Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor

  'We'd better get you all down to the medical unit,' said Kryten. 'Excuse me, Miss Elaine: would you be so kind as to pass me my legs?'

  FIFTEEN

  Holly was lost.

  When he'd finally managed to wrestle Red Dwarf down to below light speed, he'd found a small electric-blue moon with a suitable gravity, plunged into its orbit and performed the 180º slingshot manoeuvre needed to turn the ship around.

  But now he was lost.

  The thing about being in Deep Space is the universe looks exactly the same from wherever you are. It's a sort of gigantic version of the Barbican Centre And although they were now supposed to be on a course heading back for Earth, Holly wasn't totally one hundred per cent convinced his calculations were absolutely, right-on-the-button correct.

  There are two ways to cope when you're lost: the first way you get out a map, discover where you are, work out where you want to go, and plot out a route accordingly. The second method was the method Holly was using. Basically, you keep on going, hoping that sooner or later you'll come across a familiar landmark, and muddle through from there.

  So far nothing had looked very familiar. Occasionally he spotted a constellation he thought they may have passed before, but he couldn't swear to it; and every so often they passed the odd multi-ringed gas giant with a red spot at the pole, but, frankly, multi-ringed gas giants with red spots at their poles were ten a penny.

  On his way out of the solar system, all those years ago, he'd started to compile what he hoped would be the definitive A to Z of the universe, with galaxies, planets, star systems, street names and everything. But he'd fallen behind in the last couple of millennia, and had lost heart in the whole project.

  It was the same with his diary. Each year he began to log the events of the voyage in eloquent detail. But every year, by January the thirteenth, he'd generally forgotten to keep it up, and the rest of the diary just comprised a few important birthdays: his creator's, his own, Netta Muskett's and Joe Klumpp's. And the only reason he included Joe Klumpp's was to remind himself not to send him a card, because he'd written Zero Gee Football - It's A Funny Old Game.

  So, until he spotted a star or a planet he recognized, Holly amused himself by devising a system totally to revolutionise music.

  He decided to decimalise it.

  Instead of the octave, it became the decative. He invented two new notes: 'H' and 'J'.

  Holly practised his new scale; 'Doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, woh, boh, ti, doh.'

  It sounded good. He tried it in reverse.

  'Doh, ti, boh, woh, lah, soh, fah, me, ray, doh.'

  It would be a whole new sound: Hol Rock.

  All the instruments would have to be extra large to incorporate the two new notes. Triangles, with four sides. Piano keyboards the length of zebra crossings. The only drawback, as far as Holly could see, was that women would have to be banned from playing the cello unless they had birthing stirrups, or elected to play it side-saddle.

  This exercise in restructuring the eight-note musical scale helped keep his mind off a number of major perturbations. One of these was that they were running worryingly low of a number of major supplies which had been consumed by Catkind during Lister's stay in stasis.

  Checking the supply list was a bit like opening a bank statement. Sometimes, when you're feeling good and things are going well, you can take the news, even though you know it's going to be hideous. Other times, most of the time, that bank statement can stay unopened for weeks. The ranks of figures lurk inside the missive like warped hobgoblins; evil, deranged, waiting to leap out and suck out your life force Pandora's box in an envelope.

  That's pretty much how Holly felt about the ship's inventory. The last time he'd mustered enough courage to take a peek, he'd discovered some goose-pimpling shortages. Although they had enough food to last fifty thousand years, they'd completely run out of Shake'n'Vac They had little fruit, few green vegetables, very little yeast, and only one After Eight mint, which he was sure no one would eat because they'd all be too polite to take it.

  So, to take his mind off the problem, Holly began singing his first decative composition, Quartet for nine players in H sharp minor. He'd just reached the solo for trombone player with three lungs when the incoming message reached the ship's scanning system.

  ***

  Since Lister realised he couldn't possibly go into stasis, on the grounds that the future echoes of himself had told him that he didn't, he decided he wouldn't, and instead he'd tried to make the best of a difficult situation.

  While he waited for the babies to show up, whenever and however that was, he elected to have some fun.

  He'd found a jet-powered space bike in the docking bay, and was overhauling it with a view to going on a joy ride through an asteroid belt.

