Fic: Work - R/L - PG-13
Title: Work
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG-13 for inventive foul language and dentistry
Disclaimer: It's quite clear to me that I am owned by Red Dwarf and the boys, but alas, this is not a two-way thing. To make matters worse, I make no money from it either. Yet it makes me happy!
Spoilers: Legion.
Notes: Well, I've finally finished the fic I mentioned in here. Thanks to beetle_breath , roadstergal and kirke_novak for contributing with ideas. It was a pleasure to try to fit them all in. This is all very silly though. Very, very silly. You have been warned! Oh, and there are probably loads of errors - I was eager to post this sucker. Let me know if you spot any! ;) Written as part of the fanfic100 challenge - my table is here.
Kryten was dreaming. He wasn't asleep, of course, and thus avoided wasting time which might otherwise have been used for such important and long overdue chores as washing and drying the ships supply of athletic jock straps, or alphabetizing the dry-goods locker. While it was realized quite early on - after the tragic incident involving most of the 2700 series - that any mechanical with biological components needed to sort through and file the days experiences every night in order to not - for example - go on a psychotic rampage through the streets of Ganymede with a chainsaw, wearing a bowl of petunias on their head; it was also generally understood, however, that any being created for the sole purpose of cleaning and sanitation would go just as barking mad should they be forced to spend hours upon hours doing nothing. With this in mind, all mechanoids from series 2850 Alpha onwards had been fitted with a DreamChip(TM). The chip was activated whenever the mechanoid used his re-charge socket, allowing him (or rarely, her) to experience a dream-like state in the subjective time-span of several hours, in the objective time of just a few seconds.
Kryten enjoyed his time in the dream-world. He had a routine. First, he would survey the room, to see that everything was in order. In the few, rare, cases that things were not, he would simply will them so, and they would change instantly. Tonight, however, everything seemed perfect. The gleaming, newly polished - so he wouldn’t have to clean it first - steel writing-desk, upon which stood a large cardboard box; the gigantic filing-cabinet; the nicely uncomfortable chair, allowing him to concentrate on the task at hand. He walked up to the small utility locker standing slightly to the side of all this, and opened the door, taking stock. Various cleaning supplies, three different kinds of buckets and mops, that long, steel rod he didn’t like to dwell on right now; all ready and set to go! He closed the door, and rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Seating himself at the desk, he marveled, not for the first time, at how human beings could bring themselves to allow their brains to do this for them. He’d seen human dreams, all sloppy and hap-hazardly thrown together, not a thought given to logic or cohesiveness. Really, they were such messy creatures, no wonder they’d invented mechanoids to help sort themselves out. Shaking his head in amusement at the thought of human dreaming, he drew today’s box gingerly towards him, and carefully opened the lid.
The memories of Kryten’s day were all in there, each in the shape of a small Polaroid-picture. When he looked at them closely, the image would start to move, the memory unfolding before his eyes. Had Kryten been human, he might have felt some distress or discomfort at seeing himself within these memories, but Kryten was not human, and so merely found it rather refreshing to see things from an external point of view. How the Dream Chip was able to extrapolate this he did not know, nor did he much care. It was not, he felt, important. He selected a picture at random; trying to find which sequence of events had come first. He much preferred to do this in chronological order. The picture he had picked showed Mr. Rimmer clutching his jaw with a pained expression. Kryten hurriedly put it away before it started moving; this came later. He rummaged around in the box, looking for the familiar face of Mr. Lister. Ah… This was the one.
Lister walked up to Kryten, a determined expression on his face. “You’ve got to stop him, man; it’s bound to be some sort of trap. Who actually sends out distress calls asking for people to help re-populate their planet over sub-space? It just doesn’t happen! Besides, he’s a hologram; he can’t impregnate anyone.” He paused, an expression of horror slowly creeping across his face. “At least I hope not…”
Kryten smiled, giving the counter in front of him a finishing buff with his specially made cloth. “They did select him specifically from the crew - they must have their reasons. And I’m sure Mr. Rimmer can take care of himself, Sir.”
Lister looked at him as though he were insane. “Kryten, have you been asleep these last few years? We’re talking about a man who managed to mess up an AR-game created for the sole purpose of making him feel good! A man who populated a world with insane, hostile clones of himself fer smeg’s sake!”
“Ah,” Kryten replied, “but that did take several hundred years to play out. In this case we have arranged to pick him up in a fortnight’s time.”
Lister shook his head in frustration. “We left him alone on the ship for two hours yesterday, and he almost managed to blow it up! Who installs devices they don’t actually know how to work into a running starship engine?”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Kryten said, “I should have locked the doors to the engine-room.”
