Better Than Life

  'It read your mind. You were expecting to find me the same age as you left me. That was the only data it had. So it turned into what it knew you were looking for.'

  Rimmer stood outside the hatchway on the embarkation ramp, still steadfastly refusing to enter Blue Midget. 'You've encountered these things before, then?' he called to Lister.

  Lister nodded. 'Once. One of the scouting roaches brought one back to the valley. Wiped out half the settlement before we finally punched its card. After that we always kept lookouts, but no others ever showed up. I don't think they're that intelligent. They're like mynah birds - they copy things without really understanding what it is they're copying.'

  'So what now, Mr Lister, sir?'

  'I don't want to take any chances. I think we should shoot Blue Midget into space, and detonate the auto-destruct.'

  'Destroy Blue Midget?' Rimmer's head leaned in through the hatchway. 'We've already lost Starbug. That leaves us with only one transport craft.'

  'Rimmer -I know what these things can do.'

  'It's dead! It can't do anything.'

  'I know. But I want to get rid of it. Every last bit of the smegger. And the only way to be sure of that is to torch the ship.'

  Rimmer continued his protests all the way to the Shuttle-Bay Launch Suite, but Lister was adamant; adamant and stubborn in a way he'd never been when he was younger There was simply no arguing with him.

  They were gone.

  It was safe now to move.

  Safe to change.

  The wad of pink gum folded in on itself and began to fizzle as it turned into a cloud of steam and floated out of the metal trash can towards the air lock. The steam wrapped itself into a ball and solidified into a round black stone. The stone clanked loudly as it hit Blue Midget's deck, and rolled up against the air-lock door.

  Then the stone became ice. And the ice became water. And the water tried to seep through the air-lock seal.

  No way out.

  Not here.

  The water became steam again, and wafted around the craft's interior, looking for an exit.

  Nothing. The whole craft was air-tight.

  Then the engines rumbled, jets fired, and the vessel began to rise.

  The steam floated up to the rear viewport window, became a fly and flung itself against the reinforced glass.

  Blue Midget bucked and bobbled as its steering jets swung the craft round and aligned it with the damaged bay doors.

  The fly became a feather and floated ineffectually against the glass. The feather became a bullet. Its rear-end ignited and it blasted against the glass, ricocheting back and tumbling once more to the deck.

  It lay in silence.

  It was young. It knew of no more shapes.

  It needed more knowledge.

  Something primeval inside it, some instinct it didn't understand told it to seek out the minds of its prey. The signals were weak - only just in range.

  It searched through their memories, and changed into things it found there. Many things. And none of the shapes it became could get through the glass.

  Blue Midget passed under the bay arch, and swept out into space.

  And it was only then that the creature turned into the one thing that could pass through the glass.

  A light beam.

  It became a beam of light that flashed through the glass and streaked back through the open bay doors.

  It was back.

  Back on Red Dwarf.

  It became a small puddle of water - the least demanding of all its shapes - and rested.

  When its strength returned, it would feed.

  It would feed well.

  TWELVE

  Kryten craned over the crumpled handwritten recipe sheet he'd been given by Lister. It was Lister's own concoction: 'shami kebabs diabolo', which he'd once claimed proudly had put Petersen in the medical unit for over a week. But surely there was some mistake. The amount of chilli peppers called for could have launched a three-stage Deep Space probe from Houston Mission Control to the outer reaches of the galaxy. This wasn't a shami kebab - it was a thermo-nuclear device.

  Still, orders were orders. Kryten plugged the food-blending attachment into his groinal socket and thrust his hips towards the mixing-bowl. It was something of a design flaw with the series 4000 that the power socket was so indelicately placed. It looked particularly preposterous whenever Kryten was called on to use the three-foot vacuum hose. He tugged his right ear and the blender whirred into life. He whistled happily and began mincing together the ingredients of the kebab.

  ***

  Thin fast beads of water battered over Lister's body as he gloried in the warmth of the shower. He filled his cupped palm with a ludicrously generous amount of shampoo, and massaged it into his already well-lathered scalp.

