by Doug Naylor
Meantime his brothers blazed their way up the ziggurat of command, leaving Rimmer, in his mind, with no choice. He had to cut himself loose from his family, never to see and rarely to hear from them ever again.
He had to, if he ever wanted to stem the torrent of pain and bitterness. Birthdays passed unmentioned. Christmases were spent alone. Valentine cards were self-addressed.
Then, finally, one day he died.
He died before he'd begun to live.
At least now the pain was over. At least now he could rest in peace, no longer fuelled by his incinerating jealousy and resentment.
Wrong.
His pain was just beginning.
Because in death, as in life, he allowed his failure to create something inside himself.
A creature.
A demon which prowled the plains of his soul, devouring his confidence, paralysing his initiative and poisoning his self-esteem.
It was a creature he longed to slay.
But it was a creature that could only be slain by one of two things. Love or success. And Rimmer attracted neither.
* * *
Lister sighed. He was bored and cold. For the last ten minutes he'd waded up and down the decom-chamber and had found nothing of interest; now he was beginning to wish he had gone back with the others. At least he could have a cup of hot coffee. Rimmer was talking about Kochanski and how they didn't have a structured ziggurat of command and how she shouldn't be so uptight. She should take a leaf out of his book. Lister nodded, not listening. Just for the hell of it he struck the door-release button with his index finger.
Slowly the door creaked open and revealed the interior of the ship. A mournful wail of metal yowled from somewhere deep within. 'It's opened.'
'How'd that happen? I thought the electrics were down.'
Lister peered into the ship through the open hatchway. 'I'm going to take a look around, OK?'
'In there? By yourself? Haven't you ever seen a schlock horror movie? That's what they always do — split up, then wander about in the dark by themselves, usually walking backwards. You're making the same mistake the girl in the tight top always makes.'
Lister grinned and walked backwards over the floor arch and stepped into the ship proper. 'If you need me, just scream.'
He flicked on a second torch, clicked the safety catch off his bazookoid and walked cautiously into the gloom.
For ten minutes he searched the control decks and found nothing. Then he bounded softly up the stairs that led to the obs deck. Four steps in he heard a noise; a kind of low, wet, slurping sound that sounded like a feeding animal. It came from the far end of the cabin, behind a bank of bio-units that came out of the wall at right angles. There'd been flooding up here as well, he could feel the wetness beneath his feet. One match and this whole craft would go up in seconds. He stooped to check if it was the same oil-and-water mix as the decom-chamber. His finger drew a line on the floor and he tasted it. This time it wasn't oil and water, this time it was blood.
From his left a shadow angled towards him at great speed. He turned, lost his balance and fell headlong into a bank of hard disks before he scrabbled to his feet and nailed the shape with a single squeeze of his bazookoid. The rat splattered into the wall with a single squish.
Rimmer called from the decom-chamber, 'What is it?'
'Just a rat. It's OK.' As he finished speaking he saw the first body; slumped in a chair by the Hubble telescope. There were two bullet wounds, one in the back and one in the right shoulder between the two triangular scapula bones.
The body didn't have a head.
Lister looked down at the corpse wearing a pink wool barethea jacket edged in patent leather that was identical to one the Cat possessed. A little involuntary yelp leaked out of Lister's mouth.
Next he found Rimmer. His light bee had been shot in two; one half lay on the floor, its minute silicon boards spilling out on to the deck, the other half, like a burnt coffee bean, floated in a mug of cold tea. Peristaltic waves of nausea thrashed around in his gut.
After Rimmer he found Kryten. His right arm was missing and his head had been lasered from his body and placed on the geo-scanner with a cheap cigar in his mouth. He took the cigar from between his lips and gently closed his eyes.
'You found anything, Listy?' Rimmer called.
'No, not yet. Everything's fine, man.'
