Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

by Grant Naylor

  'Of all the people you could have brought back - anyone in the Red Dwarf crew - you decide to copy your own disc, and bring back another you? That's turning narcissism into a science!'

  'I wanted a companion. Who more interesting and stimulating than myself?'

  'Why didn't you bring back one of the girls?'

  'Because all the girls thought I was a prat.'

  'Well, one of the guys, then?'

  'They all thought I was a prat, too. Everybody thought I was a prat except for me. Which is why I brought back the Duke. Old Iron Balls himself'

  'Bonehead 2 - how could there be only one?'

  'I don't have to take this any more,' Rimmer sighed happily; 'I don't have to take the put-downs, the smart-alec quips, the oh-so-clever snide asides. It's the dawn of a new era for me, Listy. No more you, with your stupid, annoying habits. No more you, holding me back, dragging me down.'

  'Me? How did I drag you down?'

  'Oh, let me count the ways.'

  'What ways?'

  'Humming.'

  'Humming?'

  'You hummed persistently and maliciously for eight months, every time I sat down to do some revision.'

  'So, you're saying you never became an officer because you shared your quarters with someone who hummed occasionally?'

  'Not occasionally. Constantly.'

  'You failed your Astronavigation exam eight times before we even met.'

  'There you go again - always ready with the smart-alec quip.'

  'That's not a quip, it's a fact.'

  'There you go again, putting me down.'

  'So, what else did I do, besides hum?'

  'Everything. Everything you ever did was calculated to hold me back, put me down and annoy me.'

  'Like what?'

  'Exchanging all the symbols on my revision timetable, so that instead of taking my Engineering finals I went swimming.'

  'They fell off. I thought I'd put them all back in the right place.'

  'Swapping my toothpaste for a tube of contraceptive jelly.'

  'That was a joke!'

  'Yes. The same kind of joke as putting my name on the waiting list for experimental pile surgery. The point is: you have always stopped me from being successful - that is a scientific fact.'

  'Rimmer, you can't blame me for your lousy life.'

  'Not just you. It's been all my bunkmates. Pemberton, Ledbetter, Daley ... all of you.'

  'It's always the same. It's never you, is it? It's always someone or something else. You never had the right set of pens for GE Drawing ... your dividers don't stretch far enough...'

  'Well' they don't!' protested Rimmer.

  'In the end, you can't turn round and say: "Sorry I buggered up my life - it was Lister's fault".'

  'It's too late, my life's already been buggered up. It's my death that concerns me now, and I have no intention of buggering that up' - Rimmer turned on his heels - 'because I'm getting out of here and moving in with myself.'

  TWENTY-THREE

  Blackness.

  Nothingness.

  Then a sound.

  'Jjjjjdt!'

  Then the sound again:

  'Jjjjjdt!'

  What did that sound mean?

  The sound again' but this time it was different. He recognised the sound. He remembered hearing it before. It was language. But he'd forgotten what it meant.

  'Kryjjjjjdt.'

  A name. A name he should have known.

  'Kryjjjjjdtn.'

  His name!

  'Kryten? Kryten?'

  A flash of green light. Then black lines drew themselves across his field of vision. Then the lines melted away, and he was looking at a message: 'Mechanoid Visual System, Version IX.05.© Infomax Data Corporation 2296.1'

  And then sight.

  Floods of brilliant colours: blues, reds, yellows dancing nonsensically before him.

  He focused. There was a man's face grinning at him.

  'Ye-es!' said the face. 'Bru-taaaaal!'

  'Hgvd Mumber Daffd,' said Kryten.

  Lister twiddled about inside his head with a sonic screwdriver.

  'Hello, Mr David,' said Kryten.

  'Ye-es!' said Lister again. 'I've done it! You're back in action.' He put Kryten's skull-piece back into place, fastened the latches and replaced his ear.

  'How d'you feel?'

  'Everything seems to be functioning', said Kryten flatly.

  'Listen', said Lister, leaning over him, 'there's something I need to know: what's the duality jump? What is it? What does it do?'

  A plastic frown rippled across Kryten's brow. 'It powers the ship. It's a quantum drive - it allows you to leap from one point in space to another. Why?'

  'How does it work?'

