Chapter Three: How Brittas nearly destroyed Red Dwarf

Kryten bit his silicon lip as Gordon showed him how to navigate Starbug into the bay properly. Lister was there to greet them as they came out of the ship. "How'd it go, man?"

"Eeexccellant," Brittas beamed with a waggle of his head. Kryten took Lister aside.

"What's wrong, Kryt?"

"He's a smeee, a smeeeee, a smeeeeeeeeee, a BIG FAT SMEGHEAD... if you'll excuse the phrasing, Mr Lister."

"He can't be worse than Rimmer." Lister chuckled. Kryten shook his head and wailed into his hands.

Lister felt a tapping on his shoulders and saw the Cat, looking very angry. "If that guy tells me to alter the length of my pants again, I swear I'll kill him so much he'll be dead!"

Lister was about to reply when Brittas poked his head around the corner. "Excuse me, don't mean to interrupt but whose may I ask is the labelled Tandoori curry?"

Lister's eyebrow twitched. "Mine."

"Sorry to be a Bossy Bessie but perhaps it would be useful if you didn't keep your trainers next to it. Oh and Tandoori is spelt T-A-N-D-O-O-R-I not T-A-N-D-U-R-Y Ok?" he grinned with another waggle of the head. "Oh and I'll be hosting a seminar later called 'How to get the Most out of the Crushing Loneliness of Space' and I hope you'll all be attending." And with that he scurried down the hallway to get Holly to print off some rotas for hugging.

"Kryten, Cat... get me the bazookoids..."

"Now sir, even if he is a smeeee, a smeeee... slightly irritating, we can't KILL him."

"Why not?"

"We have to return him to where he came from. Without Mr Brittas we cannot bring Mr Rimmer back."

"Can't we just kill two birds with one stone?" the Cat said, before succumbing to the delightful daydreams of birds and bird dishes.

Lister rammed a fresh cartridge into a bazookoid. "Honestly Kryt, it wont hurt him. Not if I get him right in the head on the first try."

"Sir if I may interrupt this lovely demonstration of human fellowship by telling you why we were out in Starbug in the first place."

"You said it was to check our thrust engines."

Kryten looked down guiltily, "A small lie on my part, sir. Holly said that the channel hole is rapidly moving away from us. He advised me to try throwing Mr Brittas into it. Unfortunately he began decorating the cockpit with a new coat of paint and a pair of pink furry dice to give the place a homely feel and promote an efficient work environment and insisted I help. I only got 1 mile from the ship before I was knee deep in Dulux chartreuse gloss paint"

"The man's crazy!" Lister groaned.

"Tell me about it," the Cat said. "Chartreuse with pink furry dice? Is he blind?!"

Mr Brittas wandered in with the rotas. "Ok then, the Cat will be hugging Kryten for 2.3 minutes at 11:30 sharp before moving on to David for 2.1 minutes. The reason you get less is because you did not do your chores like I advised." He shook his head sadly. "It's a terrible world we live in when a grown man can't pick up his toenails and put them into the bin for recycling."

"Recycled toenails?"

"Yes! It makes a fantastic glue for holding ship parts together. Cheaper than screws and just as effective. Tried it out on the drive plate," he beamed.

Kryten looked at Lister, puzzled. "Sir... who told you that toenails made great glue?"

"That amusing balding fellow on the TV. Bit of a boring show but he has some fantastic anecdotes. Strange name though - Holly. That's a girl's name, isn't it?"

"HOLLY!" they yelled and thundered down the corridor to the where the drive plate was struggling to work beneath the hot liquefied nails that had been poured over it.

"S'up dudes?" Holly's head appeared on the screen. "Oh dear. I didn't think he'd take me seriously," his voice trailed as he saw the smoke pouring out of the plate.

Mr Brittas walked in on the android, the cat and the human wafting away smoke and squirting fire extinguisher foam on flames and cursing senile computers and asked innocently, "Something wrong?"

"No man, we ALWAYS gather together to fight off death on Tuesdays." Lister continued liberally covering the drive plate with the foam.

Mr Brittas sighed. "I think someone needs his therapy session moved up an hour."

"I think someone should be careful before what's left of the drive plate is shoved right up his-"

"Mr Lister, please!" Kryten begged as he held Lister, kicking and screaming, away from Mr Brittas.

Mr Brittas looked genuinely shocked by the reaction. "I was only trying to help."

Lister stopped writhing in Kryten's arms, and felt a little bit - not very much mind you - sorry for the guy. He was only trying to help after all. Lister could appreciate this. "It's all right," he mumbled.

"Good. Nice to see we're all friends again," he beamed.

The Cat suddenly bounded over to the window. "The channel hole! It's disappearing! We've gotta get rid of him. Now!"

"Rid of who?"

"Er, no one, man," Lister lied. And stared dismally out at the now vanished channel hole.