'Where are we going?'
'Mining.'
TWENTY-FIVE
The two Rimmers' dressed in identical P.E. kits jumped up in the air flapping their arms simultaneously in time to the music and yelling encouragement at each other.
'Come on - keep it up!'
'You too!'
They landed, crouched like bullfrogs, and leapt off up into the air again.
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
The Rimmers were alone aboard Red Dwarf.
Lister, Kryten, the Cat and twelve skutters had gone off in Blue Midget, loaded with surface mining equipment, in search of the uranium deposits on the black desert moon below. The two Rimmers were to stay behind to supervise the welding together of the two halves of Nova 5 by the eighty-four remaining skutters. They were to oversee the restoration of the ship, to render it space-worthy again.
They were in charge!
In charge of a major operation, a gargantuan engineering challenge. And they were in charge!
Holly had estimated the operation would take two months to complete at the very least. Well, the two Rimmers would see about that. They would do it in half that time, they decided. No, a quarter of that time. Under the excellent management of two Arnold J's, those skutters were going to work their little claws off!
That ship would be ready in a fortnight. It would be ready, new and gleaming, by the time Lister returned with his uranium haul. Imagine his stupid little porky face, hardly able to conceal his grudging admiration. 'I've got to admit it,' he would say, 'you guys really are a great team.'
In the meantime they were getting fit, getting in shape, getting prepared for the ordeal ahead. This was day one of the new regime.
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'And ... rest!' The original Rimmer collapsed on the floor.
'No, keep jumping!' the double yelled, finding new strength from his other self's weakness. Red-faced' Rimmer started up again.
'You're right,' he shouted, 'keep going. Through the pain barrier.'
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'Jump!'
'Stretch!'
'And... rest!' said Rimmer again.
'What are you doing, man?' screamed his copy' still leaping.
'I'm resting. It's all going grey.'
'That's the pain barrier - beat it!'
'Absolutely!' He started jumping again. 'Up, up, up!'
'More, more, more!'
'Jump, jump, jump!'
'Stretch, stretch, stretch!'
'Rest, rest, rest?' pleaded Rimmer.
'No, no, no!' insisted the double.
They continued leaping up and down for a further minute, both too breathless to speak.
'And ... rest!' whispered the double finally.
Rimmer landed on the floor and his legs sagged beneath him. He staggered backwards towards the bunk, and fell forward onto his knees. The glands at the back of his throat were producing saliva by the bucket-load. 'Great sesh,' he gurgled, 'that little bit extra, that's what it's all about. Driving through the pain barrier, to the brink of unconsciousness. Great sesh.'
'You ... owe me ... seven,' said the double on all fours, wheezing like an eighty-year-old bronchial bagpipes player.
'What?' panted Rimmer, his face quite yellow.
'I ... did seven extra jerks ... while you were... resting. 'Come on. We're not down to counting jerks, are we? What's a couple of jerks between duplicates?'
'It's for ... your own good. I'm ... seven jerks fitter ... than you. We can't ... have that, can we?'
'I'll do them first thing in the morning, while you're asleep.' 'Now!' rasped the double.
Rimmer hauled himself onto his wobbly white legs and Started to leap up in the air again. 'One ... he counted, 'two ... he counted, 'three ...
'That wasn't a full one. Call it a half'
'Three and a half ...' he counted.
'And that wasn't a full one either; call it three.'
'Four!' Rimmer leapt a full six inches off the floor.
'Three and one eighth!' the double corrected.
'Four and one eighth!'
'Three and a half,' was the verdict.
Finally, after twenty-five leaps, Rimmer's duplicate agreed he'd done seven.
'You see,' said the double, 'it's about teamwork. I drive and encourage you ...'
'And I drive and encourage you,' gasped Rimmer. And then he was sick 'Right' - the double rubbed his hands - 'what time shall we get up?'
'That's a good question' I.B. Early. Very early. Half past eight?'
'What, and miss half the day? How about seven?' the double ventured.
