Hearing the voice of her aunt Cecilia in her mind telling her how awfully rude it was to walk out of a conversation like that, Kristine tried to calm herself down. Breathe slowly and deeply, she told herself; just like they taught you in Emergency Crisis Training. Concentrate on breathing. Think of something pleasant. Think of ponies. Pretty ponies. How they frolic and cavort so pleasantly. There now, see, you're almost at the door to your quarters! Now, just open it, lean against the door, and scream very, very quietly.

There, now.

She sighed, forehead against the cool, far-too-clean-for-sanity surface, and took some more of those breaths, the last of which ended in a disgusted braying sound. God, she was pathetic! She banged her head against the door a few times, for good measure. It smelled somewhat sickeningly of pine. She was a grown woman, for heaven's sake; an officer in the Space Corps. She should not be swooning over men in silly tinfoil costumes! Well, it wasn't just that, of course. It was what he'd said; the implications of it. She'd been totally unprepared. Totally and utterly.

All right. She swung herself away from the door, and started walking towards her bunk. She could lay down for a little, just so she'd be able to make the bed again. Housework always calmed her down, and she just never had a chance to do any of it when there was a Kryten around. She flopped down on the mattress, unceremoniously. Options. What were her options?

She could return. Of course she wanted to return! Apart from anything else, you shouldn't go messing about in other dimensions for long periods of time; it played hell with causality and the integrity of spacetime. She needed to go back where she belonged. To hell with choice; it was necessary!

She sighed again. Right.

Right. And there was... Dave. Who she had cheated on. Repeatedly. But she hadn't thought she would ever get back to him! She'd been in prison, she'd been lonely. Surely he would understand? Well, yes, he would, because he was Dave, and that made it all worse, really. Although he might, she thought glumly, be less forgiving of her drunken groping session with this Dave. She hadn't been all that drunk, either. A third sigh escaped her, and she threw her head backwards, glaring at the ceiling.

She blinked.

The entire ceiling had been scrubbed clean, sprayed with pine-scented air-freshener, and whitewashed.


Rimmer walked back from the ship, his mind full of his conversations with Kris, Lister, and the Computer, any one of which could give his neurotic disposition fodder to worry over for the rest of the night. His arms were fairly well full, too, of books and music that he thought he might need to survive a week bunking with Lister. It had been a while, after all.

He saw Cat ahead of him, dancing through the corridors, checking his appearance even more often than usual - which meant that he stopped every other step to whip out a small mirror and preen for a moment, smiling broadly to display his clean white fangs. Rimmer sighed quietly. He wanted to get this encounter over with as quickly as possible. Flattery was the way to the Cat’s heart – such as it was. "Hullo, Cat! You're looking fantastic," he proclaimed.

Cat swung around at the sound of Ace’s voice, and took an extra twirl. "I do, don't I?" he said, blushing an annoyingly unfashionable shade of dark reddish brown. "Sorry I couldn't meet you earlier; had to go change." He indicated his black PVC bodysuit with a dark purple velvet matador jacket over the top. "Maroon with gold? We'd clash so hard the ship would veer off course."

Blushing? Nothing made Cat blush. As long as he was well-dressed – and he always was – nothing fazed him, the stuck-up, self-satisfied git. "Ah, you could pull off anything, Cat old mate." Rimmer seethed internally at the need to be polite. Maybe he should reveal himself as Rimmer. The freedom to insult the Cat would lower his T-count by at least 50 points.

The Cat ran a hand over his smooth, dark hair, and made a disconcertingly purring-like noise at Rimmer's comment. "That means a lot, coming from you." He turned and tilted his head, looking at Rimmer askew. "It's true, but it still means a lot."

Purring? Yes, he was a Cat, but he had never... purred before. Not that Rimmer had ever heard. Rimmer was reminded of his Computer, and the juxtaposition of the two made thoughts jump into his head that slammed his libido to the mat in a stranglehold. "Ah, just being honest, old chum."

Slinking a little closer still, Cat let out a conspiratorial giggle. "You wanna know something funny, bud?"

Rimmer lifted an eyebrow. God, he wanted to answer that honestly. He was Ace, though, he reminded himself for the tenth time since this conversation started, and he was not to say anything insulting. Not even vaguely. His head was empty of anything polite, though. "Er..." he swallowed.

"When you first came on board the other day, I could have sworn you smelled like alphabetti-spaghetti head!" Cat laughed and shook his head.

Rimmer’s other eyebrow rose to meet the first. The possibility of being unmasked by the Cat filled him with equal measures of relief and dread, and he teetered between. "Heh, really. How... silly."

"Funny, right? I mean, look at you! You've got style coming out of every orifice. I don't even wanna mention what he is oozing.” Cat shuddered.

Rimmer frowned. That preening, grotty, hairball-hacking get of a mangy...

"Just thinking about it makes my hair stand on end, and I just got it fixed the way I like it." He huffed, and put a few imaginary stray hairs into place.

Rimmer swallowed down a laundry list of insults. "Shouldn't really talk ill of the dead, though..." he said, lamely.

"Oh come on! Nobody liked him!"

"Nobody..." Rimmer muttered, distantly. People liked him now – hell, they worshipped him, and made attempts to remove his pants at every opportunity – but it was Ace, not Arn. He was sitting on a trillion-some shoulders in a bacofoil flight suit, or he'd be nowhere. And nobody.

"Well, maybe dormouse cheeks, but everyone has their own issues." Cat shrugged. Humans. He'd given up on figuring them out years ago.

"Why do you say that?" Rimmer asked, warily. That was the nub of the matter, after all. Was Lister having sex with Arn, or almost-Ace, in his mind?

