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The Rimmer clones guarding Lister, Kryten, and the Cat opened a heavy wooden door and thrust their captives into a small, dimly lit cell, slamming the door behind them with theatrical flair.
"Well, this is great," Lister grumbled as he looked around the bleak cell. "First Rimmer bails on us and now his smegging clones want to kill us. I swear I'm gonna wring his neck when we finally find the bastard." He started pacing around the perimeter of the cell, looking for a possible way out.
"I'll be next in line for that, bud," agreed the Cat, carefully wiping some dust off his clothes. "I can't believe we're supposed to stay overnight in this dump—it'll totally ruin my outfit!"
A surprised yell from Lister punctuated Cat's statement. "Smeg! There's a body or somethin' in here!" Lister announced, recoiling from the object that he had accidentally tripped over.
The pale wintry sunlight that entered the cell through its one barred window barely illuminated the far side of the cell in which Lister stood, so he couldn't make out any details of the huddled shape that was propped in the corner.
Cat's eyes weren't limited by the poor light. "Hey, that's goalpost-head!" the Cat declared as he joined Lister. "What's he doing in here?"
"That's Rimmer?" Lister asked in disbelief. He squatted down next to the shadowy figure and shook its shoulder roughly. "OK, Rimmer. Time to wake up and face the music."
There was no answer.
"His eyes are open," Cat observed. "He looks dead."
"He can't be dead," Lister said matter of factly. "He's a hologram. He's probably pretending to be asleep 'cause he's too cowardly to face us after the stunt he pulled."
"As I was telling Mr. Rimmer only this morning, sir—well, this morning from our point of view," Kryten pontificated, "it is possible for holograms to die, and Mr. Rimmer was at great risk of doing so. However, my scans indicate that he is, in fact, alive at the moment."
Lister's eyes had begun to adjust to the dim light, and now he could see that the Cat was right—Rimmer's eyes were wide open and totally unfocused. The sight was rather unnerving, as was Rimmer's absolute silence. "C'mon, Rimmer. Wake up!" he ordered as he shook his shoulder again. Rimmer's body rocked back and forth under his hand, but there was no independent movement or response from the hologram. This was definitely odd, and Lister's concern ratcheted up a notch.
After a moment, what Kryten had said penetrated Lister's consciousness. "Hang on a mo'—what d'you mean Rimmer's at risk of dyin'? I thought you said he was only suffering from bad nerves."
"I said he had a nervous disorder, which is true as far as it goes. Mr. Rimmer asked me not to inform you of his true condition. I can't violate his confidence."
"You'll tell me everything you know right now, Kryten, or I'll violate your warranty in a thoroughly unpleasant way," Lister said grimly, looking up at the mechanoid.
A variety of frowns and grimaces raced across Kryten's face as he wrestled with conflicting priorities. Finally, he decided that Lister's authority outweighed Rimmer's, especially given the current nonresponsive state of the latter. He sighed and began to explain: "The results of Mr. Rimmer's medical indicated that his T count was extremely high and that he was therefore in grave danger of experiencing the electronic equivalent of a stroke or aneurysm. As I informed Mr. Rimmer, he needed to relax and avoid all types of stress in order to stave off such a fate."
Lister looked down at Rimmer's lax features and blank eyes. "So you're sayin' that he's like this 'cause he had a stroke?"
"I'm not really sure," Kryten admitted. "His condition doesn't seem to fit with that diagnosis. I'd really need to run some tests with the medi-comp to be certain."
"Well, let's get back to Starbug then and find out what's up," Lister said. "First we've gotta figure out how to break outta here, though."
Kryten held up the teleporter. "There's no need. We can simply use the teleporter."
"Brutal!" Lister said. "C'mon, give us a hand here." He began tugging at Rimmer's shoulders, trying to straighten the hologram's slumped body in preparation to picking him up. The motion disturbed a family of mice that had apparently been nesting in Rimmer's quilted jacket, and they high-tailed it away from the unexpected earthquake. Cat eyed them speculatively, weighing the fun of chasing them against the possibility of ruining his manicure.