“You shouldn’t have to lock them Krytes. That’s the whole point. Rimmer… I don’t get him, I just don’t. He’s a huge smegging coward, yet he keeps getting himself into trouble by doing these completely irrational, irresponsible things. And one of these days we’re not going to be there to rescue him, you know?” He looked up at Kryten, an odd look of dejection on his face.
Kryten lifted his arm as if to pat Lister reassuringly on the back, but lowered it again with a frustrated look. “He is a grown man, Sir,” he said, in a suitably soothing voice, “you will just have to trust him to look after his own best interests.” Lister shook his head, biting his lip. Together, they left the room.
Kryten examined the picture thoughtfully as the memory faded. After a moment, he filed it under “L” for Mr. Lister. He picked up another image. Ah. This would be the early afternoon ironing. He carefully filed it under “I”. He fished in the box for another. This time, the picture showed Mr. Lister standing in the cargo-bay, looking dismayed. The image began to move.
Lister looked at what remained of the tomato plant in dismay. “What went wrong? What could possibly have gone wrong?” He tried lifting the sagging leaves, holding them up in what should be their ideal position. However, when he removed his hand, they flopped pathetically to the floor.
“Well Sir, botany is a difficult science,” Kryten interjected. “I did warn you that attempting to produce a chili-flavored tomato might not necessarily meet with overnight success.”
“I was that close though,” Lister indicated with his index-finger and thumb. “If I’d picked them yesterday it would have been fine.”
“They were quite green yesterday,” Kryten noted, grabbing a broom and starting to sweep away the brown leaves now littering the deck.
“People eat green tomatoes,” Lister protested.
“Not, I think, quite that green, Sir. Was it really necessary to water them with beer?”
“How else were they going to pick up the flavor?”
“Indeed, Sir. At least you can salvage the seeds from this one. But next time, might I suggest you choose something other than refuse to grow them in? It might improve both the odor of this place as well as their chances of survival.”
“Are you saying I killed it?”
Kryten swept the remainder of the leaves into a neat pile around the dead plant. “I suppose I am, Sir. Sorry,” he added when he saw Lister’s expression.
“Kryten, I didn’t kill it, man!”
”If you say so, Sir.”
Lister slumped down on the floor next to his dead creation. “Aw smeg. I did kill it, didn’t I? I even smoked in front of it.” He patted the dull green stem helplessly. “I’m a murderer.”
“Oh, now don’t get all sentimental Sir. I’m sure everything will be alright in the end.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Krytes; you haven’t killed…”
“Is everything alright?” Rimmer’s voice suddenly emerged from behind a stack of tinned salmon crates.
Don’t tell Rimmer, Lister mouthed, and Kryten did his best to nod discreetly. “Nothing, Sir,” he assured the hologram, “everything is fine.”
“You’re certain?” Rimmer sounded somewhat apprehensive.
“Yes, absolutely,” Kryten said as cheerfully as he could. “No tomatoes or anything!” Lister winced, but Rimmer merely paused for a second before replying.
“Right. Well. I’ll just go… I’ll get back to packing then, shall I?”
Lister waited until Rimmer’s footsteps could no longer be heard, then burst out: “No tomatoes?”
“I do apologize, Sir; I get nervous about lying in stressful situations.”
Lister gave a half-smile. “Ah, it’s alright. It’s just, I wouldn’t hear the end of it if he knew, yeah? You know what he’s like. ‘There’s another thing you’re useless at, Listy!’” He pursed his lips, kicking some of the half-composted garbage closer around the plant half-heartedly.
Kryten shook his head, emerging from the memory. Poor Mr. Lister. He did try. He could just be so impatient sometimes. Ah well. The memory was dutifully filed under “L”. A few more were selected and sorted, including two rather fetching shots of himself dusting the mid-section table. There was one of Mr. Rimmer leaving, which he didn’t dwell on for long. One of them landing; oh, he supposed that should go before the one of Mr. Rimmer, another of them taking off, with Mr. Cat in the drivers seat. And then… Oh, yes… He looked at the picture currently in his hand. It was a rather unflattering shot of Mr. Rimmer, contacting Starbug shortly after they had left the planet. He watched it curiously, allowing it to unfold.
“Kryten, can you hear me?” Rimmer’s voice sounded urgent and upset, although it was hard to tell because of the static crackle.
“Vaguely, Sir - you’ll be out of range in a few minutes time with our current speed. Is everything alright? We only left you an hour ago.”
“Is Lister there?”
“Not at present, Sir - would you like me to fetch him?” Kryten was ready to leave for the sleeping-quarters when Rimmer’s voice rang out;
“No! I mean… No. Just…” Rimmer genuinely did look worried, Kryten noted.
“Yes?”
