by Doug Naylor
Kazwa nodded and unfastened Lister's straps and pointed at a chair for him to sit. 'The donors lost their individual personalities and became part of a gestalt intelligence that controlled the planet. A unified entity that speeded up the creation of the biosphere from millions of years to barely three. Creation was no longer in the hands of random chance. It was controlled by this intelligent gestalt which we believed would be under our control.'
'So why are you, uh, still here?'
The Dolochimp stroked its snout. 'We used DNA extracted from Cyberian inmates. After the gestalt had been created we discovered it was a malign entity.'
'Because?'
'Because it had been created from the scum of our society. It was a deceitful and bitter God who punished the just, rewarded the wicked and encouraged evil. The gestalt only allowed the dark side of our natures to prosper and soon the planet became inhabited by the cream of evil. Finally the Black Planet, as it became known, passed through the ring and now exists in some other dimension of reality.'
'So then you started again?'
'With a new gestalt on a new planet. But this time we didn't use the guilty inmates of a penal colony - we used the innocent.'
'The inmates of Cyberia are innocent?'
The Dolochimp paused and watched Lister's face blanch with shock. 'The mystics and the future-crime system of justice allow us to arrest the innocent and then coerce them into accepting the Reco deal.'
'But my other self was guilty. He wiped out his crew mates.'
'We didn't know that. He was tried for Emo-smuggling. Something of which we knew he was innocent.'
'So what do you want with me?'
'The planet is finished. The new "innocent" gestalt is complete. We need to test that it is safe. We want you to volunteer to be one of the first to set foot on the planet. We have already sent one ship. It did not return. You will be a member of the second ship. Or, if you prefer, you can return to Cyberhell.'
'If I said "yes" when would it happen?'
'Twenty-four hours.' The Dolochimp smiled. 'But we are extremely considerate of those who volunteer. You will be permitted to spend your last evening with a symbi-morph.'
'A what?'
'A symbiotic shape-shifter. Intuitively, they understand your needs and morph into the shape that most pleases you.' The Regulator pushed a typewritten statement across the desk and handed him a pen. 'Sign.'
Lister picked up the pen and looked down at the document in front of him. If he stayed in Cyberhell there was no chance of escape. If he agreed to test the gestalt then maybe, just maybe, there'd be an opportunity to pull something before they landed.
He signed his name.
CHAPTER 3
A series of hatchway doors slid back and slammed shut, as floor by floor, level by level, Lister and his party of guards journeyed through a dizzying labyrinth of corridors before they reached the symbi-morph quarters in the depths of the penal colony. They stepped out of the final lift and strode down a large white stone hallway, with rooms running off both sides patrolled by a series of guards with fearsome Gelf-engineered, four-foot-high security rats. Lister gazed at them in horror, his face contorted in revulsion like a scrunched up brown-paper bag. They stopped at a check-in desk.
'Name?'
'Lister,' said the Dingotang handcuffed to Lister's wrist.
The guard ran the index finger of his black paw down his intake list. 'Clearance number?'
The guard again. '3454H.'
'We can't take him in this batch. All the symbi-morphs are out.'
Lister's guard waved a grubby piece of brown paper in the other Gelf's face. 'Not my problem - he's yours.'
'But they're all out. We've got our full complement.'
'They want him in the next consignment.'
'But the only symbi-morph's that free is Reketrebn — and it's not broken.'
The Guard fluttered the brown piece of paper again. 'Not my problem.'
The Gelf shrugged. 'Who the hell will know?'
'What do you mean?' asked Lister, being yanked off down the corridor. 'It's not broken? Is that bad? It is bad, isn't it? Look, I'm sorry, I want one that is broken. Completely broken. As broken as they can possibly be. You got that? Is anyone listening to me? What does broken mean, anyway?'
The hatchway door slid open and Lister was encouraged to go inside. His nose hit stone and he slithered down the cell wall like an undercooked piece of spaghetti. He got up and looked around the room. In fact it wasn't a cell - it was more like a luxurious apartment, tastefully decorated in cream and black. In the middle of the room was a table set for a candle-lit supper for two: a blue wine was chilling in an ice-cooler and some kind of chicken-looking dish cooked quietly in a giant silver salver.
