Cat spoke first on the shuttle ride back to Red Dwarf. "No self-respecting cat would live in a place like that. At least Red Dwarf has food."

Rimmer didn't care about the cat population; he was still fuming about what Lister had done on the space station. Didn't he care about the future of the human race at all? How could he have acted so carelessly? Clearly Rimmer would have to have a talk with him.

Lister didn't look particularly worried about what might've happened to him. "Did you get the scans of the sphere, Holly?"

"I'm looking at them now. Hmm. That's interesting," Holly said.

"What is?" Rimmer asked.

"It's completely round. All of it," Holly said.

Rimmer fixed Holly with a pitying look. "I'm so glad we've got a computer with an intellect comparable to Weetabix."

"I still feel tingly," Lister said.

Tingly…tingly…what kind of disease made you feel tingly? Rimmer couldn't remember any of the medical training he'd taken and seized on one of the few medical problems he could remember. "You could be having a stroke. Once we're back on board, get to the medical bay first thing."

"First I'm mutating, now I'm having a stroke! You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Lister said, clearly annoyed.

Rimmer shook his head. "I am not." He paused. "You have absolutely no respect for human life at all, do you?"

Lister took a look around the cockpit. "Show me where to find some and I'll respect it all you want."

"I'm not talking about us, you goit!" Rimmer said. "I'm talking about your unborn children. Did it even occur to you that you were risking their lives when you hit the button on that sphere?"

Lister looked guiltily at his stomach, resting a hand on it. "No."

"That's exactly the sort of careless behavior…" Rimmer began.

Lister interrupted. "But we've seen the future. I have sons. They don't die."

"No, they don't die, but imagine the damage you could've done them in the control room! You have to think about these things from now on, Lister," Rimmer said.

"I think about them plenty," Lister said, but he still sounded guilty.

"I should've been pregnant instead of you. At least I'd know to take care of myself," Rimmer said. Of course, he didn't really want to be pregnant…but it might be fun at that. He pictured himself holding two little Arnold Rimmers. Or maybe they would've looked more like Magruder. Either way, he would've been a fantastic dad. It was a pity he'd never had a family, really. Rimmer suspected he would've liked it.

Lister chuckled, putting an end to Rimmer's reverie. "When do you ever take care of anybody else?"

Rimmer folded his arms. "I resent that implication. I'm just as much a part of the crew as you are." Except I can't touch anything, and when I give orders, no one listens.

"You'd be a joke as a parent. Every time the baby moved, you'd scream, 'It's coming! It's coming! Help!'" Lister said.

The thought of labor pains made Rimmer a little queasy. "I would not."

"Yeah, you would," Lister said. "And if you think I'm bad at being sick, wait until you had morning sickness. After three weeks, you'd be ready to turn it over to a surrogate and let her have the babies."

Rimmer chucked his family fantasy out the window. No sense in thinking about something that would never happen. "Well, it's pointless to speculate, anyway. I can't have babies because I'm dead."

"That's your excuse for everything," Lister said.

Well, you try being dead sometime and see how you like it. "Some people would say, Lister, that a dead person who can accomplish anything, let alone all the things I've accomplished since my demise, is pretty extraordinary."

Cat spoke up. "Will you stop yakking? I'm trying to sleep!"

Rimmer lowered his voice. "You're going to thank me when you have these babies and I know all about what to do." He pictured himself as Doctor Rimmer, smiling broadly as he delivered Lister's babies.

"What is there to do?" Lister asked.

Rimmer was only too happy to tell him. "Cleaning, changing, pumping your breasts for milk…"

Lister looked aghast. "WHAT?"

"Well, you didn't think they'd be eating pate de foie gras the first day out, did you?" Rimmer asked.

Lister looked down at his stomach, and then at his chest. "Oh, smeg. I'm gonna get breasts?"

"If the rules for men in that universe are the same as the rules for women in this one, yes," Rimmer said.

"How come their physical law still applies even though I'm over here?" Lister asked.

Rimmer had thought about this as well. He loved being called on to answer a question to which he actually knew the answer. "Because you did the act leading to all this over there, and you can't very well become un-pregnant just by changing realities. Since that part of your body kept the changes it went through over there, it stands to reason that the rest of your body did as well."

Lister hid his face in his hands. Rimmer couldn't restrain a tiny smirk.