“I… I couldn’t help overhearing you in the cargo deck earlier.”
“Oh, Sir!” Kryten exclaimed in exasperation. “You weren’t supposed to know!”
“So it’s true then?” He looked rather paler than usual, grim determination setting in his features.
“I’m afraid it is, Sir. Oh, it’s all so terrible. He asked me specifically not to tell you!”
“Right.” Rimmer seemed to make up his mind about something. “Look, I can’t talk right now, I just needed to know. Before… Well… Never mind.” He signed off.
As the memory ended, Kryten attempted to bite his lip. This was made difficult by the fact that he didn’t - strictly speaking - have any teeth, but he gave it his best shot. Taking care not to look at the photo and thus re-start the memory, he filed it under “M,” for misunderstandings. With some trepidation, he dug around in the box, looking for the shot of Mr. Rimmer clutching his jaw. This was not going to be pleasant, he thought, as the image of Rimmer started to scream.
Rimmer was strapped to the medi-bay examination table, his face a mask of unbridled agony. The sound of his horrible screams echoed off the walls, amplifying them to even worse levels.
“Fer Christ’s sake, can’t we do anything to shut him up?” Lister sounded angry, but his frantic pacing and the way he kept pulling at his dreds gave his worry away.
“I wish I could, Sir,” Kryten replied apologetically. “However, there is no such thing as a holographic pain-reliever.”
“He’s been screaming for hours, though,” Lister interjected. “Why isn’t it going away? I know he heals quick enough.”
“This is certainly true, Sir. However, dental pain is the most extreme kind of pain there is, close to the limits of what human beings are able to endure. Even after his teeth and gums are healed, the discomfort will persist, perhaps for days.”
Lister hugged himself in frustration. “What were they doing to him, man?” He inched closer to the table, closing his eyes and turning his head when Rimmer started a fresh bout of screaming.
“Well, Sir, the GELF population of Helgania I is all female. They are highly empathic, and their only means of reproduction is to have a clonal pregnancy induced by sensing intense pain from another person.”
“What?” Lister looked as though someone had suggested he quit smoking, and take up stamp-collecting to fill the void.
“Just as I said Sir. They were able to complete a great deal of root-canal work on Mr. Rimmer’s hard-light teeth before we got him out of there. Because of his fast-healing nature, they could have kept at it indefinitely.”
“They reproduce by means of dentistry?”
“Exactly. Apparently, the particular brand of pain resulting from the removal of nervous-tissue from the roots of living teeth is the only kind able to engender pregnancy in Helganians.” Kryten paused, blinking. “It’s all a bit silly really, don’t you think?”
“BASTARDS!” Rimmer screamed from the table.
“Silly?” Lister spluttered. “It’s insane! How could anyone possibly think to genetically engineer a species with such a mind-bogglingly complicated and absurd means of reproduction? How did they think they’d survive?”
“Actually, they were hoping they wouldn’t. The Helganians are descended from a species of GELFs who were designed to be barren. The pain-induced pregnancy capability was a quirk - an oversight if you will.”
On the bed, Rimmer was quietly sobbing. Lister dared move close enough to touch his shoulder, but the moment his fingers met the hard-light body, Rimmer flinched, and unthinkingly bit down hard on his injured teeth. “COCK SUCKING CUNT-HEADED PROSTIDROIDS!” he wailed, startling Lister backwards into the wall, where he hit his head on the side of a particularly pointy control panel.
The Cat poked an irritated, frazzled head in through the door, incisors gleaming threateningly. “Could someone please shut him the hell up? I’m trying to concentrate on some very complicated stitching!”
“So hang on,” Lister said, rubbing the back of his head with a gloved hand, “you knew all this, and you still let him go?”
Kryten fidgeted. “Ah. Yes.” In an attempt to avoid looking at anyone, he got out a small feather-duster, turned around, and desperately began to dust the monitors on the back wall. “Rather embarrassing, really. I though we were being contacted by the people of Helgania IV, a race of incomprehensively beautiful nymphomaniac GELF sex-slaves. I always get those two mixed up.”
“I’m sorry, what?” The Cat’s ears seemed to move slightly forwards. Lister stopped rubbing the back of his head, and just stared blankly into space.
“Erm… Yes. But, sadly, it would appear that those Helganians were all wiped out in a terrible war against the people of Helgania I, who also sustained a terrible loss in population. Which, incidentally, is why they needed Mr. Rimmer’s help. You might have noticed the emotional recorders set up all around the operating theater; these would have broadcast non-stop for two weeks as tiny files were applied to the roots of Mr. Rimmer’s molars, scraping out the…”
“Right, right,” Lister interrupted, looking ever so slightly green. “And that’d make ‘em all pregnant then?”