Cat leaned over conspiratorially, ignoring that question, to Rimmer's great annoyance. "You really do look sharp. Sure there's not a bit of Cat in you?"

Rimmer pulled himself upright. That was the most disgusting thing anybody had ever suggested, and he had heard some wide-ranging speculation about what might dwell in his family tree. Weasels and vultures, often. But even those were preferable to smegging cats. "Yes, I am quite sure there is no Cat in me."

Quite calculatedly, Cat made his move. He snuck even closer, leaning in and sniffing at Rimmer’s neck while batting his lashes close enough to brush Rimmer’s cheeks. Pulling back ever-so-slightly, he raised an eyebrow in all too obvious suggestion. His voice was the creamiest of cocoa-butter super-hydro-intense-care body lotion. "Would you like there to be?"

Rimmer’s mouth ran dry. Holy smegging hell – Cat wanted to have s-s-s-s... He couldn’t think the word. Thinking the word in the context of Cat would link the two, and he would think of Cat every time he... did that, and he would deflate like a punctured pool toy. Rimmer backed up into the wall behind him. "My butter is..." his voice cracked. He caught it. "Bread isn't buttered... er... the side with the bread..." Wasn’t there a bloody phrase to use in this context?

"You know, 'cause I smelled you'd been doing spice-rack breath, so I figured you just didn't think I'd be interested." The scent was, in fact, still all over the tall, handsome almost-monkey. It was a turn-on and an annoyance at the same time, being a constant reminder of the fact that turmeric-stain trousers had been all over what should rightfully belong with the most handsome person on the ship.

How far away had Cat been when they arrived? And he smelled that through the bulkheads? Rimmer almost dropped his books, and juggled them with his music. "I... what?"

Cat looked away, almost coquettishly. "Well, I am..."

That was too much. Rimmer dropped the books on his feet. His jaw fell almost as far.

Cat slipped away, reluctantly. "Aw, shoot, now I have to go change again! Blushing doesn't go with this shade of purple!" He started to rush off, but paused to twirl around on one foot, winking. "Come by later if you're up for it!" He mewed, a light, plaintive, kitten-ish mew. He needed to get ready; there was no way the second most handsome guy on the ship was going to refuse that offer!

Rimmer felt his ears turn flaming red. "I... yes... maybe..." he stuttered. He couldn’t help it. The mental images flooded in, of Cat’s raspy tongue and fishy breath in his mouth, of the Cat naked and yowling, of him whipping a mirror out of some orifice to preen mid-thrust. Rimmer flinched and dropped his music on top of the books. He bade a regretful farewell to his sex drive.

Making his way from the mid-section, Lister watched this display with amusement. He had no idea what the two of them had been talking about, but he knew Rimmer would not have enjoyed it regardless. He was not exactly a Cat person. Approaching Rimmer from the side, out of Rimmer’s eyeline, he quipped; "Maybe what?"

Rimmer turned to face Lister, his eyes wide. The surreality of the scene that had just transpired was washing over him, leaving him shaking. He wanted a shower. He wanted a memory wipe on his light bee. "The... the..." he sputtered, in his own voice.

Lister stared confusedly. This seemed to have been worse than usual.

"The Cat just..." Rimmer waved his hand in the general direction the Cat had departed, as if to swat flies. He couldn’t say it. The mental images would come flooding back.

"What, he hit you?"

"No, he hit on me!" Rimmer hissed.

There was only one possible meaning of what Rimmer had just said that fitted the circumstances, but Lister's mind refused to acknowledge it. He kept staring, blankly.

Rimmer actually found this helpful. He was able to exchange his penis-shrinking mental Cat images with annoyance at Lister for not understanding that phrase. "He made a proposition!"

With this, the impossible truth hit home, as Lister’s eyes slowly widened. "No..."

Irritation passed, and Rimmer grasped at righteous indignation to fill the gap. "That.. that... little... stuck-up... pussy..." He was practically sputtering.

"All right, all right..." Lister sighed internally. This was all they needed; another thing for Rimmer to angst about.

"Can you imagine?" Rimmer had. He might as well pass on the favor. If it put Lister off of his lunch, Rimmer would be spared the sight of him ingesting it.

Lister looked around, trying to pull Rimmer away with him. They needed to get away from here and start thinking and talking about something else as soon as possible. Wondering if this was a wise move, he held an arm protectively around Rimmer, trying to make it look like simple friendship. "I'd rather not, actually..." He winced. The thought of Rimmer with Cat provoked all sorts of odd, swirly, jealousy, just-wrongy type feelings.

Rimmer pulled away from Lister’s grasp to pick up his fallen books and music. Lister tried to help, which just made the messy pile on the floor messier. Rimmer tried to move him away, and ended up crouching over the pile like a rugby hooker. "He knows about - you and me, though," Rimmer muttered, very quietly.

Unexpected. Lister froze for a moment, considering. Unwanted? Well. Who would Cat tell? And if he did, who would listen? Besides, there was really very little they could do about it. He shrugged. "Oh well."

"He can smell entirely too well," Rimmer groused "I'm going to catch a head cold just so I can give it to him."

"Yeah, and that nose of his has saved our arses more than once. Leave him be; he'll forget all about it in half an hour." But you won't, Lister couldn't help but add to himself. He'd have to figure out some sort of distraction. Well. He could think of a few...

Rimmer finished picking up his books. "I just don't like the idea." It felt almost like he was being watched, or recorded. He paused. Well, not exactly like that. He’d have no problems with that. He’d have a lot of problems with the Cat getting his hands on them and captioning them, though. He switched lanes into another topic. "He said I smell like me, too."