'How about six?' Rimmer topped him.
'No. Half past four!'
'Half past four? That's the middle of the night!'
'We want it to be ready in a fortnight, don't we?'
'Yes, but half past four?' Rimmer moaned. 'That's ridiculous!'
'Why's it ridiculous? You think Napoleon on the eve of the battle of Borodino said: "Wake me tomorrow at nine with two runny eggs and some toastie soldiers"?'
'You're absolutely right, Duke.'
Rimmer voice-activated the digital alarm clock and climbed thankfully onto his new bunk.
'What are you doing?' The double looked at him askance.
'I'm going to bed, Ace.'
'It's only two in the morning - we need to read up on welding techniques.'
'But we're getting up in a minute,' Rimmer said in a small, pathetic voice.
'You take metallurgy and thyratron in heat-control systems, and I'll take magnesium arc-welding and chemical bonding techniques. Then we'll test one another, and whoever does worst has to do another hundred jumps before bunk down.'
'Once again, Arn, I hate to say it, but you're absolutely right.'
The two Rimmers finally got to bed at 3.37 a.m. and got up again fifty-three minutes later to start their morning exercises.
TWENTY-SIX
Lister crunched his way through five gear changes, and Blue Midget lurched like a drunken line-backer over the airless black desert of the unnamed moon. Helium winds whipped the sand into huge tapering swirls that twisted across the dry, featureless landscape like a pack of children's spinning tops.
Lister landed the mining juggernaut with all the natural grace of a suicidal elephant tumbling from the Eiffel Tower.
'Nice landing' buddy,' said the Cat, digging his way out of the pile of storage lockers which had collapsed on him.
Lister threw the Cat a spacesuit. 'Put this on.'
The Cat looked at the battered old dirty silver regulation issue spacesuit with disdain. 'Are you kidding? I wouldn't use this to buff my shoes.'
Lister clambered into his own. 'Put it on.'
'Are you seriously telling me these shoulders were ever in style?'
'Put it on.'
The Cat held the suit at arm's length.
'Well, maybe if I widen the lapels, put in a couple of vents, maybe some sequins down the legs...'
'We're going mining,' said Lister. 'We're not in the heats of "Come Jiving", we're going to work.'
'Hey - I do not do the "W" word.'
'We're all doing the "W" word,' said Lister.
Kryten stepped through the hatchway from Blue Midget's galley, carrying a tray of tea things and a plate of petits fours.
'I thought we might have some tea,' he said, setting the cups in the saucers.
'We're going smegging mining!' Lister threw his spacesuit gauntlet against the wall.
'Milk or lemon?' Kryten smiled.
'You're in charge of processing! I can't do this all on my own.'
'I'll have milk,' said the Cat.
'Is nobody listening? We're going uranium mining. It's a helium atmosphere out there. It's going to be hard, and it's going to be dangerous.'
'All the more reason,' said Kryten, 'to have a nice hot cup of tea inside you.'
Lister inflated his cheeks and expelled the air. He hunched over the orange and green flashing display of the trace computer, which beeped and blipped with annoying regularity as it processed soil samples in search of the main seam.
'Holly, have we found the main deposit yet?'
'No,' said Holly. 'I'd give it another twenty-five glimbarts.'
'What's a glimbart?'
'It's fifty nanoteks.'
'You're just making this up, aren't you?'
'No,' Holly protested feebly.
'Where is it, then?'
'I dunno,' he confessed.
'I thought you were supposed to have an IQ of six thousand.'
'Six thousand's not that much,' said Holly, aggrieved; 'it's only the same IQ as twelve thousand P.E. teachers.'
'Hey,' said the Cat, waving the cake tray. 'are there any more of these little pink ones?'
'Coming right up,' said Kryten.
Lister banged his head gently against the screen of the trace computer and wished, not for the first time, that a different sperm had fertilised his mother's egg.
