Chapter 5:

"Right" said Holly "The dragon is from Earth. Apparently they've always been there, we just couldn't see them. They were… how did the files put it? Oh yea, they were out of phase with the rest of the planet."

"And what does that mean, Holly, you wonderful, beautiful piece of advanced technology" said Rimmer, hoping to get back into Holly's good books.

Holly looked at him with his 'it's too late to suck up bonehead' look and suddenly Rimmer was sporting a slick black hairdo with a part three quarters over and a little Hitler moustache.

When Kryten saw what Holly had done his eyes bulged like he was being strangled and he covered his mouth to hide the fact that his mouth was open wider than whale eating krill. Lister on the other hand, nearly spit up his vindaloo and had to quickly turn away completely and pretend to sneeze or something. But not the Cat, nope! He just stared his usual blank looking stare at Rimmer, wondering what was going on.

What?" said Rimmer.

"Nothing man" said Lister, trying not to laugh but doing a really bad job of it.

"No Sir, it's nothing, really" said Kryten, hoping his guilt chip didn't kick in too soon.

"Keep going Holl"

"Anyway, out of phase means they could interact with things like animals, plants and humans, but none of them knew that until they were being eaten."

"So they could see us and eat things but we couldn't see them?" asked Lister.

"That's about the gist of it, yea"

"It sounds like the dragons were in a different dimension to us Holly" said Kryten.

"Pretty much Kryten, yea, that's what I thought; maybe the two dimensions were so close together they actually mingled, but in a way that the other one was dominant. So for centuries, the dragons pretty much did what they pleased. Makes you think."

"About what?" asked Rimmer scratching under his nose, wondering what it was that was making it itch so much.

"I'm sorry; what?"

"Makes you think about what?"

"Oh! Sorry; yea, it makes you think about all the people who went missing over the years and whether or not they actually might have ended up as dragon fertilizer."

"Holly man, that's pretty smeggin' gross even for you!" said Lister disgusted with the senile computer's attitude.

"He's probably right though Lister" said Rimmer, an knowing smile moving across his face. "Maybe Glenn Miller wasn't taken by aliens; maybe he ended up as a dragon's vindaloo. Maybe Scott didn't eat Oates after all!"

"And you're even smeggin' worse. Ok Holly, so we know that originally these dragons couldn't be seen, what happened to change that?"

Holly continued. "The boffins on Earth at the beginning of the 25th century started experimenting with something called phase shifting, hoping to be able to explore other dimensions, but in the end all they accomplished was the ability to actually see the dragons. They also found that they could touch them so they decided to capture some of them and experiment on them."

"The poor dragons" said Kryten, feeling sorry for the hungry carnivores. "But that's what humans do; they don't understand something so they experiment on it. Did they even try to talk to them, maybe relate to them in some way or…"

"Don't go all smegging New Age on us Kryters" said Lister. "These things were eating humans after all. What did you expect them to do?"

"So what did experimenting on them accomplish Holly" asked Rimmer. "What did they find out?"

"Well according to the files Kryten gave me, nothing! Their physiology was nothing special, it was similar to other large reptiles; none of their organs, bones or any other body part had any life-extending, medicinal or any other useful properties so they just started putting them in zoos."

"But we heard it smeggin' talk, Holly" said Lister. "What does it say about that?"

"Not a sausage."

"Do you think maybe I missed some files Holly." asked Kryten.

"No, I don't think so Kryten. The one's you gave me seemed to be pretty complete."

"But what about the tractor beam, Holl" asked Lister "Why did RD III crash and we just sort of just, landed?"

"I dunno Dave. Maybe the dragon reprogrammed it when it came out of stasis and left that message.

"That's probably what happened Mr Lister, sir" said Kryten. "It knew we were coming so it programmed the TB to turn on and drag us down when we were passing."

"But how, how did it know we were coming?" asked Rimmer. "How did it know all that stuff about us?"

"I'm sorry Arnold. There nothing about that in these files. I suppose you're going to have to go back and let it out of the stasis chamber to find out."

"There is no smegging way I'm going back to let that monster out!"

'Yea, you're smeggin' right Rimmer, as usual" said Lister. "Holly, can you still turn Rimmer's light-bee off like you used too?"

"I sure can Dave."

"So if he chickens out and decides to try and take off in Starbug or something without us you can stop him?"

"Yes, Dave."

"You really are a bastard, do you know that Lister" said Rimmer, really, really cheesed-off.

"I had a good teacher Rimmer! Living in the same smeggin' quarters as you will do that to a man!"

"Maybe I'd better come too Dave" said Holly. "I'll just download myself into my mobile unit, hang on a mo."

While they were waiting for Holly, the others tried to wake the cat who had fallen asleep during the discussion about the dragon.

"Cat, Cat! Wake up, man" said Lister, shaking the slumbering moggy.

"Huh? What? Hey! Why did you wake me up you stupid monkey? I was having a really great dream about me and the lady dragon!" said the Cat.

"It's not a lady, man; it's… oh never mind – where's Holly?"

"I'm here Dave" said Holly from his trolley.

"Brutal, right let's go. Rimmer – you too, there's no use hiding behind that swivel chair."

Rimmer crawled out from his hidey hole and said "I really, really hate you Lister! Do you know that?"

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