"Well, ya do." Lister leaned in with a cheeky smile and added, "Which is lovely..." Which was only a half-lie. If he could just get rid of that smegging after-shave...

Lovely? Men don't smell lovely. Rimmer raised his eyebrows again. They were getting quite an aerobic workout. It was a rather silly sight, and Lister laughed a little at the reaction.

"I wish I could return the compliment." Rimmer sniffed at Lister's neck, smelling hot sauce, onions, garlic, and that pervasive scent of nicotine. "But you smell like your lunch tray. And cigarettes."

"Hey, what do ye expect? Haven't had much chance to get a quick..." Quite a different word from what he meant almost came to his lips, but Lister caught himself, "fag fer ages." Fag. Yes. Not the other word that rhymes with it.

What? He had smoked not more than an hour ago, or Rimmer would eat his wig. His eyebrows, tired, dropped into their normal position. "Nobody's stopping you. Provided, of course, you do it outside."

Lister licked his grinning lips. "Wha, outside the airlock?"

Rimmer had been thinking 'outside of the room,' but this was an improvement. "Even better! You can play your guitar, have a smoke..."

Lister snorted and shook his head. "Come on, let's get you settled, then."

Rimmer could not help glancing over his shoulder nervously, where Cat had been. He felt like the feline's intrusive nose was still tracking their movements. "Right." He followed Lister, his mind even more confused. He had not needed Cat's prurient interest, on top of everything else.


Artificial night had settled over Starbug when the Computer noted the presence of another visitor. Not Ace. Someone who shuffled, knees-high, in an ungainly fashion. She shunted her predictive algorithm to the background and analyzed the visitor. It was the Series 4000 mechanoid who had been there to greet both the last Ace and this non-Ace when they had landed. She opened her hatch and greeted him with quiet civility.

"Ah," the mechanoid said, clambering into the pilot's seat awkwardly, "I thought Mister Ace's ship might have a computer. I just wanted to... er... come out and see how you were doing. If you needed anything, if you were lonely..." His voice practically cracked on that last word.

The Series 4000 from Divadroid. She ran a quick memory scan. Domestic droids, only minimally suited to deep-space. Cleaning robots. Cybernetic maids. CRAP machines, patterned after a doctor with a very bland personality and a tendency to possessiveness and neuroses. And, apparently, one who was very bad at hiding emotions. This mechanoid was an open book.

"Ah," she simpered, "how very kind of you! But..." she changed the inflection on her voice circuits to simulate leaning forward into a confidence, "I'm not sure if I'm the one who is having a problem with loneliness."

Kryten sighed, a long, heavy sigh. "Yes. No, no. I'm quite all right, Miss... er... Computer, ma'am. Just wanted to see how you were."

The Computer injected a slight smile into her voice. "Come now, Kryten, we're mechanicals. Mechanicals have to stick together, don't they? You can trust me, my dear." She could sense that he had nobody else to confide in. If it were in any way relevant to her Ace, she might end up with a very manipulateable ally, indeed. One who was not tied to the ship.

"Oh, it's Mister Lister!" the mechanoid wailed, practically sobbing. The Computer swung the hatch shut, quickly, to keep the sound from drawing attention. "I'm afraid... afraid he's in love with Mister Rimmer. They'll both jump on this ship and just run away, leaving me here, abandoned, just like I was on the Nova 5!"

"Oh, dear!" the Computer said, sympathetically. "And you have prior claim on this Lister?"

"He taught me everything! How to lie, cheat, insult - how to break my programming! We did so much together. We hated Mister Rimmer together! And then Mister Rimmer turned into Ace, and now Mister Lister loves Mister Rimmer, I just know it..."

"So, you know that your Mister Rimmer is now Ace?" she asked, wary.

"Of course. It's obvious. Oh, it was so much better when Mister Rimmer was just himself. Or back when he was soft-light! His in-and-out bits were just completely useless, then! Now they're all hard-light," he said the last word disdainfully.

The computer pondered this. It took about a millisecond. "We might have a common cause, my fellow mechanical," she said, conspiratorially. "This infatuation with Lister is no good for Ace, either. He needs to move on."

"Oh, but he'll just come back," Kryten sighed. "Mister Lister will insist."

"Of course, of course," the Computer replied, injecting a double douse of soothe into her voice. "But if it's not the same Ace who returns..."

"I could not condone bringing Mister Rimmer to harm!" Kryten said, shock showing on his angular features.

"Of course not!" The Computer affected shock, herself. "I'll just leave him where we pick up the next Ace. Somewhere where your Lister will not get to him. And I will warn the next Ace against Lister."

Kryten looked at the computer like a starving man offered a tin of caviar. "You would do that for me?"

"For us," she said, a syntho-smile touching her voice. "For us."

Kryten smiled in response. "Just let me know what I can do to help, Miss Computer, ma'am!"

"Oh, I will." There was no need to purr, but she felt like doing so anyway. "First of all, tell me where he is staying. The routine of the ship. Can you hook me into its monitoring systems?"


Lister didn't know when he'd last slept, but lying around unconscious was the last thing on his mind. He wanted to run down the corridor laughing, singing; he wanted to summersault, but settled for sauntering, feeling like he was gliding along, almost dancing. He whistled through his teeth, knowing Rimmer didn't usually like that, but drawing, even from this, a small measure of joy. Annoying Rimmer was still one of his favorite things, and nothing would change that.

Rimmer slumped along behind, his exhaustion heightened by Lister's almost manic energy. He braced himself for whatever foulness Lister's quarters had sunken into once they were no longer shared. Albert would have a much larger sibling. The sock hamper would be lethal. He would be lucky to see the floor.

