Thanks to everyone who has either added this story to their Favourites or on Story Alert, or added me as a Favourite Author. It really means a lot, and does give me a fantastic boost, especially when I'm stuck in the office! Right, it's been too long since I've had a cliffhanger! Time for a bit more peril methinks...
I must admit that after a nine year absence of new Red Dwarf, I found my inspiration for ficcing waning. But it seems that "Back To Earth" has breathed new life into my writing, and probably has for all of us. I watched it again the other night, and it never fails to hit me square between the eyes, especially accompanied the powerful soundtrack. "Cold City" has to be one of the most amazing pieces of music I've heard in a long time, as well as "Happily Never After". If you haven't already done so, WATCH IT. It may not be the sitcom it once was, but by golly it's morphed beyond that and into the filmic stratosphere.
The dream opening to this chapter is my own little nod to that scene near the end of Part 3, which never fails to draw a tear from me. Enjoy.
Her soft lips gently kissed every inch of his cheeks, eyes and nose as she ran her long thin fingers reassuringly through the tight curls of his hair. Pulling away, she smiled her famous pinball smile as he lost himself in her milky blue eyes. Drinking in the moment, he sighed contentedly as she slowly pulled him forward to kiss his forehead, and he held her close, breathing in the smell of her hair.
Lister jerked awake with a snort, releasing his thumb from his mouth. Bleary-eyed, he took stock of his surroundings and immediately wished he hadn't. It was as he'd secretly feared; he was indeed still in the third pit of hell with a cracking hangover. But despite the horror of it all, it wasn't these elements that disappointed him most. It was that she was no longer there beside him. He sighed once more, but this time his heart was heavy.
He'd never wanted to wake up.
As each of his senses awakened, they each proffered their own reluctant take on the situation, adding layer upon head-throbbingly horrible layer to his hangover. The air smelt musty and stale, the only sound was Rimmer's persistent, nasal snoring, and his tongue tasted - Lister gagged. Ugh, if he hadn't have already known that they'd downed two-thirds of Baxter's hooch in some desperate attempt to reach oblivion or parts beyond, he'd have sworn blind he'd spent half the night licking the bar top and carpet of a Liverpudlian pub after a particularly heavy Saturday night.
With a great deal of difficulty, he hauled himself upright and rubbed his eyes with the flats of his palms. He turned, noticing that at some point in the night he must have changed positions, drawn up the backpack, which now had a head-shaped dent in the middle, and used it as a makeshift pillow. Probably the reason why his right earlobe was currently throbbing red raw, he thought, as he made a half-hearted attempt to pull it back into shape. He blinked rapidly, encouraging his eyes to acclimatise themselves to the light of the torch that neither of them quite had the confidence to turn off during the night, and glanced over at Rimmer. He was still asleep, but on his side now, knees drawn up and arms folded tightly across his chest. If it wasn't for his awfully-nasal snoring, Lister would have definitely been checking his vitals after how much he'd put away last night.
Hauling over the backpack, Lister rummaged through the contents as quietly as he could as not to wake Rimmer. He wanted to delay the inevitable of his awakening, as not to add his whining voice to the wonderous collection of pains and squeals that already ran riot around his temples, danced across his forehead and sank, resonating into his brain. He located the bottle of water and took a long, satisfying swig. It may have been warm and half-stale, but at that moment in time it was as refreshing as a cold beer on a hot summer's afternoon.
A splutter of chesty coughs racked Rimmer's body, and Lister stopped suddenly like a cat caught in headlights. Rimmer didn't quite stir, instead turning over onto his front with a low, rumbling groan and sank back to sleep once more. Lister released his breath in a grateful sigh, placing the bottle on the ground carefully.
He returned to the bag, rustling through the contents and pulled out the broken remains of the radio transmitter that he'd scooped up when Rimmer had been scaling the rock wall where they'd first fallen. Grabbing the torch and holding it between his teeth, he examined what was left of the transmitter, hoping against hope for something salvageable. Untangling the knotted wires from behind the speaker with his dirty fingernails, he noticed where a few loose wire ends had frayed, freeing themselves from their original positions, and that a few small screws had either come loose, or were now missing altogether. A string of hissed, mumbled obscenities tumbled from his open mouth.
More coughs hacked across from Rimmer's direction, and this time he did stir. Hauling up his heavy head, his half-open eyes surveyed his surroundings before finally coming to a rest on Lister. His head sank back down to the warmth of his crossed arms with a groan.