“Oh FUCK, this smegging sodding fucking HURTS!” Rimmer’s outcry ended in a whimpering falsetto, and Lister glanced pleadingly at Kryten.
“I’ll see what I can do, Sir. Maybe I’ll at least be able to speed up the recovery somewhat.”
Lister nodded, and threw an arm around the Cat. “Come on, Cat, I’ll help you with that stitching.”
“Not if you want to be able to have children some day, you won’t!”
Staring at the now static picture, Kryten shuddered slightly. It had been such a terrible misunderstanding. Only sheer luck, and the fact that Mr. Lister was convinced he might accidentally have left a crate of what had either been fuel or pre-boiled potatoes along with Mr. Rimmer’s luggage, had forced them to return the very same day they’d left Mr. Rimmer there. Had they not returned until the full fortnight had elapsed, the hologram’s mind might have been too far gone to ever recover. With trembling hands, he slotted the picture into the rather large section entitled “E”, for embarrassment. Well. He knew what was coming. There were only a handful of pictures left, but there was no backing out now. Reluctantly, trying not to think of what would inevitably come afterwards, he selected and filed some shots of himself trying to tweak Mr. Rimmer’s healing processes, and some further ones of him preparing supper, and being disappointed when no one showed up. There were only two pictures left now. He eyed the closet nervously. Oh well, nothing for it. Selecting the first one, he held it up grudgingly in front of his eyes. It was of Mr. Rimmer, looking tired.
“And so you see, Sir, it was all a huge misunderstanding.”
“Right,” Rimmer sighed, “like the one you made when describing the society of the Helganians to me.”
“Oh, Sir, I have apologized profusely! It’s just that the two species are virtually identical in appearance!”
“Except that one of them wants to shag you senseless, while the other wants to mutilate the insides of your mouth. Easy mistake; I can see how you’d confuse the two.”
“What I am trying to say, Sir,” Kryten insisted, “is that Mr. Lister isn’t actually a murderer. It was just the tomato-plant.”
“So you’ve explained. Again, this was something that could have done with a further explanation at the time. I mean, if you’d have told me he was perfectly innocent, I might not have…” Rimmer’s face suddenly froze, as though he had just caught himself in the act of doing something stupid. “Yes, well, anyway… Must go see someone about… Something. You wouldn’t happen to know where Dave got off to, would you?”
“I believe Mr. Lister went to get some sleep, Sir.”
“Right. Won’t be a mo.” Tugging at his uniform, Rimmer left the room, looking thoughtful.
Kryten filed the picture under “R” for Mr. Rimmer, and sat back in the chair. He knew what was coming. Oh, if only he could procrastinate like Mr. Lister! Well, it was all his own fault. He shouldn’t have overridden the privacy lock on the sleeping quarters. It was just that he had been so worried about Mr. Lister; he hadn’t heard from him for several hours, and Mr. Rimmer had gone in there to look for him, and hadn’t come out again. Really, he had only been worried for the human’s safety! Still, Mr. Rimmer had called him “Dave”. That should have raised an alarm, but it hadn’t. Dear, oh dear… The Polaroid lay at the bottom of the box, mocking him. With trepidation, he lifted it out, and watched in dread as the final memory of his day unfolded.
By the sleeping quarters door, Kryten hesitated, ready to key in the override code. “Sirs? Are you alright in there?”
There came only a weak reply, sounding almost like a muffled scream. His features set with grim determination.
“Is he hurting you, Mr. Lister? I cannot allow a human being to come to harm!”
Again those odd sounds, but stronger this time, as if whatever emotion was causing them was intensifying.
“That’s it - I’m coming in! Don’t be alarmed, I’ll be right there!” He punched the code in swiftly, and the doors slowly opened to reveal -
Hurriedly, Kryten looked away from the Polaroid. Once had really been quite, quite enough. Holding the picture at arms length and averting his eyes, he backed up towards the closet, opened it, and found the metal rod. With the press of a button and a quick shake, a broad, flat blade extended from one end, turning it into a functional shovel. Shovel in one hand, Polaroid in the other, Kryten turned, and marched straight towards the back-yard his subconscious created for just such eventualities. Once there, he placed the picture face-down on the ground, and slowly and deliberately began to dig a very deep hole indeed. When he was satisfied with the depth, which took considerable time, he kicked the small white square into the opening with his foot, and quickly piled as much dirt as he could manage on top of it. There now. He pretended, not having lungs, to breathe a sigh of relief. A job well done.
Of course, there was every risk that, come tomorrow, Misters Lister and Rimmer would be just where he’d left them. They hadn’t really taken much notice of him when he’d peeked in. But that… Ah, that, was a Polaroid for another night.
