Last Human

by Doug Naylor

  'Sir?'

  'Give me the pages.'

  'Sir, I think you should hear my explanation, I...'

  Lister tore the sheets from Kryten's grasp and read the cover page. 'Nothing special, you say?' He started towards him as Kryten backed off towards the wall. 'My confidential report, that's nothing special, right?'

  'Sir, I...'

  'You lied to me.'

  Kryten's elbow smashed the glass case to his right and he hauled out the fire axe. Lister stopped his advance.

  Kryten started his. 'Where's Lister? What have you done with him?'

  Now Lister started backing off. He waved the papers. 'This stuff isn't true. I can prove it.'

  'Where's Lister?'

  'Kellerman had a grudge against me. I can prove it.'

  'Where's Lister?'

  'Are you listening to me? I'm not out to lunch, OK? None of this is true.'

  'Where's Lister?'

  Lister shook his head. 'He's dead.'

  The news cut through Kryten like a cheese garrotte through ripe brie. 'Explain.'

  'He died in Cyberia when we lost gravity. He was sucked up into the cyberlake and drowned.'

  Kryten grimaced. 'Not possible, the water molecules wouldn't form a lake - they'd all be disparate.'

  'The oxy-generation unit had enough left in it to act as a fan and blow the water up into the ceiling.'

  Kryten nodded. 'I see.'

  'I didn't know how to tell you - and when I saw how much Kriss loved him I thought I'd try and take his place and no one would get hurt. Was that so terrible?'

  Kryten didn't reply.

  'Look, let me prove this report's not true. Call up Kellerman's CR and you'll see that everything I say is true.'

  Kryten nodded. 'Very well.' He half-turned in front of the Info-link and started to log on to the derelict Starbug's computer. The metal flight seat hit him across the back of his cranial dome, followed by a second mighty blow from an oxy-wrench that struck him on the top of his right shoulder; as he swivelled round a punch hit him on the bridge of his nose and he slithered on to the floor. Lister dropped on top of his body and started prising off his chest plate to get at his CPU.

  * * *

  The alert siren howled out of the com speakers. At first Lister's doppelgänger thought Kryten had somehow turned it on, but seconds later a laser cannon exploded off the starboard bow and the ship rocked back and forth in its wake. Kryten's optical system blinked its way back into focus. Lister sat on top of him, smashing his chest plate in with the fire axe. The mechanoid swivelled left and tipped his attacker to one side as he scrambled to his feet. 'Sir, we're being attacked.'

  Lister threw himself at his legs and started clawing at his chest plate once again. Kryten began to curse in machine code. Why wasn't he allowed to harm human beings? Clearly his programmer had never seen the need for dealing with homicidal alternative versions of your crew whilst simultaneously being attacked by a foreign space craft. An oversight he couldn't forgive.

  A second laser cannon rocked the ship, this one shaving Starbug's nose cone and starting a series of small fires in the cockpit. Lister held Kryten across the bank of data read-outs and started pummelling him to death with the back of the fire-axe as a face faded up on the com screen.

  It was the face of a woman. Not by any means an unwelcome face. In fact, it was the face of Khakha-khakkhhakhakkkhakkkkkh — Lister's bride.

  'Ig negga bu nilk nju mnhe njki njh.'

  Lister's other self glowered at the face uncomprehend-ingly. 'What the hell is that?'

  'That,' said Kryten, dodging one blow and opening the com channel with his free left hand, 'is an old friend of a friend. You'll forgive me if I do a little matchmaking, won't you, sir?'

  Kryten opened com frequencies and began conversing in Kinitawoweese. 'Ji nju nbv mnkl negga nhw rthy njki.'

  'What are you saying?'

  'They're Kinitawowis — a tribe of nomads who journey across the deserts of the asteroid belt - selling emotions and hunting for oil. We made a deal with them for supplies.'

  'And?'

  'We left without settling the bill. They're saying if we don't settle it right now, they're going to reduce this craft and everything on it to something smaller than a weight-lifter's winkie.'

  'So give them what they want.'

  'Very good, sir.'

  The Kinitawowi ship docked on to Starbug and four Kinitawowi tribe members marched through the decom chamber and into the mid-section.