Lister showered, helped himself to the change of clothing that was laid out on the seven-foot four-poster bed and harpooned his body with a series of vitamin boosters that were available in the bathroom. All in all he felt pretty good now; well, he would have felt good if he'd been able to ignore the uneasy sea of nausea swilling about in his guts - which he wasn't. He'd made the wrong choice. He knew that now. There was no way out of here. He'd panicked and instead of biding his time and returning to Cyberhell and working out a plan, he'd snatched at the Reco deal, hoping something would turn up. He didn't think things through - he thought things halfway through and presumed the rest would work itself out. He didn't plan things properly. Kriss was right about that.
There was a commotion outside. Lister squinted through the grille and saw a female Dingotang being frog-marched down the corridor between two Dingotang guards. She was sobbing and dragging her feet as they hauled her towards Lister's suite. 'No, I don't want to, I want you, Deki. Just you. No . . .'
The Dingotang called Deki struck her forcibly across the face with his massive orang-utan arm and continued dragging her towards Lister's suite. There was a strange slurping noise and the female's form turned a metallic blue and started to fold in on itself.
Lister stepped back as the hatchway seal unlocked and two guards stood in the open doorway fighting with a huge sofa, trying to get it in through the door. One of the guards took out a baton and hit the sofa several times on its cushion, swearing at it savagely. The guards tried again, this time angling the sofa in on its end — all to no avail.
More swearing and more beating. Lister smiled. So this was his un-broken symbi-morph. It had turned itself into a sofa and it wasn't budging. Suddenly, both the Gelfs twisted the handles of their batons and spikes rose out of the heads and they started attacking the sofa's Dralon covers with these new, grisly-looking weapons. Lister watched, uncertain what to do — should he go to the aid of a Dralon suite in distress? He wasn't sure how he could help it, even if he did.
There was another slurping noise as the creature weakened under the beating and started rippling into a multi-coloured liquid form as it prepared to metamorphose into a new shape to protect itself. Catching it in its malleable, viscous state the Dingotangs were able to push it into Lister's suite, where it turned back into the female Dingotang and started pleading with the Gelf called Deki again. 'I just want to be with you, Deki, to please you - I don't want to shape-shift for another. Deki, please.'
The Dingotang spat at her and told her if she didn't do what she was told she'd be sorry. She flopped on to the floor and started to weep.
Deki turned and addressed Lister. 'If it gives you any trouble, beat it; if that doesn't work, press the alarm and we'll try and get you another.' The Dingotang turned to the symbi-morph, who was still assuming the shape of his soul-mate, and screamed at it: 'Cast your hook!'
'No, Deki, please.'
'Cast it!'
'No.'
He raised his hand and the symbi-morph nodded in compliance. It morphed again, this time becoming a translucent spinning disc that changed colour as it spun. A tiny black dart shot out of the disc and hit Lister just above the right eyebrow. The initial pain was an agonizing surprise: an ice headache,
worse — like someone had just ripped out all his nostril hair with a pair of rusty pliers. Gradually the pain spread out across the top of his skull and he staggered and fell.
He lay on the floor, curled in a ball, rocking himself back and forth. Over the next minute the pain gradually dissipated. Then suddenly it was gone. The dart of telepathic venom had been absorbed into his hypothalamus. He and the symbi-morph were bonded.
The Dingotang spoke. 'You have volunteered for the gestalt programme, and, in accordance with the Xion Treaty, amendment ii, you have the power to demand this symbi-morph fulfils your every desire, sexual or otherwise. For the next twenty-four hours, nothing is forbidden.' The Dingotang turned to the symbi-morph. 'Please him.'
There was a slurping noise and the symbi-morph started to morph again. Lister was suddenly aware of the most excruciating smell; an aroma that was so repugnant he had to clutch on to the table to keep his balance. He looked across at the steaming yellow mountain and saw the symbi-morph was now sitting there defiantly as a pile of yak dung.