  'I'm just a mechanoid. I don't know these things.'

  'How does it work, Kryten?' Lister insisted.

  'It's something to do with Quantum Mechanics and Indeterminism. Something about when you measure electrons, they can be 'in two places at the same time.'

  Kryten seemed strangely reluctant to talk about it, and kept stressing it was a 'human matter' and not really the kind of thing mechanoids should concern themselves with, but, bit by bit, Lister wheedled what he could out of Kryten, and doggedly pieced together what he needed to know.

  When you made a duality jump, it seemed, you temporarily coexisted at two points in the universe; you then 'chose' one of these points to 'be' in. In this way you could leapfrog across the universe, not bound by the limits of Space/Time.

  'So, how long.' Lister pressed, 'would it take a duality jump to get back to Earth?'

  'Oh ... a long time.'

  'How long?'

  'You'd have to make about a thousand jumps.'

  'How long?'

  'Two ...' Kryten mused perhaps even three months.'

  'Three months!' Lister was already into the touch-up shuffle.

  'But there's no fuel! It decayed centuries ago.'

  'What kind of fuel does it need?'

  'I don't know. I'm just a mechanoid.'

  'Kryten, pleeeease.'

  Kryten shifted on the bench and twisted his fingers uncomfortably 'I'm just a mechanoid. I just clean things.'

  'But you know, don't you?'

  'Only because I heard Miss Yvette talk about it once But I'm not supposed to know.'

  'What is it?'

  'Uranium 233. Whatever that is.'

  'Ye-e-e-es!' Lister thumped the table 'Nice one, Krytie.'

  'Well, if that's all, Mr David' - Kryten smiled his lipless smile -'I'd like to be shut down again now, please.'

  'What are you talking about? It took me four months to fix you.'

  'But there's no point in my being on-line. I was programmed to serve the crew of Nova 5. They're dead now, therefore, my program is completed.'

  'So? You've got to start a new program.'

  Kryten tilted his head and arched a hairless eyebrow. 'To serve whom?'

  'To serve no one. To serve yourself.'

  'But I have to serve someone. I was created to serve. I serve, therefore I am.'

  Lister forced back his fur-lined leather deerstalker with the heels of his palms in exasperation. 'Kryten - chill out, OK? Loosen up. Relax. Just hang, will you?

  Chill the smeg out.'

  'Why?'

  'Because I say so.'

  Kryten's face seemed to brighten. 'Is that an order?' he said hopefully.

  'Why?'

  'Well, if it's an order, that's different.'

  'It is an order,' Lister smiled. 'Chill out.'

  ***

  Kryten was perched stiffly on a tall bar stool in the Copacabana Hawaiian Cocktail Bar, staring at the dry martini cocktail, stirred, two olives, standing before him. He didn't really like dry martinis, shaken or otherwise, but he'd ordered it because it was the drink Hudzen always had when he went to the Hi-Life Club in Androids and to Kryten it was the zenith of sophistication.

  He knocked back the martini in a single gulp, pause
d a few seconds, then regurgitated it back into his glass and stirred it round for a while with his cocktail stick. He wasn't very good at enjoying himself, he decided. He'd much rather have been cleaning something. He would much rather have been re-varnishing the dance floor or shampooing all two thousand, five hundred and seventy-two crushed velvet seats.

  Still, Mister David had ordered him to 'chill out', to 'hang', so 'hang' was what he must do. He sank the cocktail once more, and brought it back up again.

  He flicked through his vocabulary database for a definition of 'hang (vb. slang)'. 'Reduce tension' he read once again; 'lose rigidity; cease working, worrying etc.; allow muscles to become limp; relax, enjoy oneself.' Kryten relaxed his muscles. His head lolled back, his arms hung loosely by his sides, and he fell off the bar stool onto the purple carpet.

  He climbed back onto the stool, and started to worry that he hadn't ceased worrying. He looked around at the flashing disco lights on the empty dance floor. He became aware for the first time that music was pumping out of the speakers. If he was really to carry out Mister David's orders to the letter, he supposed. he was obliged to get down and dance. With a sigh of resignation he took his martini cocktail and waddled over to the dance floor. The only dance he knew was the tap dance to Yankee Doodle Dandy.

