Chapter One
"I won't do it," Arnold crossed his arms, glaring at the other version of himself. Ace didn't even look put out by his response, in fact he looked like he'd been expecting it. It was common knowledge among both parties that they didn't like one another, though Ace put on a good show of appearing that he liked his other self for the benefit of others around them. Arnold could read his other self like an open book, after all, who would know himself better than himself? Maybe, Dave Lister, he seemed to be able to read Arnold and know when he was upset when he was trying to hide his feelings from the others.
Ace kept his voice calm. "I know that you don't want to do it Arnie, but you are me. Another version of me. Believe me when I say you have it in you to be Ace, to do what I do. Haven't you always wanted to pilot your own ship?"
"I know I'm another version of you. You don't need to rub it in that you're the better version of me. Here's hopeless Arnie who never made it into the Space Corps. I'll let you know that I am already piloting my own ship! What do you think I have been doing for the last however many years? I have to do a little bit of everything and have been learning as much as I can to keep this rust bucket operational ever since I got my hard-light drive. Even before I got my hard-light drive."
Ace tried again. "Didn't you want to be like John, a test pilot in all the action? A hero who saves damsels in distress, where people worship the ground you work on. It's hard work, but it pays off at the end of the day. This is your chance to fill your childhood dream."
Arnold pressed his lips together. Ace still wasn't getting through to him, and they both knew it.
"Once I wanted to do all that. I wanted to rescue the girl and be a hero. Have people look up to me. The action, the excitement and everything that goes along with it. But I've come to realise, I like the quiet things in life. I don't want to be a space adventuring hero who always puts there life on the line for people that I don't know and will never see again. I have a hard enough time doing that for the people I do know and myself.
"I want to be my own person. I don't want to be like John, Frank, Howard, Uncle Frank and the last thing I want to be like is you. We may be the same person from different dimensions, but we are not the same. I don't have to follow in your footsteps. I am going to carve my own footsteps even if that means spending the rest of eternity with Lister, Kryten, and Cat in this pile of junk. You know what? I've done it for several years already and the rest of eternity doesn't look so bad."
Ace's smile still didn't falter. Arnold continued glaring at him from the other end of the bed Ace was lying on. The ship was quiet, the only sound was the hum of the engine, the occasional glitch of the dying light-bee and the heavy breathing of the two Rimmers. Ace knew that they could both continue on for hours, hours that Ace didn't have.
"Look, Arnie, I am dying, and I don't have much time. Wildfire brings me to a dimension to train the next Ace Rimmer. I am to train you with the little time I have." The concern showed itself on Ace's face. He was concerned that he was going to fail to get Arnold to accept and trained in time. He didn't want the legacy to end with him. "You can be a hero."
Arnold snorted. He didn't have a heroic bone in his body. Not that he had any bones being made up of light and all that. He was the last version of himself he would call on to be a hero. He was a snivelling, conniving coward who would throw his teammates to the lions or more likely GELFs or Simulants to survive. That was not the trait of a heroic person. Kryten had made a list of all his horrible traits.
"Even if I wanted to be Ace, which I don't. I wouldn't last five minutes. I am not going to put myself in danger intentionally when my T count is far too high during normal day-to-day operation. I wouldn't last a week. The first dangerous situation I came across and I would be burnt out before I could say Oh smeg." In truth, he wouldn't last a full day.
Ace didn't believe a word that Arnold said. Wildfire would never bring him to a dimension with an Arnold Rimmer who was close to permanent death. Before he could ask about the condition of Arnold's light-bee, he realised he was getting asked the question he was about to ask.
"Have you tried to fix your light-bee? What is even wrong with it in the first place?" Arnold asked, showing concern, a concern that he was trying to hide which Ace only recognised because they were the same person.
Ace opened his jacket which was hiding the leaking light, exposing the glitch in the projection system that was rapidly draining his power. "I'm beyond Wildfires repair capabilities. I know nothing about how to fix light-bees myself." The hologram was pale and sickly looking despite the fact that holograms weren't meant to get sick or suffer physical damage. Over the years, Arnold had discovered that just wasn't true. Holograms just got ill in a different way to humans. They could come down with viruses much like computer viruses, corrupted data and memory files, physical damage to the light-bee and or the holosuite would all cause permanent damage or death to a hologram.
