"I'm going to be an uncle." A smug smile stretched across Rimmer's face. He looked back and forth between Lister's dismayed shock and the red dot on the pregnancy test, trying to decide which was more satisfying. The long and short of the story was that his git of a bunkmate had gotten himself knocked up through his own drunken idiocy. There was justice in the world, after all.

"I'm pregnant!" Lister's plaintive yelp was music to Rimmer's ears.

"El pregundo," Rimmer confirmed with a smirk. "This is all your fault, you know."

"No, it's her fault. Deb's. She—"

"She's you, Listy-boy. You brought this upon yourself."

"At least you got some," the Cat grumbled. "All I got was a traveling flea circus."

"I hope it was worth it, Lister," Rimmer said. He crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling, enjoying his sense of superiority. "I knew that parallel universe was trouble. So I avoided prolonged contact with their perverse world, and therefore I escaped without any complications."

Suddenly Rimmer felt ill, nauseated. He clutched his stomach and massaged his temples, but he still felt the bile rising. Without any warning, he vomited on the floor.

The Cat and Lister watched, disgusted, as the holographic pile of puke dissolved. Rimmer stood up weakly. "I don't understand," he said. "I haven't eaten anything. I can't eat anything. And I can't get sick…" A horrible thought occurred to him. "No, that's impossible. I never—oh God."

"What is it?" asked the Cat.

"She wouldn't have. No. Besides, I'm not even sure I blacked out."

"Rimmer…" Lister leaned forward quizzically. "What's going on? Come on, out with it."

Rimmer snapped his fingers. "A spatial distortion. That must have been it. They've been known to interfere with holograms before, and God knows how many of them might be flying around that matriarchal universe. All sorts of things could go wrong. It was just a spatial distortion, I'm sure of it."

Holly's face appeared on the monitor. "What's happening, dudes?"

"Lister's pregnant. And I'm not, because it's impossible." Rimmer ran a hand through his hair and began ticking reasons off on his fingers. "Not only am I male, but I'm dead! Dead people can't give birth! Besides, unlike Mr. Self-Gratification over there, I haven't had sex in the last three million years or so."

"Half a mo." Holly disappeared and then popped back up again. "According to the hologram readouts, Arnold, you're going to have twenty-five babies."

"Twenty-five!" Rimmer's eyes widened. "But that's absurd!"

"You're going to have a lot of fun pushing those out!" said the Cat, baring his large teeth in a grin.

"Hang on." Holly's eyes wandered briefly to the left of the screen. He smiled sheepishly. "Whoops, I was looking at the guppy tank readouts. Sorry. You're only going to have one baby."

"Thank God," Rimmer said, closing his eyes in relief. They popped open again as soon as he realized what Holly said. "Wait, what?"

Lister smirked and stood up ramrod straight. "Look at me, I'm Rimmer! I'm so smart, I escaped from the parallel universe without any complications! Except oh look, I'm smegging pregnant!"

"Shut up!" Rimmer ordered. "Holly, I demand a retest." He turned to Lister. "Besides, it's not like you're one to talk. At least I'm not carrying twins. At least I didn't drink enough to knock out an elephant and then consort with…you know."

"So how did you get pregnant then?" Lister demanded.

Holly cleared his throat. "We found traces of holo-rohypnol in his system. That would have knocked him out for a few hours."

"So you're saying…" Lister didn't know whether to laugh at or pity Rimmer, but after two years of his constant company, laughter came easier. "You're saying Rimmer date-raped himself?"

"No, she…" Rimmer corrected.

"Yeah, but she's you, isn't she?"

The Cat's mouth turned down and his nostrils flared out in disgust. "That is sick, man, just sick!"

"I don't believe this." Rimmer covered his face with his hand. "This isn't fair at all. How could she do this to me? How can I bring a baby into a world where things like this happen? It's irresponsible, that's what it is! Why haven't we fixed things? What kind of world are we leaving to our children?" Tears sprung to his eyes as he continued speaking with mounting hysteria. "Cat, go organize a nuclear disarmament summit right now. And while you're up, get me a box of tissues and a large bowl of pistachio ice cream with hot fudge and jalapeños. Now!"

­The Cat scurried away toward the kitchen and returned with the desired items. Lister eyed Rimmer's treat. "That, erm…that actually looks really good. Can I—?"

"No! Get your own!" Rimmer hugged the bowl to his chest protectively. Without warning, he burst into tears. "I'm sorry, Dave. I don't know what's come over me." He lifted a heaping spoonful of ice cream to his mouth. "I don't even feel like myself anymore."

Lister scooped out a handful of ice cream with his hands. "Well, maybe that's a good thing," he said.

Rimmer's abdomen suddenly distended, and he had to take off his belt and shirt to make himself comfortable. "Ow!" he said. "I feel it kicking."

"That's amazing," Lister said, a look of rapt wonder in his eyes. "They grow so fast, don't they?"

He and Rimmer stared at each other, horrified. "We have to stop this," Rimmer said, standing up awkwardly. "Ow…ah! Oh God!" He clutched his abdomen and began breathing deeply. A pool of fluid spilled down around his feet.

"This had better not mean what I think it does," Rimmer said.

"Code blue," Holly said. "Medical emergency. We have a man in labor." Scudders rushed around uselessly, trying to get everything in order.

"What do I do? What do I do?" Rimmer demanded, beginning to panic.

"Lie down on the table," Holly said. "We'll try to get some holo-anaesthetic, maybe Lister can find a clean scalpel…"

That was the last thing Rimmer heard before fainting clean away.

When he came to, he saw a blurry vision of the Cat dangling a bit of yarn over a basket. Rimmer blinked and followed the trail of yarn across the room, where Lister was knitting.

"Wha…?" he said incoherently.

"Congratulations, you have a healthy six-point-two nano-ounce baby girl," Lister said. "I thought I'd make her a little something…didn't want her to come into the world unprepared." He held up his project—a tiny straitjacket. "You know, considering her parents and all."

"Just wait till you give birth," Rimmer mumbled. "So can I…can I see her?"

The Cat handed the basket over to Rimmer. Rimmer peeked inside and saw an adorable infant with wide hazel eyes, tiny hands and feet, and a tiny H on her forehead. "She's beautiful," he said.

"I bet she'll be even more beautiful when she's seventeen," said Lister.

"Lister, if you make any indecent advances toward my daughter, I will personally force-feed you your own testicles," Rimmer said.

"I was joking, you know," Lister said. "She's a hologram, I couldn't touch her anyway. Besides, she's the genetic product of you and you. Even three million and nineteen years of total celibacy couldn't make me that horny."

The Cat leaned over the basket, smiling in anticipation. "So what are you going to name her?"

Rimmer looked into his daughter's eyes, getting lost in their mysterious depths. She looked at him and smiled, and in that moment, he couldn't help smiling back. "Hope," he said.