  With a rag soaked in white spirit, he sat on his bunk methodically cleaning the greasy machine parts which were scattered all over his duvet, while Rimmer paced up and down the metal-grilled floor of the sleeping quarters.

  'Mi esperas ke kiam vi venos la vetero estos milda,' said the language instructor on the vid-screen, and left a pause for the translation.

  Rimmer paced.

  'Errm uhhhh ... uhmmmm ... Wait a miinute ... I know this ... Ooooh ... hang on ... don't tell me ... Urrrh ...'

  Without looking up from the jet manifold he was fervently greasing, Lister chimed: 'I hope when you come the weather will be clement.'

  'I hope when you come the weather will be clement,' the woman on the vid-disc concurred.

  'Don't tell me. I would have got that.'

  'Bonvolu direkti min al kvinsela hotelo?' the recorded instructor prompted.

  'Ahhh, yes ... this is one from last time ... I remember this ... Ooooh ...'

  Lister took the screwdriver out of his mouth. 'Please could you direct me to a five-star hotel?'

  'Wrong, actually. Totally, completely and utterly, totally wrong.

  'Please could you direct me,' the instructor said, 'to a five star hotel?'

  'Lister - would you please shut up?'

  'I'm just helping you.'

  'I don't need any help.'

  Rimmer had decided to put his demise behind him, and vowed to make his death as rich and fulfilling as was humanly possible. And so, he had taken up again his Esperanto language studies.

  Although technically Esperanto wasn't an official requirement for promotion, officers were generally expected to be reasonably fluent in the international language.

  'La mango estis bonega! Dlej korajn gratulonjn al la kuiristo.'

  Rimmer snapped his fingers. 'I would like to purchase the orange inflatable beach ball, and that small bucket and spade.'

  That meal was splendid!' the woman translated. 'My heartiest congratulations to the chef.'

  Rimmer squeaked. 'Is it??' He asked the vid to pause.

  'You've been studying Esperanto for eight years, Rimmer. How come you're so hopeless?'

  'Oh, really? And how many books have you read in your entire life? The same number as Woolfie Sprogg, The Plasticine Dog Zero.'

  'I've read books.' lied Lister.

  'We're not talking about books where the main character is a dog called "Ben".

  Not books with five cardboard pages, three words a page, and a guarantee on the back which says: 'This book is waterproof and chewable.'

  Lister sprayed some WD40 onto a spark plug. 'I went to art college.'

  'You?'

  'Yeah.'

  'How did you get into art college?'

  'Usual way. The usual, normal, usual way you get into art college. Failed all my exams and applied. They snapped me up.

  'Did you get a degree?' Rimmer's pulse quickened: Please God, don't let him have a degree!

  'Nah. Dropped out. Wasn't there long.'

  'How long?'

  Lister looked up and tried to work it out. 'Ninety-seven minutes. I thought it'd be a good skive, but I took one look at the timetable and checked out. It was ridiculous. I had lectures fir
st thing in the middle of the afternoon. Half past two every day. Who's together by then? You can still taste the toothpaste.'

  He shuddered at the memory and went back to cleaning his bike parts.

  Rimmer shook his head and re-started the language tape.

  'La menuo aspektas bonege - mi provos la kokidajon.'

  'Ah, now this one I do know ...'

  Holly's image replaced the woman's on the monitor, and smoothly delivered the correct reply.

  'The menu looks excellent; I'll try the chicken.'

  'Holly, as the Esperantinos would say,' Rimmer made the Ionian sign for 'Smeg off' with his two thumbs: “'Bonvolu alsendi la pordiston - lausajne estas rano en mia bideo", and I think we all know what that means.'

  'Yes,' said Holly, 'it means: "Could you send up the Hall Porter - there appears to be a frog in my bidet?"'

  'Does it?' Rimmer was genuinely surprised. 'Well, what's that one: "Your father was a baboon's rump, and your mother spent most of her life with her pants round her ankles' up against walls with astros"?'

  'Look,' said Holly, suddenly remembering why he was there, 'you'd better come down to the Communications suite. We're getting an SOS call.'