"Oh right," he mumbled into his sleeves. He sounded just as disappointed as Lister had that this indeed was reality.
Lister merely cocked an eyebrow in response. Unclipping the tiny black knife out from its holder on the side of his left boot, he slid it out, and with torch still firmly fixed between his teeth, began to use it as a makeshift screwdriver.
Rimmer lifted his head once more. "Have we got anything left to drink?" he croaked, throat like sandpaper. "Apart from that godawful hooch?" he quickly added.
Without breaking his concentrating frown with the radio transmitter, Lister spoke with lost consonants, torch between his teeth. "Sure," he replied absently. "A selection of teas, coffees, and freshly squeezed orange juice, whatever takes your fancy."
"Hilarious, Lister," came the short reply.
Rimmer's stomach lurched involuntarily. They hadn't eaten in over 24 hours. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried not to fantasise about bacon sandwiches. A sudden clattered thump beside his right ear caused Rimmer to jump as the loud noise hurtled down his ear canal and rattled his throbbing brain. Groaning, he noticed that it was water bottle that Lister had chucked over in his vague direction.
He scowled, turning to face him. "Could you possibly be any louder, or is it a special gift?" he snapped.
Lister still refused to return his stare, which infuriated him greatly. Instead, his teeth simply grinned around the plastic handle of the torch. Rolling his eyes, Rimmer dragged himself to his knees and snatched up the water bottle. It was worryingly light.
"Is this all we have?" he asked, concerned. He wiggled the bottle listening to the high-pitched splashes emanating from within. "Shouldn't we be rationing this?"
Lister pulled the torch from his mouth as his eyes met with Rimmer's for the first time that morning. "You really think we have that much of a choice?" he asked flatly.
Reluctantly, Rimmer took a single swig from the bottle and smacked his lips. It was horribly warm and stale, yet his tongue cried out for more. Miserable, he replaced the lid and sat back on his haunches, holding out the bottle to Lister who shook his head silently in reply. Rimmer's brow furrowed, his brain only just taking in what Lister was up to. He watched as Lister attempted to fix in a tiny loose screw into the back of the transmitter with a small knife blade, and swore as the tiny screw escaped, scattering off into the darkness.
Rimmer blinked. "What are you doing?"
Lister sighed angrily, feeling around blindly for the lost screw with his fingers. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he mumbled. "I'm trying to fix the radio transmitter."
Rimmer shook his head, exasperated. "Lister," he implored, "that radio is dead. I've seen old people's homes with more life than that thing."
Lister waggled the knife towards Rimmer, grinning. "Or one of your parties, you mean?" he added sarcastically.
Rimmer's nostrils flared. He silently pulled himself to his feet, dusting himself down. "I don't know about you, Lister," he snarked, "but I think we need to keep moving whilst our legs are still willing to do so, don't you? Focus our energies on something a bit more useful?"
Lister watched as Rimmer stomped out of the cave before his eyes dropped to the mess of circuitry in his lap. Sighing, he scooped up the remains of the transmitter, dropped them into his rucksack and hauled himself to his feet, trying to ignore the protests of his busted ankle. Stooping down to grab the water bottle and the torch, he threw the rucksack onto his back and hobbled after Rimmer.
The pair stumbled on silently for hours. The tunnel of their choice as they exited the small stone cave where they'd slept had offered no further options to turn off from their current path. The tunnel warped and distorted in size, sometimes with high ceilings punctuated with stalactites, other times only small enough to crawl and wriggle through.
They'd been crawling through the same sandy tunnel for the past hour, when dehydration got the better of them and they were forced to stop to rest. Rimmer's hands quivered uncontrollably as he wiped the sweat from his brow, the saltiness stinging the cut across his temple.
"I - I don't feel too great," Rimmer announced shakily.
Lister simply shook his swimmy head. Neither did he. The lack of water was beginning to dry out his mind, fuzzing his thoughts and making him sleepy. He fished out the water bottle from the side of his backpack, took a small sip, the closest approximation to half of what remained, and handed over the remainder of the sip for Rimmer to drain. Pulling the last drops of water from the bottle, Rimmer slumped back against the wall and whimpered.
He turned his head to Lister with fear in his eyes. "W-what if we -?"
