“Holly, what’s happening?!” Rimmer asked in his pathetic (but cute) way. “What the smeg is going on?”
“Well, to put it simply.” Holly replied, mulling it over, “The interaction between the two antipodal universes has evoked the inexpedience of immiscible DNA and therefor molecular instability becomes apparent in antithetical holes.”
“I knew that, anyway. It’s obvious.” Rimmer said, smugly. “Perhaps you’d better just explain it again, though. For Lister’s sake.”
“In laymen’s terms, it means Deb and Dave’s DNA doesn’t mix and so you get rapid growth.”
“Er….could we go back to the world’ laymen’ please?”
Lister sighed. Everything he had hoped to do with his sons…It wouldn’t be possible any more, would it? In a few days, they’d be older than him. It didn’t feel right.
“How can we stop it?” he asked anziously.
“we can return them to Hilly’s ..” Holly paused for a moment as he thought about the prospect of staring into Hilly’s attractive eyes again, and then stammered as he realised he was in mid sentence. “Er…I mean the parallel universe where they were conceived. If we return them, hopefully their growth patterns should return to normal.”
“I suppose we’d better send them home then.”
“It’s not as simple as that, Holly said in his best I’ve-got-an-IQ-of-6000’ voice. “I’ve got to feed the right co-ordinates into the hop-drive before we get to the right place. There are millions of parallel universes out there, you know. In one of them, Yoko Ono can actually sing properly instead of sounding like a drowned cat. It’ll take a little time to pin-point the exact universe we want.”
Lister hated to ask, but he had to know. “How long will it take you?”
“Oooh. That’s a toughie, that. About tow days, I suppose.”
“But what about my kids?” Lister moaned. “They’re my kids.”
“That’s life for you, Lister.” Rimmer butted in. “You have kids, they grow up, they leave home.”
“Yes Rimmer, but it’s not supposed to happen to me in the same week!”
The twins seemed to be pretty much taking care of themselves anyway. By the time he’d figured out what to do with the nappies, they’d moved onto the potty stage. Now, at the grand old age of one-day-old, they were demanding pocket money and reading “Zanet and Zohn” books. Every time he went near them, they whined at him, pulled and tugged him and hit him with their little fists.
“Daddieeeeeee! I wanna play ball!”
“Noooooo! Nooooooo! He’s got my action droid! Waaaaaah!”
Well, he couldn’t take it longer. He wanted a rest; bringing up children was hard work. And feeding…Feeding was a nightmare. He had tried all sorts of mushed up food with them after they’d stopped having the bottle, and finally he’d come up with the winning combination- chilli and curry, all blended in with lashings of madras sauce. Then they were suddenly onto solids. God knows what they wanted now. Probably popadoms.
So here he was, casually looking through Rimmer’s things. He knew it was a sneaky, underhand thing to do, but as it was exactly the sort of thing Rimmer would have done to him, he felt justified.
What was this? A box he hadn’t noticed before. It contained about ten cards, some what battered, each with tippex pasted across the insides.
Get well soon..Good luck with your exam (there were about seven with this slogan)…Happy Birthday… To a complete bastard…
“What are you doing?” Rimmer was deeply hurt to find Lister in his area of the sleeping quarters. “Those are my things! Get your grubby hands off them!”
“What are these, Rimmer?” Lister looked at the cards and a bemused expression crossed his face. “These are cards other people have sent you, aren’t they?”
“No, you’re completely and utterly wrong, actually.”
“And you’ve saved them…”
“No, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong”
“And you’ve tippexed all the words out..”
“Wrrrrongd, deedee, daadaa, w-w-w-w-w-r-r-r-o-o-n-n-n-g.”
“So that you can send them to someone else.”
“Look, just shut up Lister.” Rimmer’s jaw clenched tightly and his nostrils flared. The truth hurt. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you said chickens have lips.”
“Right, Rimmer. Whatever you say.”
“Anyway, I didn’t come here to argue.” The slightest smirk crossed Rimmer’s face as he thought about it. “It’s those brats of yours. You’ve got to keep them under control. I’m telling you now, because otherwise I could get angry. And you won’t like me when I’m angry!”
“I never like you, Rimmer. Anyway, is that a threat?”
“As your superior, you can assume everything I say is a threat.” And with that, he marched out of the room.
“Yes, Mr Rimmer sir!” Lister mocked and went back to browsing through Rimmer’s things.
“Yeah, you’re a smeghead.” Jim beamed up at Rimmer.
“Why you little….!” He grabbed for Jim’s neck and instead fell flat on his face. He heard Jim and Bexely giggling maliciously behind him. “You’ll pay for this, you know! And don’t you forget it!”
The children took no notice. After all, they were having fun, weren’t they. They somersaulted, ran and jumped through Rimmer’s body and tried several times to grab for Rimmer’s light bee. Luckily for Rimmer, they weren’t quite tall enough yet, but as they were growing all the time it wouldn’t be long before they could reach…And he hated to think what two victimising little brats might do with a delicate and extremely complex piece of technology.