Kryten reached down and easily lifted Rimmer up, only to be stopped short by an unexpected resistance. "I'm afraid we have a bit of a problem, sir," Kryten announced, putting Rimmer down on the cell's single bench-like pallet. "Mr. Rimmer's leg is chained to the wall. I'll have to teleport to Starbug to get some tools, then return here so that we can free him."
"All right¬—but hurry. I really don't want to hang around this place any longer than necessary."
Kryten nodded, then pushed some buttons on the teleporter and dematerialized, leaving Lister and Cat alone with the silent and motionless Rimmer.
Lister sat down next to the hologram and looked at the massive chain encircling his bare ankle. The Rimmer clones apparently hadn't been taking any chances regarding his escape. I wonder how long he was chained up in this hell hole? Lister mused. He shuddered at the thought of spending any length of time in the dreary, claustrophobia-inducing confines of the cell. And if Rimmer had been ill on top of that—well, it was more punishment than he would have ever wished on the hologram, no matter how angry he was about Rimmer's desertion.
Cat's attention was still focused on the mice, one of which he had managed to trap with his feet in the corner where Rimmer had been lying. As he leaned down to toy with it further, he noticed some scratches on the wall. "Hey," he said. "There's something written here."
"Really?" Lister asked. "What's it say?"
"It's just our names—Lister, Kryten, Cat. Then it says 'Sorry.' That's it, except for these weird bundles of scratches that are all over the place."
"It's a calendar" Lister explained, scanning the walls and noting their presence for the first time. "If we knew what each stroke stood for—a day, a month, a year, or whatever—then we could figure out how long Rimmer's been in here." Judging from the number of tick marks, it had been a long time—obviously long enough for Rimmer to repent of his actions and try to communicate that fact to them. The knowledge that Rimmer was sorry caused the remnants of Lister's anger to dissipate. He placed his hand on Rimmer's shoulder again, this time much more gently, and gave it a squeeze. "We're gonna get you outta here soon, mate. Just hang on."
A humming sound heralded the return of Kryten with the requisite tools. Within minutes, the chain was removed and the crew returned to Starbug with their wayward shipmate.
"So what's the scoop, Kryten?" Lister asked as the mechanoid examined the results from the medi-comp. Cat had returned to the cockpit to pilot the Bug safely away from the planet.
"According to the computer, Mr. Rimmer is perfectly fit," Kryten answered with a puzzled look on his face. "There are no anomalies in his electronic systems, and his T count is back down to a normal level."
"So if he hasn't had a stroke, why's he imitating a stiff?"
"The only possible explanation is that it's psychological—perhaps an extreme reaction to solitude. Mr. Rimmer must have retreated within his own mind and blocked out the external world. Whether it was a voluntary action or insanity, who knows?"
Lister could understand why Rimmer might have wanted to take such a drastic action in order to escape his fate. It was almost impossible to imagine spending six hundred years entirely alone. In the immediate aftermath of Rimmer's escape in the pod, Lister had laughed when he heard the length of time that Rimmer would be stranded, considering it well-deserved payback for having abandoned them. Looking at what time had done to the hologram, however, he knew that the reality was anything but funny. I know I couldn't have survived by meself. I wouldn't have lasted six months, let alone six hundred years. Why did we all think that it wouldn't bother Rimmer? Just because he's a world-class smeghead doesn't mean he isn't human.
"How do we snap him out of it?" Lister asked, hoping that Kryten would have a simple solution, but fearing that mental problems were probably beyond his expertise.
"I don't think there's anything we can do short of accessing his memory banks and erasing the entire experience from his mind. Even then, there's no guarantee that he would emerge from his catatonic state, although the probability is fairly high."
