by Doug Naylor
* * *
The night shift passed without event as Starbug tacked its way through the asteroid belt. First watch was taken by Lister and Kryten, the second by the Cat and Rimmer. Meantime Kochanski started the laborious process of going through the navi-calcs looking for the computational error that had caused them to wind up in the wrong dimension. Shortly before five that morning, working by the eye-aching neon up in the obs room, she fell asleep on top of a pyramid of computer print-outs, and slept soundly for the next two and a half hours.
Rimmer passed her sleeping body, then clicked down the steps that led into the mid-section and turned into the galley.
'Seven o'clock change-over. Anything to report?'
Kryten looked up from his breakfast preparations. 'It's been a moderately quiet shift, sir, apart from one small scare a couple of hours ago, when we spotted an alien invasion fleet off the port bow. Thankfully, it turned out to be one of Mr Lister's old sneezes that had congealed on the radar screen.'
'How're things fuel-wise?'
'Reasonable for today, sir - only twelve course corrections. However, the supply situation is increasingly bleak. We've recycled the water so often it's beginning to taste like Dutch lager.'
'Food?'
'No meat, no pulses and hardly any grain. Worse still, the only liquorice allsorts left are those little black twisty ones that everyone hates. If that weren't bad enough, last night I discovered that space weevils have eaten the last of our corn supply.'
Rimmer's head jabbed towards the old galley cooker. 'So what are you cooking for Lister's breakfast then?'
'Space weevil.'
Rimmer watched as Kryten removed the grill tray. Lying on the mesh wire was a creature about eight inches long, yellowish in colour, with two horns and a pincer-shaped tail.
'You can't serve space weevil! Not even Lister, with his single remaining taste bud, will knowingly sit down and eat insectoid vermin. Let's face it, with him it's practically cannibalism.'
'Sir,' Kryten implored, 'it's incredibly nutritious. After all, it is corn-fed.'
'You'll never get him to eat it.'
'They say the first bite is with the eye. Trust me, sir, it's all down to presentation.'
Kryten took out a pair of serving tongs and placed the weevil on a dinner plate alongside a lettuce leaf and an elaborate carrot sculpture of a swan in repose. 'Et voilà, ' he smiled happily.
* * *
The Cat clambered up the steps and into the cockpit where Lister was snoozing under a copy of A Demon Lurks, one of his other self's horror novels.
'Change-over. Anything new?'
'Not much,' said Lister, waking quickly. 'Electrical storm. Couple of gas geysers. Usual stuff.'
'How far before we hit this asteroid?'
'Blerios 15? Go into orbit in about twenty minutes.'
The Cat stood in his black stretch PVC body suit and pink wool barathea jacket. 'Look at the state of this place. Why don't you ever clean up before we swap over?' The Cat swept a hand across the leather flight seat. 'What the hell's all this down the back of my chair? Peanuts?'
Lister shook his head solemnly. 'Nah. I've been trimming my verrucas.'
The Cat's expression iced on his face as he opened his hand and peered at the contents.
Lister grinned. 'You really think I'm psychotically disgusting, don't you? They're peanuts, OK?'
'Real peanuts?' asked the Cat, tasting one gingerly. 'Where'd you get 'em?'
'Remember that old derelict, ages ago? Found them in the dead captain's old donkey jacket.'
'You did what?'
'Don't look at me like that. You enjoyed that mint imperial didn't you?'
'That was in his pocket too?'
'No, he was sucking it when he got shot. I had to prise his jaws apart with a car jack.'
Enlightenment dawned on the Cat's features. 'You really think I'll buy anything you say, don't you? Well, wrong, buddy. Now get out of here, I've got to keep my eyes skinned for that asteroid shaped like a dancing moose you told me about yesterday.'
Kryten climbed up the steps into the cockpit and placed the supper tray in front of Lister's suspicious gaze. 'Supper, sir.'
'What's this?'
'Sir?'
Lister held up the carrot sculpture. 'Raw carrot? You know what I think of fresh vegetables - they're for health psychos. Vitamin freaks. People who exercise.' He shuddered in distaste, then flicked open a magazine and started to crunch into the weevil. He paused mid-chew.
