Long time no update. OK, VERY long time, no update, and I'm sorry about that. But here's a fresh new chapter I hope you'll enjoy! Please let me know what you think! :)
Chapter Eight
"I do not want to be here," Rimmer muttered. "I truly do not want to be here."
The Dwarfers had left their vehicles parked snugly in a sort of maintenance shed just inside the surprisingly crowded parking dome that stood adjacent to the much, much larger private dome that protected the Rimmer family estate from Io's harsh climate. From orbit, the two domes looked like two gigantic, slime green scum bubbles, the smaller one half-swallowed by the bigger one. But, to Lister's mind, which had grown up under the blue skies and open spaces of Earth, the domes looked even worse from the inside.
Despite the twitter of birdsong and the occasional squirrel or rabbit peeping out from the grass, there was something about this place that churned the Earthman's gut, something faux and unnatural. The air was unusually heavy and warm, and smelled like the inside of a greenhouse that had been shut up all summer. White floodlights dotted the landscape, but they seemed to be more for the plants' benefit than any causal stroller. Most of the light in the dome was the secondhand sunlight reflected off the massive face of Jupiter, whose looming orange storms seemed close enough to touch.
Lister shivered a little, then sneezed all over his jacket.
The Cat recoiled, but Kryten scurried to offer him a handkerchief.
"Thanks, man," Lister said, and cleared his sinuses with a honk that should have resonated for miles. In the dome's enclosed atmosphere, it sounded dull and feeble. Lister blew his nose again, then wiped at the little wet sprinkles that dotted his leather sleeve.
Kochanski grimaced and shook her head, as if to say, "Hopeless!"
"So," Lister said, after handing the damp cloth back to Kryten, "how far to civilization?"
"What 'civilization'?" Rimmer scoffed, glowering at the rolling expanse of trimmed trees and manicured lawn as if it were a bleak tarmac stretched between the thick, barbed wire-topped walls of a prison. "There's only the main house, the greenhouses, and a few maintenance and hunting sheds scattered about between the trees. Father was always mad about hunting. Well, shooting really. Gave him an excuse to mess about with all those guns he kept collecting."
"Guns?" Kochanski looked around nervously. "Then, shouldn't you go on ahead and introduce us? I, for one, have no intention of being shot as a trespasser."
Rimmer's smile was as hollow as his eyes.
"Oh, my father wouldn't shoot you for trespassing," he said.
The Cat seemed to brighten.
"No?"
"No," Rimmer affirmed. "Just breathing's excuse enough for him."
Cat's expression crumpled.
"Your family's all nutters, Rimmer," Lister said. "The lot."
"Father and Mother, I'll grant you," Rimmer said flatly. "Perhaps even myself. But not good ol' John, Frank, and Howard. They're the success stories here. Perfect lives, perfect careers… Perfect hair…"
Rimmer raked a hand over his own dense curls and started marching in a direction slightly diagonal from where they'd been standing.
"If you're coming, mind to walk where I step," he called back without turning. "The house security computer doesn't take kindly to the uninvited."
He lifted his head, his beady eyes narrowed almost to slits as he scanned the familiar landscape. He knew every tree his brothers had lashed him to, every rose bush they'd dumped him in, every anthill they'd forced him to lick. It stung that the Wildfire would inflict this upon him, and stung deeply. That she would allow the people who had rejected him, the people who had crippled his childhood and mangled his adult ambitions the satisfaction of seeing, first hand, the abject failure he'd become…
"A lovely contrast to the John-Frank-and-Howard set this motley crew'll make, yes indeedy-do," he muttered darkly as he stomped the lush, even grass under his flight boots. "Second Tech Bonehead Rimmer and the dregs of the Mining Corps sipping champagne and nibbling strawberries with the cream of the Space Corps elite. Wonderful."
He paused for a moment to suppress a shudder, only just managing to make it look like he was waiting for the others to catch up with his long strides.
"Let's get this bloody reunion over with."
