back to their own dimension, or so they thought, she'd believed at last the two of them could settle down and have a normal life together. She'd always pictured some kind of desert moon which they'd be able to irrigate; and some kind of farm and a family. A normal, forward-growing family. And then maybe they'd be able to ransack a bio-lab on a derelict star ship they'd come across one day and slowly start to rebuild the human race.
A normal life: that's all she wanted. And to her normal was a reality where time went forwards, and no one got marooned up telegraph poles in the wrong dimension of reality.
Out of the dawn sky a small green craft appeared, flying low over a series of dunes. The three figures on the telegraph wires started to shout and wave. Kochanski's mouth wrinkled into a smile of relief. At last they'd be able to get out of here and start searching for Lister.
Who cared about his other self? Not her, not any more, not if it meant endangering everyone's life.
She smiled. Now the Cat was here they'd be able to hover above the computer and insert the antidote disk and dispatch the healer virus into the system and resurrect the artificial gravity generator.
That'd be the first thing they'd do - return gravity to Lotomi 5.
Then they'd find Lister. And she'd say sorry for making him embark on this idiotic quest to find his other self. Then they'd get the hell back to their own dimension and find Red Dwarf and Holly and start looking for a planetoid to build a home.
That's what they'd do.
CHAPTER 12
Bang.
Pain. In his chest. Someone hitting him.
Bang.
Ribs aching.
Bang.
Must get them to stop.
Agony.
Bang.
His eyelids blinked open and he stared into the eyes of the perpetrator. The person who was doing press-ups on his chest, who was cudgelling his ribs with the ball of his right hand. He had brown eyes, the colour of mud.
He knew those eyes.
He'd seen them before, but he couldn't remember where. They were familiar, so familiar. Suddenly the eyes were gone and he could see nothing — only the blackness of a star-speckled night.
Then he felt a pair of lips fix themselves to his and fingers pinch his nose and air was hurled into his lungs. It made him cough. An arc of water jetted out off him, like he was a punctured water butt. He coughed and spluttered and gazed into the eyes again. Now he could see a mouth. Two lips, talking to him, shouting at him, then they were on him again and air was spewing into his lungs. Again, he was flipped on to his side and again a liquid arc cut a C through the air.
He coughed and sat upright — hunched and wheezing, unable to talk. He looked up and stared into the face of his lifesaver.
The face, the exact same face as his own, grinned back at him. 'You were dead. Heart stopped beating. Enough water in those lungs to irrigate the Mooli desert on Cyrius 3.' The face laughed, eyes twinkling. 'I saved your life. You know why?'
Lister shook his head.
'A guy as handsome as you? You gotta be kidding.' He laughed again. 'My curiosity was piqued, man. Who the hell are you?'
'I'm an alternative version of you.'
'Give me that one more time.'
'You've heard of the Omni-zone? The point in space time where all the...' A fresh strafe of coughing folded his body in two. He clutched his sides and it was some moments before he was able to continue. '... It's the point in space time where all the gazillions of possibilities of existence are played out. We screwed up the navi-calcs when we were traversing it and wound up in your dimension.'
'How'd you know how to find me?'
Lister shook his head not knowing how much his doppelgänger knew, and afraid to mention the dead ship and the bodies.
'Luck. Met some guy at a market on Blerios 15. Said he'd set you up.'
'Yeah, I remember him - son of a prosti-droid.' His face, driven by the memory, twisted into ugliness. 'So you came to get me out of here, right?'
Lister nodded.
'And you wound up getting killed.' His other self laughed uproariously. 'You wound up getting killed for a guy like me.'
'I know we're going to be different, we have to be to justify existing, but I saw your quarters and I felt we were kinda similar too. I felt, I dunno, some kind of bond, y'know?'
His other self eyed him curiously and then his face corrugated into a savage grin. 'Well, I'm not entirely convinced I'd have done the same.'
'Where the hell are we, exactly?'
'The roof gave way about fifty seconds after you blacked out.' Lister looked down through his night-sights. They were eighty, perhaps ninety, feet above the empty cyberlake; both tied by the wrist to one of the dome's three foot wide support struts by lengths of torn clothing.
'Managed to tie us both to, this support strut.' They both peered down. 'How do you s'pose we get out of here?'
The answer was almost immediate.
There was a spasm of light that spluttered and died and then spluttered again as the electrics fizzed back on.
'The electrics are back on...'
