"Kryten, it's me." "Are you there?" "'Er, yes, sir, I'm here, sir, reading you." "Over.'" "There's something on Little Monitor 2." "Weird shape." "Really massive." "What is it?" "'It's your kebab, sir, as requested." "Over.'" "What, this is a kebab?" "!" "Wow!" "It's absolutely massive!" "It's a monster!" "'A large chicken doner combo, salad, chilli sauce, everything." "Over.'" "All right, I'm going in!" "'Good luck, sir!" "'" "What?" "!" "No way!" "What's that smell?" "Has there been a fire in here?" "Just a small one." "I put it out with my beer." "For goodness' sake, Lister, that's terrible!" "Don't panic!" "I've got another one." "You can't eat in the drive room." "No foods or liquids around the work stations." "Health and Safety Protocol 121." "Who cares about health and safety, Rimmer?" "We're getting life signs from this moon, 200 clicks east." "I'm going to check it out!" "Lister, we have health and safety protocols for a reason - to safeguard the crew." "What crew?" "The original crew?" "They all got wiped out, remember?" "Exactly." "By you!" "Exactly." "When you didn't fix that drive plate properly, and that radiation leak fried them to a crisp." "Exactly." "Which is why the whole health and safety protocol procedure has been updated." "Because, ultimately, who was truly to blame for that accident?" "The man... or the system?" "The man." "Was it the man, though?" "It was, yes." "Or was it the system?" "It was the man, definitely the man." "Or was it the system?" "The man." "A system that allowed a technician to repair a drive plate without adequate training or know-how." "A system that has since been completely overhauled by yours truly, so that an accident of that nature never happens again." "So what you're saying is, you learned valuable safety lessons from wiping out the crew and, as a result, you've updated the safety regulations, making this ship a much safer working environment for the crew you wiped out." "Scoff away, Lister, but the point is we have new regulations, which means that you're going to have to fill in an accident report form for that fire." "A what?" "!" "And once it's completed, you'll have to submit it to the Accident Report Assessment Unit, care of the Health and Safety Executive." "And who the smeg would that be?" "Me." "There are the forms." "I am not filling out any smegging forms, Rimmer!" "I'm going to check this moon." "Ignore that, and someone could get seriously hurt." "Yeah - you, if you keep talking!" "Hang on a minute!" "It's 20 pages!" "I'll send you on the other sections later." "You're up late, sir." "Been hunting." "Trying to swat this damn space weevil." "Little sucker keeps outsmarting me!" "Well, they do have an IQ of 2, sir." "One minute it's there, next minute it's gone." "It's driving me crazy!" "What's happening with you?" "Well, I've been running some tests on the crystals I extracted from the quantum rod, sir." "A by-product of the rod's ability to transport its host vessel seems to be a curious power of synchronicity." "That's strange." "Before, I was napping, and I had a dream you were doing something crazy with crystals." "What a weird coincidence." "Hey!" "We both said that at the same time!" "And that!" "What's going on?" "!" "Why are we saying everything together?" "!" "Probably just coincidence." "I think that's fixed it, sir." "You think that tube thing made us speak at the same time?" "I doubt it, sir." "Probably just coincidence." "What the hell's going on?" "!" "Well, it seems the crystals, temporarily at least, have invigorated our psi, making us more prone to coincidence." "There was a fascinating book on the subject by a scientist called Arthur Koestler which was called The Roots Of Coincidence." "There it is!" "How weird is that?" "!" "According to Koestler, coincidence is more likely to happen to people in states of heightened emotion, as emotions lower consciousness while increasing the powers of the unconscious." "So, every time we're together and emotional, we're likely to experience this coincidence stuff?" "Only temporarily, sir." "Space weevil!" "Mr Lister, some rather intriguing developments on the, er..." "Oh." "Mr Lister?" "Well..." "Kryten!" "Open the door!" "I've left my key!" "Open the door!" "Let me in!" "Sir, what on earth were you doing