Ace watched Arnold as he worked through something, finally coming up with an idea. Ace waited to see what Arnold would say. The look on his face was all too like the times when he tried to take on more than he could chew, but was overconfident in his abilities to do just that. Those moods usually lead to massive disappointment.
"I want to make a little wager with you," Arnold said, still radiating with confidence. "If I can fix your light-bee, I don't have to be Ace."
"If you fail you will fill my clothes and shoes, literally and become the next Ace Rimmer," Ace added to the bet. "I can agree to that."
After all, what did Ace have to lose? He was a dying man anyway. If by some miracle Arnold could save his life, he'd be the happiest man in the universe. The two Rimmer's shook hands, sealing the deal. Arnold didn't let go, helping Ace to his feet.
"We'll go to the medi-bay." Arnold continued talking as they went towards the small medical office that Starbug had to offer. "I've become pretty good at diagnosing my own light-bee issues over the years. I'm proud to say that I can even do most of my own maintenance since I become hard-light. I had to, you see. Especially after getting stuck on Rimmerworld alone for six hundred years. Of course, I can't do everything myself, just like a doctor can't do everything by themselves. I get Kryten and Lister to do everything that I can't do myself."
"Rimmerworld?" Ace questioned raising an eyebrow, stumbling slightly. He was expecting to fall flat on his face, but to his surprise he found Arnold wrapping his arm around him, keeping him upright the rest of the short walk to the medi-bay.
Arnold's face twisted as he considered if he'd answer the question or not. "Terrible place of my own creation. I got trapped on a planet for six hundred years with terraforming and cloning gear. Not a good combination if you ask me. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Thought that I'd clone myself so I didn't have to be alone until the others could collect me. Biggest mistake ever. Cowardly bunch of twats, they locked me up because I wasn't Rimmery enough. Me! The original. They put anyone to death who diverted from there so called perfect template. You should convince one of them to be the next Ace Rimmer."
Ace didn't believe a world Arnold was saying but found it was keeping him distracted from his upcoming death. "How did you manage to clone yourself when you are a hologram?" Ace asked, expecting to find a hole in the story.
Arnold looked embarrassed as he answered. "I had the scutters put a small portion of my ashes into my light-bee, so if I ever came across something that could clone myself again, I'd be able to clone a new body for myself. I didn't think of using my own remains the first time I found a machine that would have created an organic body. I spent hours looking for my old dandruff and skin flakes at the time. I'm now glad I put some of my remains into my light-bee. The rest of my ashes are on the Red Dwarf, wherever that is. I bet you think it's really morbid that I wanted to keep a part of my now dead body with me at all times."
Arnold helped Ace sit in the medi-bay. It looked rather primitive, and Ace really didn't think that anything in here would be able to help when state of the art Wildfire couldn't help him.
"I don't find that odd in the slightest Arnie, I actually kicking myself right now for not thinking of doing that myself. I was alive when I became Ace. My ashes are orbiting a planet, named Rimmerworld with all the ashes and light-bees of the Ace's that came before me. I wonder if it's the same planet as your Rimmerworld."
Arnold smiled, a genuine smile, that they did have something in common. Both men were glad that they didn't run into Kryten or Cat during the journey to the medi-bay. Ace wasn't looking well, and the droid and feline both worship the ground that Ace walked on would just to the wrong conclusion. They didn't believe he could do any wrong and would both accuse Arnold of hurting Ace even though that wasn't the case. They were not aware that said hero was already injured when he boarded the ship.
- Red Dwarf -
Ace watched Arnold as he prepared the medi-bay with different tools, programs on the computer and several books. Muttering to himself as he prepared.
Filled with faked failing confidence, Arnold took a deep breath trying to calm his nerves. It was one thing to fix himself, it was an entirely different thing to fix someone else, though technically he was still fixing himself, just another version of himself.
"To start off with, I'm going to run two lots of diagnostics to get an idea of what areas I'll need to focus on repairing," Arnold explained, hands fidgeting and knee jiggling as he spoke. "The first lot of diagnostics are while you are awake and focuses on your physical operations, thoughts, movement, breathing and everything else to emulate a living person. The next lot of diagnostics require you to be offline. These diagnostics focus on the code and hardware that keep you online."
"Soft-light?" Ace enquired.
Arnold nodded, going over to the console he'd prepared earlier which had to wires that were leading back to the computer.
The leaking light was far worse in soft-light mode then it had been in hard-light mode.