Lister frowned, his mind rapidly running through the pros and cons of the suggested course of action. "I'm not sure Rimmer would want us to do that, Kryten. He's a bit tetchy about anybody messin' with his memories." Rimmer had been furious when he discovered that Lister had uploaded memories of one of his own romances into his mind. It was quite likely he'd feel the same way about anyone removing memories of things he had actually experienced¬. It made sense, Lister supposed—it would be difficult to function and grow if you couldn't trust your own memory.
"The only other thing I can think of is to essentially reboot him—turn him off altogether and then restart his program."
"Can we do that without being able to get at his light bee?"
"Yes. We'd have to turn off the main projection unit, however, which means running the risk of something going wrong during the process. If his main program were to be damaged, there would be no way to bring Mr. Rimmer back."
"Smeg. Sounds like we're stuck between tryin' to play zero-gee football blindfolded and jugglin' fire with one hand tied behind our backs."
Kryten remained silent, waiting for Lister to make the final decision. Lister moved closer to the diagnostic table and looked down at Rimmer. Knowing that it was futile but hoping for some type of reaction anyway, he waved his hand in front of the staring eyes. Nothing. Not even a flicker.
Lister sighed deeply. "Before we try anything drastic, let's give him a bit of time. Maybe he'll be able to sense that he's back home if we talk to him, let him know that he's not alone anymore. He probably hasn't heard any friendly voices for a long time. He might notice the change after a day or so. Let's hope so, anyway."
"And if it doesn't work?" inquired Kryten.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Lister said. "For now, let's get him cleaned up and into the sleeping quarters."
The door of the sleeping quarters swooshed closed behind Kryten, leaving Lister alone with Rimmer for the first time since the escape pod incident. Rimmer lay on his back on one of the bunks, his head slightly propped up on two pillows. His hair was damp from the shower, and he was now dressed in his light-blue pajamas with "Home Sweet Home" embroidered on them. Lister wondered, not for the first time, who had done the embroidery. He couldn't picture Mrs. Rimmer doing anything so domestic¬—or, for that matter, doing anything at all for her youngest son. Before the accident, Lister had assumed that the embroidery was the handiwork of a girlfriend or female relative, but now he knew there had been no such people in Rimmer's life. That left Rimmer himself as the main suspect, which was rather sad in a way. Rimmer looked very young and vulnerable lying there, but his blank, wide-open eyes testified to the fact that time had taken a cruel toll on him.
Lister had been disappointed that the shower hadn't caused Rimmer to regain awareness of his surroundings. If a cascade of cold water didn't do the trick, what would? He'd told Kryten that friendly voices might be the key, so might as well start putting that theory to the test.
"Feelin' better, mate? You can wake up now, you know. You're back on Starbug and far away from those weird clones of yours. Man, they were nutters. Absolutely barkin'. Wonder what that says about their creator..."
Lister's voice trailed off as he wondered whether Rimmer had gone insane during the centuries he had been gone. He could hear Rimmer's panicked voice in his head: I'll go raving mad! Damn, he hoped that hadn't happened. Obviously, something had broken in Rimmer's mind or he wouldn't be lying there completely oblivious to the fact that he had been rescued. But surely it wasn't permanent. He couldn't bear to think of Rimmer waking up as utterly insane as Dr. Lanstrom had been. What would they do then?
"Smeg," Lister sighed as he sat down heavily on the edge of the bunk next to Rimmer. "We've got your body back. I sure hope we can get your mind back, too." He gazed intently into Rimmer's eyes and brushed a damp curl off the hologram's forehead. "If you're worried about whether we're still sore at you, don't be: We're not. At least, I'm not. I accept your apology, and I think I can understand why you scarpered. It can't have been easy hearin' that your brain was gonna to explode if you got stressed out, and then bein' thrown into a situation like that... "
"You've just gotta understand why it bothered me so much that you ran off like you did." Lister paused. It was difficult for him to examine why he had reacted so strongly to Rimmer's desertion, but he felt a need to do so—for both his own sake and for Rimmer's. "I felt...betrayed, I guess. I mean, we've been through so much crap in the past few years, and we've always seen it through together. I couldn't believe that you'd just ignore all that to save your own skin. I know now why you did it, but right then all I could think of was that someone else I cared about was leavin' me." What the hell am I sayin'? I care about Rimmer? When did that happen?
