Chapter 2
Remembering Future Echoes

After leaving the medi bay Lister knew he needed time to work all of this out. He knew for sure he wasn't going to do it with Rimmer around.

Lister waddled into the living quarters to find the Cat asleep atop his locker, or so he thought. The Cat peered open one eye sensing Lister's approach long before the sound of his heavy footsteps made it impossible for the Cat to remain napping. Yawning the Cat announced his awakened state, but Lister was still climbing up a newly installed bunk latter to notice.
The Cat arched his back, then stretched forward arms out in front of him. Yawned again and leaped to the cold floor.

"Good morning mother" he sang, as he opened up a small bottle of milk
and proceeded to drink it down from the neck. He stopped occasionally to gargle.
Lister barely nodded, his mind still on other matters.

"I got an idea monkey, this Cat is hungry. Let's go over to our secret food machine and make like hungry kitties, and Preggo mothers do
naturally."

"I'm not interested, leave me alone." Lister mumbled.
"What? Your not interested in eating? Are you insane? Ever since you
became a young mummy to be, and stopped being sick everywhere, you've been holding your own with me."

It was true. Lister couldn't help it. He was eating like a man who had been starved in a shami Kabob shop after hours without a key to the food locker. The expectant mother thought this was just a stage and that when he passed a certain point his appetite would return to something of a normal state. This was not to be the case.

Into his fourth week of pregnancy he was eating more than ever. From
what he read this shouldn't have been the case until at least the sixth month. Something maternal told him this was wrong.
Now besides the 5:00 AM meal with the Cat, before Lister would turn in for the evening he'd usually sneak down to the food dispenser and drink half a gallon of whole cows milk.

One night the Cat, who never slept more than ninety minutes at any given interval, ran into the devouring Lister one night and leapt atop him, sending Lister's prawn vindaloo across the metal grated floor.
Soon after learning Lister's feeding routines the Cat started waiting for him.
"Thinking to himself, should I raid the icebox now or wait for old dog food faces' 5:00 AM pee and snack."

This helped Lister more than the Cat knew. Waking up regularly throughout the night abroad a derelict ship alone in deep space, and having to walk on the ship's cold floor for vindaloo was more than depressing. Between the hormonal difficulties, and the psychological, the last man alive was in a very weird place. But with company waiting for you to dine, well that was a entirely different sort of caterpillar.

"Hey monkey what are you sweating about. You must be worried or you wouldn't be turning down food."
"Look I'm worried about my pregnancy. I shouldn't be pregnant. I'm a man for smeg sake. I just don't think Bob the scutter can perform the operation." He stopped. "I think I'm going to die if Bob operates me." Lister announced from his top bunk looking off into the distance.

"The way this kitty sees it, all is going to work out just fine. After the wonderful experience of child birth, that is. You got the picture don't you?"
Lister leaned over and removed the photo, of the Future Echo, from it's place at the head of his so called bed. A recess carved into the wall, barely three feet wide and high, and almost six feet long.

The Cat joined Lister, both looked at the photo. There was the familiar grinning face of Dave Lister looking tired, about the same age as he was currently, standing in front of the arch of the medi bay's south entrance. In each arm wrapped in silver blankets were two wailing newborns. His.
In the background were several out of focus dark shadows, some items could be made out, other couldn't. Lister had stared into this photo at least hundred times, he thought he knew it as well as he could. He would soon find out he was wrong.

"Well there's your proof," the Cat said as he snatched the photo from Lister's hand. "How can you be there in the future with your brood, alive and well, and be worried about the operation?"

Snatching the photo back Dave looked at it and thought about this. He had thought about this before, in the back of his mind, but it never presented itself to him as the Cat just had. Then it clicked, the thing that had been bothering him. Excitedly Lister looked up from the photo to the Cat.

"Hey, remember the future echoes," Asked Lister hopefully.
The Cat's face remained blank.

