"Emergency. There's an emergency going on."
Lister fell out of his bunk, nearly throttling himself on his own dreadlocks. Below him, Rimmer snapped awake and leapt over to Holly's screen, nostrils flaring like a firework display.
"What is it Holly, what's going on?"
The computer blinked slowly.
"Hang on a sec…it's on the tip of my tongue…funny, isn't it, how these things just slip your mind…?"
"Holly!" In exasperated stereo.
"Oh yeah, I remember. You see…you know how the Cat evolved from Frankenstein over millions of years?"
"Yes, Holly, we're aware of that."
"Get on with it, you senile git, before I get the skutters to rewire you with a chainsaw."
"No need to get unpleasant, Arnold. The thing is that Frankenstein, your cat, Dave… had fleas."
Holly stopped and gazed meaningfully at the crew. They gazed vacantly back.
"What're you saying Hol?"
The computer rolled his eyes.
"Gordon Bennett, how simple do you want this? Fleas- that's blood-sucking, spring-legged parasites- that have been breeding and evolving…"
"For three million years? Like the Cat? "
"Right, Dave."
"Smegging Hell!"
"So, what you're saying is…there is a race of ferocious blood-sucking creatures the size of humans, with a leap like a kangaroo on acid, living, with us, on this ship?
You don't think you could have mentioned this before?"
Rimmer managed to hyperventilate and snarl simultaneously, as the Cat sashayed in, yowling quietly to himself. He flicked a speck of dust from his collar.
"Hey, what's going on? Ugh, that pasty face colour is a fashion disaster, man. Hell, you're just a fashion disaster, period."
Lister strummed his fingers on the control panel.
"There's a race of humanoid fleas on board."
"Fleas?! They ain't coming near this cat!" He leapt fluidly into a corner making vague karate chop gestures at the air.
"YeeOw! Hiiii-yah!"
"Why did you pick now to tell us Holly? Six-foot parasites wandering around the decks, you must have noticed?"
Holly shrugged.
"They started off lurking in the cargo decks.
Most of the species died out when the Cats left. Not enough food supply. But a few managed to adapt to find a new food source.
Specifically, Red Dwarf."
"They've been eating the ship?"
"Yeah. Amazing thing, evolution. They've been chewing their way through the lower decks for years now."
Lister glared like an extremely pissed off hamster.
"And how long will it take them to reach us?"
"Well, according to my calculations… roughly, in the ball park of, round about one hour."
"One hour?!"
"You g-, you sm-, you ti-"
"Simmer down, Rimmer. Holly, couldn't you have given us just a bit more warning?"
"Well, they're armour-plated, virtually indestructible, have teeth that chew through metal like it's curry paste, and legs that can punch through walls.
I didn't want to depress you."
They huddled in a circle to try to decide what to do. Weapons at their disposal proved to consist of one bent fork, a syringe that one of the skutters had dropped and a broken plate. Everything else was down in the already devoured decks.
"Ok guys, let's try to be positive. There's got to be some kind of plan…"
"Positive? Lister, they've eaten the innards of almost an entire ship. Face it, even if we managed to poke them to death with the fork, we're finished. Most of the food and the engines must have gone already."
Holly nodded.
"Yep, 'fraid so. We've been sitting motionless in space for a while now. And I've lost most of my memory banks…lucky it hasn't really affected me rhubarb."
The Cat lay groaning in mortal agony.
"My lavender silk shirt ruffs! My zebra stripe overcoat! Scoffed down by overgrown insects?! End the pain, man, kill me now."
Lister sighed. There was no escape pod, no Starbug, nowhere else to go. In less than twenty minutes they would be lining a flea's stomach. It wasn't the end he'd hoped for.
"I'm sorry Cat. I guess this is the end of Fiji."
"It's a shame, I was looking forward to the world's first aquatic sheep farm."
"Rimmer…"
"Sorry. Look, Lister, I know I can be a bit of a pain sometimes…well, so can you, do you have any idea how disgusting it is when you trim your nasal hair with your own nail clippings? On my bunk?"
"Rimmer…"
"Well anyway…what I'm trying to say is…I…don't hate you. Not all that much, anyway."
"Yeah, well. I don't hate you either, Rimmer.
But you're still a smeghead."
Lister smiled lopsidedly at the hologram, who gave a faint lip twitch in return. The Cat just lay and whimpered incomprehensibly, words like "lapel" and "fluted piping", drifting occasionally out of the noise.
"Well, Hol, this is goodbye then?"
"'Fraid so. Lemon Meringue, eh?. Still, three million years, it's not a bad innings, when all's said and chloroformed.
They're coming through the floor now, Dave. Ten seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. Six."
"Seven, Holly."
"Damn those tricky sevens. Where was I? Oh yeah. Two. One. Flea-fest time."
Lister gripped the fork and syringe tightly. He wasn't going down without a fight.
Rimmer opened his eyes. He was not noticeably more eaten than he had been a moment ago. Puzzled, he turned toward the computer.
"Honestly, you make it too easy."
Understanding dawned, flushing Rimmer's face an angry purple. Lister stopped jabbing blindly at the air.
"That was a completely genius piece of japery. Quality fooling.
Gigantic mutant fleas eating through the ship? Do me a lemon."
He smirked proudly as the crew struggled for words.
"You mean my suits are fine? They're alive?"
"You…you warped son of a malfunctioning food-processor…"
"Holly, I swear I am going to put this spanner right through…"
"I don't know. Some people have no appreciation of comedy."