'Is everything OK, sir?'
'No, it is not,' said Lister, tapping the magazine. 'Some smegger has filled in this "Have You Got a Good Memory?" quiz.'
'It was you, sir, don't you remember?'
'Was it?'
The Cat turned from the scanner screen. 'I hate to go all technical on you, but all hands on deck - Swirly Thing alert.'
'Where?' said Rimmer, taking his position.
'It's not on the radar yet, but I can smell it.'
Rimmer shook his head. 'Nothing here.'
'Nor on the long-range scan,' said Kryten. 'Sir, is it possible that you could have made a mis-smelling?'
'Listen, Butter-pat head: my nostril hairs are vibrating faster than the springs on a Spaniard's honeymoon bed. I'm telling you, there's something out there.'
'OK, don't get your double helix in a straight, no one's questioning your nasal integrity.'
Kochanski bounded down the steps from the obs room and into the cockpit. 'There's something on the Hubble.'
'Go to blue alert,' said Rimmer in a clipped tone.
'What for?' asked Lister. 'There's no one to alert. We're all here.'
'I would just feel more comfortable if I knew we're all on our toes because everyone is aware we're in a blue-alert situation.'
'We are all on our toes.'
'May I remind you of Space Corps directive 34124?'
'34124?' asked Kryten. '"No officer with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero gravity"?'
'Damn you both, all the way to Hades! I want to go to blue alert!'
'OK, OK...' Lister soothed. He clicked a single switch and a small sad sign with 'Blue Alert' lit up over the rear facia.
Rimmer's head dipped in triumph. 'At last, a bit of professionalism.'
'Wait. I have something,' Kochanski said. 'Punch up long range.'
Rimmer massaged his knotted brow. 'My God, what is it?'
Lister squinted at the monitor bank. 'Too small for a vessel. Maybe some kind of missile?'
Kochanski studied a blur of read-outs. 'At this range, it's impossible to say.'
'Whatever it is, clearly they have a technology way in advance of our own.'
'So does the Albanian State Washing Machine Company,' Lister replied.
Rimmer swivelled round to face Kryten. 'Step up to red alert.'
'Are you absolutely sure, sir? It will mean changing the bulb.'
'There's always some excuse, isn't there? Always some reason why you can't carry out my orders.'
'Range: 15, 000 gee-gooks and closing, guys.'
'Suggest evasive action, sir.'
'You got it,' said the Cat.
Starbug reared under the impact of the fuel injection and screamed off, tilting on its port side. The ship banked one way and then the other as the green streak tracked them effortlessly. It was some kind of heat-seeker. They couldn't outrun it.
That's it,' sighed the Cat. 'We're deader than seersucker.'
Rimmer's head arched up from the monitor. 'Suggestions?'
'Sir, may I recommend I load myself into the reverse thrust tube and you use my body as decoy fodder? Of course, this would leave me splattered around Deep Space and unable to complete today's laundry, for which I apologize in advance.'
'Kryten, you're hysterical. Now stop your blathering and get in the damn tube,' Rimmer demanded.
Lister held up a hand. 'Don't move, Kryten, you're going nowhere. I'm not doing my own smegging ironing.'
Kochanski said,
'We'll have to reason with it. Open communication channels.'
'She's right,' said Rimmer. 'Broadcast on all known frequencies in all known languages. Including Welsh.'
Lister's fingers spun across the console as he opened the rusting com channel. Rimmer cleared his throat, leaned in and began broadcasting. 'This is Arnold J. Rimmer of the Jupiter Mining Corporation transport vehicle Star-bug. Now hear this, and hear it good, because it's only coming once.' He wiped his dry lips and then began. 'We surrender. Totally and without condition. Thank you for listening. Message ends. Oh, additional: sorry for taking up your time. Thank you so much. Sorry. 'Bye. Sorry.'
Lister hammered futilely at the control pads. 'God, Rimmer, you've got a longer yellow streak than a stampede of diarrhoetic camels.'
