Rimmer wasn't too surprised that many of his waking hours were now spent as Lister's voice. He had expected as much when he had volunteered to speak for Lister. What surprised Rimmer was how little he minded it. In fact, he and Lister got on famously now that they weren't talking to each other. Rimmer found it peculiar and a little funny that they'd exchanged so many words early on that now meant absolutely nothing.
He found himself growing closer to Lister, too—not in stupid melodramatic ways, but in subtle steps. He had started anticipating Lister's verbal responses weeks ago, and now he was as good at reading Lister's facial expressions as he had been at reading his lips. Actually, he was better at facial expressions—Rimmer had never quite gotten the hang of Bs, Ps, and Ms.
Rimmer looked up as Lister appeared in the doorway to the bunk room. Rimmer was glad of any excuse to stop thinking about the trigonometry problem in front of him.
Lister inclined his head toward the Drive Room. Kryten wants to see us.
"Does he?" Rimmer said, getting to his feet. "All right."
Lister smiled, shaking his head. It's strange how you can do that.
"No, it isn't," Rimmer said. "It would be if I were horrible after all this time."
Lister shrugged. It's only been six months.
"A lot can happen in six months," Rimmer said.
Lister gave Rimmer an incredulous look. You're telling me?
Kryten looked excited enough to burst as Rimmer and Lister entered the Drive Room. "I think I may have found an answer to your problem."
"What problem?" Rimmer asked, slipping easily into Lister interpreter mode. These days, Cat and Kryten simply addressed Lister and forgot Rimmer was there.
"Your voice, sir," Kryten said. "I think I've found a way to repair it."
Rimmer frowned. "I thought you said there was too much damage."
"To repair your vocal cords, yes, sir," Kryten said. "But I believe I've come up with a synthetic voice production device that should be able to take the place of your natural voice."
Lister was getting excited; Rimmer didn't have to look at him to know that. "How does it work?"
"First, I fed all the black box recording audio of your voice into the device," Kryten said. "Then, I created a program that told the device how to apply that information to recreate your original vocal sounds. I've got to make absolutely sure of the programming and the connections, but if it functions as it should, you could have a new voice by tomorrow evening."
"I could have a new voice by tomorrow?" Rimmer said, trying hard to capture Lister's enthusiasm vocally.
Kryten nodded, looking pleased and proud. "Yes, sir."
Lister clapped Kryten on the shoulder. "Good job, man. Is there anything I need to do to, erm…"
"Prepare? No," Kryten said. "Just come to the medical bay tomorrow afternoon and I'll hook it up in a jiffy."
"Thanks," Rimmer said.
Lister made a victorious gesture and bounded down the hall. Rimmer opened his mouth to ask Kryten if he was absolutely sure the procedure would work, but then he shook his head and left, following Lister down the corridor.