Backwards Page 14

  And he's winning this race.

  But Rimmer has lingered too long with his backward glance, and the nearest boy has gained a stride and a half.

  Rimmer turns his head back and tries to find some reserves. He can see the finishing tape he's never broken before in his life. The yellow-and-black striped barrier that may only be snapped by heroes. And he tries not to think about being a hero. He tries not to think about his mother, who will celebrate his victory like she celebrates his brothers': with the slightest of slight nods, worth more than a twenty-one gun salute to young Arnold.

  Because he hasn't won yet. He's still got fifty yards to go.

  And the boy behind him is Dicky Duckworth.

  Dicky Duckworth is a full year older than the rest of the boys. He's been kept down in Junior B while the rest of his class earned promotion to Junior A.

  Arnold himself has been spared that ignominy by the skin of his milk teeth, thanks to his mother's intervention. And she constantly reminds him that it was her pleas that saved him, by never mentioning it all. That's how clever Rimmer's mother is.

  But Dicky Duckworth is almost nine years old, and by rights, he should win this race easily.

  Only Arnold isn't going to let him.

  That tape is too close, now. He's less than ten strides from his mother's nod.

  His red cheeks are ballooning like a badly trained trumpeter's. His lungs have to be forced to suck in air. A stitch is preparing to start stabbing him in his side.

  And then his heel explodes with pain.

  He's falling, his arms flailing, grabbing out for the black-and-yellow tape. And his chin thumps into the red clay, scrawping him a red, scabby beard.

  Dicky Duckworth's chest bursts the tape.

  Slowing down, he looks over his shoulder down at Rimmer and mouths a two-syllable word. Rimmer's nickname.

  Bonehead.

  Six pairs of feet thunder past him.

  Rimmer looks back at his heel. There is blood oozing out of the top of his shoe. There are six bright red pinpricks above it from the sole of Dicky Duckworth's track shoe.

  Young Rimmer looks up at his mother.

  She stands, arms folded, her expression impassive. She waits just long enough to be sure he's recalled his father's words, which have been repeated so often they've become the family motto: 'Winning may not be everything; but losing is nothing.'

  Then she doesn't nod, turns and heads for the refreshment tent.

  PART FOUR

  Nipple-sized Pastry Cutters, Gonad Electrocution Kits and Easy-listening Music

  ONE

  Kryten settled down to his book. As he did so, he experienced a pang of guilt that would have been strong enough to turn a human being into a Roman Catholic, but for him it was a fairly moderate dose, and he barely noticed it. He had long suspected, correctly, that the circuits controlling his guilt responses had somehow got themselves cross-wired with one of his CPU's internal accelerator boards, but it was against a mechanoid's creed to fiddle with its own workings, and the very prospect of doing so sent his guilt quotient off the scale, immobilizing him for hours on end.

  There was very little for him to feel guilty about — he had done and re-done his chores and Starbug's interior was as clean and tidy as it could possibly be. There were areas of rust, of course, especially along the central stairwell leading down from the observation room to the social area, but scrubbing it away would have eradicated the entire structure completely, so, barring the unlikely discovery of replacement parts, he had no choice but to live with it.

  The book, which was the only volume on board he had not read, was a Western novel called: Big Iron at Sun-up by an author whose nom de plume was 'Zach Rattler'. It was not a good book, but Kryten had gone through the rest of Starbug's meagre library with ill-considered haste, and it was all he had left for entertainment. It was one of a series of novels chronicling the adventures of a mysterious stranger known only as 'Big Iron', due to the extraordinary length of his weapon, with which he dispensed random justice all over the frontiers of the old American West, 'answering to no man, beholden to no women', as Big himself put it.

  Big wasn't much of a hero, to Kryten's way of thinking: his solution to every problem seemed to involve putting bullets into people who offended him, from distances a computer-controlled smart missile would have found challenging. Kryten would have preferred his hero of choice to adopt a more conciliatory approach to the problems confronting him, at least every once in a while, but he was stuck with Big Iron's single, if effective, method of negotiation.