The guard screamed at the excrement: 'Stop it. Change. Please him. You hear me? Change!'
The yak dung shook uncontrollably, almost as if it were sniggering. Lister grinned.
'I have never known a symbi-morph so wilful. All the others are broken. You will be too. We will return in half a cycle. If still you refuse to do his bidding then you will be spayed.'
Lister watched as the two defeated guards slammed out of the suite. He looked across at the dung and waved his right hand, amiably. 'How's it going?'
The dung did not reply.
'My name's Lister. That was quite a performance you just put on.'
Silence.
'Look, don't take this personally, man, or should I call you YD, but isn't there something else you can be? Something that isn't quite so rank as yak dung? How about some moose dung?'
Silence.
Took, you and me haven't got a barney. I'm just asking you to be something a tad more aromatic.'
The dung morphed into a bouquet of white roses.
Thanks, man, I appreciate it.' Lister sat down at the table and started to serve the chicken dish on to the two plates. 'Have you got a name?'
Silence.
'I'm Lister. Did I say?'
Silence.
'Let's get one thing straight — I don't want you to fulfil my sexual desires, OK? If that's what's bothering you, you can relax. You're not my type.'
The bouquet of flowers turned in on itself and metamorphosed into Kochanski. She stood there wearing nothing but a tiny red G-string and smiled at him provocatively. Lister swallowed hard. 'OK, you are my type. Clearly, you're very much my type, but, uh, I'm still not interested.'
The Kochanski symbi-morph grinned. 'I only have one master - he's the Gelf called Deki.'
'You'd really be doing me a big, big favour if you put some clothes on, you know. We're going to wind up with all the food sliding down to your end of the table.'
A ripple of silver undulated across Kochanski's body like a wave being driven across a lake by a strong wind. When Lister looked again the symbi-morph stood before him, still as Kochanski, but now in an elegant ball gown. Lister couldn't help himself. He stared at this near perfect copy of the woman he loved and was suffocated by sadness. 'I can't function if you're going to stay like that. You see, I've lost her, she's in another Universe now. With someone else.'
The symbi-morph shape shifted once more and reappeared as Rimmer. 'Listy, bon appetit!'
'I can't function if you're going to be him either.'
The symbi-morph nodded and then, like a second-rate impressionist, rotated its hands in front of its face and shape-shifted again, this time transposing into its neutral form — a black-and-white lightly matrixed humanoid shape. It sat down at the table.
'Is that the real you?'
The humanoid shape nodded. Lister pointed to the plate. 'You must be hungry. Don't you want to eat? Or don't you eat?'
The symbi-morph nodded again.
Lister poured them both some blue wine. 'So, who's that Deki guy?'
'He's my host — although he wants to share me with others. He has four of my hooks.'
'And me?'
'You are my co-host - you have just one, which I will remove when our time is over.'
'And the four hooks - they're four times more powerful than one?'
'I am not able to interpret your thought patterns as accurately; our telepathic pathway has only one connection; we are bonded only on one level only.'
'What happens when someone has all five of your hooks?'
'I am able to serve them completely, be whatever they desire at any time. It is only then that I become fulfilled. When I am totally joined with another.'
They ate in silence for some minutes. Then Lister raised his glass. To prisoners.'
* * *
The telephone purred gently into life. Lister rose from the chair and picked it up before its third ring. It was Deki. Two hours had passed since the Dingotang had left and he wanted to know if the symbi-morph was performing. Lister looked at it curled fast asleep on the bed. He spoke into the mouthpiece. 'Yes,' he said. 'No problems.' He replaced the receiver.
The symbi-morph opened its eyes and sat up. 'Why did you lie for me?'
'He'd have spayed you. You'd have lost your ability to morph.'
The symbi-morph looked at him balefully. 'You want me to help you, don't you? Help you escape? Well, I can't. Deki is my master.'
'I know.'
'You believe that in time I will relent. I won't. Deki is my host.'
'He beats you. He treats you like a... dog. No, worse, he treats you like a whore.'