  The music playing was Hugo Lovepole's sexy ballad Hey Baby, Don't Be Ovulatin' tonight. Kryten set his drink on the floor, stamped his right foot until he got in time with the smoochy beat, and began tap-dancing furiously.

  And that was how the two Rimmers found him as they strolled through the recreation decks, taking their early evening constitutional.

  It had been a very pleasant stroll - quite the nicest evening Rimmer had spent for years. His duplicate was a total delight. They had each other in tucks; reminiscing, talking over old glories, old girlfriends. The simple, manly joy of chewing the fat with a like-minded, right-thinking colleague.

  At last he had someone with whom he could share ideas he'd always been to embarrassed to propound before. Such as his French dictation theory of life.

  Rimmer believed there were two kinds of people: the first kind were history essay people, who, started life with a blank sheet, with no score, and accumulated points with every success they achieved. The other kind were the French dictation people: they started off with a hundred per cent, and every mistake they made was deducted from their original perfect score. Rimmer always felt his parents had forced him firmly into the second group. Everything he'd ever done was somehow imperfect and flawed - a disappointment. Years before, when he'd been promoted to Second Technician' he felt he hadn't succeeded in becoming a Second Technician' rather, he'd failed to become a First Technician.

  While he expounded the theory, his double nodded in agreement and murmured encouragements, such as 'Absolutely' and 'Very true.'

  Right now though, the conversation had shifted and Rimmer was listening with mounting glee as his double reminded him of their one-night stand with Yvonne McGruder.

  'What a body! What a body!' the double was chuckling.

  'And hers wasn't bad either!' Rimmer guffawed.

  They paused as across the disco floor they caught sight of Kryten clickety-clacking frenetically.

  'What on Io do you think you're doing?' the double said' bemused.

  'I'm chilling out, sirs' said Kryten. 'I'm hanging.' Click, click, click, tap, tippy-tap, tip.

  'You're what?' said Rimmer.

  'I'm getting mellow' - clicky-clack, tip, tip -'I'm coasting. I'm chilling out.'

  Kryten suddenly felt ridiculous, and stopped.

  'How long have you been fixed?' Rimmer asked.

  Kryten was wondering why there were two identical looking Rimmers addressing him, but he felt that as a mechanoid it would have been impertiment to ask.

  'Since 12.15 hours, sirs.'

  'It's seven-thirty in the evening. Have you been messing about all that time?' said the double.

  'I was carrying out Mr David's orders, Mr Arnold, sir. He ordered me to relax.'

  'Oh, and I suppose you do everything you're ordered to?'

  'Yes, sir. I do, sir.'

  'Really?' The two Rimmers hiked eyebrows at each other.

  'Yes. I'm programmed to serve, sirs.'

  The double pointed to Kryten's drink. 'Eat that cocktail glass.'

  'Right away' sir,' said Kryten' and ate the glass.

  'So,' Rimmer mused, 'if I said to you "spring-clean the entire sleeping quarters deck"' I suppose you'd do that too, would you?'

  'Of course, Mr Arnolds.'

  'Splendid!' said Rimmer.

  'Splendissimo!' said his digital doppleganger.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The lift doors split open and disgorged a tired but happy Lister onto the habitation deck corridor. He'd spent the last two days and a night down in the technical library, then another morning liaising with Holly in the geology lab.

  In the last fifty-six hours he'd learned many things. He'd started off thinking that the structure and composition of planet crust and rock formations were incredibly boring. But now he was absolutely certain of it. Still, he now knew more about uranium production and mining techniques than he knew about the London Jets Megabowl-winning team Of '7 5 - and he knew what the entire London Jets Megabowl-winning team of '7 5 had for breakfast on the day of the game.

  This was the way it went: fissile uranium 233 could be synthesised from the non-fissile thorium isotope: thorium 232. And this was the best part: thorium 232 wasn't even rare. It was abundant in the universe. It abounded! There was lots of it! And this was confirmed when his radiometric spectrographic survey turned up seven likely moons in this solar system alone.

  Five of them would have required underground mining, so he had to rule them out.

  Of the remaining two, one, the more likely one, was seven months' travel away.