Pairing: Rimmer/Lister
Rating: PG-13 for inventive foul language and dentistry
Disclaimer: It's quite clear to me that I am owned by Red Dwarf and the boys, but alas, this is not a two-way thing. To make matters worse, I make no money from it either. Yet it makes me happy!
Spoilers: Legion.
Notes: Well, I've finally finished the fic I mentioned in here. Thanks to beetle_breath , roadstergal and kirke_novak for contributing with ideas. It was a pleasure to try to fit them all in. This is all very silly though. Very, very silly. You have been warned! Oh, and there are probably loads of errors - I was eager to post this sucker. Let me know if you spot any! ;) Written as part of the fanfic100 challenge - my table is here.
Kryten was dreaming. He wasn't asleep, of course, and thus avoided wasting time which might otherwise have been used for such important and long overdue chores as washing and drying the ships supply of athletic jock straps, or alphabetizing the dry-goods locker. While it was realized quite early on - after the tragic incident involving most of the 2700 series - that any mechanical with biological components needed to sort through and file the days experiences every night in order to not - for example - go on a psychotic rampage through the streets of Ganymede with a chainsaw, wearing a bowl of petunias on their head; it was also generally understood, however, that any being created for the sole purpose of cleaning and sanitation would go just as barking mad should they be forced to spend hours upon hours doing nothing. With this in mind, all mechanoids from series 2850 Alpha onwards had been fitted with a DreamChip(TM). The chip was activated whenever the mechanoid used his re-charge socket, allowing him (or rarely, her) to experience a dream-like state in the subjective time-span of several hours, in the objective time of just a few seconds.
Kryten enjoyed his time in the dream-world. He had a routine. First, he would survey the room, to see that everything was in order. In the few, rare, cases that things were not, he would simply will them so, and they would change instantly. Tonight, however, everything seemed perfect. The gleaming, newly polished - so he wouldn’t have to clean it first - steel writing-desk, upon which stood a large cardboard box; the gigantic filing-cabinet; the nicely uncomfortable chair, allowing him to concentrate on the task at hand. He walked up to the small utility locker standing slightly to the side of all this, and opened the door, taking stock. Various cleaning supplies, three different kinds of buckets and mops, that long, steel rod he didn’t like to dwell on right now; all ready and set to go! He closed the door, and rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Seating himself at the desk, he marveled, not for the first time, at how human beings could bring themselves to allow their brains to do this for them. He’d seen human dreams, all sloppy and hap-hazardly thrown together, not a thought given to logic or cohesiveness. Really, they were such messy creatures, no wonder they’d invented mechanoids to help sort themselves out. Shaking his head in amusement at the thought of human dreaming, he drew today’s box gingerly towards him, and carefully opened the lid.
The memories of Kryten’s day were all in there, each in the shape of a small Polaroid-picture. When he looked at them closely, the image would start to move, the memory unfolding before his eyes. Had Kryten been human, he might have felt some distress or discomfort at seeing himself within these memories, but Kryten was not human, and so merely found it rather refreshing to see things from an external point of view. How the Dream Chip was able to extrapolate this he did not know, nor did he much care. It was not, he felt, important. He selected a picture at random; trying to find which sequence of events had come first. He much preferred to do this in chronological order. The picture he had picked showed Mr. Rimmer clutching his jaw with a pained expression. Kryten hurriedly put it away before it started moving; this came later. He rummaged around in the box, looking for the familiar face of Mr. Lister. Ah… This was the one.
Lister walked up to Kryten, a determined expression on his face. “You’ve got to stop him, man; it’s bound to be some sort of trap. Who actually sends out distress calls asking for people to help re-populate their planet over sub-space? It just doesn’t happen! Besides, he’s a hologram; he can’t impregnate anyone.” He paused, an expression of horror slowly creeping across his face. “At least I hope not…”
Kryten smiled, giving the counter in front of him a finishing buff with his specially made cloth. “They did select him specifically from the crew - they must have their reasons. And I’m sure Mr. Rimmer can take care of himself, Sir.”
Lister looked at him as though he were insane. “Kryten, have you been asleep these last few years? We’re talking about a man who managed to mess up an AR-game created for the sole purpose of making him feel good! A man who populated a world with insane, hostile clones of himself fer smeg’s sake!”
“Ah,” Kryten replied, “but that did take several hundred years to play out. In this case we have arranged to pick him up in a fortnight’s time.”
Lister shook his head in frustration. “We left him alone on the ship for two hours yesterday, and he almost managed to blow it up! Who installs devices they don’t actually know how to work into a running starship engine?”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Kryten said, “I should have locked the doors to the engine-room.”