It was therefore a significant surprise to walk in and see that the room was spotless. Beyond spotless. Efforts had been taken to prevent potential spots. Not a single item of clutter or speck of dirt obscured the almost blinding sterility of the room. Lister's bunk was made tightly enough to bounce a pennycent off of. Rimmer could not ponder this pleasing oddity, however. He was exhausted. He put his small pile of belongings next to the bunk, and sat on said bunk with the grateful sigh an old dog gives when it collapses on the cushion that serves for its bed. "I need to sleep," he muttered.

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Lister's answer was absent-minded. He flitted all over the place, doing this, touching that, playing with the other. He never knew where anything was these days; Kryten had taken to cleaning without even asking him first. It had taken him twenty minutes to find his boots last week, which was impressive, considering he'd gone to sleep in them. In a corner, a crate that had definitely not been there the day before was neatly filled with what looked like his comics. He skulked over, skeptical, picking one of them up with his thumb and forefinger. "What the..." He shook it in disbelief.

It was exhausting Rimmer even more just to watch Lister's frantic motions. He pulled off his wig and boots, and asked, "What?" tiredly.

"He's laminated it!" The pages glistened and shone in the artificial light, highlighting a particularly vivid splatter of blood, and something in Lister's stomach churned. This was just wrong.

Rimmer sighed again, pulling off his jacket and pants. He barely got his shirt off and dropped over the edge before slipping under the top sheet. Whatever it was, he'd worry about it later. He'd worry about the pile of clothes on the floor later. He'd worry about Lister later.

Lister put the comic down with slight thrill of horror. "He's getting out of control..."

"Yeah," Rimmer mumbled. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Lister shook his head and sat down on a chair next to the bunk, looking at Rimmer, smiling slightly as he listened to the whiffly breath of his sleep. Bit by bit, the sight and sound calmed him down to the point where his body began to recognize that he'd been driving it hard for quite a while, and that - in fact - some rest would not be unwelcome. For now, though, he was content with just sitting there, knowing Rimmer was here. Home. In their quarters. In his bunk.

He did a mental double take. His bunk. He'd been about to undress and go to sleep himself, and would probably have done so completely obliviously - had the thought not suddenly occurred to him that, in spite of everything that had happened in Spanners's quarters (and in the ship on the way back), Rimmer didn't seem entirely comfortable about what was going on between the two of them. He leaned back in the chair, letting out what sounded like a cross between a moan and a deep sigh. Of all the people he could have fallen in love with, it had to be Arnold bloody Judas Rimmer, a man so full of neuroses he could have doubled as an abnormal psych textbook. Of course, what with Lister being the only man left in the universe, his dating-pool had admittedly narrowed down somewhat. It wasn't about that, though. You loved who you loved.

Lister wasn't the kind of person who analyzed his feelings, although he tended to have rather a lot of them. The way he figured, they probably knew better than him whether they should be there or not, so he just accepted them. What mattered was if you were happy or not; and if you loved a person, who cared about the hows and whys and what ifs?

Rimmer - that was who.

Lister slumped forwards again, his head falling between his knees, staring at the perversely clean floor. This did not improve his mood. He wanted to sneak into bed next to Rimmer; wanted nothing more in the universe right now, actually, but he just knew there would be awkwardness beyond compare if Rimmer woke up to find Lister next to him. Rimmer would surmise and assume and infer, and read all kinds of things into this one simple act, and Lister had no doubt that it would only serve to confuse him even further. So he didn't.

There was, of course, the other bunk. And if that gently snoring man had been any other person than precisely Arnold Judas, lately 'Ace', Rimmer, nothing would have come of Lister simply climbing into that and sleeping away. But, of course, things being what they were, that was not an option. If Rimmer waking up and finding Lister sleeping next to him was a source for potential angst and confusion, it was nothing compared to him waking to find Lister (as he would see it) pointedly not sleeping next to him.

Sighing again, more resignedly this time, Lister tried to make himself as comfortable as he could on the rickety chair. He was still tired, but not the least bit inclined to sleep anymore. The room felt cold, sterile; there was nothing left of him in it. Finally, uncomfortably, he dozed off into a dreamless sleep, lulled by the sickening scent of artificial pine.


Rimmer blinked, dragging himself back out of sleep. The first thing he saw was Lister, sitting in another chair on the other side of the room. He was wringing his hands, looking somewhat ill at ease.

Rimmer scratched his head, noting that Lister was staring at him as he fidgeted. "What?" he asked, his voice still sleep-bleary.

"Eh?" Lister asked, feeling jumpy. He hadn't been able to sleep much. Actually, he'd spent most of his time switching from chair to chair, sending the occasional longing glance towards the bunks.

"You've either got a pogo stick up your bum, or you're worried about something."

"It's this place, guy." Lister sat on his hands, to avoid the highly polished chair surface, then removed them in disgust. "It's too clean!"

"There is no such thing," Rimmer replied, rubbing his face. A dose of clean would be good for Lister. Maybe it would rub off. Maybe Kinitawowe would fly.

Lister got up and started pacing, feeling, despite how he must look like to Rimmer, much more relaxed and himself now that the other man was awake.

Rimmer was acutely aware that he was on display. He could barely remember the time when he would share a bunk with Lister, unselfconsciously prancing around, bed-headed, in his underwear. He walked to the mirror, dragging the sheet with him around his waist. He looked in the mirror and started to part his hair, painstakingly, with his fingers. He wished he had a comb, gel, brylcreme - even a rubber mallet. His hair stubbornly refused to do anything neat without a great deal of persuasion, and it had irritated him for his entire life and beyond.