“Please, please, please stop it!” He was getting desperate. “Look, do you kids want some money? Yes? Yes?” The kids nodded their chubby heads eagerly. “Gooooood!” There’s some money of mine stashed away in carago bay 17. Okay? Toodlepip. Then!”
He usshered the twins out of the corridor and they ran as fast as their porky legs could take them in the direction of cargo bay 17.
“Well, that should hold them off for a day or so.” Rimmer muttered to himself, chuckling. “If we add the fact that cargo bay 17 is the largest one on the ship to the fact that there isn’t any money there anyway, we get peace and quiet. Bliss.”
Lister found him desperately trying to crawl away from the twin terrors, who were now nine, but to no avail.
“Listy!” Rimmer brightened suddenly at the chance of escape. “Listy, my old pal, my old mate. What’s the rush? Look……Could you just do my a teensy weensy favour, please?”
“Of, of course, Rimmer. You now, being your pal an’ all.”
“I just wondered if you could take care of your kids. I mean, give them a bath or something. Anything.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No…I’m desperate, Lister. Help.”
Lister smiled, and he couldn’t help feeling the tiniest twang of pity for Rimmer. “Oh, okay. Supper time boys!”
Rimmer let out a huge sigh of relief as the kids scuttered off after Lister to get their nosh. But tomorrow, he’d be ready for them. He’d have the ultimate weapon at his disposal.
It was time for Rimmer to do some calculations. The Holly Hop drive would be ready by the end of the day and what time was it now? About seven o’clock. So that’s about fifteen hours, and judging from the current rate of growth….God! They’d by eighty-seven Wait a minute, that didn’t sound exactly right.
The twins had realised that once they took Rimmer’s light bee, they wouldn’t have anything to torment any more so they were constructing more and more devious ways in which to outwit Rimmer- something any thirteen year old could do with ease.
Rimmer, however, had had enough. “That’s it!” he yelled at them. “No more Mr Nice Guy!!!”
“What are you going to do?” teased Jim.
“Play your latest Reggie Wilson CD?” Bexley laughed.
“Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!” they chorused in mock horror.
“I wasn’t joking, you realise.” Rimmer said sternly, and shouted in the direction of the corridor. “Now! Bring them in now!”
A tired Skutter (now under the frame of mind that even Rimmer was better than Jim and Bexely) wheeled itself in, carring a packet of a certain breakfast food. It threw the packet angrily in the general direction of the twins, and then ambled away again.
“Seeing as you’ve been soooo good these past couple of days, I’ve go you boys a little present.”
“What?” they asked. Rather dubiously and not without good reason.
“Something for your breakfast. Just follow the instructions on the packet, and you’ll be one step closer to having a breakfast that you’ll never forget.”
Ten minutes later, Rimmer heard a faint “aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh” from a few rooms away. “Yes!” he yelled in joy and almost fell off his bunk.
The twins had not learnt of the horror they called……Pop Tarts.
So he sat on the top bunk with his sons, telling them about Earth. His long conversations had covered all the important aspects of his sons’ education like larger, curries, woman and Zero- Gee football.
“Tell us more about Earth, Dad, please, please.” Bexely nagged.
“Tell us more about the women.” Jim chipped in.
“What else do you want to know?”
“Tell us about the oceans, tell us about the space ports, and the people.” Bexley asked, with excitement in his eyes.
“….And the women.” Jim added, just as excited.
Lister continued his descriptions of his home planet and began to feel quite nostalgic, remembering that he didn’t know what the Earth would be like now. Eventually they grew bored of the stories of Earth (even the stories about the Earth women) and Lister told them a bit more about their own lives, their mother, and what was happening to them. He was determined to be a good father for them and be there when they needed him. Not abandon them like his real father had.
Lister looked at his two strong healthy young boys for a while and was overcome with sentiment.
“I know I’m probably not the best father and I can hardly set much of an example for you. And it wasn’t exactly planned all that well to bring you guys into this universe here to spend your life on a mining ship in deep space with a smeghead and a Cat for company. But I don’t want to let that stop you boys doing things and being a success. I mean, all I want to say is that I’m really proud of you boys and I’m very happy that you’re my sons.” Lister sniffed and hugged them both.
Bexley’s face remained unchanged. “Dad stop being so wet.”
Jim jumped down from the bunk a few moments later. “Fancy a game of Zero-Gee, Dad?”
“We’ll thrash you.” Bexley seconded.
Lister smiled. “Not a chance, boys. You’re looking at the best Zero-Gee football player in the universe.”
“Yes, but only because you’re the last player still alive.”
“Hey! I came second in our regional competition of “Fantasy league Zero-Gee football!”
“Second out of two.”
“Is it ready, Holly?” Bexley (now eighteen years of age) enquired, raising his nose out of ‘Casulty-The Comic Book’
Holly seemed to think about this for a moment. “It was difficult calculating the precise co-ordinates down to the very finest of details. I think I’ve done pretty well, considering I haven’t’ got fingers to count the sums on. I did my best-it’s not like I’ve got an IQ og 6000 or anything.”
“Actually Holly, you are supposed to have an IQ of 6000.” Rimmer snapped. “Just let’s get this over with.”