'He's my host.'
'He doesn't deserve you.'
'Without him to serve, I'm nothing.'
'With him to serve, you're nothing. You're more of a prisoner here than I am.' Lister paced. 'Help me.'
'I cannot.'
'Just be Kryten, for ten minutes. Let me talk to him.'
The creature looked at him for some time.
'Come on, give me a break. Ten minutes, that's all I'm asking.'
Lister watched as the symbi-morph rippled into its morphing state, then reformed itself in front of him. Soon he was staring into the angular pink face of his favourite mechanoid.
'Mr Lister, sir. How can I be of service?'
'Kryten, man, is that you?' Lister beamed, idiotically.
'It is what the symbi-morph has created using all the available data from your mind, sir.'
'Will you be able to function like Kryten? Give me information and stuff about how to get out of here?'
'In many respects, sir, the information you seek from Kryten is often already known to you. Sometimes in the past you have requested Kryten's advice knowing perfectly well what to do but lacking confidence in your own opinion. Even this information about information is something you already know.'
'Kryts, I want to know about symbi-morphs. What they do, how they act, everything.'
Kryten shook his head. 'No, sir, what you want is confirmation of what you already know. What you have already deduced from observation and intuition. But putting these thoughts through my mouth will give you greater confidence and belief in what you already believe to be the case.'
Lister dismissed his pedantry in a shake of the hand. 'Symbi-morphs — let's talk.'
'Symbi-morphs are creatures who become totally devoted to one master. More dog than person, they possess the ability to mutate and redefine their molecular structure into practically anything, even objects made out of machine parts - but they can only maintain this for very short periods of time.'
'How do I know that?'
'You subconsciously overheard a conversation between two Gelfs in the bar you visited on Blerios 15.' 'Did I?'
'Yes, sir. You did.'
'Go on.'
'As their name implies, symbi-morphs are symbionts who have the ability to shape-shift into a form that will please their host.
They are dependent on another organism, which is usually a member of a different species. With this host they form a relationship of great power and sophistication, which generally benefits both species?.
'I know all this?'
'Your subconscious picks up knowledge with all six of your senses. You'd be amazed what you know that your consciousness is not aware of.'
'Example?'
'Well, how about the statement I've just made?'
'Another one.'
'The photograph that you found on the derelict Starbug. The one of Kochanski and your other self covered in crazy foam.'
'What about it?'
'It wasn't your other self. It was Rimmer who was under all that crazy foam. In this alternative of reality it is he who was Kochanski's lover and not your other self.'
'And I knew that?' 'Your subconscious knew it. You told yourself there was a connection, but you never really felt right about the search for your other self.'
Lister nodded. 'So how do I get out of here?'
'You form a relationship with the symbi-morph and persuade it that you are a more deserving host than its present master. Then you ask it to help you escape by using its formidable abilities. You have to get it to empathize with your present predicament and explain how your other self has stolen your life and your ship.'
'How do I get it to empathize with me?'
'Surely that's obvious, sir.'
Lister nodded slowly. 'I just ask it to morph into me. Then it will feel what I feel.'
'Precisely. It will know your pain.'
CHAPTER 4
The Mayflower scythed its way through the meteor storm as it powered relentlessly towards the Andromeda galaxy, its giant ram scoop greedily snorting up the currents of space and driving it on. Its human crew of eight, together with nine new species — all genetically engineered back on Earth — a platoon of Simulants, assorted droids and a variety of bacteria and viral entities, slept soundly in the non-time of stasis, oblivious to the elements their ship was battling.
The lift door rattled open and all six foot two of Lieutenant-Colonel Michael R. McGruder ducked out. Forty-two years old, he looked closer to late twenties because, like all the Mayflower's human crew, he'd had the gene responsible for ageing removed from his genetic make-up. He ran his tongue around his mouth. It still had that dead aftertaste that always lingered after getting out of Deep Sleep. He spat into a paper tissue, folded it neatly in eight and deposited it in a garbage chute. Then he turned left and started down the corridor.