  Perhaps Kryten would have found less to criticize in the book, if he'd spent less time reading it, but it was the only remaining book available to him, and so he had to ration the time he allotted to it.

  To date, he'd spent a little over forty-five years ploughing through it. His calculations permitted him to read only point eight two one nine one seven eight words a day, and every time he came across an 'a' or an 'I', he was compelled to adjust downwards for the next word the following day. He was prepared to accept that this method of reading was perhaps not the best one for enjoying the flow of the novel, but he doubted it would be much more fulfilling at twice, or even three times the rate.

  He sat back in his chair, found his bookmark and scanned down the page. Yesterday's eight tenths of a word had been 'cact' followed by a small portion of the letter 'u', which was a bit disappointing, since Kryten guessed the entire word was going to be 'cactus', spoiling some twenty per cent of today's adventure.

  His eyes flitted to the correct point and he sighed with displeasure. Unpredictability was not high on Mr Ratder's list of talents. Worse still, the subsequent word comprised only two letters, so Kryten was only able to read seventy-five per cent of the first vertical line of the letter V.

  He snapped the worn paperback closed, and, as was his wont, spent several minutes trying to derive some philosophical insight from his day's reading. As usual, nothing came. Big Iron was in a fist fight in the desert with a bunch of desperadoes (bless that day, the 'desperad' and a portion of 'o' day — reading bliss) and was about to force a Mexican cactus somewhere. Up somewhere, probably, Kryten couldn't help guessing, but he'd have to wait until the day after tomorrow to find out where.

  Kryten double-checked his internal clock. It was time for shift change-over. He'd better go and rouse young Mr Lister. He slipped Big Iron at Sun-up into his private cubbyhole in the galley and mounted the metal staircase.

  As usual, young Mr Lister didn't need rousing, as such. He was clad in the helmet, gloves, boots and harness of the Artificial Reality games machine which they'd recovered from a derelict vessel they'd found on the periphery of the Black Hole.

  Kryten clucked and shook his head. It was a horribly irresponsible waste of their dwindling power reserves. He' waddled over and tapped on Lister's helmet.

  'Mr Lister, sir? Time for shift change.'

  Lister didn't hear him, as usual. Unsurprising. Even Kryten had to admit the game provided a stunningly realistic simulation of reality. Electrodes in the helmet that pierced the skull and fed data directly to the hypothalamus stimulated accurate physical and emotional responses, augmented by feedback sensors in the boots, gloves and body harness.

  Frankly, Kryten was surprised that Lister even considered using the thing: they'd all had a rather unpleasant, near-lethal experience with a similar device some years ago. True, this simulator was not so thoroughly addictive — at least the player was aware he was in a game — and it was a simple enough matter to get out: clap your hands, and switches on the palms of the gloves retracted the electrodes and powered down the simulation.

  Not so simple, though, to get a fifteen-year-old's attention when he was in the midst of some thrilling adventure. Kryten sighed, flipped open a panel in his chest and pulled out his interface lead. As usual, he'd have to plug himself into the game to drag Lister out of it. And once again, they'd be late for shift change.

  'The trouble with democracy,' R
immer was thinking, 'is that every silly bastard gets a vote.' He glanced up at the Cat, who was handling the vessel from the pilot's seat with infuriating competence, and then at the NaviComp readings, which were maddeningly stable, and settled back down to his futile attempts at reading.

  Against Rimmer's better judgement, and in the face of his sage advice, the crew of the Starbug were committed to a course through the asteroid belt which could only lead to agony and destruction. They had lost Red Dwarf. Lost it!

  A spaceship six miles long and three miles wide — pouf! Gone!

  Rimmer shook his head and tried to focus on paragraph 3(a) of section D27, on page 1897 of the Space Corps manual.

  3(a) That the specific nature of the complaint does not contravene terrestrial laws, or colonial laws where such offence is not deemed to have been committed within the boundaries of the aforementioned 'zero space' lanes as defined in section A92, para 17(d)...

  is what was printed on the screen.

