CHAPTER 9: Salvation

The Cat wandered through the network of corridors leading off the Cloning Bay. Doors lined the walls but most of them were offices, more labs, or storage space. There was no sign of any food.

However, the Cat was guided by his nose, and his nose told him there was food nearby. Even through the thick metal walls, he could smell it. The further away from the Cloning Bay he went, the stronger the smell became, and as he passed a door with a small wooden plaque marked "Dr. Bacus" he thought he could even determine what kind of food it was. Some kind of meat (not fish, he thought disappointedly), but perhaps beef. And there were vegetables too. The Cat's mouth started to water.

Quickening his pace, he strolled further down the corridor, and had hardly even noticed that the industrial grey walls of the laboratory area were gone, replaced by smooth, bright white paint. This seemed to be the administrative area; there were offices everywhere. He passed a water cooler, only giving it a perfunctory glance. Why stop for water when he could find the source of that meaty, vegetablely smell? Anyway, there was something else now, he could smell it… milk.

The Cat grinned and happily strode on towards the smell, pausing every so often to twitch his nose and determine the direction of the scent.

The five people were scattered around the cafeteria, some sitting at tables, on the service counter, or leaning against the wall. Every one of them was silent and sullen, their eyes downcast. They would raise them every so often to glance anxiously at each other. Only one of them was absent and that was Kristin, who had been moved to an office off the main corridor where a makeshift bed had been set up for her on a low couch. Adam had found some drugs in a supply cupboard in one of the offices and administered it, so that she could at least sleep for a while.

Sleep… and forget.

The others were not so fortunate. They were now faced with certain death if they remained in this corridor; either by slow starvation or the return of the Simulants who had attacked the ship in the first place. Neither option was a pretty one. Now, worn and exhausted, they all stood or sat in the cafeteria, with absolutely no idea how to save themselves.

Finally it was the doctor, Dominic Bacus, who spoke. "Jonah controls all the airlock doors, doesn't he?" Dominic was 45, his dark hair was graying, and he had two day's worth of black stubble on his chin.

"Yeah," Rodney Cross said wearily, only because he was the resident 'computer geek' and everyone assumed he knew everything about the ship's security system. He didn't.

"And Jonah can't help us," Wade said from the other side of the room. He was sitting on the floor with his back leaning against a vending machine; all its lights had died and it looked forlorn and dull. Wade was eating a packet of biscuits that he had taken by smashing the glass on the front of the machine.

"Ok…" Dominic said, frowning and rubbing his chin.

"We're all gonna die," Wade said matter-of-factly, and crunched into another biscuit. Adam, who was sitting at one of the tables with his head in his hands, felt like punching him, but instead he just curled his fingers tightly in his dark blonde hair and tried to ignore him.

"Stop saying that," one of the women said menacingly. Her name was Rosanna, and like Kristin and Wade, she worked in the Cloning Labs. "If you say that one more time I'm going to throw something at you."

"Go ahead," the man retorted with a weary smile. "No, I got a better idea. Kill me now so I won't be around when the simulants come back. I don't wanna be around for that." His eyes glinted darkly.

"You will be, you asshole," Rosanna said cuttingly, "because when we find a way out of here we're leaving you behind."

Wade just stared at her, long and hard, and slowly scrunched up the biscuit packet he had been holding. He threw it at her but it fluttered harmlessly to the ground. He wrenched himself to his feet and stalked out of the room.

"Going to try the door again," he muttered on the way out.

The Cat froze in mid-step. He was halfway down a hallway that ended in a closed airlock door, and he could have sworn he heard voices. More importantly, though… there was definitely food on the other side of that door. He approached it carefully, cautiously, his nose hairs quivering.

There was a perfectly circular, glass window set into the door, and as he approached it he could see, through his own reflection, a short stretch of corridor on the other side, and a large open room that seemed to be a cafeteria of some sort; he could only see into it a few feet, though. Suddenly he leaped back, surprised, as a man exited the cafeteria and walked right towards him, towards the door. His head was hanging down and he was frowning.

The Cat held up a gloved hand (he was still wearing his gold spacesuit) and waved experimentally. "Hey, Buddy!" He said loudly.

The man on the other side of the glass froze, and his head jerked up as if being yanked by an invisible string. He stared out through the window at the smiling figure and his green eyes widened with shock. Finally he opened his mouth and said, dazedly, "Smegging hell!"

His voice was muffled by the glass and the door, but the Cat still heard it, and his grin widened. He waited for the man to open the door.

Instead, the guy twirled around like a ballerina and ran straight back into the room he had just exited, which the Cat thought was extremely rude. The grin sunk off his face. "Hey! Where'd you get your manners, Bud? Off the back of a cereal packet?" He stepped up to the door, intending to open it and follow the man, but at that moment a group of people began pouring out of the cafeteria, and he stopped again, warily.

One of the people, a pretty lady with dark hair, pressed her face up to the window. There were tears in her eyes.

"Thank God! Get us out! Please- you have to help us!" She was shouting.

Lister was still looking at the files when Miranda joined him in the control room. He was idly chewing the end of one his dreadlocks, she noted- something she had never seen him do before. He was clearly very tired and anxious.

"No luck?" She asked, unnecessarily, leaning against the doorframe.

"Nah," he said, and let the piece of paper drift back down on top of the pile. "I don't understand a word of it. Kryten might, though- I'll get him to have a look once he gets back.

"Have you tried talking to him through the head…phone…thingies?" She said, embarrassed, not knowing what to call them.

Lister just nodded and rubbed the back of his neck as if he had an ache there. "Yeah… there was no response. I think we're out of range or something." He noticed the slightly worried look on Miranda's face and added, quickly, "He'll be back soon though."

He put his hands on his hips, examining her, and said nonchalantly, "Talking to Rimmer, were you?"

She smiled, and he thought she might have blushed slightly… but it was hard to tell in the dim light. "Yep."

He nodded and returned the smile, trying not to look too interested one way or the other, and made a move towards the door. "We better go wait for Kryts then, I s'pose."

Miranda stepped out of the doorway to let him past, and they walked together back across the Cloning Bay, their skin tinged green by the light emanating from the pods.

"You like him," Miranda said abruptly, and it took Lister a moment to catch up.

"'Ey?" He said stupidly.

"That's why you left him on," She said brightly, glancing at him sideways. "Isn't it?"

"I guess," Lister said reluctantly, after a moment's pause. "But the thing is... the thing about Rimmer... you haven't known him that long. But he's a really hard guy to like. To be honest, he's a complete smeg'ead sometimes."

"Yeah, you mentioned that," she said, smiling. Then her face grew sad. "But don't be too hard on him." Her eyes pleaded silently with him. "He's nice inside. All the rest of it... it's just a wall."

Lister looked at her for a long time, and shrugged. "Yeah, maybe."

"You've got to stay together, all of you. No matter what happens."

He looked at her, surprised. "What're you talking like that for?"

She shrugged, silently. the movement seemed to take a lot effort. "Just look out for each other. That's all."

"Hey! We're the Boys from the Dwarf," he said with a reassuring grin. Then, more serious, he looped an affectionate arm around her shoulders. "And we'll look out for you, too. So don't worry."

Miranda smiled, but didn't look at him. In the light from the cloning pods her eyes seemed impossibly green, and radiant. He didn't see the sorrow hidden behind them, because she had turned her face away.