"Well, that's finished the test." "We just have to wait for the results." "I had to allow for you cheating at your eye tests." " What?" " There's no point in lying, sir." "Last night, knowing you had a medical, you copied the eye charts onto your shoes." "I admit I took a peek, but I'm a competitive man." "Always have been." " That's what makes me what I am." " We're all aware of what you are, sir." "Oh, the results." "Everything ticketyboo?" "Take a seat for a moment, sir." " Problem?" " You don't have any next of kin, do you?" "No, they all died of heart attacks." "Not just heart attacks - aneurysms, strokes, you name it." "Are you the type that, faced with bad news, prefers to hear that news unvarnished or to live in blissful ignorance of the nightmare you're facing?" "Ignorance every time." "Congratulations, sir!" "You've come storming through your medical with flying colours." " See you next time." " Everything's OK, then?" "Absolutely peachy." " I want to know if something's wrong." " If there was, I would tell you." " Even if I'd asked you not to?" " Well, no." "Then I would lie and say everything was peachy." "Kryten, I want to know." "Is there bad news?" "Lie mode cancel." "Yes, sir." "I'm afraid there is." "I knew it." "It's the headaches, isn't it?" "And the palpitations, the blackouts, the chest pains and the voices, isn't it?" "Sir, you were recreated as a hologram." "Your exact personality was refined to an algorithm and duplicated electronically." "Any flaw in it would be duplicated also." " Flaw?" " It's not common, but it's possible for a hologram to die." "Kryten, get to the point before I make your nose the filling of a buttock sandwich." "As a result of both genetics and environment, you are prone to stress-related disorders, and your activities over the past few years have pushed your brain beyond breaking point." "Your T-count, the hologrammatic equivalent of blood pressure, is higher than a hippy at an open-air festival." "If you wish to avoid a gigantic electronic aneurysm, you must start on a program of relaxation." "I see." "And you thought the best way to start was to tell me my brain's about to explode." "You've got the bedside manner of an abattoir gutter." "Here's what I suggest." "Try and avoid all stressful situations." "Spend more time in your hard light form and exercise." "And here..." "Use these Chinese worry balls whenever you feel tense." "Hey, maybe some good news." "Check it out." "Kryten, I don't want the others to know about this." "Behave as if everything's normal." "As you wish, sir." " There she blows." " Logging onto the ident computer." " What's this?" " The simulant ship we totalled a while back." "We're gonna board it for supplies." "Is that wise, sir?" "The scan says the superstructure could go at any time." " What if some simulants survived?" " There's an old Cat saying," ""If you eat tuna, expect bones."" "There's an old human saying, "If you talk garbage, expect pain."" " We'll take our chances man, OK?" " No K." "They're cybernetically-deranged mechanical killing machines." "Not content with destroying their ship, you now want to steal their belongings?" "That's like flopping your wedding tackle into a lion's mouth and flicking his love spuds with a wet towel." " Total insanity." " Since that refrigeration unit packed in, we've had to live off a few handfuls of moss and fungi scraped off passing asteroids." " I can't stand it any more." " You'd rather have a psychopathic killer play your frontal lobes like a xylophone than have another bowl of nourishing space nettle soup?" "Buddy, I'd hand him the sticks and hold up the sheet music." "Lister, they are simulants." "Why should they have food supplies?" "Because the ident computer says they do." "Look..." " Stocked to the gills." " It's true, sir." "Simulants carry large stocks of food in order to prolong the torment of their victims." "They've kept subjects alive for 40 years in a state of perpetual agony." "If we wanted to live in perpetual agony, we'd let Lister play his guitar." " We don't." "I say drive on." " Kryten, what's for dinner?" "Tonight, sir, asteroidal lichen stew followed by dandelion sorbet." "We're going in." "Sir, can't you see your behaviour is totally irrational?" "We can remove him from duty as per Space Corps Directive 196156." "196156? "Any officer caught sniffing the saddle of the exercise bicycle" ""in the women's gym will be discharged without trial"?" "Hmm." "That doesn't quite get to the nub of the matter for me." "Sir, we have enough weeds and fungus for you to scrum yourself stupid forever." "This foolhardy trip beggars logic." "Lister, listen to him." "When is he ever wrong?" "He may have a head shaped like an inexplicably popular fishing float, but he operates with total logic, and we'd be fools to ignore him." "At least let me and Mr Rimmer go instead." "We are electronic life-forms and expendable." "What the smeg would you know, bog-bot from hell?" "There's something else." "I didn't want to worry the Cat." "The fuel tank got punctured when we hit that moon." "We're out of power in days." " What about the readouts?" " I