  Shampoo and soap were two of the luxuries he'd failed to duplicate adequately on Garbage World. For a third of a century he'd had to wash using salt. His attempts to make real soap by boiling decomposing vegetable fats had proved too revolting for words. He always ended up smelling worse after he'd bathed than before he'd started. He finally gave up his soap-making attempts when he noticed that the cockroaches had started avoiding him, and ever afterwards relied on salt.

  He blinked through sudded eyes at his reflection in the cubicle's mirrored wall. He hadn't bothered with mirrors as a vanity device - he really had no desire to impress roaches with a well-groomed appearance - and all the mirrors and reflective surfaces he'd collected over the years were used to harness the sun's heat. It was strange having an old body; he still thought of himself as a permanent twenty-five.

  Where did all the years go?

  Who'd stolen that fabulous body he'd once had for a couple of months when he was eighteen? Who'd given him this one instead? OK, so it was pretty well preserved for its sixty-one years, and, curiously, it was fitter in many respects than it had been when he'd first arrived on Garbage World, thanks to all his labours in the field. But there was no getting away from it - he now lived in a body that was nine years away from being seventy.

  Nearly seventy.

  Soon he would have to face the fact that in all probability he would never play professionally for the London Jets.

  He might not even live to see the conclusion of his plan to tow Earth back to its solar system.

  He heard a voice through the shower's roar, and turned down the taps.

  It was Kryten: 'Ready in two minutes, Mr Lister, sir.'

  Lister smiled. He was two minutes away from his first shami kebab in three-and-a-half decades. He'd given up meat, of course, on Garbage World, and he had no regrets about that. But shami kebabs were something else. Fantasizing about this Indian hors d'oeuvre had kept him going when times had been rough.

  And now he was going to have one.

  He chuckled out loud, and began clicking and whistling an up-beat cockroach song as he rinsed the soap from his hair.

  ***

  Kryten pulled on three sets of oven gloves, one on top of the other, and took the three sausage-shaped kebabs out of the oven. They looked innocent enough, but quite frankly he'd have felt safer handling them wearing an asbestos suit, preferably with long-range, remote-controlled mechanical arms.

  These babies were hot.

  He put the plate on the sleeping quarters' table and backed away nervously.

  'Dinner is served, sir.'

  'Just coming.'

  As Kryten crossed the sleeping quarters, a small, brightly patterned beach ball bounced through the hatchway and into the room.

  Kryten caught it on its fifth bounce, placed it on the table, next to Lister's kebabs, and went outside into the corridor to investigate.

  There was no one there.

  The corridor was empty.

  Kryten ducked back into the sleeping quarters. Now the beach ball wasn't there either.

  Kryten failed to notice that the three kebabs on the plate had become four.

  'He-e-eyy!' Lister stepped out of the cubicle,
tugging together the cords of his shower robe, 'Shami kebabs!' he orgasmed. 'Thirty-four years. I hope you haven't skimped on the old chillies, there, Kryters, old buddy, old pal.'

  Lister sat down and prepared to eat. As his fork bore down towards his plate, one of the Indian sausages leapt out of the bed of lettuce and hurled itself around his throat. He catapulted back and crashed to the ground in his chair; his desperate fingers clawing at the choking kebab; his legs kicking and bucking.

  Kryten turned from the wash basin at the sounds of Lister's agonized writhing.

  He shook his head and tutted. 'Are you seriously telling me you like them that spicy?'

  Lister gagged. His face started to blacken.

  'Far too many chilli peppers,' Kryten clucked. 'Didn't I tell you?'

  Lister's eyes bulged as he rolled over and over on the sleeping quarters' floor.

  'And this is your idea of an enjoyable snack? It's sheer insanity.'

  'The kebab,' Lister rasped, 'it's trying to kill me.'

  'Well, I'm not the least bit surprised.'

  Finally, Lister's clawing fingers found some purchase, and he ripped the lethal shami from his neck and slung it across the sleeping quarters.

  He hunched, coughing and choking as it slid with snake speed underneath the bunks. 'Where'd it go?'

  'Where did what go?'

  'The polymorph! There's another polymorph!'