  SIXTEEN

  Lister grabbed a cup of tea from the dispensing machine, they collected the Cat and caught the Xpress lift down to Comm: level 3.

  'Aliens,' said Rimmer, his eyes gleaming with the possibilities; 'it's aliens.'

  Rimmer believed passionately in the existence of aliens. He was convinced that, one day, Red Dwarf would encounter an alien culture with a technology so far in advance of mankind's they would be able to provide him with a new body. A new start.

  'It's aliens,' he repeated; 'I know it.'

  'Your explanation for anything slightly odd is aliens,' said Lister. 'You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens.'

  'Well, we didn't use it all.' Rimmer shot him his best Rod Serling Twilight Zone look. 'Who did?'

  'Aliens used up our bog roll?'

  'Just because they're aliens, it doesn't mean they don't have to visit the smallest room. Only, they probably do something weird and alienesque; like it comes out of the top of their heads, or something.”

  Lister sipped his tea and mulled the concept over. 'Well.' he concluded, 'I wouldn't like to get stuck behind one in a cinema.'

  ***

  A huge screen a hundred metres square hung down over the communication consoles, and four speakers, each the size of a fairly roomy Kensington bedsit, throbbed gently as Holly tried to establish contact by repeating a series of standard international distress responses over and over again in a variety of different languages.

  'It's from an American ship, private charter, called Nova 5,' said Holly tonelessly. 'They've crash-landed. I'm trying to get them on optical.'

  'Oh.' Rimmer sighed with disappointment. 'So it's not aliens.'

  'No. They're from Earth. I hope they've got a few spare odds and sods on board.

  We're a bit short on a few supplies.'

  Lister sipped his tea. 'Like what?'

  'Cow's milk,' said Holly. 'We ran out of that yonks ago. Fresh and dehydrated.'

  'What kind of milk are we using now, then?'

  'Emergency back-up supply. We're on the dog's milk.'

  Lister froze, the styrofoam cup resting on his lips, the tea halfway down his throat. He swallowed. 'Dog's milk?'

  'Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other kind of milk, dog's milk.'

  'Why?'

  'No bugger'll drink it. Plus, of course, the advantage of dog's milk is: when it's gone off, it tastes exactly the same as when it's fresh.'

  Lister dropped his cup into a waste chute. 'Why didn't you tell me, man?'

  'What? And put you off your tea?'

  'Something's happening!' Rimmer pointed at the Comm screen, which fizzled and buzzed with static.

  Slowly an image formed: the flat angular features of a mechanoid face, the head without curves, the mouth without lips.

  'Thank goodness, thank goodness. Bless you!' Kryten clapped his hands together.

  'We were beginning to despair.

  'We?' said the Cat, arching his brow.

  'I am the service mechanoid aboard Nova 5. We've had a terrible accident Seven of the crew died on impact; the only survivors are three female officers, who are injured but stable.'

  'Female?' The Cat looked at Lister. 'Is that "female" as in "soft and squidgy"?'

  'I am transmitting medical details.'

  Digitalized pictures of Richards, Schuman and Fantozi flashed up on the screen, followed by reams of medical data.

  RICHARDS, Yvette. Age 33. Rank: Captain. Compound fracture, left fibula. Blood type O ...

  FANTOZI, Kirsty Age 25. Rank: Star Demolition Engineer. Multiple fractures, both legs. Blood type A ...

  SCHUMAN, Elaine. Age 23. Rank: Flight Coordinator., Severe fractures, right ankle. Blood type O ...

  The Cat's eyes darted across the significant details. 'Three. All injured and helpless. This is tremendous!'

  Rimmer turned from the screen and smoothed down his hair. 'Tell them,' he said, a new tone of authority in his voice, 'Tell them the boys from the Dwarf are on their way! Or my name's not Captain A.J. Rimmer, Space Adventurer!'

  'Oh, thank you, Captain Bless you. I'll tell them.'

  Kryten shut down transmission.

  'Captain?' Lister inclined his head forward and looked up at Rimmer through his eyebrows, as if peering over a pair of imaginary spectacles. 'Space Adventurer?'