Rimmer flashed him an ironic smile. Who cared what Lister thought. He didn't know. He didn't know that, like General George S. Patton, he, Arnold J. Rimmer, believed in reincarnation. In fact, it was his firm conviction that in previous lives he had been a soldier — a bold warrior soul who, tragically, in this particular incarnation, had been given the body of an abject coward. He bore it with dignity, knowing that in his next existence he would return once again as a hero, his dues fully paid. Until that glorious moment, he was lumbered. He excused himself in the most dignified manner possible and went off to have a panic attack under the scanner table.
'Here it comes!' shouted Kochanski. 'Five gee-gooks to impact.'
The green dart of light hit Starbug with a wet slurp, then started to wrap its glutinous matrix around the craft until the vessel was held in a pulsing bubble.
Lister watched as the cockpit filled with an unearthly glaucous mist, and a couple of minor explosions flared from the console.
'What the hell is this?'
'Some kind of suction beam,' replied Kochanski. 'We're being dragged down.' She grabbed a fire extinguisher and started to douse the flames.
'Fire up the retros,' said Lister.
'Dead,' said the Cat.
'Auxiliary power?'
'Dead.'
'Joystick?'
'Dead. The entire panel's deader than A-line flares with pockets in the knees.'
Kryten looked up from the navi-comp. 'Sirs, I've located the beam's source. It's coming from Blerios 15.'
The green cirrus cloud carried Starbug through the asteroid's atmosphere and down towards a city ringed by a river cut into the volcanic rock. For twenty minutes they flew over a range of flat stone-and-clay buildings, occasionally interrupted by vast golden-headed mushroom towers that stretched across the skyline, before being set down in an aeropad in the south of the city.
* * *
Lister loaded his fourth bazookoid and rested it with the others on the flatbed scanner.
'If anyone tries to get in, they'll come through that door,' he said, pointing at the bulkhead hatchway. 'Kryten, you in the cockpit, Kriss, top of the stairs, Cat, man, with me behind the scanner table.'
Suddenly, a face emerged out of a storm of white noise on the main monitor. It was a species of Gelf, mostly humanoid in appearance, with pig-like pink flesh, a low neanderthal brow and large, fleshy lips. 'My name is Leekiel. I am a Potent and a member of the Blerion High Council. You have flown across Blerios air space without authorization. As laid down by the Forum of Justice on Arranguu 12 and in keeping with the treaty signed by the United Republic of Gelf States, 876. 3/16 you must now submit to our judiciary. What is your business here?'
'Well, the thing is...' Lister began.
'You will vacate your vessel within the next thirty seconds. If you resist, the Arre bubble will increase your cabin temperature to 750 Centigrade. We await your answer.'
'Uh, right, cheers, thanks, man,' said Lister pleasantly.
'Looks like Leekiel's got a problem. Might be wise to check it out.'
* * *
Lister led the group as they trudged down the disembarkation ramp and into a line of evil-looking rifle sights. The Blerions bound them with a thick rope made out of creepers, then bundled them into the back of a dirty brown open-topped transporter which fired up its engine and headed into the city.
CHAPTER 4
The midday sun lasered into the top of Lister's head as they powered through the streets in the crude diesel-driven transport vehicle.
Everything about the place was basic: the buildings held together by clay and mud, the potholed roadways, the stinking sewage system that caught in the back of his throat, even the simple one-piece grey cotton robes that all the Blerions seemed to wear; the only signs of culture were the hugely elaborate mushroom towers that arched over the city like giant sentries.
Lister sat in the back exchanging shrugs with the others as the transporter hooted its way through a route lined with open markets, selling fruit and carpets.
The sound came without warning.
From somewhere above.
Lister peered up to see what it was. High above, on one of the balconies that ringed the mushroom towers, a figure pulled on a massive black bell. The sound soon thickened as bells in towers all over the city started to join in too.
'Look,' Rimmer pointed to the nearest tower as two figures joined the bell ringer and started to cast rice seeds off the precipice. 'What's all this about?'