outside?" "!" "Trying to get in!" "Wasn't it obvious?" "We've had a life sign confirmation from one of the scouters." "I took Starbug to check it out." "That's the second moon with life signs we've passed in the last decade!" "I had no idea this region of space was so lively." "Yeah, it's mental round here, Kryten, you never get a moment's peace!" "Anyway, they're called BEGGs, Biologically Engineered Garbage Gobblers, created on Earth to eat refuse." "They've got this digestive system that can cope with scoffing sediment, sludge and slop, permanently inebriated, with breath that could sandblast buildings." "I'm so pleased for you, sir." "At last you've got the opportunity to make new friends." "I wanted to see if they'd help in finding Kochanski." "Did they, sir?" "Nah, they've not seen her." "Just spent the whole evening drinking whisky and playing poker." "Anyway..." "Incidentally, sir, why WERE you outside with a jet-pack?" "Let me finish." "As I was saying..." "Sir, where is Starbug?" "Let me finish!" "As I was saying, we were sat round the..." "Sir!" "You lost Starbug in a card game?" "!" "You've spoilt the end now!" "Don't look at me like that." "There is an upside." "Upside, how can there be an upside?" "What's the upside?" "I lost Rimmer too." "Pick him up Friday." "That's tomorrow!" "Oh, sir, what on earth are we going to do?" "I know. 24 hours - it's going to be worse than being a kid on Christmas Eve." "Oh, all right, all right." "I'll go back tomorrow, get him back somehow." "Starbug too." "Speaking of Mr Rimmer, he asked me to give you these accident report forms for you to fill in." "Oh, cheers, Krytes." "Good night." "Just drying the cutlery, sir, using my heat outlet." "Kryten, where's Lister?" "Have you seen him?" "I think he may be in the drive room, sir." "Has he had an opportunity to talk to you yet, sir?" "Why?" "No reason, sir, I was just wondering." "Do you know if he's completed that sheaf of health and safety forms yet?" "I think he may need another set, sir." "You see, there was a slight accident with the airlock, and the papers were accidentally sucked out into space, sir." "Another accident?" "That means he's going to have to fill out two sets of accident report forms." "I'll get the papers." "Well, it wasn't an accident per se, sir." "You mean, he just flushed them out into space?" "Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that, sir..." "Were safety procedures followed?" "Was an airlock accident risk assessment form completed before he opened the airlock?" "That may have been overlooked, sir." "Well, that's another set of forms he's going to have to fill in." "I don't know whether I've got enough." "Flushing safety reports into space..." "He's not going to get away with this." "There's got to be a solution to this." "I've just been speaking to Kryten, and he told me what you did." "Did he?" "I have to say, I'm disappointed, but not the least bit surprised." "Right." "Well, you're taking it better than I expected." "Expect people to let you down - you'll never be disappointed." "Let me say right off that I'm truly sorry, I really am." "You're not sorry." "Of course I'm sorry!" "I've been up all night thinking about it." "I can't sleep!" "Are you serious?" "Of course I'm serious!" "What I did was out of order, out of line, beyond the pale." "Wow." "And just let me say, I'll put everything to rights first thing in the morning." "I promise." "Finally, after all these years of battering my head against a wall, trying to make you into a person of calibre and stature, who takes pride in the mundane and petty, at last the penny's dropped." "Listey," "I think you're finally become the vending machine third technician of my dreams!" "What's this?" "The accident report forms." "I haven't got time to waste twatting about with that!" "What?" "!" "I've got to dig myself out of this hole I've got myself into." "Hole, what hole?" "The gambling with BEGGs hole." "Gambling with BEGGs?" "You've been gambling with BEGGs?" "!" "Those garbage-munchers!" "Lister, I've told you a million times... you gamble with lowlifes, there's only one loser." "In this case, there's two!" "Who's the other one?" "A guy about your height, your colouring, who goes by the name of you." "Er, Mr Lister gambled you in a poker