“You shouldn’t have to lock them Krytes. That’s the whole point. Rimmer… I don’t get him, I just don’t. He’s a huge smegging coward, yet he keeps getting himself into trouble by doing these completely irrational, irresponsible things. And one of these days we’re not going to be there to rescue him, you know?” He looked up at Kryten, an odd look of dejection on his face.
Kryten lifted his arm as if to pat Lister reassuringly on the back, but lowered it again with a frustrated look. “He is a grown man, Sir,” he said, in a suitably soothing voice, “you will just have to trust him to look after his own best interests.” Lister shook his head, biting his lip. Together, they left the room.
Kryten examined the picture thoughtfully as the memory faded. After a moment, he filed it under “L” for Mr. Lister. He picked up another image. Ah. This would be the early afternoon ironing. He carefully filed it under “I”. He fished in the box for another. This time, the picture showed Mr. Lister standing in the cargo-bay, looking dismayed. The image began to move.
Lister looked at what remained of the tomato plant in dismay. “What went wrong? What could possibly have gone wrong?” He tried lifting the sagging leaves, holding them up in what should be their ideal position. However, when he removed his hand, they flopped pathetically to the floor.
“Well Sir, botany is a difficult science,” Kryten interjected. “I did warn you that attempting to produce a chili-flavored tomato might not necessarily meet with overnight success.”
“I was that close though,” Lister indicated with his index-finger and thumb. “If I’d picked them yesterday it would have been fine.”
“They were quite green yesterday,” Kryten noted, grabbing a broom and starting to sweep away the brown leaves now littering the deck.
“People eat green tomatoes,” Lister protested.
“Not, I think, quite that green, Sir. Was it really necessary to water them with beer?”
“How else were they going to pick up the flavor?”
“Indeed, Sir. At least you can salvage the seeds from this one. But next time, might I suggest you choose something other than refuse to grow them in? It might improve both the odor of this place as well as their chances of survival.”
“Are you saying I killed it?”
Kryten swept the remainder of the leaves into a neat pile around the dead plant. “I suppose I am, Sir. Sorry,” he added when he saw Lister’s expression.
“Kryten, I didn’t kill it, man!”
”If you say so, Sir.”
Lister slumped down on the floor next to his dead creation. “Aw smeg. I did kill it, didn’t I? I even smoked in front of it.” He patted the dull green stem helplessly. “I’m a murderer.”
“Oh, now don’t get all sentimental Sir. I’m sure everything will be alright in the end.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Krytes; you haven’t killed…”
“Is everything alright?” Rimmer’s voice suddenly emerged from behind a stack of tinned salmon crates.
Don’t tell Rimmer, Lister mouthed, and Kryten did his best to nod discreetly. “Nothing, Sir,” he assured the hologram, “everything is fine.”
“You’re certain?” Rimmer sounded somewhat apprehensive.
“Yes, absolutely,” Kryten said as cheerfully as he could. “No tomatoes or anything!” Lister winced, but Rimmer merely paused for a second before replying.
“Right. Well. I’ll just go… I’ll get back to packing then, shall I?”
Lister waited until Rimmer’s footsteps could no longer be heard, then burst out: “No tomatoes?”
“I do apologize, Sir; I get nervous about lying in stressful situations.”
Lister gave a half-smile. “Ah, it’s alright. It’s just, I wouldn’t hear the end of it if he knew, yeah? You know what he’s like. ‘There’s another thing you’re useless at, Listy!’” He pursed his lips, kicking some of the half-composted garbage closer around the plant half-heartedly.
Kryten shook his head, emerging from the memory. Poor Mr. Lister. He did try. He could just be so impatient sometimes. Ah well. The memory was dutifully filed under “L”. A few more were selected and sorted, including two rather fetching shots of himself dusting the mid-section table. There was one of Mr. Rimmer leaving, which he didn’t dwell on for long. One of them landing; oh, he supposed that should go before the one of Mr. Rimmer, another of them taking off, with Mr. Cat in the drivers seat. And then… Oh, yes… He looked at the picture currently in his hand. It was a rather unflattering shot of Mr. Rimmer, contacting Starbug shortly after they had left the planet. He watched it curiously, allowing it to unfold.
“Kryten, can you hear me?” Rimmer’s voice sounded urgent and upset, although it was hard to tell because of the static crackle.
“Vaguely, Sir - you’ll be out of range in a few minutes time with our current speed. Is everything alright? We only left you an hour ago.”
“Is Lister there?”
“Not at present, Sir - would you like me to fetch him?” Kryten was ready to leave for the sleeping-quarters when Rimmer’s voice rang out;
“No! I mean… No. Just…” Rimmer genuinely did look worried, Kryten noted.
“Yes?”
