Thank again to all reviewers/readers – (Lauren Scavenger, you have a very impressive page of fic, wow) and here, to my shock, is a conclusion.

A/N I know nothing about Telegraph poles-about as much as I know about physics- as will become obvious. Therefore even more of this section than usual is complete made up rubbish. Any telegraph pole fanciers out there- I hope your enjoyment is not impaired.

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"Rimmer, what is it with you and telegraph poles?"

Lister had been attempting to improve his literary skills and so was working his way through a pile of "Bunty"s he had found. The stories were getting to him (especially when the main character turned out to have been a ghost all along) but for an hour now he had been distractedly watching his roommate sort and file his vast collection of photographs, each pole seemingly identical to the untrained and completely un-bloody-interested eye.

He received a dismissive grunt in reply.

"I mean I did compile a list of possibilities. Insanity was the front runner. Or a serious case of pole envy."

A growl.

"No, really, man, I'm serious. What's the attraction?"

It had been three days since they had passed into this universe. Holly had set a course nearly definitely for the approximate area of space where they had entered. Although several skirmishes had taken place, as well as one embarrassing incidence of wire entanglement, there had so far been only one really threatening occurrence when a tall gentleman with a very thin moustache, calling himself Wallace the Well Wicked, had attempted to vapourise them for the crime of being in his general vicinity.  Fortunately, by the time Wallace had finished outlining his plans for their total destruction and his subsequent proposed take over of the entire universe- in an elaborate plot involving mind rays, nukes and lemon squeezers- the Dwarf crew had long since departed.

Things went back to nearly normal.

The Cat had very quickly grown bored of the new universe. His current project was attempting to nap in the weirdest places possible. This had the disadvantage that the others would be constantly opening the cupboard he happened to be in or tripping over him in the corridors (carefully pre-covered in dust sheets), disrupting his sleep and causing them to yell in increasingly inventive and angry tirades which the Cat simply tuned out. He was responding to an ancestral pull, an instinct deep within him. These monkeys had no sense of tradition. Also, they inexplicably failed to have shoe boxes large enough to sleep in.

Kryten, when he wasn't tripping over the Cat, was preoccupied mainly with attempts to calculate the best way out of their predicament and with laundry. Rimmer's corporeal form had had the glorious side effect, as far as he was concerned, of vastly increasing the daily wash. He would spend blissful hours adding just the right amount of starch to a handkerchief or carefully ironing sock suspenders.

And Lister and Rimmer, the most anxious to get back home- Lister because of his barely still existing hope of reaching Earth, Rimmer because he was just generally anxious- covered up their fears with argument, hobbies and girl's comics.

"You really want to know?"

"Yes, I really want to know."

Rimmer stretched, scratched his cast rather pointlessly and turned to Lister.

"You see this 1979 tall, flanged London Special? And this 1980 tall, flanged London Special?"

"Um. Yeah?"

"Do you see the difference?"

"Um. No."

Rimmer smiled.

"I  can."

Lister looked blank.

"When I was fifteen, not long after I divorced my parents, I met a guy called Stokes. He used to let me do odd jobs around his place, top up the alimony. One day he showed me his pride and joy, his genuine 1982 Wallace Bacon Telegraph Pole. It was signed by the manufacturer. I wasn't too impressed at first. In fact I thought he was loonier than a Jacuzzi full of acid-dropping antelope, wearing bobble hats. I tried to make my excuses and leave. But before I could make it to the door, he pulled out a photograph.

"'What's that?' he asked. I looked at it. 'It's your telegraph pole…' , Stokes grinned at me, '…only with a slightly thicker base.'

"Stokes was astounded. Nobody had ever noticed the difference before. Soon, he had shown me his entire collection, pointing out the tiny differences in each one and challenging me to guess the year. I was a natural. Before long I was better than he was. It was such a great feeling being really good at something after years of abject failure.

Later that year, Stokes came home really drunk one night and…well, nobody knows the details but he was found dead the next morning, full of splinters, crushed by his own pole.

He'd left me his photograph collection in his will, and I've tried to add to it in his honour. And, well, that's the story really."

Rimmer shrug-coughed and awkwardly shuffled his 1960's.

