CHAPTER 5

Gotta get Away

"I gotta get away and figure this out." Lister explained to Holly via one of his thousands of monitors. "I can't stand it any more, it's driving me spur. He finishing with his teeth clenched.

Lister had outlined his case to Holly for all it was worth. He did his best to explain about personal space being more mandatory than ever, nesting instincts, and his doubts about Pete the Scutters.

"Holly you've seen him in action. He can hardly do his original functions never mind follow operating instructions called out by you from a book."
Holly admitted the plan wasn't one hundred percent perfect.
Lister spoke of the future echo photo and the clue he thought it held, Rimmer's constant goading, and the dream. Not all of it mind you.

"Look Hol you know the score. You brought back Rimmer to keep me sane, but he's driving me mad. When you did your original calculations, my
pregnancy wasn't added in. Was it? So do a little arithmetic adding in this new and unexpected," Lister paused looking for the right word.

"Situation," was what he settled on. "So wipe Rimmer and revive the ships doctor, how hard can that be?"

"Fraid it isn't that simple Dave." Holly cooed, as best as the computer could to the expectant mother. I'd have to do a probability search, adding in the new data as you suggested. Calling up the right references, and one or two other unimportant matters"

"Like what?" Questioned Dave.
"Like trying to remember where I put the reboot software for that sort of thing."

"You mean to tell me you don't know where you put the backup software for the Hologramatic suite?"

"To tell you the truth Dave, I'd be happy just remembering what it looks like." Holly said with all the humor he could muster. It wasn't very much.
Lister put his hands to his face and started to weep silently.

"This was bad," Holly thought. Bad for Holly that is.
A minor flaw with A.I. computer intelligence after three million years was its inability to deal with constant failure. These setbacks were damaging to Holly's confidence, and in turn his ability to function at peak efficiency.
Coupled with the fact that his collection of singing potatoes would give grief for missing practice. Then the next thing you know all wouldn't be shaken' in Groove Town.
Holly did the next best thing his programming allowed in this particular case. He lied and stalled for time.

"Look Dave, it'll take me roughly twenty four hours to sort this all out; locate the software, do the calculations, cross reference it against all the data. You know the drill. Got to do it by the book and all."
Lister wiped the tears from face and said "Really Hol? You not just jerking my chain are you? I mean you can do it if it's possible."

"Course Dave,"Holly said with the best face he could muster. "Just want to do it right. Say here's an idea why don't you get a couple of the scutters, pack up some supplies, all you'll need for a fortnight and head up one of the Navi Turrets. I'll tell Rimmer you're off my scanners, and he'll think your down in the cargo hold. Ought to keep him busy for the better part of a week. That'll keep him off your pecks for a while anyway. You can take some portable hardware, and work on your theories undisturbed."

"You think that'll work Hol?"

"Course I am, I'll get me scutters on it right away. You'll see, be right as rain in no time." Holly winked a big wink at Dave when he was done.
The wink filled the hormonally challenged Lister with renewed confidence.
He rose to his feet, said, "thanks Hol. Really" Lister took out a questionably colored handkerchief and loudly blew his nose and headed out the door.
Holly was very pleased with himself, he had stopped Lister from having a breakdown, set it up so the two school boys would be in different sections of the ship, and all before singing practice with his potato choir.
Holly shook his head from side to side in disbelief. "I can't understand why they doubt me at times."

Bruttttttttttth. Dave Lister the last human being alive , looked into the contents of his handkerchief. Finally, after all this time, he thought he could just barely make out the face of the Madonna. Was this an omen of some sort? But no. He was wrong once again. Just more blood. He would have many more chances, the night was still young.

Not unlike ancient holy men who would look into the entrails of their sacrifices to learn the will of the gods, or the fate of their people, Lister also did this religiously.

He stuffed the handkerchief into a deep pocket of a long and unusually white terry cloth robe, which had been discovered on his salvaging hunt for the supplies he was now unpacking. Set against a background of black black space and brilliant stars in the ships largest enclosed plexiglas look out towers, he would find his answers.

Only forty Navi Turrets were operational on the Dwarf before the accident. Now fourteen are available to the personnel. Originally used for navigation these enclosures dotted the entirety of the ship like a bad case of German Measles. Technology soon caught up to the JMC's mining ship, and Super Star Sensors, (SSS) for short, replaced the Turrets. The Super Star Sensors measured the red spectrum of a particular cluster of stars, at a particular point in space, and correlated the data directly into the ship's Navi Com.

About half the size of a football field, Navi Turret -147 was by far Lister's favorite. Most were about the size of an inexpensive London Flat. Making camp as far away from the hatchway connecting him with the rest of the ship, but close enough to a toilet. His dreads, haphazardly stuffed under his leather deerstalker, with their tips peaking out at irregular intervals had a resemblance not unlike that of the mythological creature Medusa.

Scattered around him Lister had collected several necessities which he would need before he time locked the hatch. Among the camping out gear included were remote link to the new black box recorder, a beacon scanning devise, with long range capabilities. A large magnifying glass. Fourteen sealed self heating variously flavored vindaloos, pompedons included. A box containing his personal belongings. A camcorder and three dozen six packs of extra wicked smart alcohol lager.

Trade marked designer virus based alcohols became very popular in the early 22nd century. When scientist realized that a woman t
with child could not, completely, control what went into the child's blood stream and what would possibly effect the child's growth, both physically and mentally. So the smart drugs and alcohols were born.

At first for the social elite, royalty, political figures and of course weather girls. These woman in their demanding and much needed roles in society, could not allow such a biological thing as pregnancy affect their social status, and who's parties were legendary.
The Princess of New Scandinavia was quoted as saying
"Let me tell you something Baby, that century everybody who was anybody was partying."

The general principal was simple. Feed yourself all the best things for you and unborn child first, then start partying using these specially designed Alcohol's and drugs. They were intelligent virus' and were designed into knowing exactly into which parts of the body to go to and which not. The added bonus of this was that since all the alcohol went directly to your head and legs. Therefore you needed a much less percentage of alcohol per drink to remain perpendicular. Many found this quite a plus, due to the price of the stuff.

Various patented shakes and bars instantly hit the market. Then finally in an effort to get the nutritional part over as quickly as possible, in an effort to party as much as possible, the Pregnancy Nutritional Get Drunk Quick Pill, Patent applied for. was invented.

So quickly did it work that the advertisements stated that you could actually wash the PNGDQ Pill down with any alcohol, strait! And it was guaranteed not to cause more that a 3% birth defect rate, or your money back. With advertising like that no wonder their advertising department was the first with their back's to the wall when the revolution came.

In the end the concoctions were simply added into the drinks. Causing a whole new need for extra shelving space in pups and liquor store in order to advertise the regular Black Label Vodka and Black label Vodka for the expectant mother. With a blue label and little pink baby shoes printed right on the label.