  Khakhakhakkhakhakkkhakkkkkh gazed around the room as Kryten and Lister stepped down from the cockpit.

  Lister's other self held his arms open in supplication. 'Your barney's with him. Grab what you need and get out of here.'

  Khakhakhakkhhakhakkkhakkkkkh's right jab hit his chin with a wince-making crunch. A puzzled expression rippled across his face and he fell like a toppled water tower.

  Khakhakhakkhhakhakkkhakkkkkh sat on his groin, grabbed him by his collar and hauled him into a sitting position. She kissed him greedily, her green tongue exploring every nook and cranny of his mouth; then, her lust temporarily sated, she lifted his limp body into the air and draped it over her left shoulder.

  She made a violent gesture with her right hand and spoke in Kinitawoweese. 'No one cheats the Kinitawowis. No one.' She spat on Kryten's right boot and signalled it was time to leave. She settled Lister's other self more firmly on to her shoulder and the Kinitawowis marched back through the mid-section door and headed for the decom chamber.

  Kryten watched them leave, his face saturated in smiles. He knew there was no innate sense of justice, in the Universe, which was why it was all the more pleasing when, quite by chance, justice was actually achieved. A small machine-gun staccato of laughter echoed round the mid-section, his shoulder blade housings rocking back and forth. They'd taken him. He could just imagine his face, waking up on the Kinitawowi ship and discovering Khakhakhakkhha-khakkkhakkkkkh bouncing up and down on top of him in 'full welly' mode.

  Kryten was just thinking how being on-line could be so good sometimes when his olfactory system detected the fire. The fire caused by the laser cannons that was now in the cockpit and sending hacking black plumes of smoke into the mid-section.

  The fire that was now impossible to put out.

  CHAPTER 7

  Starbug bansheed through the lava planet's atmosphere. Its madly vibrating nose cone sliced through layer after layer of advert-white cloud before finally the clouds gave way to a massive expanse of sky. The sky looked like Van Gogh's palette on a bad day: furious hues of reds, oranges and yellows, all whipped to the point of frenzy. Beneath the sky a sea of molten lava was in an equally irascible mood. A single sound bellowed from the engine housings — death dive.

  The three Deep Sleep units hinged quietly open and the three figures sat up in the sleep bays and started to rouse themselves.

  Kryten stood over them, smiling happily. 'Welcome back on line, sirs, ma'am.' He emitted this greeting without a trace of panic. At no point did his voice hint at the fact that the ship was out of control and caroming towards a planet whose ground temperature was hotter than a gigantic chicken phal. He gave them a few moments to acclimatize. 'Is everyone awake?'

  'Have we reached the lava planet yet?'

  'Yes, ma'am,' he soothed.

  'Have we gone into orbit?'

  'Yes, ma'am, we certainly have.'

  'When will we touch down?'

  Kryten's eyes flicked upwards to a wall clock. 'About thirty-two seconds. I'm afraid we're in the middle of a bit of a death dive.'

  'Death dive?' said Rimmer.

  'That's not all. I'm afraid the ship's on fire, too.'

  'Fire? What kind of fire?'

  'A hot one.'

  'Well, put it out.'

  'It's not possible to put out. At least, not by myself. If no one has any objections I suggest we skip morning tea and engage panic circuits forthwith.'

  'God, what a way to be woken up,' said Rimmer. 'Any other ba
d news? I mean, let's hear it all if there is any.'

  'Oh, there is some about Mr Lister, sir.'

  'What about him?'

  'He's not here. We left him behind in Cyberia. The other gentleman was the alternative version. I've shown him the door, ma'am.'

  A tic of anger thinned Kochanski's lips. 'I knew there was something wrong. I knew it.'

  'It probably don't matter now,' Rimmer grimaced. 'Chances are we're all going to be chargrilled in about thirty seconds anyway. If we have to abandon ship, my suits go with the women and children.'

  Kochanski, Cat and Rimmer scrambled up the steps into the cockpit, spraying fire foam out of large orange canisters while Kryten's fingers jitterbugged over the command keyboards ordering the craft to abort its death dive.

  Rimmer ran through some breathing exercises from the first two chapters of Relaxation: A Beginner's Guide, then finally conceded he couldn't stand the tension any more. 'How long?'