game, sir, and I'm afraid to report, he lost you." "We're all deeply sorry, bud... apart from me and him and him." "Do you really think this is helping?" "I'm not here to help!" "Read my CV." ""Does not help." "Does not clean." "Will have sex with anything."" "You lost me in a poker game?" "!" "Like I'm some kind of thing to be lost in a poker game?" "!" "I was trying to win Starbug back." "I didn't have anything else they wanted." "Right." "Turn the engines up full power." "We'll outrun them." "Once they realise they can't catch us, they'll give up." "Ah, we can't outrun them." "Why not?" "Wow!" "Cool pants, bud!" "Oh, that's a groin exploder, sir." "It sure is!" "That's going to drive the chicks nuts!" "If I don't make good on my debt... deliver Rimmer by midnight tomorrow... then this thing is going to propel my love spuds to the far reaches of deep space." "So what?" "You never use them anyway!" "Have you tried removing it, sir?" "It's rigged to blow if I tamper with it." "There's a sign on the side - "E-R-R-A"." "ERRA?" "Must be something to do with the manufacturer, but I can't trace them." "I have to say I'm taking no pleasure from this." "No pleasure whatsoever." "No, wait." "In fact, that's completely wrong." "I'm taking immense pleasure from this." "It may not have occurred, sir, but if the exploder detonates, killing Mr Lister, then the ship will automatically shut down your hologram projection unit." "If Mr Lister goes, you go with him." "You're both sort of... connected." "Like we are!" "What a coincidence!" "A thought occurs, sir." "This technology is way beyond anything the BEGGs could manufacture." "They have a low cunning, but are a primitive race of little sophistication." "Maybe that's our answer." "Weh-for-a-borg-ka-sming!" "Ha-ha-ha!" "He says, "Ah, so, you return with my winnings!" "Ha-ha-ha!"" "And in keeping with our agreement, you deactivate the knacker attacker, yeah?" "Bew-ka-fing?" "Is that the hologram?" "Yes, it is, but as you can see, he's old and raddled and fit for nothing." "Scrom-jella!" "Fhoom, olla-goon." "Chall-ah-gah!" "Raddled." "Mon-blaga." "Dro-go." "Instead, I bring you this." "O-galla kra-goom-oo, hoon!" "The fabled... spoon of destiny." "He that hath the spoon controls all things." "No object hath such power." "Oom-balla-scoom-droo!" "Hmm-yalla controls tra-la-loomo drob-oh!" "He-swar-gyent-oo-moo?" "He says, if the spoon controls all things, why are you trading it?" "Um..." "Well, we just don't... really... use it much any more." "And, um..." "It's a good question." "We prefer the ship of green and a sexy light man with the lady legs so long and luscious." "He speaks English!" "La-bogo-a-row-go-bay-len..." "English boarding school." "Bilan-garoo." "What, he went to an English boarding school?" "Ah, no, sir, he ate someone from an English boarding school." "He forced them to teach him English and then he munched them whole." "If it pleases, maybe we will play cards again." "Then perhaps you will win back your hologram and your ship of green." "Or maybe you will lose, and, if you do, we will take your droid!" "And your scented, shiny friend too." "Look, we've got nothing to lose." "Let's play." "I have a bad feeling about this." "I've got this one, Krytes." "Sir, you're being set up again." "Don't you see?" "They're not simple people, they're every bit as smart as you or I!" "Yeah, I was close the last time, I just got a bit cocky!" "You choked!" "You always choke!" "You can't handle the pressure, bud." "If anyone's going to choke, they'll choke." "They'll choke?" "!" "Yeah, they're the chokers." "They're not going to choke." "They're choking!" "Don't choke!" "How do you get out of this?" "Don't die!" "How do you get out of the exploder?" "What's he saying, Kryten?" "He's speaking Choking To Death, sir." "It's very hard to translate if you're not being strangled." "Don't die, don't die!" "Argh!" "Argh!" "The only guys that can help me get out of this thing and now they're dead!" "What am I going to do now?" "!" "Let me get this right." "You guys have become..." "quantum entangled somehow?" "Exactly." "So you killed them?" "Oh, that event was always going to occur." "It's just, with our heightened emotions, we were more aware of the synchronicity." "Who cares?" "!" "What am I going to do