Rimmer never got to finish the sentence. The sandy tunnel wall against which he was leaning heavily, gave way, sending him tumbling backwards and down a steep gritty slope with a strangled yell. His shoulders and arms cried out in shock and pain, ironically seeming to hit every lump and bump on the way down, his world crazily spinning as if he were trapped inside an industrial washing machine. Eventually he hit the ground with a bump, and he lay on the floor groaning, every bone in his body queuing at the complaints desk.
Lister scrabbled over to the neat hole that Rimmer had kindly created and peered down. Rimmer lay inanimate at the bottom, perhaps fifteen or twenty metres down.
"Rimmer, man, are you ok?" he hollered.
When no reply came, Lister swung his feet out of the hole and began carefully slipping and sliding on his backside down the precarious slope. He soon lost control with a muffled cry, and gaining unwanted momentum, he too began helplessly tumbling down the slope towards his companion.
Rimmer lifted his throbbing head, casting his gaze forward with heavy eyelids. He'd heard Lister's shouts, but muffled. As if he were speaking through -
Rimmer blinked quickly, convinced his eyes were playing tricks on him. A bluey-white light danced and flickered along the cave walls, reflecting the movements of a pool of -
"Water!" he croaked.
Rimmer had almost managed to haul himself eagerly upright to reach the pool, when a large, heavy weight suddenly bowled into him. Knocked clean off his feet and tangled in a mess of knotted, flailing limbs, Rimmer realised after he'd regained his senses, that Lister's crotch was dangerously close to his face. Rimmer wriggled, trying to free himself as quickly as possible with a string of expletives that he had no idea his vocabulary had stashed away for the most horrific of scenarios such as this.
Lister climbed off of him, groaning. "Are you ok, man?"
Rimmer growled audibly. "I'm not sure which was worse. Falling down that smegging slope or getting your package shoved in my face."
Lister rolled his eyes. If Rimmer had the capacity to insult, he was fine. He rubbed his sore head, cursing under his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Rimmer slowly stood, staring across the cavern with a manic grin creeping up one side of his face. Confused, Lister turned to follow his gaze and immediately sported a grin of his own.
"Water?!" Lister gasped in shock.
The two men needed no further exchange. Together, they scrabbled across the cavern, dropped to their knees at the water's edge, and devoid of all care or embarrassment, dunked their entire heads under the surface, sucking in as much water as they could. It tasted slightly salty, perhaps even milky, Lister mused, but it was cold and wet and liquid and he couldn't care less.
Eventually sated, the two pulled out their heads with a gurgled splash, panting with joy. As their minds drank in the water, self-awareness returned to them both, and they stared at each other blinking, rivulets pouring from their hair and down their faces. Rimmer cleared his throat. Lister suddenly found his fingernails most interesting.
Rimmer stood slowly and turned, allowing his eyes to scan the walls of the cave. Apart from the way they'd fallen down, there were no other places to go. He turned back to the pool of water that arced out from the stone wall before them in an uneven semi-circle.
"It's a dead end," he swallowed, the words sinking down with realisation. He grasped his temples tightly and moaned. "Oh smeg, it's a dead end."
Lister's throat tightened. "Now you can smeggin' stop that talk right now, ya goit, do you hear me?" he snapped suddenly, finger thrust towards him. He took a deep reassuring breath, before scanning the cavern himself and coming to rest on the water before them. "Maybe not," he mused slowly.
Rimmer's eyes flitted between the water, Lister, and back to the water again. In the distinct absence of charts and pointy diagrams, he was lost. "What are you talking about, you gimboid?" he threw in for good measure.
"Well, look," Lister pointed towards the wall of the cavern where water met rock, "you see that?"
Rimmer tapped his lips with his index finger, his face screwed up in mock concentration. "Yeeeeee-no."
Lister turned to Rimmer, unimpressed. "You're not looking at the water," he replied flatly. "See?" he pointed towards the wall once more. "It's flowing by the rock face, there."
Genuinely stumped, Rimmer shook his head and shrugged. "And?" he asked impatiently. Surely amongst the main points on water's job description, apart from being wet, was to flow?
Lister sighed loudly, slowing down his speech as if he were explaining something to a four year old. "If the water's flowing, it means it must be feeding in from somewhere we can't see. Like an underwater tunnel, perhaps?"