Arnold scrunched up his face. "I've never done this to another hologram before." Trying to keep his hand's steady as he distorted Ace's image and connected the wires to the light-bee. As soon as the wires were both connected the computer started spitting out data. Ace gulped seeing his life expectancy. He didn't even have enough time to train a new Ace Rimmer.
The door whooshed open, startling Arnold. Ace turned his head, smiling at the young man who entered. "Evening Skip."
Arnold was relieved to see that it wasn't Kryten or Cat. Dave wouldn't jump to conclusions like the other two would.
Dave nodded to the two Rimmers. "Just checking to make sure you hadn't killed each other. I checked here first when I saw you were no longer in the bunkroom. Ace, you alight?" The last human wasn't fazed in the slightest by Ace's holographic status as he examined the diagnostic cables going back to the computer. Arnold wondered if perhaps Dave already knew that Ace was a hologram.
"Right as rain, Skipper," Ace replied in his ever-chipper voice. He was now hiding the pain he'd been showing to Arnold only moments before. If one thing could be said for Ace, he was a good actor. Yet Arnold could see through him, and he was sure that Dave could as well.
Arnold rolled his eyes. "He's lying. Unless he's referring to acid rain. Doesn't have long unless I find some way to fix his light-bee."
Dave looked over Arnold's shoulder at the diagnostics. "Should I get Kryten? On second thought, I wouldn't get him. This is outside Kryten's experience and all he'd end up doing it worrying and burning out his worry and guild circuits again because he couldn't help. Between the two of us we should be able to do something."
"You're both gems," Ace continued to attempt to charm them both despite the damage.
"Ace, I'm going to turn you off now. Time for the next lot of diagnostics." Arnold was fiddling with the console and flicked the switch to turn off Ace's projection as soon as he got the nod of consent. The projection vanishing and the light-bee falling to the bed. He saw acceptance in Ace's eyes moments before he was shut off. He thought he was never going to get turned on again and that this was his last moment alive. Arnold gulped, he didn't think he could be that calm in the face of his own permanent death.
Arnold and Dave looked over the diagnostics in silence. Ace's reading were not getting worse while he was turned off. The light-bee was physically damaged, a scorch mark, several indents and a large gash down one side exposing the chips and wires that made up the light-bee. Most importantly no green light was spilling out the light-bee while it was turned off.
"This will buy me some time to come up with something," Arnold sighed. Turning to Dave to explain how Ace managed to get his light-bee damaged and the bet he's made to fix Ace. "Why did I make such a stupid bet. I can't fix his light-bee. I can't do anything right. Why would I make a bet when I cannot repair my own light-bee."
There was silence for a few moments. "What problems do you have with your light-bee that you can't fix? I've seen you repair your own light-bee on many occasions when you thought no one was paying attention. Did you think of asking myself or Kryten to have a look at your problem?"
"My T count is running too high. Kryten already knows about it. My anxiety is causing my light-bee to go haywire. A person who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks is not meant to be turned on. Everything should be tickety-boo if we ever find the Red Dwarf. With the holosuite I'd be able to do more extensive checks to get to the root of the problem, unlike the primitive diagnostics Starbug has. It's all pointless really. I should give up now. Ace is doomed, and it's all my fault."
Dave put a hand on Arnold's should. "I've never known you to give up on something so easily. You always give yourself challenges that you cannot succeed in. This time I believe you can and even if you do fail, it's not like you could make things worse. He's going to die if you do nothing. This isn't putting you in any danger which is the only time you run." Arnold gave Dave a weak smiled. "Rimmer, you've done a good job keeping yourself running. How many other holograms can say they've been around as long as you have and still in working condition without regular contact with other holgrams or technicians who specialise in holograms? I'm not counting the holograms on holoships because they have each other and specialise in holograms."
"The only other hologram not counting Ace and the holoship holograms was on Nova 5. She was glitched, I had to turn her off because I couldn't fix her. She was stuck reliving the same moment over and over again." Arnold couldn't keep his pain and guilt hidden from Dave. What an awful existence. She was stuck like that for over a million years, almost three million and would've kept looping like that until her power ran out. I couldn't do anything to help her. All I could do was turn her off." He turned to Dave, grabbing both shoulders. "Dave, promise me if I ever get stuck like that. Turn me off. As much as I don't want to die. I would rather be dead then exist for eternity like that."