"Remember I explained to you how I saw a future echo of Rimmer, and he
was having one conversation and I was having another."
Still nothing showed on the Cat's face.

"How about when you broke your tooth?" Lister asked, bringing up a sensitive subject but to elated to care.

"Remember it, how can I forget if everything hadn't started going all weird, with a capital weird, I may have knocked out a few of yours."

"No. Look, seeing that future echo of you eating my robot goldfish caused me to react to it in a certain way, and try and stop you from eating my robot goldfish. In turn you lost your tooth, by my trying to stop it from happening." Lister got down from his bunk.

"So how can I be sure that if I just hang around and wait all will be fine and dandy. That because since I somehow know my own future, I can live recklessly and give death the middle digit. Just because I seen myself alive and well at one hundred seventy five years of age." Lister paused, then almost in a whisper. "A grand dad no less."

The thought caused a small smile to drift across his bloated face,
"That was almost a year and a half ago, I couldn't possible just sit around and do nothing. If that were the case then you wouldn't have needed such extensive dental work. You'd think by knowing these things my life would have become easier. Or at least I'd have figured it out by now.''
Giving in to the temptation, the thick ankled Lister walked over to pick up his jacket.

"Now I understand why Cassandra, had such a hard time of it."
"Cassandra? Who's that, an old girlfriend?" Asked the Cat.

"No ya git," Lister walked over to the bunks. "That character out of Greek Mythology," snapped Lister.

"She was gifted with the ability to see the future, but cursed that no one would believe her. She really must of had a rough time of it, I only got half that and I'm all confused." Stuffing the photo of his future self into his inner pocket of his open leather, he walked towards the doorway.

"Yea. said the Cat following Lister through the doors into the hallway. "But she was smart enough not to get herself pregnant with her abilities. You couldn't even manage that."

"Thanks allot man. Anyone ever tell you that you need to be supportive to a future mother." He shook his head. "You got no soul man."

"Maybe not" said the Cat stopping in front of a food dispensing machine and depressed an illuminated button.

"But I got fish."
"Today's fish is spicy bladder fish stuffed with prawns," announced the dispensing machine. "Enjoy your meal."

"Fish." Repeated the Cat.
"Today's fish is spicy bladder fish stuffed with prawns. Enjoy your meal."
"Fish." Repeated the Cat again.
"Today's fish is spicy bladder fish stuffed with prawns. Enjoy your meal."
"Fish."
"Today's fish is spicy bladder fish stuffed with prawns. Enjoy your meal."
"Fish."
"Today's fish is spicy bladder fish stuffed with prawns. Enjoy your meal."
"I will."

The Cat turned and made his way to a nearby recreation area, planted himself and began playing with his food.

"Aren't you gonna wait for me?"

"I have waited for you," said the Cat in between mouthfuls of fish. "What
did you think I was doing when you woke me?"

Lister sat across from the eating feline and reached for a fish dinner.
The Cat froze, his eyes on Lister's out stretched hand. "Don't try it monkey. Don't even think about it, I thought you weren't hungry"
"Come on just one. It smells good." The cat didn't move.
"Come on Cat, you know you'll just get sick." Lister's hand moving slowly
towards the plastic container.

"OK momma," said the Cat. "Just one."
"So what do you plan on doing about it?" Asked the Cat.
"Well if you give me a minute, I was planning on eating it."

"No. Not the fish." The picture.
"I don't know yet," he took a bite of the fish. "Maybe I'll go down to the medi bay and look around a bit."

"But you were just down there. Weren't you?"
"Not the regular one. The surgical one," said Lister . "Remember? Big white room with lots of lights. Two floors down." Lister pushed his semi eaten meal away.

"No," answered the Cat. More engrossed in his third fish than in Lister.

"I'm gonna check it out." He said as he rose. "Want to check it out?"
"What, and interrupt my meal? Are you insane?" He smiled. "Come back and tell me all about it." He added, "mom."
Lister nodded and walked out the door.