  'What? Where?'

  Lister staggered back against the bunks. 'I think it went under Rimmer's architect's desk.' He reached down and picked up his red boxer shorts from the floor and struggled into them. 'Come on, Kryten - we've got to get out of here.'

  Lister grabbed a baseball bat from beside the bunk and started backing towards the hatchway.

  There was a loud cracking sound, and Lister doubled up.

  'Are you all right, sir?'

  'Guhhhh!'

  'What's the matter?'

  'My ... ah! ... My boxers... aaah! .. . They're shrinking!' Lister staggered forward, his eyes double size with fear as a second creak wrenched his body into spasm. 'The polymorph! It's turned into a pair of boxers ... getting smaller... Ahhhh! No! God! Please! Please!'

  Lister staggered and then toppled on to his back. 'Kryten -help me! Please help me! My boxers - get them off- pull them down! Please, God, I'm begging you.'

  Kryten fell to his knees between Lister's splayed legs, ripped open his shower robe, and tugged frantically at Lister's boxer shorts.

  Rimmer skidded into the quarters. 'What the hell's going on?'

  'Keep still, Mr Lister!'

  'I can't stand it anymore. Get them off- please! Do it now!'

  'We need some kind of lubricant.' Kryten's eyes scanned the room. 'Butter. I'll get some butter.'

  'Anything! Anything! Just do it quick!'

  Rimmer shook his head. He couldn't say he was totally shocked. He wished he could, but he couldn't. He'd bonk anything, Lister. Not even a male android was safe from his vile appetites. And what was that dangling from Kryten's groinal socket? A food blender? Oh, it brought tears to his eyes just thinking about it.

  With a final effort, Kryten ripped off Lister's tiny shorts and stood up. The boxers were minute, doll size. Lister scrambled backwards towards the hatchway. 'It's a polymorph! Don't just stand there holding it! Get rid of the smegger!'

  Suddenly the tiny red shorts folded in on themselves, and Kryten was holding the tail of a rat.

  'Oh my God!' Lister's stomach surged for his throat. It was a plague rat, two and a half feet long, not counting its tail.

  Lister hated rats.

  Hated them.

  And this one came from his nightmares: its razor-sharp yellow teeth, its black matted fur streaked with blood, its cold, dead eyes.

  It wriggled, snapped and drooled as Kryten staggered towards him, still grimly holding it by its tail. 'What shall I do, sir? Where shall I put it.'

  'Just get it out of here! Just get it away from me!'

  Kryten swung the beast and flung it hard towards the bulkhead wall, but it twisted in the air, flipped back and changed direction. Lister watched in adrenalin-induced slow motion as the rat landed...

  on

  his

  FACE.

  'Wuuuuhaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!' A voice Lister had never heard before screamed from deep inside him. He felt the rat's foetid breath crawl up into his nostrils.

  'Oh my Guhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn!'

  Then the most hideous, revolting, disgusting, foul, vile thing that had ever happened to Lister, happened to Lister.

  Some of the rat's rabid spittle drooled into his gaping mouth.

  'Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrhhhhhhhhggggggggghhhhhh!'

  Lister's fear was complete.

  Terror pushed him to the very edge of insanity.

  Then it happened.

  The rat's head folded in on itself, split open and disgorged the polymorph's feeding tentacle. The slimy puckered mouth on the tip of the tentacle smacked on to Lister's head.

  And the polymorph began to feed.

  Kryten ripped the half-rat from Lister's face and pitched it against the bunkside wall. It squelched down the wall, leaving a trail of gloop and gore, and fell into the open laundry basket. Kryten launched himself across the quarters and slammed down the lid.

  Lister rose from the floor and picked up the baseball bat. 'I hate rats.' He shuddered. 'They freak me out totally. They're my second all-time worst fear.'

  Rimmer cleared his dry throat. 'What's your first?'

  The metal lid blasted into the air, and a new form loomed out of the basket. Its head hung hugely above them. Mucus pulsed through the gaps in its armour-like endoskeleton. Its enormous jaws carried two hundred needle-sharp silver teeth, glistening with demonic slobber.