For the next twenty minutes Lister searched the entire ship: the obs deck, followed by the cockpit, the galley, the mid-section and finally the cargo bays. He went at speed, hoping to find his own body before the others returned so he could figure out what had happened and what he was going to tell them. To Lister it looked like maybe they'd wandered into a time loop. At some point they were destined to get wiped out by something. If that was the case there was very little they could do about it, so there didn't seem a whole heap of point in telling anyone. Better to say there was nothing here and hope to hell it was some time in the distant future. Although, judging from the age of the Cat's head, it didn't look like that far into the future.
Halfway through the cargo bays he found Kriss.
He'd first picked up a trail of blood as he wandered through the cargo bays. He'd followed it down the flight of stairs and through the sleeping quarters. Several times he lost it, as presumably she'd successfully stemmed the flow, but he picked it up again in the food hall as he was passing a row of empty freeze-dried fruit palettes. Now the flow was heavier. Much heavier. She wasn't able to walk any more, she was on all fours, dragging herself, slowly and painfully, across the cargo bay.
Lister wiped an oblong of sweat off his brow and continued to follow the trail as it wended its way round the bay and down the steps which led to the spare Deep Sleep units on level two.
Then he saw her. Another Kristine Kochanski.
She was in Deep Sleep. And she wasn't dead.
Lister squeaked clean the Plexiglass covering and peered in at Kochanski's doppelgänger. Somehow she'd managed to crawl into one of the units and engage the mechanism to freeze herself. That's why all the electrics were down. The ship's drive computer had shut off all non-essentials to concentrate on this. He peered at the bio-readouts on the facia and wondered what to do. The life readings were dangerously low, their pointers barely bobbing above a red sea of danger. She was alive, but for how long? Lister remembered Kryten's explanation that the old stasis mechanism on Starbug didn't freeze time completely, it just slowed it down by 95 per cent. Kriss was still dying in there. Just dying very slowly.
What the hell was he to do?
He'd have to tell the others now. He knew next to nothing about medicine. That was one of the areas Kryten had specialized in since they'd worked out a way to override his limitation chip — the chip in his database that was designed to prevent him from becoming more than a sanitation droid. Kryten would know if it was safe to revive her and if it was possible to operate to save her life.
He took out his transmitter and flicked it on.
* * *
The Mechanoid 3000 series ran his medi-scan over the Plexiglass view-screen and waited for the results to slowly filter back into the machine and print out on the LED.
Kochanski stood by, her face tight with anxiety as she watched the mechanoid collate the injuries of her other self.
Kryten looked up from the medi-scan. 'She has multiple wounds to the chest and left arm. She's lost a lot of blood, almost two pints, and she has a severe rupture to her stomach wall caused by laser fire. If she remains in Deep Sleep she could live for two, perhaps three, months. If we move her and try to save her life the medi-scan gives her a seven to four chance of survival. Under ordinary circumstances I would recommend we leave her in Deep Sleep until we are able to get her back to Red Dwarf. The medical facilities aboard Starbug are laughable.'
Lister nodded. 'Two bottles of anaesthetic, a roll of gauze, a nurse's hat, and that's about it.'
'Wait one minute,' said the Cat. 'I think I'm getting an idea.'
&
nbsp; Rimmer looked impressed. 'It's not even May.'
'Red Dwarf's six weeks away,' the Cat began. 'Why don't we tow the ship back with us?'
Kochanski shook her head. 'Not enough power.'
Lister scratched the early-morning stubble that ran down his left cheek. 'How about we leave her in Deep Sleep and come back with Red Dwarf?'
'That would take close to twelve weeks, sir. She could have expired by the time we return.'
'Meaning?'
'I believe we should operate now.'
* * *
Exhaustion draped itself over Lister like a rain-sodden coat as he lined up the stretcher outside the Deep Sleep unit and Kochanski pressed the de-activate code. For the past four hours they'd made the required preparations: sterilizing the obs deck and converting it into a temporary operating theatre.
Now it was time.
The sleep unit's door swished open and Lister and Kryten gingerly lifted the dying Kochanski's body on to the stretcher and gently wheeled it towards the midsection. As they passed through a hatchway leading to the cargo-bay lift she regained consciousness.