now?" "Perhaps we can harness our new-found powers to help, sir." "How?" "Well, Koestler said intense emotional states tend to drive coincidence." "So you're saying we need to make you two emotional?" "Precisely." "Getting me emotional?" "That's going to be harder than you think." "Ever heard of the expression "as cool as a Cat"?" "We're pretty hard to fluster, buddy." "Stage one achieved." "What do we do now?" "Who turned that on?" "'He's in danger, isn't he?" "'Oh, darling." "Can't we help him?" "'He's got to get to the station." "It's his only chance." "'But there's so little time!" "'" "Station?" "Maybe some space station." "'It's up to him now." "'His fate is... 'written in the stars.'" "Maybe the stars are something to do with this?" "It's that book again." "I'm not even going to say it." "Look!" "Stars." "And numbers." "2-5-2-3-1-1." "Those sound like space coordinates." "That's getting really annoying." "That's what E-R-R-A is." "It's a space station!" "Maybe the device was manufactured on the space station and ended up on this moon somehow!" "Let's punch these numbers into the navicom and see where it takes us." "So what is that place?" "It's the Erroneous Reasoning Research Academy, sir, or ERRA, for short." "Erroneous reasoning?" "What's that?" "Most of the great scientific breakthroughs come when two theories previously dismissed as wrong are combined to make a right." "The DNA double helix was discovered in this exact way." "What did they do here?" "Well, they specialised in wrongness, sir." "Wrongness?" "!" "The staff were hand-picked for their ability to be mistaken, for their gifts in fallacious analysis and defective reasoning." "You could have excelled here!" "They were all outstandingly good at being consistently incorrect." "There were a lot of referees, TV critics, weathermen... who were then re-educated in the sciences to develop extraordinary new erroneous theories that would be combined together to produce works of great genius." "Did it work?" "No." "The whole idea turned out to be wrong." "The man behind the idea was so depressed, he attempted suicide." "Naturally, he failed and he went on to live into his 90s." "Look, we know the device was manufactured here." "The key to getting out of this has got to be here somewhere." "Logging on to the mainframe." "Oh, interesting." "There appears to be some kind of life form in stasis." "Maybe we can ask their advice!" "Top floor." "I pressed top floor." "How come we're going down?" "I'll press down." "Now we're going up!" "Everything is wrong here!" "I don't think you're right, Kryten." "I assure you I am, sir." "No." "I like this place." "I'm very comfortable here." "The smell, the atmosphere." "It feels like... home." "The stasis booths are in there." "How the hell do we get in?" "Pity none of us can walk through walls!" "Oh, well, one of us can!" "Mr Rimmer, if he switches to soft light projection mode." "Once I'm in, change back to hard light projection mode." "Highly likely there'll be a switch to open the door from inside the vault." "Whatever." "Can you just make it quick?" "Cos this is getting hotter." "I'm getting baked potatoes!" "It sounds like it's getting ready to blow." "Come on." "Can you read me, sir?" "Switching you over now." "'Back to hard light, over.'" "See anything?" "'Eyes adjusting, walking along..." "Wait." "'Stasis booths, banks of them.'" "Anything?" "'There's a light on in one of the booths." "'Whatever it is, it's alive." "'According to the read-outs, female, aged 31.'" "Kochanski's female." "Kochanski's 31!" "Is it Kochanski?" "'Whoever it is, they're brunette, 5'5".'" "Kochanski's brunette." "Kochanski's 5'5"!" "Is it Kochanski?" "'Starting pod deactivation sequence." "'Getting ID info." "'Give me two minutes." "Going offline.'" "Oh, it won't be her." "It'll be someone else." "It won't be her." "I know it's not her." "Don't even think for one second that I think that it's her, because I know it isn't, I know it." "Say it is..." "Do you think it might be?" "Think it's something to do with this coincidence thing?" "Could be!" "The door's opening!" "Here we go." "It's not Kochanski." "It won't be Kochanski." "It won't be Kochanski." "Gentlemen." "Meet Professor Edgington, head of the ERRA Institute and inventor of the groinal