The conversation was making Arnold feel somewhat depressed. He couldn't save the Nova 5 hologram whose name he didn't even remember, and he couldn't save Ace either.
"Sure thing man. And while I live I'd keep looking for a way to repair you so I could have you back again. You're the one that keeps me same. The diagnostics are going to take a while, you should take a break. He's not getting any worse."
"I'm going for a walk," Arnold said, walking out of the medi-bay, heading towards there quarters. There weren't many places to chose from to go through a walk in the small ship. They had the drive room, kitchen and living area, medi-bay, Dave's room, Arnold's room, Cat's room, cargo bay and the computer room that they also had the VR equipment stored since there was no other place they could hook the gear up.
Arnold missed walking through the Red Dwarf. There you could walk the corridors for days on end and not see anyone for weeks at a time. Arnold stopped, looking out one of the portal windows. Wildfire was tethered to their ship, having no room to land. He couldn't be Ace, flying around it that small ship only designed for one person. He'd develop claustrophobia to add on top of his list of growing phobias. He'd go space crazy being alone without Dave, just like he had on Rimmerworld.
- Red Dwarf -
Retreating to the small area that had been converted to a recreation area, Arnold sipped on a cup of tea. A mix to calm his nerves and to wait out the diagnostics from Ace. He looked out the portal. Maybe in another universe aliens existed. Perhaps if he became Ace, he'd meet some real live aliens that didn't want to kill him. It was so unfair that he'd spend hundreds of years in space and still had not come across aliens. Everything that was alien like originally came from Earth in one form or another.
He turned towards the door as he heard heavy footsteps that could only belong to Kryten unless they'd been invaded by mechanoids or simulants during the time he was lost in his thoughts about Ace.
Kyten stopped in front of him. "Ah, Mister Rimmer, sir, have you seen Mister Ace? I cannot find him anywhere." Concerned about Ace's well being but never seemed to show any concern for him. If he became Ace, would Kryten in other dimensions treat him like his Kryten treated Ace? He knew that the answer we yes. Did Ace have a Kryten in his dimension? What about Dave and the Cat? He assumed that he had Dave. It seemed that Arnold and Dave's lives were interconnected in some form between the other dimensions that they knew about.
"Last place I saw him was the medi-bay. He wasn't feeling himself after his last dimension," Arnold answered honestly without elaborating.
Kryten switched over to worry mode. "Mister Ace is unwell? I looked in the medi-bay and I could not see him. I must find him at once and help him if he's sick. Oh, poor Mister Ace."
Kryten was flustered as he started looking around the room and in the fridge and under the chairs.
"Kryten, it's nothing you need to worry yourself about," Arnold snapped. Why was it everyone had to care about Ace? What was so special about Ace? Ace was his concern right now and no one else's, well maybe Dave's since he was helping but not Kryten's and not Cats. "You probably missed him. Maybe he went for a walk like I did earlier."
Arnold watched Kryten continue his fruitless search for Ace. He could not believe that the mechanoid hadn't noticed the light-bee when he was in the medical bay earlier.
Arnold leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. What did Ace have that he didn't? What made him so appealing? Wasn't he just another version of him? How could he be despised so much and another version of himself be revered?
Cat would be happy if he left and never came back. Kryten also despised him even though he pretended he didn't. Dave was the only one that would maybe miss him, after all, he was brought back as a hologram to keep Dave sane and healthy. Why Holly chose him? He still wasn't sure, but it was probably because he'd already gone computer senile long before they'd lost the ship. Who knew what Holly was doing at that moment. The senile old dolt was probably the reason they'd miss placed the Red Dwarf in the first place. She probably didn't even realise they weren't on the ship when she'd flown off who knows where.
Arnold drained the rest of his tea. He'd had enough wallowing in self-pity, and the diagnostics that he was doing on Ace should be almost be completed.
- Red Dwarf -
From years of reading his own diagnostic reports and manning the navigation consoles on Red Dwarf, Blue Midget and finally Starbug, Arnold had become rather good at understanding the reports generated from a Jupiter Mining Corporation systems. Reading a Space Corps report or the reports for the private section ships, stations and outposts was a different matter. He could not make heads or tails of those reports.
Arnold took the reports back to his room. It was going to take a while to read through the report, especially since it was a report that spat out numbers. If he rushed himself where numbers were concerned, especially when he was trying to show off to Dave and Kryten he'd end up making a bigger fool of himself then if he took his time. He was awful with numbers. He hated them and yet they were everywhere and seemed to be needed for everything.