TWENTY-SEVEN
It was 10.30 a.m., and Rimmer had already been up for six hours. He was standing on the deck of the cargo bay, calling out pointless orders to a group of skutters who were operating the cantilever crane, which was gently hoisting Nova 5's rear section up into the air.
'Up a bit! Up! Up! More!'
The crane gingerly swung the huge tail section so it was suspended high above the ship's front half.
'Round! Round! Swing it round!' Rimmer was calling, redundantly. 'Swing it round, just like you are doing.'
This was the third day of the gruelling new regime the two Rimmers had instigated for themselves. The timetable went thus: Rise at 4.30 a.m. Exercises till 5.00. Repair supervision, followed by lunch at 9.30. Planning meeting at noon. Supervision duties until supper at one o'clock in the afternoon. More supervision until second supper at 5.00 p.m. Technical reading till 6.00, then it was repair supervision all the way until supper three at 9.00. Then rest and recreation up to midnight, followed by supper four, and planning meeting until bed at 2.00 a.m.
For some reason the new regime meant having six hologramatic meals a day, and only two-and-a-half hours sleep.
Rimmer was near to cracking. His patience threshold was practically nonexistent, but he certainly wasn't going to be the one who said 'Let's ease off.' That would be weak and spineless - the old Arnold J. Rimmer, not the new, high powered winner. Let his duplicate be the one to wimp out.
The huge chains moaned and creaked as the skutters began to lower the tail into place against the front section.
Rimmer rubbed the grey rings around his eyes, thought how tired his copy must be feeling at this moment, and suddenly got a new burst of energy.
'Down!' he shouted, unnecessarily; 'Down! Lower!'
'Big Man!' Rimmer's duplicate bounded down the gantry stairwell onto the cargo deck. Rimmer was aghast to see how fresh-faced and alert his copy appeared. Had he been cheating? Had he been secretly snoozing instead of supervising the supply inventory? It was perfectly possible. He'd been away three hours. And, quite frankly, he certainly looked a heck of a lot better than he should have done. But surely he wouldn't cheat him? That would be like cheating himself. That would be like cheating at patience. Wait a minute, Rimmer remembered, I do cheat at patience.
'Big Man,' the double repeated, 'you're doing it wrong. You should be moving the front section round to the rear section, rather than swinging the rear section round to meet the front section.'
'What the smeg difference does it make?' Rimmer snapped.
'Because if you weld them together in that position, the ship will have to take off in reverse.'
Rimmer looked round. The double was right. The ship was pointing in the wrong direction. How could he have made such a monumentally stupid error? It must be because he was tired. Then, how come his duplicate spotted it? Surely he was just as tired ... unless ... He had! He had been cheating!
'Stop!' the double was yelling at the two skutters operating the cantilever crane; 'Take it up again and swing it back round to where it came from.'
'Excuse me, this is my area of responsibility.'
'Swing it round! Back to where it came from. Start again!'
'Stop!' yelled Rimmer. The crane shuddered and stopped. The huge ship swung back and forth in its harness.
'No, swing it round!' the double countermanded. 'We've got to start again.'
'Stop!'
'Round!'
'What are you doing? This is my task! Haven't you got to rush off and have another huge great big sleep on the quiet?
'What?' The double's face crinkled into a halfsmile that announced he was lying. 'I haven't been taking secret sleeps.'
'Oh, really?' Rimmer sneered contemptuously and yelled for the skutters to stop again.
The weight of the swinging ship wrenched the back legs of the crane off the deck. The crane moaned and tilted; the ship slithered out of its harness and plummeted the four hundred yards onto the cargo deck below.
The two Rimmers watched, paralysed, as it bounced onto the steel deck before coming to rest, tail up, dinted, but structurally unharmed.