  Kryten screamed above the engine wail: 'Five seconds.'

  'How long before we regain control?'

  'Just a matter of...'

  Starbug bulleted into the broiling heat of the ocean of lava and glooped its way downwards into the cloying currents.

  Ten fathoms.

  Twenty fathoms.

  Forty fathoms.

  The glass covering the cabin temperature monitors shattered with the searing heat and the plastic arrows on the gauges drooped into surreal poses.

  The Cat grappled with the joystick. 'Give me manual, bud.'

  'I'm trying,' Kochanski croaked. 'How about now?'

  'Nothing. Everything's out.'

  The Cat hammered redundantly at the control panels. 'It's deader than penny round collars.'

  Rimmer's hologramic image wavered like a heat haze as the sweltering temperature began corrupting his light bee transmission. 'It appears, peeeeooopppppllllle, we've got about twe-e-e-e-e-e-nty seco-o-o-o-o-onds bef-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-or-r-r-r-re we beco-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-me a micro-o-o-o-owa-a-a-a-a-ve dinne-e-e-e-e-e-er.'

  Kryten looked up at the blur of lights above his head. 'That's it, sir. You should have manual now.'

  'You're right, bud. I got it.' The Cat snapped back the joystick. The engine sound transposed into an agonized hum as it fought against the currents of lava. It whined, it whinnied, but the craft was unable to change direction; it was impossible to break the lava's embrace.

  Kochanski's fingers spun across the command keyboard. 'Launching scouter. Let's see if there's any other way out of here.'

  The remote-control search probe screamed out of its launch chute as Starbug continued its downward spiral.

  Kochanski ripped off her flight suit and used it as a makeshift towel to mop up the blinding monsoons of sweat that ran off her head in stinging gullies. 'It's nearly 95° Fahrenheit in here,' she brayed. 'Can we get those sprinklers on?'

  'You got it, ma'am.'

  The brief respite of a fine, cooling rain hit the interior of the cabin. Rimmer's image unwarped as his light bee cooled and he sighed with relief. At least now he would be able to help them get out of this mess. At least now he would be able to think clearly and calmly and logically. 'Please, God, someone save me, I don't want to die,' he sobbed shamelessly.

  The Cat put his hand into the centre of Rimmer's image and took hold of his light bee. He rapped it three times on the scanner and released it again.

  'Sorry,' Rimmer apologized. 'The heat must have got into my programme and corrupted my character traits.' He tutted. 'Almost made me look like a gutless flapper with the spine of a freshly filleted haddock.'

  Jets of ice-cold water continued to knife out of the sprinklers, causing steam clouds to hiss and pop off the deck and consoles. Half-blinded by sweat, Kochanski slugged back some sprinkler water that had collected in a disk holder. She was thirty, perhaps forty seconds from passing out.

  The Cat maintained his one-arm wrestling competition with the joystick. 'We can't manoeuvre in this stuff. It's thicker than me. It's like driving through a double-thick banana milkshake. There's no way out of here.'

  Scouter remote-link bleeped into life, and the white noise of the relay monitor suddenly gave way to a murky brown picture. At first it was impossible to make out.

  'It's found something?' Rimmer squinted into the monitor.

  Kochanski hammered the transmission screen. 'What?'

  After several seconds, feed-back data started gushing on to the console in machine code.

  Kryten translated. 'It's found an ocean. Beneath the lava. It appears the lava only covers the first 500 fathoms. Underneath that there's a normal sea-bed with a degree of underwater life.'

  Kochanski squinted in semi-comprehension. 'Meaning, we can't get back out, but at least if we can make it to the ocean we won't be boiled in a bug?'

  'Not glad tidings of the first order, I'll grant you, but at least our demise has been postponed long enough for me to complete this week's ironing.' Kryten shook his head in relief. 'I'd hate to have gone knowing your panties were still crinkled.'

  * * *

  Starbug slithered free of the lava's cloying grip and hit the cooling waters of the ocean.

  The craft stabilized and the steel-and-metal framework screamed out in agony as the dropping temperature twisted and buckled the ship beyond all recognition.

  They examined the damage via the monitor. The hull was intact but hugely misshapen. It looked like a cheap plastic toy that had been held in front of a flame.

