Chapter 16
Mudd Bath

Currently under Starbug Two in an underground mud river cavern, Lister was in dire need of the Cat's help. Moving quite rapidly towards something unseen in the distance, the only thing that Lister could see through his space helmet's view port was green gray mud, and lot's of it.

Doing his best to ride with the current while simultaneously trying to protect his stomach Lister was in no harm, temporarily. His space suit
was made to adapt to outside temperatures, and kept the wearer quite comfortable. If not for the feeling that the walls were closing and that he wanted to rip the suit from his body in abject panic everything would be dandy. Added to the fact that Lister was blissfully unaware that there was
only about 43 minutes of oxygen left in his one remaining unpunctured oxygen tank, he could almost relax.

"This is quite a ride for fifty pence," breathed Lister as he was momentarily hung upside down, the flow of hot mud pinning him against a
rather uncomfortable niche in the rock. Just as soon as he got caught up
somewhere, something would arbitrarily twist the current setting him free once again to be sent hurtling through a tube of filthy mud to, to where?

That was the underlying question on Lister's mind, and with good reason.
A red light illuminated in the lower right side of the interior of Lister's helmet. Then it turned off. Then on again, then off. Distracted from the chaos around him Lister's attention was drawn to the blinking red light.
He read it. "Oxygen readout, forty minutes and counting when blinking."

"Great," Lister thought. "If I still insists on riding down the u bend on his way to the canal, in thirty-nine minutes more minutes I'll be a dead beach ball. If all this wasn't bad enough." he thought, "I could kill for a curry". Then the current again played a game of topsy turvy where Lister was the top, and LIster started moving again. "I am not having a good time!" he gritted as the current moved him once again.

He gained the moments respite by with his accidental grabbing of a malformed stalagmite. Still holding on with his right hand he fumbled with his left at a control on his chest plate.

"If I can just hit the homing beacon..." was all of the thought that was completed when a fresh current of mud, so hot that Lister felt it through his space suit, dragged him from his anchor and onward again. Towards the light that could not be seen at the end of the tunnel, which Lister prayed was there.

Aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf things had gotten worse. The calculations and predictions that Holly had calculated and predicted about the asteroid field, and the navigation course he had charted, had a slight flaw.
They were complete and utter tripe, not useful for anything but lining a
bird cage with. Considering the amount of mistakes that Holly had made and printed out for this very venture, the bird could be a Dinosaur.

Right from the start the computation that the small rogue one wouldn't be struck, never mind damaged, had to be thrown right out the window. The ship's telecommunication antenna had been stuck by a freak chance of misshaped luck and what about the Red Dwarf team wasn't a freak misshapen piece luck? Not only occasionally, but continually.

It was as though a certain segment of the belt's lesser bodies had been attracted to the small but noticeable gravity emitted by the great ship. These attracted riders mostly, ice and dust, seemed determined to do their best to destroy the upper workings of the lower port of the ship. Which as luck, misshapen or otherwise would have it, was where the antenna had been situated. Now of course it could be considered an ex antenna.

This was not good for Holly, but Rimmer was having the time of his life. He felt vindicated from all his former failures in the eyes of himself, the ship's computer, the crew and anyone else who cared to notice.

"Oh let's not listen to old Rimmsey. We'll all have a big laugh watching him give orders to a recording for the better part of an hour. "I've got it all under control." Rimmer imitated Holly. "You over rated calculator. How could you let this happen? How?" Shouted Rimmer's, his accusations dripping with self righteous indignation.

"Look Arnold If I told you I knew what was going on I'd be lying.
Somehow, don't ask me how but we've become a major attraction."
Holly's digitalized face formed into a snicker.

"What's so funny?" Ranted Rimmer.

"The fact that over the course of almost an hour and you didn't
realize you were talking to a recording."

Something happened to Rimmer in the next instant. His face little by little slowly turned into a fist as it scrunched up with no end in sight, his body soon followed. When he did finally stop, being able to contract no more, Rimmer lay curled up into a tight ball on the cold metal floor of the Science Lab, only then did he let out a grown of agony.

"Something's wrong in the Hologramatic simulation suite," thought
Holly. I'd better do something fast of Rimmer could end up stuck in that
agonizing shape indefinitely. As Holly was about to order the scutters to check on the suite, a sound came through the speaker. It was a Starbug Two's emergency alarms, one of the types that went Awooga Awooga and Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, only to be broadcast in the mostdire of emergencies. This probably meant that the Cat and Lister were either in very serious trouble or more probably dead. Either way Holly was unable to help them, while Rimmer laid on the floor.

Holly stared to gurn, twisting his face into the most ludicrous positions,
to help pass stressful times. Holly had given this up for a while but it would seem for now that he would gurn again. And with great gusto.