“I… I couldn’t help overhearing you in the cargo deck earlier.”
“Oh, Sir!” Kryten exclaimed in exasperation. “You weren’t supposed to know!”
“So it’s true then?” He looked rather paler than usual, grim determination setting in his features.
“I’m afraid it is, Sir. Oh, it’s all so terrible. He asked me specifically not to tell you!”
“Right.” Rimmer seemed to make up his mind about something. “Look, I can’t talk right now, I just needed to know. Before… Well… Never mind.” He signed off.
As the memory ended, Kryten attempted to bite his lip. This was made difficult by the fact that he didn’t - strictly speaking - have any teeth, but he gave it his best shot. Taking care not to look at the photo and thus re-start the memory, he filed it under “M,” for misunderstandings. With some trepidation, he dug around in the box, looking for the shot of Mr. Rimmer clutching his jaw. This was not going to be pleasant, he thought, as the image of Rimmer started to scream.
Rimmer was strapped to the medi-bay examination table, his face a mask of unbridled agony. The sound of his horrible screams echoed off the walls, amplifying them to even worse levels.
“Fer Christ’s sake, can’t we do anything to shut him up?” Lister sounded angry, but his frantic pacing and the way he kept pulling at his dreds gave his worry away.
“I wish I could, Sir,” Kryten replied apologetically. “However, there is no such thing as a holographic pain-reliever.”
“He’s been screaming for hours, though,” Lister interjected. “Why isn’t it going away? I know he heals quick enough.”
“This is certainly true, Sir. However, dental pain is the most extreme kind of pain there is, close to the limits of what human beings are able to endure. Even after his teeth and gums are healed, the discomfort will persist, perhaps for days.”
Lister hugged himself in frustration. “What were they doing to him, man?” He inched closer to the table, closing his eyes and turning his head when Rimmer started a fresh bout of screaming.
“Well, Sir, the GELF population of Helgania I is all female. They are highly empathic, and their only means of reproduction is to have a clonal pregnancy induced by sensing intense pain from another person.”
“What?” Lister looked as though someone had suggested he quit smoking, and take up stamp-collecting to fill the void.
“Just as I said Sir. They were able to complete a great deal of root-canal work on Mr. Rimmer’s hard-light teeth before we got him out of there. Because of his fast-healing nature, they could have kept at it indefinitely.”
“They reproduce by means of dentistry?”
“Exactly. Apparently, the particular brand of pain resulting from the removal of nervous-tissue from the roots of living teeth is the only kind able to engender pregnancy in Helganians.” Kryten paused, blinking. “It’s all a bit silly really, don’t you think?”
“BASTARDS!” Rimmer screamed from the table.
“Silly?” Lister spluttered. “It’s insane! How could anyone possibly think to genetically engineer a species with such a mind-bogglingly complicated and absurd means of reproduction? How did they think they’d survive?”
“Actually, they were hoping they wouldn’t. The Helganians are descended from a species of GELFs who were designed to be barren. The pain-induced pregnancy capability was a quirk - an oversight if you will.”
On the bed, Rimmer was quietly sobbing. Lister dared move close enough to touch his shoulder, but the moment his fingers met the hard-light body, Rimmer flinched, and unthinkingly bit down hard on his injured teeth. “COCK SUCKING CUNT-HEADED PROSTIDROIDS!” he wailed, startling Lister backwards into the wall, where he hit his head on the side of a particularly pointy control panel.
The Cat poked an irritated, frazzled head in through the door, incisors gleaming threateningly. “Could someone please shut him the hell up? I’m trying to concentrate on some very complicated stitching!”
“So hang on,” Lister said, rubbing the back of his head with a gloved hand, “you knew all this, and you still let him go?”
Kryten fidgeted. “Ah. Yes.” In an attempt to avoid looking at anyone, he got out a small feather-duster, turned around, and desperately began to dust the monitors on the back wall. “Rather embarrassing, really. I though we were being contacted by the people of Helgania IV, a race of incomprehensively beautiful nymphomaniac GELF sex-slaves. I always get those two mixed up.”
“I’m sorry, what?” The Cat’s ears seemed to move slightly forwards. Lister stopped rubbing the back of his head, and just stared blankly into space.
“Erm… Yes. But, sadly, it would appear that those Helganians were all wiped out in a terrible war against the people of Helgania I, who also sustained a terrible loss in population. Which, incidentally, is why they needed Mr. Rimmer’s help. You might have noticed the emotional recorders set up all around the operating theater; these would have broadcast non-stop for two weeks as tiny files were applied to the roots of Mr. Rimmer’s molars, scraping out the…”
“Right, right,” Lister interrupted, looking ever so slightly green. “And that’d make ‘em all pregnant then?”