  3(a) Well, that's what you get when you leave a solar-class mining vessel in the hands of a senile computer who could be outwitted by a losing contestant from Junior Criss Cross Quiz.

  is what Rimmer read.

  In the middle of his reverie, Rimmer was jolted forward so violently his entire head was thrust though the mid-range scanning console. He tugged it out as the Cat jiggled Starbug back on course.

  'What in name of Io was that?!' 'Loose rock.'

  'You mean "rogue asteroid", I think.' Rimmer spat, in a dismal attempt to divert the Cat's attention from the true culprit of the incident.

  'Just keep your eyes on the dials, buddy.' The Cat leered back at him with a practised look, which bought him yet another place in Rimmer's mental Revenge Pending file.

  Rimmer thought desperately for a devastating rejoinder, but thought too long and too hard and the moment passed. He scanned the navigation dials aggressively, praying for an early warning of another rogue, in order to demonstrate his unquestionable super-efficiency, but tired after an hour or so, and went back to his reading.

  3(a)... but is in contradiction only of such defined Space Corps regulations as are in force at the time, provided that any temporary suspension of such regulations has been revoked in writing and displayed in such places and for sufficient periods of time as to have been available to all crew members, and provided that such revocation has been duly announced...

  is what was printed on the screen.

  3(a)... Gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits gits...

  is what Rimmer read.

  Just then, his existence became marginally less bearable. Lister entered the cabin.

  'Check-out time, guys. The A team has arrived.' 'You're late,' Rimmer smiled tightly. 'You've been using the Artificial Reality machine again, haven't you?

  'What d'you mean "again"?'

  'Everybody knows you only use that damned machine to have sex.'

  'Not true.'

  'Yes, true. It's pathetic watching you grind away on your own, day after day. You look like a dog that's missing its master's leg. That groinal attachment's supposed to have a lifetime guarantee. You've nearly worn it out in less than three weeks.'

  'That is a scandalous, outrageous piece of libel. I don't just play the role-play games. What about the sporting simulations? Zero Gee, Kick Boxing, Wimbledon...'

  'You only play Wimbledon because you're having it off with that jail-bait ball girl.'

  'Another total lie. She is not jail-bait. She's seventeen. She's older than me.'

  'The point is, once again, you're late for change-over, and it's me who has to suffer.'

  'I'll try and make up for it by giving you a shout before we throw a loop-de-loop,' Lister smirked, a clear reference to Rimmer's minor asteroidal omission earlier and one-hundred-per-cent certain to earn him pride of place in Revenge Pending.

  'Things have changed, Lister.' Rimmer rose from his station. 'We no longer enjoy the protection of a ship the size of a small nation. We're crammed together on a tiny rust bucket, designed to ferry ore from ship to surface, not extended exploration of uncharted Deep Space, and the only vague, remote hemi-demi-semi-chance we have of staying alive for more than two seconds, is by observing rigid, rigid, discipline. Rigid!' Rimmer karate chopped the air to punctuate each enunciation of the word 'rigid', ostensibly for emphasis, though he found it hard to fight off the mental image of each blow cracking down on Lister's neck.

  'And by warning the pilot when an asteroid's about to smack into him,' Lister added unnecessarily.

  'Rigid,' was all Rimmer could think of as an exit line, and he stepped briskly down from the cockpit cabin into the mid-section before Lister could get in another zinger.

  As the door slid shut behind him, Rimmer dragged his hands savagely down his face and let out a strangled, curdled growl.

  How could this have happened?

  Red Dwarf was a huge vessel. Gargantuan. If you landed it in the Pacific Ocean, it would show up in an atlas of the planet Earth, for heaven's sake. Yet when they'd arrived at the rendezvous point it had disappeared without a trace.

  So now, here he was; stranded on an ageing ore carrier that would have failed the Ministry of Space minimum safety requirements test on three hundred and seventy-nine separate counts, crewed by an animated toilet cleaner, a creature who could study and labour all his life and never achieve the mental classification 'simple', and a scum-bodied grinning moron with a chronological age of a hundred and seven, a physical age of fifteen and an emotional age of two and a half.