Arms folded, Rimmer threw an evil look at Lister's back as he walked away from him and towards the edge of the water. Shrugging off his backpack, Lister pulled off his gloves with his teeth, turned back to Rimmer with a flourish and stepped backwards, dropping quickly into the milky depths.
Rimmer's arms dropped slowly in surprise, as open-mouthed he quickly raced over to the edge of the water. Lister resurfaced, his thick rasta plaits sodden with water snaked in front of his shoulders, and grinned at Rimmer's fearful expression.
Upon seeing the irritating gerbil grin, Rimmer's features hardened into a lofty scowl. "What are you doing?" he asked with a patronising tone, hands thrust on his hips.
Lister kicked away into a front crawl, casting as much splash as humanly possible in Rimmer's direction, before stopping by the rock wall. "Proving a point," he replied simply with a grin. Gasping in a lungful of air, he sank under the surface once more.
Rimmer's tongue clicked in irritation. Short, smug git always had to go against the book to prove a point. He paced up and down by the water's edge like a caged lion. Why couldn't they just climb back up from where they'd just fallen? As if trying to make a point, his mind's eye slammed back the memory of himtumbling down the rockface after he'd fired the flares when they'd first fallen. He shuddered quickly at the memory. Perhaps not. He glanced quickly at his watch and then back to the water, a flutter in his chest. How long had he been under there?
A sudden burst of bubbles erupted to the surface about three metres from the edge of the water, dissipating just as quickly, and Rimmer stopped abruptly in expectation of Lister's appearance. But he didn't follow. Rimmer blinked, wondering whether his senses had fooled him as he moved to the edge of the water.
"Lister?" he called out uncertainly. The only sound to return was the echo of his own voice.
Rimmer's heart quickened as he tried to swallow the dry lump in his throat. He crouched down by the rock edge, quivering at the silence that rippled across the surface of the water.
Without warning, a large form broke the slick surface of the water, roughly grabbed the lapels of his padded jacket, and hauled him head first into the murky depths. Rimmer's panicked lungs seemed to pull in the salty water and he coughed out a stream of bubbles as he scrabbled desperately to pull away from the tangle of limbs he seemed to be entwined with. Kicking out, he located the floor, pushed himself upwards, and surfaced, gasping in a mixture of ragged breaths and spluttered coughs.
Pulling his hands down his face to wipe the water out of his stinging eyes, his ears popped to the sound of helpless giggles. Turning slowly, he saw Lister, arms wrapped around himself, laughing uncontrollably. Rimmer's open-mouthed gasping slowed as his eyes pinched in confusion for a fleeting moment, before hardening into a murderous scowl. He launched himself towards the gerbil grin, wading as fast as the chest-high water would allow. Lister remained unfazed at this as predictably, Rimmer's foot tangled in the unseen reeds of the lake's floor, sending him flailing forward and under the water once more, causing Lister's giggles to double in ferocity.
Rimmer eventually resurfaced, coughing and spluttering; the fight now gone from his belly. Most likely replaced with most of contents of that sickly lakewater, as Rimmer shuddered, clamping his lips together to fight the queasy feeling that threatened to make a physical appearance.
Lister secured his hands on Rimmer's upper arms, holding him upright. "Too easy, man," he wheezed happily, his throat raw from laughing, "too easy."
Rimmer windmilled his arms, releasing Lister's grasp in a splash of water. "Are you crazy?!" he spluttered. "You know I can't - " he stopped himself, quickly, avoiding Lister's questioning look by rubbing the non-existent water from his eyes.
After a pause, Lister spoke. "There's an opening the other side."
Rimmer looked up, genuinely surprised. "Really?"
Lister half-smiled humbly and shrugged. "It's an underwater tunnel. Four, maybe five metres long. Exits into a new section of cavern." He ran his hand through his tight curls. "Come on, we'd better ditch what we don't need."
Rimmer watched as Lister waded back to the edge and hauled himself out, before turning to extend a hand to help him out of the water. Feeling the sick feeling return to the pit of his stomach, Rimmer waded across and accepted the hand up, reluctantly. Yes, it was good news that they were no longer at a dead end and there was a way out, but Rimmer wasn't sure if he would have actually been happier going back the long way round. He was still reeling from the unwelcome childhood memories that had slammed back into his mind in the moment of panic when he'd felt trapped under the water.