rigged the readouts." "You rigged the readouts?" "!" "I can't breathe!" "I'm hyperventilating!" " Please, sir, don't panic." " It's not panic, it's a hysterical fit!" "Grind those balls, sir!" "Grind them!" "Let me get this straight." "If we board that ship and get captured, we're finished." "However, if we don't get captured, but the superstructure disintegrates, we're finished." "On the other hand, if we don't get captured and the superstructure doesn't disintegrate but we can't find any fuel, we're finished." " That's about it." " After you with the balls, sir." "We're out of options." "We've got less choice than a Welsh fish and chip shop." "We've got to board that ship." "Just pray the crew are rotting in Silicon Hell." " You three go." "I'm not leaving Starbug." " Fine." "Unless of course something weird and hideously ironic happens, like you get boarded by a rampaging party of crazed simulants gripped by bloodlust." "I'll go and pack." "Bring your brown rubber safety pants." "And your hard light remote belt." "We need all the hands we can muster." " Life signs." " Those suckers'll be lunching on laser." "Last time we met I was wearing the same outfit." "No one's telling that story." "I suppose now's as good a time as any to tell you." " Tell us what?" " We can't actually use the bazookoids." "They're for psychological reasons only." "The superstructure is so unstable that even a loud noise could start a shipquake." "That's why I skipped chillies for breakfast." " Don't look at me like that?" " Like what?" " Like a nostril hair in a Spanish omelette." " Why didn't you tell us?" " Didn't want you to panic." " Didn't want us to p...?" "!" "Let me get this clear." "If we meet any deranged killing machines, we have to combat them silently?" "How?" "Whisper "Charge", tippytoe up to them and chloroform them with Lister's armpits?" "Priceless." " A teleporter." " Hmm." "Fully functional." " Let's grab what we gotta and load up." " Quietly." "It's not gonna hold much longer." "One more trip, Kryten." "One more crate of red-hot West Indian pepper sauce." "Shh!" "Well, if it isn't my old friends, the human vermin, the scabrous slime, the pus-sucking, puke-laden cesspits of unspeakableness." "She remembers us." "Annihilated my ship, slaughtered my fellow simulants and you practically destroyed me." "Yes, I remember you." "One thing - last time we met, I wore a black number with peach trim and gold spangles." "And although this looks like the same outfit, it's an entirely different black number with completely different gold spangles." "That was an important speech, sir, but I suggest that from now on, this discourse is conducted by those with brains larger than a grape." "Take it away, bud." "OK, let's visit Ronnie Real." "This is a classic stalemate situation." "You can't use weapons." "Neither can we." "Let's chalk this down to experience, and we'll be on our way." "Actually, as far as psychotic killer simulants go, you're a bit of a babe." " What are you doing tonight?" " Dying." " Care to join me?" " Hey, come on." "Let's just talk, OK?" "We didn't start any of this, and I think that maybe NOW... is a good time to parley." "Let's not hang around." "Get on with it." "There is nothing to discuss." "In 60 seconds, you'll be dead." " You can't be serious." " I'm totally serious." "I don't believe you're being serious." "I do not understand why you're having such problems grasping this concept." "I'm a totally ruthless, amoral killing machine, so why, in the name of all that's putrid, don't you believe I'm serious?" "I'll say this once more." "You can still change your mind." "Think about all we've been through." "Doesn't that mean anything to you?" "Cheers, Rimmer!" "He's started a shipquake!" " The superstructure's disintegrating!" " The teleporter!" "I must warn you, the teleporter's not calibrated for human tissue." "There's a 20% chance you'll be turned inside out." "Let me check my lining." "Innards and lavender, I can carry that off." " What's this?" " This is a week last Thursday." "I must have made a programming error." "Kryten!" "You can't burst in on an earlier versión of yourself without warning!" "You've made everything totally surreal now." "I'm very cross!" "Pardon my paradox, but the simulant ship you encounter..." "We don't want to know!" "Don't compound your temporal faux pas by disclosing our future." "Where's the rangy, handsome one?" "You?" "You scarpered in that escape pod, you slimy, triple-faced, back-stabbing Judas." "Ah!" "I'm safe, then?" "Thank God for that." "Don't talk to them!" "Get back to your own damn time line!" " Here we go." " Be you later." "Let's get out!" "It's gonna blow!" "All in all, 100% successful trip." "But, sir, we lost Mr Rimmer." "All in all, 100% successful trip." " I can't believe he did that." " Sir, I didn't tell you before, but I discovered that Mr Rimmer is suffering from a stress-related nervous disorder." "When I see him he'll be suffering from a fist-related teeth disorder." " Incoming message." " My escape plan worked, then?" " What escape plan?" " Setting off the disintegration of the ship by bravely