'That means gravity will be back on t —'
The sentence was never complet
ed. Instead both Listers started to fall towards the empty cyber tank ninety feet below, before they both came to an arm-jarring halt as they reached the end of their cloth tethers.
Lister yelled out as a bolt of pain screamed through his body. He rocked back and forth, knocking into his other self as they hung from the roof strut.
He threw one arm above the other and had started to haul himself up the cloth rope when gravity finally reached the cyber-water in the domed roof and it began to flood over them in a torrential downpour.
Lister lost his grip, slithered down his cloth rope and hung there helplessly, until a staccato ripping sound announced that the rope had decided to resign as a rope. The material sheered in two and once more both Listers started to fall towards the ground.
As he tumbled through the air, Lister gazed through the sheets of falling water as bodies of other inmates hit the ground in a variety of bloody squishes. The precious moments he'd hung by his cloth tether had given him valuable seconds. With luck some of the water would be back in the lake when he hit the surface. Only one question remained - would there be enough to cushion his fall?
There was only one way to find out.
Both Listers hit the cyberlake feet first, and plunged through its pink waters towards the bottom. All too soon Lister felt the ground break beneath him and his left foot twisted savagely.
His scream was translated to the surface in a school of bubbles. Several seconds later his head broke the surface and he limped to the shore's edge. His other self rummaged through a drowned Cyber guard, removed his laser harpoon and started for the exit.
Lister hobbled after him. 'Hey, slow down, man, I've busted my ankle.'
Half limping, half skipping, Lister followed his other self up a switchback of corridors, passing knots of fleeing inmates and beleaguered guards refuelling their laser harpoons at the power units. They rounded a corner as a dazed rogue droid wandered towards them carrying a stolen laser harpoon.
'We've got to get a weapon for me somehow. If we get separated I'm finished.'
His other self nodded and unloaded his harpoon into the surprised droid, who buckled and fell to the floor. Lister's other self stopped and tossed him the droid's harpoon. 'No sooner said than done, O Master.'
'You killed him.'
'You said you wanted a weapon.'
'I didn't mean kill him. And I didn't mean his gun. I just meant a gun, at some point.'
'Well, why the hell didn't you say that then?'
'You killed him. It was pointless. There was no need. He was an inmate.'
'You told me to kill him.'
'What?'
'He was running towards us and you said you needed a weapon. Anyone would have presumed you meant kill him.'
'No, they wouldn't.'
'Of course they would.'
'Would they?'
'Yeah.'
Lister blanched as a biting wind of guilt howled through his being. Had he ordered the death of an innocent droid? Had his fear of capture driven him into a kind of temporary insanity? Was it his fault?
His other self shook him out of his reverie. 'We haven't got time for this. C'mon, we've got to get out of this dump.' They raced down the corridor and arrived at a set of crossroads.
Lister pointed. 'This is the way I came in.'
His other self shook his head. 'Look, man, don't tell me which way it is. I've been stuck inside of this stinking hole for four months. I know which way it is.' He took a right turn and started running down the corridor.
Lister paused at the crossroads, his face crinkled in confusion. 'No, it isn't. It's...'
Behind him he heard the sound of running guards. He stared after his other self as he powered down the white-tiled passage way. He began to follow his other self.
Although he was sure it was wrong.
* * *
They took a left and then a right, crossed two intersections and took another right before his other self opened a door on the arc of a bend and vanished inside.
Lister gazed at the machine code on the door, but was unable to read it. It didn't much matter. As soon as he entered the room it was immediately obvious where they were. Sick bay.
'What are you doing? Is this for me? For my ankle? I'm OK.'
His other self shot off the lock on the medical supply cupboard and grabbed a bottle of medicinal alcohol. He spun the top off the bottle and gulped down two big ones. 'Four months sober. Always vowed it'd be the first thing I'd do.'
Lister was dumbfounded. 'We came here so you could get a drink?'
His other self grinned and took another slug. 'Anyone ever told you you're a really uptight guy?'
Lister took in a series of deep breaths, trying to control his anger. 'We came here — you took a deliberate wrong turn - just so you could get a drink?'
His other self drained the bottle and grinned impishly. 'Aren't I a naughty boy? How can you ever forgive me?'
Suddenly there was the noise of guards searching the room next door. Lister held up his hand to silence his other self He ignored him and started rifling through the medical stores, reading the labels on pill bottles and stuffing them in his pockets. 'OK, now, let's see what else we've got here.'
