Backwards Read online

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  The Cat was beginning to feel extremely queasy. He was watching a fat man pick bits of pale fish flesh out of his mouth with a fork, which he was then sculpting neatly around a kipper skeleton on his plate. The Cat glanced over the table at Rimmer and Kryten to share his disgust with them, but they were both intent on their gobbledy-gook conversation. He looked around the cafeteria for a less distressing view, and settled on a young woman across the room who was slowly ejecting a long bacon roll from between her lips, which he managed to find mildly erotic.

  Rimmer was holding his palm to his forehead, to conceal his hologramatic H, his elbow resting on the table. They'd selected the gloomiest corner table in the room, but Rimmer still felt self-conscious and exposed. 'That's all you heard? "Murder"? Not who murdered who, or how, or where?'

  Kryten shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, sir.'

  'But the Cat's definitely involved?'

  'I think we must assume so. His likeness appeared alongside Mr Lister's in the bulletin.'

  Rimmer looked over at the Cat, who for some reason was licking his lips lustily, his attention, which was undeniably the least of his attributes, focused elsewhere. 'We've got to find out more. Can we get hold of a newspaper?''

  'With respect, I don't think that would do any good. Whatever it is that happened is going to happen fairly soon. The newspapers that reported it will have already been wiped at the presses this afternoon.'

  Rimmer's forehead squirmed as he bent his mind to the concept. 'Yes,' he agreed eventually. 'Yes. That sounds about right,' In this place, people would take their papers to newsagents, or leave them out on the steps for paperboys, who would then send them back to the publishers. Then the printers would wipe the paper clean and hundreds of journalists would obliterate the news stories from their computers. The fresh paper would get taken away and turned into rain forests. Rimmer shook his head in amazement. That would make the tabloid press barons here philanthropists and heroes; their lives dedicated to the destruction of mealy-mouthed scandal-mongering and mild pornography, and the re-foliation of the planet. Whereas someone like, say, St Francis of Assisi would be hated and reviled. In this universe, he'd be a petty-minded little sadist who went around maiming small animals.

  A waiter came up to their table and set down a dirty cup, a quarter filled with cold stale coffee. 'Just doing my job, friend,' he lisped indignantly, then he took out a grimy damp cloth and used it to spread tiny bits of food debris and cigarette ash all over the table's surface.

  'Oi!' Rimmer protested. 'What the smeg are you doing?'

  The waiter smiled, said 'Good morning', brightly, and minced off backwards.

  'Reakh voh tao tegh oot togh viefh,' the Cat said. 'Ghnits-suhsidt oot hsi hsaylp ssith.'

  'What is he blabbering about?'

  '"This place is too disgusting, '" Kryten translated.' "We've got to get out of here. "'

  'Seconded, thirded and motion carried,' Rimmer stood. 'If we go now, we can make it back to the Bug before morning fall, or whatever the hell it is that happens here.'

  'We can't go without Mr Lister!'

  'Why not? We kept our appointment in good faith. If he can't be bothered...'

  'You don't understand, sir. This place is lethal to him. If we leave him here, he's going to carry on getting younger.

  His body will start to shrink. In a few years, he'll have to go through puberty again — backwards. Can you imagine that? His pubic hairs will retract into his body. His gonads will suddenly rise, and he'll find himself in the soprano section of the school choir. He'll carry on growing smaller and stupider, until some obstetrician finally forces his little fat blue screaming body into his mother's womb, where he'll spend nine months struggling to split himself into a spermatozoa and an ovum, and he'll end his days swimming around as a sperm in someone's testicular sac.'

  Rimmer was surprised to find himself snarling in distaste. 'Well, I agree, it's not a very pleasant way to go, but he's brought it on himself. He was supposed to be here.'

  'He'll come.'

  'And if he doesn't? What about us? What about the Cat? For all we know, he's about to get murdered.'

  Kryten shook his head. 'I think not. Logic dictates that if someone was going to kill him here, he'd have arrived dead.'