Ever since that last injection, Cdr. Frank Rimmer's left arm had become a burning, tingling, aching irritation. He tried to attend to General Metzeler as she prattled on and on about The Project, but Frank's mind kept slipping away to a luxurious Jacuzzi tub where his hot, prickling arm could be soothed and massaged by streams of air bubbles. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the smooth porcelain beneath his feet, smell the sharp, chemical scent of Io's heavily treated water…
But this was his parents' anniversary party, and he had to bite his lip and bear the discomfort for the sake of The Family, The Corps, and The Project. His parents would expect no less.
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"
Frank felt the tug of little fingers on his uniform and swallowed a frustrated sigh.
"I'm so sorry, General," he excused himself. He stepped a discrete distance from the table, then glared down at his offspring. Four bright eyes stared eagerly up at him from two flushed little faces. Frank's irritation grew.
"Can't you see I'm talking with important people," he snapped. "Where is your mother?
"Daddy, you have to come!" the little girl said, pushing her younger brother back so she could have more of her father's attention. "Security's reported intruders on the grounds! I saw them on the monitors!"
She reached for his hand, but Frank pulled away from her touch, his arm tingling and burning worse than ever. The girl's crestfallen expression didn't even register in his peripheral vision.
"Why bother me?" he demanded. "Why not annoy your grandfather, or irritate your uncles?"
"We tried," the boy piped up.
"And?" Frank snapped.
The little boy wilted, but managed to squeak, "They said we're your brats and should pester you."
Frank clenched his teeth against the surging pain in his arm and turned his blazing eyes on the boy.
"Serves me right for letting your sap of a mother talk me into having children in the first place," he growled through his agony. The searing heat was moving up his shoulder now, into his back and neck. Gesturing to his daughter, he said, "You, girl. Show me to the monitors already."
The hurt on the girl's face shifted to a superior sneer, which she aimed at her snubbed little brother.
"It's this way, Daddy," she said, and led the way into the house.
Rimmer led the Dwarfers up a curving hillside stairway lined with flowering laurels, azaleas, and oleanders. Off to the right, a painstakingly crafted waterfall splashed down rocks that had been cut and placed 'just so' to create a prismatic rainbow effect.
"This place might be beautiful, if it wasn't so artificial," Kochanski said. "As it is, it puts me in mind of a theme park, or that cheezy asteroid casino with the android barmaids: At'Vegas City."
"At'Vegas City. Yes, I know of it," Kryten said, sounding somewhat disapproving. "The place that actually promotes itself as the happy merger of two of the tackiest places on Earth."
"'Cept, it's not on Earth," the Cat said with a wicked grin. "I remember, ol' Gerbil-Cheeks and I once spent four whole days playing the AR Video Game. What happens At'Vegas stays At'Vegas, baby!"
"Wait until you see the house," Rimmer said dryly. "It should be visible in just a few…" He climbed the last of the stairs and peered over the broad, neatly terraced hilltop gardens. "Ah. And there it is."
Lister had been puffing and cursing Rimmer and all Rimmer's ancestors the whole climb up the stone stairway. Now, as his head rose over the rim of the hill, his jaw dropped and he sagged, gasping to catch his breath.
"Smeg, Rimmer," he wheezed. "It's a smeggin' castle!"
"More of a stately home," Rimmer corrected.
From the look Lister shared with the Cat, it was clear he thought Rimmer was bragging. But Kochanski, who'd grown up among the wealthy set, could tell he was more embarrassed than proud of the ostentatious structure.
At first glance, its thick, square walls and castellations put the observer in mind of the Tower of London, but the sweeping spires and rows of windows were more like Highclere Castle. It was an unfortunate happenstance that the building's rich, pink marble façade looked a horrible, murky brown in the greenish orange daylight under the dome.
"Well, whatever it is, there's clearly something going on there today," Kochanski observed, standing on her tiptoes to peer over the topiary hedges. "Look at all those tents on the terrace."