  'This,' said Lister. 'This is my all-time worst fear.'

  The creature's jaws opened to their limit, and a feeding tentacle shot out of its mouth and fastened on to Lister's head.

  The half-sated polymorph completed its meal.

  THIRTEEN

  'So what are you saying?' The Cat frowned. 'This thing feeds off emotions?'

  Kryten nodded. 'Exactly. It changes shape to provoke a negative emotion - in this case, fear. It took Mr Lister to the very limit of his terror, then sucked out his fear.'

  'Then what happened?'

  'It vanished. It turned into a cloud of steam and floated out of the room.'

  The Cat looked down at Lister's inert form on the medical unit's biofeedback couch. 'Is he OK?'

  'Apparently so. It's just he no longer has any sense of fear.'

  Rimmer stopped pacing. 'The question is: what are we going to do?'

  Lister's eyes flicked open, and he lurched upright on the couch. 'Well, I say let's get out there and twat it.'

  'Lister, you're ill.' Rimmer started pacing again. 'Just leave this to us.'

  Lister smacked his fist into his palm. 'I could have had it in the sleeping quarters, only it took me by surprise.'

  'Lister - it turned into an eight-feet-tall armour-plated killing machine.'

  'I've had bigger than him. They're all the same, these armour-plated killing machines. One good fist in the gob, they soon lose interest.'

  'It's probably best you stay calm, sir,' said Kryten, soothingly. 'You've lost all sense of fear. You're not thinking rationally.'

  'What's there to be scared of? If it wants a barny, we'll give it one. One swift knee in the happy sacs, it'll drop, like anyone else.'

  'Fine,' Rimmer nodded. 'Well, we'll certainly bear that in mind when we're constructing our strategy.'

  'I'll rip out its windpipe and whip it to death with the tonsil end.'

  'Yes. Very good.' Rimmer caught Kryten's eye and nodded discreetly in the direction of the sedative cabinet.

  'I'll shove my fist so far down its gob, I'll be able to pull the label off its underpants.'

  Kryten pushed the syringe into Lister's arm.

  Lister looked down at the hypodermic. 'What's
that, pal? You starting trouble?'

  'I'm sorry, Mr Lister, sir. It's just a little something to relax you.'

  'Come on then, slags.' Lister lunged at him drunkenly. 'I'll have you all! One at a time or all together. Makes no odds to me. I'll... I'll...' Lister smiled as the sedative flushed into his bloodstream, and fell back on to the couch.

  Rimmer sighed. 'Thank God for that. All right. As far as I can see, we've got two alternatives: one - we take this thing on, and we don't rest until it's dead. Or, two - we run away.' He hardly paused. 'Who's for two?'

  'Sounds good to me,' voted Kryten.

  'Always been my lucky number,' agreed the Cat.

  Rimmer's plan was cowardly, but simple. They would go up to the supply deck, grab whatever they could fit into a supply wagon, load it on to Blue Midget, the one remaining shuttle craft, and get the hell out. Without emotions to feed on, the polymorph would eventually die. In the meantime they could survive on Garbage World for as long as necessary.

  'What about him?' the Cat nodded at the snoring Lister.

  'He'll only slow us down. We'll pick him up when we've got the supplies.'

  They sealed the sedated Lister in the medical unit and started making their way up to the supply deck.

  ***

  The mesh cage of the service lift juddered noisily to a stop three feet above the floor of the supply deck. The Cat's boot democratically elected that Kryten should be first out. He went next, followed by Rimmer. Before them stretched the endless ranks of cargo crates - a huge regular matrix that covered almost twenty acres.

  The Cat adjusted the strap of his backpack that powered the enormous bazookoid mining laser. 'Let's get this over with. This damn gun's destroying the line of my suit.'

  Kryten trundled in the lead, nervously swinging his bazookoid at every imaginary sound. He'd never worn a grenade belt before, and he wasn't exactly in love with the way the grenades clanked noisily against his metal chest plate with each movement.

  They turned left at the first intersection, and there, empty in the aisle, was a gleaming yellow supply truck. It looked brand-new.