  Kryten had estimated that, providing they rationed their supplies carefully, and none of the decrepit vital machinery decided to give up the ghost, and nobody was driven space-crazy by confinement, their survival window was just over eight months. Rimmer considered the estimate to be slightly optimistic. He thought eight minutes would be closer the mark. The oxygen regeneration unit was held together by spit and Sellotape, discipline on board was effectively zero, and mission decisions were being taken on a one-man, one-vote system that gave the balance of power to two spotty adolescents who were hopelessly in love with their own right hands.

  And instead of taking the sensible option of expending their feeble resources searching for some kind of habitable planet, they had elected to search for Red Dwarf. It hadn't seemed to matter to the juvenile dementured crew members that the ship could be years ahead of them, nor that the flimsy, dispersing particle trail they were following led through the densest asteroid belt Rimmer had ever had the misfortune to come across. Without deflector shields, a single hit on Starbug's Plexiglas viewscreen and their gizzards would be turned inside-out quicker than a pair of Lister's old underpants.

  Worst of all, Rimmer's remote hologram projection unit had been deemed too large a drain on the communal electrical supply, and he was now running on quarter power. Which meant that he was almost transparent. That really put the caramel on the crème brûlée for Arnold J. Rimmer. Sleep had become virtually impossible, because he could see through his own eyelids.

  Another growly whine escaped through his gritted teeth as he sat down at the scanner table and stared at the countless yellow blemishes that almost obscured the screen, courtesy of Lister's innumerable spillages of curry gravy, so powerful and virulent they could be removed by nothing less than a ground-level nuclear blast.

  It occurred to Rimmer that nothing really nice had happened to him since his death. You'd have thought that dying, in itself, would be bad enough. You'd have thought _a person had the right to expect that death would be just about the lowest point in that person's experience. But no. Since he'd expired, things had got progressively worse.

  Perh
aps... Rimmer's eyes began to widen... perhaps he'd died and actually gone to hell! For a terrible instant, it all made horrible sense. It would be hard to imagine that anything but the devil's own gnarled, hairy testicles had spawned a creature like Lister. The grinning little gimboid admitted he didn't know who his parents were.

  Rimmer was saved from sliding deeper into rambling madness by the familiar squeak of the cockpit door sliding open. Kryten leaned his head out. 'Sir — I think you should take a look at this.'

  Rimmer bounded into the cockpit and slid into his station.

  On his view screen he could make out various segments of some dense asteroidal debris spread over several kilometres. He looked over at the others, who were staring at their own screens. 'What am I looking for?'

  Kryten glanced at Rimmer's screen. 'Apologies, sir. Enhancing image.'

  The debris on Rimmer's screen jumped to double its size, then doubled again. At that level of magnification, Rimmer could see that it appeared to consist of hundreds of metallic boxes, all looped together with a vast spaghetti of countless wires and cables. He looked towards Kryten again. 'What the hell is that mess?'

  Worryingly, Kryten didn't return his gaze, which generally meant bad news. 'I can't be absolutely certain at this juncture, sir' — he reached down and fiddled with an unnecessary button — 'but I believe that mess is Holly.'

  TWO

  Lister's vision exploded into a blinding blue white sun, as Kryten fired his jet pack and thrust towards the hopeless tangle of machinery that was probably Holly.

  When his sight returned, Lister gave his umbilical cord a superfluous twist and powered off after Kryten's shrinking silhouette.

  The roar of his own breathing amplified in his helmet seemed to make the yawning vacuum of space that surrounded him even vaster and lonelier. He began to wish he hadn't insisted on leaving the safety of Starbug. Kryten was perfectly capable of checking out the debris alone. But no, Lister had demanded to go along in a fit of foolhardy bravado, brought on, no doubt, by his adolescent surfeit of testosterone. And the more Kryten had tried to talk him out of it, the more stubborn he'd become.