"'Why not?'"

Kochanski shrugged, "What? You wanted there to be fireworks, grand declarations, proposals? This is Lister we are talking about; across a million parallel universes I'm sure they are all the same. The most romantic thing they can think of is to brush yesterday's poppadoms off the bed sheets before the seduction."

"Point taken Ma'am."

Kochanski stood and made her way over to the bunk, boosting herself up into the top and settled herself in, pulling out a magazine.

"It's strange, I would never have thought that in a million years I would end up with Lister. Well, in the end it took three million years but still…."

Kryten drummed his fingers on his chest and looked about shiftily. Kochanski noticed the look and let out an exasperated sigh.

"What is it Kryten?"

Kryten looked down. "When did he change?" He stammered.

"What do you mean by that?"

"It's just that – well it's just – it's like – well Ma'am. He liked pasta!"

Kochanski stared at Kryten who squirmed under her gaze.

"You're holding me responsible for what he eats? He was a grown man, he ate what he wanted. When he gained a hard light body he could touch, taste. God, imagine him eating curries every single day for the rest of his life, how could you live with that breath? Oh God and the stains…"

Kryten gazed off wistfully.

"Anyway, the Lister in this reality, Your Lister, has never discovered the subtleties of a symphony. He's never been caught up in the drama of 'Rigaletto'. He's never sampled white truffle oil on freshly made linguini. My Dave learned that there is a whole world of experiences outside of a takeaway carton, he knew that being sophisticated wasn't being a 'class traitor'. It was experiencing a side to life that he hadn't had a chance to sample before."

Kryten crossed his arms and tried to glare at Kochanski, failing miserably to look anywhere near as disapproving as he intended. "Mr Lister is a proud man and for very good reason. He dragged himself up from his pitiful beginnings to be a well adjusted and valuable member of society."

Kochanski raised an eyebrow.

Kryten stammered, "Well, a functioning human being."

"You're right. I shouldn't be so hard on him. He has had a rough time of it. "

Kryten returned to page four of the JMC Supplies Requisition Form and tried to answer question 17, 'Explain, using diagrams where appropriate, how the acquisition of item may benefit the long term functionality of the crew and aid in achieving mission parameters." He had just started drafting a flow diagram when he heard an exasperated sigh from the bunks.

"Is everything alright Ma'am?"

Kochanski shook her head, "It's weird. I never really thought before how different our lives have been. You all looked so familiar, so like the people I had lost that I thought you were the same. Your Dave is an older, tougher version of the scamp that grew up in Liverpool. My Dave would barely recognise him."

"That's true Ma'am, your last account described an erudite and cultured Cat, yet no less self centred."

Kochanski laughed, "The Cat, erudite? Let me tell you, his use of archaic words and courtly manners never came from any intelligence. He was brought up by the Cat priests and their language sort of rubbed off onto him…."

*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Kochanski was stitching up the hem of a dress when Holly appeared on the mirror in the Sleeping Quarters. She glanced up briefly before shaking her head and continuing what she was doing. Sure enough, Holly was looking upwards, trying to remember why he had materialised in the first place. After a minute or so he looked around the room and finding no inspiration disappeared. Kochanski tied off the thread she was working on and was looking at her handiwork critically when Holly's face appeared again at the mirror.

"That was it, finished that translation you wanted."

Kochanski grinned and folded up the dress, "So, where is the Cat from?"

"He's descended from your cat, Frankenstein, who they see as some creator mother figure. They have a complicated aristocratic society of inter marriages and alliances based on different Cats tracing their lineage from one of several family lines. They have clan names like Bennett, Darcy, Heathcliffe and Earnshaw".

Kochanski tried desperately to place all the names, it all sounded so familiar and yet – "Those are all characters from Regency period romantic novels. Where on Earth did they learn about – ?"

" 'And lo, the Goddess herself bestowed Wisdom upon the Holy Mother, telling her of all the world and its works. She spoke of the lives of Saints and Demons and the difficulties in finding a Good Man, yea with the parables of Emma and Elizabeth, of Elinor and Catherine. The Holy Mother learned the tenets of our faith from the Goddess herself; yea we are blessed indeed' "

"I used to read out loud to the kitten. She was so desperate for attention, I just used to put her on my lap and read her my stories, my Jane Austen novels."

Kochanski looked up at Holly's oblivious face.

"You know, 'Sense and Sensibility', 'Pride and Prejudice'?"

Holly continued to look blank and then continued his explanation. "The Cats' 'Holy Mother' was supposed to have been carved from the steel of the ship by the God Cloister and life was breathed into it by the Goddess Anne Skai. There's a lot of Cats begetting Cats and then talk of creating the City. The text goes on to –"

"City?"

Holly sighed, all these interruptions meant he kept losing his place in the book. It wasn't going to help with the whole story telling thing. "The Cat city that is in the Cargo hold. The text goes on –"

Kochanski leapt to her feet, "There's a whole city of Cats in the cargo hold?"

"Gordon Bennett, let me finish. 'The great City was to last a thousand thousand years but lo, the Vanity of its Cats became too great. Yea, their differences were too great and a darkness descended upon us and Brother fought Brother, for those that served were righteous in their Pride but Damned is he that rules the lives of others. Love and Humility and Faith were forgotten in this place and all fell unto oblivion as the Cats once more knew War.'