leaping into the escape pod, creating a diversión, so you could..." " Actually, how did you escape?" " The teleporter." "That wasn't the only way." "I'm sure no one's forgetting the manliness of the diversionary part of the plan, and to hasten the recovery of the modest hero." " Actually, Flash, that might be a problem." " What?" "You're accelerating way above our top speed." "I've logged into your ident computer." "Simulants looted the pod from a seeding ship." "There are no controls." "It is programmed to find the nearest planet with an atmosphere." " How long to get me back?" " Well, let's see." "Checking the local area." "No, nothing there." "Going to mid-range..." "Er, still nothing." "Going to long-range..." "Long-long-range..." "Long-long-long-range." "Ah, here we have it, just computing." " Well?" "How long?" " Have you still got those worry balls, sir?" " Yes." " Well, start grinding like never before." " How long?" " Let me tell him, Kryten." " How long?" " A year and a half." "That's ridiculousl Get me back." "We could bring you down with a laser cannon, sir." "Form an orderly queue behind the gun sight." " Another way!" " Sir, there are no other options." "Wait." "Something's happening." "Course change." "Check." "Your guidance system's found a nearer S3 planet." "It's taking you through that wormhole at 495372." "You should make planetfall in four days." "Isn't there a time-dilation problem with wormholes?" "Well, yes." "Since you're travelling through a compressed space, time moves more swiftly passing though the wormhole." "One minute this side represents years on the other." "So, is that good?" "Balls on standby, sir." " More than a year and a half?" " Yes." " How much more?" " Let's not beat around a bush - a lot." " That's still beating about the bush." " Remember that medieval war, sir?" " The Thirty Years' War?" " No, the other one." " The Hundred Years' War?" "!" " Take that figure, multiply it by six, then you get your golden number, sir." " Six hundred years?" "!" " Pinch me!" "We're losing contact, any minute." "Six hundred years with myself as company?" "I'll go mad!" "There's an old Cat saying..." "but you don't want to hear it." "On the upside, the pod's stocked with solar accelerators." "That'll keep your hard light drive going." "As the pod came from a seeding ship, it may have terraforming equipment, possibly with a genetic capability." "I'll never survive." "I'm not the Robinson Crusoe type." "I'm lousy at woodwork, no good in the wild." "At school, it took me five terms to make a tent peg." "How long will it take to build a two-storey home with running water and a patio?" "Six hundred years?" "I'll still be planing!" "Losing contact any second." "See you in eight lifetimes." "One last word, sir - remember your condition." "Try and avoid stressful situations." "Whatever befalls you, greet it with a smile and a song." "You are a total, total, complete, utter, total..." " He's gone." " What do we do now?" "Nothing we can do, I know for a fact there's no champagne." "To us, Mr Rimmer will be gone for just a few hours, but Mr Rimmer will have to wait six centuries for us." "To hell with the champagne, we can celebrate with urine resyc." "This is the personal log of Space Corps hologram Arnold J Rimmer." "Day 1." "After landing, I ventured forth to explore the place I would be calling home for the next two thirds of a millennium." "A desert planet, the only life-forms the most basic single-celled protozoa and me." "Relationships would be difficult, but not impossible." "I repaired to the pod to appraise the supply situation." "The pod had indeed been looted from a seeding ship." "Among the supplies, I found two strange devices labelled "eco-accelerator rockets"." "I held out little hope that they might improve my lot, but launched them anyway." "For six days, the planet was wracked with storms, the like of which I had never witnessed before." "Then, just as suddenly, they stopped." "In just six days, I had created my own world, lush and verdant." "I had created Rimmerworid." "I was Adam in my own Eden, and only one thing was missing - my own Jane." "As I studied the pod's textbooks, my excitement grew." "It seemed entirely possible to create a fully grown female clone using my own DNA as a template." "This, of course, created the most enormous moral dilemma." "Technically, she would be my sister, unable to be a lover." "After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided." "What the hell?" "I just wouldn't tell her." "After months of careful nurture, the cocoon cracked." "Something had gone hideously wrong." "The clone was just an identical copy of me." "I went back to the manuals and tried again." "There she blows, an S3 planet." "Navicomp locked." "Entering atmosphere." "Got something." "Try quadrant four-niner-seven-two." " Scan says there's life signs." " Confirmed." "Thousands of them." "Either Mr Rimmer had the incredible good fortune to land on a populated planet, or..." " Or what?" " It's too hideous to contemplate." "Preparing to land." " Wait." "Nasal alert!" " You're getting something?" "I sure am." "My nasal