Rimmer sat upright in his bunk, rather startled by a loud noise that had occurred not far away. He sat blindly in the dark, looking around feverishly. "Lights!" he called out, and he looked around some more, a bit more clearly this time. He glanced at his clock.
It was eight in the morning. Time to get up anyway.
Struggling out of bed, he glared at the solitary slipper still situated in it's rightful place, but clearly looking very lonely on it's own. Growling slightly, he looked around the room.
Lister was snug in his bunk, snorting and snoring away.
But nothing looked all that out of place. He padded around, checking out the table, but everything was as he'd left it the previous night.
But then he saw it. The biggest change in the room was right there in front of him.
The jar of mincemeat was empty now.
Rimmer picked up the empty jar and stared it. It was completely clean. Not a speck of anything lay within it. "Someone's been peckish during the night," he said under his breath.
Setting the jar back down, he headed for the doors, pressing the command button and watching them slide open to reveal the corridor beyond.
Now in the wall just a few meters away from their quarters was a vending machine with the label Leopard Lager emblazoned on top of it. It had no AI chip, which suited them all just find, but it was useful to Lister in that it provided him with lager without having to walk too far.
Rimmer stared at the machine, which seemed to have taken a slight beating during the night. Littering the floor was a huge pile of empty beer cans, all having had their tops torn off and completely chugged.
Staring at this in silent shock, Rimmer tried to figure this little puzzle out. Surely not even Lister…
He turned around and headed back into the room, promptly shaking Lister awake again. "Lister…? Lister, wake up!"
Lister responded with a long, loud snore.
"Wake up, you drunken space hobo!" Rimmer yelled. "We've got another situation!"
This time Lister snorted, a sure sign that he was finally coming to. "Huh? Wha…? What's happening? Where's…? Rimmer, what the smeg is going on now?"
"I was rather hoping you could explain that to me."
"Eh?"
"Did you ever wake up at some point last night?"
"No… No, I slept pretty soundly."
"Then why is the mincemeat jar empty?"
Lister rubbed his eyes getting whatever flaky bits he could out of them, and glanced over at the table, spying the empty jar. His eyes widened with disappointment. "What the hell? I wasn't done with that yet!"
"And there's been a bit of an incident with the vending machine as well."
"Which vending machine?"
"The one outside our quarters."
"What's happened to it?"
"See for yourself."
Lister got out of his blankets, jumped down and walked across the cold metal floor towards the open doors. He looked down at the floor and stared in shock at the mess.
"Smeg…," he said in quiet disbelieving tones. "What the hell happened?"
"I don't know, quite frankly," Rimmer said, crossing his arms in an authoritative way. "Perhaps you went on a bit of a bender in your sleep."
"What, you mean sleep-drinking?"
"It wouldn't be the first time."
"But how come I'm not hung over? Come on, look at all those dead soldiers! There's no way I could've drank all that and still be forming complete sentences in the morning."
Rimmer nodded firmly. "Well, the question remains: if you didn't drink all that, then who did?"
Lister examined the cans more closely. "Jesus, look at 'em… They've been ripped open! Why would anyone do that? There's a little tab on the top you just pull forward…"
Just then, they heard Holly's voice back in their room calling out to them. "Oi!"
They doubled back inside, finding the head on their screen.
"Holly, what the hell is going on?" Rimmer demanded. "Why are there mangled remains of old lager containers in our corridor?"
"Looks like the creature got back on board last night," Holly replied.
"What, Speed came back?" Lister asked, looking stunned.
"Yeah, the Cat saw him. Says he came on board and tried to attack him. He's in the Drive Room now with Kryten reviewing security footage."
"We're on our way," Lister said, heading over to the closet to get dressed.
Rimmer nodded distantly and headed for the closet.
"So you think it was Speed?" Lister asked, looking a bit confused.
"Yeah, it was!" Cat said, still looking a bit tired. "I'm telling you, man, I didn't get any sleep after that!"
