This is a sequel to 'Who knows This Morning What Will Happen Tonight?' There is a slight cross-over with 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' (the book not the $&$££$ movie). This is the second in a trilogy. Have fun!

Chapter One: Bored Again, Naturally

The Jupiter Mining Ship 'Red Dwarf' had been silent and dormant for a very long time. But now with an ecstatic shudder, the engines whirred back into action and a sleepy face appeared upon one of the hundreds of screens featured throughout the ship's body. Cool, fresh oxygen pumped out of the ventilation ducts and each little atom filtered its way through the atmosphere. The face was wide-awake by now, though it still retained its inherently dozy expression. The face was female; pretty with platinum-blonde hair down to where shoulders should have been. She looked around and soon discovered things were not quite as she had left them. Holly was missing something. Using her highly intelligent brain to run through a list of all items aboard the ship (bumping her head on the screen for each number) she quickly worked out that she didn't have a highly intelligent brain after all. In fact, she had less brains than the man who invented the game of Magma Polo. Still, it managed to run for three years as an Olympic sport until all its fans and players died from combustion and various degrees of burns. A skutter dropped a spanner two miles from Holly and the sound eventually echoed up to her. "Blimey," she said out loud, "this place is emptier than an agoraphobic's convention in Central Park." She suddenly realised what was missing. People. 1,168 to be exact. She checked her memory banks. Nope, the final sum had been changed to one human (ish), one hologram, a humanoid cat, a neurotic android and an obnoxious toaster. And they were nowhere to be found.

"Was it something I said?"

Lister awoke to the familiar random clanking of the pipes above his head. The familiar soft blast of air from Rimmer's nose against his shoulder as he slept soundly behind him. The familiar shuffling about as Kryten prepared the day's laundry. Everything was too damn familiar. Lister needed something new and interesting to happen. Nothing dangerous or life threatening - goodness knows he'd suffered from plenty if that over the years since the rest of the human race was presumably destroyed and he'd ended up stranded in space with an oddity of companions. He just wanted something to happen. Rimmer stirred in his sleep and mumbled something nasty about a guy called Hephaestion. Lister carefully squeezed out from under his arm and reached for his dressing gown. Perhaps something interesting was happening in the cockpit.

Alas, Lister found the Cat filing his fingerclaws and adding a fine coat of clear polish to them to make them pretty. "Smell anything?" Lister asked hopefully. The Cat drew in a quick sniff and shook his head. Lister slumped into his normal seat. "Great. Smegging hell, I'm bored."

"Well, do what you normally do when you're bored, buddy."

"I normally do Rimmer but he's asleep." The Cat made an uncomfortable squeak and returned to neatening his cuticles. Lister tightened his dressing gown and squirmed into a snug position on the hard chair. The universe seemed even more hopelessly vast today than it had yesterday. Life had been more entertaining since Rimmer had received a hard-light form from Legion; there was no doubt about that. But lately time had become stagnant. Lister had a feeling this was about to change.

Rimmer hunted inside the cupboards for something to disguise the flavour of the stagnant water he had just boiled. Their supplies were tight and most items were completely exhausted and Rimmer felt ever so slightly guilty about eating and drinking when he didn't have to. But sitting and watching the Cat and Lister stuff themselves reminded Rimmer that he was not alive, and that he didn't really exist at all, and that his real self was floating in some other place depending on what religion he believed, and he wasn't sure if he did believe in an afterlife of any kind and that he might have in fact been reincarnated as a rectal wart on a Taiwanese whore, or if he had popped out of existence altogether and nothingness awaited his soul, if he even had a soul in the first place...; and thoughts like that made his head hurt and his stomach queasy.

Rimmer found two boxes labelled mocha and cappuccino. He peeked inside both. Five packets left in the first and six left in the latter. He took one out of the cappuccino. "Now you're even, Steven," Rimmer remarked and laughed, perhaps a little too loudly and perhaps for a little too long.

"You've gone barmy," said Lister, wandering back in after deciding that nothing really was happening in the cockpit.

"Balmy? Like Spain?"

"No, smeghead, barmy. Only one 'r'. It means 'nuts'."

"Actually, my definition of balmy is spelt with an 'l'. Now who's stupid?" Rimmer scowled as Lister shrugged off the attempt to rouse his temper. Which was a shame because Rimmer thought some of the best sex they ever had was when they were pissed off with each other. "What's wrong with you lately? You've been so miserable."

"I'm just fed up with nothing happening."

"Personally I'm glad of the rest from dashing about. Running away from supernovas and blood-sucking giant insects. Ugh!"

"Mm."

"I don't see how you can be bored. I've offered to talk you through my war memorabilia collection."

Lister looked up and said very clearly, "Rimmer, I will never be that bored."