Chapter 10:
The Dwarfers sat with bated breath as Sam regaled them with tales of their futures.
"Do you guys remember when you went into light speed and you started seeing future echoes?"
"How could we smeggin' forget, Sam" said Lister.
"So you remember seeing your-self aged 171, Dave"
"Yea, I told myself it was Bexley who got blown up and not me."
"All I remember about it Lister, is that you are still going to be as big a goit then as you are now."
"Well, anyway" said Sam. "Three months after that happens you guys will come across a small water planet with one, very small island on it."
"No other land?" asked Rimmer.
"Not a sausage, Arnold."
"So what happens there, Sam" asked Kryten.
"There's a spring coming up in the middle of the island and you, Dave and you, Cat drink from it. Minutes later you will be the same age you are now."
"Smeg!" said Lister.
"Smeg!" said Rimmer.
"Oh, dear!" said Kryten.
"How the heck and I supposed to drink from a spring!" said the Cat. "Is it hollow? Do you put it in a glass and suck the water up with it like a straw?"
"It's not that sort of spring, Cat" said Sam, smiling.
"A spring is a natural flow of water from beneath the ground" said Holly.
Lister tried not to scream as he listened to the Cat's ranting. "What's in the smeggin' water that makes us young again Sam?"
"I don't know Dave. It just does" answered the dragon. "And Kryten, you immerse yourself in the water and all of your mechanicals become like new."
'Wonderful!" exclaimed Kryten, wiggling his head around.
Well that's all very well and smegging good, but what happens after that?" asked Rimmer.
Sam thought for a moment and then said "one year after that, you find a planet where the survivors of the Cat race ended up."
"We what?" said the Cat, standing straight up in surprise.
"You find the rest of the Cats, Cat."
"Lady Cats?"
"Lots of them" said Sam.
The Cat smiled an evil smile and said nothing. But they all knew what he was thinking.
"So wait just a smeggin' minute, you mean we find the cat race, the ones who evolved on Red Dwarf and left in search of Fuschal, err… Fiji?" said Lister, looking shocked.
Rimmer put his head in his hands, screamed and said "are you telling us we find more stupid, fetid, lumbering, sub-moronic cats?"
"Hey, those are fighting words, helmet-hair!" said the Cat, putting up his dukes.
"You're a nasty weasel of a man, Rimmer aren't you" said Lister. "A right little smeggin' ferret!"
Holly didn't say anything; he merely gave Rimmer the whiskers, nose, ears and tail of the animal that Lister had just called him.
"Actually, Arnold" said Sam, looking very cross with the hologram but smiling at Holly's antics, "they aren't stupid. By this stage they have a thriving civilisation going. There's no crime, no war, no disease and no hunger. They are a very advanced race."
"So what happens there Sam?" asked Holly, trying to keep the conversation from skewing off to one side.
"Well, it's very exciting! The Cat's welcome their long lost brother and because he introduces them to their god, Cloister, the king lets him marry his nine daughters and the Cat here becomes a Prince of the Cat people."
"Owww! Yea! Yea! Yea!" said the Cat. "Working class kid makes good."
"But I'm not their god" said Lister looking at the Cat with disbelief.
"King of the Cat people?" said Rimmer looking disgusted and wiggling his little ferret nose. "That's like making Lister the King of India because he likes curries!"
"Smeg-off Bonehead" replied Lister.
"Well, Dave; eventually you convince them that you aren't god but because you still stuck up for Frankenstein, therefore allowing their race to evolve, they make you their honorary god, how's that?"
"And we sort out all that 'what colour the smeggin' hats should be' and 'sacred laws' crap?"
"Yes, Dave. Then they ask if they can have Red Dwarf to use as a shrine to all of those who died during the Cat Wars and to the first group to leave Red Dwarf, the one's that crashed into the asteroid."
"And do we?"
"Yes, and in return they give you a smaller and much faster ship to which they transfer Holly and then Dave and Arnold take off."
"What about me, Sam? What happens to me?" asked Kryten.
"A faster ship?" asked Rimmer. "Is it capable of faster than light travel?"
"Yes it is, Arnold."
"So do we get back to Earth?" asked Lister.
"You do Dave, but not that way. If you did it would still take a long time to get there."
"Then how" asked Holly.
"Can I answer Kryten first?" said Sam.
"Yea, sorry man" said Lister, apologising to his mechanical friend.
"Well, the Cats tell of the 3 moons that orbit their planet and it seems one of them has an Earth-like atmosphere. Kryten asks if they thought it was possible plants would grow in the soil, they said that things already did. Then he asks if he may be permitted to settle there, they say yes and he gets to finally grow his garden."
"Oh my" said Kryten, oil leaking form his eye sockets again.
"That's great Kryten, your own garden" said Lister, smiling like a chipmunk.
Even Rimmer was happy to hear this news and tried to stifle a tear in his own hologrammatic eye. But as usual, he tried to not show any weakness, well; any more weakness. "Yea, that's great Tin-Man, and then we won't have to put up with your smug-gitness any more."
"I'll miss you too Mr Rimmer sir" said Kryten.
"Hey! That's great Dr Frankenstein! Me and my wives and kids can come and visit you!" said the future Prince of the Cats.
Holly, Lister, Rimmer and Kryten all looked at the Cat trying to remember how many times they tried to tell him that Dr Frankenstein was the creator and not the monster. But they were so happy for him that they said nothing.
"Right, said Rimmer. "Now how do we, that is, Captain Curry-House and I, get back to Earth?"
"Maybe if you shut-up for five minutes, bonehead, he might tell us" said Lister.