“Oh FUCK, this smegging sodding fucking HURTS!” Rimmer’s outcry ended in a whimpering falsetto, and Lister glanced pleadingly at Kryten.
“I’ll see what I can do, Sir. Maybe I’ll at least be able to speed up the recovery somewhat.”
Lister nodded, and threw an arm around the Cat. “Come on, Cat, I’ll help you with that stitching.”
“Not if you want to be able to have children some day, you won’t!”
Staring at the now static picture, Kryten shuddered slightly. It had been such a terrible misunderstanding. Only sheer luck, and the fact that Mr. Lister was convinced he might accidentally have left a crate of what had either been fuel or pre-boiled potatoes along with Mr. Rimmer’s luggage, had forced them to return the very same day they’d left Mr. Rimmer there. Had they not returned until the full fortnight had elapsed, the hologram’s mind might have been too far gone to ever recover. With trembling hands, he slotted the picture into the rather large section entitled “E”, for embarrassment. Well. He knew what was coming. There were only a handful of pictures left, but there was no backing out now. Reluctantly, trying not to think of what would inevitably come afterwards, he selected and filed some shots of himself trying to tweak Mr. Rimmer’s healing processes, and some further ones of him preparing supper, and being disappointed when no one showed up. There were only two pictures left now. He eyed the closet nervously. Oh well, nothing for it. Selecting the first one, he held it up grudgingly in front of his eyes. It was of Mr. Rimmer, looking tired.
“And so you see, Sir, it was all a huge misunderstanding.”
“Right,” Rimmer sighed, “like the one you made when describing the society of the Helganians to me.”
“Oh, Sir, I have apologized profusely! It’s just that the two species are virtually identical in appearance!”
“Except that one of them wants to shag you senseless, while the other wants to mutilate the insides of your mouth. Easy mistake; I can see how you’d confuse the two.”
“What I am trying to say, Sir,” Kryten insisted, “is that Mr. Lister isn’t actually a murderer. It was just the tomato-plant.”
“So you’ve explained. Again, this was something that could have done with a further explanation at the time. I mean, if you’d have told me he was perfectly innocent, I might not have…” Rimmer’s face suddenly froze, as though he had just caught himself in the act of doing something stupid. “Yes, well, anyway… Must go see someone about… Something. You wouldn’t happen to know where Dave got off to, would you?”
“I believe Mr. Lister went to get some sleep, Sir.”
“Right. Won’t be a mo.” Tugging at his uniform, Rimmer left the room, looking thoughtful.
Kryten filed the picture under “R” for Mr. Rimmer, and sat back in the chair. He knew what was coming. Oh, if only he could procrastinate like Mr. Lister! Well, it was all his own fault. He shouldn’t have overridden the privacy lock on the sleeping quarters. It was just that he had been so worried about Mr. Lister; he hadn’t heard from him for several hours, and Mr. Rimmer had gone in there to look for him, and hadn’t come out again. Really, he had only been worried for the human’s safety! Still, Mr. Rimmer had called him “Dave”. That should have raised an alarm, but it hadn’t. Dear, oh dear… The Polaroid lay at the bottom of the box, mocking him. With trepidation, he lifted it out, and watched in dread as the final memory of his day unfolded.
By the sleeping quarters door, Kryten hesitated, ready to key in the override code. “Sirs? Are you alright in there?”
There came only a weak reply, sounding almost like a muffled scream. His features set with grim determination.
“Is he hurting you, Mr. Lister? I cannot allow a human being to come to harm!”
Again those odd sounds, but stronger this time, as if whatever emotion was causing them was intensifying.
“That’s it - I’m coming in! Don’t be alarmed, I’ll be right there!” He punched the code in swiftly, and the doors slowly opened to reveal -
Hurriedly, Kryten looked away from the Polaroid. Once had really been quite, quite enough. Holding the picture at arms length and averting his eyes, he backed up towards the closet, opened it, and found the metal rod. With the press of a button and a quick shake, a broad, flat blade extended from one end, turning it into a functional shovel. Shovel in one hand, Polaroid in the other, Kryten turned, and marched straight towards the back-yard his subconscious created for just such eventualities. Once there, he placed the picture face-down on the ground, and slowly and deliberately began to dig a very deep hole indeed. When he was satisfied with the depth, which took considerable time, he kicked the small white square into the opening with his foot, and quickly piled as much dirt as he could manage on top of it. There now. He pretended, not having lungs, to breathe a sigh of relief. A job well done.
Of course, there was every risk that, come tomorrow, Misters Lister and Rimmer would be just where he’d left them. They hadn’t really taken much notice of him when he’d peeked in. But that… Ah, that, was a Polaroid for another night.