Lister pulled out everything he deemed non-essential from the backpack, retaining only the essentials for the protection of the water-proof bag - the broken remains of the radio transmitter, the torch, his lucky zippo, the fags, and the booze. Rimmer rolled his eyes at the latter items, but his heart wasn't in it.
As the pair slid back into the water and waded slowly to the tunnel's entrance, Lister sensed Rimmer's discomfort. "Don't worry, man, it was like eight seconds, ten seconds tops," he assured. "You go first. Should be easy peasy for someone with a Bronze Swimming Certificate," he added, doing his best not to smirk.
Rimmer did his best to slow his breathing as he gazed down at the rippling water, but his nerves had got the better of him. He span back to Lister, catching his eye.
"I didn't get the brick," he confessed suddenly.
Lister blinked. "Sorry?"
Rimmer screwed up his eyes before releasing them once more. "I cheated," he sighed. Met with Lister's confused stare, Rimmer quickly continued. "The swimming teacher's back was turned for a second when the other kids were mucking about. I just grabbed one from the side of the pool and pretended that I'd done it." The words tumbled out as if the justification would rescue him from the torture to come.
Lister nodded, understanding. "It's ok, man." Although it felt a horribly strange gesture, he patted Rimmer on the shoulder. "I'll be right behind you if you get stuck. Trust me."
Rimmer felt slightly more reassured, and decided to give Lister the benefit of the doubt. Turning back to the rippling water, he exhaled as slowly and fully as he could. Gasping in a lungful of air, he pinched his nose and plunged down into the freezing cold depths that slammed with a shock into his temples. Indeed, despite the cloudy blur to the water, he could see an opening about a metre down in the rock face, perhaps a metre and a half in width. He pushed himself, hands first into the tunnel, and kicked as hard as the weight of his boots would allow.
Lister, meanwhile, kept back for a few seconds to allow Rimmer room to move through and avoid the risk of receiving a kick to the head. He marvelled at the light reflection of the water ripples cast onto the rock above him, before shaking his head. Typical Rimmer, he thought, cheating at a swimming lesson. Anything to get the piece of paper that immortalised any form of success. Tightening the straps on his backpack, Lister drew in a lungful of air, tipped his head forward into the water, and swam back down into the tunnel.
The tunnel was slightly too small to use his hands to aid his stroke, so Rimmer reached forward and grabbed hold of the protruding rocks from the side walls or the plants along the floor, using them to pull himself through as quickly as possible. Despite trying to release his breath in a slow, steady stream, memories that he'd tried to push down into the dark recesses of his mind suddenly seemed to surface and explode across his consciousness, and he coughed suddenly in a panic of bubbles.
He was nine years old, back at school on Io. Martin Riley, one of young Arnold's most-feared school bullies, had cornered him in the 4th Year boys toilets to steal his pocket money. Upon discovering that young Arnold had as many assets as a 21st Century Icelandic bank, Martin had grabbed him by the back of his school jumper, rucking up the material around his throat tight enough to make him choke. He'd then shoved him into the only cubicle, thrust him face first into the toilet bowl and flushed. Thrashing his hands out desperately, hitting the flimsy walls of the cubicle, the cold sides of the cistern, he'd tried something, anything to make him to stop. He remembered the burning taste of the bleach hitting the back of his throat, the panic that sank down his throat with the foul, stinking water, and the desperate flurry off bubbles that burst against his tightly closed eyes as he screamed silently for help.
Reality slammed back into focus as Rimmer's lungs screamed at him for air. Grabbing onto another handhold, he managed to haul himself along the final stretch until the tunnel's floor dropped away as Rimmer finally reached the opening. Arching his back, his exhausted arms gave one final stroke and he broke the surface with a half-gasp, half-cry. He coughed and spluttered as he treaded water, realising that this side was far too deep to stand up, and waited to one side for Lister to exit the tunnel. He grinned to himself, secretly amazed that he'd actually managed it. Ha, he thought, if only Mrs Solomon his old swimming instructor could see him now. Then they'd see who the useless little weed was!
Rimmer's breathing had slowed to almost a normal pace, yet Lister still hadn't emerged. He growled audibly. It was one thing to scare the shit out of him by hauling him into the water, but to try and trick him a second time was beyond his fast-dissipating patience. He sighed, pinching his nose once more and sank back down into the freezing depths to shoot him a visual display of his annoyance.
Unfortunately, what met his blurry vision was quite beyond what he was expecting.