The idea of feeling friendship—and perhaps something deeper—for Rimmer was new and disturbing to Lister. He'd have to think about it in more depth, but not right now. Right now it was too much to deal with. "Look, mate, I've gotta get back to the cockpit. I'll be back later when me shift's done, OK?" Giving one last squeeze to Rimmer's shoulder, Lister rose and hastily left the sleeping quarters. Rimmer never noticed his departure.
Later that night, Lister lay tossing in his bunk, unable to sleep. "Rimmer? You awake?" he asked, even though he knew there would be no answer. When he had returned from his shift, Rimmer had been in precisely the same position and condition as when he had left. His immobility had reminded Lister of the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, and the thought of trying to wake Rimmer with a kiss had flitted through his mind, only to be dismissed as nonsense brought on by exhaustion. He had climbed into his own bunk, intending to escape having to think further about their relationship by falling asleep; unfortunately, sleep was proving elusive.
"What are we to each other?" Lister continued. "Do you even like me? Do I really like you, or is it just that I've been by meself too long? Not that I'm sayin' I love you or nothin'," he added hastily. "I'm just natterin' on." But the word was out in the open now, and Lister couldn't put it back in its box within his mind. "Smeg. I dunno how I feel. When you scarpered in the pod, it really, really hurt. More than it should have." He turned over in his bunk, sighing. "You'd better snap out of it soon so I can stop thinkin' about stuff like this, or I'll end up goin' crazy too. "
A week passed. Rimmer remained catatonic, much to Lister's dismay. "What's goin' on in that mind of yours, Rimmer?" he asked during one of his nightly monologues as he lay awake in his bunk. "Is anybody home? You've gotta give us some kind of sign here. Kryten's buggin' me to reboot you or to erase your memories, but I don't want to mess with your mind unless there's no other choice. With my luck, we'd just smeg things up and end up with you runnin' around in a dress and tryin' to kill us again. Besides, it doesn't seem right, playin' with your mind like that. No one's got the right to muck about in your brain without your say-so. Still, I wish I knew what you were thinkin'.
As for what I'm thinkin'—well, I'm not really sure about that, either. I know I miss you, which is weird, since you're right here in the room with me. Problem is, you're not really here, are you? I wish you'd come back. It's kind of lonely here without you."
Loneliness. What do I know about loneliness? Rimmer's been alone for centuries. It was hard to comprehend what that must have been like. Had the hologram thought about him? Had he missed him? Would he even remember him if he ever came out of his catatonic state? What if he never recovered?
Suddenly Lister couldn't stand being so far away from Rimmer. He jumped out of his bunk and crawled into the other man's bed. If a friendly voice might help, then a friendly touch might do some good, too, he told himself, rationalizing his desire to be close to Rimmer as being solely for the other's benefit. He wrapped his arms around the hologram, holding him tight, and laid his head on his shoulder. "I'm here, Rimmer," he said softly. "You're not alone any more." And if you come back to me, I won't be either.
It felt good to hug Rimmer. He was warm and solid—if you didn't know he was a hologram, you wouldn't have been able to tell from touching him. He felt the same way he had the last time Lister had hugged him, on that wretched psi-moon a year or so ago, when he had been human for a brief time. Thinking about that now made Lister feel guilty. They had used Rimmer's feelings in order to escape from the psi-moon, and then laughed at him. That must have hurt every bit as much as Rimmer abandoning him on the simulant's ship had—and he had never apologized for it. Shit. Why would Rimmer want to come back to someone who had treated him like that?
"Listen, Rimmer," he began in a tentative voice. "I've been thinkin'. I want to apologize for what happened when we were tryin' to get off that psi-moon. I didn't mean to hurt you. I think. . . I think I was scared to admit to meself that maybe the things I was sayin' weren't entirely made up. It was just easier to turn it into a joke, you know? And then it was easier to forget all about it.