  But on the nearer moon, less than five days' journey away, there was an eighty-seven per cent probability that the ore deposits he needed were lying close to the surface. No shafts, no pitprops, no radon gas ventilation problems.

  Maybe he could do it. Red Dwarf was a mining ship - it had all the equipment: the earth-moving vehicles, the processing plants, the whole enchilada!

  When he turned into his sleeping quarters, it took several moments before his tired brain registered what it was that was different.

  At first he assumed he must have got out of the lift on the wrong floor, and he was now standing on the wrong deck. Then he saw his goldfish, only the water was clean, and you could see the plastic Vatican quite clearly. He looked around.

  The dull grey metal walls had vanished behind a Victorian floral print in various pretty pinks. The bedspreads were in delicate cream lace, festoon blinds in a mixture of rosebud patterns hung over the viewport window. A salmon-tinted Aubusson rug swept from under the bunks to the new porcelain pedestal wash basin. The lounge area was curtained off from the bunks by red silk drapes, with gold tie-backs. The table in the middle of the room was covered in a briar rose, short-skirted circular cloth, on top of which stood rows of newly polished boots and piles of neat, crisply folded laundry.

  It was appalling.

  It was an atrocity against machismo.

  'What the smeg is going on?'

  Kryten looked up from his ironing.

  'Good afternoon, Mr David, sir.'

  'What have you done?'

  'A spot of tidying.'

  'What are these?' Lister snatched an unrecognisable item from the pile of laundry.

  'Your boxer shorts' Mr David.'

  'No way are these my boxer shorts,' said Lister. 'They bend. What have you done to this place? What is this? This bowl of scented pencil shavings?'

  'Potpourri, sir.'

  'Pope who? Where is everything? Where's my orange peel with the cig dimps in it?

  Where's the remnants of last Wednesday's curry? I hadn't finished eating it!

  Where's my coffee mug with the mould in it?'

  'I t
hrew it away, sir. I threw it all away.'

  'You what? I was breeding that mould. It was called "Albert". I was trying to get him two feet high.'

  'Why, sir?'

  'Because it drove Rimmer nuts. And driving Rimmer nuts is what keeps me going. What did you do it for?'

  'The two Mr Rimmers ordered me to, sir. They even recommended the decor. They said it was very you.'

  Lister sat down on the apple-green chintz-covered chaise longue, next to the potted plastic wisteria, and wondered where he could begin. There was something about Kryten that really disturbed him, but he wasn't quite sure what. He was a slave, and Lister hated that. For some reason, mankind seemed to be obsessed with enslaving someone: black slavery, class slavery, housewife slavery, and now mechanoid slavery. Then it hit him: it wasn't so much slavery that got to him, though get to him it did; it was the happy slave. It was the acquiescence, the assent to serve, the willingness to be a slave.

  'What about you?' Lister looked up as Kryten ploughed through the ironing.

  'Don't you ever want to do something just for yourself?'

  'Myself?' Kryten sniggered. 'That's a bit of a barmy notion, if you don't mind my saying so sir.'

  'Isn't there anything you look forward to?'

  Kryten stood, the steaming iron in his hand for a full minute, trying to think of an answer.

  'Androids,' he said' at last. 'I look forward to Androids.'

  'Besides Androids?'

  Kryten had another think 'Getting a new squidgy mop?' he ventured.

  'Besides dumb soap operas and even dumber cleaning utensils?'

  Kryten fell silent.

  'What do you think of thorium mining?'

  Kryten looked baffled.

  'Follow me.'

  ***

  They found the Cat on Corridor omega 577, sleeping peacefully on top of a narrow metal locker, a hairnet protecting his pompadour.

  'Hey Cat - wake up.' Lister rocked the locker.

  The Cat opened one eye. 'This'd better be good. I was sleeping. And sleeping is my third favourite thing.'

  'Come on. Follow me.'

  A yawn split the Cat's face and made his head appear to double in size. He sprang down from the locker, arched his spine and stretched until the back of his head was touching the heels of his gold-braided sleeping slippers, and yawned again. He opened the locker door, reached inside, and draped an imitation King Penguin fur smoking jacket casually over his shoulders, before popping the top off a magnum of milk and filling a crystal goblet. He gargled petitely, urinated in the locker and followed Lister and Kryten down the corridor.