Chapter 12
Mamet's Revenge 2

2X4C was the middle four digit to Dr. John Warberton's Deva Droid work Ident. number. When they had first met, like some jerky middle name, it had stuck out in Professor Mamet's mind. When it became his work e-mail address, she remembers with the taste of acid in her mouth, how she had looked forward to seeing them pop up on the screen, indicating a message from her betrothed.

Now they were an ingredient for revenge.
Taking advantage of the free time granted her by her ex fiancée she did what most career minded individuals did. Drink heavily and throw
themselves into their work. Before her Honeymoon week was over Professor Mamet had already drawn out the general outline for the new 4000 series mechanoid brain impulse system, designed the physical characteristics and most importantly invented the negadrive.

She had also considered seducing the delivery boy when he brought up a hard liquor she would need for her task ahead, but thought. "Hell, I'd better not, it'd probably kill him."

The Negadrive was an software program cleverly hidden in a file marked 4X2C among the tens of thousands of others which held various bits of data information. Within here slept her revenge.

Her love had been known to blow his top on occasion. The worst she had ever witnesses was at a office party when she had accidentally been locked in a service closet for twenty minutes with a prototype male prosti droid. Never before and not again until the day of her jilting had she observed such an unmitigated sum of anger, resentment and jealousy.

Many times later she had though he acted outlandishly pompous, loitering over his precious team, like some kind of mother hen clucking buffoon. True he must of had his good points, but at this late date she couldn't recall one. Except perhaps his groinal attachment.

"When Mamet first had her designs sent up to be OKed by her superiors, the day she returned back to work, she really didn't know what kind of a reaction to expect. On one hand her design for the 4000 Series was just what they executives wanted. Something that was clearly distinguishable a robot, and seemingly inferior to man, and man's precious ego. Just the opposite of the 3000 series. If Deva Droid International was going to keep on top it would need to back pedal on the whole More Human than Human adverts. What would be more perfect than what she proposed.

Looking up through the Starbug's windshield the Cat witnessed a stellar array of asteroids dancing above and about the one they were currently trying to land on. The display was spectacular. Asteroids whishing this way then that. The Cat started looking up at the asteroids in an attempt to distract himself from the death dive they were currently in. He was now helplessly transfixed upon the dance, and unable to aid Lister even if he had wanted to. He couldn't help it, he was a cat. All those little shiny rolly polly things.

"What the smegs happening Hol, why aren't we slowing down?"

"I don't know", admitted a distorted Holly "There must be some sort of shrrrrtcrrrrrrettttttt...that's disrupting our landing jets."

"Can you do anything about it . We're in a bit of a fix here."
Lister shouted over the whining of the craft. As the ship came dangerously close to a particularly high outcropping which seemed to appear from of nowhere.

"Hang on Dave I think it's kkkkkkrrrrt...alive," said Holly convincingly.

"What is!" Dave shouted.

"GRXV7128 is. Krrrtsttssssssst The very asteroid your about to crash on. . Guess I shouldn't have said that"

Then static.

In an attempt to keep the craft, and it's crew from being flambéed Lister veered hard to port missing a geyser of molten mud spewed from the Asteroid below. Sweat covering his brow,he looked in the Cat's direction for help.

Unfortunately the Cat had become so absorbed in the asteroid dance that he was now pawing at them, playing with them as though he could actually touch them. Miming a game only he could see.

Lister stared for a moment transfixed at the sight. Incredulous.
A jolt of steam from the asteroid, barely 50 feet below the
green underbelly of the craft, rocked the ship and Lister back into the world of the here and now. The Cat had been completely knocked out of the cockpit.
Pulling up on the control stick the bug like craft lurched about like an asthmatic in a hay field on a Def Con 5 pollen alert day. Fighting with the control stick Lister finally seemed to regain control of the ship to surface vessel and bring it in for a bumpy landing on a dark barren rock. The Cat muttered obscenities in the background, while separated himself from a storage locker he had fallen in to during a particularly rough segment of the landing.

"Next time wear your seat belt an that won't happen." Said Lister, still fiddling with the controls, not looking at the Cat.

"Are you insane?" Shouted the disheveled feline. "And put a crease in my trousers. Maybe at some point you should learn how to drive this thing.
Or at least let old chrome dome do it, at least he knows how."

"Look it wasn't me. O.K. While you were stargazing Holly said that he thought something was down here ." Lister paused looking up. "Something alive."

"Alive?" Repeated the Cat, the word stopping him in his tracks.

"Exactly what is alive down here, may I ask?"

"Don't know. The transmission was pretty garbled." Answered Lister.

"Well then ask the head maybe he can tell us." Rebuked the Cat cheerfully.

"No can do man. Can't raise anything but static," His both hands rubbing his football shaped stomach.

"Before I lost the signal completely he sent over some coordinates."
Dave punched up the information and a screen above his head illuminated with a computer generated map of the asteroid, a green bug shaped icon, and a red blip which was situated on the far side of the map.

"Wow that was even neater that the shiny things." Elated the Cat.
Lister just shook his head. Here he was on an unstable asteroid, with an unstable crewman, pregnant, with something alive out there and out of communication with his ship. On some wild goose chase because of something he saw in a dream. "Well at least everything was about par for the course" he thought.

Pressing the button marked "C" on the control console Lister placed a cigarette in his mouth. Much to his surprise caterpillar tracks lowered themselves from the bug's belly and on to the hard rock plain of the asteroid below. Carrying ship and crew towards the red blip marked on the map and to whatever else fate had in store for them. Lister's cigarette remained unlit, beat up and crooked, it dangled from his dusky his lips. His thoughts were of his grandmother whenever light on the console lit up and white noise filled the cabin. It seemed there was something more on the asteroid than just darkness.