"I guess what I'm sayin' is that I'm sorry an' that it won't be like that in the future. I can't promise I'll never hurt you, but I'll sure as hell try not to. So it's safe to come back, if that's part of what's botherin' you. Things'll be better than they were." And if by some miracle you actually feel about me the way I do about you, they'll be better for both of us. "All you've gotta do is wake up. That's easy enough, right? So please, please wake up."
Rimmer remained silent. Lister sighed and closed his eyes, taking what comfort he could in Rimmer's physical presence. It felt marginally better lying beside him than alone in his own bunk, so he decided to stay put for the night. "G'night Rimmer," he said, planting a tentative kiss on his cheek. So much for not tryin' the Sleeping Beauty thing "See you in the mornin'." I hope.
Deep within Rimmer's mind, electronic synapses recorded the bestowal of the kiss. His conscious mind generally ignored sensations from the outer world because for a long time they had consisted of nothing but pain or unending sameness. But this sensation was different. It resonated with Rimmer's innermost thoughts, where he was living out his fantasy of perfect love with Lister. The correspondence between dream and reality opened a tiny crack in the shell that had protected Rimmer for so long. He wasn't ready to totally open himself to the external world—on a level beyond conscious thought, his mind continued to protect itself instinctively—but the crack allowed some sensations from the real world to filter through into his subconscious.
Another week passed. Lister spent every night in Rimmer's bunk, holding him and talking to him, but nothing changed except the growing fear in Lister's mind that Rimmer could not be cured by time and love alone. I'll give it another week, he told himself. If nothing changed by then, they'd have to take the more drastic step of trying one of Kryten's suggestions. The responsibility weighed heavily on Lister. It wasn't a decision he wanted to make—there was way too much that could go wrong.
Lister's self-imposed deadline was drawing near. As it happened, so was his birthday, which Lister wanted to ignore. His last birthday had been a lot of fun. The others had organized a party in Red Dwarf's Officer's Club, and they had spent practically the whole day eating, drinking, and playing stupid games. Rimmer had presented him with a flashy pin that had become a permanent part of his wardrobe, affixed to his hat. Now, a year later, he still had the pin but had lost Red Dwarf and, for all intents and purposes, Rimmer. There didn't seem any reason to celebrate. He had informed Kryten of his wish to let the day go unremarked, but the mechanoid had insisted on at least baking a cake.
Somehow, Lister managed to make it through the dreaded day. After a thoroughly depressing birthday dinner, Lister escaped to the sleeping quarters he shared with Rimmer. He managed to crawl into bed next to Rimmer and embrace him tightly before he totally lost control of his emotions. He held onto Rimmer with something akin to desperation as he sobbed into the hologram's shoulder.
"Please wake up, Rimmer," he said pleadingly after his crying jag ended. "I can't go on like this. I need you, man. I need some meanin' to me life—somethin' more than just runnin' around in circles in deep space. I think...I think we could create somethin' pretty special together, if you wanted to. At the very least, we could help keep each other sane. It looks like neither one of us does too well without the other. I guess Holly knew what he was doin' way back when."
Lister lapsed into silence, thinking about the early days on board Red Dwarf after the accident. Adjusting to the situation had been difficult, and he had thought that Rimmer was part of the problem rather than the solution. But now he could see that arguing and living with the hologram had been therapeutic—a comforting bit of normality amidst the strangeness of his new life. And they had managed to have fun together, which he hadn't acknowledged at the time to Rimmer. Lister hoped now that Rimmer had known on some level that he cared about him, that he wasn't just another person who thought the universe would be better off if Arnold J. Rimmer had never existed.