Lister wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't really expected a genuine answer. Rimmer had told him most of his life story, drunk or sober, but the time just before he joined the space corps was mostly a mystery. He was partly moved and partly concerned about just what exactly Stokes had been doing with his telegraph pole. Luckily, he was saved from responding by Holly's timely arrival.

"Uh, some good news and some bad news."

They exchanged glances.

"What's the good news, Hol?"

"We made it out of '50's world. Slipped right through this hole all of a sudden,  while I was trying to remember the words to "My way". 'Duh duh der… the final curtain…' "

"And the bad news you cretinous bunch of pixels?

"Er, well… we didn't slip through the right hole."

They gathered together to work out the new development.

"Apparently, these bruises come in clusters, centring on one large area of sensitive space. There are probably any number of these things around us, only one of which will lead us back to our home universe."

The news was not greeted with enthusiasm.

"Man, there could anything out there" complained the Cat. "There could be…Rumple Fairies." He looked worried.

"Rumple Fairies." Rimmer knew he was going to regret asking.

"Back in Kitty School we heard stories. A bad little kitty might wake up one morning to find all of his clothes… horribly, horribly creased."

The Cat gulped with emotion.

"And the worst part was…they would never go smooth again. You could iron them forever and they'd still be creased. The Rumple Fairies had got 'em."

He shuddered.

"Fine. And now, if we shut the Cat back in his cupboard, preferably for ever, we could perhaps have a sensible discussion."

"Actually, Mr. Rimmer, he does have a point. Anything that can be and has been imagined, may be here. We've already seen 1950's Horrorverse. This could be a world of myths made flesh, or of cautionary tales, like the, er, Rumple Fairies."

"Or the Scissor Man."

Lister made scissoring motions by way of illustration.

"Me Gran always used to tell me, when I sucked my thumb, that this really tall skinny guy, with giant scissors for hands would come and lop both my thumbs off. She showed me a picture in a book, I was petrified for years."

"That's horrible, sir"

"Yeah. And when I reached puberty there was an even worse guy. He only needed one pair of scissors."

Rimmer, Lister and the Cat winced in unison as Holly flicked back onto the screen.

"Hang on, we've passed through another one. Oops and another. Blimey, look at that moon!"

They passed a vast crescent shape with a strange red surface on one side. The Cat sniffed.

"Edam. Slightly off, though, yeuch."

Lister, meanwhile, had had a thought.

"If we can pass through all these places, does that mean that they can too? The Green Brain Aliens could come into our universe?"

"Or the Rumple Fairies?!"

"Theoretically, yes sir, it's perfectly possible. In practice however the immense shock of reality, outside of their artificial living conditions, cause most who are unfortunate enough to do so to die immediately. The few hardy enough to survive are probably the source of some of the wilder space tales, told in bars throughout the galaxies, by the thoroughly ratarsed. "

"Just a minute! The Quagaars! They must have crossed through from one of these fictionverses and survived. I knew they couldn't be real."

"So…I created a race of Warrior Chickens?"

Rimmer was unsure whether to be proud of this achievement or not.

"Wait a second…wait a second…Oh, no, sorry,  it's a splash of curry sauce…no, hang on…Yes, this is it! Chaps, we are back in our own universe. Am I great or am I great?"

The view from the window showed an ugly, swooshy, spirally thing, gradually growing smaller. Whooping and hi-fiving ensued.

"Great, Hol. Now, let's get out of here quick, before we bump into anything else from Rimmer's mind."

The ship accelerated away, Lister's joy impaired slightly by the sudden pain of a crushing weight of plaster slamming onto his foot.

They were back home.

Epilogue

Some way off, a small ship of Warrior-Merchants, small and pale, with a curious skin texture and a built-in phobia of tinfoil, were also zooming through space. They had been driven by a purpose, a deep and burning, if somewhat baffling need, to build a body- a little scuffed and with carelessly overdone nostrils, but otherwise serviceable- and to unite it with its dead lookalike, their creator. For a fee, obviously.

Now their purpose had been served and they were a little uncertain of the future.

Eventually they shrugged, as best they could, and carried on, scared and excited, on into the unknown.