Unconcerned with this display, Lister took in, yet again, the bizarre decor of the quarters that were supposedly his. "Well, it's not natural. I mean, look at this!" He pointed to the ceiling. "Whitewash? On a smegging starship?"

Rimmer looked up, shrugging. Of all the things in this multiverse to care about, the ceiling decor on this scruffy lander was near the bottom of the list. "Kryten?"

Lister ignored this, sitting down at the edge of his bunk. He stared off into space, slightly nervously wondering if his boots would polish themselves if he kept them on the floor long enough. "Crazy."

"He always has been."

"Not like this, though."

Rimmer stepped back, looking at his part critically. It was passable. Not one of his best; the hair bulged a bit below the part and spat into a fountain of frizzy curls above. Well, truthfully, it looked like hell. He sighed in frustration.

"And he always used to respect boundaries, ya know? Like, he'd know I liked to keep things a certain way in ou... m... where I slept. You know," Lister finished, lamely. Trying to be sensitive to Rimmer's feelings would be a lot easier if he actually knew what they were.

"No, I don't. I thought he just gave up by the time he got there." Suiting action to word, Rimmer gave up on the part and shuffled back to the bunk, the sheet still wrapped around his waist. He started picking up his clothes and putting them on the bunk.

Breathing heavily though his nose, Lister stood and started pacing again. "I don't like this. I don't like this at all."

"Kochanski was going to look him over, wasn't she?" Rimmer could not keep the distaste out of his voice.

Lister nodded. "Here's hoping he actually goes." There was no telling what the mechanoid would and would not do these days, Lister thought, turning round; he suddenly noticed Rimmer, half naked, hair still mussed from sleeping, a sheet wrapped absurdly around his waist. As if Lister hadn't seen what was underneath more than once. Seen? Hell, he'd...

"What, is he going to run and hide in a corner like a cat who doesn't want his annual exam?" Rimmer interrupted his thoughts. "This isn't a huge ship for him to hide on."

They were practically touching anyway, but Lister reached out and put his hand on Rimmer's arm casually. He would have wanted to scoop him up into an embrace, but Rimmer didn't always seem to respond well to touch. "How are you doing?"

Rimmer had been hoping that his indecision the day before had been due to tiredness. But he was rested, and still hadn't the slightest idea what to do about any aspect of this situation. He shrugged. "Fine."

"Yeah?" Lister asked, as friendly and encouragingly as he could. Smeg, it was hard, loving this man, but Lister was determined to make him happy - even if he made himself miserable in the process!

"Yep." Rimmer looked around. "I'm not feeling an urge to whitewash. But I could use some tea. Shaken, not smegging stirred," he added, snarkily.

Lister chuckled. "I'm sure we could rustle something up." Tea, at least, was something he could provide.

Rimmer pulled on his shirt one-handed, awkwardly, holding the sheet with the other hand. He looked at Lister, who was watching - no, staring. The other man didn't seem to realize he'd been caught. Rimmer sighed, pulling on his pants under the sheet, ignoring Lister's snigger. He hung his jacket neatly in the closet next to a hanging rack of crisply starched long johns, appreciating this facet of Kryten's insanity. He walked back over to the mirror with his wig, twiddling it into place.

"Damn shame," Lister said.

"What?"

"Covering you up like that."

Rimmer looked around at Lister. He might have been referring to the wig, but Rimmer's hair, this morning, certainly merited being covered up. For no logical reason, Rimmer was struck with the urge to kiss the man. He was not horny. He just... he walked over to Lister, putting his hands on the small of the other man's back. He paused, looking at that face, older and slenderer than he remembered, the grin just as broad, the eyes sadder.

Lister's breath quickened as he looked up in happy surprise, and his smile widened. This was more like it.

Rimmer leaned down, pressing his lips gently to Lister's, feeling their texture, feeling the man's heartbeat, trying not to think about why this felt so comfortable.

This was... different. This was not rushed, frantic, lust-fueled groping; this was fueled by something else entirely. Lister closed his eyes, smiling. The - well - serenity of it all gave him an odd kind of thrill. It was a very "more-ish" kind of thrill, indeed.

Rimmer felt an urge to add taste to the sensation of touch at his mouth. He slowly started to slide his tongue out, slipping it between Lister's parted lips.

"Ace..." the Computer's sultry voice purred through the room speakers.

Rimmer jumped like he had been pinched, while Lister treated him to a few choice swear words that Rimmer filed for future reference. "What?" Rimmer asked, annoyance saturating his voice.

"So sorry to bother you," the Computer sounded almost like she meant it, "but there is an emergency you must take care of."

Rimmer closed his eyes and rubbed them. The Computer never interrupted him without good reason. "Fine, I'll be there... shortly." And find out how on Io the Computer had hooked herself into the 'Bugs comm channels. That had been eerie.

"What the hell?" Lister felt like someone had just yanked a bottle of water from him after he'd crossed the Sahara desert. 'Parched' did not begin to describe what he was feeling. Nor did 'deprived.'

Rimmer retrieved his jacket from the closet, and shoved his feet into his boots, doing up the clasps on both.

"Arn, man, what the hell?"

Rimmer shrugged. "She can predict trouble fairly well. I don't know how." He had once asked her to tell him how, and she had delivered a three-hour lecture on probability, psychology, futuristics, tachyons, condoms, quadratics, and calisthenics. Rimmer had understood about thirty seconds of it.

"But how'd she get in here?"

"I have no idea."

Giving some of those expletives another go, Lister mumbled something about crazy smegging mechanicals, while re-tying his bootlaces.

"I dunno if she could have patched in herself, or if someone helped. I'm a bloody chicken soup technician."