The transporter jolted to a halt by the side of a market stall selling papaya and mangoes. The guards grabbed a number of black hoods from under the seat and slipped them over the crew's heads and noosed them tight.
Lister stared into the blackness.
All he could hear were mumbled shouts as the Blerions ran around organizing something. It was impossible to see what, unless he could pull the cloth tightly over his face, somehow. He opened his mouth and tried to grab a piece of the hood in his teeth. The first three times it eluded him. The fourth his front tooth caught on the cloth and slowly he began to pull it in, like a fisherman who's just caught a hammerhead shark. Bit by bit, bite by bite, he reeled the cloth into his mouth, all the time stretching the material across his face.
Now he was able to make out vague shapes. Dark silhouettes of running figures. He swallowed a little more, storing some of it under his upper gum, and peered out again. The shapes took form.
The Gelfs were scampering back and forth and appeared to be dividing into groups of two - one male, one female. Some of them displayed coloured triangles on their tunics, which seemed to entitle them to choose the partner they desired; others, it seemed, had not found a partner and were frantically dashing around the remaining uglies, trying to choose the least objectionable.
Finally the bells stopped, and there was silence all over the city. Then a priest appeared on each of the mushroom towers and played a harp, while the entire population of Blerios 15 started to copulate. Lister gawped through his black hood at the writhing mass of bored bodies as they went about their work.
Sixty seconds later the harp music built, to a rousing finale and the ground shook as the entire population of Blerios 15 climaxed simultaneously - or pretended to, at least. Afterwards they split apart, quickly dressed and went about their day.
Soon Lister was shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight as a Blerion guard removed his black hood. Then the transporter started up in a coughing fit of petrol and they continued their journey through the streets of the city.
* * *
Lister hunched in the corner of the cell and watched as a rivulet of water dribbled down the wall and fell into the foul-smelling swamp that covered the floor. The Cat and Rimmer paced in unison on opposite sides of the cell while Kryten stood quietly in one corner as Kochanski repaired a faulty knee joint.
The cell door opened and four Blerion guards splayed out in a star formation. At the top of the formation was a Gelf they hadn't seen before. He wore an ornate face piece, like an Aztec priest, and a silver robe bedecked with jewels that covered his entire body from neck to feet; all except for a circle of material which was cut out of the cloth and allowed his genital organs to hang out of his costum
e. This was the only part of him they could see.
'You have strayed into Blerios 15 airspace without permission. This is a most serious charge.'
Lister began: 'We meant no disrespect, man. We're looking for another version of me. We made a navi-calc error transversing the Omni-zone and...'
The Potent ignored him. 'You have two choices: go before the Forum of Justice on Arranguu 12 and protest your innocence, or pay the fine.'
'And how much is that, precisely?' asked Rimmer, staring steadfastly at the top of the priest's head.
'Two hundred barrels of oil...'
'Two hundred barrels of oil? We've hardly got forty.'
'Or five bars of Gatoo.'
'Gatoo? What is that?' He shook his head. 'Forget it, we don't have any, anyway.'
'Or if you wish you can pay in sperm. Four millilitres. What is it to be?'
Lister shared a look with Kochanski. 'So let's get this straight. Either we go before the Forum of Justice . . .'
'On Arranguu 12...'
'Right. Or we pay the fine.'
'That is correct.'
'And we can pay the fine in one of three ways. First: oil — two hundred barrels, second Katoo . . .'
'Gatoo.'
'Right, Gatoo. Or third, we can pay in sperm.'
'That is correct.'
'Four millilitres.'
'Correct.'
'Which is about half a teaspoonful.'
'That is so.'
'May we ask what you would do with this sperm?'
'Our species was genetically engineered to help terra-form an inhospitable solar system. An ability to reproduce wasn't deemed necessary, because our life expectancy is in excess of a thousand years.'
'So you're all sterile?'
'Ninety-nine per cent of our male population is. All apart from we Potents.'
'But the women are fertile?'
'In most cases.'
'And that's why you have the towers with the bells and the call to... copulate? To ensure you achieve maximum fertility?'
'As a visitor you should have been blinded by the hood of darkness.'