  Again, Rimmer was stopped in his tracks while he mulled over the topsy-turvy logic of this exasperating universe. 'All right. Fine.' He looked at the cafeteria clock. 'It's quarter past nine. We'll give him till eight-thirty.'

  'Agreed.' Kryten stood. At that time, the falls' souvenir shops would no longer be open in any case, and they would have to devise a new stratagem. It had taken them just over five hours to hike down from the spot where they had concealed the rebuilt Starbug. It would take even longer to get back, travelling uphill. They had until midnight to effect their take-off. After that, the conjunction of the planets would render their journey out of this solar system impossible for some considerable time. If they missed their flight window, they would all be marooned here, which didn't bear thinking about.

  So long as they found Lister inside the next three hours, they would be safe. That would be time enough, Kryten decided. 'Suggest we head back to the mall area.' He translated for the Cat, and the three of them trooped out backwards.

  As they passed the coat stand by the exit, Kryten discreetly borrowed a yellow cagoule. Backing out into the corridor, he slipped it over his head and tugged the strings of the hood tight around his face. His guilt circuits almost went into meltdown in response to committing the theft, but he managed to override the intense pain by concentrating on his primary directive, which was to ensure Lister's safety.

  There was a further problem, which Kryten couldn't bring himself to confess to Rimmer. He was carrying the portable power pack that generated Rimmer's hologramatic image. Unfortunately, he'd neglected to foresee that, in the physics of the reverse universe, the batteries would be recharging, not discharging. In slightly less than an hour, they would overload, and while Kryten couldn't exactly predict the consequences, he concluded that whatever did happen wouldn't be entirely beneficial to Rimmer's well-being.

  THREE

  There was clearly something about to be seriously amiss in the mall outside the souvenir shop.

  The shop itself was closed and shuttered now. Outside it, small bands of early-morning sightseers were all starting off in the same direction, towards the car park entrance, mostly in animated conversation. A couple of security guards were busily distributing litter liberally around the floor and upsetting bins, presumably in preparation for some fracas which was about to ensue.

  The Cat, Kryten and Rimmer retreated round a corner to watch from a safe distance. As the seconds ticked by, the hubbub from the thronging tourists grew in volume, until they were all jabbering and gesticulating excitedly.

  Suddenly, the double glass doors burst open and Lister came in.

  He was facing forwards, away from the doors, his feet out in front of him, heels dragging the floor. He looked dazed, barely conscious. He was being propelled along by two uniformed policemen facing the opposite direction, their arms linking his. A phalanx of half a dozen further police officers brought up the rear.

  The two policemen holding Lister stopped, twisting him over and laid him roughly on the floor. The rest of the men spread out and surrounded him. Lister started moaning and writhing, clutching his crotch.

  One of the officers, who was sporting an incipient blackeye went up to him, and suddenly Lister screamed. Kryten's view was partially obscured by the officer's back, but from the movement of his shoulders and leg, it was fairly obvious that he was delivering a savage kick to Lister's groin area.

  The Cat and Rimmer winced with the brutal sound of the impact.

  Lister seemed to recover instantly. He leapt to his feet acrobatically and nutted a truncheon one of the policemen had swung at him. He danced towards the groin-kicker and delivered a neat jab to his face. The officer staggered back, the bruising aro
und his eye gone.

  Two policemen, the truncheon-swinger and the groin-kicker, began circling Lister menacingly. The rest of them began to leave, taking off backwards at alarming speed. A couple of them disappeared down corridors, barking into walkie-talkies. The other four dashed out backwards through the car-park doors and climbed into the van which screeched off, its siren blaring.

  Lister maintained a boxing stance as the two remaining cops tried to outflank him. Words were exchanged, but Kryten was too far away to make out what was being said. It sounded as if the policemen were trying to calm Lister down, to which he was responding with taunts and abuse.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, it was over. The two policemen suddenly began panting and backed off, slowly at first and menacingly, and then they picked up pace. They skidded past the bins the security guards had toppled, knocking them upright. The litter leapt back spectacularly into the baskets. Then the cops ran backwards down opposite corridors, with the groin-kicker shouting into the collar microphone of his police radio, and they were gone.