All right, all right. Ten….Nine….Eight…” he paused for a while.
“Seven.” Rimmer reminded him.
“Yes, I know thank you very much. Five……Four…..Three….Two….One…Uh, um…Blast off, I suppose.”
Red Dwarf’s huge mass blipped out of existence in our known universe and appeared again in a parallel one. A quick glance at his monitors told Holly tow things; for one they had not ended up in the female opposite universe that he had aimed for, and secondly, some of his monitors could do with a quick polish.
Jim and Bexley looked out of the window of the drive room in amazement.
It was not like the familiar blackness with white dots in that they were all used to. No planets, no moon, no suns…. Instead, the backdrop was a constantly changing swirling coloured pattern. It changed from green to red to blue to purple to a colour they had never seen before and then back to green again. But what was really strange about this universe was the mass of floating objects that were hurtling around and bouncing into each other. Mostly suitcases of different kinds, as well as things like pens, coins, contact lenses, winning lottery tickets, car keys, wallets, and more. Right in the middle of these was a large old ocean liner.
“Wow…It’s amazing! Where are we, Holly?”
It seems we have ended up in the parallel universe where all the objects that go missing end up.” Holly, confirmed as he spotted an old modem floating past that they thought was gone forever.
“Hey, there’s my old wrist watch.” Rimmer stated, examining the outside more closely. Lister spotted several odd socks that matched ones he had in his laundry basket.
“This isn’t the right place, Hol.” Lister sighed.
“I’m sorry, let me check my calculations..” Holly paused for a few minutes and then his eyes lit up. “Ah, I see I forgot to carry the three. Hang on a minute.”
Following a brief ten down to one countdown, not necessarily with all the digits I that order, the ship blipped out of existence again and reappeared, this time in the place they had been aiming for.
Rimmer wished that he had the foresight to stay aboard his own ship as well. The moment he set foot on board the ship of his counterpart Arlene, she had tried to get him on his own with only one thing in mind-and it wasn’t a game of Risk.
Dave introduced Deb to her newly born eighteen-year-old sons, and then tried to explain to her what he meant by newly born eighteen year old babies.
It was a long and complicated conversation, the kind of conversation that can be very depressing to readers who only like Red Dwarf for the jokes, so let’s skip right to the part of the story where they all go to the disco and get totally pissed.
It was at this point that Rimmer appeared in a might panic. He came over to the two Listers and sat down, shaking, looking over his shoulder nervously. He ordered two hologrammatic double triple whiskies. Holly thought this was a bit more than he could handle, so he created a whole bottle of whisky instead. Rimmer took several long swigs, and told Lister about how mad he thought Arlene was, and how she wouldn’t stop pestering him.
Deb just laughed.
“Well, I’m glad someone finds this funny. How much longer are we stopping for?” Rimmer looked at Lister anxiously and made the almost full bottle into an almost empty bottle in an attempt to calm himself down.
“Actually, I was thinking we could all stay indefinitely. Then I could be with my kids.” Lister said, tongue in cheek, but Rimmer in his drunken state did not hear the sarcasm in Lister’s voice. To be honest, he had downed the whisky so fast that he was having enough trouble just seeing Lister!
“WHAT?!!! I can’t stay here, not with that crazy woman around!”
“Relax, Rimmer. I was only kidding. Holy says it’s dangerous for us to stay here too long as we don’t now what effects this place could have on us.”
“If we don’t get out of here soon, I know exactly what kind of an effect Arlene will try and have on me.” Rimmer downed the rest of the whisky and asked Holly to refill both bottles. He insisted that there were two bottles, despite Holly’s theory that this was just Rimmer’s double vision.
“It’s four in the morning, Rimmer. I’m not driving back to our ship in the state I’m in now.”
“Oh well of course not….I mean, I’m wouldn’t want you to get a ticket would I?”
“We’ll go first thing in the morning.”
“It is first thing in the morning!”
“In the meantime relax Rimmer.”
Rimmer drank his two bottles of whisky both at the same time, using his left arms, and considered the possibility of Holly being right about his double vision. He sighed. He relaxed. He fell off his chairs. He picked himself up.
“It’s no use. I can’t relax. She makes me so nervous.”
Arlene appeared a few minutes later. With his double vision, Rimmer saw both of her arrive and let out a double scream. He fainted, having had too much whisky and fell off his chairs again.
She looked at Rimmer flat out on the floor, and her face dropped in disappointment.
“He’s no good to anyone now.” She complained.
“He never was when he was sober.” Lister maintained. Then he beamed as t he realisation of a good idea swept over him. “Hey, I’ve got this great idea for a joke…”
“Good morning sugar lump.” Said Arlene, appearing from beneath the covers.
Rimmer screamed. Deb and Dave came rushing in and pretended to be shocked.
“Rimmer how could you do it?!” Deb said in disgust
“I….I…er…..I was drunk.” Stammered Rimmer, very dismayed. “Oh my God, I must be..” Rimmer suddenly had a terrifying vision of thousands of little giggling babies all dancing and chewing on his light bee.
Rimmer fainted for the third time in two days.