The crane eased lazily forward, then smashed down onto Nova 5's rear half, slicing it neatly in two like a split banana.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Lister sat in the sealed cab of the earth remover, drumming his gauntleted fingers impatiently on the dashboard. After four days of exploratory digging they'd finally found a thorium lode, and dug a trench seventy feet deep and fifteen feet wide, which ran for a length of thirty yards. Once Lister had dug out enough three-foot slabs of raw ore to fill the eight-wheeled lunar transport vehicle (LTV), the Cat would then drive the thorium to the portalab, where Kryten would scrape away the waste soil and clay, then pack the clean ore in sealed cases aboard Blue Midget, ready to be transported back to Red Dwarf for refining.
At least, that was the plan.
But there were some hiccups in the procedure. And Lister was experiencing just one of those hiccups right now as he sat in the digger at the bottom of the trench with a full load, waiting for the Cat to return with the LTV. So far he'd been waiting for over an hour. He punched helplessly at the yellow furry dice dangling from the mirror, and wondered if it would have been possible to find two more incompetent and useless assistants in the entire universe to help him mine for uranium. The fifth-century Norwegian warrior King Havac the Imbecile and his more idiotic half-brother were the only two that sprang readily to mind.
The whole of the first day had been spent teaching the Cat how to drive the LTV.
Initially he had refused even to listen to Lister's instructions, until the vehicle had been customised to his liking. Now it was painted jet black, with two streaks of flame emanating from the wheel rims, twenty-four mirrors, tinted windows, and the Cat's own growling face painted on the hood. Once the vehicle was to his taste, he'd managed to pick up the basic driving skills fairly quickly, and in fact could now do wheelies and hand-brake turns even when loaded down with three tons of mineral ore.
The dashboard intercom buzzed in Lister's digger. Lister pressed the 'send' button.
'Where the smeg have you been? I've been trying to get through for an hour.'
Ffffizzzzt ... 'Lunch,' said the Cat's voice.
'Lunch? We just had lunch two hours ago!'
Fffffzzzzt ...Had it again,' said the Cat.
This was one of the major hiccups in the operation. The Cat insisted on taking regular breaks throughout the day. When he wasn't eating, he was snoozing. He took perhaps seven or eight snooze breaks every day which, he claimed, were essential: otherwise, he wouldn't have enough energy for his main evening sleep.
When he wasn't eating or snoozing or sleeping, he was generally taking it easy.
Lister had found him countless times
aboard Blue Midget, listening to music on Lister's headphones and idly thumbing his way through a sniff book. In an average fourteen-hour working day the Cat could be relied upon to put in fifteen minutes' hard graft. So Lister found himself doing pretty much everything by himself.
Kryten was terrific. A real godsend. Provided all you needed was a plateful of triangular-shaped cucumber sandwiches with the crust removed and a pot of lemon tea. If, on the other hand, you needed someone to scrape uranium ore free of waste and pack it in sealed cases, all you got was another plateful of cucumber sandwiches and a second pot of lemon tea. Uranium recovery wasn't mechanoid work, he kept repeating. It was important and dangerous, and he couldn't accept the responsibility; and by way of a peace offering, he'd make another plate of sandwiches.
Lister finally persuaded him it was just cleaning work. Slightly bizarre cleaning work, but cleaning work nevertheless. And eventually he'd reluctantly agreed to do it. At the end of the third day, when Lister had gone across to the portalab to see how he was doing, he found the huge stack of raw ore piled up, largely untouched, in the holding tanks. Inside he found Kryten still working on his first piece of ore.
'Almost done,' said Kryten, spraying the uranium with just one more coat of beeswax, and buffing it to a gleaming finish.
Lister had banged Kryten's head with a handy piece of ore, and explained how it was important to do it a little more quickly. Since then he hadn't dared to go back and check on the mechanoid's progress.
In the meantime the Cat was back from his latest break.
Ffffzzzzt ... 'Back on the case now, buddy,' came the Cat's voice; 'Let's work!'
The Cat's LTV leapt off the brow of a dune, landed twenty feet beyond on its front wheels, ducking to the limit of its suspension, then reared back, its hood in the air, as the Cat wheelied up to the trench, spun on a sixpence and came to rest in a cloud of black lunar dust, in perfect parallel with Lister's digger.