exploder." "Well, it's definitely not Kochanski." "She went for my groin." "Most fascinating." "She was working on a research programme into evolution, attempting to evolve into the next species of the evolutionary ladder." "Naturally, the professor, as a gifted ERRA-pert, got the experiment totally wrong." "So basically, she took an evolutionary wrong turn and wound up a monkey?" "She should've stopped and asked directions!" "Much as I'm enjoying this chitchat, it ain't helping me get this ball-buster off." "I believe it is, sir." "This is the very machine Professor Edgington carried out her operation with." "Now, if we can evolve her back to her human form, she may be able to help us." "I've studied the manual, it seems quite straightforward." "I'm amazed she got it so wrong!" "Come on, let's go, switch it on." "Turning on now, sir." "Pressing "undo" now." "Evolution mode... engaged." "Oo-oo-oo!" "Oh, smeg!" "She's human." "Oh, smeg!" "She's naked." "She's also naked." "Did anyone mention that yet?" "Is she naked?" "Oh, yes!" "I didn't notice." "I'll go and get her a sheet immediately." "No rush, Kryten." "Remember Protocol 175... no running in the corridors." "Take your time." "Walk carefully." "Forget about the lift, Kryten, take the stairs... one at a time." "He's just going to be a few minutes." "What are you doing, Lister?" "Allow me to introduce you to the crew, Professor Edgington." "Oh, please, call me Irene..." "or Professor E." "This is Mr Rimmer." "Mr Rimmer!" "I sense a special bond between us." "I've always been attracted to the brave, silent types." "That's me, all right!" "I probably won't speak again for hours, as I'll be off silently doing something very brave." "What a gorgeous bunk room." "It's utterly enchanting." "Enchanting?" "!" "Oh!" "Who plays the trumpet?" "Trumpet?" "It's a guitar case." "Do any of you play?" "Yeah, I play." "I bet you're absolutely brilliant." "I thought she was supposed to be wrong about everything, Kryten." "Moving on to the matter in hand..." "Yeah, yeah, can you... help me get out of this?" "There it is." "It's a diagram." "Five symbols." "We have to turn them off in the correct order." "What happens if we choose the wrong ones?" "Absolutely nothing." "It's all perfectly safe." "Oh, God..." "Right, if you're going to explode, it's not going to be in here." "Oh, Protocol 121 - no exploding in the drive room, right?" "Sir, perhaps best if you stand in the corridor." "Don't mess this up." "I'm relying on you, Kryten." "Don't listen to a word she says." "Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, theta." "OK, ma'am, what's the first one we turn off?" "Beta." "Beta it is." "No... alpha." "No, beta." "Beta or alpha." "Or delta." "No, it's definitely delta." "Delta or gamma." "The only one Professor E hasn't mentioned is theta." "First one - here it comes, sir - theta." "Next one - gamma." "Definitely gamma, trust me." "Any other possibilities?" "No..." "No, gamma." "It's definitely gamma." "Just gamma." "I'm certain it's gamma." "Or maybe beta or alpha." "Next one, sir, here we go - delta." "Next - alpha, beta or gamma?" "Beta." "Or gamma." "Or beta." "Alpha!" "Two more, sir, then we're there." "Two more?" "My boots are full of my own leg dribble." "Professor?" "Call me Irene..." "everyone does." "Next wire - gamma or beta, ma'am?" "Beta, it's definitely beta." "I'm not going to change my mind this time." "Beta." "Beta." "Beta." "OK, gamma it is." "Go for it." "Wait a minute, how about this for weird?" "Her name's Irene and her nickname is Professor E." "Put those names together and you get Irene E." "Irony." "Wouldn't it be ironic if a professor known for being wrong finally got something right?" "What do we do?" "Go for it." "Go for beta." "Go for what she said." "Oh, Arnold, you're everything I want in a man - kind, clever, selfless." "Don't forget amazing!" "Can I ask you a question?" "Do you think it would be wrong for us to make love on our very first evening together?" "Hmm, let me think." "Well, Irene, on reflection, and I've given this much thought," "I don't think it would." "In fact, I think it would be absolutely fine, tickety-boo and peachy." "Hiya." "Come on." "Don't touch the buttons!" "Don't touch the buttons!" "Don't...!" "Oh..." "Oh..." "Have you got a pen?"