  For a moment, Lister stood there, breathless, and then wheeled round, performed a reverse skid worthy of Fred Astaire and charged off backwards in pursuit of the groin-kicking cop.

  Then the early-morning tourists turned away and went about their business, and the plaza was calm and peaceful, as if nothing at all had happened.

  'Well,' Rimmer said, 'that's our Listy all right. Discreet, isn't he? The last thirty-odd years seem to have mellowed him out completely.'

  Kryten chewed the plastic of his lower lip. 'The question is, how do we go about catching up with him?'

  'We don't,' Rimmer trilled without hesitating. 'He's got an entire SWAT team on his back. We're out of here, matey.'

  'No. Think about it. There's only one policeman chasing him now, or rather: he's running after just one policeman. My guess is, he's leading that policeman towards where we're going to be, in order to divert him away from us, as it were. If that's going to be the case, our problem is getting to the place where the policeman would be going to spot us if Mr Lister doesn't draw his attention. Does that make sense to you?'

  'Not even slightly.'

  'I believe the corridor he ran down leads to the walkway. We need to find another way to get there.' Kryten nodded across the mall. 'If I'm correct, that door leads on to some kind of maintenance passage, by which we can achieve the same destination.'

  Before Rimmer could protest, Kryten and the Cat started reversing across the mall. Rimmer sighed heftily through his nose, turned around and backed out after them.

  The access door was unlocked. Rimmer and the Cat slipped through it quickly, and then Kryten backed inside, glanced around briefly to check that no one had spotted them and closed the door behind them.

  The passage was damp and gloomy, but Rimmer found his eyes adjusted to the dark immediately. He looked around. The Cat was beside him, but Kryten was hesitating around the door. Rimmer hissed 'Come on.'

  'A moment, sir.' Kryten scoured the floor. 'Ah, yes,' he said, and stooped to pick up a broken padlock.

  Rimmer hissed again. 'What are you doing?'

  'I thought it unlikely this door would not be locked.' Kryten slipped the padlock through the metal loop on the door and squeezed it. The snapped edges of the padlock fused together. 'There,' he said, and then turned to the passage and they headed off past the sweating walls and pulsing generators towards the falls' growling roar.

  As they got deeper into the passage, the falls' rumble intensified to deafening proportions. Worse, Rimmer was horrified to discover he was finding it more and more difficult to see. After a few minutes, he was almost blind. 'What the smeg is happening?' he screamed against the liquid thunder.

  'Don't panic, sirs, almost there,' Kryten chirped. He grabbed hold of the rails of a metal access ladder and climbed up to the hatch which led to the walkway.

  Gingerly, he prodded the hatch open a crack and looked out.

  It was now just before nine o'clock, and the walkway was deserted.

  As Kryten watched, a policeman came running backwards towards him. As he swept past the hatch, Kryten recognized him as the groin-kicker from the mall. Then Lister came into view, chasing the policeman backwards. The cop stopped at the far end of the walkway, yelled into his lapel microphone and stood for a moment looking at Lister.

  Lister skidded to a stop by the access hatch, and did a double-take at the policeman, who performed his own double-take and then disappeared around the bend, and, for the first time, Lister directed his attention towards the hatch.

  His eyes locked with Kryten's and he beamed a grin of such intensity, the mechanoid thought his circuits might melt in the glow of it. 'All right,' he said backwards in his familiar Scouse twang, 'you can come out now.'

  Kryten flopped open the hatch and clambered out.

  'Oh, sir,' Kryten crooned, 'I can't tell you how delightful it is...'

  'Save it,' Lister cut in abruptly. 'There'll be plenty of time for that earlier. That cop's still going to be chasing us for a while, yet.'

  'Kgnikgnah tsi zwaoh,' the Cat grinned, climbing through the hatchway, 'yeddubh, iyeh?'

  Lister turned to Kryten. 'What's he say?'

  'I believe he said: "Hey, buddy, how's it hanging?"' Kryten offered.

  'Smeg. Are you telling me he can't understand back-talk? Great. Outstanding. That's going to be a big help.'