"If you don't wake up real soon, we're gonna have to try one of Kryten's suggestions. I really don't want to do that to you, man, but I don't know what else to do." The knowledge of his responsibilities toward Rimmer and the rest of the crew weighed heavily on him, deepening his depression. "I wish I could just join you, wherever you are, and forget about all me problems. Maybe you had the right idea after all. Wherever you are's gotta be better than here, and if we could be there together, it'd be perfect. But since I can't think of how to join you, you've gotta come back to me—soon. Please!"
A few stray tears flowed down Lister's cheeks as he started to drift off to sleep, still in the grips of despair, and splashed onto Rimmer's neck. The warm tears were interpreted by Rimmer's mind as summer rain falling lightly on him as he walked with Lister through verdant forests such as he had seen only in books and, briefly, on Rimmerworld. He wondered why Lister was asking him to wake up. He was awake, after all. He gave his companion a funny look and decided that Lister was simply trying to get him to appreciate the beauty of the forest—to wake up and smell the roses, as it were. But he'd long ago learned to appreciate the roses; it was the thorns that were the problem. He knew he needed to avoid those at all costs.
Finally, the day Lister had set as the deadline was reached, without any noticeable change in Rimmer's condition. After consulting with Kryten, Lister had decided that their best bet was to try erasing Rimmer's traumatic memories. The idea made him uneasy, since it reminded him of a barbaric procedure called a frontal lobotomy that he had seen in some old movies, but they seemed to have run out of options.
Lister helped Kryten settle Rimmer onto the diagnostic bed in the medi-bay and watched as Kryten hooked up various electrodes and leads to the hologram. Because Starbug lacked a full-scale hologram simulation suite, they would not be able to access Rimmer's memories visually using a viewscreen. Instead, Kryten would have to interface with Rimmer's memory banks and interpret the machine language so that he could judge what portions needed to be erased. It would be a time-consuming process that would require great concentration on Kryten's part.
"OK, Kryten. He's all yours," Lister said as he sat down on one of the room's bunks so as to be out of the way. "Take care of him, all right?"
"Of course, Mr. Lister, sir," Kryten replied. It had not escaped his notice that Lister had grown increasingly gloomy over the past few weeks. He hoped that restoring Mr. Rimmer to normal would take care of that problem as well. "Beginning interface."
The day had begun well for Rimmer. He and Lister had eaten a late breakfast and then started working on building a sun porch for their house. He would never have been capable of designing and building such a thing on his own, but with Lister in charge the project was going smoothly. Rimmer was pleasantly surprised that his own woodworking skills were actually proving satisfactory for the task. He seemed to vaguely remember that they hadn't always been this good.
Suddenly, however, the day took a turn into nightmare. The house shook violently and the very air seemed to shimmy vertiginously. For a split second, reality wavered and was almost extinguished. What the smeg? Rimmer thought. The clones don't have that kind of technology! He dropped his tools and glanced around, searching for Lister. His heart sank as he discovered the whereabouts of his partner: Two of the Rimmer clones had Lister in their grasp, and one was pointing a nasty-looking gun at his temple. The clone smiled. "Neither of you belong here. This is our planet. It's time for you to say good-bye." His finger tightened on the trigger, ready to wipe Lister out of existence.
"No!" Rimmer screamed. "Not Lister!" He launched himself at the clones, heedless of the danger to himself.
Rimmer's scream, although vocally weak and hoarse, echoed throughout the medi-bay and chilled Lister's blood. "Stop!" Lister yelled frantically to Kryten. "Stop—it's hurtin' him!"
Kryten withdrew hurriedly from the interface, uncertain just what had caused the negative reaction. He had found what he thought was the starting point of Rimmer's imprisonment and had begun to erase all memories after that point when suddenly Rimmer's mind had fought back, trying to sever the connection.
Rimmer landed roughly on the ground, having missed the target of his tackle. The clones seemed to have vanished into thin air. He urgently scanned the area, trying to determine where the enemy had gone. There was no trace of them, but what was more worrying was that there was no trace of Lister.
"Lister!" he yelled, thoroughly panicked. "Listy! Where are you?"