  The Cat tapped in the commands to transfer the engines to marine propulsion and Starbug banked to its starboard bow and started to explore the world under the molten lava.

  Travelling just beneath the lava ceiling, the craft covered almost 400 miles in a four-day period, looking for some kind of blow-hole that could act as an escape route. They found nothing. Meantime the oxygen and fuel supplies continued to run down.

  * * *

  The yellow alert signal peeped from the cockpit.

  Rimmer looked down at the read-out. 'Scouter's found something. Something big.' He jabbed enlarge instructions into the remote link and a picture slowly jump-framed into focus.

  A corkscrew-shaped ship the size of a three-day music festival lay half-buried in a giant bank of sand. A hundred thousand portholes pocked one side of the vessel.

  Scouter tracked down the craft's hull, passing the empty moorings where the evacuation pods had once been, passing the labyrinthine engine housings that held the ship's negative gravity drive, until finally it came to rest on the ship's name, browned by seaweed and moss. It was scarcely readable. Scouter's optic system zoomed into the name and magnified the image several times.

  The ship was the Mayflower.

  CHAPTER 8

  The air-lock hissed open and three figures dripped sea-water into the Mayflower's reception chamber. Kryten removed Rimmer's light bee from its waterproof pouch, and launched him into being.

  Rimmer nodded courteously. 'Thanks, Krytie.'

  Kochanski threw the Cat a torch. 'OK. Let's split up. Rimmer, you go with the Cat, I'll go with Kryten.'

  Rimmer's eyes darted down the maze of darkened corridors. 'Why? Why should we split up?

  'We'll do the search quicker.'

  'What's the hurry? You've got a major luncheon appointment you've got to rush off to?' Rimmer jabbed his nose at the Cat. 'I'm not teaming up with him.'

  'Me? What's wrong with me?' asked the Cat.

  Rimmer brayed with contempt. 'You're totally egocentric, you only look after number one, you flee at the first sign of trouble, you're vain, selfish, narcissistic and self-obsessed.'

  'You just listed all my best features,' said the Cat, confused.

  Kochanski bundled Kryten down the corridor with a single jerk of the head. 'Rimmer, you're going with the Cat.'

  Rimmer's nostrils flared mutinously before he won control of his face. 'Yes, ma'am,' he said through lips that scarcely moved.

  A safety door hissed open and Kochanski and Kryten stepped int
o a gallery lined with Deep Sleep units. Six hundred feet deep, sixty feet wide, perhaps one hundred and twenty compartments in all. Kryten's feet scrunched across the shards of glass that littered the floor; the units had been ransacked, their contents looted. A strange orange fungus with yellow pustules dripped down from the ceiling. The psi-scan informed them it was totally harmless. They took a quick vote and decided to ignore the psi-scan's advice. Stupid damn cheap Martian power-packed multi-analysis machines - Kryten vowed to write a letter of complaint to the manufacturers. Quite honestly he didn't care that they almost certainly no longer existed.

  They unscrewed a floor square and took a time-consuming and hazardous detour down the under-floor air-vent shafts. When they surfaced they found themselves in some kind of research lab. Kryten paused in front of an impressive-looking bank of computer terminals. 'Hubba-hubba, what have we here?'

  He flicked a switch on his chest plate and pulled out a stretchable computer lead which he attached to one of the terminals. 'Just downloading the black box, ma'am.' The pupils in his eyes suddenly disappeared and were replaced by two small clock faces. A hand whizzed round each of the dials until finally the information transfer was complete. Kryten searched through the data muttering incredulities. 'Extraordinary!'

  'What is it?'

  'This ship has two new strains of bacteria that have the capability to terraform planets.'

  'Designer viruses?'

  'Created at the Hilo Institute in Hawaii, they have the ability to make certain lava-active planets inhabitable for a certain oxygen-breathing species.'

  Kochanski grinned, understanding.

  'I think it's these two viruses in combination that have created this very ocean, ma'am. Shortly after the Mayflower crash-landed into the sea of molten lava, one of the survivors must have released the terraforming viruses and produced this world under the lava ceiling.'

  'Presumably as a means of enduring the lava's searing heat.'

  'Precisely. But why would they only partly terraform the planet?"