The Joy of Hex

Chapter One

It started off as just another day. A day filled with gray walls, gray bulkheads, gray ceilings, gray floors, the gray metal table in the middle of the living quarters. The gray, discarded, stiff-as-a-board underpants thrown carelessly on the floor. Dave Lister, the last human being alive, lay back on his bed with a long sigh. Much as he hated to admit it, he was bored. Between the mulitude of unfortunate events that seemed to follow the crew of Red Dwarf, the days dragged to at least a week in comparison. Before he was stranded three million years from Earth, and before drifting slowly back towards home for years longer than his Space Corps contract would have ever felt in Z-Shift under Arnold J Rimmer, he would have been perfectly happy with drinking the day away with a good helping of his trusty chicken vindaloo. But his adventures made him edgy. Just waiting for the next alien spaceship to take a dislike to them, the next despair squid on a seemingly safe derelict, Holly's latest quest to keep him "sane", or the latest attempt by his Gelf bride to take him and procreate in a disturbingly hairy fashion. He was his own father for Earth's sake. Did he really need anything else to complicate his life? He was probably long past sane already. Although Holly had admitted that he wasn't very good at that part of his job.

Thinking of his last close escape from near-certain death, he sighed once more, turning onto his side, hoping for a few hours of oblivion, Just to make sure, he faced the dull, military gray wall. Maybe if he slept, he could ignore the next inevitable encounter, he had certainly tried to get drunk enough to sleep that deeply. And he had eaten a rather large curry, sleep naturally came next. It might even make him feel a bit better.


In a galaxy far, far, away, to quote an ancient scroll, another slightly chubby male, around the same age was also lying in the same position after a traditionally large Senior Staff Banquet. Far from being a special occasion, Wizards were "firmly behind big dinners" (to quote the Archchancellor himself), and even a dragon searching for gold and holding them under siege for a virgin could distract them from this strongly entrenched and most sacred of rituals. Ponder Stibbons, head researcher of the High Energy Magic building of Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork, The Discworld, AM1, was, like his name, pondering. His computer, HEX, was going slightly mad. Some might say senile. Instead of an IQ that would allow him to defeat 20 Russian Chess Grandmasters simultaneously, he was a kumquat. Or a zucchini. A couple of dozen Fool's Guild Edificeering instuctors. Oh, and he was a little confused. He was now wanting to be addressed as HEXIE, and claimed he was a gorgeous brunette from somewhere called the "Midwest". What could have gone wrong? It was well known that working in the HEM building could cause certain...strange behaviour, but how would it affect a computer? They didn't get viruses, after all. How stupid was that idea? Ludicrous...

As he wondered, he fell into an uneasy sleep, his stomach's contented growls a counterpoint to his increasingly vulgar snoring.


Arnold Judas Rimmer, Hologram, Coward, and general weasel was up early. With his matching, strictly uniform singlet and shorts hanging loosely around a body that was nowhere near toned enough to handle it, he was off for his morning jog. He considered himself very fit, and regularly made it around the middle deck of the ship in ten minutes. An hour and a half later, he reached the door to Lister's quarters. Rimmer had long since grown sick of sharing a room with the man he considered unworthy of being the sole survivor of his species, conveniently forgetting that he was responsible for the deaths of almost the entire crew, including himself. Lister escaped through being in confinement for a crime, and he was dead. Even being imprisoned on Justice World, and put on trial for everyone's deaths didn't keep it in his memory for long at a time. Despite not staying in the same bunk room, he still loved to be there, reminding the goofy-grinned slob of his meaningless existance, and downright messy behaviour.

Opening the door by pushing it in a true military fashion, he jogged in and marked time briskly. "Come on Listy! Rise and shine! Beautiful morning to be alive!" Lister was already awake, just trying to ignore the voice invading his thoughts. "Up up up!" cried Rimmer. "I've already run around the deck in a new record time! Ten minutes exactly, Listy!"

Lister had had enough already. "Rimmer, you spent at least ten minutes resting outside this door, so you could come in here without looking too shagged out. I could hear you breathing. Not to mention the 20 minutes trying to trick the vending machine with your coin-on-a-string again." "How dare you!" Rimmer replied indignantly, his nose twitching. "I am a military man of high moral character, a leader of men, a -" "snivelling, weaselly cowardly little weasel?" Lister finished for him. "You do it every morning. I can set my watch by you." "You could if you were awake", retorted Rimmer childishly. "Anyway, Holly wants us for something". "Well, why couldn't he wake me then, instead of sending your skinny, lily-livered body here to annoy me?" moaned Lister, moving his pillow over his head to block out his ex-bunkmate's nasally voice.

"Alright dudes?" came over the speakers, interrupting them, and the head of a balding, slightly miserable man in his late 40's appeared on the sleeping quarters' vid-screen. He sounded excited, but it was hard to tell when their computer's voice was mostly deadpan, whatever was going on. "What's up, Hol?" said Lister, pretending to be mildly interested. Normally when Holly had that slight excitement in his voice, he's just done, or was about to do something that would lead to them being in trouble. Lister was also able to conveniently forget, his lust for a curry a year or so ago had led to them encouraging JFK to assassinate himself, to "drive the conspiracy nuts wild". Changed history, and they still didn't get him a vindaloo.

"Well, even after someone ruthlessly destroyed the first one, and I had to start from scratch, I tweaked a little, got a new box, and I have created the Holly Hop II! We can test it today!"

"Is it more than just a box with knobs saying 'STOP' and 'GO' this time?" said Rimmer scathingly, while Lister had his head in his hands and was hitting it softly against the table. "Not again" he moaned quietly. "No, I got it right this time," Holly assured him dryly. "You'll be back to Earth for a visit before you know it."

"So, no surprises?"

"No surprises."

Lister and Rimmer looked at each other. For one moment, the two were agreed. Neither was entirely convinced.