Chapter 2:

The Dwarfers looked closely at the ring and the pedestal it sat on. The symbols all looked different, although some did have a certain similarity to others. They found no switches, dials, buttons, keyboards or anything that even looked like a control panel or 'on-switch' for the ring. So, then they searched the surrounding area for clues as to what this 'big shiny thing' was that the Cat had found. But they found nothing. Zip, zilch; nada, zero; nothing. At least, that's how Lister put anyway.

"Mmm! Very interesting" said Kryten as he scanned the ring.

"What's interesting, Kryten" said Lister, with a really, really confused look on his face.

"Well, sir; the scan indicates that this ring is made up of nothing."

"Nothing?" said Rimmer. "It's solid… well, solid whatever this stuff is."

"Yea, man" said Lister. "It's rock, or stone or something."

"Not according to the scan, sirs" said Kryten. "It's not registering on the scanner at all.

"Give it to me Kryten" said Rimmer angrily. "Knowing you, you trumped up chamber-pot emptier, you've probably got the smegging thing set on 'suck' or 'rinse, you goit."

Kryten gave the scanner to the hologram of the man who, even when resorting to using highly illegal learning drugs, had managed to fail his astronavigation exam so many times it became an entry in the 'Guinness Universe Book of Records' under the 'Really, really dumb people' section.

Rimmer played with the scanner like he knew what he was doing then said "well, the tin-man is right. The scan says that there's nothing there."

"Maybe it's a space mirage" said Kryten.

"Mirages aren't solid man" said Lister, still confused. "Maybe it's another smeggin' group hallucination?"

Quiet up until now, the Cat spoke up and said "maybe you'd better scan that."

"What?" said Lister.

The Cat pointed behind them, through the ring and into the darkness of space. "Scan that blue swirly thing in the sky that's behind you."

Lister, Rimmer and Kryten slowly turned and looked at what the Cat was pointing towards. Shocked, stunned and not a little amazed; their jaws dropped in horror and eventually Kryten said "oh my! It's a time hole!"

Rimmer sort of composed himself and said "I thought time holes were orange?"

"They usually are sir, but according to the scan, that is a time hole.

"Where did that smeggin' thing come from, Kryten" Lister said, still trying to put his jaw back into place.

"Unknown sir, but it seems to be stagnant."

"Say what, freak-face?" the Cat quipped.

"It's not moving Mr Cat, sir;" replied the soap-opera loving android.

"Well why didn't you just say that, Robbie Robot?"

"This is way too smeggin' weird" said Lister. "First we find…" Lister looked at the Cat who was looking rather annoyed "….sorry, the Cat finds this ring-thing; and then we see a time hole. Do you think the two might be related somehow, Kryten."

The Cat looked at Lister like he had Space Mumps again. He simply said, and simply really is the right word, "how can they be related, door-mouse cheeks, they don't even look like each other."

The three non-cats just stood and looked at the Cat. This was, quite likely, the dumbest thing he had ever said.

But the Cat and his comment were soon forgotten when the ring made a loud rumbling noise.

"What the smeg was that" said Lister, looking really panicky.

"Umm… Err…" said Kryten, his panic circuits engaging quicker than he might have hoped. "I, I, I…. I believe it was the ring, sir; look!"

They all looked at where Kryten was pointing to see a part of the ring rotating slowly, then; as it got to a certain point, stopped and another part of it lit up and then seemed to lock a symbol into place with a loud clunk; and then it continued to rotate.

"I… I think we'd better find a place to hide" said Rimmer, doing that thing that holograms should not be able to do. "This smegging thing looks like its going to blow up or something" and he ran off towards a large outcrop of boulders.

Although he would later deny ever saying it, what came out of Lister's mouth was "I think Rimmer might be right! Leg it!"

Then they ran! They ran as fast as their legs and the moons gravity would allow them to and hid behind Rimmer's rocks. When they thought they might be safe enough from any possible explosion, Lister, Kryten and the Cat poked their heads over the rocks and took a peek at the ring just as a seventh symbol was locked into place.

"It's stopped moving" said Lister. "Maybe it's playing possum."

"Possum" said the Cat. "What are you…?"

The Cat didn't get those last words out quite quick enough for, as he was about to utter another syllable, the ring made an extremely loud 'whooshing' noise and what looked like a whirlpool poked out from the ring for about twenty feet and then retracted back towards the ring.

"What the smeg was that?" said Rimmer trying to dig under the rocks.

"See for yourself man" said Lister as his eyes bulged out like he had just tasted one of Rimmer's attempts at cooking.

"Is it safe?"

"I think it might be, sir; yes" said Kryten.

Rimmer extracted himself from his self-dug foxhole and peered over the rocks. "That looks like water" he said in a whiney-panicky type voice.

Kryten had the scanner going and after a few seconds said "in this case, looks are deceiving, Mr Rimmer, sir. What looks like water is actually the event horizon of a worm-hole!"

"A worm hole" said the Cat. "Do you mean to tell me that a great big, gigantic worm is going to poke its ugly head out of that thing at any moment?""

"It's not that sort of worm hole Mr Cat" said Kryten turning to the Cat to try to make an attempt to explain to him what a worm hole was. "It's a sort of tunnel in space-time that connects two points in the universe; they are very unstable and…"

"Hang on Kryten, something's happening" said Lister, reaching towards his robotic friend and getting his attention.

"Smeg!" said Rimmer as he ducked back into his fox-hole.

The others looked at the ring and Kryten said "Look, sirs; something's coming out!"