The others jostled to see what she was seeing. As they did, a row of gem-like ruby balloons rose from among the white pavilions to spell out "Many Happy Returns" – a feat achieved through the careful manipulation of the static electricity generated by the dome itself.
Rimmer's face paled, and he swayed on his feet.
"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no no no no no."
Lister gripped his arm.
"What's with you, man? See someone you recognize?"
"She did this to me on purpose, I know she did," Rimmer sputtered, his ivory complexion filling with blotchy red.
"Who did what, Goalpost-Head?" the Cat demanded.
"The Wildfire computer, of course," Rimmer snarled. "She brought me here, to this place, on this day, at this time because…because she knew…she knows—"
"Knows what, Rimmer," Lister exclaimed. "Don't keep us in suspense, man."
Rimmer hung his head, his rigid posture on the verge of cracking.
"It's my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary. The day I swore…"
He choked, but swallowed hard and forced himself to go on, his eyes hard and bleak.
"I dreamed of this day so often, when I was young. This big anniversary party... It was supposed to be my perfect moment. The moment I would finally march up to my parents, look them straight in the eye and say, 'I did it. I passed the navigation exam. I'm an Officer.' And they would look at me and, for the first time, the first time in my hopeless, wretched life, they would see me. They would see me. My father would look to my mother. My mother would nod her head. Just slightly. Just enough to indicate her approval. And, just like that, I would be welcome at the table. The Officers' Table. The Family Table. Not fobbed off on the servants. That was how it was supposed to be. That was how it should have been. Except…"
"Except, you didn't pass," Lister said, the blunt words sounding much gentler than they read.
"Not that time," Rimmer said stiffly. "Nor the time after that. Nor the countless times after that. So, I stayed away. I threw myself into my career. And now…"
"And now, what?" Kochanski said. "What have you to be ashamed of, right here, at this moment?"
Kryten was ready with an answer.
"Well, there's his lifetime of failures, his inability to climb any higher up the ladder of command than head custodian of a redundant janitorial team aboard a rundown mining craft with faulty drive plates, his—"
"Enough, Kryten," Lister interrupted.
"But, that's not you anymore, is it," Kochanski said. "Maybe it was years ago, before you left with the Wildfire, but you've changed since then. I've seen it. The man I met aboard my Red Dwarf was not the man Kryten just described. He was brave, charming, humble – a genuine hero!"
Rimmer snorted.
"He was just a character," he said. "An act I put on. He wasn't me. Not really."
"Oh? And what about this other bloke, then," Kochanski pressed, starting to get angry. "This sniveling little failure I've heard so much about. Who's to say he's not an act too, hm? Who's to say he's not a safe little character you put on when you need an excuse not to try – an excuse to back away from what scares you the most!"
"And what's that?" Rimmer demanded.
Kochanski narrowed her eyes, and her voice got low and dark.
"Why don't you tell me?"
Rimmer's nostrils widened and he seemed to tremble all over until, finally, he turned away, his furious glare directed fully at the floating balloons high above.
"You don't know me," he said. "None of you do. None of you ever did."
"I reckon that's truer of no one more than it is of yourself," Kochanski retorted unsympathetically. "You don't know yourself, Mr. Rimmer. You don't trust yourself, and you've no idea what you're actually capable of. But, the Wildfire has, and she brought us here for a reason."
"Don't mention that traitor," Rimmer snapped. "I—"
"Stop where you are! We have you covered!"
The Dwarfers jumped at the tinny sound of a male voice filtering through a speaker planted in a nearby bush. A moment later, a circle of thin metal poles shot up from the ground, enclosing the intruders within an powerful electronic fence.
Inside the Rimmer mansion's lavish security room, Frank's little daughter looked up from the 3D monitor with dark, predatory eyes.
"We've got them now, haven't we, Father?"
Frank nodded; a slow, suspicious movement.
"That we have, my girl," he said, patting her head with the hand that didn't feel like molten lava was coursing through its veins. "That we have."
To Be Continued…
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