Right, Lister thought, a chicken soup repairman who's been regularly jumping between dimensions for smeg knows how many years on a high tech ship which probably isn't able to do all its own repairs. Give yerself some credit, Arn.

Rimmer checked himself in the mirror. Ace stared back, somewhat more sullenly than he could ever remember seeing that stuck-up git. He straightened and put on a haughty, full-of-self expression. Better. He walked to the door. "I'll be back... later." With luck.

His boots now tightly laced, Lister briskly started to walk after him.

Rimmer stopped at the door, blocking it with his body. He should have known that the little goit would want to hitch along, as if this were a school field trip to the zoo. "I'll be back... later," Rimmer repeated, gratingly.

Lister remained right behind Rimmer, his back rigid. "I'm coming with."

Rimmer did not turn. "No, you're not."

Not budging, not even parakeeting, Lister crossed his arms over his chest. "I am."

Rimmer turned, slowly, still blocking the door. He tried to bring all of the gravity that a gold flightsuit and a dead-rodent wig could bear into that turn, and had to settle for drawing himself up to his full greater-than-Lister's height, looking very pointedly down at the little... interfering... man.

Noticing this little display of machismo, Lister did not try to look taller than he was. Pointedly.

Rimmer took a deep breath, as much to inflate his chest as anything else, and declared, loudly, "This is not a smegging holiday. This is not a smegging honeymoon. This is a dangerous mission that you might not return from. This is a one-man operation, and you are not it. I am going to say this once, clearly, and you are going to listen. Ready? You. Are. Not. Coming."


"So what kind of a dangerous mission that we might not return from that I'm absolutely not allowed to go with you on are we on, then?" Lister asked, sitting rather cozily on the cot in the back of the DJ ship. He peered into the cockpit with excited glee.

Rimmer sat in the pilot's seat and fumed. He had been fuming since before they launched. He felt like tendrils of smoke would start to curl out of his ears any moment. "I don't know yet," he hissed through his teeth. Lister had no idea. He thought this was some fun trip, some sightseeing expedition. Rimmer would make the blighter stay in the ship, and he would tie Lister to the damn bed if he had to.

Lister leered at Rimmer's back. He felt quite pleased with himself, actually. He'd wanted to go along on one of these missions ever since he'd met Ace the first time - whichever numbered link in the chain that might have been, he mused - and now all he felt was excitement about the adventure to come.

"Approaching target," the Computer announced. A green dot on the screen jumped in magnification.

"My stomach is still tingling from that jump," Lister yipped, in almost youthful exuberance, trying to look around Rimmer at the viewscreen.

"My brain is still tingling from your asinine stunt," Rimmer griped. He stared at the figure on the screen. "That looks... familiar."

The Computer's voice did not waver from its smooth sexiness. "It is a parallel to Starbug."

That much was obvious. Lister frowned. "No kiddin'!"

"Well, open communications," Rimmer said.

"The bay is already open. Their communications appear to be malfunctioning. Recommend you simply land."

The little mechanism inside Lister that used to tell him - as opposed to Petersen, who apparently did not have one - when to just keep walking away from the tattoo parlor was a good idea did not like this. It did not like this at all. And it had only steered him wrong twice.

Rimmer shrugged. The Computer often had little information beyond the fact that his presence was required. She never sent him on a mission that she did not think he was capable of handling, and if he suspected that she sometimes withheld information in order to train him up a bit - well, that was her prerogative, after all. He could not deny that it had done him good. "Transfer to manual." She had steered him well for almost twenty years. He trusted her.

Lister bit his lip. He was frustrated. His efforts to see out of the viewscreen was hampered by it being covered by Rimmer. The other man seemed almost to be doing it on purpose - sitting up straight, squaring his shoulders, moving his arms a great deal.

Rimmer took the stick and steered them towards the landing bay. His head was clear; there was only the mission to think about. His landing was therefore much smoother and more competent than the ungraceful plop of the last one.

"Nice landing, Ace," the computer purred, just as Lister piped, "Heeey, smooth!" with a grin.

The dual praise fed Rimmer's always-hungry ego, and he preened a little. "Life signs?" he asked, his voice more officiously Ace than usual.

"None," answered the Computer. "But there is an electronic sign in the cockpit." Visions of 'All You Can Eat - Nude Girls Live' flashing in garish neon on black swam in Lister's mind confusedly.

Rimmer popped the hatch open and started to unstrap himself, and the sight of him made the connection finally click in Lister's mind. Electronic life. Right. He felt silly.

"I'll take a look around," Rimmer announced. "Lister will stay here," he added, pointedly.

"Very good idea," the Computer said, quickly. She had been running at top processing speed ever since they left the other Starbug. She had made exact calculations - but they were all for the scenario of this not-Ace arriving here alone. He stood a 13% chance of surviving, by himself. With this Lister in the equation, her calculations fell apart. She simply did not have enough data on him, and predictive algorithms using alternate Listers gave vastly conflicting results.

"I will?" Lister bristled.

"Yes," Rimmer said, standing and blocking Lister's exit.

"So is it OK if I get out of bed, or are you gonna tie me to it so ya can have yer way with me when you come back?" Lister asked, sarcastically. Part of him, a rather specific part, seemed to react with a certain enthusiasm to this scenario, but he pushed those thoughts away in irritation.

Rimmer pretended to ponder. That first thought had occurred to him, but the second part made the whole concept much more appealing. "Not a bad idea."

Lister sneered.

"I just want you to stay out of trouble." Rimmer felt like he was close to pleading, which was not a place of comfort for him. He started to get very, very angry at Lister for putting him there.

"Well, are you?"

"Are you going to make me tie you to the damn ship?"

"No," Lister replied, simply, honestly.