In the real world, Lister strained to understand what Rimmer was mumbling to himself. He thought he heard his name, although he suspected that might have been wishful thinking on his part.
"Rimmer!" he said, grabbing the hologram's arm and squeezing it. "It's me—Listy. You're gonna be fine—all you have to do is wake up."
Rimmer moaned and tossed agitatedly on the diagnostic bed. Lister's hopes grew. It was the most movement Rimmer had made since they had rescued him from the cell.
"C'mon, mate, you can do it. Wake up!"
"Wake up!" The voice echoed within his mind. Was he dreaming? Was Lister still alive and all he had to do was open his eyes to find him? It was worth a try.
Rimmer's eyes blinked rapidly and seemed to come back into focus.
"Yes!" Lister exulted, encouraged by the signs of returning awareness.
Rimmer's eyes turned toward the sound. "Listy!" Rimmer croaked, his voice rusty from disuse. "Thank god the clones didn't get you!"
"Huh?" That wasn't exactly what Lister had been expecting to hear.
"There are no clones here, Mr. Rimmer, sir," Kryten said calmly. "We rescued you from the S3 planet on which you were marooned. You're back on board Starbug and have been for some time now."
Rimmer looked confused. "But...but, if I was dreaming... we can't be on board Starbug—we agreed not to use it unless there was an emergency. And there's no clones here, so there's no emergency..." He trailed off, totally disoriented. If the clones' attempt to murder Lister had been a dream, then he should have woken up beside Lister in their house.Maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe I'm dead. Oh, smeg!
Lister frowned as Rimmer turned ghostly white. "You OK, mate?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
"Am I...am I dead?" Rimmer managed to ask between gasps for air.
"Of course not," answered Lister. Technically, of course, Rimmer had been dead for over 3 million years, but Lister had never thought of the hologram in that way. To Lister, he was very much a real, living entity.
"Then how...?" Rimmer asked vaguely, sitting up and taking in his surroundings for the first time. It certainly looked like the interior of Starbug.
Kryten launched into an explanation of how they had found Rimmer in a catatonic state in the cell on Rimmerworld and of the events that had transpired since then. Lister watched Rimmer's face closely as the hologram listened to Kryten's recital, and was surprised to see a growing sadness there rather than the relief and gratitude he had expected.
"Oh," said Rimmer flatly after Kryten was done. "I see." Damn! So none of it was real. Lister doesn't love me, Kryten and Cat aren't my good friends, and I'm back to being stuck on board a ship so small it's hard to stay out of people's way when you know they don't want you around. Marvelous. "Well, thanks for rescuing me," he continued, his eyes fixed on the floor. "I'm sorry to have been such a bother."
The uncharacteristic apology and the emotionless monotone in which it was delivered set off warning bells in Lister's mind. Something wasn't right with Rimmer. He needed to find out what was going on, but for that they needed some privacy. "Well, Kryten," he said, turning to him. "It looks like we're done here, so you can get back to whatever you were doing. Thanks for your help!"
Kryten smiled and wandered off to fold sheets. Lister turned to Rimmer. "Well, let's go to our quarters. You'll probably want to get changed."
Rimmer looked down at the pajamas he was wearing. "Oh. Right." He hopped off the diagnostic table and swayed dizzily from the unaccustomed motion. Lister grabbed his arm to keep him upright, placing his other hand on the small of the hologram's back to steady him.
Rimmer gulped. He could feel the warmth of Lister's hand through the thin cotton of the pajama top, and the sensation combined with Lister's proximity was having a marked effect on his anatomy. If this had been the Lister he had been dreaming about for so many centuries, this wouldn't have been a problem. Given the reality of the situation, however, he was embarrassed and worried about Lister noticing his condition. He tried to pull his arm out of Lister's grasp, but Lister merely tightened his hold and pulled the hologram toward him into a hug.