hairs are quivering like an opera singer's bosom on the high notes." " Halt, abomination!" " Rimmer?" " Silence, travesty." " Rimmer?" "Never have I seen such a hideously formed or unnaturally freakish deviant." "Rimmer?" "!" "Silence, mutant!" "How dare you stand there and address a norm using that face!" "It's a revolting insult against nature." "This might sound a bit corny, but..." "I can't bring myself to say it." "Say what?" " Take us to your leader." " Sir, how could you?" "Let the Great One judge them." "Who disturbs our royal snooze?" " Rimmer?" "It's us." " Dear lord, what created such foulness?" "Is this the product of a marriage 'twixt woman and gerbil?" "600 years ago?" "We were shipmates." "We've come to save you." "We found them in the woods, Your Flared-Nostrilness and brought them to be tried as travesties." "That ain't goalpost-head." "He doesn't smell right." "Agreed, he scans as organic, not hologram." "The "H" is an affectation, possibly a symbol of power." "These deformed monsters are no sight for my concubines." "My treasures of pulchritude, run along." "Avert your eyes from her great beauty." "Let the trial begin before my jacuzzi water grows tepid." "These abominations stand charged on eight counts of gross deviancy." "Not content with looking abnormal, they flaunt freakish behaviour such as charm, bravery, compassión and... honour." "Are there no signs of normalcy?" "No cowardice or pomposity?" "No snideyness or smarm?" "Not even basic honest-to-goodness double-dealing two-facedness?" "They didn't even attempt to sell each other out for freedom." "They lack even the most basic natural drives." " How do you plead?" " We wish to speak to the hologram Rimmer." "I am he!" "Not so." "We seek your creator, the father of your people, the first true Rimmer, the template for your species." "Enough of this heresy." "At the stroke of dawn, take them out and kill them." "And when you've killed them, burn the bodies, then bring me the cold ashes on a plate... with a glass of chilled Sancerre." "This guy's an animal." "Doesn't he know it's red wine with cold ashes?" " Rimmer?" " Smell checks out." "That truly is toilet-brush hair himself." "Of course!" "I remember." "Custer!" "Derek Custer!" "Kit!" "Titan!" " What's happened?" " How long have you been in this pit?" "Speed count mode... 557 years?" "!" " You've been stuck here all this time?" " What happened?" "Can you imagine a society composed entirely of me?" "I'm trying not to." "Last time I did that, it took me a week to dry the mattress." "Thousands upon thousands of back-stabbing, treacherous, hypocritical, cowardly Judases." "They overthrew me." "When they found out they couldn't damage my hard light drive, they locked me away to protect their insane lust for power." "Look, I can understand that, but what have they got against me, Derek and Titan?" "Anyone who deviates from the template is reviled." "They're banished from society." "Anyone who displays behaviour deemed un-Rimmerlike is punished by death." "Is that why no one is brave, sexy, noble or charming?" " All crimes here." " I must be public enemy number 1, 2 and 3." "Don't they realise societies can only evolve through mutations in the gene pool." "Without richness or variety, congenital disorders and lunacy are commonplace." "Who can forget the insane European monarchies of the 19th and 20th centuries?" " Oh, what have I created?" " Your very own personal hell." "Fun though it's been hearing about your 500 years of misery, shouldn't we make skedaddle plans?" "I can't bear the prospect of being burned alive." "Flames and peach?" "I'd rather die!" " Have you tried escaping, Rimmer?" " It's a planet of back-stabbing slimeballs." "I'd be sold back immediately." "There's got to be a way out." "There's not a prison built that can hold Derek Custer." "Why don't we scrape away this mortar, slide a brick out, then using rope weaved from strands of hessian, rig up a pulley system, the guard hits a trip wire, gets laid out, we put Rimmer in the guard's uniform," "we steal some swords, and fight our way out?" "Or we could use the teleporter." "Or, at a pinch, we could use the teleporter." "I've done it again!" "Two anomalies in one day." "I must have accessed the previous calibration." " Sorry, we're escaping from Rimmerworid..." " Don't tell them the future." "Rimmer doesn't want to know he gets persecuted for six centuries by his clones." "Careful, bud." "You almost let slip that he spends the next 557 years in a dungeon." " Rimmerworid?" " I'm saying nothing, man." " Can't spoil the surprise." " Rimmerworid was weeks ago." "We're more concerned about the hideous thing that's happened to Lister." " Yeah, where are you?" " Yeah, where am I?" "I wanna know!" "# It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere" "# I'm all alone, more or less" "# Let me fly far away from here" "# Fun, fun, fun" "# In the sun, sun, sun" "# I want to lie, shipwrecked and comatose" "# Drinking fresh mango juice" "# Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes" "# Fun, fun, fun" "# In the sun, sun, sun" "# Fun, fun, fun" "# In the sun, sun, sun #"