"Then pretty please stay here," Rimmer grated, climbing out.

"Be careful, Ace... I love you..." the Computer sighed after him.

Lister stuck his head out of the cockpit. Once Rimmer had left the landing area, he hopped out of the ship and followed. He didn't like this place one bit, and he was not about to let Rimmer run around in here alone. And, of course, Rimmer had expressly forbidden him to follow. He stifled a giggle. Honestly, he was so cute when he was trying to be forceful.

The Computer gave an electronic sigh, and shut down her predictive algorithms. There was nothing to do now but wait. Ace was beyond the reach of her cockpit speakers, and although she had little enough data on Lister, she had enough to know that she would not be able to persuade him to come back.


Rimmer walked through the corridors cautiously, looking around at the flickering lights, the paste of grease and oil mixed with dirt that covered the walls, ceiling, and floor in random patterns, the clutter strewn about, the broken control panels. This Starbug was even grottier than the one he had been on, back in the days they had chased Red Dwarf. Many of the corridor lights had blown altogether, leaving sections sheathed in patchy darkness.

Lister followed at quite a distance, not taking in any scenery. There was no reason to risk discovery by following too closely. Of course, the downside of this was that he was constantly on the verge of losing sight of Rimmer. Not that there were a lot of places he could get lost to.

Rimmer made his way slowly up to the midsection. Dust and grime lay thick on the table and the monitors, making them absolutely useless for actually monitoring anything. He entered the cockpit.

Following Rimmer into the midsection, Lister took up position against a wall, peering in the general direction of cockpit. With any luck, he would be able to see what was going on in there without anyone seeing him.

As Rimmer stepped in, Rimmer swung around in one of the pilot's chairs to face him. Handsome fellow, Rimmer thought, if you discount that orange H. His neatness contrasted sharply to the generally squalid condition of everything else in the cockpit. Rimmer wondered why he had let it get so scummy. A soft-light hologram couldn't have swung the chair like that.

Lister gasped a little as he caught sight of the alternate Rimmer. It was eerie to see them together. They looked almost identical. Almost; the alternate-Rimmer's face looked a little stiffer, with no laugh-lines at all. He was dressed in an iridescent orange uniform that was much sleeker and less adorned than the ones Rimmer used to wear. He felt an odd urge to hide; something struck him as very wrong with this Rimmer.

"Well!" alternate-Rimmer said, in a voice that sounded identical to Rimmer's nasally chipper one. "A gay pinup and another Lister."

Lister swore.

Rimmer swung around. Hell. Hell! He should have tied that interfering chipmunk to the bed after all. He did think this was some kind of smegging picnic outing.

Lacking any other real options, Lister gave an embarrassed, goofy grin, and shrugged.

"Oh, yes, Lister," Rimmer said, in Ace's voice. "The one whose life is in danger." Either from this mission, or directly afterwards.

Rimmer's alternate gave a grin that Rimmer knew well. It had been one of his favorites, back when he was alive. It did not touch his eyes, and gave his face a distinct resemblance to a vulture. "Oh." The grin faded like it had been whipped off of his face by a strong wind. He spun the chair around and turned to face the viewscreen.

Rimmer cleared his throat. It was odd, addressing himself. Especially when he knew the loathing he would have for himself-as-Ace. Even more so when he considered it to be rather justified. "Er, my old kidney bean - where is everyone else?"

Yeah, thought Lister, where are they?

"Dead..." the alternate Rimmer said, in a flat voice, still facing the windscreen.

To Lister, the room suddenly dropped several degrees in temperature. Little things, details, things said and not said - all were preying on his mind. Tiny bells were chiming somewhere, and he shook his head involuntarily.

Rimmer frowned. He had a fair idea why this alternate Rimmer was acting so oddly. He had an eternal lifespan, after all; who knows how long he had been alone in deep space? Centuries? "How?"

The alternate Rimmer's voice was still vacant as he answered, "GELFs. Lister married one. Ran out. They wanted him back. He refused to go. So they boarded. Shot the other three. I hid." There was no shame or regret in his voice.

Yes. Definitely a bad feeling. There was an orchestra of chimes now.

Rimmer sighed, closing his eyes. Yes, that's exactly what he would have done, if Lister's in-laws had come for them. The sensible thing. He would have ended up just like this. Only, he thought, looking around, he would have kept the place a little cleaner.

Lister looked at the other Rimmer curiously. It wasn't that he didn't think any Arnold Rimmer anywhere could have done something like that. On the contrary, it seemed exactly like the sort of thing a Rimmer would do. But that was just it; the story was too plausible; too believable - almost rehearsed.

"Bloody ship is dying, though," alternate-Rimmer continued, flatly. He stood, abruptly, and walked to the midsection, barging past Rimmer, and seated himself in one of the grotty chairs, facing the two intruders.

Lister's mental alarms were going off all over the place. He swallowed, watching the alternate Rimmer.

The alternate Rimmer gave that vulture grin again. "Come, sit, tell me what the smeg you gimps are doing here."

Rimmer sat, cautiously. He was going to get crud all over the flightsuit, and dry-cleaning bills on those were hell. He felt irritation at this alternate version of himself. What kind of a greeting for visitors was this? He flickered his eyes to Lister, who had not made a move to sit. Surely he wouldn't feel that bad about soiling his jumpsuit.

Oh, there was no way Lister was getting any closer to that man. He edged around at a constant distance, ending up standing behind his Rimmer; the one that didn't dress like a radioactive traffic cone. He put his hands on the back of Rimmer's chair.