  'I can translate for him, sir.'

  Lister shook his head. 'No good. We're going to be split up pretty soon.'

  Rimmer's head appeared through the hatchway. 'Split up? We've only just found you!'

  Lister's grin broadened. 'Rimmer! I never thought I'd be able to say "I'm glad to see you, "' he said. 'And I'm still right.'

  Rimmer batted away the insult with a look of superior disdain. 'What's all this talk about splitting up?' He climbed on to the walkway.

  'I'll explain on the way.' Lister glanced at his watch. 'We'd better get moving,' he said, and broke into a brisk backwards trot in the direction the cop had gone.

  Kryten, Rimmer and the Cat looked at one another, performed a simultaneous shrug and trotted backwards after him.

  Kryten upped his pace and drew level with Lister. 'Begging your pardon, sir, but are you absolutely convinced of the need for us to divide our resources?'

  'We've got no choice, Kryten, mate. It's me and the Cat the feds are looking for. No one ever mentions spotting you or Rimmer. It's not a question of what we decide to do: somewhere along the way, we get separated.'

  Rimmer jogged up beside them. 'Excuse me,' he panted, 'but can someone please explain the plan to me, here? As far as I can make out, we appear to be in pursuit of an extremely brutal policeman with a penchant for drop-kicking people's gonads.'

  'Actually, Rimmer, he's chasing us.'

  'Well, call me a sow sucker and spin me on a stick, but wouldn't it be infinitely more prudent for us to take off in the opposite direction?'

  Lister shook his head. 'That's not how things work here. I know it's hard to wrap your head around it, but things don't happen here, they unhappen, because, basically, they've already happened, and there's not a blind thing you can do to change them. It's like trying to change the past in our own universe.'

  They ran on for some considerable time until the constant background rumble of the falls was just a distant roar. Suddenly, for no good reason anyone could see, Lister leapt over a roadside barrier on to a dangerously wet, narrow ridge of rock which swept up to a narrow mountain track. As they jogged up on to the track, they rounded a bend, and snaking track was clearly visible for a mile or so. The policeman was not on it.

  Lister stopped running and rested against a tree trunk, breathless. The Cat, whose expression clearly portrayed complete bewilderment at the proceedings, caught up with them. 'Hnoh kghnihogh sti hcleh ethk twawh?' he whined, his baffled eyes darting from Lister to Kryten and back again.

  'What did he say?' Lister asked.

  Rimmer waved his ha
nd. 'I think we can assume it doesn't contribute significantly to the discussion,' he guessed, correctly. 'What I want to know is, if you're right, if the future, which is the past, has already happened, and we are nothing more than bits of flotsam swept along by Time's stream, the big question is: just what, precisely, is it that's going to unhappen to us?'

  Lister shook his head again. 'I'm not sure, exactly. The people here, the natives of this universe, they have a sort of backwards memory. They only remember the future. As soon as you get introduced to someone, they instantly forget you. I don't know why, but it doesn't work like that for me. Maybe it's because I don't really belong here.'

  Lister paused and looked away across the valley to the distant peaks. Don't really belong here. There was no way of conveying the wretchedness, the fundamental loneliness those few small words contained. He'd spent the best part of a lifetime as a stranger in a very strange land. For most of that time, more than a quarter of a century, he'd had Krissie, at least, to keep him company, but she'd been like the rest of them: remembering only the future. Somehow, his wife had belonged to this place, in a way he never could.

  'You must have some idea where all this is leading,' Rimmer insisted. 'I mean, you're the one who's leading this merry jig.'

  Lister sighed. 'All I know is we have to keep on following that cop until he stops chasing us.'

  Rimmer scanned the deserted track before them. 'And where is he, then?'

  'Only one place he can be.' Lister leaned over the edge of the mountain. Sure enough, the policeman was gingerly picking his way down towards the valley below. Lister leaned back. He was becoming increasingly breathless. 'Well, now we know where we're going.'

  'Over the side?' Rimmer squeaked. 'You can't be serious.' He peeked over. 'It's about a mile straight down.'