Kochanski sat back and let this all sink in. There had been a whole city of Cats. The cargo holds had been crammed with supplies for Triton, millions of tons of food, equipment and every sort of item that a thriving mining colony would require. A whole civilisation had risen from a tiny moggy she couldn't bring herself to disintegrate. They had a culture, a way of life, a religion. And all that came with it. Holy war….

"Holly, does it say what started the war?"

" 'The Holy Mother taught to us all the way we should live as the great and good Anne Skai taught her. The lessons she taught us formed our creed and the path our lives were to lead and yea, all was well. But whispers were heard amongst the faithful, that there were many Truths that the Goddess had given to her Chosen, her priests and priestesses, that they did not share as she had bid them. And lo, there was a great meeting of the Cats, and yea, the Chosen of the Goddess were bidden to speak the truth to all that were faithful.'

'All of the Goddess' Chosen spoke the Truths of the Goddess to the assembled, of the ways of Humility and the danger of Pride. But verily, there was one amongst the Chosen whose Pride knew no bounds and he spoke the Truth that the Goddess did not want to be heard.'

'The Proud Deceiver told of the love that Anne Skai held in her true heart, not for the AllFather Cloister but for another. Madness took the Cats as the lies spilled from the throats of more of the Chosen of the Goddess, lies of how she loved a mortal, of how she herself trapped Cloister to be with the Unspeakable One. And a great cry went up and the righteous rose up and slew the unfaithful. The Clans were sundered by the lies of one and the Goddess turned her face.' "

Kochanski whispered one word, "Tim".

Holly didn't hear her and continued, " 'And a great many were slain in the battles that made the very ceiling shake, the Goddess letting all know her displeasure. Yea, the dead outnumbered the living, and there was such a woe as to move the hearts of the leaders of the Clans. They knew great loss and laid down their arms. The Great War had much wearied the souls of the survivors and it fell unto the last of the Chosen to make Peace. And a Peace was made. The Goddess spake and the sacred Chariots of the Gods, those long denied to the Cat people, were given unto her People. The Cats were charged with a crusade to spread the ways of peace that they had learned to the cosmos, yea and verily the World was to be guarded for their return.' "

Kochanski sprang to her feet and rushed over to one of the lockers, rooting through a neat stack of rolled up maps. "How long ago did they leave? How did they leave? If we can work out what direction they went in we could maybe – "

Holly shook his head sadly; "As far as I can tell this book is centuries old. It would have been the ancestors of the Cat who were left behind on Red Dwarf who would have written it."

"But surely, Holly, it would just be a matter of checking the – "

"I had the Skutters check over the whole ship before I let you out of stasis. There are four 'White Giant' Cargo haulers missing and as far as I can remember, the doors on the landing gantry haven't been opened for about two hundred years."

As Holly was speaking, Kochanski found the one she wanted and she spread it out on the table and with a pencil began scribbling.

"Which direction did they leave in, Hol?"

"I've got no idea. It wasn't exactly at the top of my list of priorities at the time….."

Holly trailed off at the sight of flat, malevolent stare levelled at him from across the room.

"Well ok, I was out of sorts at the time. Anyway, they could be anywhere now."

Kochanski desperately doodled some calculations before letting out an exasperated gasp and throwing down the pencil. She flopped heavily into her chair and started to rub her temples.

Lister chose that moment to saunter into the Sleeping Quarters, jauntily humming the tune to a dirty limerick he had spent a lot of time the day before trying to teach to Kochanski. Seeing her obviously distressed, he silently knelt by her side. Trying to look into her eyes his hand rising to touch her shoulder before suddenly stopping and awkwardly hovering next to her arm.

"Erm, you alright Krissie?"

Kochanski shook her head and turned more to face him, her arms half rising for a hug before she dropped her hands into her lap instead. "Sorry Dave, I just feel a bit weird."

Holly nodded sagely. "Yeah, finding out that you inadvertently caused a conflict that probably killed thousands because you couldn't decide between two men must be a downer. "

Lister looked confused as Kochanski stared daggers at Holly's image on the monitor. He looked about uncomfortably and disappeared.

"Conflict?" asked Lister.

Kochanski shook her head. "The Cats. There was a whole city of them, Dave, can you imagine it? A city full of Cat People in the Cargo holds. And because I said a lot of things to a kitten, there was a Holy War. "

Lister shrugged. "People will treat each other like smeg for whatever reason they can come up with at the drop of a hat. I'm sure the Cats are no different. If it wasn't this it would have been over the sacred way to eat a can of tuna or stoning people to death for not walking backwards on a Tuesday."

Kochanski pulled a face, the fact that any of them had died upset her, but it did actually make her feel less like she was fully responsible.

"So what did you say?"

Kochanski looked into those deep brown eyes and tried to think of what she would say that would do the least harm.

The piercing klaxon of sirens filled the air and Holly once again appeared on screen.

"Sorry dudes, just picked up a signal. Might be important."

Kochanski stood, glad of the distraction as both she and Lister hurried to the Drive Room