Numbers were the reason he kept failing his Astronavigation and engineering exams. He had the books memorised, heck he had the Space Corps directives memories, all of them committed to memory and yet he could not remember what number they were assigned unless he started reciting them from the very begging and even then after a certain point he started getting the numbers mixed up. He had to take his time with numbers if he was going to help Ace.
He did have one thing on his side, Ace was not declining while turned off. If he'd been deteriorating still, Arnold would've ended up in a fluster making the mistakes that he commonly made.
- Red Dwarf -
Arnold had picked up the report and read it in his room, he read through the report several times, a grin made its way to his face as he finished his final read through. He could actually do this. Ace's problem was something that he already knew how to fix. He even had the tools and the skills for once to fix the issues with Ace's light-bee. He couldn't believe it! It wasn't his luck, he had lousy luck. The luck must be Ace's luck.
With a skip in his step, Arnold returned to the medi-bay to put everything he needed together. Making sure he had all the steps sorted out in his head before he even touched the light-bee. Making a list and then a schedule for fixing the light-bee. Fixing Ace's light-bee would be time consuming. Arnold knew that he would eventually need Dave's help with welding the chips that required replacing. As a result of Arnold's anxiety, his hands shook and took a lot to steady his hands. Dave somehow had steadier hands when drunk then Arnold had on a day to day basis. When he got to the point of needing Dave's help, he'd ask him.
Satisfied that everything was in order, with his list and his schedule, Arnold picked up the light-bee to begin winning his bet with Ace.
- Red Dwarf -
Arnold jumped when he heard his name called. Looking around, startled to find that he wasn't alone, he found Dave who looked at home in the chair next to the bed in the medi-bay, a mixture between bored and fascinated if that was even possible.
"When did you get here?" Arnold asked, surprised to find how much energy it took to talk.
Dave stood up, walking over to examine his work. "I think it was two hours ago. You looked busy, and I didn't want to disturb you." Dave was glancing at the schedule that was now pinned to the wall.
"So why did you disturb me now?" Arnold asked. He hated being disturbed, especially when he was busy with something. Arnold tried not to look at the schedule, he'd gone overtime, and that would cause a different bout of anxiety about underestimating how long each step was going to take.
"You're light-bee had been indicating that you need to recharge for the last half hour and you haven't done anything about it," Dave informed him.
Arnold heard the tell-tale beep that his light-bee emitted when he was due for a recharge. When he was on Starbug, and nothing was going on, he usually made sure to keep his light-bee charge enough to allow for unexpected situations. He hated the feeling of charging, something that he didn't need to do when he was running on the Red Dwarf since he could switch between the holographic suite and the lightbee. He hated the feeling of charging up after he'd gone entirely flat, something that he tried not to let himself do.
"You've done a lot of work so far. How's Ace?" Dave asked, examining each and every one of the wires that were coming out of Ace's light-bee.
"Better but not yet ready to turn on." Arnold took the seat that Dave had vacated. "I'll need your help eventually to replace the hard-light projection chip. It's almost burnt out and what is causing the green light that we witnessed leaking from him. The softlight drive will need to be put back in place, it's come loose. I've still got a long way to go with correcting the code that has become corrupted by the damage that was caused. His memory modules and personality chips are still in working order. I have removed both, so they don't become corrupted if anything goes wrong with the light-bee. A lot can go wrong."
Arnold had to pause as a wave of exhaustion hit him, once it passed he continued explaining to Dave what he knew so far, Dave returning to his seat, listening patiently as he spoke.
"As a last resort Ace's memory module and personality chip can be patched into a replacement light-bee. It is something that I would prefer to avoid doing. Do you remember that time when we swapped bodies?"
"Yeah, I remember. It was fun being in your body for a little while, but it felt off. It felt so good when we finally swapped back."
"According to the books that I've read with comments by the holograms who have experienced the swap, describe the feeling as being like a body swap. The closest I have experienced myself is when Legion upgraded me. I was so excited to be able to touch and feel again that I don't know if I felt lost or odd like the book describes."
Arnold rubbed his temples, as his lightbee beeped once again.
"Everything can wait for now, yeah? Because you really need to recharge."
Arnold nodded, struggling to stand to his feet. "Recharge time for me and bedtime for you after you help put me on charge."