She stared up into a face identical to her own and a railway line of incomprehension wrinkled across her brow. Kochanski held her hand. 'Everything's going to be OK. Don't try and talk. Just rest.'
'Who are you?' said the dying girl.
Kochanski stroked the back of her hand. 'It's hard to say without knowing who you are.'
The stretchered Kochanski smiled, said something that no one was able to make out and then lost consciousness.
She came to again as they undipped the stretcher from its carriage wheels and lifted her on to the temporary operating table.
'Lister? Where's Lister?'
'We couldn't find him,' said Kochanski. 'He's not here.'
'They took him.'
'Who took him?'
'Heard screams. His voice shouting. Went to look. Attacked from behind. Managed to...' She wasn't able to finish the sentence.
'You managed to get to a Deep Sleep unit?'
She nodded.
'Must have thought I was dead.'
'Where did they take him?'
She shook her head.
Kryten leaned in. 'Ma'am, please, no more questions.'
The girl took hold of Lister's shirt and pulled him towards her. 'Promise me you'll find him. He'll know who did this. Promise me.'
Kochanski stroked her brow. 'He promises. He'll find him, he'll -'
A single note piped around the room as the medi-computer suddenly started to flat-line. Kryten opened his medi-crate and hauled out the heart pads. Quickly he connected them to the MG then placed the pads on the girl's chest and pressed the release mechanism. A wave of electricity hurtled into her, making her body arc and fall.
Still the medi-computer maintained its sullen monotone. A second time Kryten released the pads, a second time she writhed and bucked as the volts raged into her body. A second time she fell motionless.
The third time the monotone was replaced with a heart-beat.
Lister's face looked like a squeezed orange. 'This is too risky. Get her back into Deep Sleep. We need more time to think about this.'
'What about the operation?'
'Not now. Later, when we're better prepared.'
* * *
Lister drank a cup of thick black coffee as Rimmer returned from a salvage operation of the cargo bays and entered the obs room. 'How is she?'
'Back in Deep Sleep and stable.'
'How long's that thing going to keep her alive? Four, five weeks?'
Lister shrugged.
'So how are you going to save her?'
Lister shook his head. 'We can't move her, we can't operate on her and we can't get her back to Red Dwarf in time.'
The Cat sat in front of the scanner scope. 'Perhaps this is the wrong question at the wrong time, but I got to ask it.'
'You're still the handsomest guy aboard, OK?' Rimmer snapped. 'How many times?'
'That's not the question. The question is this: who the hell is she?'
Lister took a slurp of coffee. 'I reckon we've wandered into some kind of parallel reality. We must have made an error with the navi-calcs when we were traversing the Omni-zone. We're in the wrong dimension.'
'A dimension where we all get wiped out?' 'Right.'
Kochanski peered into the dead navi-comp. 'Apart from Lister.' She wiped a coating of dust from the screen. 'He's out there somewhere. With whoever did this.'
Lister recognized the tight, determined smile that was presently in residence on her face.
'Kriss, we've got to get back to our own reality. What happens here is none of our business.'
'Did I utter a single word?'
'Look, right now, in our Universe, the human race no longer exists. Its last two members have gone AWOL, remember? If we don't get back they'll never exist.'
'Naturally.'
'What about Holly? We've got to get back, Kriss.'
'Eventually.'
'No, not eventually, now. We can't spend our time running around the wrong dimension looking for some other version of me and whoever wiped out the crew.'
'Since when the hell have you been so responsible? You've never worried about the future in your life.'
'Baby, c'mon, realistically, going back's the only sane point of view.'
'Don't call a senior officer "baby".' 'What? You're going to pull rank on me?' Kochanski half smiled. 'David, you promised her.' 'Don't call me David. Or I'll call you baby again.' 'You said you'd help her.'
'No, you said I'd help her. You said I'd find whoever did this. Not me. You did.'
'Give it a week. One lousy week - then we'll head back to the Omni-zone.'
'And what happens if something happens to one of us? What happens to our Universe then?'
'Wear bullet-proof underwear, then, for God's sake. You can get killed crossing a hyper-way...'