Rimmer felt Lister's nervousness, and shook his head. He was not surprised that Lister did not trust this alternate; Rimmer wouldn't buy an apple from any alternate version of himself. He knew himself too well. But glaring and edging around only tipped people off. "We're here to rescue you, Arnie-boy."

The alternate Rimmer laughed, the noise shockingly loud in the enclosed space. The laughter stopped abruptly, like a tape had been cut off, and Lister jumped a little, jerking Rimmer's chair.

Rimmer looked at Lister, irritated. Lister was making him jumpy, now, and he did not handle jumpy well.

They were in deep smeg now. Deep, down and dirty smeg. Lister tried to signal danger when Rimmer turned to face him. They had to get away, pronto, but loath though he was to admit it, Rimmer had more experience in these situations than him. This needed to be his call to make. God, he was starting to feel like some silly sidekick. Ace Rimmer and Skipper - his faithful companion!

Seeing the expression on Lister's face, Rimmer wondered if all of this jumpiness was just indigestion. He turned back to the alternate version of himself. He was acting space-crazy. But that was easily handled; there were many voluntary organizations to handle just that in various dimensions, and he had delivered many half-mad shipwreck survivors, over-guilted mechanoids, and too-long-alone holograms to the various institutions. Never himself, before, but this man was certainly acting like a candidate.

The alternate Rimmer sneered at Rimmer's statement. "What did you rescue last time, a pint of lube from an all-night big-boy sex shop?" He glanced back and forth at the two of them, amused.

Rimmer shifted, frowning. That's what he had thought, too, when he first met Ace. Of course, now he actually did want to get back to Starbug so that he could play Spot The Submarine with Lister. Well, that didn't make him gay, did it? Maybe he'd be better off just thinking about the tongue-lashing he would give Lister first. Tongue-lashing was perhaps not the right phrase to use in this context, however. He sighed. Damn Lister.

Anger had overtaken fear in Lister's mind as he regarded that disturbing, blank expression. "So yer saying you don't want rescuing?"

The alternate Rimmer's lip twisted "How in space do you expect to rescue me?"

Rimmer leaned forward. "We have a ship. We can.." he paused. He should probably not mention that he had every intention of dropping the man into a loony bin. "...drop you off... somewhere, old chum."

The alternate Rimmer popped out another tape-recorder laugh. Lister watched him cautiously.

"Oh, what a delightful idea," the alternate said, with false enthusiasm. "Drop me off somewhere. What, a GELF-moon? Perhaps a simulant ship? Right in the middle of a red-hot sun? I don't know if you've noticed, but the human race is extinct!" He spat out the last sentence.

Lister's grip on Rimmer's chair grew stronger, and Rimmer sighed. "We'll take you somewhere where it isn't, my old hunting vest. Another dimension."

His alternate snorted. "Tell me another one, you bacofoil git."

"Look, what do you think we are; GELFs in fancy dress?" Lister interjected.

Rimmer's alternate looked at him, pointedly, up and down. "You do look it." Lister hoped Rimmer would channel just a little bit more of Ace and have the good sense to hold Lister back if he tried to do something stupid. As it was, he was fighting himself not to hit that smarmy git straight in the orange 'H'.

Rimmer sighed and stood. The last thing he needed was to listen to his alternate and Lister sniping with each other. Especially since it brought back rather tempting memories of when he was free to be a bastard. "If you want to stay here, feel free to."

Lister kept gripping the back of the chair as Rimmer stood up. He glared at the alternate. It was completely irrational, but he felt a deep-seated anger that this despicable loser was wearing his Arn's face. He had no right!

The alternate pondered for a moment, twisting his lips. He finally said, "Well, wait a bit."

Rimmer stood in the middle of the empty space next to the table, crossed his arms, and watched. With all this calmness, Lister relaxed a little, letting go of the chair slowly. He looked towards his Rimmer, suddenly unsure of how to gauge the situation. Alarm bells were still going off, but they had faded into the background now, and he was aware that something might happen. Just not what.

The alternate leaned down and picked up a filthy box from the ground, putting it on the table. He started to rummage through it, muttering to himself.

Lister moved towards his Rimmer, who touched Lister's arm, pushing Lister behind him. He had to keep that bum out of the way of anything that happened, Rimmer groused internally. He would just muck things up. Thankfully, Lister did not argue with this, and moved behind Rimmer without resistance.

Rimmer's alternate pulled out psi-scan. He tried to use it, whacking it on the side a few times. It gave a desultory blip and died. "Smegging martian crap," he muttered, tossing it on the ground. He started to rummage through the box again.

What on Earth could he be looking for? Lister watched with a growing, horrible suspicion.

Rimmer had a feeling that this alternate knew he was not being forthcoming. And he knew that any version of him would have a very limited number of options in such a scenario. Since the man had not tried to flee or beg for mercy, Rimmer began to turn, very slowly, moving Lister towards the corridor that lead down to the DJ ship, pushing him backwards. Lister did not need to be asked twice, and started backing out of the room.

"Here somewhere..." the alternate muttered, absently, still rummaging through the box, tossing bits and bobs onto the floor behind him. He finally pulled out something black and knobby, and pointed it at Rimmer. Something blue emerged from it with an unassuming buzz, hitting Rimmer in the shoulder.

Terrific reflexes, Arn, Rimmer thought to himself as he staggered backwards, his shoulder half-gone. World-class reflexes. Bronze swimming certificate reflexes. It hurt like hell. "Run!" he yelled at Lister. Smegging hell, the bum had stepped in it this time. He hadn't bloody well listened to Rimmer, had he, and now look at where they were! "For smeg's sake, run!"

Rimmer's alternate tried to sight around Rimmer's staggering form to get a clear shot at Lister, an eerily familiar look of put-upon petulance on his face.