- Red Dwarf -
Starbug seemed to keep him on charge longer than necessary. Arnold wasn't sure if something was broken with the charging system, his lightbee or both. It was supposed to turn his lightbee back on as soon as the charge of the internal battery was at one hundred percent. Instead it kept him on charge for a full six hours after the charging was done. It only took two hours to charge, leaving him eight hours on the charger, throwing out his body clock since he didn't notice the passage of time while charging. He ended up staying on the charger for that amount of time if he charged overnight when everyone was sleeping, or no one thought to take him off charge or intentionally left him on the charger. Arnold missed the Red Dwarf's charging system where he was still aware of the passage of time when he was charging or would run off the internal systems.
He'd lost hours. It felt like he needed to go to bed and sleep when he finally came off the charger to start the day. Walking through the ship, he went to find Kryten to fix him up a meal before he continued working on Ace again. He missed having a night of dreams. According to all the books, Arnold had read about holograms, and how they are supposed to operate, holograms aren't meant to dream while asleep and yet Arnold still had dreams and nightmares even when he first became a hologram running off Holly's systems. A class one hologram the holoship holograms had called him since the Red Dwarf was using a second-hand holographic system that had originally been used by the Space Corps. Already an old system in his own time. Maybe dreaming was something that had been phased out in second generation holograms like the black and white of the prototype holograms.
- Red Dwarf -
Three days and Arnold had spent it all in the medi-bay working on Ace. Kryten was upset, convinced that Mr. Ace was avoiding him. Cat was in his room trying to make himself look his best for the space hero he worshipped. Probably wanted fashion advice from the gimboid who looked like he was dressed to be roasted in his shiny jacket.
Dave had come and gone during the time, taking over Arnold's shifts of watching the cockpit. It was something that needed to be manned the majority of time in case of an emergency. The scanners which were unreliable after three million years of non-use was not something that Arnold wanted, or even Dave wanted to place their life on. Cat honestly didn't care less. The scanner needed to be repaired, but the problem was, none of the including Kryten knew how to go about fixing them.
Arnold looked up, seeing that Lister had once again joined him. It was good timing since he'd got up to the repairs that he would not be able to do on his own. He'd done all he could solo, and the last thing he wanted to do was muck something up because he grew overconfident or was too much of a coward to ask for help.
He knew that Dave would help, he cared about Ace, too much in Arnold's opinion. He wanted Dave to care about him in the way that Dave cared about Ace. He and Dave had been through so much together but Dave still liked and respected the space adventuring alter-ego more then he liked him as him. Arnold knew it to be true for a fact, he's been on the receiving end of it once before when a polymorph stole his fear, leaving him exactly like the pounce.
"Ah Listy, I was about to come looking for you. I'm up to the repairs which I need your help in." Arnold walked over, making Lister sit down to provide him detailed instruction on the repair that he couldn't do himself.
"Do you understand what you need to do?" Arnold asked after he'd finished going through the instructions.
"Rimmer, you have told me exactly what I need to do at every meal and before bed for the past three days. I know what I need to do. I put everything together except the memory and personality chips which we will put in later if everything goes well. Will you let me start? I'm ready as I will ever be."
Arnold stood back. He was nervous as he let Dave take over the repair. He continued telling Dave each step as the space bum worked. Dave dropped his tools, turning around, directly into Arnold's face. "Will you shut up already? Your backseat driving is distracting me. I - Can - Do - This. Just trust me. Go sit in the corner or recharge yourself until I am done."
Arnold grumbled, walking over the chair, huffing and crossing his arms as heavily sat in the chair. Dave was right, the last thing he wanted to do was cause Dave to make a mistake because he kept hovering. He cringed with each movement Dave made, biting his lip in order to try and keep himself from talking.
"Done, you can come over and look now," Dave said, wiping the sweat of his head and stepping back. Arnold was immediately at the bench, investigating Dave's handiwork. He made sure that everything really was in place and that they didn't have any leftover parts before closing the light-bee.
"Now to find out if the repair has worked," Arnold announced, connecting Ace up for another lot of diagnostic tests before they risked turning him on.
"No use hovering around here, we'll check what it say's in the morning," Dave said, placing a hand on Arnold's shoulder to lead him out of the medi-bay. Arnold knew Lister was right, but he didn't know if he would be able to get any sleep not knowing how Ace's condition was.