Kryten walked in through the hatchway. His head slumped disconsolately on his chest.
Kochanski's eyes widened. 'What's happened?' Kryten stared at the floor before finally he looked up. 'Moving was too much for her body to take, ma'am. I'm afraid Ms Kochanski died a few minutes ago.'
Lister's coffee cup slipped from his fingers and smashed on the floor.
'Request permission to give her a full Star Fleet funeral.'
'Granted,' said Kochanski quietly.
CHAPTER 3
Lister sat on a chair in his other self's quarters and scanned the room. His other self clearly didn't share these quarters with Kochanski. There was a rough bachelor feel to the whole room. Clothes and engine parts were scattered everywhere, cans of Swarfega jostled with after-shave, while stacks of cheap horror novels filled the bookshelves and a 2, 000-disc Mental-metal hard-rock music collection was stacked in xylophonic piles. Skulls of all shapes and sizes, some ashtrays, some ornaments, some acting as storage jars littered the room. On the walls were framed posters of a variety of frightening rock bands, most of whom appeared to be eating a selection of cute furry animals.
He picked up a black Les Paul copy with two missing strings and plucked it tunelessly. 'Sweet as a nut.' He put the guitar down and opened the metal locker that doubled as a wardrobe. A pile of magazines slithered out from a top shelf, hitting him on the head and fanning out over the floor.
He stooped and picked one up. They were all different issues of the same title. Something called Gore. Lister idly flicked through their pages: murder, Nazis, Satan, Hell's Angels and lots of strange rambling letters and articles about subjects he wasn't familiar with; Lister wished he hadn't found them. So his other self had a morbid fascination with the lurid; it wasn't a big deal, but he'd rather not have known. He collected the magazines together and stacked them neatly back in the wardrobe.
Kryten stood behind him. 'Sir, I understand you want to head straight for the Omni-zone and back to our own Universe.'
Lister nodded.
'Don't you feel you have an obligation to
your other self, sir? I mean, to help him.'
'Kriss has sent you, has she?'
'Engage lie mode,' said Kryten. 'No, sir.'
Lister smiled, then removed an elastic band around some photographs he'd found in the wardrobe's sock drawer and started flicking through them absently. 'We don't belong here, Krytie. This isn't our barney. Plus, if he isn't dead, which let's face it he probably is, I don't want to be the one to tell him he's lost everything. He's got smeg-all now: nothing to live for, nobody to live for. Zip.' Lister's eyes tightened and he blinked rapidly several times. 'For his sake I hope he is dead.'
'If you're worried about getting back to our dimension, sir, and your concern is that this could act as a dangerous interlude, then perhaps you should know there's an asteroid only two days from here, Blerios 15. According to the info-link it supports a substantial population.'
'What kind of population?'
'Pig-based Gelfs mostly. Some kind of drone-species, designed for manual labour. They've formed a society of no mean sophistication. And from what I can ascertain, they're not unfriendly.'
'So?'
'So they might well be able to shed some light on what happened here.'
'Kryten, man, we're not hanging around here, OK? We're heading back to our own Universe.'
'The point I'm trying to make, sir, is that finding him might well only take a day or so.' How could he tell Lister? How could he tell him he'd been sent to inform him that looking for his other self was precisely what they were doing by order of the senior officer on board, flight coordinator Kristine Kochanski? And if he refused, he risked court martial by his own girlfriend.
'Sir, I implore you. . .'
Lister nodded, not listening. Instead he'd paused at one of the photographs. Two figures were sitting in bed — semi-hysterical, their four pin-prick eyes peeked out of an avalanche of crazy foam that covered them both. Grinning, they posed arm in arm. He studied it hard. Kochanski and his other self. For the first time Lister felt a connection. It was impossible to say why he hadn't felt it before. The ship was identical, the furnishings were similar and yet, until now, until he'd seen this picture, he'd felt strangely alienated from his other self, in a way he couldn't articulate. But this picture changed everything. A smile tobogganed across his face. 'OK.' He looked up from the photograph. 'Let's find the son of a bitch and bring him home.'