Lister hissed at him, 'For smeg's sake, shut up. They're next door.'
His other self turned and faced him, a fine sweat covering his forehead, like condensation on a damp wall. 'Don't tell me what to do, OK? No one tells me what to do.' He slipped his laser harpoon under his left arm, the wrong way round, and grabbed Lister by the throat, then started to bang his head against the wall in rhythm to the words of his speech: 'Do-not-tell-me-what-to-do. OK?'
The door creaked, open and two guards stood in the shadow of the doorway, holding harpoons.
'Understand? Do not ever, and I mean ever . . .'
A javelin of light flared out of the harpoon and exploded into both figures, killing them instantly. The Gelf guards slumped against the door frame, then staggered and fell to the floor.
Lister's other self grinned at him as he slipped his laser harpoon from under his arm and turned it the right way round. 'Sorry about that. I'll be a bit more careful next time, Dad. Come on,' he gestured with his head, 'we'll grab my stuff and get out of here.'
Lister's other self walked towards the back of the medical supply store and let himself into a room that led off at right angles. He activated the light switch and walked down the aisles of metal boxes. He looked at the code on his ID band - YT6564354 - and several minutes later located a box with the same number. Lister's doppelgänger lifted the box from the shelf and tucked it under his arm. 'My belongings,' he said in explanation.
* * *
The door opened and two identical heads peered into the car pound. The air was heavy with the smell of laser harpoons as a band of inmates pinned down a group of Cyberguards who were trying to crawl between the parked sand buggies and reach the lower floor exit. Off to the left Lister spotted a parked jeep with a swivel-mounted rocket-launcher in the rear. Crouching, they scurried across the car pound, ducking between oil drums and parked vehicles, until they arrived at the jeep. Lister short-circuited the ignition system and they screeched across the pound and out of the slide-back doors through a haze of gun-fire.
Lister sat in the back of the transporter as his other self gunned the jeep out into the desert heat. For several minutes they hugged the perimeter fence looking for an exit from the penal colony. He looked around the back of the vehicle: it was piled high with laser harpoons. He examined them - they were all loaded and fully charged. Could come in handy.
'You know how to fire a rocket-launcher?' his other self screamed from the front.
Lister shook his head.
'Well, now's a pretty good time to learn.' He indicated a group of thirty Cyberian guards running towards them. Lister pulled down a pair of unoculars fastened to the back of the seat and trained the sight on them. 'They're not armed.'
'Not armed?' 'Right.'
Lister's other
self brought the jeep skidding to a halt alongside the battalion of Cyberguards. 'Are you guys not armed?'
The guards grouped together and backed off slightly.
Lister stood up. 'What the hell are you doing?'
'I'm just talking.'
'Drive the smegging jeep. Let's git.'
Lister's other self swivelled round and scooped up a handful of harpoons and tossed them to the guards.
'Are you out of your mind?'
'Well, if we're armed and they're not,' his other self grinned, 'that's not really fair. Now,' he said, throwing out another armful, 'we're a little more evenly matched.'
Slightly stunned, the guards picked up the harpoons and started to aim them at the two Listers.
The jeep took off in a swirl of dust, pursued by a hail of harpoon fire. Lister dived to the floor as one screamed over his head. 'You're out of your mind.'
His other self rocked with laughter. 'Hey, instead of getting crabby with me, I suggest you work out how to fire that rocket-launcher.'
Lister watched as the group shrank into the distance as the jeep accelerated out of the Cyberguard's range of fire. He got to his feet and flung the unoculars on to the floor. 'You are certifiable! What the hell got in to you? Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? We came within about two feet of being flesh paint.'
'Learn how to work the rocket-launcher.'
'There's no need, we're out of range.'
The jeep arced round in a semi-circle. 'No, we're not because we're going back.'
Lister stood there smiling, refusing to accept what he had just heard.
'We're nearly there,' his other self taunted. 'Heading right for the middle of them. If you can't use that rocket-launcher in about twenty seconds we're in trouble - big time.'
Lister scrambled behind the rocket-launcher and furiously began pressing the control panel. A rocket whined out of the barrel and sizzled across the penal colony before it exploded into the electric chain-link perimeter fence, shattering the concrete posts. He peered through the sights and tried to pull them down to target the group of Cyberguards who were all lined up and ready for the jeep's kamikazi charge.