  'It's good psychology. What am I supposed to say? "Fear not, we're the blokes who used to clean the gunk out of the chicken soup machine? Actually we know smeg-all about space travel, but if you've got a blocked nozzle we're your lads"? That's going to have them oozing with confidence, isn't it?'

  'Hey, Head,' the Cat said to Holly, 'how far are we away?'

  'Not far. Twenty-eight hours?' he guessed.

  'Only twenty-eight hours!, 'The Cat leapt to his feet. 'I'd better start getting ready! I'm first in the shower room. Waaaaah!' he screamed with delight. 'I'm so excited, all six of my nipples are tingling!'

  'Look,' said Lister, 'this is a mission of mercy. We're taking an injured crew urgently needed medical supplies. We're not going down the disco on the pull.'

  ***

  'Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum ...'

  Disco music thundered out of Lister's eight-speakered portable wax-blaster' which vibrated and slid across the metal surface of the sleeping quarters' table.

  'Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum …' Lister mimicked the synth-tymp as he glided rhymically over to his metal locker and pulled out his underwear drawer. One sock remained. He tutted, and grooved across to his dirty laundry basket.

  'Dum dum dum dum ...'

  He pulled out two very hard, very stiff, rather dangerous looking yellow socks.

  Holding them at arm's length, he sprayed them liberally with Tiger deodorant, then put them on the table and hit them several times with a small toffee hammer.

  'Dum dum dum dum dum dum...'

  He moon-walked back to the locker, reverently took out an old brown paper bag, and fished out his lucky-scoring underpants.

  They had at one time been blue. Now they were a yellowy-grey with holes in the cheeks, and the elastic hung out of the waist band. He - held them in his arms like he was holding the Turin Shroud. These were the underpants he'd happened to be wearing the night he met Susan Warrington. Susan had got him drunk, and taken advantage of his tender years on the ninth hole - par four, dogleg - of Bootle Municipal Golf Course.

  He'd worn them again the night Alison Bredbury's dad had to be rushed off to hospital with a heart attack, leaving him alone with Alison, the key to the drinks cabinet and her parents' double bed.

  From then they'd achieved in his mind a mystic qu
ality. He'd worn them sparingly, not wanting to use up their magic powers.

  Obviously they'd not always been successful. In fact, a lot of the time they hadn't been successful. And slowly the dreadful thought began to occur to him that they might be just a rather ordinary pair of dog-eared Y-fronts, and not some talismanic, spell-kissed, warlock-woven, sorcery-spun article of enchantment. They were just a pair of knickers.

  But then ...

  Then he discovered if he wore them backwards ... all their magical properties returned!

  Kristine Kochanski.

  For four whole weeks she was madly in love with him. For four whole weeks he'd worn his backward boxers. Not daring to risk an ordinary pair, he'd washed them each night and worn them backwards throughout their relationship.

  Naturally she'd asked him why. He told her he had twenty one pairs of identical briefs, and he always dressed in a hurry. She bought him new pairs, and forced him to wear them. Like a fool, he did. And soon after their relationship had ended.

  'Dum dum dum dum ...' He slipped on the sacred shorts, backwards and inside-out.

  'No prisoners,' he said aloud, and glided over to the ironing board.

  He lifted the iron off his best green camouflage pants and pulled them on. He felt air on his buttock, and when he checked in the mirror he found an iron-shaped hole clean through the right cheek.

  'Dum dum dum dum dum dum...'

  He rifled through his locker, found the colour he was looking for, and sprayed the exposed buttock with green car touch-up paint.

  He looked in the mirror again. From a distance you honestly couldn't tell. True, he smelled like a newly-painted Cortina, but that would fade in time. He slipped on his favourite London Jets T-shirt and stood back to take in the whole picture: the freshly hammered socks, the cleverly inverted underpants, and the neatly sprayed trousers. Hey, he knew it wasn't perfection, but God, it was close.

  'Oh, you're not on the pull, eh?' Rimmer stood in the doorway wearing a dashing white officer's uniform, complete with banks of gleaming medals, and gold hoops of rank which ran the length of his left arm, which Holly had grudgingly simulated for him.