"God, I missed you, Rimmer," he murmured into Rimmer's ear, heedless of whether anyone saw or heard him. He had waited so long to be able to say this that he couldn't wait any longer. "I love you and I'm really glad you're back." His body registered the presence of Rimmer's erection pressing into him and he smiled joyfully. It seemed as if Rimmer might actually reciprocate his feelings.
A slight gasp escaped Rimmer. Was this real or just another dream? He pulled back slightly to examine Lister's face intently. Lister looked real enough, and his eyes were shining with an emotion that seemed suspiciously like love. But then the thought that it might be a joke ran through Rimmer's mind. Yes, it had to be. After all, he wasn't worth loving for real. He had run away when the going got rough. His face fell and he opened his mouth to tell Lister that he didn't need to pretend to care about him.
Oh no you don't, thought Lister as he watched Rimmer wrestle with himself and obviously convince himself that Lister wasn't serious. He leaned forward and kissed Rimmer passionately, pressing his own erection into the hologram's thigh.
At first Rimmer didn't respond, as if he weren't sure what to do. But then he returned Lister's kiss every bit as passionately as he enveloped the other man in a rib-crushing embrace.
When they finally broke apart to come up for air, Lister smiled up at Rimmer. "C'mon, mate. Let's get back to our quarters fast so we can make up for lost time." He was thrilled when a million-watt smile broke over Rimmer's face as he nodded his agreement.
After making love, Rimmer and Lister lay together in tired contentment. Lister stroked Rimmer's cheek gently with his fingertips. "Rimmer?" he began tentatively. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"What were you talkin' about when you woke up—about bein' glad the clones didn't get me and about not usin' Starbug except in emergencies?"
Rimmer blushed. "In my mind, we were together...like we are now. You and Kryten and Cat rescued me from the prison cell, and we all settled on a remote part of the planet, far from the clones. Kryten and Cat built their own places, and so did we. We kept Starbug operational in case we needed it to escape the clones. Right before I woke up, I—dreamed, I guess, although it seemed so real—that we were being attacked and that the clones had found us. They were going to kill us, and one of them had a gun aimed at you. It was horrible." He shuddered. "And then I heard your voice telling me to wake up, so I did."
"So all the time you were catatonic, you were thinkin' about bein' together with me?"
"Yes. Thinking about you—all of you, but especially you, Listy—was the only thing that kept me going while I was stuck in that god-awful prison. I was really afraid that I'd forget who you were. There were times I think I did forget. At one point I wrote your names on the wall to help me remember."
"Yeah, we saw 'em," said Lister.
"I don't know when I slipped into the fantasy world for good," Rimmer continued, "but it's probably a good thing I did. I doubt I'd have lasted if I had had to live in the real world for all that time." His eyes looked haunted as he remembered all that he had been through—the torture the clones had inflicted on him in an attempt to gain information about other worlds to conquer, the numerous attempts they had made to carry out the punishment of death that their ruler had decreed for him, and the soul-crushing loneliness he had experienced as time passed agonizingly slowly.
The look in Rimmer's eyes made Lister shiver and snuggle closer, hugging Rimmer reassuringly. "Don't think about it if you don't want to. You're safe now. But if you do want to talk about it at any time, I'm here and I'll listen. I promise."
"But I screwed up," Rimmer said quietly, almost reluctantly. "I ran away and left you to deal with that simulant by yourselves....How can you ever forgive me?"
"I forgave you as soon as I found out from Kryten what was really goin' on—about your stress levels and the medical an' all that. So don't worry about it any more, OK? Nobody knows what they'd do in a situation like that 'til it actually happens to them, so nobody can judge you. We saw the note you wrote on the cell wall, and we all accept your apology. Case closed."
"But..."
"No buts!" interrupted Lister. "And no more arguin'. If you're awake enough to argue, then you're awake enough for another round." And with that he rolled on top of Rimmer and began kissing him, effectively ending any further objection from the hologram.
Rimmer relaxed and let his worries go for the moment. There would be time later to deal with the past and the future. For now, he would savor the joy of the present.