"So where did he go?" Rimmer asked.
"I don't know. I went back to the kitchen, but no one was there. I searched out three decks, but there was no sign of him anywhere. He didn't even have the courtesy to clean up the mess in the fridge when he was done either!"
"What do you think, Kryten?" Lister asked, turning in his chair to look at the mechanoid, who was reviewing the security camera footage at one of the control panel screens.
"The footage confirms it, sir. There was a GELF on board, and it did attack Mr. Cat."
"That's what I just got done saying!" Cat exclaimed. "I'm lucky it didn't get me! Look at this outfit! I couldn't just stitch it back together! I'd have had to completely redo it!"
"Well, let's just be thankful for small mercies," Rimmer sighed, leaning back in his chair tiredly.
"So how'd he get back on board anyway?" Lister asked.
"That's the thing," Holly said. "He didn't break in."
"Eh?"
"I've done an entire internal sweep of the ship. There's no sign of a break-in anywhere. The first time, he snuck in through one of the old holes in the duct work. There's been no signs of an intruder all night. No one came aboard or left the ship at any point."
Kryten drummed his fingers on his chest plate thoughtfully. "Another thought occurs, sir. You say that the creature cornered you in the lift."
"Yeah, that's right."
"So why are you still alive?"
Cat stared at him. "Huh?"
"Why didn't the creature kill you on the spot?"
Everyone looked at the Cat, who looked back confusedly.
"I dunno," he said at last. "He just got real close to me, sniffed me, and then he turned and left."
"Why'd he do that?" Lister wondered.
Kryten thought some more, and then he snapped his fingers. "It must've been the experiment!" he exclaimed. "When we recalibrated the GELF's genetic structure, we must've missed out a few key details. He still changes into a huge slobbering monster and attacks us, but he doesn't kill us!"
"So you're saying he'll chase us down a corridor, but he won't messily devour us?" Rimmer asked, looking rather disturbed.
"It seems that the GELF at first perceived the Cat as a threat, but upon closer inspection, realized he was harmless and let him go. Perhaps we should endeavor to recapture him and attempt a second time."
"How would that help? He'll just turn back into his giant form and we won't be able to catch him."
"Ah-ha, but there is another pattern in all this, sir."
"And that is?"
"It seems that the GELF only changes at night."
"Kryten, we're in Deep Space," Lister reminded him. "It's always night."
"Well then, it seems to only change during what we ourselves perceive as night. As soon as we're all asleep, that's when it transforms."
"Yeah, that's right," Cat said. "It woke me up during my main power snooze."
"So perhaps that's part of it. The GELF only changes at night. Remember yesterday, sirs, the entire time we were taking him to the airlock, he didn't change once."
"Yeah, that's a point," Lister agreed.
"So what does this mean? We have to trawl the space around the ship to find him again while in his diminutive form?" Rimmer asked. "He's so tiny, and he can move so fast, who knows how long it will take catch him?"
"What if he hasn't left?"
"Sir?"
"You heard what Holly said. There's no sign of a break-in or a breakout. What if he never left? He could still be around here somewhere."
"Yes, that is true, sir. Suggest two of us go out in Starbug, and the other two of us remain inside to search him out."
"We're really going to spend the whole day searching for this thing?" Rimmer demanded. "Looking for a tiny GELF the size of a squirrel on a ship the size of a city? It'll be like trying to find a casual visitor at Comic-Con!"
"We've got no options, man," Lister replied. "Have you seen the damage Speed's doing to the ship? If we let this go on, pretty soon it's going to be like traveling through the vacuum of space in a cheese grater!"
"Suggest you and the Cat patrol outside the ship, sir. Mr. Rimmer and I can help Holly search throughout here."
Lister and the Cat nodded and headed for the hatchway. Rimmer groaned internally as he got up and followed Kryten as well.
It was going to be a long day.
